have called to my memory what Mr. Edmund Waller,1 a lover of the angle, says of love and music.

2

Whilst I listen to thy voice,

Chloris, I feel my heart decay;
That powerful voice

Calls my fleeting soul away:
Oh! suppress that magic sound,
Which destroys without a wound.

Peace, Chloris, peace; or singing die,
That together you and I

To heaven may go:

For all we know

Of what the blessed do above

Is, that they sing, and that they love.

Pisc. Well remembered, brother Peter; these verses came

"Introduction to Practical Music," fol. Lond. 1597, thus complains; [at the banquet of master Sophobulus] "Supper being ended; and music-books, according to custom, being brought to table, the mistress of the house presented me with a part, earnestly requesting me to sing. But when, after many excuses, I protested unfeignedly, that I could not,-every one began to wonder; yea, some whispered to others, demanding how I was brought up. So that, upon shame of mine ignorance, I go, now, to seek out mine old friend, master Gnorimus, to make myself his scholar." At that period a lute was considered a necessary part of the furniture of a barber's shop, and answered the end of a newspaper, the now common amusement of waiting customers.

In an old comedy of Dekker's, entitled, "The second part of the honest Whore," Matheo, speaking of his wife, terms her 'a barber's citterne for every serving-man to play upon.'-H.

1 Edmund Waller was born in 1605, at Coleshill, in Buckinghamshire, and received his education at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge. At the age of eighteen he was in parliament, and took part against the king: in 1643, however, he was sentenced to be hanged for a plot on his behalf; but saved himself by submission to the ruling power, and the weighty influence of the pocket. He afterwards wrote an elegant panegyric in favour of Cromwell, and subsequently another, on the king, at his Restoration! He died in 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield. His poems are easy, smooth, and generally elegant.-JOHNSON.

2 As the author's concern for the honour of angling induced him to enumerate such persons of note as were lovers of that recreation,—the reader will allow me to add Mr. JOHN GAY to the number. Any one who reads the first canto of his Georgic, entitled "Rural Sports," and observes how beautifully and accurately he treats the subject of fly-fishing, would conclude the author a proficient: but that it was his chief amusement, I

seasonably, and we thank you heartily. Come, we will all join together, my host and all, and sing my scholar's catch over again, and then each man drink the t'other cup and to bed, and thank God we have a dry house over our heads.

Pisc. Well now, good night to everybody.

Pet. And so say I.

Ven. And so say I.

Cor. Good night to you all; and I thank you.

Pisc. Good morrow, brother Peter! and the like to you, honest. Coridon. Come, my hostess says there is seven shillings to pay: let's each man drink a pot for his morning's draught, and lay down his two shillings; that so my hostess may not have occasion to repent herself of being so diligent, and using us so kindly.

Pet. The motion is liked by everybody, and so hostess, here's your money: we anglers are all beholden to you: it will not be long ere I'll see you again. And now brother Piscator, I wish you and my brother, your scholar, a fair day and good fortune. Come Coridon, this is our way.

have been assured, by a friend who has frequently fished with him in the river Kennet, at Amesbury in Wilts, the seat of his grace the Duke of Queensberry.-H. Many other distinguished men have been fond of angling Lord Nelson was so devoted to the sport that he continued it with his left hand; Thomson, Coleridge, Dr. Paley, Dr. Wollaston, Sir Benjamin West, Sir Walter Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Humphrey Davy, Professor Wilson, Sir Francis Chantrey, and that fine painter, the late Mr. Turner, a goodly array of heroes, poets, philosophers, and artists-were all confirmed disciples of the angle. The list might be greatly extended; but it need only be added that "glorious John Dryden" was of the number, as appears from the edition of his prose works by Malone, 8vo : London, 1800, vol. 1, part 1, page 520, and part 2, page 42. He and D'Urfey must have found a pleasant relief from the excitement of their London life in the pursuit of this quiet sport in the Wiltshire streams. An amusing essay might be written on the subject of this note, including examples of how well and wisely our poets have loved rivers. Burns, an ardent angler, should not be forgotten :

"The muse, nae poet ever found her,
Till by himsel' he learned to wander
Adown some trolling burn's meander,
And nae think lang."

ED.

Venator. Good master, as we go now towards London, be still so courteous as to give me more instructions, for I have several boxes in my memory, in which I will keep them all very safe, there shall not one of them be lost.

Pisc. Well, scholar, that I will: and I will hide nothing from you that I can remember, and can think may help you forward towards a perfection in this art. And because we have so much time, and I have said so little of Roach and Dace, I will give you some directions concerning them.

