" THE WONDERFUL ROB. WALKER." 231 



AMICUS. You excite my curiosity. Pray 

 gratify it with some account of a man of whom, 

 as of a phenomenon, I have already heard 

 vaguely. 



PISCATOR. Wonderful has not been the only 

 term applied to him : it is the culminating one 

 of others of humble, worthy, good, patriarchal; 

 and the more I reflect on the character, the 

 more sensible I am of the propriety of it. For- 

 tunately, though he lived in obscurity, he was 

 not without a biographer. Appended to the 

 sonnets on the Duddon, is a very instructive 

 account of him by the Poet, and also in the "Ex- 

 cursion ;" the Parish priest, so finely delineated 

 in the seventh book, is a painting of this very 

 man, somewhat idealized. You will find also 

 many and additional particulars of him in a 

 little book bearing the quaint title of " The Old 

 Church Clock." 



AMICUS. Tell me, if you please, what you 

 know of him. Besides your epithets, even 

 what I already see these trim meadows, the 

 ladder-styles by which we pass from one field to 

 another, even the fastenings of the gates, so 

 simple and ingenious, mark peculiarity, and 

 Q 4 



