100 FISHING GOSSIP. 



So far as the last dozen words have any meaning 

 at all, they mean that the angler is to commence a 

 series of piscatory calisthenics in emulation of those 

 of the fish spinning at the end of his line. 



But the soul of a Bagnall soars far above such 

 commonplace trivialities as sense and grammar. 

 How can we expect the vulgar restrictions of Lindley 

 Murray to fetter a genius which can evoke from the 

 depths of its inner consciousness such a peroration as 

 the following, suggested by a sight of Pope's house at 

 Eichmond : 



" Awaking from the reverie induced by the thought that 

 fickle Nature had given so frail and disfigured a tenement to 

 contain so glorious and sublime a mind, I drop down the 

 gentle stream and view the fairest of England's daughters en- 

 gaged in the healthy occupation of urging their fairy boats o'er 

 the bosom of the water, the graceful and voluptuous attitudes 

 called into play by the exercise promoting the most passionate 

 and ardent admiration, each elegant movement stamping them 

 as more lithe than the sculls grasped by their tiny hands, and 

 forming in their many-tinted garbs, aided by the drooping 

 branches of the overhanging trees, a scene of beauty rarely 

 surpassed." 



Earely surpassed, indeed, we should suppose ; and 

 rarely equalled, we will venture to assert, the classical 

 and appropriate lines in which it is commemorated. 

 But then, as our author observes elsewhere, "it re- 

 quires a delicacy of manipulation, * a touch how ex- 

 quisitely fine,' to do justice to these sort of themes." 



