sider angling as an innocent amusement; or if it can with any truth be deemed so, it is (in my opinion at least) when practised with artificial flies, or with salmon-roe, or some other bait not possessing life. To use a living frog, or a minnow or other fish, as is often done, with the hook thrust through its skin, cannot, surely, be called an innocent employment. Though worms seem to have a very delicate sense of touch, and though they seem to suffer much when impaled on the hook, I am not certain that the pain they endure can be compared in intensity with that felt by animals of a higher class under the infliction of similar injuries. Still, however, though we may admit that the worm transfixed by a hook may not experience excessive pain, yet it must still undergo no inconsiderable degree of suffering; and that ought to be sufficient to deter a man of sensibility and humane feelings from pursuing an amusement, if so it must be called, which is to be accomplished by the torture of a weak and helpless creature. There is something, too, appalling in the idea of an animal being impaled on a steel hook, and seeing it writhe in pain, and that only for our sport. In the case of a fisherman by profession, who has to depend on his own skill and exertion for his daily bread, the thing is different

he must obtain the fish by any means which his ingenuity can invent: but I must regret that so many who are under no such necessity, and especially that men of education and cultivated minds, should condescend to follow this petty employment as a recreation. There is a source of enjoyment in the very scenes where they are thus engaged for hours in capturing, or trying to capture, a few trouts, of a description transcendently pleasing and instructive beyond what could possibly be derived from any such occupation. And what, you will ask, is that? -I answer, the study of nature.

Suppose that you were in a great gallery of exquisite paintings, but that you knew nothing whatever either of the landscapes, the figures, or the architecture represented in them, or of the artists by whom they were executed; do you pretend to say, that you could have as much pleasure in looking at the pictures, as if you knew their whole history, or even a part of it? "No," you will reply; "but still I could admire their beauty, and the skill of the painter." Yes, my young friend; but even here you may, in some degree, be deceiving yourself. You may admire a fine painting as you would a fine and real prospect in nature; but let me tell you, that both in nature and in paintings, people see

things very differently from each other. Suppose an artist were to join you in the picture gallery, would he and you see in all points alike, think you? No; he would observe a thousand beauties, a thousand things to give him delight, and inspire him with enthusiasm, of which you could have no conception: and the same would happen also, were you placed in natural scenery together. You, indeed, would see the landscape, and you might think it beautiful; but while you were only seeing, he would be analysing. The effects of light and shade, the groupings of trees, the contrasts and blendings of tints, the aërial perspective, the composition of parts or of the whole, with various other particulars, would find important employment for his thoughts, and give him a vast advantage over the comparatively cold and passive impressions which these characteristic properties of landscape would make on your mind. Now, I may observe that this is a species of study which I would wish you to attend to. You may neither have time nor talent to become a practical artist, but still you may become a good judge of painting, and consequently see nature herself with a painter's eye; and that, let me tell you, is to see her almost through the medium of a new sense.

...I would recommend particularly the practice of sketching from nature. A sketch taken on the spot serves to perpetuate, as it were, the circumstances in which we were at the time placed, and recals, even many years afterwards, a vivid recollection of scenes which otherwise, perhaps, might have faded from the memory.

To return to our gallery: you see before you a portrait, but you know not for whom it is meant. Should you not, therefore, enquire whose it is? Surely: well, you learn that it is Sir Isaac Newton's. Does this produce any revolution in your thoughts and feelings? do you merely see a picture now, and nothing farther? do not the very tints reflected from the canvass speak of that mighty genius who decomposed the solar ray, and demonstrated, in all the majesty of truth, the compound nature of light? Does not the mere name of Newton, at once connect your thoughts with the great law of gravitation, that binds the planets in their course, and regulates the motions of countless worlds? and for the discovery of this law, do you not venerate the name when sounded in your ear? and would you not feel impressed with a generous awe even on seeing the portrait of that great philosopher? Yes; you could not help it. And why? Because you

are acquainted with his discoveries and character. But if you knew nothing of these — had you never heard of Newton - would your being told whom the picture meant to represent, excite any mental emotion? No; because it could make no chord of feeling vibrate, and the picture would not be one whit more high in your estimation than at first. The word Newton could throw no hallowed charm over it, if you knew nothing about him; and you would consider it merely as a painted canvass. No portrait of Newton does, I believe, exist: but this makes little difference, that of any other great man will support my illustration, and it needs not be amplified.

Now this is exactly what occurs so often in the great temple (gallery I cannot call it) of nature. A man will go armed with his fishing tackle, and will spend whole hours day after day at a river's side, fishing for trout. He sees the animals, the plants, the rocks, the various features of the scenery, the sky above, and the flood below: he may be pleased, be charmed with them, if he choose to think so, and yet, in the midst of much light, he may be in comparative darkness. What are the animals, the plants, the landscapes, to him, if he know nothing more than simply that they are such? There is a