"I IN these flowery meads would be;
These crystal streams should solace me,
By whose harmonious bubbling noise

I with my angle would rejoice."-WALTON.

IZAAK WALTON, sometimes called the angler optimist, was born at Stafford in 1593, and passed his early manhood in London, where he carried on the business of linen-draper. In his fiftieth year he retired from trade with a competency sufficient to satisfy his modest desires. It was probably his marriage with a sister of Bishop Ken that brought him in contact with so many eminent men of his day; and so exquisitely pleasing was his manner, and such the simplicity of his character, that it is not strange that what might have been a mere transient acquaintanceship soon became a solid and life-long friendship. He died on the 15th of December, 1683, at the great age of ninety, in the house of Dr. Hawkins, his sonin-law, prependary of Winchester Cathedral, and was buried in the vault of that sanctuary. It has been truthfully said that no character, whether personal or literary, is more perfectly enviable

than that of Walton.

His first publication was the "Life of Dr. Donne," which was followed in order by the lives of Hooker, Sir Henry Wotton, George Herbert, and Bishop Sanderson. The lives, though far less widely known than "The Complete Angler," are, in their way, not less exquisite and unique. Wordsworth dedicated a beautiful sonnet to them, in which he speaks of the five saintly names of the subjects of them as

"Satellites burning in a lucid ring

Around meek Walton's heavenly memory."

These biographies are unlike any other biographies; they charm us with their simple grace, their unaffected fervor, their personal attachments, their undisguised piety.

"The Complete Angler; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation," was published in 1655. A fac-simile of the original edition was issued in 1875, and, from first to last, more than fifty editions have appeared. As a treatise on the art of an

gling, it may almost be regarded as obsolete, but it continues to be read for its charming simplicity of manner, its pastoral freshness, and the pure, peaceful, and pious spirit which is breathed from its quaint old pages.

The title-page of the first edition contained the following verse from John xxi. 3: "Simon Peter said, I go a fishing; and they said, we also will go with thee."

The following is a verbatim copy of the first advertisement of the book. It appeared on the back of an almanac published for the succeeding

"There is published a Booke of Eighteen-pence price, called The Complete Angler, or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation, being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing. Not unworthy of perusall. Sold by Richard Marriott in S. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet street."

It was certainly a very unpretentious announcement. A second part was added to the book by Charles Cotton, his friend, and his rival in the passion for angling. It is somewhat inferior, but breathes the same spirit, and contains many simple yet exquisite lyrics. Cotton owned a fine estate in Derbyshire, upon the river Dove, celebrated for its trout. Walton spent considerable of his time there, and the two friends were very congenial. Shaw gives Cotton a place in his "Manual of English Literature," seemingly for two reasons: first, because he was best known as the friend of Walton, and secondly, because he wrote the "Voyage to Ireland," which, Campbell remarks, to a great extent anticipated the manner of Anstey in "The Bath Guide." The latter was published in 1766, and became the most popular work of the day. It was not the dry, statistical, overlypractical book which might have been inferred from its title. No one was more agreeably surprised than Walpole, who pronounced it “a set of letters in verse, in all kinds of verse; so much wit, fun, poetry, and originality never met together before."

"The Complete Angler" is something almost absolutely unique in literature, because of its inimitable descriptions of nature, quaint dia

logues, pious philosophy, and evident gratitude for the sweet enjoyments of life. The expressions are as pure and sweet and graceful as the sentiment, and the occasional occurrence of a little touch of old-fashioned pedantry only adds to the indefinable fascination of the work, "breaking up its monotony like a ripple upon the sunny surface of a stream." "The slight tincture of credulity and innocent eccentricity which pervades his works," says Mr. Mills, "gives them a finer zest and more original fervor, without detracting from their higher power to soothe, instruct, and delight."

This genial optimist, this lingerer in the sunset hour, this loiterer in the soft gray dawns, caught his inspiration from nature. Nature is man's best teacher, for she is wisdom's self. It is through her that we view nature's God, for

"She has made nothing so base, but can

Read some instruction to the wisest man."

of the quail in the stubble; the song of the thrush, "running through the sweetest length of notes;" the wood-lark, "shaking from its throat such floods of delicious music that woods and waves seem to listen;" the whippoorwill "singing his fitful hymn in the drowsy watches of the night;" the caw of rook, the scream of jay, the hoot of owl; the winds sweeping the skirt of some greenspreading wood, "its music not unlike the dash of ocean on his winding shore;" each tree a natural harp, each different leaf a different note, "blent in one vast thanksgiving."

