PLATE I.

"BY HOOK AND BY CROOK."

ENGRAVED BY BECKWITH, FROM A SKETCH BY TOPHAM.

"Who beholds his mortal foe

Stretched at his feet, applauds the glorious deed."

SOMERVILLE.

The great Lord Byron abused angling

"He did! then he could not have been good as well as great." The great Lord Byron, we repeat, abused angling. As to his being a great man, there is very little doubt about that; and, what is yet more, his opinions generally carried a great deal of weight with them; and weight, as we say on the turf, must and will tell.

"Then you mean to say that-"

No, we don't; we don't mean to say anything of the sort. But what we do mean to say is, that his lordship, in this case, knew nothing whatever of the sport which he took upon himself to condemn; and as to paying any attention to these kind of opinions, why we should as soon think of asking Sir Robert Peel what's to win the Goodwood Cup, or the well-known Mr. Gregory how to amend the law of libel.

"O come, come-now you speak something like a-"

Stop a minute, good friend, we haven't done with him yet. The same noble lord and noble poet sneered at fox-hunting; and the Englishman who could do that would abuse his own country or his own abilities.

"Bravo, bravo!"

The man who delights in snarling at the rational amusements of his fellow-men- —we don't care who or how high he is, lord-lieutenant for the county, or six feet three without his shoes-we would say it to his face, is not a man but a man-hater; and why for a moment should really manly fellows, and right good sportsmen, trouble themselves as to what a wretched tub-hugging cynic thinks or says about them? "Lord Byron and his opinions be-"

Gently, gently, gently! Come now, we won't give his ideas another thought, but go regularly on as if we had never heard his name. A more unpretending, or a more harmless, recreation than fishing we know not, nor one by which the powers of mind or body could be more benefited; and yet, setting aside the attacks on the disciple of

Master Izaak, which sheer malice and all uncharitableness alone are accountable for, even brother sportsmen cannot resist now and then having a rap at him.

"Eh! Patience on a monument, had much sport?" and then, without waiting for an answer, going off with an aside-"The old story, I see, a fool at one end and a flat at the other-must be a flat fish indeed to be gammoned by such a fellow as that."

But Piscator can well afford to echo the laugh, and keep the even tenor of his way rejoicing, though perhaps unnoticed. This last fact, bythe-bye, has often struck us as the reason why angling, though so gentle and (in many respects) so lady-like an amusement, is still far from enjoying a very great share of aristocratic or fashionable patronage; and why those who continue, season after season, to frequent the burn-side must be really fond of the sport as a sport, and not be induced rather by something appertaining to it to declare themselves, and appear as fishermen. There is here none of that blaze of beauty and fashion that attend the high-mettled racer to lure the exquisite to study "the gentle science;" small field have we for the would-be hero to disport his prowess and his turn-out, in comparison with the crowd and pomp he is certain of meeting by meeting the foxhounds. The expense is less, the danger less, the excitement less, and

"Anything you please, Mr. Editor, but the real pleasure, and on that point we yield to none."

Look at him creeping down of a May morning, through the dewy meadows or long winding lanes, in an almost seedy jacket and really "shocking bad hat," perhaps without a companion to cheer him on his way, or, if he has one, as in the moment of victory so beautifully depicted in our print, it must be one, and not a whole party; at such a time he delights not to hear the shouts of thousands proclaiming his success; he raises not the maddening who-whoop, in the outbreak of esctasy, which shall draw together the neighbouring villagers to admire the triumph he has achieved; even the good report with which "the dead shot" announces every feather bagged, he gladly dispenses with; and though all is "triumph now and joy," all is quiet and unassuming. For all this, Master Piscator is as pleasant a companion and as welcome a guest, wherever he goes, as any of his more rattling and seemingly more important contemporaries-quite as agreeable, if not quite so troublesome; and if he does not value himself at exactly so high a figue, not a bit the worse for that.

Let us indulge ourselves with our favourite watchword-"Proof," and, as the lawyers say, "take a case or two in point." Well, you are a country gentleman, a magistrate, a clergyman-or, if you will, take the yokel's definition, "a man as does nothing at all for his living"-you are blessed with a tidy little fortune, with a wife, and an establishment on the same moderate terms, and in fact, in a small way-and that is the only way-as comfortable as need be. To proceed:-About the middle of September, October, November, or somewhere about that time, we won't be nice to a day or two, you are agreeably surprised, at breakfast, by the information, that your old