AND THEIR INHABITANTS. 183 



between Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Many rivers of 

 Yorkshire run into the Humber, as also some of 

 Lincoln, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire. There is 

 also the Great Ouse, which flows through Northampton- 

 shire, Bucks, Bedford, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and 

 Norfolk. This has a course of about 160 miles, till 

 it reaches the Wash at King's Lynn. This river has 

 been the subject of verse in the simple lines of Cowper 

 about the dog, which, seeing its master anxious to 

 secure a water-lily, swam to the spot and brought the 

 flower to his master's feet. A flat country or one 

 slightly undulating, if threaded by a fine stream, may 

 inspire poetry, though not so readily as the lofty 

 mountain and sparkling cascade. The sweet but 

 rather prosaic lines which Cowper has addressed to 

 the animals and birds of his neighbourhood, seem to 

 partake of tame, homely, rural beauties, rather than of 

 the poetically grand. 



The South of Devon is so full of beautiful little 

 watering-places that it is often difficult to say which 

 is the most attractive. At Budleigh Salterton the 

 little river Otter runs into the English Channel. 

 Years ago, when I was a boy, I used to fish in 

 this stream ; a single trout, a pope, a roach, and per- 

 haps a lot of bleak, were all I could make my own. 

 A few salmon were in the river, but I was not lucky 

 enough to secure even one. A few miles up the 

 stream, near Honiton, the fishing was good. Once I 

 was out on a fishing excursion, not far from the town ; 

 I felt a tremendous pull at my hook, placed my- 

 self firmly on the bank, gave the fish the utmost extent 

 of the rod, and waited the result. The pulling be- 