Spending so much of his time among those sweet secluded spots where

"The murmuring brooklet told its babbling tale Like a sweet under-song,"

he, indeed, could have exclaimed with Cowper:

66 -meditation

May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without her books."

"Nothing is lost on him who sees

With an eye that genius gave; For him there's a story in every breeze,

And a picture in every wave."

Oh, how much that is sweet and fair and pure Walton saw and heard in those long, almost numberless days which he spent by purling brook, placid lake, and silver-sheeted river!

The dusky dells, the torrent-torn ravines, the breezy hills," where cliff on cliff like fiery ramparts rise," the pathless woods, the daisy-starred meadows; the silent, bright-hued, perfume-breathing flowers, beneath which "so many tender thoughts are lying," and whose "daintiness touches us like poetry;" the sluggishly-drifting clouds, "softly shaking on the dimpled pool prelusive drops;" clouds massive, black, portentous, "the angry gleam of the red lightning cleaving the frowning folds;" the sun dispelling the mists of the dawn, "bannered with glory and burnished with gold," or its last red rays lost in the gathering twilight; "the nightingale the only vesper bell;" the tinkling of streamlet, the roar of cataract, the wash of restless waves; the whistle

"Laugh at the love and pride of man,

At the sophist's school and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?"

Walton knew how to appreciate life; he did not regard it as a mazy web of circumstances. It cannot well appear mean to one who uses it nobly. Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed. His charming little book was not the product of an idle thinker, but rather of a thinker's idleness. The most pleasant things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible. Walton's thoughts were intuitions that came to him in the patient practice of his out-door propensity. Is it any wonder he wrote so prettily about the things to which he was wedded, any more than that Eschylus should recount in imperishable language the overthrow of the Persians, when he himself "was one of the gallant band who charged down the plain of Marathon in the decisive battle of the world?”

Bovee says: "Our impressions usually relate to what is visible to us. Out-door thoughts are, therefore, apt to be more comprehensive than indoor thoughts. Our in-door thoughts are usually

subjective, introspective, or retrospective; our out-door thoughts are objective or prospective, and healthier in their tone."

"The finest productions of the mind," some one has said, "are not the fruits of hasty impulse, the unfolding of a sudden thought, the flashings

"We go out daily and nightly to feed the eye on the horizon, and require so much scope, just as we need water for our bath. . . . The blue zenith is the point in which romance and reality meet.' In contradiction of this idea some might instance the fact that Goldsmith wrote "The Deserted Village" just under the shadow of Newgate Prison, or Washington Irving his delightful legend of "Sleepy Hollow," so full of rural scene painting, by the light of a candle, during one of the dullest and darkest of London fogs. But the contradiction is robbed of all its force when we remember that merely the mechanical part of both works was accomplished under such seemingly adverse and non-suggestive circumstances. Both writers simply reproduced from prepared negative plates, as it were, all the delightful scenes which at other places and under other circumstances had awakened all that was thoughtful, appreciative, and appropriative in their natures.

have taken but three hours to compose the article; but the reflections of three years, perhaps of thirty, may have been tending to that result. The mere words are no part of an author's labors; they but represent long previous mental action. The observations of the world are matured in the silence of the study. A man can speak with authority only of that which he has himself felt or known. "A man cannot paint portraits," says the country parson, "until he has seen faces." Emotions will be very poorly described by one who takes his notion of them at second-hand. We can have the faculty of expressing pleasing thoughts pleasantly. Warm affections are as necessary to the writer as a clear intellect. The greatest intellectual brilliancy, unless vitalized by kind and genial feelings, imparts merely the glitter of frostwork. Walton had a brilliant intellect and a warm, throbbing, sympathetic heart, and that is why his writings charm us so much.

Civil-Service Reform.-It is very wrong, as all will admit, that a man should be put and kept in office without regard to his fitness, and simply because he is a personal or political friend of somebody who has influence with the appointing power. But what are we going to do about it while politicians are enabled by this means to discharge debts of friendship, or to reward those who have secured or aided in securing their election?

The partisan spoils system, so thoroughly engrafted upon the body politic of our Republic, has proven a sore bane to the vitality and political condition of the Government. Public sentiment has been awakened, and is pointing out the evils and absurdities of such a system, and is canvassing the possibilities of a better one. Statesmen and writers are giving their best thought to the subject, and if some plan is not eventually devised which will be better than the wretched eleemosynary system so long in vogue, it will not be for want of dispassionate and able discussion.

