132 TROUT ANGLING. 



v 



satirical remark on anglers long before he wrote it ; 

 ay, and occasionally got into such qualms of reluc- 

 tance, that I would suspend my angling pursuits, and 

 admire the trouts tumbling up in the steams, sup- 

 pressing the desire to cast a hook amongst the free- 

 hooters. And the same sympathies have at times 

 unfitted me for some necessary employments of life, 

 yes, even to the length of requiring an effort of my 

 strongest philosophy to bring me to prune a rose or 

 pluck a flower ! This was nursing the poetical tem- 

 perament to an unnecessary tenderness. " No angler 

 can be a good man," says Byron ; yet, I believe 

 these sensitive gentlemen, the poets, could all eat 

 lamb, veal, and oysters, as heartily as trouts can snap 

 up lovely innocent flies, or gobble the small fry of 

 their own species with all the mischievous appetite 

 of cannibals. And, alas ! the sensibilities of genius 

 give no sufficient guarantee for that consistency of 

 character which would justify us in bestowing the 

 designation of a good man, on any human being. 



