Well, brother, now we are come over the river into Derbyshire, and are arrived under Wolfscote Hill, tell me what you thought of our honest host at Alstonfields, and his charges.

Painter. I know not which to admire most, the good cheer and beds that he gave us, or the moderateness of the score. There we have lived like brave gentlemen for three days, and been most civilly and handsomely treated, and the charge was no more than I have paid for a day’s reckoning at an inn in Westminster.

Angler. If I may speak my real thoughts, I have not met a more modest and decently behaved man than Herbert Marsh; so I shall make honourable mention of him to all my friends that come to these parts, and recommend them to take up their lodgings at the King’s Head.

Painter. And so will I. But whither are we going?—what a desolation is here!—I wish we might return to that Vale of Tempe, by Beresford Hall, and Mr. Cotton’s fishing-house: for now, we are scarce come a mile, and you have only bald hills, with rubble stones that hang on the sides.

Angler. It might all seem to be a dull kind of place, but for the windings of the Dove, that hurries fretfully away from this dreary region, ‘which she would not touch but for necessity;’ and for her sake, I beseech you, excuse the want of other graces hereabout: for, trust me, by and by you shall find some master-pieces of nature’s work. So let us follow whither she leads the way: and now we are come to Bigging Dale, that has the variety of some tufts of wood, and pointed crags.

Painter. I see no beauties to marvel at; but I will put on my matter’s patience:—and see,—here are cobbling stones across the river, that will give us a change, and a passage into Staffordshire.

Angler. If you will be advised, we shall do better on this side.

Painter. As you please. But look: yonder is a pair of water-birds, dabbling down the stream before us. I hope they are Alciones, that is, our native king-fishers; or, as some will call them, Hoop-birds.

Angler. It is an even lay they are water-ousels; for you may always find them up and down about the Dove: nevertheless, they are hard to come at. But wherefore desire to have them Halcyons?

Painter. Because I have a singular regard for those birds, knowing them to be an emblem and prognostic of calmness; and I am sure, these days I have enjoyed you on the brink of the Dove have been ‘Halcyon days’ for me. How does the Sicilian mariner rejoice during the time of the Alcyons sitting on their nests! for then, as Pliny writes, the sea is not so boisterous, but more quiet than at other times. And yet, you are to note, this bird is prohibited to the Israelites, as unclean, in the book of Leviticus, wherein it is rendered as the Lapwing; but this learned Sir Thomas Browne declares to be a mistake. And the reason for this divine prohibition is ‘the magical virtues ascribed unto it by the Egyptian nation; for they so highly magnified the Halcyon in their symbols, they placed it on the head of their gods; and Orus, their hieroglyphic for the world, had the head of a Hoop-bird upon the top of his staff.’ And I may tell you certain other peculiars of this famed water-fowl;—as that they make their nest, and hatch their young, in the middle of winter; and this nest they build so as it may float on the waves; and because Providence instructs every moving creature with a secret instinctive wisdom, they will fasten it to some rock or border of the sea, by an artful slender line, that the changing tides may not carry it away from home.

Angler. Come, my brother, you are poetical; you do but magnify the nature of your Halcyons, and amuse me with pleasant fables.

Painter. Nay, Sir, that is their own contrivance, and none of mine; and you may believe Aristotle and Basilius, when they declare that the tempestuous winds are hushed into silence, and the angry sea is becalmed, for fear they should give any disturbance to this friend of mariners, whilst they nestle their young ones. And a learned Augustine^[73] monk aptly compares this Halcyon to the Saviour of mankind, who hath no sooner taken up His place in the soul, than all the swelling billows of this world’s storms are changed into a holy quietness. There is no longer any threatening of calamity, but a sublime confidence: then the lowering clouds pass away before the beams of the glorious Sun of Righteousness, and the pleasant gales breathe nothing but peace and joy. Then the believer, holding faith and a good conscience, meets with no shipwreck; for Jesus ‘maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still;’ then the Christian mariners ‘are glad because they be quiet: so He bringeth them to their desired haven.’^[74]

Angler. Oh! that the Heavenly Halcyon might be ever with us, to impart unto our unquiet thoughts His own divine calm! Then the tempestuous whirlwind of our passions should be silenced, and we made capable to enjoy that promise—‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.’^[75]

Painter. And thus be prepared for the immortal joys laid up in store for the humble soul.—But here again you may mark them flitting away before us;—and now they are alighted on that great stone in the middle of the stream.

