188 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. 



a salmon, which is a northern fish ; but if you will 

 condescend to transport yourself from the banks of 

 the Arno to those of Tweed, and to walk an hour or 

 two with me, I think I can promise that you shall sec 

 such a feat performed." 



Stranger (abstractedly) : 



" Fluminaque antiquos subterlabeutia inuros." 



" Come now, sink Virgil and the artist a little; put 

 your sketch-book in your pocket, and let us see what 

 can be done with the salmon. Your quotations, my 

 dear sir, with your permission, will keep, as they have 

 kept, for ages — 



1 Adde tot egregias urbes.' 



No, no ; there are no eminent cities or towns here, only 

 Melrose and Gattonside ; and if you call these ' egre- 

 gias urbes,' you are egregiously mistaken." 



He made no reply, but looked at me with a smile 

 that seemed directed at the simplicity and absence of 

 his own character. 



" Now," said I, " as you seem to have descended 

 from your stilts, which I beg to say are very becoming, 

 though somewhat out of season, I will tell you how all 

 people are not exactly of our way of thinking, as to 

 the triumph of art and these classical illusions ; ima- 

 gining, on the contrary, that painting is a sleight of 

 hand, and conies by intuition. 



" I was lately sauntering with my painting-box in 

 the romantic glen beneath the towers 



' Where Eoslin's chiefs uncoffined lie ; 

 Each baron, for a sable shroud, 

 Sheathed in his iron panoply.' 



