130 The Poets and N attire. 



Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws 

 The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws, 

 Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset, 

 And clasps the quick inextricable net." 



The " vengeful tench ; " the trout " bedropt with crimson 

 stains " in Shenstone, and " bedropped with crimson hail " 

 in Burns ; the weaver, " whose prickles," according to 

 Drayton, " venom be;" whiting "in its pearly sheen" 

 (Joanna Baillie), "a generall wholesome fish;" and all the 

 rest even the pout, loach, bleak, and bull-head, "which 

 everywhere are found in every little beck " find recognition 

 in proportion to their deserts. The herring, salmon, and 

 the trout enjoy, as is befitting, most frequent notice, and 

 those who search such poets as Clare, Faber, Hurdis, 

 Leyden, and Grahame, will chance upon passages of rare 

 merit and prettiness. 



The last-named fish is specially a favourite. It is " the 

 river's pride." 



" The trout, by Nature marked with many a crimson spot, 

 As though she curious were in him above the rest, 

 And of fresh-water fish, did note him for the best." 



Many poets were anglers, and so "the pools where the trout 

 are found," " the rush-bordered rills where trout abide," " the 

 birch-shaded place that harbours the trout," " the wimpling 

 burn where darts the trout," are as familiar to readers of 

 verse as the fish itself; " the wary trout that thrives against 

 the stream" (Quarles) ; the "quick-eyed," "lightning-seiz- 

 ing" trout. Burns is alone, if I am not mistaken, in the 

 idea of "death's fish-creel," making Death an angler. It 

 would have been a finer fancy had the poet made him cast- 

 ing a net instead of a line ; inasmuch as Death offers no lure 

 to his victims. 



