ENGLISH POETS ON FISHING. 643 



worth quoting ; and it is strange that several authors on 

 angling make the mistake of associating the passage with 

 the Severn. It occurs in the 26th song ; and the river 

 goddess or rather the river personified, thus sings her own 

 praises with a good deal of haughtiness, beginning with the 

 fanciful idea that her name is the French trente: 



" What should I care at all, from what my name I take, 

 That Thirty doth import, that thirty rivers make 

 My greatness what it is, or thirty abbeys great, 

 That on my fruitful banks, times formerly did seat : 

 Or thirty kinds of fish, that in my streams do live, 



To me this name of Trent did from that number give.* 

 ****** 



After comparing herself with the Thames and Severn 

 from a geographical point of view, the self-complacent 

 lady goes on to say 



" Their banks are barren sands, if but compar'd with mine 

 Through my perspicuous breast, the pearly pebbles shine ; 

 I throw my crystal arms along the flow'ry valleys 

 Which lying sleek, and smooth, as any garden-alleys, 

 Do give me leave to play, whilst they do court my stream, 

 And crown my winding banks with many an anadem : 

 My silver-scaled skuls about my streams do sweep, 

 Now in the shallow fords, now in the falling deep : 

 So that of every kind, the new-spawn 1 d numerous fry 

 Seem in me as the sands that on my shore do lie. 

 The Barbell, than which fish, a braver doth not swim, 

 Nor greater for the ford within my spacious brim, 

 Nor (newly taken) more the curious taste doth please ; 

 The Greling, whose great spawn is big as any pease ; 

 The Pearch with pricking fins, against the Pike prepar'd, 

 As nature had thereon bestow'd this stronger guard, 

 His daintiness to keep (each curious palate's proof), 

 From his vile ravenous foe : next him I name the Ruffe^ 

 His very near ally, and both for scale and fin, 

 In taste, and for his bait (indeed) his next of kin ; 

 The pretty slender Dare, of many call'd the Dace, 

 Within my liquid glass, when Phcebus looks his face, 



2 T 2 



