156 ANGLING. 



exist before, one of their number springs at least 

 a couple of yards into the buxom air, which 

 proving no " fenced brazen wall" as it was deemed, 

 admits him to pastures green, and instantaneously 

 the whole flock, like a troop of voltigeurs, bolt 

 boldly onwards, bound after bound, as if an earth- 

 quake's mouth did gape beneath them. Now your 

 " men wat writes" are just precisely animals of 

 this description, barring (we fear and mourn), that 

 their coats are far more thread bare, themselves 

 more gaunt and grim, and their other habits rather 

 those of fleecing than being fleeced. They for a 

 time (and many times) compose confusedly some 

 huddled statement, of which one portion knocks 

 the other down, and the spread of knowledge looks 

 extremely thin, till some one bolder or more 

 desperate than the rest (or driven by fear or 

 hunger), makes a sudden spring upwards into the 

 world of imagination, where he invents a round 

 unvarnished tale of circumstantial truth, 



" Of truth severe, in fairy fiction dressed." 



Away go the others through that glorious gap; 

 and the fond admiring public finding the stream of 

 history so continuous, and concordant as Cruden 

 on the point in question (whatever it may be), 

 would just as soon " doubt that the stars are fire," 

 as harbour the least misgiving as to what it sees 

 in print. And so the matter is settled for a 

 hundred years. But then comes a sturdy observer 

 actually with his eyes open, and finds that if he 

 chooses to use them he can see ; so he hies him to 



