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but kindly," old age to fish by the side of 

 those streams associated in their minds 

 with a hundred pleasing recollections 

 where first the love of angling and of Nature 

 was impressed upon their youthful hearts, 

 which time has deepened and confirmed, 

 and which death only can efface. It must, 

 however, be observed that the oldest anglers 

 have been remarkable for their temperance, 

 and for the quiet, even, tenor of their lives. 

 They were not much exposed to struggle 

 with the rough currents of human life, which 

 often prematurely exhaust the best and no- 

 blest of our kind, but were either placed in 

 that happy mediocrity which affords an easy 

 competence, or were born and educated in 

 that condition which is little disturbed by 

 imaginary evils, and knows few wants but 

 such as may be easily supplied. 



Oliver. Walton alludes to the fishing ex- 

 ploits of Mark Antony and Cleopatra ; and 

 Sir H. Davy, in his Salmonia, claims Trajan 

 as an angler. To the number of royal and 



