The angling in the Highlands has doubtless undergone considerable changes since the days of Noah, but not much within our memory-and that little has perhaps improved its character. Streams hidden half a century ago in pine forests, and chilled by perpetual shade, are now animated by sun and wind, and prolific of fly-loving life. The natives used to be negroes, with an occasional Albino-now their skins are brown and speckled, like that of other Celts. The strath-rivers roll now, in many parts of their course, through cultured plains; and the borders of many a loch, not long ago with stunted wood all horrid, are green as emerald, or yellow as gold, with cowpastures alternating with barley fields, and huts that in those regions may be called cottages though you may lay your loof on the mouth of the novel chimney. In many places there is less moss-water-hags have been drained and you hear by its voice that purer is the element. But if we get off on a description, there will be no stopping us till we run bounce against another Article-so let us merely say that, forgetting few furnaces and other manufactories, angling has improved in the Highlands with the aspect of the improvable country, while it remains the same in the regions of rock and mountain, and an atmosphere enclosing for ever the mist and cloud. Tis an awful thing to stand-all alone by oneself in the noise of one of those far-off and high-up waterfalls -yet a strange desperation infatuates you to leap into the caldron, which, though it seems boiling, heartsickens you as you come bubbling up from the blackness, with antarctic cold. Few or no trouts there-but the fresh-run salmon, white as silver, from the sea, in vain shoots up through the rainbowed thunder, in source-seeking instinct, and falls back into the foaming eddies, taking his pastime where the river-horse would be whirled like a leaf, and sucked snorting into the jaws of death.

a

That is pretty well. We never read a bad article or book about anglingand many is the admirable article we have written on the silent trade. Perhaps it might be best of all treated in a poem in the Spenserian stanza, with notes. We have such a poem lying by us, but not in a finished state, and wish some younger brother of the rod and quill would polish it up a bit for us, till it is about as spirited as Somerville's Chase, and as elegant as Beattie's Minstrel. Another favourite scheme of ours is to publish the Transactions of the Edinburgh Anglimaniacal Club-or, rather, a selection in three volumes, crown octavo-which might be the Angler's Vade-mecum in sæcula sæcu lorum.

But our brain has lately conceived a still more magnificent idea-that of the Establishment of a Universal Union of Angling Clubs-the first celebration to be held on the river Ewes-and the tents of the Union to be pitched among the silvan rocks through which that river rushes from Loch Maree. We now elect ourselves Grand Master by acclamation-the Shepherd poet-laureatArchibald Goldie, Esq. secretaryDavid Kinnear, Esq. treasurer-the Rev. Hamilton Paul, chaplain-Sir Morgan O'Doherty, standard bearer and champion-and patroness, (we humbly hope by permission,) our most gracious Queen-Adelaide the Beloved.

Let Great Britain and Ireland think on this idea.

Meanwhile here is a wee bit bookie written by a true angler-and we are only sorry that it is but a wee bit bookie-and wish that instead of 160 small pages, with an appendix, it had consisted of twice that number o' lang leaves, for it is inspired with the right spirit, and must have a place in every library-shelf Walton.

We were never in Coquetdale, but should be happy to have a holiday there with Stephen Oliver. You must allow us to introduce to you that pleasant worthy and his companion Burrell.

A DAY IN COQUETDALE.

"Towards the end of July, or the beginning of August, I have for some years past been accustomed to take a trip into Roxburghshire, to spend a few weeks with a friend; and as I travel at my lei

sure, I always enjoy a few days' fishing by the way. Sometimes I pitch my tent in the neighbourhood of Weldon Bridge, for the sake of a cast in the Coquet; sometimes I take up my quarters with honest Sandy Macgregor, at the Tankerville Arms, Wooler, to enjoy a few days fishing in the Glen and the Till; and occasionally I drive up to Yetholm to have a day's sport in the Bowmont, with that patriarch of gipsies and prince of fishers, old Will Faa; as good a fly-fisher as is to be met with between Berwick and Dumfries, in which tract of country are to be found some of the best anglers in the kingdom.

"There are not many trout streams in England more likely to afford a week's recreation to the fly-fisher than the Coquet; nor would it be an easy matter to point out a river on the whole more interesting, and affording better sport. The angler may undoubtedly take larger trouts at Driffield, and from streams more secluded bring home a heavier creel; but for a week's fair fishing, from Linnshiels to Warkworth, the Coquet is perhaps surpassed by none. The natural scenery of its banks is beautiful, independent of the interest excited by the ruins of Brinkburn Priory, and the Hermitage of Warkworth; and its waters, clear as diamond spark,' present in their course every variety of smooth water, rapids, and pools, for the exercise of the angler's skill.

