discourse, and did not scorn to make use of what may be called
LIVE QUOTATIONS,--that is to say, the unpublished remarks of his near
contemporaries, caught in friendly conversation, or handed down by oral
tradition.

But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced, the
delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers. This was
all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite incomparable.

I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles Lamb
and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.

Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet
lavender. It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods. It
tastes of simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of new
verjuice in a new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to give
Piscator the next time he came that way. Its music plays the tune of A
CONTENTED HEART over and over again without dulness, and charms us into
harmony with

"A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune."

Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he quotes.
It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to write
about angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying, some wise
reflection from his pages, suggests itself at almost every turn of the
subject.

And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable one
that his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of angling
is extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list of the
collection presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard University, or
study the catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr. Dean Sage,
of Albany, who himself has contributed an admirable book on THE
RISTIGOUCHE.

Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical
treatises, interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the
young novice ardent in pursuit of practical information. There is a good
deal of juicy reading in it.

Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's method)
into two classes,--the literature of knowledge, and the literature of
power.

The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the
directions how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides to
various fishing-resorts.