EARLY REMINISCENCES. 3 



sucli as S y, the Ashbourne barber, famous for his skill 



as a fly-fisher and a fly-maker, and little F t, the quack- 

 doctor of W e, who was equally noted for great depth 



and research in all the arcana of bottom fishing, was the 

 source of much misunderstanding between my pastors and 

 masters and myself. 



The early part of my life, or rather that portion of it 

 which dated from the first development of my moral per- 

 ceptions to the assumption of the important position of a 

 Rugbeian in fact, an interim of some four years between the 

 ages of six and ten was chiefly spent between the banks of 

 the Dove and those of the Avon, two rivers, each possessing 

 highly picturesque beauties, but of widely different character. 

 The former rapid, clear, buoyant, and gay, now flowing 

 through some rocky gorge, where a separate peak rises iri 

 solitary majesty, and the current, angry at being confined, 

 rushes with mad impetuosity onwards towards open meadows, 

 fringed with alders and willows, through which, as the 

 morning sun beams on the broad and silvery stream, many 

 a glorious trout and grayling may be observed glancing and 

 leaping on its surface. The latter quiet and sluggish, 

 winding "the easy tenor of its way" through verdant 

 meadows and flat alluvial soil, its sedgy banks the hiding- 

 place of many a colossal pike, and its deep and quiet holes 

 frequented by gigantic perch. Amongst other denizens of 

 its waters, I must not omit to mention the bream, which 

 coarse, but often large fish, not only afforded much exercise 

 for my early piscatory skill, but frequent opportunities of 

 accompanying my friend the quack-doctor to a celebrated 

 hole on the river, where, at " early dawn," we were pretty 

 sure to capture several large specimens of this genus. This 

 locality was always designated by the latter as the " Brem ole" 

 and was the scene of many a practical joke, played off by me 

 as a mischievous boy, on little F 1. A more enthusiastic 



