xx THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



to remind me of the ecstasy with which I perused the 

 original. Nobody at threescore need expect the same 

 thrill as stirred him at thirteen my age when I first 

 read ' The Practical Angler.' The horizon which then 

 stretched out in front, so broody so bright, so inspiring in 

 its promise of performance, has narrowed down now to 

 very different compass and chiaroscuro. A boys * ex- 

 pectation of life ' has another significance than that 

 cold one in which insurance companies employ the term ! 

 Yet one has but to look back instead of forward to 

 regain the old range of vision : 



4 Come fair or foul , or rain or shine, 

 The good I once have had it still is mine ; 

 Not Jove himself upon the past hath power ; 

 What's been has been, and I have had my hour.' 



And in that hour, what measure of enjoyment do I 

 not owe to < The Practical Angler "? Of all the loves 

 that come into a man's life, there is none so liable to 

 betray him none more likely to outlive the others as 

 the love of the waterside. The new edition bears the 

 same message as the old one. One misses the old fron- 

 tispiece, representing a fisherman unhooking a trout, 

 bending his * wand ' the while into such a merciless 

 curve that one expected it to Jly into splinters every 

 moment. In the interval between the editions of this 

 book, the glorious art of wood-engraving' has expired 

 smothered by innumerable 'processes' 1 of various 

 merit ; but, on the other hand, the art of printing in 

 colour has been brought to wonderful delicacy. Here 

 we have six plates, representing as many pages in a 

 fly-book, the pockets stored with Stewart's favourite 



