chap, ii.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 277 



encumbered with wood in many places, as is trou- 

 blesome to an Angler. 



Viat. Here are the prettiest rivers, and the most 

 of them in this country that ever I saw : do you 

 know how many you have in the country ? 



Pise. I know them all, and they were not hard 

 to reckon, were it worth the trouble : but the most 

 considerable of them I will presently name you. 

 And to begin where we now are, for you must 

 know we are now upon the very skirts of Derby- 

 shire ; we have, first, the river Dove, that we shall 

 come to by and by, which divides the two Counties 

 of Derby and Stafford, for many miles together ; 

 and is so called from the swiftness of it's current, 

 and that swiftness occasioned by the declivity of it's 

 course, and by being so straitened in that course 

 betwixt the rocks ; by which, and those very high 

 ones, it is hereabout, for four or five miles, con- 

 fined into a very narrow stream. A river that, from 

 a contemptible fountain, which I can cover with 

 my hat, by the confluence of other rivers, rividets, 

 brooks, and rills, is swelled, — before it falls into 

 Trent, a little below Egginton, where it loses the 

 name, — to such a breadth and depth, as to be in most 

 places navigable, were not the passage frequently 

 interrupted with fords and wears : and has as fer- 

 tile banks as any river in England, none excepted. 

 And this river, from it's head, for a mile or two, is 

 a black water, as all the rest of the Derbyshire ri- 

 vers of note originally are ; for they all spring from 



