ous glooms; and out of their black arches shall come tripping children, like white fairies, to laugh and talk with the girl who lies dreaming and reading in the hammock there, beneath the black velvet canopy of the great cedar-tree, like some fair Tropic flower hanging from its boughs. Then they shall wander down across the smooth-shorn lawn, where the purple rhododendrons hang double, bush and image, over the water's edge, and call to us across the stream, "What sport?" and the old Squire shall beckon the keeper over the long stone bridge, and return with him bringing luncheon and good ale; and we will sit down, and eat and drink among the burdock leaves, and then watch the quiet house, and lawn, and flowers, and fair human creatures, and shining water, all sleeping breathless in the glorious light beneath the glorious blue, till we doze off, lulled by the murmur of a thousand insects, and the rich minstrelsy of nightingale and blackcap, thrush and dove. Peaceful, graceful, complete English country life and country houses,- everywhere finish and polish, Nature perfected by the wealth and art of peaceful centuries! Why should I exchange you, even for the sight of all the Alps, for bad roads, bad carriages, bad inns, bad food, bad washing, bad beds, and fleas, fleas, fleas? Let that last thought be enough. There may be follies, there may be sorrows, there may be sins (though I know there are no very heavy ones), in that fine old house opposite; but thanks to the genius of my native land, there are, at least, no fleas. Think of that, wandering friend; and of this, also, that you will find your warm bath ready when you go to bed to-night, and your cold one when you rise to-morrow morning; and in content and thankfulness, stay in England and be clean. Here, then, let us lounge a full two hours, too comfortable and too tired to care for fishing, till the hall-bell rings for that dinner which we, as good anglers, will despise. Then we will make our way to the broad reaches above the house. The evening breeze should be ruffling it gallantly; and see, the fly is getting up. The countless thousands are rising off the grass and flickering to and fro above the stream. Stand still a moment, and you will hear the air full of the soft rustle of innumerable wings. Hundreds more, even more delicate and gauzy, are rising through the water and floating helplessly along the surface, as Aphrodite may have done when she rose in the Egean, half frightened at the sight of the new upper world. And, see, the great trout are moving everywhere. Fish, too large and well fed to care for the fly at any other season, who have been lounging among the weeds all day and snapping at passing minnows, have come to the surface; and are feeding steadily, splashing five or six times in succession, and then going down awhile to bolt their mouthful of victims; while here and there a heavy silent swirl tells of a fly taken before it has reached the surface, untimely slain before it has seen the day. Now, -put your green drake on; and throw, regardless of bank fishing or any other rule, wherever you see a fish rise. Do not work your flies in the least, but let them float down over the fish, or sink, if they will; he is more likely to take them under water than on the top. And mind this rule: be patient with your fish; and do not fancy that because he does not rise to you the first or the tenth time, therefore he will not rise at all. He may have filled his mouth and gone down to gorge; and when he comes up again, if your fly be the first which he meets, he will probably seize it greedily, and all the more so if it be under water, so seeming drowned and helpless. Besides, a fish seldom rises twice Put on a dropper of some kind, say a caperer, as a second chance. I almost prefer the dark claretspinner, with which I have killed very large fish alternately with the green drake, even when it was quite dark; and for your stretcher, of course, a green drake. For a blustering evening like this, your drake can hardly be too large or too rough; in brighter and stiller weather, the fish often prefer a fly half the size of the natural one. Only bear in mind, that the most tempting form among these millions of drakes is that one whose wings are very little colored at all, of a pale greenish yellow; whose body is strawcolored, and his head, thorax, and legs, spotted with dark brown,best represented by a pheasant or coch-a-bonddhu hackle. The best imitation of this, or of any drake, which I have ever seen, is one by Mr. Macgowan, whilome of Ballyshannon, now of No. 7, Bruton Street, Berkeley Square, whose drakes, known by a waxy body of some mysterious material, do surpass those of all other men, and should be known and honored, far and wide. But failing them, you may do well with a E 3 t t drake which is ribbed through the whole length with red hackle over a straw-colored body. A Northcountryman would laugh at it, and ask us how we fancy that fish will mistake for that delicate waxy fly a heavy rough palmer, made heavier and rougher by two thick tufts of yellow mallard wing; but if he will fish therewith, he will catch trout; and mighty ones they will be. I have found, again and again, this drake, in which the hackle is ribbed all down the body, beat a bare-bodied one in the ratio of three fish to one. The reason is difficult to guess. Perhaps the shining, transparent hackle gives the fly more of the waxy look of the natural insect; or, perhaps, the "buzzy" look of the fly causes the fish to mistake it for one half-emerged from its pupa case, fluttering, entangled, and helpless. But whatever be the cause, I am sure of the fact. Now, silence and sport for the next three hours. * * * * * There! All things must end. It is so dark that I have been fishing for the last five minutes without any end fly; and we have lost our last two fish simply by not being able to guide them into the net. But what an evening's sport we have had! Beside several over a pound, which I have thrown in, (I trust you have been generous, and done likewise,) there are six fish averaging two pounds apiece; and what is the weight of that monster with whom I saw you wrestling dimly through the dusk, your legs stuck knee-deep in a mud-bank, your head embowered in nettles, while the keeper waltzed round you, roaring mere incoherencies ?-four pounds, full. Now, is there any sherry left in the flask? No. Then we will give the keeper five shillings; he is well worth his pay; and then drag our weary limbs toward the hall to bath and bed, while you confess, I trust, that you may get noble sport, hard exercise, and lovely scenery, without going sixty miles from London town. ALEXANDER SMITH AND ALEXANDER POPE. [Fraser's Magazine, October, 1853.] ON reading this little book,* and considering all the exaggerated praise and exaggerated blame which have been lavished on it, we could not help falling into many thoughts about the history of English poetry for the last forty years, and about its future destiny. Great poets, even true poets, are becoming more and more rare among us. There are those, even, who say that we have none; an assertion which, as long as Mr. Tennyson lives, we shall take the liberty of denying. But were he, which Heaven forbid, taken from us, whom have we to succeed him? And he, too, is rather a poet of the sunset, than of the dawn, of the autumn, than of the spring. His gorgeousness is that of the solemn and fading year; not of its youth, full of hope, freshness, gay and unconscious life. Like some stately hollyhock or dahlia of this month's gardens, he endures while all other flowers are dying; but all around is winter, a mild one, perhaps, wherein a few annuals or pretty field weeds still linger on; but, like all mild winters, especially prolific in fungi, which, too, are not without their gaudiness, even their beauty, although bred only from the decay of higher organisms, the plagiarists of the vegetable world. Such is poetry in England; while in America, the case is not much better. What more enormous "Poems," by ALEXANDER SMITH. London: Bogue. 1853. |