PARTING WORDS. 363 



easy accomplishment, should ever have been con- 

 sidered otherwise. 



This light labour of mine is on the point of 

 ceasing. I may now write finis coronat opus, 

 whether with a triumphant thought or not, none, 

 save myself, can know. I have finished with the 

 gudgeon, though, in angling regularity, I ought 

 to have concluded with the salmon. But a 

 moral may be drawn from my proceeding. What 

 man begins with he ends with childishness. 

 The childish passion of gudgeon-angling may re- 

 turn to the true angler when he has "fallen 

 into the lean and slippered pantaloon," and it 

 will do so, if it be true that " the ruling passion is 

 strong in death." 



THE END. 



