52 AN ANGLER'S BASKET. 



answered, with unconscious truth and humour, that he was a 

 " varra inqueesitive auld gentleman." 



* * 



Memory, which makes experience, is like wine : if it b& 

 good in the first instance, it improves with age, and losing 

 all its grosser parts, mellows into a valuable article, to be 

 unbottled at a convenient period. 



Memory's boundless plain is dotted with little points of 

 light, scattered here and there like jewels at the bottom 

 of the sea ; they come upon one as the coruscations of a 

 brilliant from an unseen hand. 



When first on earth the truth was born, 

 She crept into a hunting horn ; 

 The hunter came, the horn was blown, 

 And where truth went was never known. 



(GERMAN.) 



* * 



Upon thy mother's knee, a naked new-born child, 

 Weeping thou lay while all around thee smiled ; 

 So live, that, sinking into life's last sleep, 

 Thou then may'st smile while all around thee weep. 



(PERSIAN.). 



* * 



A rod is like an egg, 'tis said ; 



'Tis true, though said in joke : 

 You never know of what it's made 



Until it's broke. 



The largest fish I ever helped to catch was a sturgeon,. 

 feet long, stranded in the Kibble by the receding tide; 



