4 FISHING GOSSIP. 



from Uxbridge, to which the doctor refers immedi- 

 ately afterwards as " weighing a pound" each. 



Dr. Brookes' remedy reminds one of Madame de 

 Genlis' prescription for a less serious attack. On 

 being charged by her companions, one day when out 

 fishing, with being a " fine Paris lady," she suddenly 

 snatched up a fresh-caught gudgeon, and exclaiming, 

 " This will show whether I am a fine Paris lady!" 

 swallowed it alive, to the utter discomfiture of her 

 tormentors, who declined to follow her in so vivi- 

 sectional a test of fashion. 



Galloway, the fisherman at Chertsey, tells, I re- 

 member, a good story of two old gentlemen, " mighty 

 gudgeon-fishers," who were in the habit of betting 

 heavily on their respective "takes ;" till at last the 

 old fellow who almost always won was discovered 

 with a silk casting-net stowed away under the boards 

 of his punt ! Almost as great a sell that, as the par- 

 son losing his wife ! This piscatorial clergyman, by 

 the way, lived at Hampton ; and if any Cockney 

 wishes to remember the best gudgeon grounds, let him 

 not forget his H's. Curious how many there are of 

 them scattered up and down the Thames Hampton, 

 Halliford, Harleyford, Hurley, Henley, all beginning 

 with the eighth letter of the alphabet, and all redolent 

 of gudgeon-fishing. Gudgeon-fishing! which I main- 

 tain to be, par excellence, the sport of the poet and the 

 philosopher. 



