ine writers of our times who
could make a better book on such a subject to-day,--with all the added
information, and all the practice of the newspaper-columns. What Walton
wants to say he says. You can make no mistake about his meaning; all is
as lucid as the water of a spring. He does not play upon your wonderment
with tropes. There is no chicane of the pen; he has some pleasant
matters to tell of, and he tells of them--straight.

Another great charm about Walton is his childlike truthfulness. I think
he is almost the only earnest trout-fisher I ever knew (unless Sir
Humphrey Davy be excepted) whose report could be relied upon for the
weight of a trout. I have many excellent friends--capital
fishermen--whose word is good upon most concerns of life, but in this
one thing they cannot be confided in. I excuse it; I take off twenty per
cent. from their estimates without either hesitation, anger, or
reluctance.

I do not think I should have trusted in such a matter Charles Cotton,
although he was agricultural as well as piscatory,--having published a
"Planter's Manual." I think he could, and did, draw a long bow. I
suspect innocent milkmaids were not in the habit of singing Kit
Marlowe's songs to the worshipful Mr. Cotton.

One pastoral remains to mention, published at the very opening of the
year 1600, and spending its fine forest-aroma thenceforward all down the
century. I mean Shakspeare's play of "As You Like It."

From beginning to end the grand old forest of Arden is astir overhead;
from beginning to end the brooks brawl in your ear; from beginning to
end you smell the bruised ferns and the delicate-scented wood-flowers.
It is Theocritus again, with the civilization of the added centuries
contributing its spangles of reason, philosophy, and grace. Who among
all the short-kirtled damsels of all the eclogues will match us this
fair, lithe, witty, capricious, mirthful, buxom Rosalind? Nowhere in
books have we met with her like,--but only at some long-gone picnic in
the woods, where we worshipped "blushing sixteen" in dainty boots and
white muslin. There, too, we met a match for sighing Orlando,--mirrored
in the water; there, too, some diluted Jaques may have "moralized" the
excursion for next day's "Courier," and some lout of a Touchstone (there
are always such in picnics) passed the ices, made poor puns, and won
more than his share of the smiles.

Walton is English all over; but "As You Like It" is as broad as the