THE HAPPY MEDIUM. 27 



mid-summer season, when the pools are very clear 

 and shallow, and the streams almost dried up, little 

 can be done without a stirring breeze ; so also after 

 a heavy summer flood, immediately ensuing a con- 

 tinuance of dry weather, when the mountain torrents 

 are a sheet of dingy foam, and the crystal depths 

 of the river are converted for a time into an opaque 

 flow of muddy water, the fly-fisher's occupation^ 

 gone. But when the turmoil ceases, and the soft 

 south wind begins to disperse or break in upon the 

 dense array of clouds, so as to chequer the streams, 

 and rocks, and " pastoral melancholy" of the green 

 mountains with the enlivening beams of the re- 

 turning sun, with what pleasure does the angler ap- 

 proach the banks of a favourite and accustomed river ! 

 How various and delightful are his sensations! 

 Custom cannot stale their infinite variety. On the 

 contrary, the longer and more assiduously the plea- 

 sure is pursued, the greater the immediate enjoy- 

 ment, and the more extended the train of agreeable 

 remembrances for after days. How exciting the first 

 cast into a breeze-ruffled pool, when the unwetted 

 gut still lies in rebellious and unyielding circles on 

 the surface, and yet almost at the same moment the 



winter season. " I do assure you," says Charles Cotton, in the second 

 part of the Complete Angler, " which I remember by a very remark- 

 able token, I did once take, upon the sixth day of December, one 

 and only one, of the biggest graylings, and the best in season, that 

 ever I yet saw or tasted ; and do usually take trouts too, and with a 

 fly, not only before the middle of this month, but, almost every year 

 in February, unless it be a very ill spring indeed ; and have some- 

 times in January, so early as new-year's tide, and in frost and snow 

 taken grayling in a warm sun-shine day for an hour or two about 

 noon ; and to fish for him with a grub it is then the best tune of all." 



