mendable recreations a gentleman can practice. PAINTER. A hopeful entertainment, truly! Nevertheless, I cannot but smile at your dumpish anglers that wait so meekly for their fortunes, as to seem fixed wth all the gravity of sculptured images on the margin of their

streams.

ANGLER. SO, so! good brother, you may smile and wonder too; nay, I will laugh with you, and after that will not be ashamed to confess how I am possessed with a constant love of angling. But for the present let me bring your thoughts towards the Dove, near to Uttoxeter.

PAINTER.-Aye, let us hear more of that; then you made some contemplative trial of the trouts?

ANGLER.-But it was all in vain; for the wind was contrary, and they took no liking to my flies, and so I missed my sport: but I hope for better acceptance the next time I go a-courting that way.

PAINTER. Then I beseech you, gentle Mr. Angler, how did you pass the hours, since the trouts, out of their coyness, declined from your acquaintance? If I might conjecture, you straightly fell into a consideration of Master Izaak Walton's praise of fishes and fishing.

ANGLER.-And if I did? Give me leave to tell you, he hath set forth the delights of this recreation with such refined and ingenuous arguments, as to persuade many a man to become a fisher, who was before very averse to it. Nay, I shall hope to make you put on new thoughts of angling before we part company;

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for, of all men, limners have most cause to love my art, seeing they may recline by the side of a lake or river, and leave their angle-rods to fish for themselves,' and this Mr. Walton declares, and truly, to be like putting money to use; for then these anglerods work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice'— PAINTER. Or paint pictures!

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ANGLER.-Even so: and I may declare to you I have seen such pleasant prospects of woodlands, and rivers, and streams, that have flowed along the vallies and through many a mead in England, when I have been a fishing, as the best limner might desire to look at; and yet not be able to imitate with all his daintiness of hand. And some of these I made a discovery of, within a little mile or two round Uttoxeter, by the banks of the Dove; for seeing I was not like to fish to profit, I considered within myself what I should do to infuse into my mind composed thoughts; and after a while I resolved to examine into those parts of the river, and so be admitted into a more familiar acquaintance with its landskips.

PAINTER.-Well thought; and I declare to you I am ready to esteem it my loss that I was not in your company.

ANGLER.-There are many parts thereabouts would have touched you mightily: for nature, that is so excellent an artificer, hath contrived her works on either side the river with a most unimitable disposition and skilfulness. And you are to note, the river I speak of is the Dove;

"Whose dainty grasse, 'That grows upon her banks, all other doth surpasse,'

as old Michael Drayton* declares: and thereabouts I found the Churnet, that gives her the contribution of its streams, and is contented to receive nothing from her in exchange but her speckled trouts,--and this for the sweet satisfaction of an attendance upon her, till her espousals with the Trent below Eggington. Then I may not omit to mention that pleasant river the Blythe, whose fountains spring up near to the 'ancient castel' of Caverswall, gathering strength as she flows along by the Earl of Derby's great park and Castle of Chartley, and then

Bears easey down tow'rds her deere soveraign Trent.' PAINTER.-Blythe! the very name is full of promise; and I doubt not her banks are lined with prospects of mountains and vales.

ANGLER.-All variegated with moorlands and woodlands;-such alluring scenes for an angler or a painter, and so decked by nature's hand as to be little spots of enchantment, which caused me a double sorrow that you were not my fellow traveller and I resolved I would some time or other see those landskips again, if it should please God to let me live long enough, and give me the diversion of some leisurable days.

PAINTER.-Sir, your commendations have inflamed my desires to make acquaintance with the Dove; and I rejoice that I am now like to

* Drayton's Polyolbion: Song 12, p. 207.

do this in your company; and I beseech you tell me something more of the Churnet, that you just now said joined itself thereabouts to the Dove, ANGLER. That would I willingly, if time might serve; but we are come within sight of Brailsford.

PAINTER. Then make me this promise, that we may beguile some future hours together by those lower passages of the Dove, and see where she discharges herself into the Trent.

ANGLER.-Let that be a match between us; and I promise you nothing can be pleasanter for an artist than the lights and shadows of their umbrageous banks, and the pastures, and lowing herds by the river, and the native cascades and rocks, and the peaceful villages with ornamental churches, which lend their aid to the composure of those retired prospects.

PAINTER.-How did you call this pleasant looking place we are here come to?

ANGLER.-Now you are arrived at Brailsford; and there is the Saracen's Head, that is kept by honest John Bembridge; this way, so please you; and look, here is a well of water, called St. Bernard's Well, so like to chrystal, that almost a blind beggar may see the pebble stones at the bottom.

PAINTER. It is surprisingly clear.

ANGLER.-Then, I beseech you, take your pencil, and give me a design, in remembrance of this pleasant walk we have undertaken together.

PAINTER. I cannot deny any request of yours, for I have left my home for no other

end than to have the satisfaction of your company and civil discourse, and to give you in return all the contentment that my poor art is capable of.

ANGLER. Why that's heartily and kindly spoken; and I will be so bold to promise you some entertainment on our journey; for, look you, here is the newest impression of Mr. Walton's COMPLETE ANGLER, and here is Part the Second, that is lately printed for a companion to it.

PAINTER.-Indeed! another volume from the fertile pen of Mr. Izaak Walton! what more that is new can he have to say on Angling?

ANGLER.-Stay a while; for this is a Treatise of Fly Fishing, being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear ' Stream,' writ by Mr. Charles Cotton, of Beresford Hall, his adopted son; so they are printed together in testimony of their mutual affection. It is a cheerful dialogue between PISCATOR Junior, that is, Mr. Charles Cotton himself, and VIATOR, who was a gentlemantraveller he overtook on horseback, between Derby and Ashbourne, half a mile from this place. And if these two treatises together do not kindle in your mind a love for the art, I am certain you will at least gather from the perusal a charitable disposition towards anglers.

PAINTER. It would be uncivil to deny Mr. Cotton's merits before I have read his treatise; and for Mr. Walton, I may confess he has a