124 THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 



of the cheerful thrush, and the melodious nightin- 

 gale, performing the offices of paternal love, in 

 thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine.' 



" There is, indeed, a calmness and repose about 

 angling which belongs to no other sport, — hardly to 

 any other exercise. To be alone and silent, amid 

 beauties of nature when she is just shaking off the 

 last emblems of the winter's destruction, and spring- 

 ing into life, fresh, green, and blooming, — that, that 

 is the charm. The osier bed, as the supple twigs 

 register every fit of the breeze, display the down on 

 the under side of their leaves, and play like a sea 

 of molten silver, for the production of which no 

 slave ever toiled in the mine ; and at that little nook 

 where the stream, after working itself into a ripple 

 through the thick matting of confervas and water- 

 lilies, glides silently under the hollow bank, and lies 

 dark, deep, and still as a mirror, is made exquisitely 

 touching by the pendant boughs of the weeping 

 willow that stands ' mournfully ever' over the stilly 

 stream. In such a place, who could refrain from 

 moralising ? From the days of Pliny, and probably 

 from days long before Pliny was born, it has been 

 customary, to look upon a river as the emblem of 

 human life. It brawls its sparkling and playful 

 childhood among the mountains, ' leaps down into 

 life' by the last cascade. Then it mingles among 

 busy scenes : — laves alike the castle and the cot- 

 tage, grinds at the mill, and glitters round the 

 church-yard ; broadening, and slackening its pace 



