make the scene of further discoveries, and, though holding the same course, to introduce us to regions of which his predecessor did not even know the existence. This concordia discors, which gives us the power of comparing the habits of remote times, the ideas and sentiments of persons so strongly contrasted, and treating the same subject in such different styles-forms one of the charms of this book, and at the same time makes us look back to old Izaak's with additional interest. Izaak Walton, a London citizen of the middle of the seventeenth century, does not aspire above his sphere in any particular. His walks are to Finsbury, and up Totten. ham Hill; his farthest excursions, even in pursuit of his favourite amusement, only reach Ware and Waltham; his diversion, when there, is the drowsy watching of the immersion of a cork and a quill; and almost all his ideas confined to baits of lob-worms and live maggots. This picture is of a most cockney-like character, and we no more expect Piscator to soar beyond it, and to kill, for example, a salmon of twenty pounds weight with a single hair, than we would look to see his brother linen-draper, John Gilpin, leading a charge of hussars. What is there, we ask, that relieves the low character, we had almost said the vulgarity, of a picture so little elevated and so homely? It is the exquisite simplicity of the good old man, enjoying tranquillity in his own mind, and breathing benevolence to all around him, and expressing himself with such a graceful ease, that the London shopkeeper dapping for chubs, acquires the veneration due to a Grecian philosopher, within whose cheerful heart, to use an expression of his own, wisdom, peace, patience, and a quiet mind did cohabit.* *We cannot resist the temptation to transcribe some sweet verses introduced in the first dialogue of Salmonia, the contribution of a lady, whose elegant genius adorns her high rank:—“ A noble lady (says Halieus), long distinguished at court for preeminent beauty and grace, and whose mind possesses undying charms, has written some lines in my copy of Walton, which, if you will allow me, I will repeat to you. "Albeit, gentle angler, I Delight not in thy trade, Our modern Piscator is of a different mould, one familiar equally with the world of books and those high circles in society, which, in our age, aristocratically closed against the pretensions of mere wealth, open so readily to distinguished talents and acquirements. His range, therefore, both of enjoyment and of instruction, is far wider than that of Walton. The latter carries us no farther than the brooks within a short walk to London, though his rich vein of poetical fancy renders their banks so delightfully rural, by seating himself and his scholar under a honey-suckle hedge during a soft shower, there to set and sing while gentle rain refreshed the burning earth, and gave a yet sweeter smell to the lovely So much of mind, Of such good kind, Caught by thy cunning bait, this book, "Gladly from thee, I'm lured to bear With things that seemed most vile before, Matter the wisest sage might hear. And with a grace, That doth efface More laboured works, thy simple lore More than the scaly brood confines. "Our hearts and senses too, we see, And ready to be caught by thee Content and peace, With health and ease, Walk by thy side. At thy command And join in gifts that all may share. Gladly, with thee, I pace along, With more of worth; Because that time upon its stream flowers that embroidered the verdant meadows. Halieus, on the contrary, transports us to the ornate scenes of Denham upon the Colne, where the river is strictly preserved within the park of a wealthy and hospitable proprietor, and gives us the following picturesque description, as a contrast to the unadorned meadows of the Lea. "Poiet. This is really a very charming villa scene, I may almost say, a pastoral scene. The meadows have the verdure which even the Londoners enjoy as a peculiar feature of the English landscape. The river is clear, and has all the beauties of a trout stream of the larger size,—there rapid and here still, and there tumbling in foam and fury over abrupt dams upon clean gravel, as if pursuing a natural course. And that Island, with its poplars and willows, and the flies making it their summer paradise, and its little fishing house, are all in character; and, if not extremely picturesque, it is at least a very pleasant scene, from its verdure and pure waters, for the lovers of our innocent amusement."-Pp. 21, 22. This Italian and ornamental species of landscape may be compared advantageously with a voyage down a Highland lake, a scene which never disturbed Walton's quiet thoughts even in a dream. "Poiet.-That cloud-breasted mountain on the left is of the best character of Scotch mountains: these woods, likewise, are respectable for this northern country. I think I see islands, also, in the distance: and the quantity of cloud always gives effect to this kind of view; and, perhaps, without such assistance to the imagination, there would be nothing even approaching to the sublime in these countries; but cloud and mist, by creating obscurity and offering a substitute for greatness and distance, gives something of an Alpine and majestic character to this region."