Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Mr Stoddart blinks our problem altogether. Fish, it will be noticed, are treated, firstly, as bits of cork, and, secondly, as lumps of lead. But the bad example of all the great men before or since Agamemnon will not lessen the cruelty, if it be cruelty, of dragging a large fish or a little fish out of its "native element" forcibly, and against its will. Obliging a fish to come out of the water when it has not the slightest wish to be a fish out of water, has an apparent resemblance to the ejecting of a human being unseasonably from his bed who has made up his mind to prosecute a steady snooze for the next three hours. The absence or presence of a little bodily suffering in the process of ejection, has really nothing to do with the merits of the abstract question. A man who is jerked out of bed by a string tied to his toe must endure an uncomfortable twinge. But the votary of Morpheus may be induced to change his quarters quite as effectually by painlessly removing beyond his reach the blankets and the sheets. It is not the application of positive compulsion to the person, but the disturbance of existing comfort in his present condition, which may be pain, and hardship, and cruelty. In point of fact, it is nothing of the sort, because the analogy, as stated, is entirely fallacious. The true analog is to be stated thus: Any body who, being already in bed, and therefore legitimately somniferous, happens to overhear us in the next room loudly declaring our intention of beginning forthwith a supper of savoury and palatable dishes, and who, thereupon, greedily shakes off his incipient torpidity, and rushes into the apartment in order to share the banquet, but finds no supper, and ourselves laughing at his credulity, has no right at all to assert that he has been subjected to hardships or treated with cruelty. He left his proper sphere, and was punished for his eccentricity. How is a fish that lives in the water entitled to snap at a fly that lives out of the water? But then the fly goes into the water. Very well: but if the fish comes up into the air, as it does, to bite at a fly, which is a denizen of the air, it is just that a fly, when it goes down into the water, should indulge in a reciprocal bite at a fish, which is a denizen of the waters. And if flies cannot bite for themselves, it is a noble thing in man to bite for them. All the fish encreeled by all the human fishers of every year make but a molehill to the mountain of flies butchered and gorged by a single trout in a month. Heliogabalus was temperate, Nero was merciful, when compared with a gillaroo. And as for a PIKE!

Let us listen to Stoddart on pikes. It is proper, perhaps, to mention that we are legally informed that the "open and advised speaking" of our author about pikes is very constitutional, although very marvellous. It pleases him now to buffet these freshwater sharks with extremely hard words. Yet have we seen his nerves more fluttered by a dead pike, surreptitiously introduced into his nocturnal couch at Tibbie's--whom mortals, we believe, call Mrs Richardson, and whose green rural hostelry, on the margin of St Mary's Loch, is the sweet and loved haunt of every true brother of the craft--than ever was the heart of fisherman when a twenty-pounder has darted off like an express locomotive towards the foaming and rocky cataract. What horrid shriek is that, making night hideous? With bursts of laughter at this moment returns the scene when that grim visitor murdered the first efforts of the weary angler to woo repose, as his naked feet came into unexpected contact with the slimy mail of the water-pirate. Such recollections are part and parcel of the many hundred things which make the fisher's life a happy one. We shall hear, therefore, Mr Stoddart avenging himself on all pikes, dead or living, not excluding an incidental foray against eels; which latter are not surely, while they live, loveable.

"No one that ever felt the first attack of a pike at the
gorge-bait can easily forget it. It is not, as might be
supposed from the character of the fish, a bold, eager,
voracious grasp; quite the contrary, it is a slow
calculating grip. There is nothing about it dashing or at
all violent; no stirring of the fins--no lashing of the
tail--no expressed fury or revenge. The whole is mouth-work;
calm, deliberate, bone-crashing, deadly mouth-work. You
think at the moment you hear the action--the clanging
action--of the fish's jaw-bones; and such jaw-bones, so
powerful, so terrific! You think you hear the compressing,
the racking of the victim betwixt them. The sensation is
pleasurable to the angler as an avenger. Who among our
gentle craft ever pitied a pike? I can fancy one lamenting
over a salmon or star-stoled trout or playful minnow; nay, I
have heard of those who, on being bereft of a pet gold-fish,
actually wept; but a pike! itself unpitying, unsparing, who
would pity?--who spare?

