THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 41 



Pisc. Why this, Sir, is called Beniley Brook,* and is full of 

 very good trout and grayling ; but so encumbered with wood in 

 many places, as is troublesome 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 ? 



Pisc. 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 Derbyshire ; 

 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 its cur- 

 rentjf and that swiftness occasioned by the declivity of its course 



* " Bentley-brook is a narrow, swift stream, two miles beyond Ash- 

 bourne, in the present high road, but considerably nearer to it in the old 

 road." — Bagster. 



Alexander, in his notes, says that " over Bentley-brook is the bridge 

 noticed by Cotton ;" but this must be a mistake, as Viator speaks of going 

 into the river, which indicates that they forded it. — 4m. Ed. 



t Sir Oswald Moseley says : " The Dove was so called from the British 

 word ' dwfr' (water) ; and the Derwent, from ' dvvfr' and ' g^vin' (white) ; 

 i. e. white water." 



Drayton, in his Poly Olbion (Twelfth Song), makes the Dove the " dar- 

 ling" of Moreland — 



" because the daintie grass 

 That grows upon his banks all others doth surpass." 



Cotton celebrates his favorite river in his Wonders of the Peake, thus : 



" The silver Dove (how pleasant is that name !) 

 Runs through a vale high-crested cliffs o'ershade 

 (By her fair progress only pleasant made) ; 

 But with so swift a torrent in her course 

 As spurs the nymph, flies from her native source. 

 To seek what's there deny'd, the sun's warm beams, 

 And to embrace Trent's prouder swelling streams. 

 In this so craggy ill contrived a nook, 

 Of this our little world, this pretty brook, 

 Alas ! 'tis all the recompense I share 

 For all the intemperances of the air, 

 Perpetual winter, endless solitude. 

 Or the society of men so rude, 