-P. 82. In the continuation of this description, our modern, by what painters call an accident, enlivens his still scenery with a touch of science and painting at once, far beyond the limited sphere of father Walton. The latter has done all that his 66 extent of travel and experience could suggest, when he has taught us to listen to a friendly contention between the singing birds in an adjacent grove, and the echo whose dead voice lived in a hollow tree near to the top of a primrosehill," or shown us how to beguile time "by viewing the harmless lambs seen leaping securely in the cool shade, while others sported themselves in the cheerful sun, or craved comfort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams." The modern author, in a wild land, calls our attention to a far less usual phenomenon, and describes the flight of an eagle, and the education of its callow brood, with the pencil of a Salvator Rosa, and the accuracy of a Gilbert White. "Poiet.-The scenery improves as we advance nearer the lower parts of the lake. The mountains become higher, and that small island or peninsula presents a bold craggy outline; and the birch wood below it, and the pines above, make a scene somewhat Alpine in character. But what is that large bird soaring above the pointed rock, towards the end of the lake? Surely it is an eagle! "Hal.-You are right, it is an eagle, and of a rare and peculiar species-the grey or silver eagle, a noble bird! From the size of the animal, it must be the female; and her aery is in that high rock. I dare say the male is not far off. “ Phys.—I think I see another bird, of a smaller size, perched on the rock below, which is similar in form. "Hal.-You do: it is the consort of that beautiful and powerful bird; and I have no doubt their young ones are not far off. "Poiet.-Look at the bird! She dashes into the water, falling like a rock, and raising a column of spray; she has fallen from a great height. And now she rises again into the air; what an extraordinary sight! “Hal.—She is pursuing her prey, and is one of our fraternity, -a catcher of fish. She has missed her quarry this time, and has moved further down towards the river, and falls again from a great height. There! You see her rise with a fish in her talons. "Poiet. She gives an interest which I hardly expected to have found to this scene. Pray are there many of these animals in this country? "Hal.-Of this species I have seen but these two, and I believe the young ones migrate as soon as they can provide for themselves; for this solitary bird requires a large space to move and feed in, and does not allow its offspring to partake its reign or to live near it. Of other species of the eagle, there are some in different parts of the mountains, particularly of the Osprey; and of the great fishing or brown eagle; and I once saw a very fine and interesting sight in one of the crags of Ben Weevis, near Strathgarve, as I was going, on the 20th of August, in pursuit of black game. Two parent eagles were teaching their offspring-two young birds, the manœuvres of flight. They began by rising from the top of a mountain in the eye of the sun (it was about mid-day and bright for this climate). They at first made small circles, and the young birds imitated them; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a second and larger gyration,-always rising towards the sun, and enlarging their circle of flight so as to make a gradually extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, apparently flying better as they mounted; and they continued this sublime kind of exercise, always rising till they became mere points in the air, and the young ones were lost, and afterwards their parents, to our aching sight. But we have touched the shore, and the lake has terminated: you are now on the river Ewe."-Pp. 84-86. In like manner our ancient Piscator's habits make us acquainted with the snug honest English alehouse, where they find a cleanly room, sweet-briars and honeysuckles peeping into the windows, and Chevy Chace, the Children in the Wood, the Spanish Lady's Love, and twenty ballads more, stuck about the walls; where the landlady is tidy, and handsome, and civil; where they dress a chub so admirably as to equal a trout, and wash him down with a modest cup of the best home-brewed; where they tell tales, sing songs, or join in a catch, or find some other harmless sport to content them without offence to God or man, until it is time to occupy a bed where the linen looks white, and smells of lavender. Halieus and his company__repose themselves, on the contrary, in the elegant villas of Denham or Downton, or the lordly castles of Inverara or Dunrobin, partake of chère exquise, and give philosophic rules for the practice of Apicius. Or else the sportsmen are the romantic inhabitants of some Irish cabin or Scotch bothy, where they dress their own salmon with sauce a la Tartare, and dilute it with mountain dew and claret cooled in the next spring. And here, lest we be accused of passing over the most interesting and edifying passage of the volume, we will communicate to the curious gastronome, a circumstance of which, if his travels have been limited as those of Isaak Walton, we suspect he is not aware. The salmon exposed to sale in London, in however excellent condition, very, very rarely is, or can be had in what those who inhabit the banks of a salmon-stream account the first perfection. Halieus gives us the following tempting account of the proper preparation of the fish, where extraordinary attention is employed. It succeeds an account of hooking and playing a salmon in Loch Maree. "Hal.-He seems fairly tired: I shall bring him in to shore. Now gaff him; strike as near the tail as you can. He is safe; we must prepare him for the pot. Give him a stunning blow on the head to deprive him of sensation, and then give him a transverse cut just below the gills, and crimp him by cutting to the bone on each side, so as almost to divide him into slices; and now hold him by the tail that he may bleed. There is a small |