2 THE FRESH-WATER TROUT. 



the base of a green ascent or sheep-walk ; further on, 

 amid pastures and corn-fields; now,, skirting a forest; 

 now forming, as it were, the moat of a tower or castle ; 

 and, again, at yonder point, gathering in fresh tribute 

 from a silvery stream. How it progresses ! like the 

 everlasting march of a king music at every step 

 homage and increase at every turn. See, now it winds 

 onward below us. The sward freshens where it flows ; 

 the flowers are more varied and abundant. It laves 

 the walls of a town. It glides under a bridge of many 

 arches. It pursues far on, far as the eye can stretch, 

 its radiant and welcome course. 



And this river, one of the noblest of our streams, 

 would it be the same would it be equally endeared to 

 us anglers, were it a fishless, unpeopled water, devoid of 

 the " mottled par," the star-sided trout, the glittering 

 salmon ? What a blank, dreary aspect it would have, 

 unassociated with these ! What chasms there would 

 be in the mind and memory in the forethought and 

 expectation of the beholder ! Not the landscape, not 

 the lore, not the minstrelsy, not the warble of birds, 

 not the chiming of the sunlit river itself, could fill them 

 up. Unpeopled ! desolate ! The fortunes of a thousand 

 rills are woven here. The dew of the mountain, the 

 overfill of the lake, the upwelling of the spring, the 

 boon of the cloud, have met and are mingled in this 

 one great artery. Its material is life, its flow is life, 

 its sound life; the shadows that fleet over it are all 

 life, and yet, imagine it, ye that can, it is an unpeopled 

 river ! No anglers' festivals are held here ; no fisher 

 moves along the bank; no wily nets are cast across 

 the pool ; no torch-light reveals the secrets of its chan- 

 nels* It is an unpeopled river ! The salmon is a 

 stranger to its fords and strongholds; the water-fly 



