SCENES AND RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 FLY-FISHING, 
 
 IN 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND, CUMBERLAND, AND 
 WESTMORLAND. 
 
 STEPHEN OLIVER, THE YOUNGER 
 
 OF ALDWARK, IN COM. EBOR. 
 
 c^Cv 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. 
 
 1834. 
 
C. Whittitighauij Tuoks Court, Chancery Lai 
 
CLARI3SIMO VI RO 
 DOMINO CHRISTOPHERO NORTH, 
 
 PISCATORI, POETJE, CRIT1CO ; 
 
 CALAMO, TAM PISCATORIO QUAM SCRIPTORIO, 
 APPRIME PERITO, 
 
 FUSTE (Hibernice, shillelah) FORMIDABILI, 
 SCIPIONE (Anglice, crutch) TREMENDO ; 
 
 HOC QUALECUNQUE OPUSCULUM 
 
 D. D. D. 
 STEPHANUS OLIVERUS. 
 
To man made for labour, due intervals of relaxation are 
 no less necessary, than sleep is to the body when exhausted 
 by watching ; and truly unhappy may that mortal be reck- 
 oned, to whom nothing affords amusement. He who is ex- 
 hausted by the more weighty labours, has the greatest need 
 of rest ; but rest, not tempered with pleasure, becomes tor- 
 pid insensibility. The principal reward of labour, which the 
 Creator has granted to man, is leisure with enjoyment ; and 
 mortals generally exert their utmost efforts to obtain it. 
 Reflections on the Study of Nature, translated from the Latin 
 of Linn&us by Sir J. E. Smith. 
 
A DAY IN COQUETDALE. 
 
 " There's mony a ane has siller ore, 
 
 That finds it downa make him smile ; 
 There's mony a ane has gowden store, 
 
 Wha wears a heavy heart the while. 
 It's guid, sometimes, to stay an' toil ; 
 
 It's guid, sometimes, to wander free ; 
 Folk loup the dyke when there's nae stile ; 
 
 Sae affto Coquet-side wi' me." n. ROXBY. 
 
 The Fisher's Garland for 1832. 
 
 TOWARDS the end of July, or the beginning 
 of August, I have for some years past been 
 
accustomed to take a trip into Roxburgh- 
 shire, to spend a few weeks with a friend ; 
 and as I travel at my leisure, 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 Tan- 
 kerville Arms, Wooler, to enjoy a few days* 
 fishing in the Glen and the Till ; and occa- 
 sionally I drive up to Yetholm to have a 
 day's sport in the Bowmont, with that 
 patriarch of gypsies 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 Eng- 
 land 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 
 
3 
 
 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 Brink- 
 burn Priory, and the Hermitage of Wark- 
 worth ; 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, intend- 
 ing to spend a day or two in Coquetdale, 
 accompanied by a friend, an amateur, both 
 fishing and of sketching, but more expert 
 at taking a view than taking a trout. We 
 were approaching the village where we in- 
 tended to stop, when my companion's atten- 
 tion 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-ideal of ' der Rabenstein,' 
 which is introduced with such powerful ef- 
 fect in the German drama. There is only 
 a subject wanting to render the coup d'ceil 
 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 ' fashion- 
 ably 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, hawk- 
 nosed, black-whiskered fellow, the very beau 
 ideal of one of Eastlake's banditti ; make a 
 whey-faced, 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 senti- 
 mental horror, or as a foil to bring out the 
 refined beauties that are so ingeniously con- 
 cealed 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 
 
 c 
 
6 
 
 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 day you 
 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 fish- 
 ing 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 inquire if you had arrived, but 
 he was rather out of humor. He had been 
 out at the water early this morning think- 
 ing 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. 
 
 Landlord. He was almost as high up as 
 Rothbury, and he fished down to Weldon 
 but never could mortal man, except himself, 
 expect to catch fish with such a flee as he 
 had on. 
 
 Oliver. What sort of fly did he use ? 
 
 Landlord. You beat me there. The old 
 gentleman is very fanciful about his flees, 
 and thinks there is not a man in the country- 
 side that can dress one like him. But sic a 
 flee as he had on this morning ! it was 
 eneugh to flay all the fish in Coquet. A 
 great bunch of feathers, that would hardly 
 
8 
 
 go into this pint pot here, and more like a 
 pee-wit than aught else. There were trouts 
 to be taken too, by folk that could go handier 
 about it, for Jamie Hall, the tailor, who was 
 out at the same time, brought home about 
 two dozen of as fine trouts as I would wish 
 to catch. But Jamie is a capital fly-fisher, 
 and seldom returns with a toom creel. 
 
 Burrell. Pray, what gibbet is that upon 
 the moor, landlord ? 
 
 Landlord. Gibbet, Sir? I know of no 
 gibbet in this county but that at Elsdon, 
 which is twenty long miles off. 
 
 Burrell. Surely you cannot but know of 
 the gibbet on the left on crossing the moor, 
 and scarcely a mile from your own door ? 
 
 Landlord. O, I understand what you 
 mean now. That is the starting post for our 
 races, and the cross-piece, which made you 
 take it for a gibbet, is to hang a pair of 
 butcher's scales on to weigh the jockeys in. 
 Did you see a corby or a jackdaw fluttering 
 about the top as you passed ? 
 
 Burrell. We did observe a large black 
 
bird flapping his wings upon the cross-piece, 
 but I took it to be a raven. 
 
 Landlord, It will be nothing better than 
 a corby crow. Hostler, tell the lad there is 
 another crow down at the starting post. 
 One of our lads made a few springes out of 
 an old cow-tail, and set them, with a dead 
 rabbit, on the top of the starting post, and 
 he has catched five crows to-day already. 
 
 Oliver. Shall I bespeak the hostler for 
 you, Burrell, that you may complete your 
 sketch from the living model? Do start 
 after dinner, and " whip up" those parti- 
 culars in your own style ! Do introduce 
 your " fine, strapping, hawk-nosed, black- 
 whiskered fellow" hanging, in a butcher's 
 scale, previous to starting for a leather plate. 
 
 Burrell. Bespeak the dinner if you please 
 but no more of the hostler, " an thou 
 lovest me." In future, I shall close my 
 sketch book against all " striking" objects. 
 
 Oliver. Is dinner preparing, Mr. Burn ? 
 
 Landlord. It is, Sir, and will be ready, to 
 
10 
 
 a minute, at the time ordered by the guard 
 two o'clock. Your old fishing fare, he said ; 
 and there will be just a dish of hotch-potch, 
 a piece of salmon, and a saddle of Cheviot 
 mutton. 
 
 Oliver. The very thing ! Is Mrs. Burn 
 attending to the hotch-potch herself? 
 
 Landlord. That she is. Ever since you 
 praised it so much she will scarcely let the 
 girls shell the peas, or pare the turnips. 
 
 Oliver. We intend going out in the after- 
 noon ; and I expect we shall have some 
 sport, as there is a gentle breeze of wind 
 from the south-west, and the sky is rather 
 cloudy. We will look over our tackle while 
 dinner is preparing. What kind of fly would 
 you advise, Mr. Burn ? you are an old angler 
 in Coquet, and should know something of 
 the tastes of its trouts. 
 
 Landlord. I think you had best try the 
 black hackle and the midge-fly, first; and 
 towards evening, if you have not sport to 
 your liking with these, put on a red hackle ; 
 
11 
 
 and if you can catch fish with none of them, 
 I can, for this time of the year, recommend 
 nothing better. The red hackle is a great 
 favourite, and not without reason, with our 
 Coquetdale anglers. One of the best of 
 them thus sings of it : 
 
 " The black-flee is guid when it's airly; 
 
 The may-flee is deadly in spring ; 
 The midge-flee may do in fair weather ; 
 
 For foul sawmon roe is the king ; 
 But let it be late or be airly, 
 
 The water be drumly or sma', 
 Still up wi' the bonny red-heckle, 
 
 The heckle that tackled them a'." 
 
 You must get well up the stream, as far as 
 Piper-haugh, and fish down to Weldon. 
 
 Oliver. We shall set out after dinner, and 
 reach Piper-haugh about four o'clock. We 
 shall be back in the evening, and sup at ten. 
 I shall just write a note to the Vicar and 
 Mr. Bell, inviting them to join us at supper 
 time. Do you think we shall be favoured 
 with their company ? 
 
12 
 
 Landlord. I think I may venture to assure 
 you of that. They are both at home, and 
 know that you are expected. 
 
 Evening. Parlor of the Black BulFs Head. 
 Decanters and glasses on the table. Pre- 
 sent, the Rev. JAMES TODBURN, ANDREW 
 BELL, RICHARD BURRELL, and STEPHEN 
 OLIVER, Esqrs. 
 
 Oliver. Now that we have drank the King, 
 the Royal Family, and other standard toasts, 
 I shall give you the Lord Lieutenant of the 
 county the Duke of Northumberland. 
 
 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 
 
13 
 
 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 hour's breathing, or a 
 long day's walk. From Alnwick to Aln- 
 mouth and back is ten miles ; and when 
 Earl Percy, he often performed this distance 
 in two hours, merely as a walk before break- 
 fast. The distance from Alnwick to Keilder 
 Castle, on the western border of Northum- 
 berland, is upwards of forty miles of bad 
 road, and over a hilly country, and he has 
 frequently walked it on the llth 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. 
 
14 
 
 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 Aln- 
 wick, 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 ! 
 
15 
 
 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 Chy viot." 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 exploits 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 
 
16 
 
 which you would buy in coming home, to 
 save yourselves 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 halbert of a fish a very 
 weaver's beam ! 
 
 Enter HOSTLER, with a tolerably well Jilled 
 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 
 
17 
 
 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 
 farther to notice that " skug" is most 
 probably derived from the Mceso-Gothic 
 
18 
 
 <f Skygda," to shadow or cover ; and that 
 the mountain Skiddaw, in Cumberland, pro- 
 bably owes its name to the same source. 
 Skygd-dha the dark shadow is admirably 
 expressive of its character when seen from 
 the foot of Withop, before the sun has 
 illumined its 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 
 
19 
 
 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 
 
20 
 
 only caught half a dozen which were scarcely 
 worth bringing home; and yet I ought to 
 know something of Coquet, and I am per- 
 suaded that you could not have more suitable 
 flies, for I always make my own. 
 
 Oliver. We began at Piper-haugh, 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 jish, 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 mys- 
 tery is a mere bag of smoke, and becomes 
 
21 
 
 as wise as one of yourselves. You have 
 been winding a long reel about that pike, 
 Oliver, but you do not relate the most inte- 
 resting 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 own sport, when I heard a 
 loud splash, and on running towards the 
 place, there was this simple fisherman floun- 
 dering about in the water, holding his rod 
 with both hands, and the pike making off 
 with him, when I luckily dragged him out. 
 In strict justice, the merit of taking the pike 
 belongs to me. 
 
 Oliver. I do not deny it. I only wish 
 that you had made a little more haste, and 
 not laughed quite so loudly. 
 
 BurrelL Who could help laughing? 
 And then the hubbub and the loud ha ! ha ! 
 brought out the miller's wife to see if any of 
 her live stock had fallen into the water; 
 and when she found that it was neither calf 
 nor pig, she sent down kind, motherly 
 D 
 
22 
 
 old dame to offer the poor gentleman who 
 had got such a ducking a change of her 
 husband's clothes. Had you only accepted 
 the offer, you had made me your bondman 
 for ever. I think I see you in the honest 
 miller's corduroy small-clothes, rig-and- 
 furrow stockings, and grey coat, of the cut 
 of the last century, with white metal buttons 
 about the size of a crown piece. Dominie 
 Samson in all his glory ! 
 
 Oliver. You are really excellent at a 
 sketch, Burrell. You are " whipping it up" 
 in your own style. Put the bottle about, 
 Mr. Bell, and favour us with a song, if you 
 please. 
 
 Bell. Willingly I am too bad a singer 
 to require much inviting. Singers, whether 
 good or bad, should only annoy a company 
 once; either by their obstinacy in refusing 
 to sing, or by their miserable performance. 
 My subject must be about fishing, I sup- 
 pose ; and though my " Piscatory Eclogues" 
 are neither choice nor numerous, you shall 
 have one such as it is. 
 
THE FISHERS' CALL. 
 
 THE moor-cock is crowing o'er mountain and fell, 
 And the sun drinks the dew from the blue heather-bell ; 
 Her song of the morning the lark sings on high, 
 And hark, 'tis the milk-maid a-carolling by. 
 
 Then up, fishers, up ! to the waters away ! 
 
 Where the bright trout is leaping in search of his prey. 
 
 O what can the joys of the angler excell, 
 
 As he follows the stream in its course through the dell ! 
 
 Where ev'ry wild flower is blooming in pride, 
 
 And the blackbird sings sweet, with his mate by his side. 
 
 Then up, fishers, up ! to the waters away ! 
 
 Where the bright trout is leaping in search of his prey. 
 
 Tis pleasant to walk at the first blush of morn, 
 In spring when the blossom is white on the thorn, 
 By the clear mountain stream that rolls sparkling and free, 
 O'er crag and through vale, its glad course to the sea. 
 
 Then up, fishers, up ! to the waters away ! 
 
 Where the bright trout is leaping in search of his prey. 
 
 In the pools deep and still, where the yellow trouts lie, 
 Like the fall of a rose-leaf we'll throw the light fly ; 
 Where the waters flow gently, or rapidly foam, 
 We'll load well our creels and hie merrily home. 
 
 Then up, fishers,, up ! to the waters away ! 
 
 Where the bright trout is leaping in search of his prey. 
 
24 
 
 Oliver. Thank you, Mr. Bell a good sub- 
 ject, and a good song. Your toast, if you 
 please. 
 
 Bell. All honest anglers. 
 
 All. All honest anglers ! 
 
 Burr ell. That will comprehend pretty 
 nearly all the brethren of the rod and line, 
 " the present company excepted," as civil 
 people say. What Pinkerton, with his usual 
 modesty, has said of collecting old coins : 
 " it is a most innocent pursuit, and such as 
 never engaged the attention of a bad man/' 
 belongs more justly to angling. There is 
 not a single angler to be found in the New- 
 gate Calendar. 
 
 Rev. J. T. I am much inclined to agree 
 with you, Mr. Burrell, though I hardly 
 know whether you are speaking in jest or in 
 earnest. We have had some most amiable 
 men, and of great talent, in our own time 
 passionately fond of angling Dr. Paley, 
 Henry Mackenzie, and Sir Humphrey Davy, 
 for instance. The former, though a dig- 
 
25 
 
 nified clergyman, and better known from his 
 moral and theological writings than from 
 his fishing exploits, preferred, like his great 
 exemplar, Dr. Nowell, to have his portrait 
 taken with a fishing rod over his shoulder 
 rather than with a book in his hand. 
 
 Oliver. I have not unfrequently noticed 
 in my fishing excursions that you often meet 
 with old men who are anglers, either for the 
 sake of amusement, or who have adopted 
 the pursuit as being at once a source of 
 profit and pleasure. 
 
 Rev. J. T. I am convinced that angling 
 is greatly conducive both to health and lon- 
 gevity. It cannot have been from mere acci- 
 dent, or from their having originally stronger 
 stamina than other mortals, that so many 
 persons who have been anglers have lived to 
 an age far exceeding the ordinary term of 
 human existence. Their pursuits by the 
 side of running streams, whose motion im- 
 parts increased activity to the vital principle 
 of the air ; their exercise, regular, without 
 
26 
 
 being violent ; and that composure of mind 
 so necessary to the perfect health of the 
 body to which angling so materially con- 
 tributes, must all have had an influence on 
 their physical constitution, the effect of 
 which is perceived in the protracted duration 
 of their lives. Henry Jenkins, who lived 
 to the age of one hundred and sixty-nine, 
 and who boasted, when giving evidence in a 
 court of justice to a fact of one hundred 
 and twenty years' date, that he could dub a 
 fly as well as any man in Yorkshire, con- 
 tinued angling for more than a century after 
 the greater number of those who were born 
 at the same time were mouldering in their 
 graves. What mighty changes and revolu- 
 tions in his own country did this man live 
 to see ! He saw the Abbot of Fountains in 
 his dignity and power ; and he saw him and 
 his brethren driven from the abbey like 
 proscribed outcasts, whom it was dangerous 
 to pity, and almost criminal to harbour. 
 He saw Roman Catholics burning Protes- 
 
27 
 
 tants, and Protestants hanging and behead- 
 ing Roman Catholics, each party declaring 
 what they did was for conscience sake and 
 a love of religion, and that they were only 
 barbarously cruel in order to be strictly 
 just. He saw a degraded, fawning, people 
 prostrating themselves at the feet of a cold- 
 blooded pedant, insensible alike to the les- 
 sons of virtue and to the voice of honour, 
 who, in return for their grovelling adulation, 
 set his foot upon their necks. He saw the 
 son of this imbecile monarch first loaded 
 with praises like a demi-god, then spurned 
 like a false idol, and finally executed like a 
 traitor. He saw Essex put to death by the 
 queen who loved him; Stafford abandoned 
 and sacrificed by the king whose views he 
 had too earnestly promoted; and Charles 
 himself executed amidst the cheers of a mob 
 who were loudest in their expressions of joy 
 at his coronation: a memorable warning, both 
 to those who court the smiles of princes, and 
 to those who are puffed up with the breath of 
 
28 
 
 popular applause. But I am forgetting my 
 old anglers in my chapter of human inconsis- 
 tencies ; to return. Dr. Nowell was a most 
 indefatigable angler, allotting a tenth part 
 of his time to his favourite recreation, and 
 giving a tenth part of his income, and nearly 
 all the fish he caught, to the poor. He lived 
 .to the age of ninety-five, having neither his 
 eyesight, his hearing, nor his memory im- 
 paired. Walton himself, that 
 
 " sage benign, 
 
 Whose pen the mysteries of the rod and line 
 Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort 
 To reverent watching of each still report 
 That Nature utters from her rural shrine," 
 
 lived to upwards of ninety ; Henry Mack- 
 enzie died in January, 1831, aged eighty- 
 six ; and the Rev. H. C., who resided a 
 short distance from here, and had been an 
 angler from his youth, continued to fish 
 after he was. upwards of eighty ; and I could 
 mention several others who are upwards of 
 seventy, and still continue in their " frosty, 
 
29 
 
 but kindly," old age to fish by the side of 
 those streams associated in their minds 
 with a hundred pleasing recollections 
 where first the love of angling and of Nature 
 was impressed upon their youthful hearts, 
 which time has deepened and confirmed, 
 and which death only can efface. It must, 
 however, be observed that the oldest anglers 
 have been remarkable for their temperance, 
 and for the quiet, even, tenor of their lives. 
 They were not much exposed to struggle 
 with the rough currents of human life, which 
 often prematurely exhaust the best and no- 
 blest of our kind, but were either placed in 
 that happy mediocrity which affords an easy 
 competence, or were born and educated in 
 that condition which is little disturbed by 
 imaginary evils, and knows few wants but 
 such as may be easily supplied. 
 
 Oliver. Walton alludes to the fishing ex- 
 ploits of Mark Antony and Cleopatra ; and 
 Sir H. Davy, in his Salmonia, claims Trajan 
 as an angler. To the number of royal and 
 
30 
 
 imperial fishermen may be added his late 
 majesty George the Fourth. Angling has 
 not, however, been much in repute among 
 the rulers of the earth, for there is no " royal 
 road" to the art any more than there is to 
 geometry. The servants of a king may stock 
 a pond with fish, but it is beyond their skill 
 to make them bite when majesty wishes to 
 enjoy an hour's amusement in angling. 
 Fish have no idea of the distinguished 
 honour of being hooked and whisked out of 
 their native element by the hand of a king ; 
 and they are no more ambitious of seizing 
 a monarch's bait than a clown's. They are 
 so shockingly deficient in courtly polite- 
 ness, that though a king be anxiously wait- 
 ing for a bite, they never offer even to nibble 
 until it perfectly suits their own pleasure. 
 Looking at these circumstances, we need 
 not wonder that angling has never been 
 much celebrated as a royal pastime. 
 
 Burrell. Walton's instance of Antony's 
 angling is very ill chosen, for the passage in 
 
31 
 
 Plutarch wherein it is mentioned shows it 
 to have been altogether a pitiful exhibition. 
 Think of an angler employing divers to 
 hook his fish on this was indeed imperial 
 angling ! I think I see the " world's great 
 master/' when in the pride of his heart he 
 had pulled up a prime large fish, and found 
 it to be a dried haddock, which Cleopatra, 
 who had found out the secret of his success, 
 had bribed the divers to put on. Notwith- 
 standing George the Fourth's splendid book 
 of flies, which a few years ago was exhibited 
 at the maker's, to the great admiration of 
 cockney anglers, the fishing excursions on 
 Virginia water were little calculated to afford 
 amusement to a genuine disciple of the rod 
 and line at least in the way of angling. 
 It was yet pleasant sometimes to see a pike 
 landed to the sound of soft music, while the 
 lord in waiting, having his hands covered 
 with a pair of French gloves, worked himself 
 into a state of gentle perspiration in trying 
 to get the hook out of the pike's mouth, 
 
32 
 
 without having a finger snapped off by the 
 sharp-toothed water-wolf. 
 
 Bell. Sir Humphrey Davy has mentioned 
 Nelson as being an ardent fly-fisher, and so 
 fond of the sport, that he continued to angle 
 after he had lost his right arm. To the list 
 of eminent characters who have been lovers 
 of angling let me add the name 
 
 " Of him who walked in glory and in joy, 
 Following his plough upon the mountain side," 
 
 Robert Burns. Among the living worthies 
 of the present age, who have not yet arrived 
 at the full maturity of fame 
 
 " True, perfect, fame springs only from the grave 
 Of him whose deeds and worth it consecrates" 
 
 the Ettrick Shepherd may be noticed as an 
 expert angler ; and Professor Wilson, as I 
 have heard from one who has fished with 
 him, is one of the best fly-fishers that ever 
 threw a line in the Tweed. Wordsworth 
 also is an angler, and I fancy that in many 
 
33 
 
 of his poems may be traced images which 
 have reference to, or have been suggested 
 by, the delightful art of angling. When I 
 think of his description, in the Excursion, of 
 the trouts, which a boy has caught, laid on 
 a blue slate-stone, I almost fancy that I see 
 them in reality, as I have seen them so often. 
 The colours of a newly caught trout are 
 never seen to such advantage as when the 
 fish is displayed on a smooth wet slate. 
 Cooper, the next time he paints trout, may 
 take a hint from Wordsworth. 
 
 The Rev. J. T. This talk of eminent and 
 talented men who have been anglers brings 
 to my recollection the name of Hill, the 
 learned tailor, whom Spence, in a little vo- 
 lume printed at Strawberry Hill, has com- 
 pared to that " helluo librorum," Maglia- 
 becchi. Hill initiated into the mysteries of 
 fly-fishing a young scholar, who, in return, 
 taught him Greek ; one of the finest instances 
 of mutual instruction that ever came to my 
 knowledge. Emerson, the mathematician, 
 
34 
 
 was also a fly-fisher ; and I have fished in 
 the Tees with an old angler who acquired 
 his knowledge of algebra and the art of 
 dressing and throwing a fly from the eccen- 
 tric geometer of Hurworth.* Dr. Birch, 
 formerly Secretary to the Royal Society, was 
 a lover of angling ; and Dr. Wollaston and 
 Sir Humphrey Davy in our own times are 
 instances of men of the highest philosophic 
 attainments finding pleasure in the exercise 
 of the rod and line. 
 
 Burrell. I am inclined to think the three 
 last named were amateurs rather than profi- 
 cients in fly-fishing. Dr. Birch was evi- 
 dently known to the fish, or he would not 
 have taken such pains to disguise himself 
 like the stump of an old tree when angling. 
 Of Dr. Wollaston 's fly-fishing acquirements 
 I know nothing more than what Sir Hum- 
 phrey Davy reports; and that is not much, 
 
 * Hurworth, a pleasant village, in the church-yard of 
 which Emerson is buried, is about three miles S.E. of 
 Darlington. 
 
35 
 
 beyond the fact of his using Indian rubber 
 with a slit in it to straighten the gut on 
 which his hooks were tied. Sir Humphrey 
 himself, I suspect, was only great as an 
 angler among F.R.S'S. Among the ac- 
 complished anglers of Tweedside and the 
 Highland Lochs he was only, as I have 
 heard, President of the Royal Society ; rather 
 ingenious in devising improvements in ang- 
 ling than skilful in catching fish. 
 
 Oliver. Dr. Johnson has stated, that 
 though there is mention of aucupium and 
 piscatio in the writings of the ancients, they 
 seem to have been no more considered as 
 diversions than agriculture, or any other 
 manual labour. Is the Doctor's opinion 
 well founded think you, Mr. Todburn ? 
 
 Rev. J. T. I think not; for though fishing, 
 as an amusement, might not interest the 
 ancients so much as it does our countrymen 
 of the present day, yet it was undoubtedly 
 practised by them as a recreation, as Plu- 
 tarch's notice of Antony's fishing, and the 
 
36 
 
 frequent representations, in the paintings 
 on the walls of the houses at Pompeii, of 
 persons angling, sufficiently prove ; and 
 though I am not aware of Sir Humphrey 
 Davy's authority for describing Trajan as an 
 angler, I have no doubt of the fact. Pliny, 
 indeed, in his Natural History, makes no 
 allusion to fishing as an amusement ; yet 
 Oppian, who lived little more than a century 
 later, wrote a book expressly on the art, 
 which we cannot suppose to have been com- 
 posed for those who fished for a living. 
 He treats wholly of sea-fishing, and never 
 alludes to that branch of the art now ex- 
 clusively distinguished under the name of 
 angling. We, however, learn from his book 
 that snap hooks were then known, and that 
 scented pastes were sometimes used as bait. 
 Hooks were also armed with wire as at pre- 
 sent, and live baits occasionally employed; 
 and when a dead fish was made use of, a 
 plummet of lead was put into its mouth, in 
 order to produce a motion similar to that af 
 
37 
 
 a live one, in the same manner as is now 
 done with spinning baits. Fly-fishing is 
 first mentioned by Aelian, who flourished 
 A.D. 225, about twenty years later than 
 Oppian. In the fifteenth book of his History 
 of Animals, he says, that a fish of varied 
 color is taken in the river Austrseum, be- 
 tween Beroe and Thessalonica. This fish, 
 the name of which, he says, is to be learnt 
 from the Macedonian inhabitants, I con- 
 ceive to have been a species of trout. He 
 also describes a kind of fly which frequents 
 the river, and is called by the natives 
 " nrTrapov," which may be translated " the 
 bristle-tail," a name by which the several 
 species of hair-tailed ephemerae, or May- 
 flies, are still known in many parts of Eng- 
 land. Aelian then proceeds to relate, that 
 as this fly is greedily preyed on by the 
 above mentioned fish, the skilful fisherman 
 dresses an imitation of it on his hook, forming 
 the body of purple-colored wool, and adding 
 two yellow feathers of a cock's hackle for 
 E 
 
38 
 
 wings. This ancient description of the mode 
 of dressing an artificial fly has been over- 
 looked by all modern writers on angling; 
 and many persons, not being aware of the 
 passage, have supposed fly-fishing to be of 
 comparatively modern invention. No express 
 mention of the trout occurs in this author, 
 for the fish described by him as the " Trocta" 
 is evidently of another species, and might 
 be mistaken for the pike, were we not in- 
 formed that it frequents the sea. Ausonius 
 mentions two species of fish, the Salar and 
 the Fario, which are evidently the burn and 
 the salmon trout of modern times ; and 
 though he takes no notice of angling with a 
 fly, he describes a scene of river fishing 
 with a rod and a float in the language of 
 poetry and truth.* We also learn from him 
 that boys used then to fish for bleak in the 
 Moselle, as they do now for minnows in the 
 streams of our own country. These instances, 
 I think, will be sufficient to show the in- 
 
 * Ausonii Mosella, v. 240 265. 
 
