THE COMPLETE ANGLER, 215 



3. Trent, so called from, thirty kind of fishes* that are 

 found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers ; who, 

 having its fountain in Staffordshire, and gliding through the 

 counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester, and York, aug- 

 menteth the turbulent current of Humber, the most violent 

 stream of all the isle. This Humber is not, to say truth, a 

 distinct river, having a spring-head of his own, but it is 

 rather the mouth or sestuarian of divers rivers here confluent, 

 and meeting together, namely, your Derwent, and especially 

 of Ouse and Trent ; and (as the Danow, having received into 

 its channel the river Dravus, Savus, Tibiscus, and divers 

 others) changeth his name into this of Humberabus, as the 

 old geographers call it. 



4. Medway, a Kentish river, famous for harbouring the 

 royal navy. 



5. Tweed, the north-east bound of England ; on whose 

 northern banks is seated the strong and impregnable town of 

 Berwick. 



6. Tyne, famous for Newcastle, and her inexhaustible coal- 

 pits. These, and the rest of principal note, are thus compre- 

 hended in one of Mr. Dray ton's sonnets. 



Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crown'd ; 



And stately Severn for her shore is praised ; 

 The crystal Trent, for fords and fish renown' d ; 



And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is raised. 



Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee ; 



York many wonders of her Ouse can tell ; 

 The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be ; 



And Kent will say, her Medway doth excel. 



Cotswold commends her Isis to the Thame ; 



Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood ; 

 Our western parts extol their Willy's fame ; 



And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood, f 



These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, and my 

 old deceased friend, Michael Dray ton; and because you say 

 you love such discourses as these, of rivers and fish and fish- 

 ing, I love you the better, and love the more to impart them 

 to you ; nevertheless, scholar, if I should begin but to name 



* Some say because it has thirty (trente) tributaries. It is more likely that 

 the Trent had that number of streams, great and small, running into it, than 

 that it erer produced thirty different varieties offish. ED. 



t The Danes, in the time of King Alfred, entered the Lea ; and ascending it 

 in their small ships to a distance of twenty miles, built a castle on its banks 

 near Hertford or Ware : hence the allusion, " Danish blood." ED. 