Angler. I see them; and I may tell you, for certain, they are water-ousels. Now would I give two ducats for a gun! for a dear friend of mine, who is an angler, and has a fancy for all kinds of birds, and is acquainted with their nature, and feathers, and notes, desired me to bring him home a water-ousel, if I chanced to meet one, that he might set it in his museum of stuffed birds. And there is nothing in moderation I would not do to pleasure him; he is such a civil, honest brother of the angle.

Painter. As namely?

Angler. He is one you have an acquaintance with.

Painter. Pr’ythee his name, if he be a meek angler.

Angler. Well, then, I may tell you, Francis Mieris, whom I have heard you declare to be one of the choice painters of Holland, bears the same initials.

Painter. Indeed! then I can unravel your enigma: it is your most worthy kinsman, bound to you not more by a near affinity than an ancient friendship,

that is, or ought to be, somewhere in Oxfordshire: not many miles distant from Fair Rosamond’s Bower in Woodstock Park.

Angler. The same: and if he had lived there some fifty years agone, he had been as deserving to receive the dedication of The Secrets of Angling, teaching the choicest tooles, baits, and seasons, for the taking of any fish, in Pond or River, as Mr. Roger Jackson’s ‘worthy and respected friend, Mr. John Harborne of Tackley, in the county of Oxford, Esquire:’^[76] but that he hath been reserved to these times is one of the joys of my life, for he is a staunch and trusty friend, that will stand by a man in the day of his troubles.

Painter. But I knew not he was a lover of angling?

Angler. Marry is he: and since you are become one of our fraternity, I could desire you no greater pleasure than to sit by the side of a river in his company, and hear him make a choice of passages out of Mr. Walton’s book; and he especially loves that innocent conversation, and those songs of the milkmaid and her daughter; which I hold to be a more rural and engaging picture of primitive manners, than is to be found in any writing:—I will not make an exception of brave Sir Philip Sydney’s Arcadia; or Will Shakspeare’s “Lover’s Lament.”

Painter. I wish that friend were here—what pleasures he would find in Dove Dale!

Angler. Ay, and next to that I wish I now had a letter he wrote me some days before I left my house, that I might give you the perusal thereof; it was about an Otter hunt he saw near to Guy’s Cliff in Warwickshire; and I declare to you he pictured that Otter hunt to my mind with all the naturalness of Mr. Walton, when he met his friend Venator at Amwell Hill. And this I may tell you, he hath a delicate hand on a fly rod, and knows more secrets of angling than most others: and both loves and endeavours the art of husbandry, that is worthy of an English Gentleman’s practice—insomuch he is acquainted with most of Thomas Tusser’s ‘Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie.’——But we are entered into Mill Dale—so now, if you please, we may pass into Staffordshire by this bridge, over the river, and then look out; for yonder you may see something you have met before.

Painter. What is that?

Angler. Why, Sir, have you forgotten the Wheelbarrow Bridge? and there is Hanson Toot on your left hand, and that slippery zig-zag path which leads to Ashbourne.

Painter. And so it is indeed! there is the very spot where we caught our first brace of trouts; but do not tell me we must part with the Dove so soon.

Angler. Not for the world! but rather walk to Ashbourne along the river, where we shall find fresh occasions for pleasure and surprise on both margins—so cross the bridge, and look you do not tumble.

Painter. Trust me, ‘I can go by myself.’—Why what a fine display of rocks! We have met with nothing like them for boldness; they are thrown about in a delightful confusion. What natural arches are those cut in the cliff, that falls perpendicular into the dell,—and yonder high pinnacle which stands alone on the other side?

Angler. These are called the ‘Dove Holes,’ and that is dignified with the name of the ‘Shepherd’s Abbey.’—Now you are come to

now you see crags on crags of all shapes; and the Dove grows more proud and swelling, seeing herself to be ornamented with such landskips.

Painter. And that is not to be wondered at: you are as good as your promise, for I declare this is one of the most beautiful dales in all England. Let us tarry awhile, that I may endeavour to sketch this delightful prospect as a memorial. ’Twill be a day to speak of hereafter. Every step I take I am more enamoured of your river.

Angler. See yonder rock, on the other side, that has slipped from the mountain, and stands out with a look of defiance.

Painter. And which are these to the left hand?

Angler. One is the ‘Steeple Rock,’ and the other the ‘Watch-Tower.’