Some say the roach is so called from rutilus, which, they say, signifies red fins. He is a fish of no great reputation for his dainty taste; and his spawn is accounted much better than any other part of him. And you may take notice, that as the carp is accounted the water-fox, for his

cunning, so the roach is accounted the water-sheep for his simplicity or foolishness. It is noted that the roach and dace recover strength, and grow in season in a fortnight after spawning; the barbel and chub in a month; the trout in four months; and the salmon in the like time, if he gets into the sea and after into fresh-water.

Roaches be accounted much better in the river than in a pond, though ponds usually breed the biggest. But there is a kind of bastard small roach that breeds in ponds, with a very forked tail, and of a very small size, which some say is bred by the bream and right roach, and some ponds are stored with these beyond belief; and knowing men that know their difference call them Ruds: they differ from the

true roach as much as a herring from a pilchard. And these bastard-breed of roach are now scattered in many rivers,

1 The Rudd (or red eye) is believed to be a distinct species, and is found in many of the English rivers, and abundantly in Lough Neagh in Ireland. There is no well authenticated instance of a hybrid fish, and Mr. Yarrell doubts their existence. Moses Brown says, in his note on this passage, "The rudd differs very much from Walton's description: it is reckoned preferable to the roach, and inferior to none of the first rank. He is of a golden colour, like the carp, with scales as large; his tail a light, and his belly fins a dark red; and is from twelve to sixteen inches long; the largest weigh two pounds: he is broad, thick, strongly made; struggles hard; feeds usually near the top of the water, and is therefore taken with a fly or small red worm; and is always in season, excepting in April, spawning time. It has been said this fish is peculiar to the Yare, in Norfolk; but other streams have them, as the Rudder, in Essex, above Ilford Bridge; and the Ouse, in Buckinghamshire, in plenty, where he is called a shallow; Witham, in Buckinghamshire, and the Thames upward. In some places he is called a finscale."

but I think not in the Thames, which I believe affords the largest and fattest in this nation, especially below Londonbridge. The roach is a leather-mouthed fish, and has a kind of saw-like teeth in his throat. And lastly, let me tell you, the roach makes the angler excellent sport, especially the great roaches about London, where I think there

1 I know not what roaches are caught below bridge, but, above, I am sure they are very large; for on the 15th of September, 1754, at Hampton, I caught one that was fourteen inches and an eighth from eye to fork, and in weight wanted but an ounce of two pounds. [Roaches of three pounds have been caught in the Thames, and Pennant records one of the great weight of five pounds, though not caught in the Thames.-ED.]

The season for fishing for roach in the Thames begins about the latter end of August, and continues much longer than it is either pleasant or safe to fish. It requires some skill, to hit the time of taking them exactly; for all the summer long they live on the weed, which they do not forsake for the deeps till it becomes putrid, and that is sooner or later, according as the season is wet or dry; for you are to know, that much rain hastens the rotting of the weed. I say it requires some skill to hit the time; for the fishermen who live in all the towns along the river, from Chiswick to Staines, are, about this time, nightly upon the watch, as soon as the fish come out, to sweep them away with a drag-net; and our poor patient angler is left, baiting the ground, and adjusting his tackle, to catch those very fish which, perhaps, the night before had been carried to Billingsgate.

The Thames, as well above as below London-bridge, was formerly much resorted to by the London anglers; and, which is strange to think on, considering the unpleasantness of the station, they were used to fish near the starlings of the bridge. This will account for the many fishing-tackle shops that were formerly in Crooked-lane, which leads to the bridge. In the memory of a person, not long since living, a waterman that plied at Essex-stairs, his name John Reeves, got a comfortable living by attending anglers with his boat; his method was to watch when the shoals of roach came down from the country, and when he had found them, to go round to his customers and give them notice. Sometimes the fish settled opposite the Temple; at others, at Blackfriars or Queenhithe; but most frequently about the Chalk hills, near London-bridge. His hire was two shillings a tide. A certain number of persons who were accustomed thus to employ him, raised a sum sufficient to buy him a waterman's coat and silver badge, the impress whereof was, "Himself, with an angler, in his boat;' and he had annually a new coat to the time of his death, which might be about the year 1730. [There is now no good fishing in the Thames nearer than the Twickenham Meadows, just above Richmond-bridge, owing to the filthy state of the river.-ED.]

Shepperton and Hampton are the places chiefly resorted to by the Londoners, who angle there in boats; at each there is a large deep, to which roach are attracted by constant baiting. That at Hampton is oppo

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