"Last year I took my usual route, intending to spend a day or two in Coquetdale, accompanied by a friend, an amateur both of fishing and of sketching, but more expert at taking a view than taking a trout. We were approaching the village where we intended to stop, when my companion's attention was arrested by a striking object, and immediately his sketch-book was out. Pull up a few minutes, Oliver,' said he; look at that gibbet-did you ever see any thing so picturesque! A raven, too-the very type, the beau-idéal of "der Rabenstein," which is introduced with such powerful effect in the German drama. There is only a subject wanting to render the coup d'œil complete.'

"Upon looking in the direction pointed out by my friend, there certainly did appear something like a gibbet at a short distance across the moor, with a jackdaw or a crow cutting a few odd capers on the cross-beam. Did you ever see any thing like it, Oliver?' continued my friend, ' a real gibbet, and on that lonely spot! I suppose some poor traveller has lost his life there, and that is the gibbet of his murderer. I have a capital thought!

It is only a short mile to where

we put up; I shall try to persuade the hostler to come out with me to-morrow, and just hang himself up by the arms for half an hour, till I complete a sketch from the living model. My friend Hatchwell will engrave the thing-the particulars of the murder I can pick up at the inn, and "whip them up in my own style," as Yorick says, and, presto, there is a tale of the "fashionably terrific" at once. The whole subject is as plainly before me as if, like Coleridge, I had been dreaming about it. Describe the murderer as a fine, strapping, bawk-nosed, blackwhiskered fellow, the very beau idéal of one of Eastlake's banditti; make a wheyfaced, sentimental girl in love with him, and let her be found one morning dead at the gibbet foot. I shall send it with the illustration to the, that Phoenix of Annuals, where it may serve as a pendant to one of my Lord Bombast's pieces of sentimental horror, or as a foil to bring out the refined beauties that are so ingeniously concealed in the fascinating productions of Lady Lyrick.'

"My dear Burrell, not a word more of this nonsense; say nothing to the hostler, unless you wish to make us a standing jest to every angler that visits the place. Get done with your sketch, raven and all; write your tale where you like, only tell no more of it here.' The sketch-book was now closed, and in the course of a few minutes we were at the door of the Black Bull's Head, where the landlord was standing ready to receive us.

"Landlord. Good day, sir, good dayyou are welcome back to this part of the country. The guard of the Wellington told us that you would be here at one, and you are very punctual to your time. I hope you have been well since you were last in Coquetdale-I am glad to see you again at the Black Bull's Head.

"Oliver. Thank you, Mr Burn, thank you; how are all my old fishing acquaintances in this part of the country,—how is my friend the Vicar?

"Landlord. O, he's bravely, sir; still fishing away, and talking about it as much as ever, but just catching as few trout as before. He called with Mr Bell only half an hour since, to enquire if you had arrived, but he was rather out of humour. He had been out at the water early this morning-thinking to surprise you with what he had taken, I suspect and the de'il a thing did he catch, but half a dozen bits o' trouts not bigger than my thumb.

"Oliver. Do you know whereabouts he was?—I should have thought, from the rain we had yesterday, that this would have been a most favourable morning for fishing.

"All. The Duke of Northumberland! Burrell. He is a pleasant-looking man the Duke, but, I should think, rather too pale-faced to be an angler. Does he ever amuse himself with the rod, Mr Todburn?

"Rev. J. T. Not now, I believe, though he was once rather fond of the sport. But he was always better with the gun than the rod, and could walk better than he

could either shoot or fish.

"Burrell. Indeed! I should never have

taken his Grace to have been much of a pedestrian.

"Rev. J. T. Then you are mistaken. About twenty years ago, I durst have matched him against the whole body of the aristocracy, and thrown the House of Commons into the bargain, either for an bour's breathing, or a long day's walk. From Alnwick to Alnmouth and back is ten miles; and, when Earl Percy, he often performed this distance in two hours, merely as a walk before breakfast. The distance from Alnwick to Keilder Castle, on the western border of Northumberland, is upwards of forty miles

of bad road, and over a hilly country; and he has frequently walked it, on the 11th of August, with his gun over his shoulder, and his shot-belts about him, and reached Keilder before dinner, and started next morning with the lark for the moors.

"Burrell. He must have been a second Captain Barclay in those days. He should walk a little more now; he is growing too fat and listless. The Duchess is of pious and domestic habits, I understand; conducts a ladies' penny-a-week tract society in Alnwick; and has the finest breed of pigs in the kingdom.

"Bell. You are out there. There may be some truth about the pigs; but as to the penny-a-week concern, some one has been hoaxing you, or perhaps you are treating us with a slice of your own gammon.'-Allow me now to give a toast; it needs no long preface, but when the thing is in my mind I must notice it. You have observed the Black Bull's Head that swings so bravely at our landlord's door? That is the crest of the Widdringtons, whose pennon has been unfurled in a hundred Border forays. I shall give you their descendant, the Lord of the Manor-Riddell of Felton.

