ulties in making himself understood by the French customs
officers.

In like manner I am a fender-fisherman. With my shins toasting before
a roaring fire, and with Judge Methuen at my side, I love to exploit
the joys and the glories of angling. The Judge is "a brother of the
angle," as all will allow who have heard him tell Father Prout's story
of the bishop and the turbots or heard him sing--

With angle rod and lightsome heart,
Our conscience clear, we gay depart
To pebbly brooks and purling streams,
And ne'er a care to vex our dreams.

And how could the lot of the fender-fisherman be happier? No colds,
quinsies or asthmas follow his incursions into the realms of fancy
where in cool streams and peaceful lakes a legion of chubs and trouts
and sawmon await him; in fancy he can hie away to the far-off Yalrow
and once more share the benefits of the companionship of Kit North, the
Shepherd, and that noble Edinburgh band; in fancy he can trudge the
banks of the Blackwater with the sage of Watergrasshill; in fancy he
can hear the music of the Tyne and feel the wind sweep cool and fresh
o'er Coquetdale; in fancy, too, he knows the friendships which only he
can know--the friendships of the immortals whose spirits hover where
human love and sympathy attract them.

How well I love ye, O my precious books--my Prout, my Wilson, my
Phillips, my Berners, my Doubleday, my Roxby, my Chatto, my Thompson,
my Crawhall! For ye are full of joyousness and cheer, and your songs
uplift me and make me young and strong again.

And thou, homely little brown thing with worn leaves, yet more precious
to me than all jewels of the earth--come, let me take thee from thy
shelf and hold thee lovingly in my hands and press thee tenderly to
this aged and slow-pulsing heart of mine! Dost thou remember how I
found thee half a century ago all tumbled in a lot of paltry trash?
Did I not joyously possess thee for a sixpence, and have I not
cherished thee full sweetly all these years? My Walton, soon must we
part forever; when I am gone say unto him who next shall have thee to
his own that with his latest breath an old man blessed thee!

VIII

BALLADS AND THEIR MAKERS

One of the most interesting spots in all London to me is Bunhill Fields
cemetery, for herein are the graves of many whose memory I revere. I
had heard that Joseph Ritson was buried here, and while my sister, Miss
Susan, lingered at the grave of her favorite poet,