THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



and boys. To take a salmon in fresco that is, in 

 a fresh or spate, as a north-country friend translates 

 it is the perfection of the angler's art. 



Though 110 person, however partial to angling, 

 and however fond of walking, in pursuit of his 

 sport, through pleasant meads and by rippling 

 streams, can be entitled to the character of a skilful 

 angler, unless he be capable of bringing home, by 

 the fair exercise of his rod and line, a tolerable 

 load of fish ; yet it by no means follows that mere 

 fish-killers, whose practice had never extended 

 beyond the Docks at Blackwall, the Surrey and 

 Eegent's Canals, or a mile from Islington, on the 

 New River, are entitled to the name of anglers, in 

 the best sense of the word. Their hands are dab- 

 bled in blood from the butcher's tub and fouled 

 with the garbage with which they bait their groimd ; 

 and there is the fragrance of no flowers to conceal 

 the loathsome smell. They hear not the murmur 

 of the stream, nor the song of birds ; they see not 

 the forest in the fulness of summer leaf, nor the 

 meadow pranked with summer flowers. Confined, 

 in pairs, in a punt or boat, or singly to a strip of 

 ground some thirty feet long, the extent of their 

 rod and line, they sit or stand for hours, the picture 

 of despondency their eyes never raised frem their 

 float, unless when roused by the coarse salute of a 

 sailor or bargeman, or by the sarcastic query of 

 "What success?" from the passer-by. Such per- 

 sons, if married men, are generally those who seek 



