xvi SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



"Nay, nay, you cannot for a moment imagine 

 that I shall attempt such a flight as that. I have 

 read of Icarus, and also of the Ulm tailor, who 

 on the first trial of his patent wings fell into the 

 Danube, instead of pitching upon the opposite bank ; 

 so, as I cannot touch the summits, 1 must per- 

 force be content to creep on level lands, ' timidus 

 procellae ' : mine shall be a work quite of another 

 character." 



" There is not the least doubt of that, I think," 

 said Mr. Lobworm. " Know likewise," continued 

 he (I never knew him so loquacious or so disagree- 

 able before), "know likewise, to thy discomfort, 

 nay, to thy utter confusion, that a book has lately 

 appeared yclept The Rod and the Gun, 1 so amus- 

 ingly written, and so complete in all its parts, that 

 there is not the least occasion for you to burthen 

 Mr. Murray's shelves with stale precepts that no 

 one will attend to." 



" Pretty discouraging that, most certainly," I 

 responded. " And then we have Salmonia* which 

 is, or ought to be, a settler too ; and also a scientific 

 work by Mr* Colquhoun, who touches deftly on 

 the subject. But I tell you this, Sir Oracle, that 

 although I see a hundred good reasons why I 

 should abandon my design, yet I am resolved to 

 persist : it is my destiny that is a classical reason. 

 You know that, to the great edification of our 

 youth, the pious ^Eneas gives no better reason for 

 the hundred rascally and much admired things he 



1 By James Wilson, F.R.S.E., and by the author of the Oakleigh 

 Shooting Code. Edinburgh, 1841. 



2 By Sir Humphry Davy. London, 1828. 



