IN THE TEST. 115 



It was impossible not to think of that beautiful 

 passage 



' Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, 

 ' With charm of earliest birds.' 



After having despatched our breakfast, arranged 

 our fishing baskets, and shouldered our rods, we 

 sallied forth, with our attendant, in high spirits, and 

 full of eager anticipations of good sport. The 

 meadows we crossed were white with daisies, those 

 ' stars of earth,' as one of our poets calls them, 



' Peaceful and lowly in their native soil' 



the dew still twinkled on the grass, and we enhaled 

 the breath of cows as they returned with eagerness 

 to their pasture. As we approached the winding 

 stream we had come so far to visit, we observed the 

 trout rising in every direction, while moor-hens 

 were silently stealing away to their hidden retreats, 

 and willow-wrens and sedge birds gave their notes 

 of alarm. How charming are the banks of a trout 

 stream ! Although the Test winds not among 

 wooded rocks, or romantic dells, it glides through 

 flowery meadows, and its clear and transparent 

 water gently bends the rushes in its passage, while 

 it meanders in a wanton manner till it meets with a 

 dam of gravel over which it falls into a placid pool 

 below. Here and there old willow pollards bend 

 a little over the stream, upon which flies settle, and 

 dropping upon the water are seized by trout which 



