late permitted myself some relaxation, and was residing at
Shepherd's Bush to enjoy the pleasure of angling.

'I do thee no harm, young man,' said my new friend, 'in wishing thee a
better employment for thy grave hours, and a more humane amusement (if
amusement thou must have) for those of a lighter character.'

'You are severe, sir,' I replied. 'I heard you but a moment since refer
yourself to the protection of the laws of the country--if there be laws,
there must be lawyers to explain, and judges to administer them.'

Joshua smiled, and pointed to the sheep which were grazing on the downs
over which we were travelling. 'Were a wolf,' he said, 'to come even now
upon yonder flocks, they would crowd for protection, doubtless, around
the shepherd and his dogs; yet they are bitten and harassed daily by
the one, shorn, and finally killed and eaten by the other. But I say not
this to shock you; for, though laws and lawyers are evils, yet they are
necessary evils in this probationary state of society, till man shall
learn to render unto his fellows that which is their due, according
to the light of his own conscience, and through no other compulsion.
Meanwhile, I have known many righteous men who have followed thy
intended profession in honesty and uprightness of walk. The greater
their merit, who walk erect in a path which so many find slippery.

'And angling,' said I:--'you object to that also as an amusement,
you who, if I understood rightly what passed between you and my late
landlord, are yourself a proprietor of fisheries.'

'Not a proprietor,' he replied, 'I am only, in copartnery with others,
a tacksman or lessee of some valuable salmon-fisheries a little down the
coast. But mistake me not. The evil of angling, with which I class all
sports, as they are called, which have the sufferings of animals for
their end and object, does not consist in the mere catching and killing
those animals with which the bounty of Providence hath stocked the earth
for the good of man, but in making their protracted agony a principle of
delight and enjoyment. I do indeed cause these fisheries to be conducted
for the necessary taking, killing, and selling the fish; and, in the
same way, were I a farmer, I should send my lambs to market. But I
should as soon think of contriving myself a sport and amusement out of
the trade of the butcher as out of that of the fisher.'

We argued the point no further; for though I thought his arguments a