There is, Jeremy, a vast deal of angling with magazines at this season, and the baits thrown out are of every imaginable kind—and so that the poor fish is hooked, no matter how, he is remorselessly placed in the basket, and the exploit considered dexterous. The false flies upon the waters are numerous, and very prettily do they look too, and yet it does not strike the anglers, that he is a silly fish who dashes more than once at a bait through which he has been wounded. To be explicit—does any man suppose that thousands of people—silly as we all are—can all be gulled a second time? Or to be _more_ explicit and distinct—that in a _true_ magazine, something more is not wanted than flashy engravings, prosy sermons, and monthly vain boasting. There _is_ such a thing as a _literary Magazine of high merit_—and is there not such a thing as fishing with a pin-hook for people who understand what such a Magazine is? What think you? I was looking over, the other evening, a series of prints in the possession of a friend, and was much struck with one—which I may yet give to you—in which _angling was reversed_, and putting the rod in the hands of the finny tribe, they were busily engaged—as _fishers of men_—in presenting to tempting appetites, sundry bottles of champagne and choice liquors—baits in the shape of gold, and offices of preferment with packets variously endorsed, and trinkets and epaulets to those who might fancy tinsel and glory. It was amusing to see the humans, with what avidity they bit, and how seriously they were bitten. How those rose to the fly who loved a glass—how the miser swallowed the barbed hook, gilt plated—how the aspirant for office dabbled in dirty waters and bedaubed himself for the sake of the seal of appointment—how the lovers of the dazzling and the lovers of glory, crowded to destruction together. You have a taste for the sport that tickled the fancy of good Izak Walton, I believe, and with your adroit fly have thrown your trout remorselessly and dexterously on the land, and while he panted and flapped himself as a sturdy opponent of non-resistance, have smiled at his efforts with a self-complacency quite refreshing and heroic—with a consciousness of superiority that would have been any thing but gratifying if your victim could have appreciated it. He was the slave of his appetite, and that was his ruin; or if you please, his ambition to rise at a shining mark, was the death of him. The trout has often verified the poet’s line. We are apt to think meanly of the fish for his silly voracity, and yet if the tables were turned, and the scaly tribes were the anglers, they might present baits as tempting and as worthless, in the waters in which we dabble, and chuckle in their sage philosophy with as ripe a reason as we do now. The artist has presented them as fishers of men, and has hit the conceit exactly.