perceive, has angled a little-as too far off; and the same objection applies, with even more force, to all the rivers of the New World.

If he prefer weight to number, he has but to say the word -tackle on and off at six and six. Our fish to go to scale in or out of basket-whichever is the most agreeable to the fancy of the Baronet-and if he will give 5 to 4, we engage that Kit's creel shall draw Humphry's by Two STONE TRON.

A public challenge may perhaps appear impertinent. But it is not so-it is the perfection of politeness. For he who publishes a book on angling-say Salmonia, or Days of FlyFishing-thereby declares that he is "open" to all the world. Sir Humphry cannot be a stranger to our skill—at least not to our fame

"Whereof all Europe rings from side to side."

He must acknowledge that we are a "foeman worthy of his steel," although his hooks are the handiwork of O'Shaughnessy of Limerick; to be vanquished by Us can, he well knows, be no dishonour; whereas to beat us (even by a grilse) would be undying kudos-everlasting glory-immortal fame. Were he to outangle North at Coldstream, Sir Humphry might hang up his rod in wreaths of ivy and laurel-just as Wellington his Field-marshal's baton, after the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo.

We have said that we judge Sir Humphry's skill as an angler by his Book. Now, no sooner did we see his Book advertised in Mr Murray's list, than we ordered it to be sent down to Us per mail, on the very day of its publication—that we might laud it to the skies. We love all brothers of the angle, and shall praise them always both in written and oral discourse, provided we can do so by moderately stretching the strings of our conscience. Obscure scribblers on the Gentle Craft, if they show but a true feeling, shall by Us be brought forward into the light, and their place assigned them among angling authors-towards the bottom of the country dance. But when the Illustrious not only put the pieces of their rods together, but undertake to

"Teach the old idea how to fish,"

then we feel that such formidable preparation "must give us pause; we put our spectacles astraddle on our sharpened nose, clear our throat with a few sharp short hems; place our

arms akimbo-so; and fixing our face on the philosopher, so insufferably bright with expression that it seems all oculus, like the very eye of day-we see into and through him, be he as dark and as deep as he may-and intuitively know the precise place he is destined to occupy in company with Walton and Bainbridge.

Salmonia is certainly, on the whole, stupid. The servile adoption, or rather slavish imitation, of old Izaak Walton, is, at this time of day, not to be endured in any writer having the slightest pretensions to original power-and is of itself enough deservedly to damn the volume. Sir Humphry informs us, that "the conversational manner and discursive style were chosen as best suited to the state of health of the author, who was incapable of considerable efforts and long-continued exertion; and he could not but have in mind a model, which has fully proved the utility and popularity of this method of treating the subject-The Complete Angler, by Walton and Cotton."

What does he mean by speaking of "considerable efforts and long-continued exertion?" Good gracious! are either the one or the other necessary in writing a book upon Angling? Days of Fly-Fishing is a light and airy title, and such a volume might have been written off-hand, just as you would talk familiarly to an old friend, or scribble an epistle, without any effort at all, or any attention. One does not expect a work on Fly-fishing to be in several folios, on which had been bestowed the unremitting and undivided labour of a long life -the pulse on the thin wrist of the author stopping just as his shrivelled fingers had written "Finis." Had Sir Humphry been as strong as a horse, his health equal to that of Hygeia herself, would he have chosen a style mainly different from "the conversational and discursive," and belaboured his volume with" considerable efforts and long-continued exertion ?" Surely he would not have been so silly. If so, then would his book have been even duller and heavier than it is -which is saying a good deal-for even in its present shape we should be sorry to swim the Tweed with it in our creel. It is the weight of a good fish.

The Complete Angler, by Walton and Cotton, has indeed fully proved" the utility and popularity of this method of treating the subject;"-but Sir Humphry must know very well that even a good copy of an invaluable original is worth

not very much-an indifferent one, very little—a bad one, nothing. Old Izaak is often very tiresome-very prosy-but then he is a very endearing character. So, too, more or less, are all the other interlocutors. We become intimate with them-like, nay love them—and it is very pleasant to put up with the failings of such friends. Indeed, nothing endears one's friends to a good-hearted man so much as their little failings. Peculiarities beget affection. Who cares a straw for a person of perfectly irreproachable character in all the littlenesses of life? Something absurd even must there be in the face or figure, the dress or manner of a man, before you can take him to your heart. How pleasant the absence—the departure of an intimate and wearisome bosom-friend! You love him for the relief. You feel a tender contrition for hav

ing wished him at the devil. You set down every yawn of yours, ere he breathed farewell, as a separate sin to be atoned for by the aggravated cordiality of the return. You become pensive at the remembrance of your own guffaws—the quiz in absence is thought of with much of that tenderness and pity with which we regard the dead—and we vow if ever we meet again in this wicked world, to laugh at him less immoderately, to do more honour to his modest worth, to look on all his singularities in the light of originalities, and to own that, with all his qualities, he must indeed have been a character. Much of all this we experience in reading, and laying aside, and returning to the Complete Angler. Walton himself we always reverence, even through our smiles. Cotton we always admire, wild though we know him to be; but the queer cits, with names as queer, who prate and prose through the dialogues, we regard with kindly affection, chiefly on account of the amiable specific silliness by which each is distinguished, and which proves one and all of them, beyond possibility of error, to be good anglers, true Christians, and blameless

men.

