>i 



a-year, or half-a-crown for a day's fishing. It contains 

 most of the fish commonly taken in the Lea, such as 

 "bleak, gudgeons, roach, dace, chub, perch, and pike, and 

 two or three trout are sometimes caught in a season. 

 In one of the rooms of the inn are two drawings 

 of trout taken in this water. One, which is tolerably 

 well coloured, "bears the artist's name, W. Kilburn, 

 1779, but no particulars as to weight; the other, as 

 we learn from an inscription at the bottom, was 

 "taken by W. Leverton, in Shepherd's Water, the 

 Bye, 4th June, 1803. Length 22 inches, weight 5 Ibs." 

 The lucky angler, we believe, belonged to one of the 

 London regiments of volunteers, and came down to 

 the Rye-house to enjoy himself with a day's fishing, 

 instead of marching with his regiment to Wormwood 

 Scrubs, to fire a feu-de-joie in honour of George the 

 Third's birth-day. The parlours of two or three other 

 "Anglers' inns," lower down the river, are also graced 

 with drawings of large trout, weighing from five to 

 eight pounds, which have been taken in the water 

 belonging to the house which they ornament. None 

 of them, however, appear to have been captured 

 within the last or the present reign, bub have been 

 taken 



" when George the Third was king." 



Though at every "Angler's inn," apocryphal ac- 

 counts are current of large trout of five to eight 

 pounds weight being caught each season in the ad- 

 joining water, yet the fortunate angler who has per- 

 formed the feat is never to be met with. A trout, 



/4 



1 





