HAL.—I will take you to the house; you shall make your bow, and then you will be all free to follow your own fancies. Remember, the dinner hour is five; the dressing bell rings at half-past four; be punctual to this engagement, from which you will be free at seven. POIET.—This is really a very charming villa scene, I may almost say, a pastoral scene. The meadows have the verdure which even the Londoners enjoy as a peculiar feature of the English landscape. The river is clear, and has all the beauties of a trout stream, of the larger size,—there rapid, and here still, and there tumbling in foam and fury over abrupt dams upon clean gravel, as if pursuing a natural course. And that island with its poplars and willows, and the flies making it their summer paradise, and its little fishing-house, are all in character; and if not extremely picturesque, it is at least a very pleasant scene, from its verdure and pure waters, for the lovers of our innocent amusement. HAL.-It is ten o’clock: you may put up your rods, or take rods from the hall, for so hospitable is the master of this mansion, that every thing is supplied to our hands. And Physicus, as you are the only one of our party ignorant of the art of fly fishing, I will fit you with a rod and flies; and let me advise you to begin with a line shorter than your rod, and throw at first slowly and without effort, and imitate us as well as you can. As for precepts, they are of little value; practice and imitation will make you an angler. POIET.—I shall put together my rod, and fish with my own flies. It may be fancy, but I always think I do best with tackle with which I am used to fish. HAL.—You are right; for fancy is always something: and when we believe that we can do things better in a particular way, we really do, by the influence of imagination, perform them both better and with less effort. I agree with moralists, that the standard of virtue should be placed higher than any one can reach; for in trying to rise, man will attain a more excellent state of being than if no effort were made. But to our business. As far as the perfection of the material for the angler is concerned, the flies you find on this table are as good as can be made, and for this season of the year, there is no great variety on this river. We have had lately some warm days, and though it is but the 18th of May, yet I know the May-fly has been out for three or four days, and this is the best period of this destructive season for the fisherman. There are, I observe, many male flies on the high trees, and some females on the alders. PHYS.—But I see flies already on the water, which seem of various colors,—brown and gray, and some very pale,—and the trout appear to rise at them eagerly.