HAL.—Nay, I can find authorities of all kinds, statesmen, heroes, and philosophers; I can go back to Trajan, who was fond of angling. Nelson was[3] a good fly fisher, and as a proof of his passion for it, continued the pursuit even with his left hand. Dr. Paley was ardently attached to this amusement; so much so, that when the Bishop of Durham inquired of him, when one of his most important works would be finished, he said, with great simplicity and good humour, “My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly fishing season is over,” as if this were a business of his life. And I am rather reserved in introducing living characters, or I could give a list of the highest names of Britain, belonging to modern times, in science, letters, arts, and arms, who are ornaments of this fraternity, to use the expression borrowed from the freemasonry of our forefathers. PHYS.—I do not find much difficulty in understanding why warriors, and even statesmen, fishers of men, many of whom I have known particularly fond of hunting and shooting, should likewise be attached to angling; but I own, I am at a loss to find reasons for a love of this pursuit amongst philosophers and poets. HAL.—The search after food is an instinct belonging to our nature; and from the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who destroys a piece of game, or a fish, with a club or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the same: but that kind of it requiring most art may be said to characterize man in his highest or intellectual state; and the fisher for salmon and trout with the fly employs not only machinery to assist his physical powers, but applies sagacity to conquer difficulties; and the pleasure derived from ingenious resources and devices, as well as from active pursuit, belongs to this amusement. Then as to its philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and command of temper. As connected with natural science, it may be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the habits of a considerable tribe of created beings—fishes, and the animals that they prey upon, and an acquaintance with the signs and tokens of the weather and its changes, the nature of waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its poetical relations, it carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature; amongst the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odours of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as