"Returning, however, to the point in my narrative at which I
broke off. I no sooner felt the well-known intimation, than,
drawing out line from my reel, and slightly slackening what
had already passed the top-ring of my rod, I stood prepared
for further movements on the part of the fish. After a short
time he sailed slowly about, confining his excursions to
within a yard or two of the spot where he had originally
seized the bait. It was evident, as I knew from experience,
that he still held the trout cross-wise betwixt his jaws,
and had not yet pouched or bolted it. To induce, him,
however, to do so without delay, I very slightly, as is my
wont, tightened or rather jerked the line towards myself, in
order to create the notion that his prey was making
resistance, and might escape from his grasp. A moment's halt
indicated that he had taken the hint, and immediately
afterwards, all being disposed of at one gulp, out he
rushed, vigorous as any salmon, exhausting in one splendid
run nearly the whole contents of my reel, and ending his
exertions, in the meanwhile, with a desperate summerset,
which revealed him to my view in all his size, vigour, and
ferocity; the jaws grimly expanded, the fins erect, and the
whole body in a state of uncontrollable excitement. Being
provided with a single-handed rod, and winch-line suited in
respect of strength and thickness to light fishing, it was a
marvel that either of these stood the test on an occasion so
very trying. The worst, however, was over; and although the
pike, as fish of its kind under similar circumstances always
do, showed signs of remaining strength, coupled with great
sullenness, it nevertheless, in the course of a few minutes,
submitted to its fate, and allowed itself to be drawn ashore
at a convenient landing-place, which fortunately was not far
off.

"This fish, the first I ever captured in Teviot, weighed
nearly a stone, and preceded in its fate no fewer than four
others, of the respective weights, or nearly so, of ten,
eight, seven, and three pounds, all of which I took from
about the same spot in less than an hour's time. Shortly
after, three or four days intervening, I killed two pike of
twelve pounds weight each, close to the place mentioned, and
in the same season met with an incident which, as it has
some connexion with pike-trolling, is worthy of being
recorded in this chapter. It happened in the month of July,
on which day, Teviot, owing to recent rains, was somewhat
discoloured, and I had ventured as far up its banks as the
Roxburgh pool, intending to trout with fly and minnow, and
also to give the pike a trial. That I might not, however,
consume much time upon the latter fish, I had provided
myself with a couple of set lines formed of strong cord.
These it was my intention to lay out in a portion of the
pool hitherto untried, and to allow them to remain there,
while I angled for trout higher up the river. With the view
of doing this, I had secured, by desultory throwing in my
progress, towards Roxburgh, several small trout, and when
arriving at the spot where I had intended to lay the lines,
was unable to resist an anticipatory trial for pike with the
rod itself, which, on this occasion, was a double-handed
one, and provided with a good-sized reel and line to
correspond.

"Having affixed and baited a gorge-hook, I accordingly
commenced operations, and in the course of a few throws
hooked what I conceived to be a pike of extraordinary size.
It pouched quickly, ran far, and forcibly crossed and
recrossed the river, which, at the spot in question, is by
no means narrow,--rushed upwards to a distance of at least a
hundred yards and down again, seemingly without the least
fatigue. Having regained, however, the spot from which it
had commenced its run, all on a sudden the fish halted, and
immediately, without any jerk or strain on my part, the line
came to hand, neatly severed or cut through by the teeth,
above the wire-fastenings to which the gorge-hook had been
appended. No slight disappointment it was. I fancied of
course that I had lost a pike of such uncommon size, as to
have been able to engross, in pouching, the whole extent of
arming in question, measuring nearly a foot. My sole
resource therefore, or hope of retrieve,--and I was by no
means sanguine of the result,--lay in the setting of the two
lines I had brought along with me, at or near the spot where
the fish had made its escape. Accordingly, baiting each with
a trout of at least four ounces in weight, I threw them in
not far from one another, with small floats attached, in
order to show off the lure and keep it from the bottom. This
done, I pursued my way further up the river, and commenced
trouting. On my return, after the expiry of two or three
hours, to the place where I had set the lines, I found that
both the corks were out of sight and the cords stretched to
the uttermost, but quite motionless. Drawing the nearer one,
I was surprised to observe it, although made of strong and
fresh material, snapped through at the middle. It was not
so, however, with the other. There was evidently something
attached to it of considerable weight and bulk, without,
however, any live resistance. Imagine my surprise, when, on
hauling it nearer the bank, I beheld a huge eel enveloped
among the cords, quite choked and lifeless. Of river eels it
was the largest I had ever witnessed, although I certainly
have seen congers of greater size. About four feet and a
half in length, and in girth fully eleven inches, I think it
could not have weighed less than twenty pounds. This point,
however, I wanted the ready means of determining, although I
regret not having made an effort to acquaint myself with it.
On examining the stomach of the monster, I found that it
contained all the three gorge-hooks employed by me, and the
trouts with which, individually, they had been baited. My
experience in eel fishing has not been very great, but I
have taken some hundreds of them in my time, and I do not
remember above one or two that showed fight in the same
manner this one did, while on the rod. In general, they
waddle or twist about, betake themselves under rocks,
stones, or roots of trees, but very seldom push out directly
across or up the pool. With the gorge-hook indeed, and a
small trout as the bait, I have often, both before and since
the occasion above-mentioned, captured them; also while
trolling for pike with gimp and swivel tackle, and that in
mid water betwixt the bottom and surface; nor, indeed, will
eels, when impelled by hunger, shrink from assailing the
largest fish, should these happen to be sickly or in adverse
circumstances. It is well known that what are termed river
cairns, or heaps of stones raised by the tacksman of salmon
fishings for the purpose of inveigling running fish into a
certain description of net attached to them, afford shelter
to large numbers of eels and lampreys, which, if the grilse
or salmon happening to become entangled is allowed, through
neglect or otherwise, to continue two or three hours in this
state of thraldom, will, forcing an entrance through the
gill or mouth, speedily disencumber it of its entrails; nay
if allowed to pursue their work of molestation unchecked,
absolutely hollow it out, until little remains but a sack or
skinful of bones."

