ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



Our great-grandfather had been what is termed 

 a remarkable man, but by an omission on the part 

 of his contemporaries, and perhaps through his own 

 indifference, the comments upon his history are 

 exceedingly rare. He must, however, we feel in- 

 wardly satisfied, besides a worthy angler, have been 

 a great man, although neither wealth nor titles 

 formed part of his acquirements. The inference is 

 drawn by us, we know not from what quarter ; it 

 may be, indeed, that the old arm-chair had some 

 hand in eliciting it. This, notwithstanding, is cer- 

 tain, that great as our ancestor had been, he had 

 met with very uncharitable treatment from the 

 world ; for, although reputedly a voluminous author, 

 we had never the good fortune to stumble upon 

 more than a single tract, De Fluminibus Scoticis, 

 avowedly of his composition, and only once found 

 we mention of his name in a very old newspaper, 

 as the inventor of a wonderful salmon fly. The 

 insignificance of these discoveries nettled us not a 

 little, but we consoled ourselves by the recollection, 

 that the worthiest frequently pass without reward, 

 and that the humours of critics are oftimes lament- 

 ably touchy and capricious. Our great-grandfather 

 was still in our eyes a prodigy, obscured by a cloud 

 in its zenith, but revealed on its horizon, ere it set, 

 to a few privileged, consecrated gazers. 



Thy second infancy, old man ! was to us a solemn 

 lesson from Nature's volume an instructive me- 

 mento reared up in our presence, to check the exu- 