Painter. My pleasure is more than I can express. Think of the nobleness of nature: what tongue can articulate—what pencil can describe these combinations of a grand design? O Sir! think how God hath planted a paradise on earth, for ‘bad man’ to refresh himself in; and times and seasons, and woods and rocks, and rivers, and the glorious sun in his tabernacle of the heavens, all appointed for the delight of his creatures; so that, turn whithersoever they will, their eyes cannot look off from a miracle:—and oh! why is it that our hearts are not attunable to those high hallelujahs which are sung to the sound of golden harps, from throne to throne, by angels in heaven, who being ‘arrayed in white garments with palms in their hands, and crowns of gold on their heads, sing the song of the Lamb for ever:’ this we know to be their present glorious occupation; man only has no desire for such a transporting joy: he will forget God in the very midst of his great and marvellous works. But I beg you pardon, Sir! I was carried beyond myself by these river prospects.

Angler. It is all very enchanting, and begets in a spiritual mind high thoughts of our Maker’s goodness and glory; and now whilst you work out your picture of the landskip, I’ll try to kill a brace of trouts. And by and by, when we are arrived lower down, we will recline ourselves beneath a large flowering hawthorn tree that I know of, and there you shall put out your angle-line to fish for itself.

Painter. Agreed: and I have not seen a river of so much promise.

Angler. Look how the water crisps over the shelving rocks, and is thrown back into the eddies; being, as Mr. Cotton says, ‘so straightened in her course between the rocks,’ she has a greater swiftness than ever.

Painter. Well then, go you and fish downward, and I will follow when I’ve made my picture.——How now, Sir; how has it fared with you?—tell me what luck.

Angler. I have caught two brace of trouts and a skipjack, that I put into the river again. And now we are come to the great hawthorn tree, that is worthy of note for its spreading branches.

Painter. So here let us rest our legs; and now I hold you to your promise, that my angle should fish for me at breakfast time; so, by your leave, I’ll fit my tackling, that I may make a trial underneath this broad cascade.——I am prepared.

Angler. Now drop in your line slyly, and beware you do not splash the water; and then come back to me, and I’ll prepare breakfast, which we have honestly earned by our two hours’ walk. Then we may drink a cup merrily, and sing songs in Dove Dale.

Painter. I have done as you bid me, and put my quill in a secret place, where I promise myself a trout.

Angler. Do not doubt it: and therein is the great praise of angling,—that hope is not only reasonable, but is enjoined upon them that practise it; and but for that, angling might be a dull recreation. And now recline yourself underneath this hawthorn, and entertain your thoughts with the prospects I have brought you to.

Painter. Indeed, the delightfulness of all I see, cannot be expressed by words; and I beseech you what great cavern is at the top of that rock?

Angler. That is ‘Reynard’s Cave’—it is an admirable contrivance of nature, and if you please, we may clamber up, and pay master Reynard a visit in his Hall.

Painter. You will not easily persuade me to that; why, Sir, it is perpendicular!

Angler. Well, well; as you please—nevertheless you would find no difficulty worth the naming. And yonder is a rock called ‘Pickering Tor,’ and that is the ‘Iron Chest:’—but come, take your cup; and here is delicate meat, so fall to’t.

Painter. It is excellent—and now my service to you and to that honest angler we both know of—that meek friend of yours who described the hunting of the Otter, near to Warwick, with so eloquent a pen.

Angler. That is well remembered; and may he never want opportunity to take his recreation in a clear stream; and now once more; for I must drink to another that I love as my own soul—that ordained Priest of our Holy Church, one of the ornaments and the delight of Merton College in Oxford. I may not break out into an eulogium that his disposition would rebuke, if he were present with us: but he cannot deny me the joy to drink his health;—so join with me!

Painter. Most gladly—fill up, Sir! Where was he last heard of?

Angler. Near to the Rialto at Venice; but he now walks in his leisure about the Colossæum in Rome, or the Baths of Titus, or it may be in Dionysius’s Ear at Syracuse, in Sicily; for thither he purposed in his mind to go.

Painter. And I joy to think that, as in some other concurrences, so in his travels he is like to Sir Henry Wotton, who ‘laid aside his books’ (that he loved so well) ‘and betook himself to the useful library of travel, and a more general conversation with mankind, to adorn his mind and to purchase the rich treasure of foreign knowledge.’ And this is declared of Sir Henry Wotton, by Mr. Izaak Walton, in his life of that excellent scholar. And may your, no less learned and esteemed, kinsman have all his wishes: for these I know to be full of moderateness, peace and contentment, and to have their beginning and ending in his blessed Master’s service.

Angler. That is true: and so, here’s a distant health to thee,

from the banks of Dove to Tiber.

