blind hookey.

a rise at the father of angling.

the memory of izaak walton has hitherto floated down the stream of time without even a nibble at it; but, alas! where is the long line so pure and even that does not come sooner or later to have a weak length detected in it? the severest critic of molière was an old woman; and now a censor of the same sex takes upon herself to tax the immortal work of our piscator with holding out an evil temptation to the rising generation instead of concurring in the general admiration of his fascinating pictures of fishing, she boldly asserts that the rod has been the spoiling of her child, and insists that in calling the angler gentle and inoffensive, the author was altogether

[pg 426]

wrong in his dubbing. to render her strictures more attractive she has thrown them into a poetical form; having probably learned by experience that a rhyme at the end of a line is a very taking bait to the generality of readers. hark! how she rates the meek palmer whom winifred jenkins would have called “an angle upon earth!”

to mr. izaak walton, at mr. major’s the bookseller’s in fleet street.

mr. walton, it’s harsh to say it, but as a parent i can’t help wishing

you’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the young people a fishing!

there’s my robert, the trouble i’ve had with him it surpasses a mortal’s bearing,

and all thro’ those devilish angling works—the lord forgive me for swearing!

i thought he were took with the morbus one day, i did with his nasty angle!

for “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all got of a tangle!”

it’s a shame to teach a young boy such words—whose blood wouldn’t chill in their veins

to hear him, as i overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains?[16]

and didn’t i quarrel with sally the cook, and a precious scolding i give her,

“how dare you,” says i, “for to stench the whole house by keeping that stinking liver?”

’twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at the bagots’,—

[pg 427]

but it wasn’t breeding no fever—not it! ’twas my son a-breeding of maggots!

i declare that i couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting and going,

and after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and blowing;

boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live things in their craniums;

well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice geraniums.