This is a horrible picture,--"a sack or skinful of bones," while the salmon, we presume, still exists in its ribbed transparency. The dreams of eels, who sup so full of horrors, must be very awful. But infinitely more awful must be the visions which people the slumbers of those mortals who, in their turn, eat those eels who have eaten those salmon. Our repugnance to eel-pies was never strong. It were better for us to think of something else.

A crust of statistics may ward off sickening and remorseful qualms. The indiscriminate destructiveness which characterises pikes, is unfortunately and disgracefully displayed by other queer fish. It is not necessary to enumerate the perplexing multiplicity of devices which human ingenuity has invented and constructed for annihilating salmon. As of the kings about whose deaths their royal brother Richard tells sad stories, so of salmon, however various may be the manner of their dissolutions, it is safe to affirm that they are "all murdered." Statutes kill myriads of them; poachers, in spite of statutes, kill myriads more of them; honest anglers, who sport in the seasons, and with the weapons proper to sportsmen, kill a few individual fishes; and it will be demonstrated that pikes are the powerful and natural allies of statutes and poachers:--

"With regard to the ravages committed among the fry of the
salmon, I may mention that almost every pike captured by me
during the months of April and May contained in its stomach,
or disgorged, on being landed, the remains of one or more
smolts. These frequently were quite entire--to all
appearance, indeed, newly killed; they were sometimes also
in a partly-digested state, and on other occasions presented
to the eye little more than was sufficient to distinguish
them as having been small fish. I have taken five or six
salmon-fry, in the stages above described, out of the
stomach of a single pike. Two, three, or four, is a matter
of common occurrence. Such being the case, and if it be
true, what many ichthyologists affirm, that fish dissolve
their food with such astonishing rapidity as to rival in
some instances the action of fire; nay, allowing that the
stomach of the pike occupied a couple of hours in completing
the digestive process, the amount of havoc committed by this
ravager on Teviot during the smolt season is quite
astonishing. Confining my calculation within very moderate
bounds, I shall presume that each pike, on the average, as
his daily meal, during the months already referred to,
engrosses four salmon or bull-trout fry. This, in the course
of sixty days, gives an allowance to every individual in
Teviot of two hundred and forty smolts; and supposing there
are from Ancrumbridge downward, a stretch of water nine or
ten miles in length, not more than one thousand pike, the
entire number consumed by these, in less than one-sixth of
the year, amounts to two hundred and forty thousand, or
nearly a quarter of a million of salmon-fry,--a greater
number, there is no question, than is killed during the
same extent of time by all the angling poachers in the
district put together."

We acknowledge that we must be indiscreet to involve ourselves again in an offensive topic. A hint, however, of our opinion, and we pass away from the subject. The abominable slaughter of "FOUL" fish, perpetrated by people whom we are obliged to repudiate as sportsmen, and whom we are not obliged to recognise as gentlemen, is a shocking, dirty, disreputable mal-practice, to be condemned with unmodified severity of language. Apologies, explanations, palliations, are in vain. The filthy mass which is unrighteously dragged out of the water is not then a fish. It is against the use of nature for the hand of man to touch it. And yet the same man who would with easy indifference "leister" a salmon in that state, teeming with ten thousand thousand lives, shall, on the morrow, in a jury-box, violate his oath by acquitting the guilty in the face of the clearest evidence, because he thinks capital punishments unlawful. Phaugh! Call Mr Stoddart into court as an authoritative witness.

