18 GENERAL REMARKS. 



and owes the duties of moderation, humanity, pa- 

 tience, and kindness under all circumstances ; that 

 he cannot slaughter or poach ; and that, from his pro- 

 fession, he should ever be a gentleman. He should 

 never forget the words of that most amiable of our 

 fraternity — the splendid shot, the skilful angler, the 

 genial companion, and the graceful writer, now long 

 since gathered to his final resting-jilace — who was 

 known to the public under the name of J. Cypress, 

 Jr.: 



" No genuine piscator ever tabernacled at Fii-e- 

 place or Stump-pond who could not exhibit proofs 

 of great natural delicacy and strength of apprehen- 

 sion — ^I mean of things in general, including fish. 

 But the vis vivicla animi, the os magna sonans, the 

 mamcs mentis, the divine rapture of the seduction 

 of a trout, how few have known the apotheosis ! 

 The creative power of genius can make a feather- 

 fly live, and move, and have being ; and a wisely 

 stricken fish gives up the ghost in transports. That 

 puts me in mind of a story of Ned Locus. Ned 

 swears that he once threw a fly so far and delicately 

 and suspendedly, that just as it was dropping upon 

 the water, after lying a moment in the scarcely 

 moving air as though it knew no law of gravity, 

 it actually took life and wings, and would have 

 flown away but that an old four-pounder, seeing it 

 start, sprang and jumped at it full a foot out of his 

 element, and changed the course of the insect's tra- 

 vel from the upper air to the bottom of his throat. 

 That is one of Ned's, and I do not guarantee it, but 