"All. Riddell of Felton!

"Oliver. Thank you for your toast, and its introduction, Mr Bell. I knew not that the owner of Felton Hall, within whose ground I have so often fished, 'tracked his parent stream' to so noble a source. Who has not heard of Widdrington, that gallant squire ?'

For Wetharynton my harte was wo,
That ever he slayne shulde be;
For when both his leggis were hewyne in to,
Yet he kneled and fought on his kne.'

"Bell. One might suppose that you had been born in Coquetdale, you are so ready with the Hyntynge of the Chyviot.— But I should like now to hear a little of your fishing. I suspect that you have returned with an empty creel, or we should have heard something of your ex ploits before this; for anglers are not accustomed to be silent on their success. I

should like to see your take-a couple of thorney-backs, perch par courtesie; half a dozen minnows, and an eel; but not a single trout, except the dozen which you would buy in coming home, to save your selves from being laughed at.

"Oliver. Thorney-backs and minnows! -I should like much to catch a few of your trouts. But you shall see. Waiter, let the hostler bring up that hamper of trouts and the pike which we caught this afternoon. A pike-it is a halberd of a fish-a very weaver's beam!

Enter HOSTLER, with a tolerably well-filled

basket of trouts and a pike.

"Bell. Well done! These are something better than thorney-backs, after all. I dare say you have nearly a stone and a half of trouts here, and some of them really prime ones. You have been lucky in hooking the skeggers to-day; if you continue as you have begun, you will rouse the jealousy of your brother anglers.

"Oliver. Skeggers! Why surely you do not call those fine trouts, of from two to three pounds weight, skeggers? I do not think there is a single skegger amongst

them.

"Bell. There you are wrong—and prove that you are better acquainted with Izaak Walton than with the trouts of the Coquet, notwithstanding the numerous visits you have paid to this part of the country. The trout which Walton describes as the samlet, or skegger, is the small brandling trout of the Coquet: but the trout which we here call the skegger is a large one, almost like a bull trout, and the name is derived from an old word, 'to skug'-to seek covert or shelter; for these trouts are mostly found under the shadow of a bank or projecting rock, and they are by some called alder or alter trouts, in consequence of their haunting the roots of alder-trees, that grow by the side of the stream. Since I have alluded to etymologies, I must go one step further to notice, that'skug' is most probably derived from the Moso-Gothic Skydga,' to shadow or cover; and that the mountain Skiddaw, in Cumberland, probably owes its name to the same source. Skygddha the dark shadow-is admirably expressive of its character when seen from the foot of Withop, before the sun has illumined the south-western side, and when its dark shade is extended over the vale of Derwent. But what a famous pike you have caught; I have seldom seen such a one taken in this part of the country. What weight is he?

"Oliver. Ten pounds three ounces; length from eye to fork, two feet seven

inches and three sixteenths, by the exciseman's rod.

"Rev. J. T. That is not a Coquet-bred fish; he must have escaped from some pond or loch during the late rains. Pray where did you take him?

"Oliver. In the deep pool a little above Brinkburn. I observed him lying at his ease near the surface of the water, and tried him first with a small trout, which he would not look at. I then put on an artificial frog with a double snap, which I had among my baits, and he seized it in a moment. I struck as soon as he turned, and luckily hooked him; and directly that he felt himself pricked, swoop! he was off like a whale. I let him have about forty yards of line, though not too gently, before I attempted to check him. I then was obliged to put my tackle to the test, as he was likely to gain, had I allowed him more line, a rocky part of the stream. When I found that my tackle would hold him, I began to wind him gently back, and had got him, after a good deal of manoeuvring, within twenty yards of the end of the rod, when off he went again. He repeated this three or four times, growing weaker every sweep he took, till at last I got so far master of him as to draw him to the shore, where Burrell landed him with a gaff.

"Rev J. T. But how did you come by the trouts? I was out myself this morning, and only caught half-a-dozen which were scarcely worth bringing home; and yet I ought to know something of Coquet, and I am persuaded that you could not have more suitable flies, for I always make my own.

"Oliver. We began at Piperhaugh, and fished down to Weldon Bridge. At first we had only indifferent success till we tried a fly recommended by our landlord, the red-hackle, and afterwards we had no reason to complain. We got the greatest number between Brinkburn and Weldon. At the commencement I was inclined to blame my friend Burrell for our want of success; for the trout is a sly fish, that appears to be instinctively aware of the danger that awaits him when a scientific angler is in company, and carefully keeps himself out of harm's way.

"Burrell. You practical anglers always claim the privilege of laughing at the novice, until he perceives that your pretended mystery is a mere bag of smoke, and becomes as wise as one of yourselves. You have been winding a long reel about that pike, Oliver, but you do not relate the most interesting part of the feat, that the fish at one period of the contest had the better of the angler. I was a short distance up the stream, attending to my