39 
 
 correctness of Dr. Johnson's opinion, which, 
 on subjects connected with field sports, is 
 not to be received as infallible. I am con- 
 vinced, that though the ancients might not 
 be such proficients in the art of angling as 
 the moderns, they were well acquainted with 
 many things which are considered as modern 
 improvements in the art of fishing. Besides 
 their knowledge of the snap-hook, pastes, 
 and of the utility of enclosing a fish from 
 another water, when using the basket-net, 
 they were not ignorant of the contrivance 
 of the swivel-hook to facilitate the motion 
 of the spinning bait. 
 
 Oliver. You were acquainted with Thomas 
 Bewick, I believe, Mr. Bell, was he an 
 angler ? 
 
 Bell. Certainly he was. With his love of 
 hills and streams, green fields, and trees, 
 and flowers, and of all the beautiful animals 
 which run, and swim, and fly, 
 
 fair creatures ! to whom Heaven 
 
 A calm and sinless life, with love, hath given" 
 
40 
 
 how could he be otherwise ? In one of his 
 angling excursions in Cumberland, and in 
 the Western Highlands of Scotland, he 
 made many of those sketches which were 
 afterwards introduced as tail-pieces in the 
 Quadrupeds and British Birds, and which 
 are so forcibly stamped with the impress of 
 genius and truth. If ever an artist deserved 
 the name of " pupil of Nature," it was 
 Bewick. In the History of Quadrupeds, 
 look at the antelope bounding across the plain; 
 the chamois goat pendant on the cliff; the 
 kyloe-ox, the wild boar, the cur and the 
 greyhound-fox ; the shepherd's dog, the 
 mastiff, the dalmatian, and the setter, and 
 you see the very image of the living animal. 
 In his British Birds we perceive the same 
 faculty of truly depicting animal form and 
 expression, exercised in even a higher degree 
 than in the former work. The hawks appear 
 ready in a moment to pounce upon a small 
 bird, should it appear ; and the owls are the 
 very perfection of feathered philosophers, 
 
41 
 
 grave, sober-looking birds, which " shun the 
 eye of garish day," and the very shake of 
 whose heads would be pregnant with deep 
 meaning. You almost expect to hear the 
 pert magpie chatter, and the raven croak; 
 to see the linnet flit, or the " water-waggy " 
 move his tail. Then for faithful sketches 
 of character and scenery, occasionally heigh- 
 tened by a touch of sarcastic humor or moral 
 sentiment, what can exceed his tail-pieces ? 
 To instance only a few which I at this 
 moment can call to mind. The blind old 
 man quietly smoking his pipe, with his 
 youthful guide, who cannot read, or does 
 not see the direction, " Keep on this side," 
 on the point of leading him to a part of the 
 stream where he will probably be up to the 
 middle at the first step ; while the little dog 
 looks anxiously, from the first stepping-stone 
 of the right crossing, towards the erring pair. 
 An excellent example of the old saying, 
 " Wha's to guide the leaders 1" The great 
 snow-man, with two coals for eyes, a stick 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 in his hand, and a pipe in his mouth, which 
 a parcel of boys have built up, and at which 
 an astonished horse is gazing, with " Esto 
 perpetua," at the bottom of the cut. The 
 monument to commemorate some " complete 
 victory/' but which now serves as a rubbing 
 post to a jackass that is seen scratching his 
 rump against one of its corners* An old 
 woman's gingerbread stall besprinkled by a 
 cow on a windy day, while an elderly gentle- 
 man, who receives a few drops of the same 
 shower, puts up his umbrella, thinking it to 
 be rain. The full-fed old Puritan hanging 
 his half-starved cat>, 
 
 " Because she killed the Lord's own mouse 
 Upon the sabbath day." 
 
 It is much to be regretted by every lover 
 of Natural History, and by anglers in par- 
 ticular, that Bewick did not live to finish 
 his long projected work on fishes, which 
 is certainly much wanted. 
 
 Oliver. Our landlord has a neat little 
 
43 
 
 volume of "Fishers" Garlands," one of which 
 is printed every year by some gentleman in 
 Newcastle for private distribution, some of 
 the vignettes remind me strongly of Bewick's 
 tail-pieces. 
 
 Bell. So they well may, for several of 
 designs for the early numbers were furnished 
 by him. There is one which was finished 
 but never published, that is quite a curiosity 
 in its way. I had an impression, but a col- 
 lector of Bewick's works collectors of every 
 description, whether of books, prints, coins, 
 or taxes, are all importunate fellows, and 
 will bear no denial begged it so pressingly, 
 that I was obliged to give it to him to get 
 rid of his teasing. In the centre of the cut, 
 and rather in the back ground, a rude stone 
 column, like Percy's cross, on the road be- 
 tween here and Wooler, marks the scene of 
 former strife, and points out the spot where 
 the warrior sleeps in his narrow cell. In the 
 front, a gentle stream is flowing peaceably by, 
 
 " No longer steel-clad warriors ride 
 
 Along its wild and willowed shore/' 
 
44 
 
 but an Englishman and a Scotchman are 
 engaged in an " arnica contentio," trying 
 which can farthest project a parabola is 
 not that the curve described by spouting 
 fluids, Mr. Todburn ? into the stream. 
 But as we are to meet at Weldon Bridge 
 to-morrow morning at five, I think you and 
 I had better be moving, Mr. Todburn. Just 
 this parting glass " pleasant dreams and 
 slumbers light." [Exeunt omnes.] 
 
GLEANINGS IN GLENDALE. 
 
 Rura mihi et rigui placent in vallibus amnes, 
 Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius. VIRGIL. 
 
 'Midst woodland vales where clear the streamlet flows. 
 Free from ambition, let me find repose. 
 
 So much has been already well written on 
 the pleasures and advantages to be derived 
 from angling, as to render it almost impos- 
 
46 
 
 sible to add any thing new and interesting 
 on these heads. He who would inquire, 
 and attempt to explain, why such pleasures 
 are experienced, must trace the cause and 
 relation of our perceptions and feelings, and 
 unfold the hitherto inexplicable sympathies 
 of the human heart. The running of clear 
 streams, the blooming of flowers, the green- 
 ness and freshness of woods and meadows, 
 the wild melody of birds, the solitude of 
 dells and mountains, and the vast expanse of 
 the clear blue sky illumined by the glorious 
 sun, speak at once to the heart in a language 
 not to be misunderstood, but never to be in- 
 terpreted. The feelings excited by the con- 
 templation of such objects can never be 
 explained. Man's thoughts in such a mo- 
 ment become refined and elevated ; he feels 
 the influence of nature, and the impulse is 
 that of worship in its truest and simplest 
 form the pure, ardent, yet speechless ado- 
 ration of the heart. How light is the step 
 and how buoyant the spirits of the " honest 
 
47 
 
 angler*' as he wends his way across the 
 meadows at the first blush of morning, when 
 there is fragrance in every breeze and melody 
 in every wood ! The murmur of the stream, 
 as he follows his silent sport, induces medi- 
 tation; and under the shade of a projecting 
 rock or a spreading tree, he enjoys his meal 
 with a relish which no artificial accompani- 
 ments can procure. 
 
 Small retailers of second-hand wit are 
 fond of laughing at their own humour, in 
 reminding the angler of what Doctor Johnson 
 is reported to have said of fly-fishing: " a 
 rod and a line, with a fly at one end and a 
 fool at the other*" This piece of pleasantry 
 may be readily excused, and may pass with 
 other witty sayings ascribed to Doctor John- 
 son for as much as it is worth* There is no 
 profession, however honorable and useful, 
 of which much more bitter things have not 
 been said ; and a jest may always be allowed 
 on that which is only followed as a recrea- 
 tion, though sometimes a trifler may be met 
 
48 
 
 with who talks about it as if it were the 
 serious business of his life. The Doctor's 
 imperfect sight would always be a hindrance 
 to his becoming an expert angler, even had 
 he felt an inclination to the sport; and this 
 defect of vision, his insensibility to melody, 
 for he could scarcely distinguish one tune 
 from another, and his confirmed habits of 
 town life, rendered him indifferent and insen- 
 sible to the charms of the country, which 
 have so powerful an influence on the angler's 
 pleasures. Conversation and argument, in 
 which he excelled, the sharp encounter of 
 wits, the discussion of principles of criticism 
 and morals, were his delight ; and, while he 
 drank his dozen dishes of tea, to display his 
 stores of knowledge or confute an opponent, 
 was to him the summit of earthly enjoyment. 
 It is not however likely that Doctor Johnson 
 in reality thought meanly of angling as an 
 amusement, for it was at his instigation that 
 the Rev. Moses Brown published, in 1750, 
 an edition of Walton and Cotton's " Com- 
 
49 
 
 plete Angler/' which had been many years 
 out of print. 
 
 The malignant scoffer Wolcott, better 
 known as Peter Pindar, -whose feeling cha- 
 racter may be guessed at from his desire to 
 have his portrait introduced among the mur- 
 derers of the old musician Rizzio, in Opie's 
 picture, had a tender heart towards the 
 " gentle trout," as may be gathered from his 
 " Ballade to a Fish of the Brooke," wherein 
 he thus sings : 
 
 " Enjoy thy streame, O harmless fish, 
 And when an angler, for his dish, 
 
 Through gluttony's vile sin, 
 Attempts, a wretch, to pull thee OUT, 
 God give thee strength, O gentle trout, 
 To pull the raskall IN." 
 
 This is just what might be expected from 
 such a character : a great display of affected 
 sympathy for a " gentle trout," which in- 
 dulges his gluttony in feeding on his yet 
 gentler brother, the frog, with as much of 
 real rancour towards man in the shape of an 
 
 G 
 
50 
 
 angler. He would spare the fish, which is 
 in truth little less voracious than the pike, 
 and drown the man : " The mercies of the 
 wicked are cruel." 
 
 In the thirteenth canto of Don Juan, Lord 
 Byron, in a fit of spleen, says of " good old 
 father Walton :" 
 
 " The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet 
 Should have a hook and a small trout to pull it." 
 
 In a note upon these lines, his Lordship calls 
 him " a sentimental savage," pronounces 
 angling to be the " cruellest, the coldest, and 
 the stupidest of sports;" and by way of a 
 climax roundly declares, that " no angler 
 can be a good man." " Quot homines tot 
 sententise" is as true now as in the days of 
 Terence, and people are likely to differ about 
 the mode of breaking the ends of their eggs 
 until the end of time. The criminal identity 
 of punning and pocket-picking has not yet 
 been acknowledged in the statute book, 
 though maintained by that memorable critic, 
 
51 
 
 John Dennis ; and though Lord Byron has 
 asserted that " no angler can be a good man/' 
 it is likely to be long ere the dictum becomes 
 an axiom in morals. Tastes differ very 
 materially, and every one is apt to judge 
 favorably of the amusement which he is 
 partial to ; but, on general grounds, it may 
 be safely concluded that angling is at least 
 as innocent as dog-fighting; not quite so 
 cold as swimming until the exhibitor gets an 
 ague; and much less stupid than pistol 
 shooting. In answer to the assertion, that 
 " no angler can be a good man," it were 
 an easy matter to produce a list of anglers 
 from the age of Queen Elizabeth to the 
 present time, who have been distinguished 
 for the blameless integrity of their lives, and 
 who have displayed as much virtue as, per- 
 haps, our frail nature will allow. But it is 
 needless to attempt seriously to answer a 
 charge which is best refuted by its own 
 extravagance. 
 
 Walton's quaintness is by many consi- 
 
52 
 
 dered the characteristic of the age in which 
 he wrote, and by some esteemed as an ex- 
 cellence which enhances the value of his 
 work, by affording us at the same time an 
 idea of the manners of the period and of the 
 writer's character. It is like the old stamped 
 binding of a good old book, giving additional 
 interest to that which is in itself valuable. 
 His old age, at once cheerful and vigorous, no 
 " honest angler" will consider as a reproach, 
 but on the contrary will revere as an honor, 
 and regard as a blessing " entailed on tem- 
 perance and a mind at ease." When his 
 Lordship speaks of an angler, " thinking only 
 of his dish of fish/' he shows how little he 
 was acquainted with an angler's feelings. 
 The observation, that " a single bite is worth 
 more to him than the scenery around/' is 
 rather in the style of a prospect hunter, who 
 is ever on the look out for picturesque beau- 
 ties, and who admires them as they appear 
 capable of affording materials for the compo- 
 sition of a striking picture. The angler's 
 
53 
 
 admiration of the scenery which surrounds 
 him proceeds from a higher source. He 
 admires not the winding stream, the rocky 
 cliff, the waving trees, and the distant moun- 
 tain, as a connoisseur does a production of 
 art. The angler's pleasure in the midst of 
 such scenes is direct and involuntary; it 
 proceeds not from the suggestion of acquired 
 taste, but is the impulse of feeling ; it 
 comes without seeking, and the effect is at 
 once gladdening and irresistible. 
 
 It is unnecessary here to enter into the 
 question of cruelty in the use of bait, which 
 is therefore left to be settled by some tender 
 person after he has solved the knotty point 
 respecting the right of man to use horses in 
 running the mail ten miles an hour ; to pluck 
 live geese to make himself a downy bed ; or 
 to eject the harmless natives from their pearly 
 domiciles, and then commit them, before they 
 have recovered from their amazement, to that 
 general lock-up, his stomach, not so much 
 to assuage the cravings of hunger as to create 
 
54 
 
 an appetite. There is however one part of 
 the note alluded to which demands especial 
 notice. It is an exception taken by a friend 
 of his Lordship's against the general cruelty 
 of anglers in favor of an acquaintance of his 
 own a truly humane and sentimental man, 
 and doubtless one of the pathetic school; 
 whose pupils can whine over a dead jackass 
 while they leave an aged mother to starve, 
 and can mourn for the neglected violet while 
 they send their natural children to the work- 
 house.^ The singular testimony in favor of 
 this " delicate-minded creature's" humanity 
 is as follows : " One of the best men I ever 
 knew ; as humane, delicate-minded, ge- 
 nerous, and excellent a creature as any in the 
 world was an angler: true, he angled with 
 painted flies, and would have been incapable 
 of the extravagances of I. Walton." This 
 is a striking instance of the inconsistencies 
 which men fall into when they declaim 
 
 * See the confessions of the sentimental philanthropist, 
 Rousseau. 
 
55 
 
 against cruelty without possessing a grain 
 more of feeling than those whom they censure. 
 This " delicate-minded creature" we may 
 suppose to have been, if not a gentleman, at 
 least a man of property, and not a person 
 who fished for his living; a consideration 
 which will always excuse a great deal of 
 every-day cruelty ; for the maxim, " qui facit 
 per alium facit per se, ?> does not hold, it 
 would appear, in the procuring and prepa- 
 ration of food ; and a member of the society 
 for the prevention of cruelty to animals, who 
 has fined or sent to prison a poor drayman, 
 upon whom a wife and six children are de- 
 pendant, for flogging a restive horse, sits down 
 with a clear conscience to dine off crimped 
 cod and lobster sauce, the former of which 
 has been cut up alive by the fisherman, and 
 the latter boiled alive by his cook. But to 
 return to our " humane" angler. How deli- 
 cately sensitive must have been the feelings 
 which prompted him to spare the buzzing in- 
 sect of an hour ! But, as perfection itself is, 
 
56 
 
 " Imperfect in this naughty world of ours/' 
 
 this " delicate-minded creature's" humanity 
 was not universal ; trouts, it would seem, 
 had no share in his tender mercies no ; 
 files only were the objects of his refined sym- 
 pathy, and trouts might be hooked and played 
 with in their agony before being landed, 
 without in the least exciting his compassion. 
 Humane, delicate-minded, and consistent 
 man, he would indeed be " incapable of the 
 extravagancies of I. Walton !" The nauseous, 
 loathsome cant of mock humanity, which 
 first trifles with conscience and then assumes 
 the right to delude the world, has seldom 
 gone beyond this specimen of a delicate- 
 minded angler, whose tender feelings caused 
 him to use painted fiies when he angled 
 for living fish. Had he angled for painted 
 trouts too, his humanity would have been 
 complete, and his character then might have 
 stood without reproach, and claimed to future 
 ages the admiration of the world. 
 
57 
 
 " Ita facillime 
 Sine invidia laudem invenias, et ami cos pares." 
 
 Thus had he honor gain'd without a shade, 
 
 And through the land friends like himself had made. 
 
 Should matrimonial, or any other business 
 or pleasure, lead the angler 
 
 " In Spring's sweet prime, or summer weather," 
 
 to the neighbourhood of Wooler, which, as 
 a certain legal luminary well knows, is on 
 the direct road to Coldstream, let him by all 
 means, if not too much hurried, stay a few 
 days at the Tankerville Arms ; one of the 
 best inns, with the best of landlords, in the 
 north of England. The Till, the Glen, and 
 Wooler Burn, which are in the immediate 
 neighbourhood, are all good trout streams, 
 and seldom fail to afford the angler who is 
 skilful in his art, excellent sport. That no 
 one, however, may give himself unnecessary 
 trouble, the regular water-thrasher is respect- 
 fully warned off, as his active labors will be 
 only thrown away. The trouts in those 
 
58 
 
 streams are not to be had by knocking them 
 on the head with a cod-hook, feathered like 
 an arrow to give greater certainty to the 
 blow. If an angler of this stamp is, not- 
 withstanding, determined on fishing, let him 
 amuse himself in bobbing for eels at the 
 mill-tail above Wooler bridge, where his 
 labor will be less and his reward greater. 
 
 A visit to Chillingham Castle, to see the 
 wild cattle, ought not to be omitted when 
 in the neighbourhood, as the distance from 
 Wooler is only six miles. It is unnecessary 
 to describe the form of those beautiful 
 animals here, for a single glance at Bewick's 
 admirable engraving of the Chillingham bull 
 will give a more perfect idea of it than a 
 dozen pages of dull description. Though 
 they are generally shy, and retreat on the 
 appearance of strangers, running off to a 
 considerable distance and then facing sud- 
 denly about, yet they ought never to be 
 approached but in company with the keeper, 
 otherwise the curious observer may hap- 
 pen to be put in great bodily fear, even 
 
59 
 
 though he should escape without bodily 
 
 harm. Mr. , an active member of the 
 
 Wernerian Society of Natural History, nearly 
 fell a martyr to his love of science in Sep- 
 tember last. He had advanced near the herd 
 for the purpose of making some particular 
 observations, when a gruff, grisly-fronted, 
 sharp-horned bull, offended at the intrusion, 
 turned upon the inquisitive naturalist, and 
 coursed him over the park " in gallant 
 style," as they say at Melton-Mowbray, and 
 was gaining ground, when the chase ran to 
 earth in a conduit adjoining the park wall. 
 It may be as well to add here, by way of a 
 caution, that the ford over the Till above 
 Chatton is at all times not very good, and 
 when the water is high, dangerous ; therefore 
 no " jolly anglers," when they 
 
 " Have dined off a haunch, and drank deep of old wine,' ; * 
 
 should attempt it, unless they are prepared 
 for either fate : to land safe, at the expense 
 
 * " Iraplentur veteris Eacchi, pinguisque ferinae." 
 
60 
 
 of merely a good ducking ; or to be fished 
 up in a salmon net, somewhere about Till- 
 mouth, a fortnight after. The dangerous 
 character of the Till as a " deadly water/' 
 is expressed in the following old lines, which 
 every gentleman should call to mind before 
 he puts his horse to the ford in a flood : 
 
 " Tweed says to Till, 
 
 ' What gars ye rin sae still V 
 ' Sae still as I rin, and sae fast as ye gae, 
 Where ye drown ae man, I drown twae/ " 
 
 Should the angler be fond of antiquarian 
 researches, let him, some clear sun-shiny 
 day when the fish will not bite, ascend the 
 curious hill near Wooler, called the Yevering 
 Bell, and make his own observations on the 
 ancient remains still existing on its summit, 
 and form his own conjectures as to their 
 former design and the people by whom they 
 were erected. When fishing up Wooler Burn, 
 it will also be worth his while to walk across 
 the country from Langley ford to the 
 Druidical remains a few miles west of 
 Ilderton. 
 
61 
 
 Glendale is a part of the country to which 
 I am exceedingly partial, and where I de- 
 light to spend a week or two in the summer 
 season. Here have I often arose to follow 
 the windings of the stream, ere the sun's 
 morning rays had dispersed the mist which 
 hung round the brow of Cheviot, and often 
 lingered at eve till his last beams had ceased 
 to gild its top, walking homeward in solitude, 
 
 " When night had wrapt the world in spectred gloom, 
 And silence listened to the beetle's horn/' 
 
 Many a pleasant hour have I passed in this 
 Neighbourhood, winding up the amusements 
 of the day with a friendly " crack " over a 
 bottle of wine or a tumbler of toddy, with a 
 few brethren of the angle at the " Cottage " 
 at night. The following is a brief report 
 of one of those meetings " piscatoribus 
 sacrum" which was held there about two 
 summers ago. 
 
62 
 
 [Parlor of the Tankerville Arms, looking 
 into the garden. Present, Mr. WILLIAM 
 REED and Mr. RICHARD RODDAM, 
 Northumbrians, and S. O. Waiter " clear- 
 ing away," and preparing to draw the 
 window curtains.'] 
 
 Reed. Stop, Jemmy, stop what are you 
 about are you going to shut daylight out 
 before you bring candlelight in? I never 
 can abide to see the glimmer of a candle till 
 daylight be fairly done* We can see to talk 
 for an hour yet. What are you going to* 
 drink, Mr. Oliver? 
 
 Oliver. What you please ; it rests with 
 you and Roddam. 
 
 Roddam. I shall take a tumbler of toddy 
 to keep the fish down besides, I was for 
 two hours up to my knees in the Glen to- 
 day ; and I want something warmer than a 
 glass of cold washy wine, to drive the blood 
 to my toe ends again. 
 
63 
 
 Reed. One might suppose that you ate 
 fish and waded every day, Richie ; for warm 
 weather or cold, you still keep to toddy. A 
 tumbler will warm your nose as well as your 
 feet and, to speak truth, it looks rather 
 red and cold-like. Anglers should never 
 have long noses they are so liable to get a 
 dip in the cold water when their owners are 
 seeking for cad-bait. You will have been 
 often on your knees to-day, I suspect. 
 
 Roddam. Only once, and that was when 
 I tumbled over the style in coming home. 
 I have not used a cad-bait for this month 
 past, when an old ewe of mine died, and has 
 since supplied me with gentles, which I 
 think the fish take equally as well as the 
 cad-bait. But what makes your own nose 
 so high colored, Mr. Reed ? 
 
 Reed. Something else than cold water. 
 But, as we appear somewhat alike to-night, 
 I do not care if I join you. Mr. Oliver, will 
 you take a tumbler with us ? 
 
 Oliver. With all my heart. Jemmy, tell 
 
64 
 
 your master to send in some of his best 
 small-still whisky of the same kind as that 
 which he filled my flask with this morning 
 and bring in a light and hot water when 
 you return. 
 
 Reed. South country folks are always 
 friends to the candle-maker ; they are never 
 easy till they see a pair of blinking candles 
 on the table, and the curtains drawn, even 
 though there should be a streak of bonny 
 clouds in the west, enough to make a sor- 
 rowful heart glad with looking at them. O, 
 I see what you mean now. That would be 
 an excellent box to keep gentles in, if the 
 rolls of dirty weed were thrown away. You 
 should carry a few baits occasionally among 
 your cigars, if it were only to try whether 
 the trouts liked the flavor or not. I dare 
 say it would prove as tempting as some of 
 the old scents formerly in such repute. 
 
 Oliver. The gentles might be all the better 
 for it, but the flavor of the Havannahs would 
 not be improved. Though I cannot help 
 
65 
 
 laughing at the angler who places his chief 
 reliance on his scents, and who expects to 
 catch many fish by " a pleasing titillation of 
 their olfactory nerves/' as the advertise- 
 ment, recommending cephalic snuff for the 
 hooping cough, has it, yet I think it likely 
 that fish are partial to certain scents ; though 
 at the same time I very much question 
 whether the odors generally recommended 
 by the learned in such matters will induce 
 trouts to swallow the bait. Beau Nasty, 
 who rubs himself with musk or civet before 
 he goes to a party, would not relish either of 
 those odoriferous substances with his sand- 
 wich or his wine. Cats are fond of the 
 smell of mint, yet they do not, like some of 
 their elderly owners, prefer its infusion for 
 breakfast ; and a lady's dainty-fed lap-dog 
 delights to roll himself on the putrid carrion 
 which he will not eat. About six years ago 
 a communication was made to the Royal 
 Society, by Thomas Bell, Esq. F.L.S. res- 
 pecting a gland under the lower jaw of the 
 
66 
 
 crocodile and alligator, which secretes an 
 unctuous substance, of a strong musky scent. 
 Mr. Bell is of opinion that this secretion 
 acts as a bait to lure the fish, on which the 
 alligator and crocodile feed, within their 
 reach. 
 
 Reed. I fully agree with you on this sub- 
 ject. If a man cannot catch fish without 
 using scent, he will never catch them with 
 it. If trouts are not hungry, it is not a 
 " gilliegaupy of a callant," as James Hogg 
 says, throwing a scented bait who is likely 
 to take them. 
 
 Roddam. Speaking of scents puts me in 
 mind of a gentleman that was staying here 
 on a visit about a twelvemonth ago. He 
 was a great angler in his way, and had a 
 large book of flies as finely bound as Lady 
 
 's prayer-book, and half a dozen little 
 
 bottles containing different kinds of scent to 
 tempt the trouts with. He was eager to get 
 the marrow of a heron's thigh-bone, and 
 Jemmy the waiter, who supplied him with 
 
67 
 
 half a pound of goose-grease, under the name 
 .of his favorite ointment, received half a 
 sovereign in return for the valuable present. 
 Reed. He was certainly one of the strangest 
 anglers I ever met with, and one of the easiest 
 pleased. If he happened to catch three or 
 four small trouts that would hardly serve for 
 supper to a cat, he was the happiest man 
 alive, and kept running about like a hen 
 with egg, showing them to every one that 
 he knew. The first time I saw him at work 
 was one burning hot day, just about noon, 
 when there was not a cloud in the sky, nor 
 a breath of air stirring. He had his hat 
 off, and was making his line sweep across 
 the water as if he was thrashing for a 
 wager. He had on his line a large salmon 
 hook, dressed with silk, peacock's feathers, 
 and tinsel, to about the size of a king-fisher, 
 to imitate, as he said, the large dragon-fly. 
 He had read somewhere that such was a 
 likely fly for large fish, and he was trying to 
 hook a few whitlings he was about as likely 
 to catch cod. 
 
68 
 
 Oliver. What is your opinion of the whit- 
 ling, for which the Till is so famous, Mr. 
 Reed ? Is it a distinct species of the genus 
 Salmo, or a cross, as some have supposed, 
 between the salmon and the trout ? 
 
 Heed. I am inclined to believe it to be a 
 distinct species, and cannot admit that it is 
 the produce of a salmon and a trout ; for if 
 this opinion were correct, we might naturally 
 expect to meet with similar fish in every 
 river which is frequented both by the salmon 
 and the trout. Many people, who have never 
 seen the whitling, suppose it to be so named 
 from the light color of its flesh, which is in 
 reality much higher colored than that of the 
 largest common trouts caught in the same 
 stream. It has probably obtained the name 
 from its light silvery appearance, and from 
 its having no red or dark spots on its sides, 
 as other trouts have. 
 
