76 NIMROHS NORTHERN TOUR. 



And there the fox securely feeds ; 

 And there the poisonous adder breeds, 

 Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds, 

 While, ever and anon, there falls 

 Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls. 

 Yet Time has seen, which lifts the low, 

 And level lays the lofty brow 

 Has seen the broken pile complete, 

 Big with the vanity of state ; 

 But transient is the smile of fate ! 

 A little rule, a little sway, 

 A sunbeam in a winter's day, 

 Is all the proud and mighty have 

 Between the cradle and the grave." 



But Kelso is visited by sportsmen for other purposes than the 

 chase. The fishing in the Tweed that Rex fluviorum of this 

 country, as Virgil calls the Eridanus of another seduces numbers 

 to its banks, not only from the metropolis of Scotland, but also 

 from all parts of England, although it appears from a scientific 

 article on the " gentle art," in your number for May last, the 

 Tweed is now not what the Tweed was, in the angler's eyes, and 

 it appears only to stand third on the list in its own country, and 

 inferior to many rivers in Ireland, in its stock of fish, which is 

 accounted for by the increase of weirs and nets at its mouth, for 

 the supply of the London market. But it is a noble river, and 

 entitled to its share of all the reasonable* praises which have 

 been so lavishly bestowed upon others. 



I should imagine most of your readers have perused that 

 beautiful little work upon angling, by the late Sir Humphrey 

 Davy, and appropriately called Salmonia. Such, however, as 

 have not, will be struck with the following elegant and philoso- 

 phical comparison of a full and clear river : " Pliny has," says 

 he, p. 175, "as well as I recollect, compared a river to human 

 life. I have never read the passage in his works, but I have 

 been a hundred times struck with the analogy, particularly 

 amidst mountain scenery. The river, small and clear in its 

 origin, gushes forth from rocks, falls into deep glens, and wantons 

 and meanders through a wild and picturesque country, nourish- 

 ing only the uncultivated tree or flower by its dew or spray. In 

 this, its state of infancy and youth, it may be compared to the 



* The adoration paid to rivers had no bounds. The Eridanus was 

 said to have flowed through Heaven and bathed the gods. SeeDenhaitfs 

 Cooper's Hill. 



