1 88 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



when moving among us. But to such failures of the artist and 

 the sculptor, and they are not so much failures of the art as of 

 thg opportunity, for it is with likeness-taking as with landscape- 

 painting, there are rare and telling moments which to seize on 

 for execution, festival occasions, as it were, when the glory of the 

 subject becomes manifest to such failures let me not add any 

 attempt to portray with the pen those features in his poetical 

 and philosophical career which gave chiefest dignity to this illus- 

 trious Scotsman. It is only in his capacity as an angler that 

 I hold it within my province to introduce him to the reader, 

 and having had opportunities to judge, can speak pertinently. 

 Strictly speaking, Christopher North was no disciple of old 

 Izaak's. I don't think he ever killed a chub, carp, or jack in 

 his life, or handled, save as a boy, in their capacity as baits, 

 worm or minnow. He was purely, following his own bent, a 

 fly-fisher, and that for river and loch trout. Salmon-fishing, as 

 is usually practised on Tweedside, he was not conversant with ; 

 his love of independence leading him to reject, as drawbacks 

 upon sport, the presence and assistance of the fisherman, boat, 

 gaff, etc., reckoned so indispensable on many of our salmon- 

 rivers ; but I make no doubt that the feat of playing and landing 

 the lord of fishes was often accomplished by him with the trout- 

 fly and the finest of tackle. I had the gratification of being pre- 

 sent, some years ago, on one of these occasions. It was on the 

 30th of April 1839, on the stream ' betwixt the Caulds,' as it is 

 termed, a portion of Tweed belonging to the Rutherford Casts. 

 The handling of this fish, a seven or eight pounder, by the Pro- 

 fessor, was, as a specimen of delicacy of perception in its con- 

 nexion with the sense of touch, unexceptionable. Many of the 

 most experienced anglers are deficient in that faculty which 

 enables them to play a fish without ceding to it a single jot of 

 their control over its movements, or, on the other hand, without 

 neglecting to humour these movements, in accordance with the 