 Roddam. I have heard that it had been 
 decided by experiment in the neighbourhood 
 of Carlisle that the whitling was actually a 
 young salmon. Several, it is said, were put 
 
69 
 
 into a pond, and, when examined about a 
 year after, had all the appearances of salmon. 
 
 Reed. I have heard so too; and I have 
 heard old Jamie How say, and stoutly swear 
 to it, that he put a horse-hair into the Piper's 
 well, and that it turned to an eel ; but until 
 these " interesting facts," as the newspaper 
 folks say, are confirmed by stronger evidence, 
 I must continue to doubt their correctness. 
 
 Oliver. Is the whitling taken in any other 
 streams in this part of the country except 
 the Till? 
 
 Reed. Not in Northumberland, that I am 
 aware of; but it is caught in the Whitadder, 
 a small river which runs into the Tweed 
 a few miles below Tillmouth, on the oppo- 
 site side. The whitling is also taken in 
 several of the rivers on the south-western 
 border of Scotland ; in the Liddel, the Esk, 
 the Annan, and the Nith, as well as in 
 the Eden below Carlisle. In Dumfrieshire 
 they are mostly called herlings, and in Cum- 
 berland whittens. Farther north, in the 
 
70 
 
 rivers of Aberdeen and Perthshire, they 
 are called phinocs, or fmnocks. Several 
 persons have supposed the whitling to be a 
 young salmon, but this opinion is as little 
 supported by conclusive facts as that which 
 declares them to be produced between a 
 salmon and a trout. The young of the several 
 species of the salmon genus, to speak in 
 sober truth, are not easily distinguished ; 
 and I am inclined to think that there are 
 few persons notwithstanding that there are 
 many who make great pretensions who 
 know much respecting the habits of the 
 salmon tribe. One person, who professes 
 to be well acquainted with the habits of the 
 salmon, states that the clean fish which enter 
 the rivers between February and August 
 continue there until after spawning time, 
 which is, according to the weather, from the 
 1st of November to the latter end of January, 
 thus making them continue in the fresh 
 .water from twelve to five months. Another 
 person, who has possessed similar oppor- 
 
71 
 
 tunities of making observations, declares that 
 the salmon is properly a sea fish, passing 
 eleven months out of twelve in the sea, and 
 that when it is only a week from the salt water 
 it becomes sickly and out of condition. One 
 practical fisherman states, that at whatever 
 time salmon ascend a river they never return 
 till they have spawned ; another gives to this 
 statement a flat contradiction, and declares 
 that he has as frequently in summer ob- 
 served them descending the river as going 
 up. One gentleman volunteers an opinion 
 that stake nets at the mouth of a river are a 
 great cause of diminishing the breed of 
 salmon, and recommends their prohibition; 
 and he is directly contradicted by half a 
 dozen witnesses, who affirm that such nets 
 are of all others least likely to injure the 
 breed of salmon, as they only take fish which 
 are in perfect season, and neither intercept 
 spawning fish nor destroy the young fry* 
 In the midst of such conflicting evidence it 
 is impossible not to come to the conclusion, 
 
72 
 
 that, with respect to the habits of the salmon, 
 there is in reality very little known. I was 
 a good deal surprised to perceive it stated* 
 with so much confidence that the salmon 
 which breeds in our rivers, and is caught in 
 them during every month in the year, except 
 when fishing is prohibited is decidedly a 
 sea fish, and resides eleven months out of 
 twelve in the sea. Confident assertion is 
 much easier than proof, and I should meet 
 this latter statement by a simple denial, 
 leaving the person who made it to establish 
 his dictum by something like fact and ob- 
 servation, rather than by a new definition of 
 the word river, which makes it improper to 
 speak of the Thames at London, the Ouse 
 at Selby, and the Tyne at Newcastle, as 
 rivers. What should we think of the person 
 who should maintain, in opposition to the 
 evidence of both sense and experience, that 
 the cuckoo, the swallow, and the nightin- 
 
 * By Dr. Fleming, Evidence before the Committee on 
 the Salmon Fisheries. 
 
73 
 
 gale were not British birds, though all these 
 birds continue a shorter time in our island 
 than, it is probable, the salmon does in our 
 rivers ? 
 
 Oliver. Whitlings are indeed fine fish, 
 but they are rather more dainty in their 
 tastes, and do not bite so freely as the com- 
 mon burn trout. 
 
 Reed. That may be because they are nei- 
 ther so plentiful, nor at all times in the river; 
 for they certainly visit the sea, as is proved 
 by their sometimes having the sea-louse on 
 them, like the salmon, on their return to 
 fresh water. I was out yesterday morning 
 below Ford, and out of seven that I caught, 
 there were only two that were less than four- 
 teen inches, and each of these measured a 
 foot. 
 
 Oliver. What sort of fly did you use, and 
 at what time were you out ? 
 
 Reed. I cannot very well tell you the 
 najne of the fly, though south country an- 
 glers would most probably call it the grey 
 
74 
 
 drake. I shall, however, inform you how it 
 was made. The hook was one of the smallest 
 of the sort which we here call gilse-hooks ; 
 I made the body of a kind of silk trimming, 
 called floss, of a dull, willow-green color, 
 mixed with a little brown crulling ; it was 
 ribbed with bright brown silk, and the wings 
 were formed of dappled feather of a silver 
 pheasant; the whisk consisted of three black 
 hairs from the tail of a shepherd's dog. 
 When the water is rather discolored, as it 
 was yesterday, I never find any fly do more 
 execution. I reached the water side a little 
 before six in the morning, and I fished till 
 nine o'clock. 
 
 Oliver. What sort of fly do you prefer 
 when the water is clear ? 
 
 Reed. I then form the body of brown 
 floss, mixed with a little bear's fur of a darker 
 shade, and wrap it with dark purple, or 
 lake-colored silk; the wings are formed of 
 the yellowish-brown feathers of a dotterel, 
 with the whisk as in the other, and some- 
 
75 
 
 times none. Those two flies, with a trifling 
 alteration in the size of the hook and in the 
 dubbing, will serve for most other trouts as 
 well as the whitling indeed with them and 
 the red hackle, I kill more fish than with all 
 my other flies put together. 
 
 Oliver. Do you not think that there is a 
 good deal of trifling in most books on an- 
 gling on the subject of dressing flies? A 
 person who has never seen a fly dressed is 
 about as likely to learn to dance a hornpipe 
 as to learn to dress a fly by book and when 
 the operation has been once observed, all 
 written directions are mere waste paper. 
 You may teach a boy in ten minutes how to 
 make a wooden whistle from a slender branch 
 of plane-tree or willow, provided you let him 
 see you at work ; but an intelligent man shall 
 not be able, after half a day's study, to form 
 the thing from a mere account of the process 
 upon paper. Most of our teachers of the 
 art of angling are too fond of dilating upon 
 that which their books can give only an 
 
76 
 
 imperfect idea of, while they are compara- 
 tively silent on subjects which are really 
 useful and interesting. Among all the books 
 that have appeared on the subject of angling, 
 I would not give one of them a place in my 
 travelling trunk, except old father Walton 
 and him I value, not from his instructing 
 an angler how to fish, but from the purity 
 and beauty of his reflections and observa- 
 tions, which may teach all men whose minds 
 are not insensible to the charms of Nature, 
 how to enjoy them. 
 
 Reed. I entirely agree with you. The 
 introduction of the dubbing-bag generally 
 acts as a composer, even upon the most 
 wake-rife student, who is anxious to read 
 himself into a " complete angler," and to 
 sally forth to the streams a perfect adept in 
 the " mysteries of the rod and line," war- 
 ranted to kill the first throw. Flies natural 
 often interrupt our repose, but the long- 
 winded, trifling description of flies artifi- 
 cial is very apt to set us to sleep ; and the 
 
77 
 
 sum total only serves to prove a fact which 
 the teachers appear not indisposed to con- 
 ceal that hungry trouts are not very parti- 
 cular in their selection of flies, but will rise 
 at such whose original type is not to be 
 found either on earth or in air. The direc- 
 tion, generally given in most books on angling, 
 to beat the bushes by the side of a stream 
 for the purpose of seeing what kind of flies 
 are abroad, is also a piece of information, 
 which, for any use that it is of, might be 
 dispensed with. Let the knowing theorist 
 make the experiment some morning or after- 
 noon in the months of June or July, by beating 
 the bushes with the stock of his rod, and, buzz ! 
 a thousand flies are on the wing, of at least 
 a dozen different shapes and hues. Well, 
 he has beat the bushes according to the rule 
 what has he to do next ? Does his guide 
 inform him which to select which at that 
 hour are playing at the surface of the stream, 
 or which, for the purpose of depositing their 
 eggs, are then seeking the shade of the trees 
 i 
 
78 
 
 and bushes ? He does no such thing, but 
 leaves his pupil, after telling him how he 
 may raise a host of flies, to put one on his 
 hook according to his own judgment which 
 is, in other words, telling him how on a small 
 scale he may produce a little " sound and fury 
 signifying nothing," unless he should happen 
 to rouse a nest of wasps, which perhaps may 
 teach him a lesson that will render him 
 cautious in beating the bushes again. Walton 
 has observed with great truth and humor, 
 " that whereas it is said by many that in 
 fly-fishing for a trout, the angler must ob- 
 serve his twelve several flies for the twelve 
 months of the year ; I say, he that follows 
 that rule shall be as sure to catch fish, and 
 be as wise as he that makes hay by the fair 
 days in an almanack, and no surer." This 
 passage, which stands in the preface, where 
 it is apt to be overlooked, should be diligently 
 noted by the speculative angler, who thinks 
 to become master of his art by diligent study 
 rather than by practice and experience. 
 
79 
 
 Oliver. I am thoroughly convinced of the 
 folly of laying down precise rules for the color 
 of the fly to be used at particular times and 
 seasons, as I have often failed, even in likely 
 weather, to take trout with a fly highly 
 recommended in books as being proper for 
 that particular time, and have succeeded to 
 the height of my wishes on trying another, 
 which the same authorities informed me was 
 only adapted for a season several months 
 earlier or later. After all that has been said 
 and sung on the subject of angling, I am 
 confident that much more depends on the 
 disposition of the trout to take the bait than 
 on any fancied excellence in the fly to tempt 
 the fish to seize it as a dainty:- a know- 
 ledge of the places where fish are likely to 
 haunt, and a dexterous management of the 
 rod and fly perform the rest. An indifferent 
 angler may catch many trouts when they 
 are inclined to feed; and the most expert 
 and observant will often fail, even in ob- 
 taining a rise, although using the most likely 
 flies and the finest tackle, when they are 
 
80 
 
 not so disposed. Beyond two or three facts, 
 we are almost wholly ignorant of the habits 
 of the trout. We know that, generally, 
 when the day is either very warm or very 
 cold for the season, and that when the 
 wind is in the north and east, or in any 
 point between these two, trout will rarely bite, 
 either at sunk bait or fly ; and this is about 
 the whole of what is positively known res- 
 pecting that state of the weather which has 
 an influence on their feeding. It has more 
 than once happened, that I have fished the 
 same water on two days of the same degree 
 of temperature, and similarly cloudy or clear, 
 with the wind in the same quarter, using 
 the same flies and tackle, and being on both 
 days equally diligent, and yet on one I have 
 caught a stone and a half of trout, and on 
 the other scarcely so many and those from 
 chance rises as would cover the bottom of 
 my creel. 
 
 Reed, I have often made a similar obser- 
 vation, and have sometimes walked for miles, 
 on, to all appearance, a most favorable day, 
 
81 
 
 fishing the best places in the stream without 
 success ; when suddenly, without any sen- 
 sible change in the weather, and at a time 
 when I least expected it, the fish would begin 
 to bite, and I have caught trout almost as fast 
 as perch in a pool at the foot of a mill-race. 
 With respect to the color of flies suited to a 
 certain time of day, I know nothing better 
 than the directions contained in the rhyme: 
 
 " A brown-red fly at morning grey, 
 A darker dun in clearer day ; 
 When summer rains have swelled the flood 
 The hackle red and worm are good ; 
 At eve, when twilight shades prevail, 
 Try the hackle white and snail. 
 Be mindful aye your fly to throw 
 Light as falls the flakey snow." 
 
 Some writers on angling, who profess to 
 teach the art with as much precision as a 
 village dominie does the rule of three, direct 
 the novice when he has taken a trout * to 
 
 * This piece of advice first occurs in the " Treatyse of 
 fyshynge wyth an Angle," in the book of St. Albans. 
 
82 
 
 examine his stomach to see what kind of 
 flies he has been feeding on, and to put on 
 his artificial fly accordingly. My advice is : 
 continue to fish with the fly which you have 
 succeeded with, and when the fish refuse to 
 take it, you may then, if you please, examine 
 the stomach of one which you have caught. 
 But even this is a very questionable guide, 
 as fish will not unfrequently rise at an arti- 
 ficial fly of quite a different shade to those 
 that are playing on the water, and on which 
 they have been previously feeding. I have 
 often known a red hackle or a dun fly take 
 trouts when they would not look at either 
 the artificial or the natural May fly, though 
 hundreds of the latter were at the same time 
 skimming the surface of the stream. 
 
 Oliver. As we are upon the subject of 
 dressing flies, allow me to ask what sort of 
 material you prefer as dubbing silk or 
 wool? 
 
 Reed. Silk ravellings generally, mixed, as 
 occasion requires, with camel's hair, various 
 
83 
 
 kinds of fur, and the stripping, or whirl, of 
 a grouse or cock's hackle, ostrich, and various 
 other feathers. I occasionally use a little 
 dyed wool, which is best got from the carpet 
 manufacturers, but I seldom use it by itself, 
 as silk works cleaner, makes a neater body, 
 and does not absorb so much moisture. A 
 large fly, when the body is formed chiefly of 
 wool, soon becomes heavy from the water 
 which it takes up, rendering it difficult to 
 be thrown lightly ; and whenever the fly in 
 smooth water makes a considerable eddy on 
 the surface, it can scarcely be expected that a 
 trout will rise readily at that which has scared 
 him, and which his fright has caused him to 
 examine more closely, and thus to suspect 
 the cheat. To cast lightly and truly to the 
 spot where you wish the fly to alight, con- 
 stitutes the chief excellence of the fly-fisher; 
 and as this is only to be acquired by prac- 
 tice, a day's exercise with the rod is worth 
 more than a month's study. Indeed the 
 attempt to teach the art of angling by pre- 
 
84 
 
 cept, from the first cutting of the rod to the 
 crimping and dressing of the fish, is only so 
 much time thrown away save in the last 
 particulars, which yet belong more properly 
 to the department of Mrs. Glasse and Mrs. 
 Rundal. For creating a love of angling in 
 those who have seldom thrown a line, and 
 who pant, like the thirsting hart, for the 
 running waters, no book can for a moment 
 stand in competition with good old Izaak 
 Walton's and several more recent writers, who 
 have adopted a more methodical plan of con- 
 veying their instructions, are never read, 
 because they attempt to teach by dull falla- 
 cious rules that which can only be acquired 
 by practice. Had the author of the " Na- 
 tural History of Selborne" been an angler, 
 and published an edition of Walton enriched 
 with his own observations, he would have 
 left little to be desired. 
 
 Oliver. Do you know any precise standard 
 for the length of a perfect rod ? 
 
 Reed. Do I know any precise standard 
 
85 
 
 for the breadth of a perfect trout stream ? 
 No : I use a rod suitable to the breadth of 
 the water I fish in, and my own power of 
 casting ; and however broad the stream, 
 whether fishing for salmon or trout, I never 
 use one more than fifteen feet long, with 
 which I can throw more accurately the same 
 length of line that I can with a rod three feet 
 longer. Whenever I see a gentleman dressed 
 in fashionable angling costume a broad- 
 brimmed straw hat, new short-lapped coat, 
 caoutchouc boots, and a dirty-looking broad- 
 striped shirt angling with an eighteen feet 
 rod in a stream that he might stride over, I 
 set him down at once as a novice, fresh from 
 Cockney shire and a perusal of " Walton's 
 Complete Angler," which, perchance, he 
 carries in his creel, where it is in little danger 
 of being soiled by any fish he may catch. 
 With respect to lines and hooks ; the former 
 should always be as fine as possible, con- 
 sistent with strength, more especially the 
 foot line, which I think should be dyed of a 
 bluish green shade, and may serve for all 
 
86 
 
 states of the water, whether clear or dis- 
 colored, for in the latter case it will not be 
 so readily perceived as to render a change of 
 color necessary. The chief excellence of a 
 hook is to be of a proper temper, neither so 
 brittle as to break when the fish is struck, 
 nor so soft as to straighten with a dead pull. 
 Though I mostly use Carlisle hooks, as being 
 most readily obtained in this part of the 
 country, I occasionally try a Kirby or a 
 Limerick, and if they be equally well tem- 
 pered, one is equally as good as another for 
 holding fish, so far as my observation extends. 
 For the purpose of dying my feathers and 
 dubbing when required, I use saffron, anatto, 
 onion peelings, verdigris, Brazil wood, in- 
 digo, and red cloth, with a small portion of 
 alum and copperas to fix the dye ; and from 
 these I can produce all the necessary shades 
 of green, yellow, blue, red, orange, and 
 brown. Are you sleeping, Roddam ? 
 
 Roddam. Only till you are done with the 
 dubbing-bag, and your description of flies, 
 which operate on me in the same manner 
 
87 
 
 as on others; master or student, I think 
 they must act as a composer upon all, except 
 him who keeps himself awake by the exer- 
 cise of his own tongue or fingers. 
 
 Reed. Then I shall have done if you will 
 give us a song by the way of keeping us 
 awake, and driving away all thoughts of the 
 manufacturing branch of angling. 
 
 Oliver. I am obliged to you, Mr. Reed, 
 for your information, and as you are not in- 
 clined to say anything more on the subject 
 of an angler's tackle, I cordially second your 
 motion for Roddam to give us a song. But 
 had we not better have a fresh supply of 
 whiskey and boiling water first ? 
 
 Reed. I think so, for my tumbler is empty, 
 and Richie never sings well dry-lipped 
 
 " The bonny lavrock sips the dew, 
 And mends his cheerful sang." 
 
 Roddam. You must be content with a 
 country stave, Mr. Oliver Moore's melodies 
 must not be looked for among the hills, 
 which indeed they would as little accord 
 
with as a gentleman in a court dress herding 
 sheep on Cheviot. 
 
 THE ANGLER'S INVITATION. 
 
 THE wild bull his covert in Chillingham wood 
 
 Has left, and now browses the daisy-strewed plain ; 
 The May-fly and swallow are skimming the flood, 
 
 And sweet in the hedge blooms the hawthorn again ; 
 The young lambs are skipping on Cheviot's broad mountain, 
 
 The heather springs green upon Whitsun-bank side ; 
 The streams are as clear as the limestone-rock fountain, 
 
 And sweet is the palm blossom's scent where they glide. 
 
 O leave for a while the dull smoke of the city ; 
 
 Sons of gain, quit your desks, and your ledgers lay by, 
 Seek health in the fields while each bird sings its ditty, 
 
 And breathe the pure air underneath the broad sky. 
 Sons of pleasure, come view the sweet primroses springing, 
 
 Leave the scene where the light figurante whirls round ; 
 Come, list to the lark in the blue ether singing, 
 
 Come, see how the deer in the green forest bound. 
 
 The glad trout is roaming in every clear stream, 
 
 And the gilse and the salmon now drink the May flood ; 
 Then, anglers, be up with the sun's early beam, 
 
 Let your flies be in trim and your tackle be good ; 
 In Till there's good store of fat trouts to be won, 
 
 Let your skill load your creels as you wander along, 
 And at night, as you tell of the feats you have done, 
 
 Cheer your talk with a cup of good wine and a song. 
 
89 
 
 Reed. Well sung, my brave heather-bred 
 lad ! Here's health to you long may you 
 live to sing the charms of your own native 
 hills and pleasant streams, and oft may I be 
 present to hear you ! When I hear such a 
 song as this, I feel as if spring was reviving 
 in me, and think no place on earth so plea- 
 sant as our own country side, where man 
 and boy I have fished its bonny streams for 
 more than fifty years ! 
 
 Oliver. Health to you, Roddam, and 
 thanks for your song, which you must be so 
 kind as to favor me with a copy of before I 
 leave Glendale. 
 
 Roddam. Much obliged to you both. If 
 my song pleases, Mr. Reed, it is owing to 
 yourself it was from you that I first derived 
 my love of Nature and a country life. It 
 was you who first taught me to dress a fly 
 and catch a trout ; in your company I first 
 ascended to the top of Cheviot ; it was you 
 who first pointed out to me the beauty of the 
 wild flowers that grow in the woods and by 
 
90 
 
 the side of streams, and who first said to me, 
 in the language of Wordsworth : 
 
 " Hark ! how blithe the throstle sings, 
 
 And he is no mean preacher, 
 Come forth into the light of things, 
 Let Nature be your teacher. 
 
 " She has a mine of ready wealth, 
 
 Our minds and hearts to bless ; 
 Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 
 Truth breathed by cheerfulness." 
 
 Reed. For the real enjoyment of life, there 
 is no place like the country. That mode of 
 existence which some people consider the 
 perfection of town life, rising at noon, a 
 lounge at a club-house, a ride in the park, 
 dinner at seven in the evening, a visit to the 
 opera, and afterwards play at some fashion- 
 able gaming-house till three or four in the 
 morning, squares as little with my notion 
 of the true enjoyment of life, as a fopling's 
 " good morning," at four in the afternoon, 
 corresponds with my idea of the time of the 
 day. But my opinions on these subjects are 
 
 
91 
 
 old-fashioned, and such as only become an 
 old countryman, who feels a pleasure to dwell 
 in the old house where his fathers lived 
 before him ; and who thinks it better that he 
 and his should be cultivators of the earth 
 and keepers of cattle for themselves and 
 fellow-countrymen, than spinners of twist 
 and weavers of calico, worse than being 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water, for 
 all the world. 
 
 Oliver. When you were in London in 
 September last, did you visit any of the 
 fishing-tackle maker's shops, Mr. Reed, and 
 did you take a day's fishing in the neigh- 
 bourhood ? 
 
 Reed. I did both and I must confess 
 that such flies and such tackle I never saw 
 before. It is a pity that the rivers near 
 London afford so little worthy of employing 
 them. I was out one day at the river Lea, 
 which to me seemed little better than a great 
 mill dam, winding its sluggish way through 
 a marshy flat, and affording the chance of 
 
92 
 
 catching a dozen perch or roach in a long 
 day's fishing, with perhaps as many pike in 
 a week. I also tried the river Colne, but 
 from the success or rather the want of it 
 which I met with on both occasions, I should 
 be tempted, were I to become a resident in 
 London, to abandon angling entirely, and 
 console myself with thinking on " the days 
 o' lang syne." Float-fishing for roach or 
 barbel in the Thames has also no charms 
 for me; my old tastes and habits are too 
 deeply rooted to allow of my being conve- 
 niently transplanted to a punt to enjoy a six 
 hours' fishing bout under the arch of a 
 bridge, or by the side of a jetty. Those, 
 however, who are accustomed to it, and who 
 have never known better fishing, may per- 
 haps feel as much pleasure in watching their 
 floats sink from a bite as I do in throwing a 
 fly, and drawing the bright trouts out of the 
 Glen and the Till though I can scarcely 
 think so either. There is some difference in. 
 the feeling with which a man follows the 
 
93 
 
 moor-cock on the fell, and slinks after spar- 
 rows in the hedge although he may shoot 
 the latter with a double-barrelled Manton, 
 while he brings down the mountain-bird 
 with an old flint-and-steel. Give me the 
 clear streams of my native county, and my 
 own home-made tackle, and let who will fish, 
 with their well varnished rods and silken 
 lines, in the Thames, the Colne, and the Lea. 
 One day, when I was out at Hampton Court, 
 I saw such a specimen of Thames angling as 
 I shall not readily forget. A great stout 
 man, with top boots on, and his waistcoat 
 loose for the purpose of displaying his frill, 
 was seated on a chair in a flat bottomed 
 boat moored in the middle of the river, 
 angling, as he was pleased to call it. The 
 butt-end of the rod was under his toe, and 
 he enjoyed the intervals of a bite which, I 
 presume, was like an angel's visit in reading 
 a newspaper and smoking his pipe, occa- 
 sionally cooling his mouth with a draught 
 of porter; recreation pleasant enough, but 
 K 
 
94 
 
 no more like angling, as I understand the 
 word, than a drink of Thames water from 
 the reservoir near Chelsea is like quenching 
 your thirst from the living spring as it 
 gushes pure and sparkling from the rock. 
 I think we had better be stirring now, Richie, 
 lest the thought of caller water and thirst 
 tempts us to take a glass more toddy than 
 we may be thankful for in the morning. 
 " Be merry and wise" is a good rule, but 
 sometimes ill to keep. 
 
 Anglers all, good night, good night ! 
 
 Sweet be your sleep and sound; 
 Be early up with the morning light, 
 
 Ere the dew hath left the ground. 
 
 (All retire, singing.) 
 
AN ANGLING TOUR AMONG 
 THE HILLS. 
 
 Come with me where dark hills rise, 
 Towering, cloud-capt, to the skies ; 
 In whose clefts and on whose breast 
 The lordly eagle builds his nest ; 
 At whose bases smooth lakes lie, 
 Reflecting mountain, cloud, and sky. 
 Come where rapid streamlets flow, 
 Making music as they go, 
 In cadence loud yet sweet to him 
 Who loves in dells at twilight dim 
 To walk, and view the fading light 
 Changing to the gloom of night. 
 
 IN the height of summer, when the shade- 
 fishers fall asleep as they dape for trout by 
 
96 
 
 the side of streams in the level country, let 
 the angler betake himself to the hills of 
 Cumberland and Westmorland, where the 
 sun's warm rays are tempered by the clouds 
 and vapors which are attracted by the summit 
 of the mountains, down whose craggy sides 
 a hundred sparkling rills are leaping, which 
 uniting as they descend, flow in a calmer and 
 deeper current through the vale below; 
 like the tide of human passion, clear, rapid, 
 and impetuous in youth, but growing calmer, 
 deeper, darker, and more dangerous in age. 
 
 The South-country angler who proposes to 
 take his pleasure among the hills those of 
 the North would hardly be tempted to leave 
 their own " bonny streams and braes" for 
 the sake of fly-fishing southward should 
 make his way to York as he most conve- 
 niently can, either by the mail, post-coach, 
 or in his own carriage. At York let him dis- 
 miss his retinue, and forward to Kendal his 
 travelling trunk, containing merely a change 
 of dress, with a few extra shirts and Words- 
 
97 
 
 worth's poems, excepting the volume which 
 he will constantly carry in his pocket. With 
 his angling dress, let him assume the cha- 
 racter of a plain, single-minded man, who 
 for a while laying aside the artificial distinc- 
 tions of society, is willing to pass amongst 
 his fellow men at his own intrinsic value. 
 
