THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



easily and most naturally inspired, and a practical 

 knowledge of them most readily attained. The 

 pliant fingers of youth, from ten to sixteen, aro 

 peculiarly adapted to tying delicate knots, whipping 

 on hooks, and dressing flies ; and he who first 

 begins to learn those minor branches of an angler's 

 art after his hand is " set," seldom performs his 

 work with neatness, and never with ease. And 

 then to see a gentleman who has arrived at years 

 of discretion taking lessons in managing the rod 

 and throwing gracefully a long line, is about as 

 good as a peep at Mr. Deputy Hopkins, who never 

 learned to dance till after he was married, practising 

 a quadrille, for the Mansion House ball, with his 

 coat and wig off. Most of our practical books on 

 angling are written, not for the "instruction and 

 improvement of youth," but for the edification of 

 elderly gentlemen who are presumed never to have 

 had a rod in their hands before ; and the dry-nurse 

 of a teacher "begins at the beginning " accordingly. 

 I think it would be worth any professor's while to 

 open an Angling Academy at Peerless Pool, City 

 Road, when it is no longer used for bathing, to 

 teach grown gentlemen the use of the long rod, 

 applying a birch one, solito loco, when needful, to 

 dull or refractory pupils, with examples of the art 

 of whipping without cracking off the fly. How did 

 you succeed in your trolling to-day, Tweddell ? 



TWEDDELL. Very badly. I only caught one 

 jack after a two hours' trial ; and when I thought 