Painter. Salveto! ‘Henrice, mi ocelle.’—

Angler. As Sir Henry Wotton was called by that learned Italian Albericus Gentilis, and by divers of Sir Henry’s dearest friends, and many other persons of note during his stay in the University.^[77]—And now, brother, do you look and see if you have chanced to make a catch.

Painter. How now?—my float has disappeared!—Trust me I have a knabble—there is a large trout has taken me. I thought that was a likely fall—see how he turns and wriggles, and how he throws off tuggingly. Here is an angler’s delight! and all this on the margin of the Dove!

Angler. Beware of him; thus—

Painter. By your leave, Sir! let me have all the honour to myself: so, so—now he dives down, and up again with a leap; look at his twistings and turnings!

Angler. Ay, he’ll soon give over. There, now we may net him, and a fine fish he is; not less than two pounds weight. What would your master Walton say to this?

Painter. I hope he would applaud me.

Angler. Come, try for another; this is a likely hole. Look you, there’s another bite; now check him—ah! he’s broke away.

Painter. Indeed he has: I’m sorry I lost him. I’ll try again—look you! another!—now, Sir tumbler, you may do your worst.

Angler. Point the top of your rod to those cliffs; you are all right;—see how he shakes the tackle, give him line, for he’s a strong fish.

Painter. Trust me, he’s bigger than the last; the water is so clear you may see him struggle: now he drives against the stream.

Angler. Turn him back, or you may lose him behind that stone. ’Tis well done—‘why what a dangerous man are you!’—here’s the net, and now he is landed!

Painter. I thank you. This is a sport indeed! O the contentment of happy anglers! how many years I have lost since you first invited me to go a-fishing: but I was then deaf to your persuasions, and I would never believe you. Well, I declare it hath a gayness that is admirable. But come, I would not be so selfish as to wish for more, until I see you handle a trout.

Angler. Well;—let us try lower down. But first of all let us have a song; and do you begin.

Painter. What shall I sing?

Angler. Let it be that sonnet to the spring in Sir John Davies’s Astrea—‘Earth now is green, and heaven is blue.’

Painter. Well—and so it shall.

Angler. I thank you, and now because you have sung these cheerful verses, I’ll give you a song, ‘apt both for viols and voices,’ by John Wilbye.

Painter. Come then! and sing it finely.

Angler. I’ll do my best to please you.

Painter.—An exceeding sweet melody, and I beseech you sing it over again; and after that I shall be ready to go with you. So—I like it even better than at first.

Angler. Come now, let us pack up the wallet, and take our walk.

Painter. I am all ready. But what is here? we are come to a stop.

Angler. Away with you: ’tis a sound footing at bottom, and scarce knee deep.

Painter. Halt, good Sir; you do not expect me to walk into the river.

Angler. If you are resolved against it, here you may stay; for you see how the river washes the very basement of this perpendicular rock, and climb you cannot. Come, Sir,——follow me bravely: it is but ‘a spit and a stride;’ or I’ll carry you mounted a pick-back.

Painter. O! let it not be said. ‘What man dare, I dare;’ so lead on, I’ll truss up my hose, and be after you. Ah me! I was up to my knees; but now I am well past.

Angler. If you will be a fisher, never fear, for it is your proper element: but, Sir, did you hear that trout by the further bank?

Painter. You may be sure I did, and saw him too.

Angler. Well then, I must needs in and wade, if I would twist my fly thither.

Painter. Trust me, I am not coming after you. I find nothing of that in my master’s book; he declares, ‘how the very sitting by the river’s side is not only the quietest and fittest place for contemplation, but will invite an angler to it;’ and think you, he would bring his scholar to sit under an honeysuckle hedge, and express his cheerfulness when he reclined himself on ‘the primrose bank,’ if he meant him to wabble in the water? and I beseech you, call to mind those thoughts of his, which he turned into verse, ‘when he sat on the grass, and there wished to meditate his time away.’

Angler. ’Tis all very true; nevertheless, Mr. Walton himself must at sometimes be contented to wet his boots, if he would fill his pannier out of the Dove; wherefore, delicate Mr. Pictor, I now leave you to meditate on the silent pleasures of this flowery bank;

Painter. That will I do; and you may be as big-hearted and get as wet as you list:—but harkye, Sir; be not over-confident, or you may haste only to stumble. Call to your remembrance Mr. Boyle’s Treatise of ‘Angling improved to Spiritual Uses,’ how Eugenius, having ‘espied a convenient nook for his angling, invited his friend Lindamor to share the advantage with him, and began to walk thitherward along the river’s brink? but he had not marcht very far when chancing to tread on a place, where the course of the water had worn off the bank, and made it hollow underneath, he found the earth faulter under him, and could not hinder his feet from slipping down with the turf that betrayed him.’^[78]

Angler. I do remember: and if that should chance to be my predicament, I hope you would have the civility of Lindamor, that ‘catcht hold of him, and drew him to the firm land.’