 The angler's dress had best consist of a 
 plain brown or dark green coat, cut some- 
 thing in the style of a shooting jacket, but 
 without such an abundance of pockets; 
 trowsers of a color best suited to resist the 
 stains of mud and clay ; thin lamb's-wool 
 stockings never walk in cotton ones a 
 pair of stout walking shoes, and a pair of 
 short gaiters, which will be found espe- 
 cially useful in crossing a heathery fell with 
 here and there a patch of spongy bog. An 
 extra shirt and pair of stockings, neatly 
 packed in oilskin, should always be carried 
 in the creel when the angler is likely to be 
 a few days absent from the place where he 
 has left, or forwarded his luggage. Should 
 
 L 
 
98 
 
 he, however, have no wish to incommode 
 himself with the charge of a travelling trunk, 
 but to wander free and careless, as fancy 
 may direct, he may very comfortably make 
 the tour of England equipped as above, only 
 that in attending church a duty which no 
 " honest angler" will neglect he may not, 
 should he be a young man, make so fashion- 
 able an appearance as he might otherwise 
 desire. But this is of small import; for 
 if the angler be blessed with a good person, 
 and of easy manner, the ladies, who have 
 wonderful discernment in these matters, will 
 quickly become sensible of his merits, not- 
 withstanding his worsted stockings and thick 
 shoes, which latter, from being frequently 
 greased, may not admit of a high polish. If 
 he be hard favored, and rather awkward in 
 scraping his shoes, pulling off his hat, and 
 taking a pinch of snuff I have known 
 several excellent anglers and truly worthy 
 men so the plainness of his dress will cause 
 him to be less observed. Winifred Jenkins 
 
99 
 
 was no longer shocked at the rent in Clinker's 
 small-clothes when she perceived how fair a 
 skin he showed beneath. 
 
 The angler's coat and trowsers should be 
 of cloth, not too thick and heavy, for if they 
 be the sooner wet they will be the sooner dry. 
 Water-proof velveteens, fustians, and mole- 
 skins rat-catchers' costume ought never 
 to be worn by the angler ; for should he have 
 to swim a mile or two on any occasion 
 when overtaken by the tide on Duddon sands, 
 for instance, or across Bassenthwaite or Ulls- 
 water, to save going six miles about he 
 would find them a serious weight when once 
 thoroughly saturated with water; and should 
 he have a stone of fish in his creel, it would 
 be safest not to make the attempt. An 
 elderly gentleman of the Kitchiner school, 
 now sitting at my elbow, who knows the 
 " Peptic Precepts" better than he does his 
 catechism which he has long since for- 
 gotten, except a phrase or two which he 
 sometimes quotes as St Paul, in religious 
 
100 
 
 company suggests the propriety of anglers 
 wearing cork jackets, which, if strapped 
 under the shoulders, would enable the wearer 
 to visit any part of a lake, where, in warm 
 weather, with an umbrella over his head, he 
 might enjoy his sport, cool and comfort- 
 able, as if in a " sunny pleasure dome with 
 caves of ice." The same gentleman thinks 
 that a bottle of Reading sauce, a box of 
 " peptic pills," and a portable frying-pan 
 ought to form part of every angler's travel- 
 ling equipage. Having merely noticed these 
 recommendations of the worthy member of 
 the " Eating-made-easy" club, I leave it to 
 those who may feel so inclined, to avail 
 themselves of the above hints. 
 
 The angler having his lines and flies in 
 proper order and safely stowed in his creel, 
 his jointed rod provided with a belt, that in 
 a long walk he may sling it like a rifle, and 
 himself supplied with a good stick, into the 
 end of which a large hook may be screwed 
 and a gaff thus formed, may now take his 
 
101 
 
 place by the coach which runs three times a 
 week from York to Middleham. Leaving 
 the coach at Masham, a clean little market 
 town, about eight miles from Middleham, 
 he can try a cast in the Eure, where he 
 perhaps may succeed in catching a gray- 
 ling, a species of the salmo, which is some- 
 times taken in this neighbourhood. About 
 five miles north-west of Masham stand the 
 ruins of Jerveaux Abbey, which, about twenty 
 years ago, were cleared by order of the noble 
 owner, the late Earl of Aylesbury, of the 
 mass of rubbish that blocked up every 
 avenue, and overtopped the remaining walls. 
 These ruins, though much more dilapidated 
 than those of Fountains, are still highly 
 interesting to the traveller who loves to 
 survey such venerable monuments of ancient 
 piety and art; and not less so from their 
 being but seldom visited by fashionable 
 tourists, who hurry from cave to hill, and 
 from minster to abbey, not that they are 
 sensible of the mystic charm, which the 
 
 
102 
 
 contemplation of such objects conveys to the 
 heart which thrills, like a minstrel's harp, 
 to the touch of nature, but because such 
 places are talked about; and they would 
 pass the most lovely spot in the island, 
 without the least sensation of pleasure and 
 without a remark, were it not for a sort of 
 guide-post notice in the book which they 
 frame their route by, which seems to say 
 " 8^" Admire here." In the church, the 
 cloisters, or the chapter-house, the broad 
 hard stone, sculptured with a simple cross, 
 marks the final resting-place of the monk, 
 whose name the worn-out letters, unfaithful 
 to their charge, no longer reveal to the 
 stranger who stands upon his grave. The 
 sparrow builds in the corbels of the arch 
 which rose above the high altar; the ivy 
 crawls where the crucifix stood; and the 
 once well-trodden floor of the buttery-hatch, 
 where the poor and the pilgrim received 
 their accustomed dole, is now covered with 
 grass. The form and structure of society 
 
103 
 
 have also undergone a mighty change. The 
 simple rustic and artizan of former times 
 ere steam-engines were known, or steam- 
 presses introduced to scatter the seeds of 
 equivocal knowledge repeated from their 
 hearts the paternoster which they could not 
 read, and enjoyed the comfort of a full 
 meal ; while their descendants, the parish- 
 paid laborer, the sickly cotton-spinner, and 
 the weaver of flimsy calico, have their 
 physical wants compensated by a plentiful 
 banquet of mental entertainment; and who 
 with empty stomachs, the great sharpeners 
 of wit, store their minds with " useful know- 
 ledge" from the Republican, the Destructive, 
 the Gauntlet, and a host of penny manuals 
 of wisdom and science twopenny trash is 
 at a hundred per cent discount whose titles 
 
 it might weary Lord ,* ore rotundo, to 
 
 recount. 
 
 * Let the reader fill up the blank with the name of 
 any Lord of great intellect and little feeling, who is fond 
 of spouting on the advantage of cultivating the mind, 
 
104 
 
 From East Witton, a village about a 
 mile above Jerveaux, a view is obtained of 
 Wensley-dale, one of the most delightful in 
 England. Looking up the dale from an 
 eminence a little above Cover Bridge, on the 
 Richmond road, the prospect on a summer 
 evening is one of the finest that can be 
 imagined ; and never did the sunny pencil 
 of Turner, even when dipped in its loveliest 
 hues, trace a landscape surpassing the scene 
 which here presents itself to the enraptured 
 eye. In the fore ground is seen the Eure 
 gently flowing through green pastures, pleas- 
 ingly diversified with hedge rows and trees, 
 where sheep and cattle are feeding. On 
 each side the ground rises at first with a 
 gentle ascent, gradually becoming more 
 steep in the distance, where it is marked 
 with a bold and varied outline. About a 
 mile up the dale, to the left, is seen Middle- 
 cramming it with "facts," which, even if all were of 
 useful kind, would stand too thick to be productive, 
 while he would allow the heart to lie fallow. 
 
105 
 
 ham, built on the slope of a hill, with the 
 dark ruins of the old castle frowning, " in 
 grim repose," over the low, stone-roofed 
 houses, and rendered more impressive from 
 the deepened shadow which the walls cast 
 in the declining sun. Behind the town 
 rises Middleham Moor, and on the opposite 
 side, to the right, appear the perpendicular 
 crags, known by the name of Leyburn Schale, 
 or Shawl, as the word is most commonly 
 pronounced. Farther up the dale, Bolton 
 Castle is seen rearing its top above a knoll 
 which partly obscures it ; and the prospect 
 to the west is bounded by the hills which 
 rise above Askrigg, and which become higher 
 and more rugged as the dale narrows. On 
 a summer eve, when the sky is a cloudless 
 expanse of purest blue, except where the 
 sun's declining rays have tinged with their 
 mellow lustre a mass of clouds in the west; 
 when the earth seems rejoicing in her beauty, 
 and the balmy air is like the breath of 
 flowers; when all Nature, animate and in- 
 
106 
 
 animate, appears to feel the heavenly in- 
 fluence of the hour, who can behold such a 
 scene without exclaiming: " Heaven and 
 Earth are full of the Majesty of THY Glory !" 
 
 " Time was when field and watery cove 
 With modulated echoes rang, 
 While choirs of fervent angels sang 
 Their vespers in the grove ; 
 
 such holy rite, 
 
 Methinks, if audibly repeated now 
 From hill or valley, could not move 
 Sublimer transport, purer love, 
 Than doth this silent spectacle the gleam, 
 The shadow, and the peace supreme !" 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Middleham and Leyburn, quiet old country 
 towns, whose population is not greater than 
 it was three hundred years ago, present a 
 striking contrast to those hot-beds of vice 
 and wretchedness, which, under the influence 
 of the manufacturing system, have sprung up 
 during the last half century with the rapidity 
 of an excrescence, which swells as the body, 
 whose disease gives it birth, declines. Those 
 
107 
 
 two pleasant retired towns retain much of 
 what may be supposed to have been the 
 character of the olden time. The people are 
 remarkable for the simplicity of their manners, 
 and their civil demeanor to strangers, unlike 
 those of a district about forty miles south, 
 where there is " a tone of defiance in every 
 voice, and an air of fierceness in every coun- 
 tenance."* The houses of the poorer classes 
 are clean, their fare simple, and their apparel 
 plain, without having that sordid appearance 
 as if soiled with the smoke and grease of 
 a cotton factory which is seen in the 
 neighbourhood of large towns. Middleham 
 and Leyburn still retain their ancient market 
 crosses, which afford a presumption that 
 fanatic zeal had not been so prevalent in this 
 district at the time of the Reformation as in 
 some other parts of the country. The upper 
 part of the Middleham cross, which is fitted 
 to a stone shaft, is, both transverse and 
 
 * Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete. 
 
108 
 
 upright, of iron, formed at the extremities 
 like a cross botonnee ; while that of Leyburn 
 is of more simple structure, and wholly of 
 stone. Proceeding up the dale, either from 
 Leyburn, by way of Wensley and Bolton 
 Park, or from Middleham, over the moor 
 the latter being the most preferable road for 
 the pedestrian, as so fine a prospect is ob- 
 tained from the top of the moor we arrive 
 at Askrigg, after viewing the fall of the 
 Eure at Aysgarth, about three miles below. 
 In the neighbourhood of Askrigg are several 
 interesting water-falls, the most remarkable 
 of which are Mill-gill, Whitfield, and Hard- 
 row-force. The latter in particular is ex- 
 tremely grand, the stream dashing in one 
 foaming sheet over a ledge of rocks ninety- 
 three feet high, and then flowing through 
 a narrow ravine, bounded on each side by 
 dark masses of rock, which extend about a 
 quarter of a mile below the fall. 
 
 Leaving Askrigg for Sedbergh, the road 
 lies for about half way by the side of the 
 
109 
 
 Eure till on arriving at Thwaite Bridge ; 
 about a mile from which it enters Garsdale, 
 and continues nearly to Sedbergh by the 
 side of a rocky stream, which enters the 
 river Lune about a mile to the south-west 
 of that town. In proceeding down Garsdale, 
 the principal stream which runs through it, 
 as well as the various small becks which 
 join it, afford frequent opportunities to the 
 angler of enjoying an hour's sport, should 
 he feel disposed to make a cast in descending 
 the dale. 
 
 In fishing the mountain streams of Cum- 
 berland and Westmorland, the angler can 
 scarcely have his tackle too fine; for al- 
 though tolerably large trouts, of from two to 
 four pounds weight be sometimes taken, 
 they are not in general so large as those 
 caught in rivers which flow through a more 
 level district, and whose banks, being com- 
 posed of a looser and richer soil, afford a 
 more abundant supply of food in the shape 
 of grubs, snails, and worms. Those streams, 
 
110 
 
 also, which traverse a hilly district are not 
 so much infested with weeds as those of the 
 plains, and which frequently endanger the 
 angler's tackle as much as the weight of a 
 trout. A single stout hair for the end and 
 drop-fly will in most places be sufficiently 
 strong ; and in deep pools, where larger 
 trout may be expected to rise, and where the 
 stream flows rather rapidly with a ruffled sur- 
 face, thus requiring stronger tackle, fine gut 
 should be used in preference to a link of two 
 or three hairs. Where the water is clear 
 and shallow, more than two flies should 
 never be used, with the dropper about two 
 feet and a half or three feet from the end fly. 
 A red hackle used as a dropper, with a small 
 dun-fly on the stretcher the wings of the 
 feather of a dotterel's wing, and the body 
 formed of brown mohair with a little dark 
 green floss, and ribbed with brown silk 
 will in general do execution in moderately 
 warm and clear weather. A darker fly, with 
 the wings formed of the feather of a starling, 
 
Ill 
 
 or a bald coot, and the body of camel's hair 
 and a little dark red floss, will also be found 
 of service when the day is rather bright and 
 the water clear. From May to July the 
 small yellow May-fly is in season ; and 
 during the same period the grey-drake may 
 also be used with advantage. In addition 
 to the above, the wren's tail, the grouse, and 
 the dun hackle will be found to be the most 
 serviceable flies for summer fishing in Cum- 
 berland and Westmorland, or indeed in any 
 other part of England. Though it is impos- 
 sible to lay down any precise rules for the 
 use of flies which will prove at all times 
 correct, it is to be observed that more trouts 
 are killed with brown flies and hackles than 
 with those of any other shade. The wren's 
 tail may be formed of dark brown floss, with 
 a little orange colored mohair, and the feather 
 of a wren's tail, or the stripping of the feather 
 of a dotterel's wing. The grouse hackle, which, 
 as well as the above, is without wings, is 
 formed of dark olive-colored floss, and the 
 
112 
 
 brown-red feather of a grouse ; and the dun 
 hackle may be made of leaden colored floss, 
 the light combings from a blue greyhound's 
 neck, and the feather of a pea-fowl, a star- 
 ling, or a bald coot. When the water is 
 rather discolored from rain, or ruffled by a 
 breeze, larger flies may be used, and need 
 not be thrown so lightly as when it is smooth 
 and clear. When the day is rather cool, and 
 the fish do not rise well, the flies may be 
 allowed to sink a little ; and at such times 
 a half hackle, with a gentle on the point of 
 the hook, will be very likely to afford the 
 angler sport. When the day is warm, and 
 the water smooth and clear, the fly should 
 fall on its surface as gently as thistle down ; 
 for the lightest substance then is apt to form 
 a sensible circle on the water, while its tran- 
 sparency better enables the fish to examine 
 any object whose sudden descent might 
 render them suspicious. 
 
 After a shower, when the water begins to 
 clear, bottom fishing with a brandling worm, 
 
113 
 
 towards the lower end of pools where the 
 water shallows, and in broad parts of the 
 stream where it runs with a gentle current, 
 will frequently succeed ; but should a couple 
 of eels be taken at the commencement, the 
 angler ought to immediately shift his ground, 
 for he need not expect to catch trout 
 where eels have assembled, as they invari- 
 ably drive the former away. The angler 
 should fish with his face to the sun, that his 
 rod may not cast too great a shadow on the 
 water, and down the stream, that he may 
 have less chance of meeting with those trouts 
 which his previous attempts have rendered 
 shy, and caused to ascend towards its source. 
 When a fish has seized the fly, let the angler 
 strike lightly and nimbly as soon as he 
 turns to descend. No trout, whether great 
 or small, should be allowed to run out a 
 considerable length of line too freely, as the 
 object of giving a trout line which is to 
 gradually exhaust his strength in running it 
 off is thus defeated. In allowing a fish 
 M 
 
114 
 
 line, the angler ought to be guided by the 
 nature of the stream in which he is fish- 
 ing. Where a trout, by running out much 
 line, is likely to gain a rapid part of the 
 stream, or the covert of a shelving rock 
 whose edge will be apt to cut the line, he 
 should be held with rather a firm hand, and 
 the strength of the tackle be tried before he 
 acquires a double chance of escape. On 
 some days apparently favorable for fly- 
 fishing, no trout will rise in the shallow 
 parts of a stream, nor in their accustomed 
 feeding places. On such occasions the 
 middle and deeper parts of the water should 
 be diligently fished; and if the stream be 
 too broad, or a pool too long to allow the 
 angler to throw so far, let him wade till the 
 water is within a hair's breadth of his waist- 
 coat pockets, should he be enabled by thus 
 cooling his lower extremities, to cast his fly 
 to the right spot. 
 
 Persons who are rather hypped, and have 
 a terror of apoplexy should they get wet feet, 
 
115 
 
 and such as expect to be carried off by a 
 galloping consumption should they tumble 
 over head and ears into a " peerless pool of 
 living water," ought never to attempt fly- 
 fishing. It is not a recreation fitted for 
 their temperament; for as fly-fishers, who 
 are not unfrequently exposed to the risk of 
 wet feet and a wet jacket, their sensations 
 must often be like those of a gouty old 
 gentleman in a country dance, who follows 
 the " mazy pleasure" under the apprehension 
 that some active lady or gentleman who cuts 
 high will be alighting, after one of their 
 lofty bounds, on his tender toe. 
 
 Sedbergh is a small, irregularly built 
 market town, situated among the hills on the 
 north-western boundary of Yorkshire. The 
 moors and streams in the vicinity, which 
 abound respectively with grouse and trout, 
 render Sedbergh, though not in itself inte- 
 resting, a convenient station during the season 
 to the shooter and the angler. The river 
 Lune, which flows about a mile west of the 
 town, where it forms the boundary between 
 
116 
 
 Yorkshire and Westmorland, is an excellent 
 trout stream, and one of the most pleasant 
 in this part of the country. Running for 
 the most part over a rocky channel, and fed 
 by mountain rills, its waters are remarkably 
 pure and bright. Proceeding downwards 
 from Sedbergh, the country becomes more 
 fertile as you descend ; and in the neighbor- 
 hood of Middleton, Underley, and Kirkby 
 Lonsdale, where the river winds through 
 verdant meadows, with its rocky margin 
 rendered still more beautiful from the over- 
 hanging trees, the scenery is in the highest 
 degree interesting ; worthy of the pencil of a 
 Poussin or a Claude, and not to be excelled 
 by many of the views which our artists travel 
 post through Germany, France, and Italy to 
 obtain, for the purpose of embellishing the 
 vapid pages of a fashionable annual. " Far 
 fetched and little worth," though an old 
 saw, is not worn out ; for every year presents 
 us with some freakish composition styled a 
 view on the Rhine, the Seine, at Milan, or 
 in Switzerland which is far inferior in point 
 
117 
 
 of natural beauty to many of the charming 
 scenes yet undepicted of " our own, our 
 native land." But the mere mechanical 
 tracing in a picture of the Gothic ornaments 
 in the front of a cathedral, or of the ara- 
 besque and stucco on the gable end of an 
 old house, is a much easier task than the 
 natural representation of a noble landscape 
 whose chief features consist of the 
 
 " Sweet interchange 
 Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains. " 
 
 Ascending the Lune from Sedbergh, the 
 dale narrows, and the country becomes more 
 bleak and mountainous; while the rustic 
 single-arched bridges, built of rude grey- 
 stone, which here and there span the stream, 
 form admirable studies for the artist who 
 wishes to enrich his portfolio with sketches 
 of the picturesque scenery of his own country. 
 There is one in particular, a little above 
 Burrow bridge, and nine miles from Sed- 
 bergh, which can scarcely fail to arrest the 
 
118 
 
 notice of the traveller. It crosses the Lime 
 at a place where its channel is contracted by 
 opposite rocks, and where its waters hurry 
 with noisy speed over a rocky and uneven 
 bed. This bridge is without any rail or 
 parapet, and so narrow as only to admit of 
 one foot-passenger crossing at a time ; and 
 might be supposed to have been built only 
 to afford sheep a passage from one hill side 
 to another. 
 
 The Lune, both above and below Sed- 
 bergh, affords excellent fishing ; and after the 
 angler has sufficiently exercised his skill in 
 this neighbourhood, let him proceed direct to 
 Kendal, about ten miles west. Having sup- 
 plied himself with clean linen from his lug- 
 gage, which was directed to be forwarded 
 here from York, let our tourist again 
 send it forward to Jackson's, Queen's Head, 
 Keswick ; and after providing himself with 
 a stock of brandling worms and gentles from 
 any of the numerous tan-yards in Kendal, 
 let him take his place by one of the Carlisle 
 
119 
 
 coaches for Shap, sixteen miles north. That 
 part of the road which lies over Shap Fells 
 presents, even in the height of summer, a 
 dreary appearance. The dark grey rocks 
 which show their heads above the moor, 
 are relieved by no cheerful verdure ; and the 
 heather which lies in patches upon the 
 brown peat moss seems half-withered, and 
 displays more of its dingy stalk than of its 
 green top and purple flowers ; while an 
 occasional pool of dark-colored bog-water, 
 collected in a hollow 'from which peats have 
 been dug, contributes to render the scene 
 still more cheerless. 
 
 About half a mile south of Shap, in a 
 field to the right, may be seen a Druidical 
 circle of large unhewn cobble-stones ; the 
 huge granite pebbles of an antediluvian world, 
 which had been thrown upon those fells, 
 smoothed and rounded by the attrition, 
 
 " When o'er the highest hills the deluge past." 
 A double line of similar stones, leading to the 
 
 
120 
 
 above inclosure, were formerly to be seen by 
 the side of the road, but within these last 
 seven or eight years they have been broken 
 up to form gate-posts, and many of the frag- 
 ments may be observed built into the walls 
 on each side of the turnpike. A continuation 
 of similar stones, placed at considerable inter- 
 vals, but still with an obvious design, is said 
 to extend across the hills to the north-west ; 
 and stones of the same kind are to be seen to 
 the south-east, by the side of the road between 
 Shap and Orton. These directing stones, if 
 I may be allowed so to call them, have pro- 
 bably served to indicate the situation of other 
 places of Druidical worship or political as- 
 sembly ; for a line extended in the direction 
 of those that lie to the north-west, would 
 nearly intersect the Druidical inclosure which 
 stands about two miles above Keswick, on 
 the old Penrith road ; and a continuation of 
 the same line to the south-east, would, after 
 passing near some tumuli to the eastward of 
 Orton, nearly intersect the " Nine Stan- 
 
121 
 
 dards," an assemblage of large stones on the 
 boundary between Westmorland and York- 
 shire, about five miles east of Kirkby Stephen, 
 which are in all probability of Druidical 
 erection. 
 
 Shap, which is one of the market-towns of 
 Westmorland, consists of a line of houses, 
 chiefly cottages, built at considerable intervals 
 on each side of the road, and extending about 
 a mile in length. The situation is elevated, 
 and being unsheltered by any hills immedi- 
 ately near to it, is exposed to every wind 
 that blows. The frequent rain, driven by 
 the unmitigated force of the wind against the 
 sides of the houses, causes a dampth to strike 
 through the thickest walls, and makes it 
 rather difficult to find a perfectly dry lodging- 
 room in the comfortless inn where the coach 
 stops. In the neighbourhood there is some 
 tolerably good pasture, which has been re- 
 claimed from the moor ; and a few oats are 
 cultivated, which only perfectly ripen and 
 yield a good crop in hot and dry seasons, 
 
122 
 
 when the lower lands are parched and burnt 
 up. In a cold season, the scanty harvest 
 never ripens, and a field of ill-grown oats of 
 a withered green, may not unfrequently be 
 seen standing in the middle of October and 
 sometimes later. 
 
 About two miles from Shap, on a branch 
 of the river Lowther, stand the ruins of 
 Shap Abbey, a foundation of some con- 
 sequence in a former age, though far in- 
 ferior in point of size and splendor to 
 Kirkstal, Fountains, and Jerveaux, for the 
 prior was at different times summoned to 
 attend the parliaments held by Edward the 
 Second. The stream which flows past it 
 affords good fishing, and the angler may 
 follow its course downward until he arrives 
 at Askham, a pleasant village about a mile 
 west of Lowther Castle, the seat of the Earl 
 of Lonsdale. Should the tourist feel desirous 
 of viewing the interior of the castle, which is 
 a modern Gothic mansion, something in the 
 style of Eaton Hall though less florid, he 
 
123 
 
 will not find any difficulty in gratifying his 
 wishes, as the noble owner kindly allows all 
 strangers who apply, to be shown through 
 the different apartments. The drive through 
 the park is delightful, and the entrance to 
 the hall noble. From the north front the 
 view is highly interesting ; to the left are 
 seen Saddleback and Helvellyn ; Penrith, 
 and the vale of the Eamont lie in front ; and 
 to the right appears Crossfell, dividing 
 Westmorland from Cumberland. 
 
 About three miles from Askham lies 
 Pooley bridge, at the foot of Ullswater, where 
 there is a good inn, at which the tourist 
 should take up his quarters for a day or two, 
 for the purpose of visiting the lake. Though 
 Ullswater as a whole cannot bear a compari- 
 son with Derwent lake at Keswick, or with 
 Windermere, yet, towards its head, for the 
 stern, simple, and lonely grandeur of its 
 scenery, it exceeds them both. The rocks at 
 each side rise abruptly from the water's edge, 
 and rearing their dark heads high above 
 
124 
 
 the lake, overlook it in gloomy silence, 
 while their shadows cast upon the waters, 
 communicate to them a darker hue. For 
 exciting a sensation of the sublime none of 
 the other lakes can equal this part of Ulls- 
 water. Derwent and Windermere, with 
 their verdant isles and woody banks, are 
 lovely on a clear day, either at morn, noon- 
 tide, or eve ; and the masses of rock at the 
 head of Derwent, which appear to close 
 the pass up Borrowdale, are grand and im- 
 pressive ; but when seen from the lake 
 they fail, in consequence of their more remote 
 distance, to excite those feelings, bor- 
 dering upon awe, which are experienced in 
 rowing near the towering cliffs that overlook 
 the upper part of Ullswater. Should the 
 tourist be paddling his light skiff on this 
 part of the lake at the commencement of a 
 thunder-storm, as once happened to the 
 writer, let him directly lay in his oars, that 
 nothing may divert his mind from the con- 
 templation of the scene ; composing himself 
 
125 
 
 in the stern-sheets of the boat, with his eye 
 bent on the dark thunder-cloud which hides 
 the peak of Helvellyn, let him, amidst the 
 conflict of the elements, wonder and adore. 
 The sombre canopy extends to the south; 
 and now it approaches the lake, shrouding- 
 its waters as with a pall. See how the vivid 
 lightning shoots across its dark surface, 
 while, peal on peal, the thunder echoes among 
 the mountains, with occasionally a tremen- 
 dous crash, as if one of them were rent by 
 " heaven's artillery*' from summit to base, 
 and the smooth water heaves with a slight un- 
 dulating motion, as if its bosom labored to give 
 expression to a sigh. At length the storm 
 subsides. The hollow muttering of the 
 thunder is heard more faintly, and dies on 
 the distant hills ; a few large, heavy drops 
 of rain now descend ; a sudden gleam of 
 sunshine breaks through the gloom ; the 
 clouds disperse ; and the tops of the moun- 
 tains, and the blue sky appear. The swallow 
 now skims the lake in rapid flight; the 
 
126 
 
 thrush resumes his note in Gowbarrow park ; 
 and the wood-crowned rise of Dunmallet, at 
 the foot of the lake, smiles in all the pride 
 of summer sheen. 
 
 Ullswater contains a species of trout which 
 very much resembles the char, and the inn- 
 keeper at Pooley bridge, who generally rents 
 the fishery, will stoutly maintain that they 
 are the same, varying only from accidental 
 circumstances, such as difference of water 
 and food. However this may be, for on 
 this point I should not like to hazard an 
 opinion, they are potted and sold as char, 
 and those persons must be endowed with 
 refined palates who can perceive the differ- 
 ence ; an angler who has been at the water 
 side from five in the morning until nine, and 
 who walks eight or ten miles before break- 
 fast, I am satisfied, cannot. In a dam at the 
 foot of the lake, great quantities of eels are 
 taken ; and the trouts which are caught in 
 the river Eamont are easily distinguished 
 from those of the lake from which it runs. 
 
