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Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher North speaks rather slightingly. Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well worth reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but because it exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom. Charles Kingsley was another great man who wrote well about angling. His CHALK-STREAM STUDIES are clear and sparkling. They cleanse the mind and refresh the heart and put us more in love with living. Of quite a different style are the MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER, AND MISERIES OF FISHING, which were written by Richard Penn, a grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania. This is a curious and rare little volume, professing to be a compilation from the "Common Place Book of the Houghton Fishing Club," and dealing with the subject from a Pickwickian point of view. I suppose that William Penn would have thought his grandson a frivolous writer.

But he could not have entertained such an opinion of the Honourable Robert Boyle, of whose OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS no less than twelve discourses treat "of Angling Improved to Spiritual Uses." The titles of some of these discourses are quaint enough to quote. "Upon the being called upon to rise early on a very fair morning." "Upon the mounting, singing, and lighting of larks." "Upon fishing with a counterfeit fly." "Upon a danger arising from an unseasonable contest with the steersman." "Upon one's drinking water out of the brim of his hat." With such good texts it is easy to endure, and easier still to spare, the sermons.

Englishmen carry their love of travel into their anglimania, and many of their books describe fishing adventures in foreign parts. RAMBLES WITH A FISHING-ROD, by E. S. Roscoe, tells of happy days in the Salzkammergut and the Bavarian Highlands and Normandy. FISH-TAILS AND A FEW OTHERS, by Bradnock Hall, contains some delightful chapters on Norway. THE ROD IN INDIA, by H. S. Thomas, narrates wonderful adventures with the Mahseer and the Rohu and other pagan fish.

But, after all, I like the English angler best when he travels at home, and writes of dry-fly fishing in the Itchen or the Test, or of wet-fly fishing in Northumberland or Sutherlandshire. There is a fascinating booklet that appeared quietly, some years ago, called AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE. It runs as easily and merrily and kindly as a little river, full of peace and pure enjoyment. Other books of the same quality have since been written by the same pen,--DAYS IN CLOVER, FRESH WOODS, BY MEADOW AND STREAM. It is no secret, I believe, that the author is Mr. Edward Marston, the senior member of a London publishing-house. But he still clings to his retiring pen-name of "The Amateur Angler," and represents himself, by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else would dare to take.