IN GREAT BRITAIN. 259 



king. Do you see them yellowing, you Tory? What 

 bellies ! Why, we knew by the dead weight that there 

 were three ; for they kept all pulling against one another ; 

 nor were we long in discovering the complicated movement 

 of triplets. Pounders each same weight to an ounce 

 same family all bright as stars. Never could we endure 

 angling from a boat. What loss of time in getting the 

 whoppers wiled into the landing-net ! What loss of peace 

 of mind, in letting them off, when their snouts, like those 

 of Chinese pigs, were within a few yards of the gunwale ; 

 and when, with a last convulsive effort, they whaumled 

 themselves over, with their splashing tails, and disappeared 

 for ever. Now for five flies wind on our back no tree 

 within an acre no shrub higher than the bracken no, 

 reed, rush, or water-lily in all the bay. What hinders 

 that we should, what the Cockneys call, whip with a dozen ? 

 We have set the lake afeed ; epicure and glutton are alike 

 rushing to destruction ; trouts of the most abstemious 

 habits cannot withstand the temptation of such exquisite 

 evening fare ; and we are much mistaken if here be not an 

 old dotard a lean and slippery pantaloon, who had long 

 given up attempting vainly to catch flies, and found it as 

 much as he could do to overtake the slower sort of worms. 

 Him we shall not return to his native element, to drag 

 out a pitiable existence, but leave him where he lies, to 

 die he is dead already 



* For he is old and miserably poor.' 

 Two dozen in two hours, we call fair sport ; and we think 