127 
 
 The trouts of the Eamont are not generally 
 large, but a score, each weighing from ten to 
 twelve ounces, may sometimes be caught in 
 a couple of hours between Pooley and Tirril 
 when the water is rather high. 
 
 Hound fishing for pike upon the lakes is 
 most amusing when there is a party, but 
 affords little pleasure to the solitary angler 
 who prefers to depend on the exercise of his 
 rod, rather than to sit idle and see fish 
 hooked by a species of chance-medley. The 
 following is the mode of proceeding : a live 
 bait, either a perch or a trout, with a short 
 line from two to six feet long, is attached to 
 a piece of light buoyant wood, or a bladder, 
 which is then turned adrift upon the lake, to 
 float according to the direction of the wind 
 or current. The bait in its course down or 
 across the lake is frequently seized by a 
 pike, and the resistance of the wood or 
 bladder, when he first attempts to make off 
 with his prey, assists to strike the hook. 
 Should the hook become firmly fixed, the 
 
128 
 
 hound frequently disappears in the pike's 
 attempts to descend, but after a short time, 
 when the wearied captive has relaxed his 
 efforts, again mounts to the surface. This 
 alternate sinking and rising of the hound 
 is frequent when the fish is large and strong; 
 but in the end, the buoyancy of the former 
 never fails to exhaust the pike, and to float 
 triumphant with its prize. Sometimes a 
 few extra yards of line are wound about the 
 hound, as in a trimmer, which are run off by 
 the pike after he has seized the bait. This 
 is done from the mistaken notion of allowing 
 the fish an opportunity of pouching the 
 bait, the same as in narrow and shallow 
 waters, where, at a short distance, he can 
 find the shelter of a bank to gorge his prey 
 in quiet. In hound fishing in a deep lake, 
 where the line neither reaches the shore nor 
 the bottom, this mode is not so likely to 
 succeed as the former; for the chance of the 
 hook which should be a snap striking 
 him at the first plunge, when he is eager to 
 
129 
 
 secure his prey, is greater than after he has 
 carried it about twenty or thirty yards in his 
 mouth ; 'and when, unless he be very hungry, 
 a slight check may cause him to drop it ; 
 in which case, he will seldom attempt to 
 follow it downwards, though he will often < 
 make a second attempt when the bait retains 
 its position near the surface. 
 
 In the Friends' burying ground at Tirril, 
 between Pooley bridge and Penrith, is 
 interred an unfortunate brother of the angle. 
 Of this " pilgrim of nature," whose name 
 was Charles Gough, and whose fate is 
 described by Sir Walter Scott in the verses 
 called " Helvellyn," a passing notice may 
 not, perhaps, be misplaced here. He had 
 been educated in the religious principles of 
 the Quakers, but was expelled from the 
 Society in consequence of his having joined 
 a volunteer corps. He had been accustomed 
 to visit Wytheburn, between Keswick and 
 Ambleside, for the sake of angling ; and with 
 the intention of proceeding there, he left a 
 
130 
 
 public-house, in Patterdale at the head of 
 Ullswater, where he had called for refresh- 
 ment, on the 18th of April 1805. He wished 
 to have had a guide to direct him over the hills, 
 but as there was a general review that day 
 at Penrith, he could not obtain one. He 
 therefore proceeded on his journey without 
 any other attendant than his spaniel bitch, 
 expecting to be able to find the way by him- 
 self; but in this hope he was deceived, for 
 he never reached Wytheburn. About an 
 hour after he left the public-house, a quantity 
 of hail fell, accompanied with a dense fog, 
 which continued the remainder of the day. 
 No account was heard of him for two months, 
 when a shepherd passing near Red Tarn 
 Crag, not far from Helvellyn, on the 20th of 
 June, was attracted by the howling of a 
 dog. It was Mr. Gough's spaniel watching 
 over the remains of her master. 
 
 u Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain 
 
 heather, 
 Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay, 
 
131 
 
 Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather, 
 
 Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay ; 
 Nor yet quite deserted, though lowly extended, 
 For faithful in death, his mute favourite attended, 
 The much-loved remains of her master defended, 
 And chased the hill fox and the raven away." 
 
 The shepherd immediately acquainted some 
 of the inhabitants of the dale with what he 
 had seen, who, on proceeding to the spot* 
 found the skeleton lying at the foot of a 
 precipitous crag, with the skull detached 
 from it, and lying about seven yards off. 
 His fishing-rod was at the top of the crag, 
 and his small bundle was discovered about 
 half way down. The flesh of the body was 
 nearly consumed ; probably by foxes, or 
 wild birds, which haunt this part of the 
 country, and prey on the carcasses of the 
 sheep and lambs which die among the hills. 
 The manner of his death is uncertain, though 
 it appears most likely that he had lost 
 his way, and fallen over the crag during the 
 fog. Some persons however have imagined, 
 that being exhausted with cold and fatigue, 
 
132 
 
 he had resigned himself to sleep, and perished 
 from the inclemency of the weather. 
 
 Near Eamont's stream, in his last narrow bed, 
 An angler sleeps. No sculptured lines relate 
 
 His name or birth ; but whilst HELVELLYN'S read, 
 Shall live the mem'ry of his hapless fate. 
 
 Bidding farewell to Ullswater, a walk of 
 four miles brings the tourist to the main road 
 between Penrith and Keswick, which a 
 coach travels daily, thus affording an oppor- 
 tunity of a ride to the latter town, should the 
 walk from Pooley bridge, about sixteen 
 miles, be thought too long. A few miles 
 west of Penruddock the road enters the 
 mountains. To the right rise Souter-fell and 
 Saddleback; and to the left ascends Mell- 
 fell, which bounds the upper part of Ulls- 
 water on the north. About two miles from 
 Keswick, the vale and lake of Derwent are 
 perceived, surrounded by a belt of dark 
 rocky mountains, whose sombre tone of color 
 is relieved by the foliage of the trees which 
 skirt their base, or grow upon their sides. 
 Should the day be fine, perhaps no survey 
 
133 
 
 made more at leisure, or from a more favour- 
 able station, can equal the effect produced by 
 the first view obtained of the lake from this 
 spot. 
 
 Since the romantic story of Mary of 
 Buttermere, unfortunately for her a "Tale of 
 real Life," gave to this part of the country an 
 accidental interest in addition to its own 
 natural charms of mountain, lake, and stream, 
 Keswick has gradually become in summer 
 and autumn, a sort of fashionable watering- 
 place among the hills ; which, indeed, it is, 
 in more senses of the word than one ; for in 
 few other places in the kingdom are the 
 inhabitants more frequently drenched with 
 showers of rain. Ladies therefore who 
 design to visit Keswick, need not take their 
 paper bonnets with them ; and no gentleman 
 has been known to ascend Skiddaw in pumps 
 without returning in his stocking feet, if, 
 indeed, a person can be said to walk in his 
 stocking feet, when the greater part of his ten- 
 der soles come in contact with the rough stones 
 every step, or rather hitch, which he takes. 
 
134 
 
 During the height of the " season," 
 which is indicated by the arrival of the 
 " college youths" from Cambridge, who 
 immediately occasion a rise in the price of 
 cigars, and in boat hire, almost every house- 
 keeper lets off a portion of his dwelling as 
 lodgings, and the double-bedded rooms of 
 the inns are now densely tenanted. This is 
 the hay-time of the pencil-makers, for 
 every person visiting Keswick is expected to 
 buy as many black-lead pencils as will serve 
 him all his life, with a handsome reversion 
 to his heirs, spar-dealers, curiosity-mongers, 
 boatmen, and guides ; and sometimes a scout 
 is taken into the pay of a family party to 
 give timely notice of the out-goings of Mr. 
 Southey, when he quits his library to read 
 the book of Nature under the canopy of hea- 
 ven, in order that they may obtain a sight 
 of the laureate wandering in meditative 
 mood, or pouring out, in accents loud, a 
 flood of sounding hexameters to exercise his 
 lungs. The writer was sitting in a friend's 
 garden one evening, 
 
135 
 
 " ... at that sober hour when the light of day is receding, 
 And from surrounding things the hues wherewith day has 
 
 adorned them, 
 Fade, like the hopes of youth," 
 
 when he heard a strange discordant noise at 
 the foot of the lake, which he mistook for 
 the evening tattoo of a bittern, till he was 
 informed that it proceeded from Mr. Southey, 
 who was thus exercising his vocal powers, at 
 a somewhat loud pitch, for the benefit of his 
 health. Perhaps the poet was reciting from 
 Horace, 
 
 (t Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni," 
 
 according to the true cantilena of the 
 ancients, and in the manner of Dr. Bentley; 
 whose musical recitative of a portion of 
 Terence was mistaken by Lord Carteret's 
 mother, simple old lady, as proceeding from 
 the effects of an extra glass of wine, and she 
 was rather displeased to think that her son 
 should encourage the " old clergyman" to 
 sing in his cups. The learned Meibomius, 
 who attempted to sing one of the odes of 
 
136 
 
 Pindar after the ancient manner for the 
 entertainment of Christina of Sweden, was 
 obliged to desist at the end of the first strophe, 
 as the effect on the risible muscles of the 
 audience was too powerful to allow him to 
 finish the lofty strain. 
 
 The various beauties in the neighbourhood 
 of Keswick the loveliness of Derwent lake, 
 the grandeur and gloom of the mountains, 
 with the noble and extensive views from the 
 top of Latrigg and of lofty Skiddaw have 
 been so often and so eloquently described, 
 that to enlarge upon them here would be 
 like the attempt to " gild refined gold." 
 Yet, notwithstanding all that poets and 
 painters have done to describe those scenes, 
 no pencil can adequately portray their 
 charms, nor pen convey the sensations which 
 are felt on beholding them. At early morn : 
 
 " from the dell 
 
 Mount to the ridge 
 
 Thence look thou forth o'er wood and lawn, 
 Hoar with the frost- like dews of dawn ; 
 
137 
 
 Across yon meadowy bottom look, 
 Where close fogs hide their parent brook ; 
 
 Among this multitude of hills, 
 Crags, woodlands, waterfalls, and rills ; 
 Which soon the morning shall unfold, 
 From east to west, in ample vest 
 Of massy gloom and radiance bold.' 7 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Though Derwent lake contains pike, trout, 
 and perch, it is too much fished to afford 
 much amusement to the angler. The fol- 
 lowing method of catching pike and trout 
 is often employed on this lake. A hazel 
 rod about four feet long, sufficiently flexible 
 to bend to the pull of a fish, is fixed in the 
 stern of a boat, and slightly inclined towards 
 the water. To the top of this rod is attached 
 a stout line, from forty to sixty yards long, 
 the other end of which is fastened to a piece 
 of wood about fourteen inches long, four 
 broad, and one inch thick. To the other 
 end of this piece of wood, a foot-line of finer 
 materials, and from eight to twelve yards 
 long is made fast. From the end of this 
 
138 
 
 foot-line, about a yard distant from each other, 
 half a dozen or more flies are placed ; and 
 when the fisherman wishes to try both for 
 pike and trout, a small perch is put on the 
 end hook, which in this case should be a 
 snap. When all is ready, the foot-line is 
 committed to the water, and the fisherman, 
 gently plying his oars, runs out the remainder 
 of the line, and thus continues to row round 
 the lake, occasionally resting to observe 
 either from the bending of the rod, or by 
 feeling the line, if he has a bite or not. 
 When he perceives that he has a bite, he 
 proceeds to draw the line gently in, managing 
 it according to the apparent strength of the 
 fish, until he appears sufficiently exhausted 
 to allow of his being secured without risk of 
 the link breaking. A gaff is better than a land- 
 ing net, when the fish is large, to lift him into 
 the boat with. A pike and one or two trouts 
 are occasionally caught at the same time ; 
 the pike by the snap at the end of the line, 
 and the trouts by the flies nearer the boat. 
 
139 
 
 A number of perch, or bass as they are 
 termed in this part of the country, are caught 
 in the shallow water by the margin of the 
 lake and near the shore of the islands, but 
 they are mostly small, and undeserving the 
 angler's attention. Bass fishing may there- 
 fore be left to the novice who is incapable of 
 catching any thing else, and who returns to 
 his inn delighted with a string of perch, the 
 largest not bigger than a loach, and the 
 whole not worth the fat required to fry 
 them. 
 
 The different streams in the neighbourhood 
 of Keswick all contain trout, but which are 
 seldom large, or caught in any considerable 
 number. Eight or ten pounds may some- 
 times be taken in favorable weather in the 
 course of three or four hours of steady fishing 
 during the best time of the day ; but a twenty 
 pound creel will seldom load the shoulders 
 of the angler, should he fish 
 
 " From the first blush of morn to the last smile of eve." 
 
140 
 
 The Derwent, before it enters the lake of 
 the same name, affords perhaps the best 
 fishing near Keswick; but about ten miles 
 from Keswick, the same river after passing 
 through Bassenthwaite lake, contains large 
 trouts, weighing from two to five pounds, 
 which require stouter tackle than is neces- 
 sary where the stream is less. 
 
 Having remained at Keswick as long as 
 inclination prompts or time allows, let the 
 angler dispatch his luggage to Ambleside or 
 Bowness, while he himself proceeds up Bor- 
 rowdale, and over the hills to Buttermere. 
 Though this route is more circuitous, and 
 the road much more difficult than the usual 
 one through Newlands, yet the wild and 
 rugged grandeur of the scenery will amply 
 compensate the lover of nature for his addi- 
 tional fatigue. It is indeed seldom travelled 
 by mere holiday lakers amateurs of land- 
 scape, who like best to see the face of nature 
 reflected in a pocket mirror, and who never 
 stir out without an umbrella and a folding 
 
141 
 
 stool. No " stout gentleman" of fourteen 
 stone and upwards, and who is besides rather 
 asthmatic, should attempt this route, lest he 
 should become exhausted when half way up 
 the hill, and have to be conveyed down again 
 on a sledge, like a load of peats. Passing 
 the waterfall of Lowdore, near the head of 
 the lake, and the Bowder stone a huge 
 fragment of rock like the Grampus hospital 
 ship turned keel upwards the road lies 
 directly up Borrowdale as far as Seatoller, 
 where it ascends the hill to the right. In 
 some parts of the ascent it becomes a mere 
 sheep track, and is not easy to find ; and in 
 one or two places, should the traveller diverge 
 too far to the north, he runs the risk of 
 sinking up to his knees in a bog expert o 
 crede. From the top of the hill the descent 
 to the vale of Buttermere is by a steep and 
 uneven road, interspersed with large stones 
 and fragments of rock, by the side of which 
 a brawling stream pursues its rapid course 
 to the lake below. About half way down 
 
142 
 
 there are some slate quarries, and imme- 
 diately to the left rises Honister Crag, a 
 lofty and almost perpendicular rock, a fitting 
 eyrie for the eagle, which sometimes breeds 
 there. From its top descends a sparkling 
 rill, which appears in its fall like a vein of 
 silver in the dark side of the crag. From 
 this and other similar crags at the head of 
 Buttermere, several streams descend which 
 in their general effect are scarcely inferior to 
 Lowdore, though, perhaps, the direct per- 
 pendicular fall of none of them may be so 
 great. 
 
 In winter, about four years ago, two 
 young men who were out snipe-shooting, 
 attempted to ascend the mountain by follow- 
 ing the channel of one of those streams, the 
 sides of which being slippery from the snow 
 and ice, rendered their progress at once 
 difficult and hazardous. After having toiled 
 their way to a considerable elevation, the 
 one who was in advance suddenly missed his 
 companion, and on looking down the stream 
 
143 
 
 perceived him lying bleeding and insensible 
 at a considerable distance below, with his 
 head near the edge of a precipice, over which 
 should he happen to slide, his death would 
 be inevitable. Leaving his gun, he gradually 
 lowered himself down to his companion, 
 whom he drew farther on to the ledge of 
 rock, but which was too narrow to allow of 
 his being left there in his still insensible 
 state, while his friend should endeavor to 
 obtain assistance. In this situation they 
 remained for upwards of two hours on a 
 cold winter's day, both wet, and the wounded 
 man, whose head had been cut in the fall, 
 still insensible, with little prospect in that 
 lonely place of any one coming to their aid. 
 At length the one who was unhurt made 
 himself heard by some quarry-men, who 
 happened to be passing down the dale, but 
 who, on reaching the place, found that they 
 could not remove the wounded man without 
 ropes to draw him up the cliff. These were 
 at last procured just as evening began to set 
 
144 
 
 in, when the wounded person was rescued 
 from his perilous situation, and conveyed to 
 a farm-house in the dale, where he lay for 
 three weeks before he so far recovered from 
 his injuries as to allow of his returning to 
 his own home. As the parties were both 
 active dalesmen, the accident which one of 
 them met with in attempting to ascend in 
 winter the steep and craggy side of a moun- 
 tain, may happen to a less experienced 
 stranger at a season when there is indeed 
 less danger of slipping, but no less injury to 
 be apprehended from a fall. 
 
 " Felix quern faciunt aliena pericula cautum." 
 
 How lucky the hunter who's saved from a fall, 
 
 By seeing his neighbour come down, horse and all ! 
 
 About two miles from Gatesgarth, which 
 consists of two or three homesteads at the 
 foot of the hill, lies the village of Butter- 
 mere, at the lower end of the lake of the 
 same name. This village is one of the best 
 fishing stations in the lake district. It is 
 situated between the lakes of Buttermere and 
 
145 
 
 Cromach, and within a short distance of the 
 small water of Lowes; the two former of 
 which contain char, and all of them trout, 
 besides pike and perch. The river Cocker 
 also affords good angling, particularly be- 
 tween the lower end of Cromach and the 
 village of Lorton. It rises among the hills 
 at the head of Buttermere lake, into which 
 it runs near to Gatesgarth. On its exit 
 from Buttermere, it flows for nearly a mile 
 through a fertile and level tract of land, and 
 after passing through Cromach, continues 
 its course through the vale of Lorton to 
 Cockermouth, where it joins the Derwent, 
 
 Near the lower end of Buttermere there 
 is a rill, called Sour-milk Force, from the 
 white appearance of the water in its descent, 
 which has its source in Red Tarn, a col- 
 lection of water about five hundred yards 
 above the level of the Cocker; and Bleabury 
 Tarn, from which a similar stream descends, 
 a little lower down towards Cromach, is of 
 the same altitude. The hollow of each of 
 o 
 
146 
 
 these Tarns has been supposed to be the 
 crater of an extinguished volcano.* They 
 both contain perch and a small species of 
 trout, a few of which the angler may try to 
 catch, if he pleases, for the sake of curiosity, 
 as they are not otherwise deserving his at- 
 tention. 
 
 The Char, though a pleasing addition to 
 the breakfast table when potted, being taken 
 by the net, affords no pleasure to the angler 
 in its capture, and though some are occa- 
 sionally taken with the rod, such instances 
 are not frequent. Cromach affords the best 
 trout-fishing, and Lowes contains the greatest 
 number of perch and pike. Should the angler 
 be desirous of trying for salmon or salmon- 
 trout, he can proceed down the vale to 
 Cockermouth, and fish the Derwent from 
 about a mile below that town to Working- 
 ton, where it enters the sea. Though perhaps 
 
 * Similar tarns, of apparently the same origin, occur 
 among the hills of the Abruzzi, in the kingdom of 
 Naples. 
 
147 
 
 as many salmon and salmon-trouts are taken 
 in the Derwent by the rod and fly as in most 
 rivers in England, yet salmon-fishing in this 
 river is but a dull recreation after all; and 
 lie ought to be endowed with an extraordi- 
 nary portion of patience who professes it 
 exclusively. When fishing in a river fre- 
 quented by salmon, it may be well enough to 
 try a salmon-fly now and then ; but it seems 
 scarcely worth the while of an amateur fisher 
 to try a whole day for a single bite, and 
 sometimes not that, and at the end of a 
 fnonth's diligent angling to be only able to 
 give an account of half a dozen fish which in 
 strictness are entitled to the name of salmon. 
 It is much to be regretted that many salmon 
 are killed in the Derwent, towards the latter 
 end of the year when they are full of spawn, 
 by a destructive gang of poachers who take 
 them for the sake of the roe, which they 
 prepare as bait, and find a ready market for 
 among the many pseudo-anglers who visit 
 the lakes, and who purchase it at the rate 
 
148 
 
 of from five to eight shillings a pound. The 
 same vile practice exists on the Eden, though 
 scarcely to so great an extent as on the Der- 
 went, and a great part of the roe so obtained 
 finds its way into several other counties ; for 
 the writer has known from his own expe- 
 rience, salmon roe which had been obtained 
 from the Derwent, employed as bait in the 
 Annan, the Tweed, the Wharf above Otley, 
 and at Driffield. 
 
 In the autumn of 1802, Keswick and 
 the peaceful vale of Buttermere were visited 
 by a plausible swindler of the name of 
 Hatfield, who assumed the name of the Ho- 
 nourable Col. Hope, then member of Par- 
 liament for Dumfries shire, and in that 
 character married an interesting girl, after- 
 wards so much spoken of as Mary of Butter- 
 mere, the daughter of the person who kept 
 the inn there. After figuring in the above 
 character for two or three months, though 
 not without suspicion of his being an impos- 
 tor, the fraud was detected and exposed by 
 
149 
 
 a gentleman of the name of Hardinge, to 
 whom Col. Hope was personally known. 
 On this discovery Hatfield made his escape, 
 but was soon afterwards taken and sent to 
 Carlisle, where he was convicted of forgery, 
 and hung, pursuant to his sentence, on 3rd 
 September, 1803. 
 
 The curate of Buttermere, as skilful an 
 angler as Paley, and as good a wrestler as 
 worthy Parson Adams, informed the writer 
 that he suspected Hatfield to be an impostor 
 for some time before the discovery was made 
 by Mr. Hardinge, from his talking so largely 
 of his fishing exploits in the Highlands, and 
 using the rod like an arrant bungler in the 
 vale of Buttermere. The " Highlands/ 
 prope, et in, nubibus, is a favorite scene with 
 sportsmen who excel in " drawing the long 
 bow," or in making a " fine cast." 
 
 Leaving Buttermere, let the tourist pro- 
 ceed, under the direction of a guide, over the 
 hills to Wass water, one of the most retired 
 and seldom-visited of all the lakes. After 
 
reaching Wass-dale head > a tolerably good 
 road lies along the north side of the lake, 
 which on the south is bounded by a range of 
 rocks called the Screes, from a loose shingly 
 sort of slate with which they are partly co- 
 vered, more particularly towards the lower 
 end of the lake. On rolling a stone from 
 the top of the crag, a general slide takes 
 place among the loose screes, which increas- 
 ing in weight and velocity as they descend, 
 plunge into the lake amidst a sheet of spark- 
 ling foam. 
 
 Both Wass and the river Irt, which runs 
 from its lower extremity, contain trout. The 
 Mite and the Esk, which are a short dis- 
 tance farther south, also afford good fishing ; 
 and should the angler feel inclined to spend 
 two or three days in this neighbourhood, he 
 will find a good country inn at Ravenglas. 
 The estuary of the Mite and the Esk is much 
 frequented by various tribes of water-fowl. 
 The cormorant, the dun diver, and several 
 species of wild ducks, are regular visitants, 
 
151 
 
 and sometimes the grebe makes his appear- 
 ance here. Devock Water, a small lake 
 about eight miles eastward of Ravenglas, is 
 frequented by the smew ; and on the banks 
 of the Esk the heron may be frequently seen 
 watching, ready to seize with his long bill 
 any fish that may approach his stand. 
 
 From Raven glas the road to Broughton 
 lies over a barren fell, called Stoneshead, 
 from the more elevated part, of which the 
 view, on a summer afternoon, is worth a walk 
 of twenty miles to enjoy. Nearly the whole 
 of the Cumberland coast is seen from the 
 Duddon to the Solway ; while farther to the 
 north-west, on the other side of the frith, 
 appears the rocky and irregular coast of 
 Wigton and Galloway. Westward, the Isle 
 of Man is distinctly perceived, while here 
 and there a distant sail appears, like a sea- 
 bird reposing on the smooth breast of the 
 ocean. From the top of Black Comb, a lofty 
 hill to the west of Stoneshead, the prospect 
 is still more extensive. On a clear day the 
 
152 
 
 view extends south-west to the hills in the 
 Isle of Anglesea, while to the westward may 
 be discerned the high land in the county of 
 Down. This is perhaps the only place in 
 the kingdom from which, at one view, may 
 be perceived the land of England, Scotland, 
 Ireland, and Wales. 
 
 Broughton, a small market town in Lan- 
 cashire, lies at the foot of the Furness fells, 
 a little above the estuary of the Duddon. 
 The Duddon sands are dry at low water, 
 except in the channel of the stream, which, 
 in passing them as it runs towards the Irish 
 sea, becomes divided into two or three 
 branches. From the foot of Holborn-hill in 
 Cumberland, to Kirby in Lancashire, the 
 road across these sands is about four miles, 
 and is marked, by the carriers and carters 
 who pass it, from one shore to the other with 
 branches of broom ; which they alter as often 
 as a shifting of the sand, or a deepening of 
 the ford, renders a deviation from the former 
 line necessary. The depth of the main stream 
 
153 
 
 at the ford during low water seldom exceeds 
 three feet, but as the flood tide suddenly 
 covers the sands, and renders it almost im- 
 possible to observe the road and avoid the 
 numerous sykes or narrow drains which run 
 in all directions, it is not safe for either 
 pedestrian or horseman to be crossing at 
 such a time. Lives are indeed more seldom 
 lost here than on the sands between Cartmel 
 and Lancaster, yet the carter who has been 
 overtaken by the tide has not unfrequently 
 to unyoke his horse as fast as he can, and 
 leave his car to its fate. Those sands con- 
 tain cockles, and are much frequented by 
 gulls and other sea-birds in search of 
 food. The view, from a little to the south 
 of Broughton, at half-tide when the chan- 
 nels are full and just before the sands are 
 covered, is uncommonly pleasing, and the 
 more so if there be two or three small vessels 
 in the estuary, as there frequently are, de- 
 livering coals or taking in wood. In the 
 
154 
 
 southern part of Furness a quantity of 
 small wood is grown, a considerable por- 
 tion of the cuttings of which is converted 
 into charcoal ; and Ulverstone exports more 
 broom-sticks than any other port in his 
 Majesty's dominions. I regret that, for 
 the benefit of political economists, I have 
 not been able to procure the custom-house 
 entries of this interesting branch of com- 
 merce; perhaps Mr. will move for a 
 
 return of the number of broom-sticks ex- 
 ported next session of parliament ; the paper 
 will disclose two or three "curious fact*," and 
 the expense of printing will not exceed a 
 hundred pounds. The subject is well worthy 
 the attention of Penny-wisdom and Pound- 
 foolishness, and not undeserving the notice 
 of the man of science, who may enter into 
 an interesting calculation of the number of 
 twigs of birch and branches of broom and 
 heather, which would have to be cut, in order 
 to fit the sticks aforesaid for their destined 
 
155 
 
 purpose. It is at least as important as the 
 manufacture and consumption of dolls' eyes. 
 From Broughton to Conistone Waterhead 
 the direct road is ten miles ; but the angler 
 ought to proceed by Seathwaite, on the 
 banks of the Duddon, as well for the sake of 
 fishing in the river, as to have an opportunity 
 of viewing and admiring the wild and beau- 
 tiful scenery through which it flows. Above 
 Seathwaite, in the solitude of grey crags and 
 russet hills, where no sound is heard save 
 the fall of the river, and where no wealthy 
 trader's fantastic mansion mars the simpli- 
 city and grandeur of the scene, Nature speaks 
 with a sweetly solemn voice to the heart and 
 to the imagination of her children. Man, 
 proud man, come here and feel that thou are 
 but as the insect of a day, and that thy 
 works, compared with the imperishable and 
 ever-beautiful productions of Nature, are but 
 as the slightness and foulness of a spider's 
 web ! That rock, which rears its bold and 
 rugged front in stern and simple majesty, 
 
156 
 
 stands now as firm and as erect as it stood 
 in the world's youth, 
 
 " When the fresh stars had just begun 
 
 Their race of glory, and young time 
 Told his first birth days by the sun ; " 
 
 and the stream which rolls at its foot, as it 
 did then, still holds its ceaseless course 
 
 "Labitur, et labetur, in omne volubilis aevum." 
 