But the interlocutors in Salmonia are introduced without the smallest dramatic skill. Never was there such drawling discourse by the side of a murmuring stream as that indulged in by these elderly gentlemen. The characters chosen to support these conversations are, quoth Sir Humphry, HALIEUS, who is supposed to be an accomplished fly-fisher; ORNITHER, who is to be regarded as a gentleman generally fond of the sports of the field, though not a finished master of the art of

angling; POIETES, who is to be considered as an enthusiastic lover of nature, and partially acquainted with the mysteries of fly-fishing; and PHYSICUS, who is described as uninitiated as an angler, but as a person fond of inquiries in natural history and philosophy. There is nothing very much amiss in this attempt at deviation from the characters in the Complete Angler, though manifestly a woeful want of ingenuity—originality-which last is to a book about any rural sport life and soul. Without it, such book is what Sir Humphry and the chemists understand by a caput mortuum. But the worst of it is, that the characters, unoriginal, are also unredeemed by any strong natural traits, unbrightened by the vivacity, we will not say of genius, but even of animal spirits, and all repeat a lesson which they seem to have painfully conned before reaching the river-side. Sir Humphry is seen for ever exerting himself, to the very utmost his feeble health would allow, 66 to preserve the similitude." Halieus, of course, performs all the feats of skill, and holds the rest of the party dogcheap. Ornither is the only one of the four who ought to know an eagle when he sees it. Never was there, on all occasions, such another imaginative simpleton as Poietes; while Physicus, being drawn, as we are told, from the life, is as pedantic and as empty as most other philosophical Physicians, who have dealt more with theory than practice.

The fatal fault-the original sin of this production-is in the conception. There is no individuality of character in any one of these four unfortunate gentlemen. Unfortunate we call them, on that very account; for, however rich or reputable a gentleman may be, he cannot be pronounced fortunate, if he have no individuality of character. Not only, in such cases, are gentlemen liable to be mistaken for one another by others-a bad case-but by themselves-a much worse; a confusion arises among their personal identities, from which result many unpleasant feelings and awkward mistakes; and they all are aware how dangerous it would be for any one of them to swear to a fact as having been consistent with his own knowledge, since, on farther reflection, it would appear equally probable to have occurred to another of the squad. The student of Salmonia is puzzled at every page to remember who is speaking-and dislikes the endless trouble of turning back to look for his name. Read from it a dialogue to a blind man, — however cheerful and acute

and all blind men are cheerful and acute-and good and happy too, and you must take care never to omit the name of a single interlocutor. Not so in Plato-not so in Waltonnot so in Landor-not so in North. In those divine dialogues, for example, the Noctes Ambrosianæ, you could not change. the name of one speaker for another, even for one retort courteous, or quip modest, without the misnomer being instantly detected by the dullest ear. But in Salmonia it would seldom matter much were the names of the speakers put into a hat, and then affixed to the different speeches, in the order in which they were drawn from the beaver.

Sir Humphry Davy must be too well-read a man in dramatic literature, not to know how essential to the production of any effect at all, is the perpetual preservation of dramatic propriety. Let the sentiments, feelings, opinions, descriptions, reflections, in a dialogue be as excellent as may be, natural and true; yet, unless they are all felt to be congenial and appropriate to the character of him who utters them, they seem stale, flat, and unprofitable; and absolutely are felt to lose much of their native worth from being so transmitted to our heart or understanding. The genius by which the truth of nature is preserved throughout all the fluctuations, and windings, and turnings, of a free and animated dialogue, in which many strongly - marked and clearly-contrasted characters are displayed, is not, in our opinion, a very rare gift; it is possessed, in a thousand distinct degrees, from Shakespeare down to the wit of the village smithy; but nature seems to have withholden it entirely from Sir Humphry Davy, while she bestowed upon him some other of her noblest faculties.

But dramatic power is not all we desiderate in these dull dialogues. One may feel some interest in characters neither well-conceived nor executed; if they do but talk away in an easy, good-humoured, lively style, and give us an impression, that though rather everyday sort of concerns, to be sure, still, nevertheless, they are jolly companions every one-prefer Glenlivet to Green Tea-love to count the chimes at midnight-are, in short, a batch of plain, honest, straightforward, downright, upright fellows, who know the translation of "dulce est desipere in loco," to wit, "weel-timed daffin," put their whole heart and soul into all their amusements and pastimes, and, at the close of a sanguinary day, drink the