8 ANGLING 



of taking their place among the very best specimens of 

 lyrical composition either in the English or any other 

 language; and, with respect to prose compositions on 

 angling topics, few English writers have come up to the 

 spirit and life which the Americans embody. Witness 

 the following description of an angling tour, written by 

 the late Hon. Daniel Webster, one of the most able 

 legislators and men of genius of whom the United 

 States can boast : — 



" We were lost standing," says he, "at the upper part of Sage's 

 ravine, with some forty trout in our basket, when the time was 

 up, the mail must go, the article must be cut short, and all the 

 best parts of it, that for which all the rest was but a preparation, 

 must be left unwritten. The same visitor never comes tmce to the 

 eye of the pen. If you scare it away, you might as well fish for 

 a trout after he has seen you, and darted under a stone, or beneath 

 his overhanging bank or root. But trouting in a mountain brook 

 is an experience of life so distinct from every other, that every 

 man should enjoy at least one in his day. That being denied to 

 most, the next best I can do for you, reader, is to describe it. So 

 then come on. 



' ' We have a rod made for the purpose, six feet long, only two 

 joints, and a reel. We will walk up the mountain road, listening 

 as we go to the roar of the brook on the left. In about a mile the 

 road crosses it, and begins to lift itself up along the mountain side, 

 leaving the stream at every step lower down on our right. You 

 no more see its flashing through the leaves ; bat its softened rush 

 is audible at any moment you may choose to pause and listen. 



" We will put into it just below a smart foamy fall. We have 

 on cowhide shoes, and other rig suitable. Selecting an entrance, 

 we step in, and the swift stream attacks our legs with immense 

 earnestness, threatening at first to take us off from them. A few 

 minutes will settle all that, and make us quite at home. The 

 bottom of the brook is not gravel or sand, but rocks of every 

 shape, every position, of all sizes, bare or covered ; the stream 

 goes over them at the i-ate of ten miles an hour. The descent is 

 great. At a few rods cascades break over ledges, and boil up in 

 miniature pools below. The trees on either side shut out all 

 direct rays of the sun, and, for the most part, the bushes line the 

 banks so closely, and cast their arms over so widely, as to create 

 a twilight — not a grey twilight, as of light losing its lusti-e, but 

 a transparent black twilight, which softens nothing, but gives 

 more ruggedness to the rocks, and a sombre aspect even to the 

 shrubs and fairest flowers. It is a great matter to take a trout 

 early in your trial. It gives one more heart. It serves to keep 

 one about his business. Otherwise you are apt to fall off into 



