44 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



how it will, it is doubtless one of the finest rivers in the world, 

 and the most abounding with excellent salmon, and all sorts of 

 delicate fish. 



ViAT. Pardon me, Sir, for tempting you into this digression ; 

 and then proceed to your other rivers, for I am mightily delight- 

 ed with this discourse. 



Pisc. It was no interruption, but a very seasonable question ; 

 for Trent is not only one of our Derbyshire rivers, but the chief 

 of them, and into which all the rest pay the tribute of their 

 names ; which I had, perhaps, forgot to insist upon, being got to 

 the other end of the county, had you not awoke my memory. 

 But I will now proceed : and the next river of note, for I will 

 take them as they lie eastward from us, is the river Wye ; I say, 

 of note, for we have two lesser betwixt us and it, namely. Lath- 

 kin and Bradford ; of which Lathkin* is, by many degrees, the 



waters of this river" (says Mr. Glover, again) " have a clear blue tint, 

 deepening through various shades to a dark purple. The limestone over 

 which they flow, renders them fertile, and when they overflow their banks 

 in the spring, they enrich the adjacent meadows. This has given rise to 

 a proverb, 



* In April Dove's flood 

 Is worth a king's good.' 



These floods are sometimes so sudden, that the waters have been known 

 to rise and fall in the course of a day, carrying down their channel flocks 

 of sheep and herds of cattle." Shipley and Fitzgibbon describe it pisca- 

 torially, but at too great length to extract ; but, from all we can gather, 

 there are very many streams at the foot of our mountains quite as worthy 

 an angler's enthusiasm as the far-famed Dove, except that they have in 

 them no grayling, and their banks have not been trodden by Walton and 

 his adopted son. Having named Shipley and Fitzgibbon's book, I may add, 

 that it is well worthy the angler's purchase, from the highly practical in- 

 structions which it gives on all subjects connected with fly-fishing. — ^m. 

 Ed. 



* Drayton thus gives the reason of the name " Trent :" " A more than 

 usual power did in that name consist, which thirty doth import, by which 

 she tlius divined, 



" There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind ; 

 And thirty abbeys great, in places fat and ranke. 

 Should in succeeding time be builded on her banke ; 



