The Philosophy of Angling. 311 



a clearer brain, a stronger body, and a better aptitude for 

 business. The clergyman would acquire broader views of 

 humanity, and preach better sermons. The physician 

 would better appreciate, and oftener prescribe, nature's 

 great remedies, air, sunshine, exercise, and temperance. 

 The lawyer's conscience would be enlarged, and his fees 

 possibly contracted. The poet's imagination would be 

 more vivid; the artist's skill more pronounced. Kerve 

 would keep pace with muscle, and brawn with brain. 



I have purposely avoided any allusion to the Gipsy 

 blood inherent in our veins, or the savage traits yet mani- 

 fest in our flesh, and their liability to crop out, as evi- 

 denced in our love for nature and nature's arts. I do not 

 look at it in that light. I claim that the more enlight- 

 ened and civilized a nation becomes, the more it is inter- 

 ested in the works of nature and her laws; that the more 

 progress we make in the arts and sciences, and all the 

 achievements of a high state of civilization, and the more 

 artificial and advanced we become in our ideas, of living — 

 the more readily we turn for rest and enjoyment, for recre- 

 ation and real pleasure, to the simplicity of nature's re- 

 sources, 



" Knowing that Nature never did betray 

 The heart that loved her." 



Angling is an art, and it is not beneath the dignity of 

 any one to engage in it, as a recreation. It is hallowed 

 by " meek Walton's heavenly memory," and has been prac- 

 ticed and commended by some of the best and truest and 

 wisest men that ever lived ; for, as Father Izaak says : " It 

 is an art, and an art worthy the knowledge and practice of 

 a wise man." Did the art of angling require an apologist, 

 I could here produce evidence, in precept and example, of. 