We are not discouraged with the impracticabilities of the question, and still firmly believe that the time will come when some such system as the merit system will supersede and utterly remove all vestiges of the objectionable one now in operation. True, it requires some effort of the imagination to get a clear idea of the manifold effects in detail of the profound influences upon the relations of citizens to parties and to office-of the stimulus to education, and to independent, manly thought, speech, and action which such an exchange of systems would cause. Where now we see all thought, all hope, all influence, all effort, concentrated upon partisan cliques, upon jobbers in influence, upon official and unofficial patronage mongers, upon what good-natured citizens may be unduly persuaded to recommend in aid of an unworthy office-seeker, henchman, or dependent, we should see exertions to educate one's self up to the standard needed for official duty, concern to keep | one's character above danger of attack at a public competition, encouragement to independence in politics, study of whatever would contribute to the acquirement of a just distinction for ability and efficiency in the discharge of official duty, upon which all promotions would depend.

With the greater ability and higher character which such improved methods would bring into the public service, its self-respect and its public estimation could not fail to be enhanced. Our politics would tend to rise from the degradation in which vicious and corrupt methods have involved them, and to take the position befitting a science which deals with the greatest affairs of a nation and the profoundest human interest of a people.

It is not essential that we should refer in detail to the evils which result and have resulted from the practice of making appointments, promotions, and removals in the subordinate civil service, on the basis of official favoritism or partisan interests. Sufficient to know that they have at length arrested public attention, and have excited the indignation and the fears of all thoughtful men. Public senti

|

ment has been aroused, and it demands a change from a system so subversive of true popular government.

Deeply impressed with the importance of eradicating an evil whose growth has been so recent, and yet so rapid, and which threatens not only the utter demoralization of the civil service, but the intensifying of partisan strife of the lowest character, to the point of danger to our institutions, many of our most eminent public and private men, as well as writers of distinguished ability, are giving their time and labors to its accomplishment. And in their honest efforts in this direction they should have the earnest support of all upright and right-thinking men.

All too soon have we had a fearful example of the results of this pernicious "spoils" system in the assassination of President Garfield. But if this one act, deeply deplored as it is, shall bring the American people to a realizing sense of its pernicious and degrading character, we might safely say that this brave and worthy man has died, if die he does, for the good of his country. But we pray that this bitter cup may not pass to his lips, that the tedious and agonizing sufferings through which he has already passed, and which may yet be in store for him before entire convalescence, should he recover, will sufficiently atone for the evil influences and pernicious results of the system.

No man, more than President Garfield himself, realized the magnitude of the evil attending the spoils system. In 1877, in writing upon the subject, he said, "The present system impairs the efficiency of the legislators; it degrades the civil service; it repels from the service those high and manly qualities which are so necessary to a pure and efficient administration; and finally, it debauches the public mind by holding up public office as the reward of mere party zeal." And in closing, "To reform this service is one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesmanship."

In the light of this fact, together with the many evidences given of his determination to correct these abuses, since his induction into office, there can be no doubt as to what the result would have been, had he not been so ruthlessly stricken down upon the very threshold of his administrative career. What it will be, should he survive the assault and be restored to his wonted strength of mind and energy of body, may also be assumed; but should he die! Would civil-service reform meet with a set-back? or is public sentiment so actively imbued with the imperative necessity of a change that his successor would fear to brave it? This is the question of the hour, and it behooves proper consideration.

Nihilism. It has become the fashion of late days to dispose of high officials in a very off-hand manner. If you do not like the governor, blow him up! This may be all well enough for the belligerents, but it is hard on the gov ernor. Besides, it is a question whether assassination is ever productive of good results. Can a crime so mean, cowardly,

and contemptible bring prosperity and peace in its train? It is doubtful.

Two wrongs will never make a right; and, while it is admitted that the Russian Nihilist is oppressed and has cause for complaint, we do not believe dynamite to be the proper instrument of redress. When a body of people have taken it upon themselves to right a national wrong, let them rise in open and honorable revolt if they will, use force of arms if force be necessary, and in thus securing their freedom possess the honest sympathy of their fellow-men throughout the world.

But who can look upon the cringing assassin without a feeling of contempt as he glides on his bloody errand with wary, noiseless steps and frightened glances through the darkest alleys and most unfrequented thoroughfares? Where can any one find the semblance of an honest man in such a picture?

