16 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



plane trees and trim-proportioned gardens, the formal iron gates and its 

 general air of solid, grave respectability, looked as if it had all been contrived 

 to last, and no doubt it must have been a pleasant retreat when the Thames 

 was " the silvery Thamesis," and you could stand upon the river wall and 

 catch you a score or two of fine roach and dace ; but that time had departed 

 then, and Putney Bridge was the nearest flshwalk extant, and even that 

 was fading. A dirty turbid stream flowed by, lashed into a muddy froth 

 by scores of fourpenny boats, for the pennies and Citizens were not yet. 



StUl, fish could not exist off Cheyne Walk, or the place would have been 

 Paradise for me ; and the nearest point where I could indulge my favourite 

 sport was the mouth of the "Wandle at Wandsworth, some three miles or so 

 away, and thither I sped evening after evening. But I soon got infected 

 with a love of the Thames, and used to make my way up to Richmond, 

 Hampton Court, and elsewhere on every available holiday. Shall I ever 

 forget that first ride upon the top of an omnibus, after six months of 

 London bricks and mortar, relieved only by a weary drawing board in Cannon- 

 row — where I studied engines and piers and bridges, et hoc genus omne, under 

 the present worthy engineer to the Brighton Aquarium, whose works are so 

 well known at most of our fashionable watering places. 



But that ride I never shall forget. It was early summer and the buds 

 were just bursting into leaf, the birds beginning to sing, and this to a country- 

 bred lad, after six months of town smoke, was perfect paradise. How I 

 listened to the birds, drank in with delighted eyes the opening foliage. What 

 a glory was Bushey Park with its unequalled avenue of towering chestnuts 

 and its herds of dappled deer ; its velvety turf, and sparkling waters. My 

 driver, too, was chatty, and discoursed learnedly on reaching, and how he 

 catched so many roach "with a huming 'air" "which it were a lady's as 

 gev it him," &c., &c. Then he remarked on the peculiarities of town and 

 country. "Birds now — that's a rum thing !" pointing to some cages near 

 Kew. " In town where there aint none, leastways on'y sparrers, which ain't 

 'ardly to be reckoned so, nobody keers about 'em, and nobody keeps 'em. In 

 the country, where they can see and 'ear 'em in every tree, they 'angs em 

 up everywheres by dozens;" 



What a day's fishing, too, I had at Moleseye. The first dace was a 