Painter. O Signor Pescatore, doubt not my charity, though I might not deny myself the same liberty that Honourable Mr. Boyle took with his friend Eugenius, ‘to make himself merry a while with the disaster when he found it to be harmless.’

Angler. Well—well, Sir, I give you leave; and let him laugh that wins, I am not afraid of a somersault if a good fish chop at my fly.

Painter. Farewell then: and I’ll go lower down and please myself.

Angler. Ay, good brother, do so; and pr’ythee reach me the landing net before you go.

Painter. There it is, and I wish you may have sport.

Angler. Look you, Sir; I have a fish; ’tis a small one, I grant you.

Painter. Do you call that a fish? he’s a piccolo—a pisciculus;—and listen—methinks I heard him speak.

Angler. Speak? mayhap thou takest him to be ‘Vox Piscis, or the Book-fish, contayning three treatises which were found in the belly of a Cod-fish in Cambridge market on Midsummer Eve last.’^[79] And since thou art so imbued with fish-learning, I beseech you to tell me whether this be a trout, or what other fish I have caught?

Painter. I know not if it be the Dog-fish, the Sea-calfe, the Porpus or Hog-fish, or the Asse-fish called in Latin Asellus:—or perchance it may be the Monk-fish—the Mere-man or the Mermaid: all which I remit to your better judgment. But listen, I say; for though I am not so wise a philosopher as Æsop, I have, methinks, suddenly imparted to me his noted intelligence of fishes’ language, and certes I hear this one speak.

Angler. Well then, will it please your marvellous wisdom to be our mutual interpreter, and give me the substance of this learned fish’s soliloquy?

Painter. It is no soliloquy; for his address is to yourself,—and seeing (or it may be feeling) how you are taking the hook out of his gills with a most relentless love, and are going to put him into your basket, he opens his mouth, and in a pathetical voice implores your pity, making his humble suit that you would be pleased to throw him into the river again,—by reason he is young and insignificant, and not so well worth your while as he shall be some time hereafter, if you catch him when he is grown more considerable.

Angler. Oh—ho! Go to—Go to—thou art a wag; and I beseech you give my duty to him in the same learned hidden language which he hath so eloquently pleaded in; and tell him I am not one of those fools who quit a certainty for an uncertainty;—and that a ‘fish in the pannier’s worth two in the pond.’ But stay—because he is a grayling, and not a trout, I’ll e’en put him in again, and let him grow till Christmas for Mr. Cotton’s amusement. But now look you, brother, saw you that great fish leap from the water?

Painter. I did; he looked as big as a salmon; give him the temptation of your fly.

Angler. Trust me. There he is, I have him fast. So, so, Master Bullyhuff, you are not like the last; you are for a hard bout, I see. Ah, ah! this is a trial of strength, and I fear for my tackling.

Painter. In with him, Sir.

Angler. Nay, let me be gentle. Look you, that was his last struggle; there he lies his length on the water. So, I have him, and he is full eighteen inches long. Well, Mr. Painter! what say you now to my Dove?

Painter. I declare to you it is all a bewitchment: my tongue is ready to praise every next turning of the river more than the other; and I scarce know which to like best, this angling, or the landskips. Look you! there again are rocks springing up like steeples on this side, and on that: it is all full of surprises.

Angler. Those rocks are called the ‘Tissington Spires;’ for that retired village lies but the distance of a walk to the left, passing through Bentley that you know of; and here are two rocks that have slided from the cliff, and have thrust themselves into the river; they are known to be ‘The Brothers,’ and so I have brought you within a view of Thorpe Cloud.

Painter. Is that Thorpe Cloud?

Angler. None other, believe me.

Painter. Well, I declare! he is more changeable than a Proteus; for here he looks like a beheaded cone.

Angler. And now, brother, you are come towards the end of the Dale.

Painter. Tell me not this sad news: I may not believe it! or if it be true indeed, let us recline ourselves on these banks by the stream, and meditate for an hour or two, and angle and sing, and angle again; and after that beguile the time with some passages out of Mr. Walton’s book. Or, if we must needs depart, let us first, ‘sit down by the waters, and hang our harps upon the willows, and weep.’

