28 THE SALMON. 



at least the thing called hunting in modem times- 

 has been'left to some nameless song-writers, and to poet 

 SomerviUe and such smaU deer. Shooting is absolutely 

 and entirely without a Hterature. Both are modern and 

 prosaic. Angling alone is ancient and poetical, and has 

 been practised, and its praises sung, in all countries and 

 generations. 



Then, passing from poets and poetry, look at the 

 number and strange variety of the men whom angling is 

 known to have had and to have among its most devoted 

 followers, — great warriors, fierce politicians, and deep 

 philosophers. Mighty Nelson was almost as expert and 

 enthusiastic in fishing as in fighting ; and the con- 

 stancy of his afiiection for the art is testified by his pa- 

 thetic remark to a boatswain who had lost his arm at the 

 same time as himself, " Jack, we're spoilt for fly-fishing," 

 and by his afterwards resuming the prosecution of the 

 sport with his left hand. Everybody knows how Paley, 

 when asked by his bishop what progress he was making 

 with his last great work, explained that he would apply 

 himself steadily to the subject of Natural Theology as 

 soon as the fly-fishing season was quite over, but certainly 

 not sooner. Of Sir Humphry Davy's ardour there is no 

 need to speak ; not even how it once led him to the 

 water-side in the north of Ireland on a Sunday, where, 

 says the philosopher, " a man came up, exceedingly drunk, 

 began to abuse me by various indecent terms, such as a 

 Sabbath-breaking Papist," and carried off" his rod, " with 

 imprecations ;" nor how, when he went in quest of health 

 and fish tq other lands, he cursed " the blue rushing of the 

 arrowy Rhone," in which he could scarcely get a " rise " 