The Irish as well as Russian agitators have adopted this mode of redressing their grievances, and are now threatening to blow up English merchant vessels and destroy innocent life if their terms are not speedily accepted. Italian bandits are no worse than this. They simply enclose a captive's nose or ears in a letter to his friends if the ransom is not forthcoming at the proper moment, while the destruction contemplated by Irish Land Leaguers is on a more extended scale and no less diabolical in its conception.

So long as such questionable means are resorted to, the cause, be it ever so just, will fail, and deservedly so, since the reverse would prove a premium upon the foulest grade of crime.

It is a pleasure to note as an index to popular opinion on the matter of assassination, that Mr. David Dudley Field moved a resolution, at the Conference at Cologne, providing for its exclusion from the category of political crimes in all extradition treaties and for the denial to assassins of the privilege of asylum.

The resolution was carried by general acclamation, and if the worthy example be followed in turn by the law-making powers of other nations, asylums for political cranks of this character will be wiped out, and we shall hear less of such schemes against the lives of the rulers of men.

College Criminals.-The reflecting gentleman of to-day, I think, rises from his reading of "Tom Brown's School Days" in England forty years ago, somewhat cynical in his remarks upon the young men and the schools of that time and country. If he has not enjoyed the higher educational facilities, he upbraids Tom and Co. with a criminal waste of opportunities which he thinks he would have made much of for good; and, thinking of his own sons at school, he closes with a bit of American self-esteem, "Well, I'm glad that boys at school nowadays, and in this country, don't thus badger their betters, bully their juniors, torment their teachers, and fool away their time generally."

Now, I am not going to either moralize intensely on this average father's conclusion, or write a college story; but I will lay you out a row of skeletons which you may galvanize into stories as long as Tom's, if you like. (Or do you, too, think to find no "skeleton" in the closet of the modern American college?) And by these simple bones of scenes

under my own eye, and chiefly within the year 1880, I think to convince you that to-day's non-resident of the college town, trusting to his imagination for his facts, is mistaken; and that the traditionary evils of England's boys corraled at school have been generously transmitted to the present, and some of them invigorated by a sea-voyage.

Clustered within one educational town stand a college of arts and sciences of good rank, a theological seminary, a department preparatory to both, and that popular " annex" of our day, a college for women, the classmates of young men in all studies. Here are all the ages between fifteen and its double, and, over all, that theoretical charm against ill-conduct, co-education. Another fact which one might think the pledge of steady habits, is that the majority of the students are of country parentage, many of them thus offered the rare food their fathers pined for. Still stronger tonic for peace, and antidote to youthful depravity, should be, perhaps, its religious character. The group of schools form one university of a large denomination of Christians. Surely, you say, no wild capers and social crimes can climb in at windows thus nailed down.

But see, father, what mischief to screen folly your heirapparent can invent! Recitations have scarcely worn out the opening month, when he holds them a day at bay for all his three hundred fellow-students. Having completed the week's appearance before professors at noon of Friday, your Charley (his mother is very proud of his morals at home) and his chum hammer the afternoon out of mind with a game which they call "old sledge," spend Saturday and night questionably away at a city, sleep on Sunday, and realize at lamp-lighting that they have no lesson learned for Monday.

This is their folly. What is their malicious mischief? Why, too proud to utterly fail and stand black-marked, too "honorable" to feign sickness, they bring “genius" to bear on the emergency—also a pot of plaster of Paris and a dark lantern. At an hour when industrious students sleep, they enter the hallway, whence open all the rooms for recitation, and "genius" deposits damp plaster in every key-hole. Monday at nine o'clock it is beautifully hardened. The young men are a success in their line. Janitor Joe puts the forenoon and some profanity into the key-holes to expel the plaster. No classes recite to-day. It is one day annihilated to three hundred students and a score of teachers. The boys you and your neighbor are spending money to make gentleman of have robbed their fellows of a year's time! And, perhaps, the saddest of it is that they do not see it. The stolen time is worth one thousand dollars. This crime they call fun. 'Nothing mean about it, just a crackin' good joke." These moral buds of the intellectual future scorn failure; they will not sham sickness and cloak it with a lie-only steal a day from each of three hundred and twenty innocents. There was no act meaner, more hostile to morals and culture, in English schools forty years ago.

Is this the spirit of the average American youth who is sent to college? Let us seek answer in further and assorted facts. An election of national importance has occurred. Those who win rejoice, and the rudest citizens of the town resort to a night fire of barrels and boxes. Intelligence