 Within the period which authentic history 
 comprises, how many of the monuments, 
 triumphal arches, and palaces, which their 
 founders idly imagined should endure for 
 ever, have passed away, leaving no more 
 trace of their existence than the light sea- 
 bird leaves when he dips his wing in ocean. 
 Nay, the very site of once mighty cities is no 
 more to be found than if they had never 
 been; and the crumbling remains of others 
 just appear above the desart, like the memo- 
 rials of the mighty dead who raised them in 
 their pride, and which at once bear record of 
 human power and of human instability. 
 
157 
 
 Passing from Seathwaite to Hawkshead, 
 by way of Conistone Waterhead, a view is 
 obtained of Conistone Lake, which contains 
 excellent char but affords only indifferent 
 angling. Should the tourist be inclined to 
 spend a day or two in surveying the beauties 
 of this lake which though inferior to those 
 of Keswick and Windermere, yet has its own 
 peculiar charms he will meet with every 
 accommodation at the inn at Conistone 
 Waterhead. From Hawkshead, passing the 
 small lake of Esthwaite which contains 
 pike, trout, and perch, and affords better 
 sport to the angler than either of the larger 
 lakes in the vicinity an interesting road 
 leads to the ferry on Windermere. On the 
 opposite side, about half a mile above the 
 landing place, stands the delightful little vil- 
 lage of Bowness, with its low, slate-roofed, 
 white-fronted cottages, up whose walls the 
 jessamine, the eglantine, or some green climb- 
 ing shrub is trained. After spending a few 
 days in visiting the many charming scenes 
 p 
 
158 
 
 on and about the lake, occasionally trying 
 for a pike in its waters, let the tourist take a 
 boat to Low-wood, about four miles above 
 Bowness, and thence walk to Ambleside, a 
 distance of little more than two miles. After 
 having visited from Ambleside the lakes of 
 Rydal and Grasmere, taken a view of the 
 vale of Langdale, and fished in the Bratha, 
 let the angler prepare for his return home- 
 ward ; but not until he has seen Words- 
 worth, the poet eloquent in truth's simplest 
 and purest language; who celebrates not the 
 splendid deeds of the hero, but whose de- 
 light it is, in summer shade, 
 
 " To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts ; " 
 
 who, in his wanderings among the hills, holds 
 sweet communing with the great and glo- 
 rious works of Nature, and who, in the ful- 
 ness of her inspiration, 
 
 " Murmurs near the running brooks 
 A music sweeter than their own.' 7 
 
159 
 
 Farewell lovely lakes and sparkling streams ! 
 Your purity is unsullied by no drains from 
 a crowded factory, where man weaves the 
 web of his own misery and degradation, and 
 where the bud of childhood is blighted ere it 
 be blown ; where the human heart becomes 
 callous and insensible to every pure and 
 holy feeling; where man loses half his dig- 
 nity, and life its greatest charms ! Farewell 
 ye towering hills and rugged crags, on whose 
 hard brow time leaves no trace of age, and 
 who will rear your lofty peaks in undimi- 
 nished beauty and strength like the giant 
 children of Nature, her eldest born and the 
 last to die for ages after the proudest and 
 greatest of man's erections are shrunk and 
 fallen, and every trace of their design lost in 
 a heap of ruins. 
 
 From Ambleside a coach passes daily to 
 Kendal, whence the tourist may continue his 
 route to York by way of Settle calling, 
 should he feel inclined, to visit Malham 
 Cove, a few miles northward of this town 
 
160 
 
 thus completing an angling tour, which for 
 affording " recreation to a contemplative 
 man/' has no equal in England. 
 
 Votaries of the angle, and lovers of Na- 
 ture, the writer here ends his "Angling Tour 
 among the Hills : " 
 
 " if in your memories dwell 
 " A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 
 " A single recollection ;" 
 
 this simple record of his feelings while vi- 
 siting such scenes, will not have been with- 
 out its fruit. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE substance of the following pages, which could 
 not with propriety be introduced in the " Recollec- 
 tions/' will be found to be generally illustrative 
 of subjects there incidentally alluded to. 
 
 ANGLING IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 As there is not a chapter " De hamis antiquorum," 
 in the Thesaurus of either Grrevius or Gronovius ; 
 as Beckman, it is believed, has not treated on the 
 invention and history of fishing hooks ; and since 
 all that is to be gathered on this subject from Cru- 
 deii's Concordance a mine from which a certain class 
 of profound antiquaries obtain their ore at an easy rate, 
 with the credit of great learning and deep research 
 has been so often served up to the public, that you 
 may meet with an angler who does not recollect 
 whether the communion table stands at the east or 
 west end of a church, and who yet can refer to each 
 chapter and verse in the Bible wherein fishing 
 hooks are mentioned ; it becomes a difficult matter 
 to pick up a single new fact relating to the /woks 
 of the ancients, though a goodly quarto on certain 
 articles cognate with their hooks -and- eyes " De 
 fibulis" does honour to the diligence and research 
 of its author. It is, however, to be hoped that some 
 
 Q 
 
162 APPENDIX. 
 
 patient scholar will be induced to favor the learned 
 world with a folio on the subject. The following cut, 
 which may serve as a brick towards such a Babel, 
 of an ancient swivel hook, now in the British 
 Museum, is here given as confirmatory of the Rev. 
 Mr. Todburn's statement, at page 39 : u they were 
 not ignorant of the contrivance of the swivel hook 
 to facilitate the motion of the spinning bait." 
 
 CL 
 
 It is believed that the earliest, and indeed the 
 only notice of fly-fishing to be found in ancient 
 writers, is the passage in Aelian, referred to at 
 page 38 ; and that the earliest printed treatise on 
 the subject, in any language, is that which is con- 
 tained in the work printed in 1496 by Wynkyn de 
 Worde, and known by the name of the Book of St. 
 Alban's, from its having been first printed at the 
 monastery there in 1486. Its composition has been 
 generally, though it appears erroneously, ascribed 
 to Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of Sopewell 
 Nunnery, in Hertfordshire. The book is a small 
 folio, of seventy-three leaves, ornamented with 
 rude wood-cuts, and contains the following treatises : 
 A Book of Hawking ; A Book of Hunting ; Pro- 
 perties of a good Horse ; Prudential Advice, in 
 rhyme ; The Companies of Beasts and Fowls ; A 
 List of Shires and Bishopricks. New Terms of 
 Carving ; with two pieces, " A faithful frende wolde 
 
APPENDIX. 163 
 
 I fayne fynde," and " Ever gramercy myn own 
 purse," in rhyme ; A Treatise of Fishing with an 
 Angle ; and the Biasing of Arms. Of the treatise 
 of angling, which it appears Wynkyn de Worde 
 also printed separately, it may not be out of 
 place to give a short account here, as it formed the 
 ground-work, and constituted the principal part, of 
 every other prose treatise on the same subject, 
 (Barker's Art of Angling, which was first printed in 
 1651, excepted,) from the time of its first appearance 
 till Izaak Walton, who also availed himself of its 
 contents, published his " Compleat Angler," in 
 1653. 
 
 The earliest books printed in any country afford 
 a tolerably fair criterion of the taste of the " reading 
 public " of the period ; and it is easy to perceive 
 from the works which proceeded from the presses of 
 our first printers, that the predilection of our coun- 
 trymen did not lead them to the study of the classics. 
 It is probable that the Book of St. Alban's had gone 
 through four or five editions before either Oxford or 
 Cambridge had presented their alumni with a single 
 classic. The first classical work printed at Oxford 
 who in this respect must take precedence of her 
 learned sister was Tully's Epistles, which appeared 
 in 1540. 
 
 From the first publication of the "Treatyse of 
 fysshynge wyth an angle" to the appearance of 
 Walton's Complete Angler, there seems to have 
 been no improvement of the original work. On the 
 contrary, the "doers " of new editions of the book 
 under new titles, appear to have had but little skill 
 
164 APPENDIX. 
 
 in the art of fly-fishing, and their alterations, as 
 Pinkerton said of Evelyn's amendments of his work 
 on Medals, " are for the worse." From the very title 
 of a small quarto, printed by John Wolfe, and sold 
 by Edward White, London, 1590, "A Booke of 
 fishing with Hooke and Line, and of all other in- 
 struments thereunto belonging. And of sundrie 
 Engines and Trappes to take Polcats, Buzards, 
 Rattes, Mice and all other kinds of Vermine and 
 Beasts whatsoever, most profitable for all Warri- 
 ners, and such as delight in this kiride of sport and 
 pastime. Made by L. M.", the angler will not be 
 induced to anticipate much that will interest him, 
 though it holds out the prospect of so great a treat 
 to those lovers of field sports who are fond of hunt- 
 ing every thing, " from the flea in the blanket to the 
 elephant in the jungle," arid who assuredly would 
 feel extreme delight in being instructed in the use 
 of " sundrie Engines and Trappes to take Polcats, 
 Buzards, Rattes, Mice, and all other kindes of Ver- 
 mine and Beasts whatsoever." The greater part of 
 that portion of the book which treats of fishing is 
 clumsily taken from the " Treatyse of fysshynge 
 wyth an angle," and marred in the transfer ; but 
 then it must be confessed that there are some curious 
 instructions which are peculiarly the author's own, 
 such as : how to catch eels in pottles of hay ; how 
 to bob for eels ; and how to breed miller's thumbs 
 and loaches. The book altogether is just such a 
 one as a professional author who did not know a 
 perch from a grayling, or a weasel from a foumart, 
 might be supposed to " make " from the dictation of 
 
APPENDIX. 165 
 
 a rat-catcher, who occasionally amused himself with 
 a sweep net or an eel spear in the intervals of his 
 regular vocation. 
 
 In 1613 appeared " the Secrets of Angling, by 
 J. D., Esq." in verse ; which letters, as we learn 
 from Walton, are the initials of the name of John 
 Davors. Didactic poems, whatever pleasure they 
 may afford the reader, seldom afford him much 
 profitable information on the subject of which they 
 profess to treat ; the object of the writers always 
 excepting the compilers of grammars in Latin verse 
 being chiefly to display their talent in concealing 
 their fruit under a profusion of ornamental foliage ; 
 plucking a bough from every tree in the forest to 
 shade a vine which rather requires the sun. It is 
 almost needless to add that the work of J. D. cannot 
 justly claim to be an exception to the general charac- 
 ter of didactic poems. The " Secrets of Angling " are 
 certainly concealed with great taste under the orna- 
 mental parts of the poem, some of the best stanzas 
 of which may be seen in the Complete Angler. 
 From the date, 1653, of the first edition of Walton's 
 "Complete Angler" to the present time, may be 
 considered as the golden age of fly-fishing; and the 
 manufacture of the costly fishing apparatus of his 
 late Majesty George IV. "the case covered with 
 the best crimson morocco leather, the edges sloped 
 with double borders of gold ornaments, representing 
 alternately salmon and basket. The outer border 
 forming a rich gold wreath of the rose, thistle, and 
 shamrock, intertwined by oak leaves and acorns. 
 The centre of the lid presenting a splendid gold 
 R 
 
166 APPENDIX. 
 
 impression of the Royal Arms of Great Britain and 
 Ireland. The case fastened with one of Bramah's 
 patent locks, handles, eyes, &c. all double gilt. 
 The interior of the case lined throughout with the 
 finest Genoese sky blue velvet, the inner part of the 
 lid tufted. The hooks (as they are termed) for 
 angling and fly-fishing, the most chaste and beautiful 
 that can be imagined. The angling book covered 
 with Genoese crimson velvet ; the lock surmounted 
 with a diadem of solid gold," may be noted as 
 indeed forming a splendid epoch in the history of the 
 art of angling. But, to return from its refinements, as 
 detailed in the Times of 1st May, 1828, to its rude 
 simplicity as described in the " Treatyse of fysshynge 
 with an angle/' in 1496. This treatise, as it is the 
 first which appeared in our language, so is it as a 
 practical manual, considering its length and ex- 
 cepting the directions for making a clumsy rod, 
 with lines and hooks to match, one of the best. 
 Who the real author was is uncertain ; but its inter- 
 nal evidence carries with it the assurance of its 
 being written by a practical angler, who understood 
 and had practised what he taught. That it is the pro- 
 duction of Dame Juliana Berners is very unlikely ; 
 and there is as little reason to ascribe to her the 
 " Blasynge of Armes" in the same book. It is in- 
 deed difficult to affirm, with any degree of certainty, 
 what portion of the Book of St. Alban's is of her 
 composition, besides the "Book of Huntynge," at 
 the conclusion of which only her name occurs, thus : 
 "Explicit dame Julyans Bernes doctryne in her 
 boke of huntynge." In no other part of the work 
 
APPENDIX. 167 
 
 is her name mentioned. How long* the art of fly-fish- 
 ing had been practised in England before the print- 
 ing of the treatise of fishing with an angle my infor- 
 mation does not enable me to say, not being aware 
 of any English writer previous to 1496, who even 
 alludes to it. Though the art appears to have been 
 but little practised, as may be inferred from the 
 amateur having to manufacture his own hooks, yet 
 we cannot suppose it to have been of very recent 
 introduction. The directions for dressing the twelve 
 different kinds of flies, which even Walton writing 
 a hundred and fifty years later availed himself of, 
 are not such as were likely to be suggested in the 
 infancy of the art. It was probably known though 
 not much followed, long before the old English 
 angler, whoever he might be, committed his obser- 
 vations to the press and disseminated the knowledge 
 of an art at once so useful and so entertaining. From 
 a passage in the " Epistolae obscurorum virorum,"a 
 most humorous and biting satire on the ignorance 
 and vices of the German monks, which was first printed 
 about 1517, it would seem that fishing was occasion- 
 ally practised as an amusement by the brethren ; 
 but whether they understood, like our countrymen, 
 the mystery of fashioning of wool, silk, and feathers, 
 the dun cut, the yellow, the stone, and the drake fly 
 for the beguiling of trouts, does not appear. 
 
 The " Treatyse of fysshshynge wyth angle" to 
 which a wood-cut representing a man fishing, with 
 a float to his line, and a tub to put what he takes in, 
 is prefixed commences with a cheerful text and 
 a brief exposition. " Salamon in his parablys sayth 
 that a good spyryte makyth a flourynge aege, that is 
 
168 APPENDIX. 
 
 a fayre age and a longe." A medical, or rather 
 non-medical, aphorism, which has not, like a bunch 
 of old herbs, lost its virtue through age, is also 
 quoted and explained. u Si tibi deficiant medici, 
 medici tibi fiant haec tria : mens Ireta, labor, et mo- 
 derata dieta. Ye shall understonde that this is for to 
 saye : If a man lacke leche or medecyne, he shall 
 make thre thynges his leche and medycyne, and he 
 shall nede never no moo. The fyrste of theym is a 
 mery thought. The seconde is labour not outrageous. 
 The thyrde is dyete mesurable." The writer then 
 proceeds to a comparison of angling with hunting, 
 hawking, and fowling, which Walton certainly had 
 in his mind when, at the commencement of his book, 
 he introduced " an ANGLER, a HUNTER, and a FAL- 
 CONER, each commending his recreation," and after 
 enumerating the inconveniences attendant on the 
 three last, thus recounts the pleasures and advan- 
 tages of angling. " Thus me semyth that huntynge 
 and hawkynge and also fowlynge ben so laborous 
 and grevous that none of theym maye perfourme 
 nor be very meane that enduce a man to a merye 
 spyryte : whyche is cause of his longe lyfe acord ynge 
 unto the sayd parable of Salamon. Dowteles thene 
 followyth it that it nedes must be the dysporte of 
 fysshynge wyth an angle. For all other manere of 
 fysshynge is also laborous and grevous ; often mak- 
 ynge folkes ful wete and colde, whyche many tymes 
 hath beseen cause of grete infirmytees. But the 
 angler maye have no colde nor no dysease nor angre, 
 but if he be the causer hymself. For he may not 
 lese at the moost but a lyne or a hoke : of whyche 
 he maye have store plentee of his owne makynge, 
 
APPENDIX. 169 
 
 as this symple treatyse shall teche hym. Soo thenne 
 his losse is not grevous, and other greyffes maye he 
 not have, savynge but if ony fisshe breke away after 
 that he is take on the hoke or elles that he catche 
 nought : whyche ben not grevous. For yf he fay lie 
 of one he maye not faylle of a nother, yf he dooth 
 as this treatyse techyth, but yf there be nought in 
 the water. And yet atte the leest he hath his holsom 
 walke and mery at his ease, a swete ayre of the 
 swete savoure of the meede floures that makyth hym 
 hungry. He hereth the melodyous armony of fowles. 
 He seeth the yonge swannes, heerons, duckes, cotes, 
 and many other foules wyth theyr brodes. Whyche 
 me semyth better than alle the noyse of houndys, 
 the blastes of hornys, and the scrye of foulis that 
 hunters, fawkeners, and foulers can make. And yf 
 the angler take fysshe, surely thenne there is noo 
 man merier than he is in his spyryte. Also who soo 
 woll use the game of anglynge, he must ryse erly, 
 whyche thynge is proufFytable to man in this wyse, 
 that is to wyte, moost to the heele of his soule : for 
 it shall cause hym to be holy. And to the heele of 
 his body : for it shall cause hym to be hole. Also to 
 the encrease of his goodys : for it shall make hym 
 ryche. As olde Englysshe proverbe sayth in this 
 wyse : Who soo woll ryse erly shall be holy, helthy, 
 and zely. Thus have I provyd in myne entent that 
 the dysporte and game of anglynge is the very 
 meane and cause that enducith a man into a mery 
 spyryte. Whyche, after the sayde parable of Salo- 
 mon and the sayd doctryne of phisyk, maketh a 
 flourynge aege and a longe. And therfore to all 
 you that ben vertuous, gentyll, and free borne I 
 
170 APPEN'DIX. 
 
 wryte and make this symple treatyse folowynge, by 
 whyche ye may have the full crafte of anglynge to 
 dysport you at your luste : to the entent that your age 
 maye the more floure and the more longer to endure." 
 From the first sentence introductory to the prac- 
 tical directions, we may infer that fishing tackle 
 makers' shops were then scarce. " Yf ye woll be 
 crafty in anglynge : ye must fyrste lerne to make 
 your harnays." As this primary condition of craft 
 in angling included not only a knowledge of making 
 rods and lines, but also of making " hokes of stele 
 and of osmond, some for the dubbe and some for 
 the flote," we may perceive how much the path of 
 knowledge has since been smoothed. It would be 
 now difficult to find in the whole island, a single 
 adept in the mystery of fly-fishing who has complied 
 with the ancient rite of initiation, by making his 
 own rods, lines, and hooks. A knowledge of what 
 water to fish in, and how deep ; of the time of day 
 when ; of the fish to be angled for, and in what 
 weather ; of impediments to angling ; of baits for 
 every month, and how to find, breed, and preserve 
 them, is also required. In the directions for making 
 the rod, the writer, who evidently considers it as a 
 master-piece of its kind, very properly " begins at 
 the beginning/' " Ye shall kytte betwene Myghel- 
 mas and Candylmas a fayr statfe of a fadom and a 
 half, and arme grete, of hasyll, willow, or aspe. And 
 bethe hym in an hote ovyn and sette hym evyn. 
 Then lete hym cole and drye a moneth. Take 
 thenne and frette [wrap] hym faste wyth a cocke- 
 sliote corde [a sort of cord of which large fowling 
 nets were made] and bynde hym to a fourm or an 
 
APPENDIX. 171 
 
 evyn square grete tree." After this it was to be 
 pierced through with a hot plummer's wire, and the 
 bore to be enlarged, first with a " byrde broche," a 
 small kind of spit, and then with a larger "broche," 
 the operator taking heed that this hollowing out "be 
 aye tap re wexe." When the stock is thus sufficiently 
 hollowed it is to be unwrapped, and placed in the 
 house roof to be seasoned by the smoke. The upper 
 part of the rod the" crop or coppe," as it is called is 
 to be formed of a yard of small hazel, for the top piece ; 
 and of a shoot of black thorn, crab tree, medlar, or 
 juniper, for the other half. The coppe was to be of 
 such a thickness as to be contained within the hollow 
 of the stock, which was to be "vyrelled" at both 
 ends " wyth longe hopis of yron or laton in the 
 clennest wise, wyth a pyke in the nether ende, fas- 
 tynd wyth a rennynge vyce to take in and oute your 
 croppe." When drawn out for use, the lower end 
 of the " croppe" was always to be a hand's breadth 
 within the upper part of the " staffe" or stock. 
 " Thenne arme your croppe at thover ende downe 
 to the frette [the wrapping of the splice] wyth a 
 lyne of vi heeres. And dubbe the lyne and frette it 
 fast in the toppe wyth a bowe to fasten on your 
 lyne. And thus shall ye make you a rodde so prevy 
 that ye maye walke therwyth, and there shall noo 
 man wyte where abowte ye goo. It woll be lyghte 
 and full nymbyll to fysshe wyth at your luste. And 
 for more redynesse loo here a fygure of the rod." 
 
172 APPENDIX. 
 
 The writer then proceeds to enumerate the six 
 assortments of the hairs of a white horse's tail, 
 most convenient for the angler's use, together 
 with the various modes of dying the same yellow, 
 green, brown, tawney, russet, dusky, and " lyght 
 plunket colour/' He directs in what seasons and 
 in what waters the different coloured lines are 
 to be used, for the making of which he also gives 
 instructions, together with a cut of the instrument 
 by which the operation of twisting is most con- 
 veniently performed. The rod and line being thus 
 finished, the more difficult branch in the manufacture 
 of an angler's " harnays" comes next. 
 
 " Ye shall understonde that themoost subtyll and 
 hardyste crafte in makynge of your harnays is for 
 to make your hokis. For whoos makyng ye must 
 have fete fyles, thynn and sharpe and smalle beten. 
 A semy clam of yren, a bender, a payr of longe and 
 a payr of small tongys : an harde knyfe somdeale 
 thycke: an anvelde and a lytyll hamour." The fol- 
 lowing cut, showing the different tools, is copied 
 from the original, where they are respectively 
 named, " hamour, knyfe, pynsons, clam, wegge, 
 fyle, wreste, anvelde." 
 
 A consideration of the use of the " clam," evi- 
 
APPENDIX. 173 
 
 dently a kind of small vice which is to press or to 
 hold an article tightly, will suggest a more clear 
 and simple, and probably a more correct, idea of the 
 verb " to clem," than is to be found in Nares's Glos- 
 sary, where it is explained as meaning " to starve ;" 
 the cause for the consequence. The effect of short 
 rations being a rigid contraction of the abdominal 
 viscera, as if pressed in a clam. The directions for 
 making the hooks, as they are unlikely at the present 
 day to afford either profit or pleasure, are not 
 worth extracting. It may not, however, be unin- 
 teresting to the reader to know of what materials 
 the hooks were to be made. " For smalle fysshe 
 ye shall make your hokes of the smallest quarell 
 [cornered, from carreau\ nedlys that ye can fynde 
 
 of stele And greeter hookes ye shall make 
 
 in the same wyse of gretter nedlis as broderers 
 nedlis, or taylers or shomakers nedlis spere 
 points, and of shomakers nalles in especyall the 
 beste for grete fysshe." That some idea may be 
 formed of such home-made articles " thyse fygures 
 are put here in ensample of your hokes/' 
 
174 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Now ye knowe wyth how grete hokys ye shall 
 angle to every fysshe : now I woll tell you wyth 
 how many heeres ye shall to every manere of 
 fysshe. For the menow wyth a lyne of one heere. 
 For the waxyng roche, the bleke, the gogyn, and 
 the ruffe wyt. a lyne of two heeris. For the darse 
 and the grete roche wyth a lyne of thre heeres. 
 For the perche, the flounder, and bremet with foure 
 heeres. For the cheven chubbe, the breme, the 
 tenche, and the ele with vi heeres. For the troughte, 
 graylynge, barbyll, and the grete chevyn wyth ix 
 heeres. For the grete troughte with xn heeres. 
 For the samon wyth xv heeres, and for the pyke 
 wyth a chalke lyne made browne with your browne 
 colour aforsayd, armyd with a wyre." Then follows 
 the proper manner of making cork floats ; and the 
 angler being now instructed in the manufacture of 
 every part of his " harnays," is next taught how to 
 use it. 
 
 The author enumerates six modes of angling 
 The first, at ground for trout and other fish. Second, 
 at an arch or a " stange," where it ebbs and flows, 
 for bleak, roach, and dace. Third, with a float for 
 all manner of fish. Fourth, with a minnow for 
 trout, without plumb or float. Fifth, " rennynge in 
 the same wyse for roche and darse wyth one or two 
 heeres and a flye." Sixth, " wyth a dubbyd hoke," 
 for the trout and grayling. The angler is directed 
 to observe that the principal point is to keep out of 
 sight, and not to shadow the water ; that the larger 
 fish keep nearest to the bottom, and the smaller 
 towards the surface ; and, " when the fyshe byteth 
 that ye be not to hasty to smyte. . . . And if it fortune 
 
APPENDIX. 175 
 
 you to smyt a grete fysshe with a smalle harnays, 
 thenne ye must lede hym in the water, and labour 
 hym there tyll he be drownyd and overcome. 
 Thenne take hym as well as ye can or maye, and 
 ever bewaar that ye holde not over the strengthe of 
 your lyne. And as moche as ye may, lete hym not 
 come out of your lynes ende streyghte from you, 
 soo that your lyne may susteyne and beere his 
 lepys and his plungys wyth the helpe of your 
 croppe and of your honde." In his directions in 
 what part of the water to fish, the author observes 
 that a pond, or " pole," as he calls it, " is but a 
 pryson to fysshe, and they lyve for the more parte 
 in hungre like prisoners, and therefore it is the lesse 
 maystry to take theym." He notes that it is best 
 to fish in rivers where it is deep and clear, with a 
 bottom of clay or gravel, without mud or weeds, 
 especially where there is a whirling of the water or 
 a covert, as a hollow bank, roots of trees, and long 
 floating weeds. There is also good angling in 
 " deep styffe streams" and falls ; at flood-gates, 
 weares, and " mylle pyttes, where the water restyth 
 by the bank." 
 
 The time of fish biting, from April to Septem- 
 ber, is stated to be from four [ito eight in the 
 morning, and from four to eight in the afternoon, 
 but not so good in the afternoon as in the morning. 
 From September to April the angler may spare no 
 time of the day. Many " pole [pond] fysshes woll 
 beste in the none tyde." In summer, on a dark 
 louring day, when the wind blows softly, and also 
 when it is " brennynge hote" the angler may spare 
 
176 APPENDIX. 
 
 his labour. It is bad angling when windy ; in rain, 
 hail, snow, or thunder, and in " swoly hote weder." 
 The impediments to angling are declared to be 
 twelve. 1. Badly made tackle. 2. Baits not good 
 nor fine 3. Not angling at " bytynge tyme." 
 
