248 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Viator. Does Trent spring in these parts ? 



Piscator. Yes, in these parts ; not in this county, but some- 

 where towards the upper end of Staffordshire, I think not far 

 from a place called Trentham ; and thence runs down, not far 

 from Stafford, to Wolsly Bridge, and washing the skirts and 

 purlieus of the forest of Needwood, runs down to Burton in the 

 same county : thence it comes into this, where we now are, and 

 running by Swarkston and Dunnington, receives Derwent at 

 Wildon ; and so to Nottingham ; thence, to Newark ; and, by 

 Gainsborough, to Kingston-upon-Hull, where it takes the name 

 of Humber, and thence falls into the sea ; but that the map will 

 best inform you. 



Viator. Know you whence this river Trent derives its name ? 



Piscator, No, indeed ; and yet I have heard it often dis- 

 coursed upon : when some have given its denomination from the 

 forenamed Trentham, though that seems rather a derivative 

 from it : others have said it is so called from thirty rivers that 

 fall into it, and there lose their names ; which cannot be, 

 neither, because it carries that name from its very fountain, 

 before any other rivers fall into it : others derive it from thirty 

 several sorts of fish that breed there ; and that is the most likely 

 derivation : but be it how it will, it is doubtless one of the finest 

 rivers in the world, and the most abounding with excellent 

 Salmon, and all sorts of delicate fish. 



Viator. Pardon me, sir, for tempting you into this digression ; 

 and then proceed to your other rivers, for I am mightily 

 delighted with this discourse. 



Piscator. It was no interruption, but a very seasonable 

 question ; for Trent is not only one of our Derbyshire rivers, 

 but the chief of them, and into which all the rest pay the 

 tribute of their names, which I had, perhaps, forgot to insist 

 upon, being got to the other end of the county, had you not 

 awoke my memory. But I will now proceed. And the next 

 river of note, for I will take them as they lie eastward from 

 us, is the river Wye; I say of note, for we have two lesser 

 betwixt us and it, namely Lathkin and Bradford, of which 

 Lathkin is, by many degrees, the purest and most transparent 

 stream that I ever yet saw, either at home or abroad, and 

 breeds, it is said, the reddest and the best Trouts in England : 

 but neither of these are to be reputed rivers, being no better 



with each other, and sometimes detached; some perforated in natural 

 cavities, others adorned with foliage, with here and there a tall rock, 

 having nothing to relieve the bareness of its appearance but a mountain, 

 ash flourishing at the top. The grandeur of its scenery is probably unri- 

 valled in England. H. 



It is utterly ridiculous to talk of the " grandeur" of Dove Dale. My 

 impression, on visiting it in 1817, was, that it is prettily romantic oa 

 o small a scale, that it might almost be artificially imitated J. R. 



