46 By Stream and Sea. 



A river is often compared to a man's life in its inevitable 

 advance from source to ocean. Does not the resemblance 

 admit of many applications ? Take the Itchen. From the 

 moment when it rises out of the chalk at Ropley Dean to 

 its reception in Alresford pond it sparkles in a confined 

 sphere, bubbling and joyous in its childhood existence. 

 Pursuing its way through the villages and meads, it widens 

 and deepens, and casts out influences right and left, orna- 

 menting stately manors and aiding the husbandman and 

 miller in the more even tenor of its prime. Lastly, nearing 

 the tidal estuary at South Stoneham, it puts aside its shallows 

 and light-hearted ripplings, becomes " still but deep," and 

 mingles with the sea without a murmur. So, the best and 

 the worst of us must feel, should end a well-ordered life. 



A rustic bridge near Winnal Church presents a variety of 

 exquisite scenes for the artist ; for the surroundings are well 

 wooded, and the habitations of man and the natural charms 

 of country life are most harmoniously mingled. The river 

 here has several branches, some of them the perfection of 

 trout-water, offering steady deeps for the artificial minnow 

 and alternating shallows for the fly. This is the end of our 

 ramble, and if we have before regretted the backwardness 

 of the season and the wintry weather, we may doubly regret 

 it now at a place where the summer verdure alone is wanting 

 to complete the picture. The white willows without their 

 feathery ornaments, the weeping willow without its drooping 

 branches, the white-wooded alder without its distinctive 

 though somewhat sombre leafage, are like ships without 

 their canvas. To-day, instead of imparting their familiar 

 lights and shades to the stream, they mournfully catch the 

 passing wind and convert it into a song of hope deferred. 



But there is in a tall tree opposite a bold missel thrush 

 whom the hail-storms cannot silence; in Hampshire, and 