"I find a number of anglers at one with me in opinion upon
this subject; and all who have witnessed night-leistering on
Tweed during the autumnal or winter months, will acknowledge
that even the romantic character which torch-light and
scenery invest it with, fails as an apology for the ignoble,
wasteful, and injurious nature of the occupation. In nine
cases out of ten, it is pursued, either during the spawning
season itself, or when the fish are heavy with roe--when
they are red or foul, having lain a considerable time in the
river, and, moreover, when they have lost all power of
escape, or are cut off from exercising it, both by the
lowness of water, and by the circumstance of their being
hemmed in, at the head and foot of the pool or place of
action, by nets and other contrivances stretched from bank
to bank.

"It can scarcely be credited, but I relate a fact known to
many on Tweedside, that, about four or five years ago,
upwards of three hundred breeding fish, salmon and grilses,
were slaughtered in the course of a single night, from one
boat, out of a stretch of water not far from Melrose, two
leisters only being employed; and of this number--I allude
to the fish--scarcely one was actually fit to be used as
food, while by far the greater part of them were female
salmon, on the eve of depositing their ova. In the
neighbourhood of Kelso, upwards of ninety have frequently
been butchered with this implement during a single night,
from one boat,--all of them fish in the same rank and
unhealthy condition above described. In September 1846,
according to the most moderate calculation, no fewer than
four thousand spawning fish, consisting chiefly of
full-grown salmon, and comprehending the principal breeding
stock of the season--those fish which, from their forward
state, promised the earliest and most vigorous supply of
fry, were slaughtered in Tweed, with the consent, and under
the auspices, of the upper holders of fishings, in the
manner I speak of. Need it be said, that the injury done to
the salmon-fishings in general by this malpractice on the
part of two or three lesser proprietors, is incalculable,
and, when linked with the doings of poachers during
closetime, to which it unquestionably gives encouragement,
and the system pursued on Tweed of capturing and destroying
the kelts and baggits, it must operate most prejudicially
against every plan devised to further the breeding of this
highly-prized article of food."

Simply we shall say, that any body who so leisters fish from this day forward is a BRUTAL BARBARIAN, fit for the society of a Burke or a Hare, who did not venture to immolate their victims till gross physical corruption--the heavy prostration of drunkenness--rendered them in general the easy and stupid prey of a disgusting assassin. Let the leisterer of foul fish be accursed in the sporting calendar.

Under all circumstances, to be quite candid, we remonstrate against the leister. It is not a fair way of going to work--the fish has no option. There is too much of the tinge of the Venetian bravo in the blow. Less apology must there always be for striking a salmon than for striking a man behind his back. The man who detects the stealthy thrust may turn and smite his enemy. The fish, vigilant happily of the descending trident, can but shift its quarters and swim away. Basking, too, at the moment under the broad beam of the all-rejoicing sun--as motionless, as tranquil, as bright, and as beautiful, as the silver pebbles in the river's bed--why should idle human violence invade and extinguish that unsuspecting repose? At this very instant, while he is in such attitude and mood, fling, if you can, with delicate precision, over his snout the most attractive mottled wing in your book, and then--if the pensive Zoroaster of the stream quits his meditations to swallow your temptation--then hook him, play him, land him, and encreel him; but do not, without any warning, plunge a barbed steel fork into his heart. Or, at this very instant, let the seduction of the triple worm travel athwart his ruminations, and if the glutton shall overcome the sage, then, even in his voracious throat, strike home, and overcome the glutton; but do not hack the noble form with ruffianly prongs of rusty iron--

"Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds."

Pr'ythee permit the leister, for the future, to decorate a museum along with other implements of the Cannibal, not the British islands!

