37 



There are numerous favourite flies here, patron- 

 ised by the local anglers ; but it is scarcely 

 possible to make an unsuccessful selection out 

 of a common stock of flies for these waters. 

 When the fish take, they seem really in earnest. 



The town of Dorchester, on this river, is a 

 place of great antiquity ; it was called Durno- 

 varia by the Romans. It was the scene of 

 many severe battles between Charles I. and 

 the Parliamentary Army, during the civil wars. 

 At the assizes held here, in 1685, by the in- 

 famous judge Jefferies, thirty persons were 

 tried on the charge of being implicated in Mon- 

 mouth's rebellion, and twenty-nine were found 

 guilty and sentenced to death. 



Tesselated pavements, Eoman urns, and a 

 quantity of coins of Antoninus Pius, Vespasian, 

 Constantine, and other Roman emperors, have 

 been at various times found in the vicinity 

 of Dorchester. 



The Stour, the chief river of Dorsetshire, 

 rises in Wiltshire, in Stourhead Park, on the 

 border of Somersetshire, and running south-by- 

 east, enters Dorsetshire between three and four 

 miles from its source. After flowing about four 

 miles farther in the same direction, it receives 

 the Shreen water from the north, and soon after 

 the Lidden, from the north-east. It then 



