PREFACE. XI 



deftly on the subject. But I tell you this, Sir 

 Oracle, that although I see a hundred good 

 reasons why I should abandon my design, yet I 

 am resolved to persist: it is my destiny — that is 

 a classical reason. You know that, to the great 

 edification of our youth, the pious iEneas gives 

 no better reason for the hundred rascally and 

 much admired things he was in the habit of 

 executing in his expedition to Latium. 



" I only hope the public will be so good as 

 not to be discerning ; because if they are, I shall 

 have you, my most tender and amiable friend, 

 eternally dinging in my ears, * There, did not I 

 tell you so ? But you would not be ruled by me, 

 so you must take the consequences.' " 



At the end of this colloquy, and when left 

 alone, I began to reflect a little ; and although at 

 first I could not help thinking my gentleman 

 somewhat hasty, yet I came to the conclusion 

 that he was partly, if not entirely, in the right. 

 So I began to listen a little to reason, and con- 

 tracted my plan, resolving to treat on Salmon 

 Fishing alone, as it is practised in the Tweed ; 

 for although various authors have written some 

 pages on the sport, yet I am not aware that any 

 one has as yet gone far into the subject, or given 

 any precepts, or treated of the various methods 

 available to the sportsman of killing these 