Mr Stoddart must feel neither anger nor surprise if we deliberately avoid not merely any discussion, but even any notice whatever, of theories or speculations, directly or collaterally referring to the breeding or propagation of fishes. We have not been, as the pages of Maga prove, unwatchful of what conjectural philosophy might propose, or ingenious experimentalism might exhibit. We hold some piscine opinions, so curious but so true, that if we could enunciate them in a language intelligible to fish (which ought to be the Finnish dialect,) the liveliest salmon in Norway could not execute summersets sufficiently numerous to express his astonishment at our knowledge. We could likewise put such puzzling objections to the most elaborate and seemingly satisfactory systems, as to demonstrate irrefragably that, in spite of every thing which every body has said about every variety of the _salmo_ race, nobody knows any thing certain as to the age Of OLD PARR. But, for one good reason, we shall be discreet and silent. Nobody cares a straw, or a horse-hair, or a thread of gut, whether Stoddart is overthrown, or Shaw is predominant,--nobody, whose sole and laudable object is to enjoy a day's good fishing. The great fact remains--the waters are full of fish. What matter is it whence the fins came or come? The question is not how they got into, but how they are to be taken out of the burn, the river, or the lake? It is not we who mean to go

"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave;"

but up out of it we hope to draw many dozens of its peopling swarms. And we desire to learn from Mr Stoddart how best we may, by baits and guileful spells, reach and inveigle, them--

"In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers."

The companion we want is the Angler's Companion. Now the angler is an individual who sallies out at early dawn, rejoicing, not only in his own strength, and, haply, the strength of a glass of whisky, but in a fishing-basket, or pannier, or bag; in a fishing-rod, or three or four fishing-rods; in a fishing-book, more voluminous in its single volume than the Encyclopædia Britannica; in wading boots and water-proof cloaklets; in a reel, and a gaff, and a landing net, and sometimes a boat; in gut, and in horse hair; in hooks and hackles; in feathers and silk thread; in wax and wire; in leads and floats; in tin boxes of worms, and earthen pots of salmon roe; in minnows, and parr-tails; in swivels and gorge-hooks; in lobs, and in bobs; in ferrules, and in rings; in a brown paper parcel of four large sandwiches, and a pocket flask of six large glasses of sherry; in a dingy coat, and inexpressible unmentionables; and finally, in the best humour, and a shocking bad hat. Is it imaginable that all this can be done, as it is done every day, by any body who has not made up his mind, or who thinks it necessary to know, what fish are, and where they came from? There is no such humbug within him. He goes to the Tweed or the Tay; the Don, or the Conan; to Loch Craggie, or Loch Maree; to Loch Awe, or Loch Etive; to the Clyde, or the Solway; to Loch Doon, or Loch Ken; because all over broad Scotland there is plenty of fish; and because, where-ever he goes, Stoddart can tell him how there most readily, most surely, and most pleasantly to encreel them. Of all the Caledonians who, in countless crowds, daily leave their native homes in the flesh, and return to the domestic hearthstone in the evening, with their flesh more or less fishified, there are not twenty to whom it is not a point of the utmost indifference, whether the fish in the Tweed, or any other river where they have been angling, are rained down once a month from the clouds, or are brought over as ballast in ships once a-week from Denmark. The fish are there. We are going to catch them. Hand us Stoddart's Angler's Companion.

As a teacher of practical angling in Scotland, we look on Mr Stoddart to be without a rival or equal. To call him a good instructor in the art, does not properly describe him. He is strictly and literally a manuductor. Nature has given to him what Beddoes terms "a well organised and very pliant hand," which for more than twenty years, as we can honestly testify, has waved the osier over all the streams of his native country. We exaggerate nothing in declaring angling to have been, during that long period, Stoddart's diurnal and nocturnal study. And the result has been what it ought to be. Nobody else, for example, (we affirm it without fear of any contradiction or cavil,) could have written, as it is written, the sixth chapter,--"On fishing with the worm for trout."

"To a perfect novice in the art of angling, nothing appears
simpler than to capture trout with the worm, provided the
water be sufficiently muddled to conceal the person and
disguise the tackle of the craftsman. A mere urchin, with a
pea-stick for a wand, a string for his line, and a pin for
his hook, has often, under such favourable circumstances,
effected the landing of a good-sized fish. But to class
performances of this description among feats of skill were
quite ridiculous, and they are just, to as small an extent,
samples of successful worm-fishing. It may perhaps startle
some, and these no novices in the art, when I declare, and
offer moreover to prove, that worm-fishing for trout
requires essentially more address and experience, as well as
a better knowledge of the habits and instincts of the fish,
than fly-fishing. I do not, be it observed, refer to the
practice of this branch of the art as it is followed on hill
burns and petty rivulets, neither do I allude to it as
pursued after heavy rains in flooded and discoloured waters;
my affirmation bears solely upon its practice as carried on
during the summer months in the southern districts of
Scotland, when the rivers are clear and low, the skies
bright and warm. Then it is, and then only, that it ought to
be dignified with the name of sport; and sport it assuredly
is, fully as exciting, perhaps more so, than angling with
the fly or minnow. In the hands of a skilful practitioner,
indeed, there is no mode of capturing well-conditioned fish
with the rod more remunerative;--I say well-conditioned, for
in the spawning months, lean, lank, and unhealthy trout may
be massacred in any number by means of salmon-roe or pastes
formed from that substance.