Angler. I am charmed to think how these sweet prospects have engaged and fixed your affections; and how you are now become a professed angler, and how at some future time you may desire to take another walk on the banks of my River Dove. But, I beseech you, climb with me to the top of this accessible rock, that is called by the country folk here about, ‘The Lover’s Leap:’ there you may look back on an upward prospect of the Dove, that is more remarkable than any other you have seen. And after that, you shall explore some quiet nooks and corners by other streams, and hear something marvellous I have to tell you of.

Painter. Well, I am content to follow your footsteps wherever you are pleased to lead me.

Angler. And now we have scrambled up, let us sit on the grass, and tell me what you think?

Painter. I know not what to think or say. Where shall all these wonders end! here is one of the most enchanting surveys that this or any other county in England can exhibit.

Angler. Do you observe how the Dale is drawn out to the greatest length possible? for passing back again by those ‘Tissington Spires,’ and the two ‘Brothers,’ and the rocks above ‘Reynard’s Cave,’ the eye may look almost as far as ‘the Shepherd’s Abbey;’ and all the way along, an exceeding number of pellucid waterfalls, and other varieties of the river make this vale an excellent subject for contemplation.

Painter. And the cliffs on either side of the valley are adorned with shady woods, and a singular combination of natural beauties.

Angler. Come then, good brother, let us go down again, and take our walk along the stream to the right hand, as it flows between Thorpe Cloud and that opposite hill; and here are some leaping stones, where we may now cross into Staffordshire, and part company with our Dove.

Painter. I am sorry to hear it.

Angler. But only for awhile, till we light on her again in some meadows lower down, and then find her swelled by other rivers that may pass for wonders.

Painter. Indeed! but what is here? Marry, Sir, I thought not to come again so quickly to the Dove; methinks she has taken us unaware.

Angler. This is not the Dove, but the river Manifold; and now do you follow me to the left hand, where I may bring you to a most shady retired spot imaginable.

Painter. How! another rapid spring, that suddenly starts into life, and in a few yards is a handsome stream! Let us recline ourselves here awhile.

Angler. I am quite willing; and methinks, for a near sylvan prospect, we have seen none better since we left Pike Pool; for here you have a thick grove of trees, and such a calmness as makes it a most enchanting retreat; and the murmuring waters of this infant brook, with their harmonious cadency.

Painter. And see how the river Manifold hurries away, rejoicing as it were in her liberty.

Angler. And let me tell you, with greater reason than you know of.

Painter. How mean you?

Angler. Of that hereafter; but see, there are the lowing cattle come from the meadows to drink; therefore, I beseech you, compose them into a landskip.

Painter. You shall see presently.——there——I have given you the milkmaid’s mother, with her milch kine, and there is ‘honest Maudlin’ herself, who sung that sweet song to Mr. Walton and his friend Venator;

Angler. Bravely done! On my word, this picture takes a breathing of life from your pencil;

not Claude Lorraine, nor Kuyp himself, could surpass that whole picture, for it has the very stamp of nature.

Painter. Enough, enough; let us be going, and what have we here? A bridge, and a pretty village with a little parish church! Where are we come to?

Angler. I have now brought you to Ilam Church: and see the door is haply open; so let us accept this accidental invitation. And now you are to note, this is the ancient tomb of good Bertram, who there lies (so much of him as could perish) and waits for that joyful day of the resurrection, when all the holy angels and the spirits of saints shall meet the coming of our Lord in the clouds of heaven.

Painter. And here is the carved altar that may put the villagers in mind of the Supper of the Lord, and instil into them an earnest desire to partake of the Holy Communion, that they may eat and drink, and feed on Him in their hearts by faith,—and be thankful.

Angler. And see this old font in stone, which hath a sacramental charm; for therein the people from age to age have brought their sons and daughters to be baptized into Christ’s flock, and be regenerated, and made children of God and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. And I may take upon me to say that all these things make this church the centre-point of the secret reverence and holy affections of the peaceful villagers, lifting them up to a revelation of the next world.——But, seeing how time wears apace, I will conduct you forth again: and now look at this high hill, shaped like an amphitheatre, and beneath is the rocky bed of a river.

Painter. A river! why here is not a drop of water to wet a fly’s wing!

