“Eel of the lake,” I presume, was that of the Lake of Bolsena; Pope Martin IV. died of eating too many, in spite of their high price. You observe I do not reckon my Fors Eel to be of Bolsena; I put it at the modest price of a soldo a pound, or English tenpence. One cannot be precise in such estimates;—one can only obtain rude approximations. Suppose, for instance, you read the Times newspaper for a week, from end to end; your aggregate of resultant useful information will certainly not be more than you may get out of a single number of Fors. But your Times for the week will cost you eighteenpence.
You borrow the Times? Borrow this then; till the days come when English people cease to think they can live by lending, or learn by borrowing.
I finish with copy of a bit of a private letter to the [[42]]editor of an honestly managed country newspaper, who asked me to send him Fors.
“I find it—on examining the subject for these last three years very closely—necessary to defy the entire principle of advertisement; and to make no concession of any kind whatsoever to the public press—even in the minutest particular. And this year I cease sending Fors to any paper whatsoever. It must be bought by every one who has it, editor or private person.
“If there are ten people in —— willing to subscribe a penny each for it, you can see it in turn; by no other means can I let it be seen. From friend to friend, or foe to foe, It must make its own way, or stand still, abiding its time.” [[43]]
[1] Not quite so, gentlemen of the Royal Commission. Harvests, no less than sales, and fishermen no less than salesmen, need regulation by just human law. Here is a piece of news, for instance, from Glasgow, concerning Loch Fyne:—“Owing to the permission to fish for herring by trawling, which not only scrapes up the spawn from the bottom, but catches great quantities of the fry which are useless for market, and only fit for manure, it is a fact that, whereas Loch Fyne used to be celebrated for containing the finest herrings to be caught anywhere, and thousands and tens of thousands of boxes used to be exported from Inverary, there are not now enough caught there to enable them to export a single box, and the quantity caught lower down the loch, near its mouth (and every year the herring are being driven farther and farther down) is not a tithe of what it used to be. Such a thing as a Loch Fyne herring (of the old size and quality) cannot be had now in Glasgow for any money, and this is only a type of the destruction which trawling, and too short close-time, are causing to all the west-coast fishing. Whiting Bay, Arran, has been rid of its whiting by trawling on the spawning coast opposite. The cupidity of careless fishers, unchecked by beneficial law, is here also ‘killing the goose that lays the golden eggs,’ and herring of any kind are very scarce and very bad in Glasgow, at a penny and sometimes twopence each. Professor Huxley gave his sanction to trawling, in a Government Commission, I am told, some years ago, and it has been allowed ever since. I will tell you something similar about the seal-fishing off Newfoundland, another time.” [↑]
[2] In my aunt’s younger days, at Perth, the servants used regularly to make bargain that they should not be forced to dine on salmon more than so many times a week. [↑]
[3] As for instance, and in farther illustration of the use of herrings, here is some account of the maintenance of young painters and lawyers in Edinburgh, sixty years since, sent me by the third Fors; and good Dr. Brown, in an [[37]]admirable sketch of the life of an admirable Scottish artist, says: “Raeburn (Sir Henry) was left an orphan at six, and was educated in Heriot’s Hospital. At fifteen he was apprenticed to a goldsmith; but after his time was out, set himself entirely to portrait painting. About this time he became acquainted with the famous cynic, lawyer, and wit, John Clerk, afterwards Lord Eldon, then a young advocate. Both were poor. Young Clerk asked Raeburn to dine at his lodgings. Coming in, he found the landlady laying the cloth, and setting down two dishes, one containing three herrings, and the other three potatoes. “Is this a’?” said John. “Ay, it’s a’.” “A’! didna I tell ye, woman, that a gentleman is to dine wi’ me, and that ye were to get six herrin and six potatoes?” [↑]