ii6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



and that Scarborough is a fashionable and late watering- 

 place. They may possibly, too, remember being taught 

 at school that Yorkshire is the largest county in England ; 

 they may be in a position to assure you that it produces a 

 popular pudding which mates worthily with the Roast Beef 

 of Old England ; they have vague ideas that it is famous 

 for " tykes.'' 



Yet Yorkshire has been gifted with natural advantages 

 and charms which are unrivalled. I have set to myself in 

 this chapter the task of gossiping chiefly about the grayling 

 as you find him in the romantic Wharfe, else I could fill 

 many a page with attempted glorifications of the sweet 

 wooded dales, the lofty fells, the far-stretching wolds, the 

 rolling moors, the rare historical associations, and the 

 bounteous mineral and agricultural features of the rich 

 county which covers 5,983 square miles of territory as im- 

 portant as any to the welfare of the State : — ■ 



" The lofty woods ; the forests wide and long, 



Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green, 

 In whose cool bow'rs the birds with chanting song 



Do welcome with their quire the summer's queen. 

 The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among 



Are inteimix'd, the verdant grass between ; 

 The silver scaled fish that softly swim 



Within the brooks and crystal wat'ry brim." 



In justice to my readers I feel moved to admit the possi- 

 bility of looking upon Wharfedale with eyes that refused to 

 behold defects, of hurrying to its woods and streams in a 

 frame of mind under which I should have magnified into 

 picturesqueness the most ordinary landscape. In a word, 

 I had been attending the annual meeting of the British 

 Association. I had drenched myself with science : had 