Angler. That is true. I said not a river, but the bed of a river, and of such an one as, had she a tongue, might declare many rarities she has beheld, and dark doings of that prison-house, where she was lately detained against her will: nay, for any thing I know, she might have furnished to that stern regicide, Mr. John Milton, or the great Dante, some arguments for another poem of the shades below.

Painter. How! you are grown enigmatical.

Angler. Come, then, step with me to this rock in Mr. Port’s garden: here is a well in the rock;—so tell me what you see?

Painter. I see a great stream pouring itself out in circling eddies from the ground.

Angler. Now mark, that is the river Hamps; and here she joins herself to another within a few yards distance.

Painter. A second stream! and bigger than the first, bursts forth in a whirlpool!

Angler. True; and you are to note this is the river Manifold. See how joyfully she receives that lesser Hamps, and then flows away with her to the shady grove of trees, where you and I so lately reclined ourselves. Trust me they are glad to breathe the air once more, and to play their gambols in the meadows, after their long imprisonment; for it is a known truth, these rivers have made an underground journey within the natural caverns of the earth, for some miles distance.

Painter. Impossible! I would not be so uncivil to disbelieve any thing you say; but as touching your Staffordshire rivers, you take a traveller’s privilege to be marvellous.

Angler. Well, well; I perceive you think this to be all a fable; yet it’s no less true because it is a wonder: for the last time I came this way I examined into the nature of it; and, as I am an honest angler, I saw the very inlet, underneath some high rocks, about Whetton Mill, where the waters of the Manifold are gurged and lost to every eye: and the same of Hamps, that is received into its Subterraneous channels, near to a place called the Waterhouses. And so they take their circuit through mysterious secret caves and grottoes, which no man has explored, till they make their happy escape out of imprisonment into these gardens, and, as you are now a witness, embrace with mutual gratulations, and hurry themselves away to tell their dark adventures to the matchless Dove.

Painter. Well, I am glad that is the place of their shelter; and I am enchanted with this romance of the rivers: for, indeed, all the surrounding prospect is fit to be called a fairy land. There is Thorpe Cloud maintains himself proudly, and this circle of opposite hills, and the church, with its ancient porch and tracery of windows, all of painted glass, beside Mr. Port’s mansion-house, and his ornamental gardens.

Angler. It is indeed all very fine; but it’s time to be gone, so let us follow these rivers till we are come to the bridge. See, here it is, and now we may cross over and walk by the right bank of the Manifold; and so we are once more come to the stream that we both love better than any.

Painter. Is this the Dove?

Angler. The same; she is just from the foot of Thorpe Cloud, by yonder channel to the right hand; and now that we are arrived at this high bank, look again upon the landskip. There the Manifold joins itself to the Dove, and there are those meadows, which ‘are too pleasant to be looked upon, but only on holidays;’ and see the mountains that are now darker than they were two hours agone, which is our warning that we are not yet come to Ashbourne; so thither away.

Painter. As you please, brother; but remember, on this only condition, that we walk on the brink of the Dove, as far as we may.

Angler. That is a short pleasure; for here is another bridge will bring us into Derbyshire; and now methinks I see Mapleton Church before us; so we must take our farewell of Dove.

Painter. Alas the day!

Angler. Well, well; let us catch some trouts, and then be going.

Painter. Ay, so we will. Look you, Sir, my tools are fitted.

Angler. So soon! then ply your work—each for a brace.

Painter. It is agreed. I will this way down to the stream.

Angler. So be it; and I for yonder bent, where the water runs crisping.

Painter. Away with you! I’ll lay the odds on Master Walton’s cork and bait, against Mr. Cotton’s fly.

Angler. Done—the wager?

Painter. He that takes the first brace shall mix a cup of good Canary at Mapleton, and the other shall pay the scores without grudging.

Angler. I am content—so do your worst—

Painter. Well, good brother, what sport? I have caught but one, and that’s a troutlet.

Angler. Indeed! look you, here is a couple of big ones.

Painter. Ah! well—I’m but a prentice in the art: I confess I’ve lost my wager, and am ready to pay the forfeit.

Angler. Well: that’s like an angler, honestly spoken—so let us away.

Painter. But make me this promise, that we may (God willing) come hither again, next summer, a-fishing; and so read that book of Mr. Walton, whom I love better than ever I did, because you have taught me how many pleasures are to be found in his recreation of angling.

