erful forty years ago"!

The second class of angling books--the literature of power--includes
all (even those written with some purpose of instruction) in which
the gentle fascinations of the sport, the attractions of living
out-of-doors, the beauties of stream and woodland, the recollections of
happy adventure, and the cheerful thoughts that make the best of a day's
luck, come clearly before the author's mind and find some fit expression
in his words. Of such books, thank Heaven, there is a plenty to bring a
Maytide charm and cheer into the fisherman's dull December. I will name,
by way of random tribute from a grateful but unmethodical memory, a few
of these consolatory volumes.

First of all comes a family of books that were born in Scotland and
smell of the heather.

Whatever a Scotchman's conscience permits him to do, is likely to be
done with vigour and a fiery mind. In trade and in theology, in fishing
and in fighting, he is all there and thoroughly kindled.

There is an old-fashioned book called THE MOOR AND THE LOCH, by John
Colquhoun, which is full of contagious enthusiasm. Thomas Tod Stoddart
was a most impassioned angler, (though over-given to strong language,)
and in his ANGLING REMINISCENCES he has touched the subject with a happy
hand,--happiest when he breaks into poetry and tosses out a song for the
fisherman. Professor John Wilson of the University of Edinburgh held the
chair of Moral Philosophy in that institution, but his true fame rests
on his well-earned titles of A. M. and F. R. S.,--Master of Angling,
and Fisherman Royal of Scotland. His RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH,
albeit their humour is sometimes too boisterously hammered in, are
genial and generous essays, overflowing with passages of good-fellowship
and pedestrian fancy. I would recommend any person in a dry and
melancholy state of mind to read his paper on "Streams," in the first
volume of ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. But it must be said, by way
of warning to those with whom dryness is a matter of principle, that all
Scotch fishing-books are likely to be sprinkled with Highland Dew.

Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher
North speaks rather slightingly. Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well worth
reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but because
it exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom. Charles
Kingsley was another great man who wrote well about angling. His
CHALK-