90 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



books." Whether poor Cowper added fishing to his simple 

 amusements has not to my knowledge been recorded, but 

 you may remember how sagely he observes : 



" So when the cold damp shades of night prevail 

 Worms may be caught by either head or tail." 



an unvarnished statement of fact which leads me to sus- 

 pect that the poet had at some period of his life been 

 interested in that familiar operation to the angler of stalk- 

 ing " lobs " in the garden with a lantern and flower pot, 

 having an eye to the bream to whom such dainties are an 

 irresistible bait. 



This pathetic couplet on wormology must be a reminder 

 that this is not an essay on the poet Cowper, but a sketch of 

 the river by which he spent so many years of his life. 



The Ouse roughly speaking runs in a north-easterly 

 direction. Rising in Northamptonshire, it for a while 

 divides the counties of Northampton and Buckinghamshire,, 

 touching and indeed almost encircling the town of Buck- 

 ingham, and afterwards, beyond Stony Stratford, receiving 

 the Tove, which passes near the rare old town of Towcester 

 and takes in the drainage of Whittlebury Forest. At New- 

 port Pagnell the Ouse is increased by the little Ousel, then 

 flows on to wooded Weston, where stands the park placed 

 at Cowper's disposal by his faithful friends, and to Olney, 

 where he lived in neighbourship with John Newton, of 

 Olney hymn fame. By-and-by it comes to Bedford. At 

 Tempsford it is joined by the Ivel; it becomes a broad, 

 deep river in Huntingdonshire, takes in numerous minor 

 streams in its course through the Fen Level, and after 150 

 miles of persevering twisting and turning delivers up its 

 tribute in goodly volume at the estuary of the Wash. 



