1 1 8 The Poets and Nature. 



You must not ev'ry worm promiscuous use ; 

 Judgment will tell the proper bait to choose. 

 The worm that draws a long immod'rate size 

 The trout abhors, and the rank morsel flies. 

 And if too small, the naked fraud's in sight, 

 And fear forbids, while hunger does invite. 

 Those baits will best reward the fisher's pains, 

 Whose polish'd tails a shining yellow stains. 



Cleanse them from filth, to give a tempting gloss, 



Cherish the sullied reptile race with moss ; 



Amid the verdant bed they twine, they toil, 



And from their bodies wipe their native soil." Gay. 



Or again, the salmon-fisher 



" Till, tired at last, despoil'd of all his strength, 

 The game athwart the stream unfolds his length. 

 He now, with pleasure, views the gasping prize 

 Gnash his sharp teeth, and roll his bloodshot eyes ; 

 Then draws him to the shore with artful care, 

 And lifts his nostrils in the sick'ning air. 

 Upon the burden'd stream he floating lies, 

 Stretches his quiv'ring fins, and gasping, dies." 



With all their strong objections to birds catching insects, 

 animals eating each other, and human beings hunting, 

 shooting, and snaring game, poets speak tenderly of fishing, 

 and admiringly of success with rod, net, or spear. 



Collectively in single poems, and individually in hundreds 

 of scattered verses, the denizens of British waters find such 

 frequent reference as would surprise any literary angler who 

 cared to rummage our classics for piscatorial allusions. In- 

 deed, it would be well worth the while of some literary fisher- 

 man of the " Red Spinner " type to run over the British poets 

 for the poetry of fishes. The mistake hitherto has been, it 

 seems to me, to collate only "the Poetry of the Angle." 

 Now, the majority of our piscatory bards were better anglers 

 than poets, and their descriptions of fresh-water fishing and 

 fresh-water fishermen are vapid, sententious, and conceited. 

 I know nothing more depressing in the range of poetry than 

 their odes on angling and so forth, written apparently under 



