CHAPTEE I. 



INTRODUCTORY AND EGOTISTICAL 



HE reader who takes up this 

 book with the design to peruse 

 the following pages, may be 

 desirous to learn in the first 

 instance with whom he is about 

 to travel, what description of 

 person pretends to publish his experience in the " gentle 

 art," and in what company he is invited to explore the 

 rugged banks and unfrequented pools of the romantic 

 and secluded Canadian rivers. Such a desire is only 

 reasonable, but, no doubt, a short sketch will be deemed 

 sufficient. 



The lines which are prefixed to this chapter accurately 

 describe, as far as they go, a comfortable but small glebe 

 house, which by the favour of the bishop of the diocese, 

 the writer took possession of at the age of twenty-six, 

 having been for the previous three years curate of a 

 populous and considerable town near the centre of Ireland. 

 This house was situated in a western county, and although 



B 2 



