THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 251 



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

 what pretty river is this we are going into 1 



Pise. Why this, sir, is called Bently-brook,* and is full of 

 very good trout and grayling ; but so encumbered with wood 

 in many places, as is troublesome to an angler. 



YIAT. 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 ? 



Off uov^ OJ&L 



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 

 coiirse betwixt the rocks ; by w^hich, 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 foun- 

 tain, which I can cover with my hat, by the confluence of 



* Two miles beyond Ashbourn, and still not a bad stream for trout and 

 grayling. ED. 