Angler. Trust me, I shall want no persuasion to walk in your company by the Dove, in the merry month of May, and then do nothing but angle and rejoice, as you know we have done these last days, and ‘sat as quietly and as free from cares, under hawthorn trees and rocks, as Virgil’s Tityrus and his Melibœus did beneath their broad beach tree:’ so says Mr. Walton; and now let me read you these natural thoughts out of his book.—Here it is: ‘No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did;” and so (if I might be judge,) God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.’

Painter. Every word is true. And what a thankful heart my master has!

Angler. Ay, truly; and hear how he persuades every man to thankfulness; he said to his companion, ‘Let us not forget to praise God for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have enjoyed since we have met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains we have looked upon, since we met together!’ And now we are come to Mapleton, and here’s a clean alehouse; and the host is a modest man, and hath a fine smooth bowling green; so before we go back to Ashbourne, let us rest awhile, and refresh ourselves with the cup you are to pay for. Come, host, bring us a bottle of that Canary wine you gave me the last time I was this way in company with a gentleman fisher; and remember the lemon stuck round about with spices, and some of that sweet cake, that we may be merry with discretion, as all true anglers are wont to be. There is a large trout for our civil hostess, with my service to her. And now, brother, let us walk into the garden, that is so neat and handsome; here you have a various herbal, fit for a country house-wife, like our hostess: here is hyssop, marjory, and penny-royal, and thyme, and all kinds of fruit-trees.

Painter. It is all very good, and here is the bowling ground; it looks like a green velvet. Look, how exceeding smooth;—how the bowls glide along! Where is the jack? Come, let us play at bowls till the Nectar is ready.

Angler. Agreed: there, I have set the jack; now do you bowl first.

Painter. Nay, after you; so, so, master, you are short of the jack: look, look, mine is the nearest.

Angler. Nay, it is a measuring cast; but here goes one will overlay him. Pish! I have shot him over wide—he had an untrue bias.

Painter. Well, then; here’s another.

Angler. That was curiously pitched: now for a last endeavour. Ah, me! that has knocked your first bowl to the jack: I am sure he was wrong biassed.

Painter. Well, I thank you; and so, let me try this;—and now another.

Angler. The game is yours.

Painter. And here comes the host. Let us have our repast under this yew tree, that is not less than a hundred years old; here is a table,—and settles ready prepared.

Angler. With all my heart, for it seems a pleasant arbour. Come, Sir, fill the glasses.

Painter. The liquor is exceedingly good: and this even Mr. Walton and Mr. Cotton would declare, if they were cup-and-can with us. I doubt not but they are acquainted with this ‘honest alehouse,’ and have rested themselves on these settles, after a day’s fishing in the Dove, and been refreshed with a cup of good barley wine, and sung Old Rose together, and played at bowls on this green turf. Do you remember that bowling ground by the Tower? Think what a choice prospect was there! On one side the fishing-house, and on another the mansion that we looked over so pleasantly.

Angler. That was indeed a charming prospect! Then have you forgot the flower garden at the foot of the Tower, and Mr. Walton’s and Mr. Cotton’s portraits, and all the landskips in the fishing-house, which you painted in your book; and after that Pike Pool, where you landed that big trout; and the great Hall, and your master Walton’s chamber?

Painter. No more, no more,—lest I forget all discretion, and, retracing my footsteps, hie me back to Beresford. O! that place is a delight for innocent anglers. There a man is raised to an excess of pleasure; he may go forth in the morning and hear the birds ‘warble forth their ditties:’ the rocks, and the woods, and the merry streams are the books he reads in; the sun, and the clouds, and the wind are his oracles to consult; and the speckled trout is his play-fellow, that makes her gambols and her somersaults for his entertainment. Call you this an idleness? It were a pretty treason to deny that it is the most refined, gentle, and gaysome recreation that a man may indulge in; that is to say, for his leisurable hours,—since only then it may be reasonable.——

Angler. Hey day, Master! not so fast; ‘a man need to have the patience of Job, that he may sit silently by the river, and look down at nothing but his float.’^[80]

Painter. Nay, did I say that?

Angler. ‘Nevertheless, I cannot but pity your dumpish anglers, that wait so meekly for their fortunes, as to seem fixed with all the gravity of carved statues on the margin of their streams^[81]——’

Painter. Enough, enough; I said that in ignorance of the joys of anglers. I will never be a scoffer again; and I beseech you to blot those words from your memory, and note me down your willing companion this way a-fishing, every year that God gives us health for such a sweet walk in the month of May. For remember, this life is short, and is not in our own hands; ‘it is as a flower of the field that fadeth:’ and what says Mr. Robert Herrick, whose verses you both love and sing so well?