The River Dove, With Some Quiet Thoughts on the Happy Practice of Angling

CHAPTER I.. _a Meeting At_ Derby, _between An_ Angler _and A_ Painter.

A Meeting at Derby, between an Angler and a Painter.

Painter.

Welcome, Mr. Gentleman Angler: welcome to Derby.

Angler. Good morrow, brother, I am glad to see you look so cheering and courteous; for I must confess I am later than our fix’t appointment.

Painter. Sir, now I possess you, I’m too glad-hearted to chide your lagging: yet, to say the truth, I expected you this hour agone; for methought your sprightful anglers were apt to prevent the sun’s rising on a delicate May morning.

Angler. Give me your pardon this turn, and doubt not to find me stirring with the lark every day that you and I purpose to walk in each other’s company by the banks of the Dove.

Painter. My pardon you shall have the more willingly, if you fail not a traveller’s good stomach for breakfast.

Angler. You may trust me. I am as keenly set as a moss trooper.

Painter. I am glad to hear it, for I have told the civil hostess to treat us well.

Angler. You are worthy to be a brother of the angle; and this I am resolved you shall be when we are come to the river that I love so well:—but let us see what we may have for our breakfast, and fall to it merrily.

Painter. Here it is, and all of the best; so let us say grace, and begin.

Angler. With all my heart;—and that will give it a relish.

Painter. How now, brave Sir! What say you?

Angler. By pick and pie ’tis all excellent. When I am Lord Great Chamberlain you shall be my caterer. Come, Sir, for a glass of ale; my service to you. Now I envy not the daintiest court gallants in the land, that are asleep on their beds of down.

Painter. I am amazed how some sluggards will lie a-bed almost till dinner time.

Angler. They know none of the ingenuous delights of fishermen. So let us bless God, that we have not only a mind to rise with the sun, but the power to it, for that is still better. And, as plain-hearted Mr. Walton says, ‘that our present happiness may appear to be greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me, how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and the tooth ache, and this we are free from; and every misery that I miss is a new mercy.’

Painter. And how many are now languishing in the sad captivity of dungeons, ‘feeding on bread of affliction, and water of affliction.’——But, come; tell me how it has fared with you, since we parted from each other’s company, now two days agone, when you resolved to entertain yourself with some hours fishing in the lower parts of the River Dove, near to the town of Uttoxeter.

Angler. That I will relate to you by and by, as we journey towards Ashbourne; and because the morning wears apace, let us take another cup of barley wine and be gone; for we have some hours, and many more miles, on this side Alstonfields, where you and I must lodge to-night.

Painter. It is well thought; so Mistress Hostess here is payment for your choice breakfast, and thanks for your civility, and so we wish you good morrow.——And now, brother, seeing we are past Derby Bridge, and are come out of the town, look forth on the freshness of the landscape, and the dewdrops that hang on every blade and bush, sparkling in the beams of the sun.

Angler. What happy thoughts possess a man’s mind when he breathes the air of the morning, and contemplates the bounties of nature!

Painter. Aye; then the heart is full of unspeakable thoughts that soar upward from earth to heaven, and so higher still on the spiritual wings of reverential love unto HIM, who is above this vault so beautiful, so vast, and is the Creator and Sustainer of all.

Angler. And listen to the very song-birds chirping their untaught morning harmony to God, who ‘causeth the day-spring from on high to know his place.’

Painter. This simple feathered choir teaches mankind to be cheerful, and to sing joyful psalms, and to make melody in their heart to the Lord: nay, what can be pleasanter than to do this, ‘when the very morning stars sing together.’ And what says even the learned heathen, Epictetus?—‘If we have any wisdom, what is more becoming in public and in private, than to sing hymns to the Deity? If I were a nightingale, I should do as the nightingales do—if a swan, as the swans; but because I am a reasonable creature, I must the rather praise God. So I will never leave that practice myself, and I do exhort all others to it.’—And now give me leave to put you in mind to tell me something of your lonely walks round about Uttoxeter, that we may beguile the way with cheerful conversation between this and Ashbourne.

Angler. That I shall willingly do: and first, you are to know, I passed by the great forest of Needwood, that has some of the pleasantest chases and parks in all England, and is so full of marvellous big oaks and fat bucks; then, after Needwood I came to Tutbury.

Painter. Indeed!

‘The battle was fought near Titbury town, ‘When the bagpipes baited the bull?’

Angler. Come, Sir, if you have that choice ballad by memory, pr’ythee let us hear it.

‘Kind gentlemen, will ye be patient awhile? ‘Aye, and then you shall hear anon, ‘A very good ballad of bold Robin Hood, ‘And of his man, brave little John.’

Painter. Some parts I could repeat; but rather let me hear of your walk from Tutbury: and pr’ythee when thou wast thereabouts, didst ‘=demaunde one bacon flyke, hanging in the Halle of the Lord of Whichenovre?=’

Angler. Nay—do you take me for a Benedick? Let the flyke be claimed by the wondrous wight that ‘=would not chaunge his wife for none other, farer ne fowler, rycher ne pourer of alle the wymen of the worlde=.’

Painter. And how is his highness, the ‘king of the minstrels?’

Angler. Gone to his rest, with brave John of Gaunt, and the Prior of Tutbury. Alas! since the roundheads once kept watch and ward in Tutbury Castle, the merry minstrelsy is hushed in the hall. But now you may consider me to be arrived in the town of Uttoxeter, full of composed thoughts, and there I found a tidy house of refreshment, and put myself to bed betimes, that I might be away before the day dawn; and so I was, and let me tell you my first waking thoughts, after remembering my prayers, were of the River Dove, and my happy practice of angling.

Painter. That indeed was natural, and I make bold to think you caught some brace of trouts before breakfast?

Angler. Not so, brother; for you are to note every angler must needs be blest with a hopeful and patient disposition, since he may sometimes look to come home as he went forth, that is to say, with an empty pannier—

Painter. As the reward of his patience! Well, patience is an herb, they say, makes a ‘good boiled sallad:’ why, Sir, an angler need to be ‘Patience on a monument,’ that he may sit silently by the river, and look down at nothing but his float.

Angler. Well! I give you leave to censure, since you know none of those sweet pleasures that attend on angling: and I remit you to Mr. Izaak Walton, ‘that dear lover and frequent practicer of my art,’ for many clear reasons and examples to prove that it may be esteemed one of the most honest and commendable recreations a gentleman can practise.

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 with 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 my gentle craft. 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 straightway fell into a consideration of Master Izaak Walton’s praise of fishes and fishing.

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