PREFACE, 



AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



THE greatest pleasure in life and perhaps the most 

 lasting 1 (next to that of doing good) falls to the 

 angler's lot, who, having made fishing his hobby in 

 early years, is content to ride it in easy stages 

 through Nature's loveliest scenes by flood and field, 

 until old age, often long past the Psalmist's allotted 

 span when " his strength " is said to be "but labour 

 and sorrow," comes to arrest his feeble hand, and to 

 deny to his faltering steps any longer the power 

 to pursue his fascinating art : but even then the 

 retrospect of it all is a delightful memory to the 

 very end of his days, and he almost hopes that as 

 of yore the garden of Eden was watered by the four 

 fair rivers Pison, Grihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates 

 to make it fruitful and perfect, so in the next world 

 he may have enchanting streams to linger by. 



It is often said that a poet is bom a poet, with 

 the music of song already in his soul which may 

 develop to a lofty strain, and " wake to ecstasy the 



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