Year: 1875

No need Of the creative faculty or the
essayist's pen to sketch the outer man Of
the next angling worthy with whom we
forgather--the redoubtable Christopher
North. Has he not sketched himself a
hundred times in his books2 Nay, does
he not linn his own portraiture, uncon.
seiously, yet none the less delightfully."-,
in every line OF them2 We can see the
we'll knit yet bulky form, the long hair
curling down the neck OF Ajax-no love
locks for lady's chamber, but playthings
for wind and water on his wild moorland
excursions, yet hyacinthine withal, as
be6tted the friend of the MUSES., the fa-
favored son Of Apollo-we seem to hear
the CHEEKY voice, now tuned in unison to
some grand simile of Homer, now sing
ing some native lay of tragic love, and
then again raised till the welkin rings as
he shouts to his henchman Hamish to
gaff the salmon that he is leading down
wards to the one rocky ledge where alone
the feat would be possible. Yet, whether
on his loved carpet Of heather, or in the
lecture room, or the reviewers study, it
is always the same great heart beating
kindly to the universe, sympathizing with
every form Of good, and assimilating
beauty from all that is exalted in nature,
or history, or mans life-a soul fred
with the true enthusiasm of humanity,
rejecting all that is pure and noble and
Of fair report about it, as the summer sea
catches the tints Of heaven in its bosom.
But we have now to do with Wilson
merely as an angler; and, to dwell first
upon the practical side of angling never
was more consummate artist than he in
choice of flies and ability to send thirty
yards of silk and hair across a roaring
stream so that the line should light on
the very spot behind the big boulder
where turks the salmon. His esgsrness
for sport, too, was unbounded his appe-
tite for fresh air, exercise, and wading,
regardless OF cramp or rheumatism, in
satiable. No moorland with its thick
crop Of heather, no rugged mountain Of
granite, swathed in mists and dipping
down to bogs which would swallow up an
army, deferred his adventurous steps
when grouse were to be shot or trout ta-
ken. His mind was we'll stored with
philosophy and poetry, and he was never
weary of dilating on both with more of
enthusiasm, perhaps, than Of sound criti-
cal Judgment, but still with su6iciency
of learning, fund of humor and love
of his own country's literature in partic-
ular, which make him delightful com.
panion by loch or river. II Sir Il. Davy
be the philosopher of angling, Wilson is
as indubitably its poet. Let him once
close his hand on the butt of the fly rod |,
and what charming rhapsodies on nature,
what touching "reminiscences Of youth
does he not pour forth Who can forget
the inimitable progress of the angler,
from the unbreeched child at the brook
side with crooked pin and cotton line,
through the boy catching his first trout,
to manhood's struggle with forty-pound
salmon, which he traces so eloquently
that we reflect while reading wherein lies
the true poetry OF the craft. Angling,
he shows u.s. binds together every age
of human life with chain ofsympathetic
memories, when a man is once smitten
with enthusiasm for it. AS Wilson wan
ders from pool to pool, here extracting
grilse from 'Bluidy Breeks," there a
sea trout from the Curly but ever at.
tended by supreme love for Nature, we
are insensibly reminded of brother
poets picture Of one who


"Murmured by the running brooks


A music sweeter than her own"


Nothing is too prosiac for him to glorify.
The salmon fly dressed like Iris has often
been celebrated in song, who but Chris
topher North could wax poetic over a
fishing rod2--Fraser's Maqazine.