 4. The fish afraid to bite from seeing a man. 
 
 5. Water discoloured from floods. 6. Fish not 
 stirring from cold. 7. Hot weather. 8. Raim 
 9. Hail or snow. 10. Tempest. 11. High wind. 
 12. East wind. " The west and northe wyndes ben 
 good, but the south is beste." 
 
 The list of fresh-water fishes commences with the 
 " samon," as the most stately, " though comborous 
 to take." It is stated to be in high perfection from 
 March to Michaelmas. It bites not at ground, and 
 at the beginning and end of the season is to be 
 angled for with a red worm, and with " a bobbe 
 that bredyth in a dunghyll ; and specyally wyth a 
 sovereyn bayte that bredyth on a water docke. 
 .... Also ye may take hym, but it is seldom seen, 
 with a dubbe at suche tyme as whan he lepith in 
 lyke fourme and manere as ye doo take a troughte 
 and graylinge." The trout, "a right deyntous fyssh 
 and also a ryght fervente byter," is in season at the 
 same time as the salmon, and <l ye may angle to 
 hym at all tymes wyth a grounde lyne lyenge or 
 rennynge : savynge in leppynge tyme, and thenne 
 wyth a dubbe. Ye shall angle to hym in Marche 
 wyth a menew hangyd on your hoke by the nethefr 
 nesse wythout flote or plumbe : drawynge up and 
 downe in the streme tyll ye fell him faste. In the 
 same tyme angle to hym wyth a grounde lyne wyth 
 
APPENDIX. 177 
 
 a redde worme for the moost sure. In Aprill take 
 the same baytes : and also Inneba other wyse 
 named vn eyes. Also the canker that bredyth 
 in a grete tree and the redde snayl." In May, 
 " take the stone flye and the bobbe under the cowe 
 torde and the sylke worme, and the bayte that 
 bredyth on a fern leyf." In June, a red worm with 
 the head off, and a cadworm on the point. In July, 
 the great red worm and cad worm together. In 
 August, " take a flesshe fly, and the grete red 
 worme, and the fatte of the bakon, and bynde 
 aboute thy hoke." In September, a red worm and 
 minnow ; and in October, the same. From April to 
 September, when the trout leaps, he is also to be 
 angled for with a dubbed hook according to the 
 months. 
 
 Pike are to be angled for with roach, frog, or 
 herring ; and the amusing practice of tying the bait 
 to a gander's foot, and then setting him to fish for 
 pike, appears to have been known at that period. 
 The opinion of tench being an aquatic physician 
 and healing other fish, is also alluded to. New cheese 
 is mentioned as a bait for barbel ; but the author, 
 who says that he does not like to write more than 
 he knows and has proved, professes to have little 
 knowledge of the baits for carp. He has, how- 
 ever, found written in books of credence, that the 
 minnow and red worm are good baits for this fish. 
 In June, for the chevin, among other baits, the 
 " creket and the dorre, [beetle] yonge frosshys, 
 and the grete greshop," are recommended. In 
 July, the " gresshop and humbylbee ;" young bees 
 
178 APPENDIX, 
 
 and hornets, the ant-fly, and the great branded fly 
 that breeds in the paths of meadows. In August, 
 maggots ; and in September, the tempting morsels 
 for this " vilain" chub are " cheryes, yong myce 
 not heeryd, and the house combe." 
 
 Pastes appear to have been in use at that time, 
 and one for tench, is directed to be made of the 
 black blood of a sheep's heart, flour, and honey, 
 and with this compost the red worm was to be 
 anointed. Brown bread toasted with honey, is also 
 recommended. The barbel, it seems, " is a sweet 
 fysshe, but is a quasy [queasy, a quasi, so-so] 
 meete and a perylous for mannys body." The eel 
 is also said to be a " quasy fysshe." In the account 
 of preparing baits, broods of hornets, humble-bees, 
 and wasps, are directed to be baked, and their heads 
 then dipped in blood and dried ; and maggots are to 
 be cleansed with sand in a bag made of *' blanket.'* 
 Baits, of flour and the lean flesh of the " hepis 
 [hips] of a cony or of a catte," virgin wax, and 
 sheep's tallow, brayed in a mortar, and tempered at 
 the fire with a little purified honey, and then made 
 into little balls, will serve all the year round, and 
 are good for all manner of fish. For dace, roach, 
 and bleak, wheat boiled and then steeped in blood, 
 is a proper bait. " For baytes for grete fysshe kepe 
 specyally this rule, when ye have take a grete fysshe 
 undo the mawe, and what ye finde therin make that 
 your bayte for it is beste." 
 
 The following account of twelve artificial flies, 
 when they are to be used, and of what materials 
 they are to be made, sufficiently warrants the con- 
 
APPENDIX. 179 
 
 elusion that fly-fishing had been long practised in 
 England previous to the appearance of the Book of 
 St. Alban's. " Thyse ben the XII flyes wyth 
 whyche ye shall angle to the trought and graylling, 
 and dubbe lyke as ye shall now here me tell. 
 ([ Marche. The donne flye, the body of the donne 
 woll, and the wyngis of the pertryche. A nother 
 doone flye, the body of blacke woll, the wynges of 
 the blackyst drake, and the jay under the wynge 
 and under the tayll. (L Apryll. The stone flye, the 
 body of blacke wull, and yelowe under the wynge 
 and under the tayle, and the wynges of the drake. 
 In the begynnynge of May a good flye, the body of 
 roddyd wull and lapped abowte wyth blacke sylke, 
 the wynges of the drake and of the redde capons 
 hakyll. ([ May. The yelow flye, the body of yelow 
 wull, the wynges of the redde cocke hakyll, and of 
 the drake lyttyd yelow. The blacke louper, the 
 body of black wull and lappyd abowte wyth the herle 
 of the pecok tayle and the wynges of the redde 
 capon w l a blewe heed. ([ June. The donne cutte, the 
 body of blacke wull and a yelow lyste after eyther 
 syde, the wynges of the bosarde bounde on wyth 
 barkyd hempe. The maure flye, the body of doske 
 wull, the wynges of the blackest mayle of the wylde 
 drake. The tandy flye at Saynt Wyllyams day, 
 the body of tandy wull and the wynges contrary 
 eyther ayenst other of the whitest mayle of the wylde 
 drake. ([ Juyll [July]. The waspe flye, the body of 
 blacke wull lappid abowte with the herle of the pe- 
 coks tayle, wynges of the bosarde. The shell flye at 
 .Saynt Thomas daye, the body of grene wull and 
 
180 APPENDIX. 
 
 lappyd abowte wyth the herle of the pecoks tayle, 
 wynges of the bosarde. ([ August. The drake flye, 
 the body of blacke wull and lappid abowte wyth 
 black e sylke, wynges of the mayle of the blacke 
 drake wyth a blacke heed/' 
 
 The preceding extracts and notices comprise a brief 
 summary of the principal matters contained in the 
 " Treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle/' and may 
 enable the reader who feels no inclination to consult 
 the original work, to form some idea of the state of 
 the art as practised towards the end of the fifteenth 
 century. The conclusion of the treatise which, con- 
 sidering its size, I believe to be the best, for the 
 quantity and general correctness of its practical in- 
 formation, which has yet appeared is conceived in 
 the true spirit of an u honest angler." 
 
 " Here folowyth the order made to all those 
 whiche shall have the understondynge of this for- 
 sayde treatyse and use it for theyr pleasures. 
 
 " Ye that can angle and take fysshe to your ple- 
 sures as this forsayd treatyse techy th and shewyth you, 
 I charge and requyre you in the name of alle noble 
 men that ye fysshe not in noo poore mannes severall 
 water : as his ponde, stewe, or other necessary 
 thynges to kepe fysshe in, wythout his lycence and 
 good wyll. Nor that ye use not to breke noo mannys 
 gynnys lyenge in theyr weares and in other places 
 due unto theym. Ne to take the fysshe awaye that 
 is taken in theym. For after a fysshe is taken in a 
 mannys gynne yf the gynne be layed in the comyn 
 waters, or elles in suche waters as he hireth, it is 
 his owne propre goodes. And yf ye take it awaye 
 
APPENDIX. 181 
 
 ye robbe hym, whyche is a ryght shamfull dede to 
 ony noble man to do y* that thevys and brybours 
 done, wliyche are punysslied for theyr evyll dedes by 
 the necke and otherwyse whan they maye be aspyed 
 and taken. And also yf ye doo in lyke manere as 
 this treatise shewyth you, ye shall have no nede to 
 take of other mennys : whiles ye shal have ynough 
 of your owne takyng yf ye lyste to labour therfore, 
 whyche shall be to you a very pleasure to se the 
 fayr bryght shynynge scalyd fysshes dysceyved by 
 your crafty meanes and drawen upon londe. Also 
 that ye breke noo mannys heggys in goynge abowte 
 your dysportes : ne opyn noo mannes gates but that 
 ye shytte theym agayn. Also ye shall not use this 
 forsayd crafty dysporte for no covetysnes to then- 
 creasynge and sparynge of your money oonly, but 
 pryncypally for your solace and to cause the helthe 
 of your body, and specyally of your soule. For 
 whan ye purpoos to goo on your dysportes in 
 fysshyng ye woll not desyre gretly many persones 
 wyth you, whiche myghte lette you of your game. 
 And thenne ye maye serve God devowtly in sayenge 
 affectuously your custumable prayer. And thus 
 doyuge ye shall eschewe and voyde many vices, as 
 ydylnes, whyche is pryncypall cause to enduce man 
 to many other vyces, as it is ryght well knowen. 
 Also ye shall not be to ravenous in taking of your 
 sayd game as to moche at one tyme : whiche ye maye 
 lyghtly doo yf ye doo in every poynt as this present 
 treatyse shewyth you in every poynt, whyche sholde 
 lyghtly be occasyon to dystroye your owne dysportes 
 and other mennys also. As whan ye have a suffy- 
 s 
 
182 APPENDIX* 
 
 cyent mese ye sholde coveyte no more as at that 
 tyme. Also ye shall besye yourselfe to nouryssh 
 the game in all that ye maye, and to destroye all 
 suche thynges as ben devourers of it. And all those 
 that done after this rule shall have the blessynge of 
 God and Saynt Petyr, whyche he theym graunte 
 that wyth his precyous blood us broughte. 
 
 " And for by cause that this present treatyse 
 sholde not come to the hondys of eche ydle persone 
 whyche wolde desire it yf it were enpryntyd allone 
 by itself and put in a lytyll plaunflet, therefore I 
 have compylyd it in a greter volume of dyverse 
 bokys concernynge to gentyll and noble men, to the 
 entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde 
 have but lytyll me&ure in the sayd dysporte of 
 fysshyng sholde not by this meane utterly destroye 
 it." 
 
 The following enumeration of the various kinds 
 of worldly fishers is from "The FISHER/' a visita- 
 tion Sermon, preached at Horncastle, in Lincoln- 
 shire, by Wm. Worship, D. D., and printed for 
 Thomas Pavier, London, 1615. 
 
 " Some fish with Neroes Nets, of the Richest thrcds, 
 and these are Golden Fishers. Some angle for the 
 Tributary fisli with Twentie pence in her mouth, 
 and these are Silver fishers. Some cast their Net 
 ore a Skull of Churches, and these are Steeple fishers. 
 Some fish with a shining shell in the Net, and these 
 Flattring fishers. Some fish for an Euge tuum et 
 Belle, and these are Vaine-glorious fishers. Some 
 fish with an Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris, and these 
 are Audacious fishers. Some fish with a Poke-net 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 for a Dinner, (forgetting lerom to Nepotian,) and 
 these are Hungry fishers. Some fish with a Net 
 made of Thrums and Knots, and these are Pasport 
 fishers. Some fish for Frogges that may croke 
 against our Church, and these are Scismaticall 
 fishers. Some fish in the Ayre, above the Clouds, 
 and these are Enthusiastic all fishers. Some ^A 
 above, beneath, side-slip, and these are Ubiquitarie 
 fishers. Some ^fo/t for a pair* of unhacht Gallows, 
 and these are Seminarie fishers. Some ^A for 
 Princes Crowns and Sceptres, and these are Belze- 
 bub fishers. Some ^A for Soules and only for 
 Soules, and these are Christian fithers" 
 
 Let the clerical angler observe that the marginal 
 note on, u Some who ^7* with a Pohe-net for a 
 Dinner," is : " Facile contemnitur clericus, qui 
 sa3pe vocatus ad prandium non recusat." 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE SALMON TRIBE, WITH A LIST 
 
 OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES TAKEN IN THE LAKES 
 
 AND RIVERS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 IT is so difficult in Natural History to accurately 
 define a species, and so little is positively known 
 respecting the growth, different appearances at dif- 
 ferent ages, habits, and migrations of the Salmon 
 tribe, that it is as doubtful now as it was in the time of 
 Willoughby and Ray whether the salmon, the salmon 
 trout, the bull trout, I mean that which is caught in 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Coquet, near Warkworth the whitling, and the 
 brandling trout, samlet, or par, be the same fish at 
 different periods of growth, or whether they belong 
 to distinct species., Mr. Reed's opinion, therefore, 
 that the whitling is of a species distinct from that of 
 the salmon see, from page 68 to 73 is only to be 
 received as such, and not as decisive of the fact. To 
 pretend to find in the fishes above named a specific 
 difference from the different number of the rays in 
 the corresponding fins of each, would appear to be 
 little better than to declare a heifer of three years 
 old of a different species to a cow of eight, because 
 the latter has a greater number of rings in her 
 horns. To define species by parts which are not 
 invariable and the rays in the fins of a salmon in 
 the different periods of its growth certainly are not 
 is like the conduct of the boy who took a mark of 
 a lark's nest from a grey horse grazing near it. It 
 may indeed be true that the salmon that is a fish 
 of the species weighing upwards of nine pounds is 
 generally found to have a certain number of rays in 
 the back, tail, and vent fins, while the bull trout, whit- 
 ling, and samlet, are generally observed to have less ; 
 but this fact, standing alone, can no more be allowed 
 in proof of a specific difference, than a difference of 
 species can be inferred from the difference of their 
 respective weight. 
 
 We know, from repeated observation, the period 
 at which most land animals arrive at maturity, that 
 is, at their perfect growth and the full developement 
 of their faculties. But with respect to the salmon 
 
APPENDIX. 185 
 
 and most other fish which cannot be kept and do not 
 thrive in ponds, our information scarcely amounts 
 to anything. That grilse or young salmon spawn 
 the first year is a well authenticated fact, and it is 
 equally certain that they do not proceed so high 
 up the stream for this purpose as the larger fish. A 
 question is thence suggested : Do the young pro- 
 ceeding from the ova of the grilse, deposited at a 
 lower part of the stream, ever become salmon of 
 from twelve to thirty pounds' weight? the solution 
 of which is left to those who may have opportunity 
 to make the necessary observations. The following 
 fact may, however, throw some light on the subject. 
 Previous to the erection of a dam across the Co- 
 quet, at Acklington, ten or twelve miles from its 
 mouth, about sixty years ago, salmon were com- 
 monly taken in this river ; but since their progress 
 in spawning time towards its source has been inter- 
 rupted by the above mentioned dam, salmon are very 
 rarely caught there. This river abounds, in the 
 season, with salmon trout, or as they are frequently 
 called, bull trout, which are taken in great numbers 
 near Warkworth, about eight miles below Ackling- 
 ton, and the salmon is now as rare as the bull trout 
 was formerly. I am decidedly of opinion that these 
 trouts are of the same species as the salmon proper, 
 though unable to account for their not arriving at a 
 salmon's weight, fish of this species, in that part of 
 the country, are called salmon which weigh nine 
 pounds and upwards, those which are less being 
 termed grilse or gilse. The salmon trout, or bull trout 
 which are taken in the Coquet, mostly weigh from 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 three to five pounds. A river in the north of Ire- 
 land is, like the Coquet, frequented only by salmon 
 trout ; but whether it was formerly frequented by 
 salmon, and whether a dam has been erected across 
 the river, thus stopping them in their progress to 
 the higher streams and causing them to abandon the 
 river altogether, the writer is unable to say. 
 
 Many salmon fishers, who have certainly had 
 ample opportunity of acquiring a correct knowledge 
 on the subject, declare that the grilse and the sal- 
 mon are fish of different species, though they gene- 
 rally feel puzzled when required to point out a real 
 and permanent difference. Others again, though 
 doubting the indentity of the species, admit that 
 they are acquainted with no distinction, except the 
 difference of appearance which is, in fact, occa- 
 sioned merely by an increase of size ; the grilse not 
 being so full behind the head as the salmon, and 
 smaller towards the tail. The identity of the grilse is 
 not, however, a matter of opinion, grilse having been 
 frequently marked and returned to the river, and 
 when afterwards taken have been found greatly in- 
 creased in size, and not to be distinguished from what 
 fishermen allow to be the true salmon. Sir Humph- 
 rey Davy was of opinion that the whitling was the 
 young of the salmon trout, or sea trout, and that the 
 bull trout was a fresh water trout carried out to sea. 
 He thought that the brandling trout, samlet, or par, 
 might be a mule, produced between the common and 
 the salmon trout. He also observes : " Indeed con- 
 sidering the sea trout as the type of the species trout, 
 I think all the other true trouts may not improperly 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 be considered as varieties, where the differences of 
 food and of habits have occasioned, in a long course 
 of ages, differences of shape and colours, transmitted 
 to offspring in the same manner as in the variety 
 of dogs, which may all be referred to one primitive 
 type/' Now if the above quoted opinion be correct ; 
 and since it is certain that there is no real difference 
 between the sea or bull trout of the Coquet, and the 
 grilse which has been proved to be a young salmon 
 of the Tweed and the Tyne ; it would follow, that 
 the whole of the section, Truttce, of the genus 
 SALMO, including the salmon proper, forms but one 
 species; what are now described as species being 
 properly varieties. As it is known that the salmon 
 will breed with the grilse and the bull-trout, and 
 the two latter with the common or fresh water 
 trout ; it is, therefore, very likely that the several 
 varieties of the Truttce are capable of breeding 
 with each other, and of producing perfect fish 
 capable of breeding again. The carp and the trout 
 have been known to breed together, thus producing 
 a hybrid, which appears to be incapable of conti- 
 nuing a distinct variety, either from inability to 
 breed, or from its produce resuming the distinctive 
 character of a carp or a trout. The opinion of that 
 eminent physiologist, John Hunter, respecting that 
 which constitutes a distinct species, is as follows : 
 "The true distinction between different species of 
 animals, must ultimately, as appears to me, be 
 gathered from their incapacity of propagating with 
 each other an offspring capable again of continuing 
 
1 APPENDIX. 
 
 itself by subsequent propagations." Philosophical 
 Transactions, vol. 77, p. 253. 
 
 In the history of the salmon, we have yet to learn 
 the age to which they live, the size to which they 
 increase, and the circumstances which influence their 
 growth. A grilse which had been caught, weigh- 
 ing three pounds and a half, in one river, in March, 
 when again taken, in the March following, was 
 found to weigh seven pounds ; while another caught 
 in a different river, on the 7th of February, weighing 
 seven pounds, when again taken, on the 17th of 
 March, weighed seventeen pounds and a half, having 
 increased ten pounds and a half in thirty-eight days. 
 We have also yet to learn if the salmon, which has 
 been so peremptorily declared to be a sea fish, by 
 Dr. Fleming though it appears from his own 
 statement to live seven months out of twelve in 
 rivers ever proceeds to sea farther than a short 
 distance along the coast at the mouth of the river 
 in which it has been bred. An instance of one having 
 been seen, or taken in any manner, at sea, two 
 miles from the shore, has never come to the writer's 
 knowledge. 
 
 In the Linnean arrangement, fishes are divided 
 into four CLASSES, according to the want, or the 
 position of the ventral fins. To the CLASS, ABDO- 
 MINALES, having the ventral fins behind the pectoral, 
 and on the abdomen, the genus Salmo belongs ; 
 which, according to Sir Humphrey Davy, "may 
 be defined as a genus having eight fins, the one 
 above the tail fleshy and without spines." Of these 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 eight fins, four are placed in pairs, the pectoral 
 behind the gills, and the abdominal on the belly ; 
 and the other four are placed singly, the dorsal pro- 
 per, and the small fleshy or adipose fin on the back ; 
 the caudal at the tail ; and the anal between that 
 and the vent. The hinder dorsal fin, which is 
 sometimes called the mort and the dead fin, may be 
 considered as more particularly constituting the 
 generic character. The different families of the 
 salmon tribe are most abundant in northern lati- 
 tudes, being seldom found between the tropics. 
 They are common in the rivers of the northern 
 parts of Europe, Asia, and America. Macken- 
 zie, in his journey to explore the northern con- 
 tinent of America, caught trout within the polar 
 circle; and Captains Lewis and Clark, in their 
 travels to the source of the Missouri and across the 
 American continent to the Pacific ocean, met with 
 a tribe of Indians, on the upper part of the Colum- 
 bia, whose principal subsistence from May till Sep- 
 tember consisted of the salmon which they caught 
 in that river, but which disappeared on the approach 
 of autumn. In no part of the world does the salmon 
 appear to be taken in greater perfection or variety 
 than in the lakes and rivers of the British Isles ; 
 and in no country is its capture a source of so much 
 wealth, and, let it be added, of so much amusement 
 to the inhabitants ; a combination of the utile et 
 dulce which is certainly not to be met with in 
 dredging for oysters on the coast of France, or 
 in the pearl fishery at Ceylon. In taking salmon 
 with either net, leister, or rod, the genuine amateur 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 always enjoys the sport, than which nothing can 
 give him so perfect a relish for a finely curdled 
 slice of the fish. 
 
 In the following list of the different species, as 
 they are generally considered, of the SALMO, found 
 in the rivers and lakes of Britain, the Genus is 
 divided into three sections : 1 . TRUTT\E, with teeth 
 numerous and well defined. 2. COREGONI, with teeth 
 small or scarcely perceptible. 3. OSMERI, with the 
 greater dorsal and the anal fin nearly opposite. 
 The first may be regarded as consisting of different 
 families of one great house having a common ancestor, 
 and the head of which is the salmon proper. The 
 second may be looked on as of kin to the first, but 
 as having lost their pedigree ; and the third as a 
 kind of humble and questionable relation, but in 
 whom the badge of the tribe is however to be found 
 in the little mort fin which he wears above his tail. 
 
 GENUS SALMO. 
 
 Eight fins, the one above the tail fleshy and with- 
 out spines. 
 
 * TRUTT#: : with teeth numerous and well defined. 
 1. SALMO SALAR. The salmon. 
 
 2. > ERIOX. The grey. 
 
 3. - HUCHO. The bull trout. 
 
 4. TRUTTA. The salmon or sea trout. 
 
 5. ALBUS. The whitling. 
 
 (3. FARIO. The common trout. 
 
 7. SALMULUS. The samlet, brandling trout, 
 
 or par. 
 
 8. SALVELINUS. The red char. 
 
 9. ALPINUS. The case char. 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 ** COREGONI: teeth small or scarcely perceptible, 
 
 and none on the tongue or the palate. 
 10. SALMO THYMALLUS. The grayling. 
 
 11. LAVARETUS. The guinaid. 
 
 *** OSMERI : the greater dorsal and the anal fin 
 
 nearly opposite. 
 12. SALMO EPERLANUS. The smelt. 
 
 * TRUTT^E : with teeth numerous and well defined. 
 
 1. Salmo Salar. The Salmon. Head smooth and 
 compressed, the upper jaw projecting in a slight 
 degree beyond the lower, teeth in both jaws and on 
 the tongue. Most frequently, thirteen rays in the 
 anal fin. Color on the back, bluish black ; a sil- 
 very leaden color, like that of lead ore, on the 
 sides ; and white on the belly. Marked with dark 
 spots, which are in the skin and not in the scales, 
 above the lateral line, which is straight and near 
 the back. The salmon which are caught do not 
 generally exceed three feet in length or twenty 
 pounds in weight. There are, however, instances 
 of salmon being taken weighing from sixty to 
 seventy pounds, and from five to six feet long. The 
 largest which the writer ever saw was caught in the 
 Tyne, and weighed forty-eight pounds. No salmon 
 have ever been taken in the upper part of rivers 
 with food in their stomach ; though by the sea- 
 shore at the mouth of an estuary, some have been 
 caught gorged with sand eels. From March to 
 August the roe of the salmon is small, being about 
 three and a half inches long and a quarter of an 
 inch diameter, with the ova not larger than grains 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 of mustard seed. In a salmon weighing sixteen 
 pounds, caught in the Tay, in January, 1825, the 
 roe weighed four pounds ; and the ova, of the size of 
 large peas, amounted to 18,130. This roe was, how- 
 ever, considered to be unusually large. In September 
 salmon begin to ascend towards the higher parts of 
 rivers for the purpose of spawning ; and they spawn 
 in November, December, January, and February. 
 Frosty weather is said to facilitate their spawning, 
 which, in the Tweed, as will be seen from the fol- 
 lowing statement, is in some seasons not completed 
 by the tenth of March. Mr. Walter Jamieson, 
 renter of a fishery on the Tweed, extending from 
 Hempside ford below Kelso, to Craigs near Ma- 
 kerston, in a communication to a committee of the 
 House of Commons on the Salmon Fisheries, gives 
 the following statement of the unspawned fish, 
 kelts or fish that have spawned, and clean, that is, 
 fresh-run, sound, and wholesome, fish taken by 
 him from the 1st of January to the 10th of March, 
 1825. 
 
 From the 1st of January to the 1st of February. 
 
 Unspawned fish 120 
 
 Kelts, none 
 
 Clean 1 
 
 121 
 
 From the 1st of February to the 1st of March. 
 
 Unspawned fish 25 
 
 Kelts 15 
 
 Clean 4 
 
 44 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 From the 1st to the 10th of March. 
 Unspawned fish, (4 on the 10th) 7 
 
 Kelts 9 
 
 Clean 1 
 
 17 
 
 Mr. Robert Buist says that there are foul fish in 
 the Tay in January and February, but that he has 
 never known of unspawned fish in that river in the 
 latter month. 
 
 Salmon never spawn in still water unless when 
 unable to reach the upper parts of a stream, where 
 the water is shallow and runs over a gravelly 
 bottom. On arriving at a proper place, both male 
 and female commence forming in the gravel with 
 their snouts a sort of trench, extending sometimes 
 to eight or ten feet and from a foot to eighteen 
 inches deep ; during which operation they have 
 been observed to emit a peculiar sound. In this 
 hollow the female deposits the ova, generally from 
 fifteen to seventeen thousand, which are impregnated 
 by the male after ejection ; and as they are emitted 
 one by one, the time of spawning occupies several 
 days. The ova are then covered up with sand, small 
 stones, and gravel, the fish in performing this opera- 
 tion mostly using their tails, which are in consequence 
 sometimes observed with part of the skin and the 
 spines rubbed off. Should the male be killed before 
 the spawning is completed, the female seeks another 
 mate ; and she has on such occasions been observed 
 to be attended by a grilse or a large trout. When 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 the spawning is over, the fish slowly descend in a 
 sick and weakly condition to the sea, the males 
 preceding the females, though some kelts continue 
 to linger in the upper part of the river till May, 
 and are supposed to be destructive to the young fry. 
 The ova are also greedily devoured by trouts and 
 eels, and by birds which haunt the upper parts of 
 rivers, among the most destructive of which is the 
 water ouzel. 
 
