ANGLING. 



thy gentle Druiy, thine own considerate Goldsmith 

 not Oliver but Drew, the old Orfevre have 

 thought of such proceedings ! What do William 

 Swainson, or John Curtis, or T. O. Westwood 

 think of it even now ! Ye who, pouring your very 

 souls upon your lonely yet much loved labours, will 

 bend for many an hour o n er some most fragile form 

 of insect life, and after plying both pen and pencil 

 all the live-long day, will rise dissatisfied with what 

 you deem your vain attempts at representing na- 

 ture, though other eyes are charmed by the exqui- 

 site beauty of your graceful outlines and your gor- 

 geous hues, what think ye, one and all, of artificial 

 flies ? We pause for a reply. 



We have witnessed many a weakness in our day, 

 and have more than once seen full grown menj not 

 bad fishers either, and some of them the fathers 

 of large families of small children, step with smirk- 

 ing face, not only towards, but actually into an 

 unoffending stream, after having, in a few hasty 

 minutes, dressed several flies, which they declared 

 must unavoidably succeed as counterparts of nature. 

 The last exhibition of the kind we witnessed, was 

 that of a Highlander, a weak vain man, " dressed 

 in a little brief authority,' 1 (the kilt, after all, is by 

 no means an inconvenient garb to angle in), who 

 busked a large red hairy fly, as round as an humble- 

 bee, and declared it to be the fac-simile of a frail 

 and fairy creature which we saw at that moment 

 before us, moving like a mote of light along the 

 glittering waters. Yet he killed a fine trout with 

 it, after two or three lumbering casts. Now no- 



