CHAP. II.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 245 



give me leave ; though I fear nothing in your company. But 

 what pretty river is this we are going into ? 



Pise. Why this, Sir, is called Bentley Brook, and is full of 

 very good Trout and Grayling ; but so encumbered with wood 

 in many places, as is troublesome to an Angler. 



VIAT. Here are the prettiest rivers and the most of them in 

 this country that ever I saw : do you know how many you 

 have in the country ? 



Pise. I know them all, and they were not hard to reckon, 

 were it worth the trouble ; but the most considerable of them 

 I will presently name you. And to begin where we now are, 

 for you must know we are now upon the very skirts of Derby- 

 shire ; we have, first, the river Dove, that we shall come to by 

 and by, which divides the two counties of Derby and Stafford, 

 for many miles together ; and is so called from the swiftness of 

 its current, and that swiftness occasioned by the declivity of its 

 course, and by being so straitened in that course betwixt the 

 rocks ; by which, and those very high ones, it is hereabout, 

 for four or five miles, confined into a very narrow stream. A 

 river that, from a contemptible fountain, which I can cover 

 with my hat, by the confluence of other rivers, rivulets, brooks, 

 and rills, is swelled, before it falls into Trent, a little below 

 Egginton, where it loses the name, to such a breadth and 

 depth as to be in most places navigable, were not the passage 

 frequently interrupted with fords and weirs : and has as fertile 

 banks as any river in England, none excepted. And this 

 river, from its head, for a mile or two, is a black water, as 

 all the rest of the Derbyshire rivers of note originally are ; for 

 they all spring from the mosses, but is in a few miles' travel 

 so clarified, by the addition of several clear, and very great 

 springs, bigger than itself, which gush out of the limestone 

 rocks, that before it comes to my house, which is but six or 

 seven miles from its source, you will find it one of the purest 

 crystalline streams you have seen. 



VIAT. Does Trent spring in these parts ? 