 The young generally begin to rise from their 
 gravelly beds to the surface of the water in the first 
 week of March, " like a crop of oats," with a por- 
 tion of the ovum or "pea" frequently adhering to 
 them. At first they keep near the sides of the 
 stream to be more out of the reach of the large fish, 
 as well of their own species, as of pike and eels, 
 which prey upon them. In this manner they are 
 gradually carried down the river during April, at 
 which time they are from two to three and a half 
 inches long, and from half an ounce to two ounces 
 in weight. On arriving within the influence of the 
 tide they leave the shores and seek the deep water 
 in the middle of the stream, and are generally 
 all carried out to sea by the 4th of May. Towards 
 the latter end of June they again enter the rivers, 
 when they are mostly from two to two and a half 
 pounds weight ; during July and August they continue 
 to ascend in greater numbers and of increased size ; 
 and in the latter month, which is the height of the 
 grilse season in the Tweed, they generally weigh 
 from three to six pounds, though some are caught 
 weighing seven or eight. In September, when it is 
 
APPENDIX* 195 
 
 supposed they revisit the sea, they again become 
 scarce ; and the next season they are taken as 
 perfect salmon of nine pounds and upwards, few 
 of them, in the opinion of experienced fishermen, 
 attaining a weight of nine pounds the first year. 
 The following account of the number of salmon and 
 grilse caught in the river Ness, Inverness-shire, 
 may afford some idea of their comparative abun- 
 dance in most of the rivers of Scotland and the 
 north of England which they frequent, during the 
 respective months. From December to May no 
 grilse were taken in the Ness, in any of the years. 
 1812. 1813. 1814. 
 
 Salmon. Grilse. Salmon. Grilse. Salmon. Grilse. 
 
 June . 6 39 18 27 69 180 
 
 July . 25 211 38 208 21 263 
 
 August 236 1361 318 700 221 710 
 Sept. . 77 482 74 169 15 97 
 
 The total caught in each of these four months, for 
 three years, is : 
 
 Salmon. Grilse. 
 
 In June . 93 246 
 
 July . 84 682 
 
 August 775 2771 
 
 Sept. . 166 748 
 
 Salmon on their return from the sea are found 
 with an insect, the Monoculus Piscinus, or sea- 
 louse, adhering to their sides and shoulders, but 
 which falls off after they have been a short time in 
 fresh water. They are also infested with an insect 
 like a maggot, the Lernea Salmonea, which lodges in 
 and destroys their gills, and which is said only to be 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 found in foul fish, and some persons consider it as a 
 sure sign that such salmon have spawned. Both 
 these insects have, however, been observed at the 
 same time on one fish. 
 
 Willoughby, De Hist. Piscium, lib. 4, p. 189, 
 states that in the river Ribble, which has its rise 
 above Settle in Yorkshire, and runs into the sea 
 below Preston in Lancashire, salmon in the first 
 year are called smelts; in the second, sprods ; in 
 the third, morts ; in the fourth, fork-tails; in the 
 fifth, half-fish ; in the sixth, being fully grown and 
 having attained a just size, they were salmon. This 
 information, he says, he had from a friend, but he 
 does not appear to have received it with implicit 
 faith, for he adds, that " there are others who say 
 the salmon is of more rapid growth, arriving 
 at perfection in three years/' The writer has 
 heard in Lancashire the terms sprod and mord 
 vaguely used to designate salmon trouts of dif- 
 ferent sizes, but he never met with a person who 
 was able to inform him of the weight, size, and 
 marks of the trout to which the name of sprod or of 
 mord was to be properly applied. It is scarcely 
 necessary to add, that there is as little reason for 
 distinguishing salmon of the fourth year, as fork- 
 tails, as to make a long tail the distinguishing pecu- 
 liarity of a cow of the same age. If the salmon of 
 the Ribble were only considered such in their 
 sixth year, they must have been either of slow 
 growth or great size. 
 
 Izaak Walton, borrowing from Gesner, and thus 
 giving a proof that neither his authority nor himself 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 possessed any real knowledge on this point, on 
 which they are contradicted by every practical fisher- 
 man, says of the salmon, " the farther they get from 
 the sea the better." Dr. Thomas Moffet, who lived in 
 the reign of Queen Elizabeth, thus gives his experi- 
 ence, on the same subject, in his " Health's Improve- 
 ment." " Gesner commendeth them that go fathestup 
 into fresh rivers, accounting them worst which are 
 taken nearest the sea ; which I find to be true in the 
 difference betwixt the salmons of upper Severn (be- 
 twixt Shrewsbury and Bewdley) and the salmons 
 taken betwixt Gloucester and Bristol. Nevertheless, 
 if they go too high up the river, they wax leaner 
 for want of sufficient nourishment, as manifestly 
 appeareth, which I myself have seen, in the salmon 
 of the Rhine taken at Ringfielden beyond Bazil, 
 and at Oppenheim above the city of Mentz. Though 
 Dr. Moffet says, " salmon are a fatty, tender, short 
 and sweet fish, quickly filling the stomach, and soon 
 glutting;" yet we learn from him that hot salmon 
 was " counted unwholesome in England, and sus- 
 pected as a leprous meat ;" but he adds, "without all 
 reason ; for if it be sodden in wine, and afterwards 
 well spiced, there is no danger of any such acci- 
 dent." His contemporary, Thomas Cogan, " Mais- 
 ter of Artes, and Bacheler of Phisicke," in his 
 " Haven of Health," printed in 1589, had, however, 
 no very high opinion of it, either as a dainty or a 
 wholesome article of food, placing it after such 
 fishes as the pike, perch, whiting, gurnard, gudgeon, 
 bream, and loach, in a separate chapter, " Of other 
 fishes much used though not so wholsome." He 
 T 
 
198 APPENDIX. 
 
 speaks of it thus: " salmon though it be pleasant 
 fishe, and very sweete, especially the belly thereof, 
 yet it is not so wholsome as manie other before 
 mentioned, but much grosser, more clammie, harder 
 of digestion, and fuller of superfiuitie. And that it 
 is not simplie wholsome is prooved hereby, for that 
 it is not used to be eaten hot, or immediately after 
 it is boyled. The trout is of like nature, for it is 
 the yong salmon. The nature of the salmon is to 
 spawne in the fresh water, and after useth both 
 fresh and salt/' This opinion of the salmon, which 
 appears to have been general, with its consequent 
 cheapness and greater abundance, explains to us 
 the reason why in Kendal and Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 apprentices covenanted in their indentures with 
 their masters, that they should not have salmon to 
 dinner oftener than three times a week. This salvo 
 is now omitted in such contracts, the apprentices of 
 those towns being no longer exposed to the risk 
 of a surfeit from feeding on salmon more than 
 thrice a week. 
 
 Though certain fishermen and salesmen have de- 
 clared that salmon are best in January and Fe- 
 bruary, yet as their opinion might be influenced by 
 their interest, salmon bringing much the highest 
 price then, it is not to be received as absolutely cor- 
 rect. Let such as wish to be correctly informed on 
 this point, taste for themselves. It is generally 
 considered in Northumberland that the salmon does 
 not arrive at perfection before May, according to 
 the old maxim, 
 
 "The salmon's never good 
 Till he drinks the May-flood." 
 
APPENDIX. 199 
 
 2. Salmo Eriox. The Grey. Jaws nearly equal. 
 Color of the back inclining to a black-green ; the 
 sides sometimes of a yellowish tinge ; belly white ; 
 numerous large ash-colored spots above the lateral 
 line. Extremity of the tail nearly straight. Ten 
 rays in the anal fin. Mostly caught from eighteen 
 to twenty-four inches long, and weighing from 
 three to six pounds, though some have been caught 
 weighing from twelve to sixteen. Mostly confined 
 to the northern rivers of Scotland, which it ascends 
 in August. It is chiefly distinguished from the 
 salmon trout by the color and greater number of 
 its spots ; thicker and broader body ; more nume- 
 rous teeth ; and by its lateness in entering the rivers. 
 It is the " SALMO griseus seu cinereous " of Ray ; 
 and it is perhaps the same as the Shewin, which is 
 caught in some of the rivers of Wales. 
 
 3. Salmo Hucho. The bull trout. In color the 
 same as the salmon, from which it is only distin- 
 guished by being of smaller size arid more length- 
 ened shape, having fewer teeth, and only ten or 
 eleven rays in the anal fin. In the Coquet, where 
 it is commonly called a salmon trout, it is mostly 
 caught from eighteen to twenty-two inches long, and 
 weighing from three to five pounds. In Newcastle 
 market it is sold as grilse. There appears to be no 
 real difference between the bull and the salmon 
 trout, and it is probable that they are both only 
 varieties of the salmon, whose growth is impeded 
 by circumstances with which we are unacquainted, 
 or which are only caught when in their first year. 
 Dr. Wm. Turner, a Northumberland man and an 
 eminent naturalist, who lived in the reign of Queen 
 
200 APPENDIX. 
 
 Mary, thus mentions the bull trout of his native 
 county : " Trutta taurina, apud nos in Northum- 
 bria, ab insigni magnitudine." Dr. Walter Charle- 
 ton, whom I should take, from his name and the 
 expression, " apud nos in Northumbria," the same 
 as Dr. Turner's, to be of the same county, in his 
 Onomasticon Zoicon, 1668, notices it in the follow- 
 ing manner: " Trutta Taurina. With us in North- 
 umberland, a Bull-Trout, from its great size ; In 
 some counties, a Grey Trout; in others, a Skurf." 
 
 4. Salmo Trutta. The salmon trout. Of similar 
 color and spots to the bull trout and the salmon. 
 Has ten or eleven rays in the anal fin, the same as 
 the bull trout, and observes the same migrations. 
 It is the Trutta Salmoneta of Willoughby , who says 
 that it is also called the Skurf and the Bull-trout ; 
 and that it differs from the salmon in being less, 
 seldom exceeding twenty inches in length, its tail 
 not being forked, and its flesh not being red as in 
 the salmon ; and from the grey, in also being less, 
 and in having a shorter and thicker head. The 
 flesh is also more rank, and not so pleasant as that 
 of the grey. He adds : " of the salmon trout there 
 are many varieties, well known and distinguished 
 by our fishermen, who also are well acquainted 
 with the months in which each makes its appear- 
 ance ; though I dare not venture to affirm them to 
 be of different species/' De Hist. Piscium, lib. 4, 
 p. 193. 
 
 5. Salmo Albus. The Whitling, Herling, or Phi- 
 nock. Comparatively of a thinner form and more 
 compressed than the salmon, lighter colored on the 
 back than the salmon trout ; the lower part of the 
 
APPENDIX. 201 
 
 sides and the belly of a beautiful silvery white, 
 from which its name of whitling is derived. Nine 
 rays on the anal fin. In the rivers on the borders of 
 Scotland they are sometimes caught from sixteen to 
 twenty inches long, and weighing from two to four 
 pounds. In the Tay they are seldom caught ex- 
 ceeding twelve inches. It enters the rivers about 
 July, and is found with the sea-louse adhering to it 
 the same as the salmon. The flesh is of a reddish 
 color like that of the salmon. 
 
 6. Salmo Fario. The common trout. Color of 
 the back a dusky brown ; of a greenish yellow on 
 the sides ; white on the belly. Marked with many 
 spots of a brown, red, and purplish hue. Edges of 
 the ventral fins of a red or yellowish tinge. Rays 
 in the anal fin, nine. Does not go down to the sea. 
 Mostly taken from ten to fourteen inches long, and 
 weighing from eight ounces to a pound. Many are, 
 however, caught of a much greater size. One taken 
 in the neighbourhood of Great Driffield, in Septem- 
 ber, 1832, measured thirty-one inches in length, 
 twenty-one in girth, and weighed seventeen pounds. 
 The age to which the trout arrives has n^ver been 
 ascertained, any more than the age of the salmon. 
 In August, 1809, a trout died, which had been for 
 twenty-eight years an inhabitant of the well at 
 Dumbarton Castle. It had never increased in 
 weight from the time of its being put in, when it 
 weighed about a pound ; and had become so tame 
 that it would receive its food from the hands of the 
 soldiers. 
 
 In the river Eynion in Cardiganshire, there is a 
 kind of trout taken with the back crooked immedi- 
 
202 APPENDIX. 
 
 ately above the tail, which is hence called the 
 u hog-backed trout/' The trout spawns in Novem- 
 ber, depositing its ova in the same manner as the 
 salmon. The number of the ova varies from twenty 
 to many thousands according to the size of the fish, 
 and they are about the same size as those of the 
 salmon. 
 
 There is a mode of taking trouts mentioned in 
 some authors, which savors much of having a com- 
 mon original with that safe rule for catching birds, 
 to wit, by putting a little salt on their tails. Speak- 
 ing of the trout, Thomas Cogan, in 1589, expresses 
 himself thus : " This fishe of Nature loveth flatterie : 
 for being in the water it will suffer it selfe to be 
 rubbed and clawed, and so be taken. Whose ex- 
 ample I would wish no maydes to follow, lest they 
 repent afterclappes." Haven of Health, p. 143. 
 In the Art of Angling, 1740, R. Brookes, M. D. 
 writes as follows : " There is a method of taking 
 Trout in some parts of England by tickling them ; 
 I knew one who was very expert in that art ; he 
 would grope for them in their lurking places, and 
 gently tickle their sides, which they seem to be 
 delighted with, 'till at length approaching their 
 gills he held them fast, and made them prisoners ; 
 and we learn, from the Philosophical Transactions, 
 that Carp are sometimes taken in the same way." 
 In future, let no philosophical sportsman be laughed 
 at for taking a salt-box with him to the moors, on 
 the 12th of August. 
 
 7. Salmo Salmulus. The brandling trout, samlet, 
 pink, or par. Distinguished by a row of large 
 bluish marks descending from the back, on each 
 
APPENDIX. 203 
 
 side, as if caused by the impression of fingers, 
 whence it is in some places called the finger- 
 ling. They are seldom caught exceeding seven 
 or eight inches in length, and have been supposed 
 to be all males ; but this is probably a mistake, 
 owing to the imperfect developement of the roe. 
 They are now generally considered as the young of 
 the salmon trout, but are as likely to be young 
 salmon. 
 
 8. Salmo Salvelinus. The red char, or torgoch. 
 About a foot long. Back of a purplish green, 
 passing into a yellowish white on the sides ; the 
 belly red. It is found in the lakes of Scotland and 
 Wales, and in Windermere, Conistone, and Butter- 
 mere. 
 
 9. Salmo Alpinus. The case char. Same size as 
 the red char. Back black ; sides bluish ; the belly 
 of yellowish umber. Is found in Windermere, 
 and spawns about the latter end of September. 
 
 ** COREGONI : Teeth small and scarcely percep- 
 tible, and none on the tongue or the palate. 
 
 10. Salmo Thymallus. The grayling. Not so 
 thick nor so deep as a trout. Back of a bluish 
 green ; sides of a yellowish grey, marked with 
 longitudinal lines of a bluish colour. The grayling 
 is by no means a common species. It delights in 
 clear streams which have their source in limestone 
 hills. It is caught, from ten to twenty inches long, 
 in the Wye ; in the Derwent, and the Rye in the 
 East Riding of Yorkshire; in the Wiske, near 
 Northallerton, and is not found in any stream to 
 the north of the one last mentioned. It was called 
 
204 APPENDIX. 
 
 Thymallus from being thought at certain seasons to 
 smell like thyme. 
 
 11. Salmo Lavaretus. The guinaid. The back 
 dusky with a shade of blue, growing lighter at the 
 sides ; belly silvery, and rather broad. Upper jaw 
 more prominent than the lower, and the mouth like 
 that of a herring. General length from ten to 
 twelve inches ; though it is sometimes caught from 
 sixteen to eighteen inches long, and weighing from 
 two to four pounds. It is found in the lakes of 
 Wales ; in Ullswater, in Cumberland, where it is 
 called the Schelly ; Lochmaben, in Scotland ; and in 
 the Highland lakes, where it is called the Powan, 
 and Pollag. 
 
 *** OSMERI : the greater dorsal and the anal fin 
 nearly opposite. Only one species found in Britain. 
 
 12. Salmo Eperlanus. The smelt or sparling. 
 Head transparent ; back of a straw color with a 
 tinge of green ; lighter towards the sides ; belly 
 white. Is distinguished by its peculiar smell. 
 Mostly taken from six to ten inches long, in large 
 rivers, which it does not appear to ascend much 
 above the influence of the tide. It is caught in the 
 Thames ; the Humber, in great abundance ; the 
 Tyne ; and in most of the large rivers of Scotland. 
 
 KESWICK AND ULLSWATER COMPARED. 
 
 The comparative merits of Derwent, or Keswick, 
 lake and that of Ullswater, will be found in the 
 following pleadings in the cause, KESWICK versus 
 
APPENDIX. 205 
 
 ULLS WATER, which, like Cowpjer's celebrated case, 
 NOSE v. EYES, in re Spectacles, are " not to be 
 found in any of the books," and were first " re- 
 ported " in an Edinburgh newspaper, about three 
 or four years ago. They are said to be the pro- 
 duction of an eminent lawyer, now a judge in 
 one of the Scottish courts. 
 
 August 27, 1799. KESWICK against ULLSWATER. 
 
 " In a competition amongst the lakes of Cumber- 
 land and Westmorland, after the preferable claim 
 of Windermere had been sustained, it came to be 
 disputed, whether Keswick ought to be ranked se- 
 cundo loco, or brought in pari passu with Ullswater. 
 
 PLEADED FOR KESWICK. 1 mo. This piece of 
 water is circular and retains the form of a lake in 
 every point of view ; on the contrary, Ullswater is 
 narrow and winding, and it deceives the spectator by 
 assuming the appearance of a river. Its claim to 
 beauty ought, therefore, to be repelled as founded 
 on a simulate right, and although a broad expanse 
 of water is sometimes less interesting than a con- 
 tracted stream, yet this is not the case when there 
 is evidently a dolus dans causam contractui. 
 
 Secundo et separating From the top of Skid- 
 daw, the first object that arrests the attention is 
 Keswick, with its surrounding vale, and arrestments 
 are preferable according to their dates. Ersk. B. 
 HI. T. 4, . 18. 
 
 Tertio. The islands in this lake are more nume- 
 rous and varied, and some of them are clothed with 
 fine wood, not a silva ccedua like that on the islands 
 u 
 
206 APPENDIX. 
 
 of Ullswater, but grown timber, which could not 
 be cut by a life-renter, even if infeft cum silvis ; 
 though, perhaps, he might use it to keep the houses 
 in a habitable condition. 8th December, 1737. Fer- 
 gusson contra Fergusson. 
 
 Lastly. The distant mountains are more magni- 
 ficent, and they disclose in the back ground more 
 picturesque and romantic scenery, particularly in 
 the pass of Borrowdale, towards the black lead or 
 wad mines, all of which are to be held part and 
 pertinent of Keswick, according to the maxim, 
 accessorium sequitur principal*. 
 " In support of this argument, various authorities 
 may be referred to Gray's letters, p. 18 ; Gilpin's 
 Tour, p. 39 ; and so it was 'decided by Mr. Avison, 
 organist of Durham, 30th June, 1772, who pro- 
 nounced the following judgment : " this is beauty 
 lying in the lap of horror." 
 
 ANSWERED FOR ULLSWATER. 1 mo. Nothing can 
 be more stiff and formal than Keswick, the figure 
 of which is almost an exact circle, while this lake 
 resembles the letter S, and is the true line of beauty. 
 Nor can it be mistaken for a river, because it does 
 not flow, et rivus est locus quo aqua decurrat. L. 1. 
 l^ff. de rivis. Besides, in point of size, it equals 
 or exceeds Keswick, and the quantity of water in 
 the one may be set off against that in the other, which, 
 it will not be disputed, is a compensatio de liquido 
 in liquidum. 
 
 Secundo. As to Keswick's arresting the atten- 
 tion ; whoever went to the top of Skiddaw, merely 
 to compare the two lakes was using nimious dili- 
 
APPENDIX. 207 
 
 gence, and at any rate, it is an argument in api- 
 cibus. 
 
 Tertio. The solitude that reigns alongst the bold 
 and precipitous shore of Ullswater, is peculiarly 
 romantic and pleasing, for, amidst a scene of broken 
 banks there ought always to be sequestration ; but 
 the sides of Keswick are covered with houses, and, 
 if two lovers had an assignation there, it would soon 
 be intimated all over the country. Indeed, a decent 
 couple cannot take a walk without exciting atten- 
 tion. L. 1, 3,ff. Unde Vir et Uxor. 
 
 Quarto. As to the islands, Vicar's Island spoils 
 the effect of the rest, for it is covered with corn 
 fields, which are certainly out of place there, corn 
 being parsonage and not vicarage. Forbes on 
 Teinds, p. 39. Not to mention that its banks are 
 quite deformed by Mr. Pocklington's fortifications. 
 L. 1. 6,jf. de ripa munienda. 
 
 Lastly. It is impossible to enter Borrowdale 
 with personal security, from the suspension of loose 
 rocks, fragments of which are constantly tumbling 
 down ; and few travellers have orderly proceeded to 
 the top of it, whatever diligenca they may have 
 used. As for the wad mines, they are in lease, and 
 therefore form a proper wadset, which has nothing 
 to do with the lake. 
 
 It will be observed, with regard to the authorities 
 cited, that the organist Avison was an inferior judge, 
 and not competent to decide the question, and at 
 that time he was in the special service of the Bishop 
 of Durham, and proceeding to Carlisle in a retour. 
 
 REPLIED FOR KESWICK. The fertility of Vicar's 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 Island is in its favour, and the beauty of the scene 
 will be increased in quantum locupletior facia. 
 While the islands in Ullswater are denuded not 
 only of trees, but of grass, and even the goats upon 
 them have been allowed a separate aliment. Mr. 
 Pocklington's buildings are a novum opus which will 
 look better when the lime is blackened by the wea- 
 ther, et domum suam reficere unicuique licet. L. 61, 
 ff. de reg. juris. 
 
 DUPLIED FOR ULLSWATER. They will never im- 
 prove, quod initio vitiosum, &c. 
 
 he travellers preferred Keswick by their first 
 interlocutor, but a second bottle being presented 
 and discussed they could see no distinction between 
 them, and found accordingly/' 
 
 LIST OF TROUT STREAMS. 
 
 THE following list of some of the principal trout 
 streams, in Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, 
 Cumberland, and Westmorland, and in the border 
 counties of Scotland, may perhaps be of service to 
 the angler who is a stranger to those counties, and 
 who may happen to visit them for the first time. It 
 is by no means offered as a complete one, but the 
 writer believes, that so far as it extends, it will 
 be found to be correct. The towns and villages 
 named after each stream, indicate the place in the 
 neighbourhood where the angler will be most likely 
 
APPENDIX. 209 
 
 to find convenient quarters. They are placed as 
 they occur in ascending the stream, the lowest 
 down being mentioned first. 
 
 YORKSHIRE. 
 
 The Aire. Keighley, Skipton. 
 Codbeck. Topcliffe, Thirsk. 
 Costa. Pickering. 
 Cover. East Witton, or Middleham. 
 Dent. Dent, or Sedbergh. 
 Derwent. Malton, East Ay ton, or Scarborough. 
 Dove, and Seven Beck. Kirkby Moorside. 
 Eure. Ripon, Masham, Middleham, Askrigg. 
 Greta. Greta Bridge. 
 Hull, and Driffield Beck. Great Driffield. 
 Leven. Stokesley. 
 Rye, and Hole Beck. Helmsley. 
 Swale. Topcliffe, Catterick Bridge, Richmond. 
 Wharf. Wetherby, Harewood, Otley. 
 Wiske. Northallerton. 
 
 DURHAM. 
 
 The Derwent. Ebchester, Edmondbyers, or Blanch- 
 land. 
 
 Tees. Hurworth, Croft Bridge, Barnard Cas- 
 tle, Middleton in Teesdale. The Lune, an 
 excellent trout stream which runs through 
 the north western extremity of Yorkshire, 
 and enters the Tees a little below Middleton, 
 is well worth the angler's attention. 
 Wear. Durham, Bishop Auckland, Wolsing- 
 ham. 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND. 
 
 The Allen, East. Allendale Town. 
 
 Allen, West. Whitfield. 
 
 Aln. Alnwick, Whittingham. 
 
 Beamish, or Breamish, the name of the Till 
 above Bewick. Glanton. 
 
 Blyth. Bedlington, Stannington. 
 
 Coquet. Warkworth, Felton, Weldon Bridge, 
 Rothbury. 
 
 Glen. Wooler. 
 
 Pont. Ponteland. 
 
 Reed. Otterburn. 
 
 Till. Wooler. 
 
 Tyne. Bywell, Hexham. A little above Hex- 
 ham the Tyne is divided into two branches. 
 
 Tyne, North. Bellingham 
 
 Tyne, South. Haydon Bridge, Alston in Cum- 
 berland. 
 
 Wansbeck. Morpeth, Meldon Dyke-nook. 
 
 CUMBERLAND. 
 
 The Bleng, and the Irt. Gosforth, about twelve 
 
 miles south of Whitehaven. 
 Caldew, the Eden, and the Peteril. Carlisle. 
 Cocker. Cockermouth, Buttermere. 
 Derwent. Workington, Cockermouth, Keswick . 
 Duddon. Broughton in Lancashire. 
 Eamont. Penrith. 
 Ehen, or En. Egremont. 
 Ellen. Ireby. 
 Esk, on the border. Longtown. 
 
APPENDIX. 211 
 
 Esk, about fourteen miles south of Whitehaven, 
 
 and the Mite. Ravenglas. 
 Irthing. Brampton. 
 Wampool. Wigton. 
 
 WESTMORLAND. 
 
 The Bratha. Ambleside. 
 
 Eden. Temple Sowerby, Appleby, Kirkby 
 Stephen. 
 
 Kent, and its tributary which runs through 
 Long Sleddale. Kendal. 
 
 Lowther. Shap. 
 
 Lune. Kirkby Lonsdale, Sedbergh, Burrow- 
 bridge. 
 
 BORDER COUNTIES OF SCOTLAND. 
 BERWICKSHIRE. 
 
 The Black Adder, and the White Adder. Dunse. 
 Tweed. Berwick, Coldstream, Kelso, Melrose, 
 Peebles. 
 
 ROXBURGHSHIRE. 
 
 The Ale. Ancrum. The angler had best fix his 
 quarters at Jedburgh. 
 
 Beaumont, or Bowmont. Yetholm. 
 
 Hermitage. The angler may obtain oat-cake, 
 whiskey, and clean straw at the toll-bar, at 
 the foot of the Nine-stanerig, on the road 
 between Hawick and Newcastle ton. But he 
 will scarcely fail to meet with border hospi- 
 tality, should he ask a supper and a night's 
 lodging, at the farm-house of Twiselhope, 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 about two miles above Hermitage Castle; 
 and should he, though a " southron/' bear a 
 good old border name, as happened to be 
 the case with S. O. he is the more likely to 
 meet with a hearty welcome from the descen- 
 dant of 
 
 " An Elliot steive an' true, 
 
 A bauld follower o' Buccleugh; 
 
 Wha drave baith steer an' steed, 
 
 O' law took little heed ; 
 
 An' for bauld an* ventrous deed 
 
 He banged a' the Border through." 
 
 Jed. Jedburgh. 
 
 Kail, and Ousenam water. Morebattle. 
 
 Slitrig, Borthwick, and Hassendean burn. Ha- 
 
 wick. 
 Teviot. Kelso, Jedburgh, Hawick. 
 
 SELKIRKSHIRE. 
 
 The Ettrick, and the Yarrow. Selkirk. 
 Gala. Galashiels. 
 
 DUMFRIESSHIRE. 
 
 The Annan. Annan, Lockerby. 
 
 Esk, the Ewes, and Wauchope burn. Lang- 
 holm. 
 
 Nith. Dumfries. 
 
 Sark. Gretna. The angler may here seek 
 solace for his recent anxiety, after the matri- 
 monial hook is fixed, should he visit this 
 place on such an errand. 
 
 C. YV hiuinghain, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane. 
 
 5 4934 
 
VA 05737