IOC 



If the all-ruling Power please 



We live to see another May, 

 We'll recompense an age of these 



Foul days in one fine fishing day. 



We then shall have a day or two, 



Perhaps a week, wherein to try 

 What the best master's hand can do 



With the most deadly killing fly: 



A day with not too bright a beam, 



A warm, but not a scorching sun, 

 A southern gale to curl the stream, 



And, master, half our work is done. 



There, whilst behind some bush we wait 



The scaly people to betray, 

 We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait 



To make the preying Trout our prey. 



And think ourselves, in such an hour, 



Happier than those, though not so high, 

 Who, like Leviathans, devour 



Of meaner men the smaller fry. 



This, my best friend, at my poor home 



Shall be our pastime and our theme; 

 But then should you not deign to come, 



You make all this a flattering dream. 



In wandering over the lovely scenes, the pleasant brooks, 

 the flower-bespangled meadows, which the moral pages of 

 Isaac Walton so unaffectedly delineate, it is impossible not 

 to recur to the name of the late author of Saknonia, and to 

 reflect, that on these pages he oft unbended his vigorous 

 mind from his severe and brilliant discoveries. We can now 

 only lament the (almost) premature death of this high-ranked 

 philosopher, this great benefactor to the arts, and deep pr< 