"In the present chapter, I shall attempt to make plain the
principal points to be attended to by the worm-fisher
desirous of success. These I class under the following
heads:--

1. The rod and tackle to be employed.
2. The kind of worm, and how prepared,
3. When and where to fish.
4. How to bait and manage the line."

Excellently well is the task executed. At the conclusion of the chapter, when he says "I have embraced, methinks, most of the points connected with the subject it treats of, and endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to set them forth in a plain and practical light," he speaks with the modest but honest consciousness of one who has been handling a subject so familiar, and yet so interesting to himself, that if he has only allowed words to clothe his thoughts as they flowed in their natural stream, he feels he must have written clearly, sensibly, agreeably, and usefully. Mind you, we do not intend to reprint Mr Stoddart's volume in these pages. Buy it and read it. But, as we rebuked at starting those who spoke of the spring of 1847, we shall not withhold at once comfort and advice from precipitate anglers, who fancy they cannot commence operations too early in the season.

"On Tweedside, worm-fishing seldom commences until the
latter end of May or beginning of June, when the main stream
and its tributaries are in ordinary seasons considerably
reduced. The trout in a certain measure require to be sated
with fly-food before having recourse to any coarser
aliment,--at any rate, some change seems to be effected in
their tastes and habits, virtually inexplicable, but yet
dependent upon the instinct implanted by nature--an instinct
which, as regards many animals, has, in all ages, baffled,
perplexed, and silenced the minutest inquiry. Before trout
take the worm freely, it is necessary also that the
temperature of the water should be at a state of
considerable elevation--at least fifty degrees of
Fahrenheit; and, moreover, that it be acted upon at the time
by a fair proportion of sun-light; indeed, a bright hot day
is not at all objectionable, the air being calm, or but
slightly agitated. Such a condition both of water and
weather often occurs during the month of June, and its
occurrence is, indeed, frequently protracted throughout
July. These, in fact--June and July, added to the latter
half of May--constitute, as regards the southern districts
of Scotland, our best worm-fishing months. Be it noted,
however, by way of repetition, that I am not at present
alluding to the simple and coarse practice of the art
pursued among starved and unwary fish in mountain rivulets,
nor do I refer to worm-fishing in flooded and discoloured
streams; but I treat of it solely as respects clear waters,
inhabited by cunning, cautious trout, and, in consequence,
as a method of angling which requires of the craftsman great
skill and no stinted amount of prudence. With regard to hill
burn-fishing, undoubtedly it is more in season during August
and September, when rains are frequent, than in June and
July; and in discoloured waters, trout may be captured with
worm throughout the whole year, no one month excepted."

Precocity does not flourish in Scotland. Never do any thing in a hurry. In good time for all good purposes of angling,--not too soon, but not a minute too late, have come our commendations of this admirable treatise and manual. What does it lack? any thing? no, not even a "SIMPLE RECIPE FOR COOKING A WHITLING OR GOOD TROUT BY THE RIVER-SIDE." What a smack there is here of inimitable and beloved Isaac! But, before we part, Mr Stoddart shall pronounce his benison.

"Angler! that all day long hast wandered by sunny stream,
and heart and hand plied the meditative art--who hast filled
thy pannier brimful of star-sided trout, and with aching
arms, and weary back, and faint wavering step, crossed the
threshold of some cottage inn--a smiling, rural retreat that
starts up when thy wishes are waning into despondency,--how
grateful to thee is the merry song of the frying-pan, strewn
over with the daintiest of thy spoils, and superintended by
a laughter-loving hostess and her blooming image! and thou,
too, slayer of salmon! more matured and fastidious, what
sound when thy reel is at rest, like the bubbling and
frothing of the fish-kettle! what fare more acceptable than
the shoulder-cut, snowed over with curd, of a gallant
sixteen-pounder; and where, in the wide world, is to be
found wholesomer and heartier sauce, to the one as well as
to the other, than a goblet generously mixed of Islay, and
piping hot? Stretch thy hand over thy mercies, and be
thankful."

Indispensable in all time to come, as the very strength and grace of an angler's Tackle and Equipment in Scotland, must and will be "STODDART'S ANGLER'S COMPANION."

THE CAXTONS.--PART III.