Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

Of the generation and growth of the other and greater sea-trout (Salmo eriox,) we have not yet acquired the same precise knowledge, but its history may fairly be inferred to be extremely similar.

"These fish," says Mr Scrope, "are found in many salmon rivers, but not in all. It is very abundant in the Tweed, which it visits principally at two seasons; in the spring about the month of May, and again in the month of October, when the males are very plentiful; but the females are scarce till about the beginning or middle of November. With salmon it is the reverse, as their females leave the sea before the males. The bull trout is also more regular in his habits than the salmon; for the fisherman can calculate almost to a day when the large black male trout will leave the sea. The foul fish rise eagerly at the fly, but the clean ones by no means so. They weigh from two to twenty-four pounds, and occasionally, I presume, but very rarely indeed, more. The largest I ever heard of was taken in the Hallowstell fishing water, at the mouth of the Tweed, in April 1840, and weighed twenty-three pounds and a half. The heaviest bull trout I ever encountered myself weighed sixteen pounds, and I had a long and severe contest with his majesty. He was a clean fish, and I hooked him in a cast in Mertoun water called the Willow Bush, not in the mouth but in the dorsal fin. Brethren of the craft, guess what sore work I had with him! He went here and there with apparent comfort and ease to his own person, but not to mine. I really did not know what to make of him. There never was such a Hector. I cannot say exactly how long I had him on the hook; it seemed a week at least. At length John Halliburton, who was then my fisherman, waded into the river up to his middle, and cleeked him whilst he was hanging in the stream, and before he was half beat."—P. 66.

Many simple-minded people, with something of a sentimental turn, (they are almost always fond of raw oysters, and gloat over a roasted turkey, although they know that it was bled to to death by cutting the roots of its tongue,) look upon angling as a "cruel sport." Let us see, with Mr Scrope, how this matter really stands.

"I take a little wool and feather, and tying it in a particular manner upon a hook, make an imitation of a fly; then I throw it across the river, and let it sweep round the stream with a lively motion. This I have an undoubted right to do, for the river belongs to me or my friend; but mark what follows. Up starts a monster fish with his murderous jaws, and makes a dash at my little Andromeda. Thus he is the aggressor, not I; his intention is evidently to commit murder. He is caught in the act of putting that intention into execution. Having wantonly intruded himself on my hook, which I contend he had no right to do, he darts about in various directions, evidently surprised to find that the fly, which he hoped to make an easy conquest of, is much stronger than himself. I naturally attempt to regain this fly, unjustly withheld from me. The fish gets tired and weak in his lawless endeavours to deprive me of it. I take advantage of his weakness, I own, and drag him, somewhat loth, to the shore, when one rap on the back of the head ends him in an instant. If he is a trout, I find his stomach distended with flies. That beautiful one called the May fly, who is by nature almost ephemeral—who rises up from the bottom of the the shallows, spreads its light wings, and flits in the sunbeam in enjoyment of its new existence—no sooner descends to the surface of the water to deposit its eggs, than the unfeeling fish, at one fell spring, numbers him prematurely with the dead. You see, then, what a wretch a fish is; no ogre is more bloodthirsty, for he will devour his nephews, nieces, and even his own children, when he can catch them; and I take some credit for having shown him up. Talk of a wolf, indeed a lion, or a tiger! Why, these, are all mild and saintly in comparison with a fish! What a bitter fright must the smaller fry live in! They crowd to the shallows, lie hid among the weeds, and dare not say the river is their own. I relieve them of their apprehensions, and thus become popular with the small shoals. When we see a fish quivering upon dry land, he looks so helpless without arms or legs, and so demure in expression, adding hypocrisy to his other sins, that we naturally pity him; then kill and eat him, with Harvey sauce, perhaps. Our pity is misplaced,—the fish is not. There is an immense trout in Loch Awe in Scotland, which is so voracious, and swallows his own species with such avidity, that he has obtained the name of Salmo ferox. I pull about this unnatural monster till he is tired, land him, and give him the coup-de-grace. Is this cruel? Cruelty should be made of sterner stuff."—P. 83.

Mr Scrope is known as an accomplished artist as well as an experienced angler, and we need not now to tell our readers that he is also a skilful author. It does not fall to the lot of all men to handle with equal dexterity the brush, the pen, and the rod—to say nothing of the rifle—still less of the leister, under cloud of night. There is much in the present volume to interest even those who are so unfortunate as to have never seen either, grilse or salmon, except as pupils or practitioners in the silver-fork school. His reminiscences of his own early life and manlier years, under the soubriquet of Harry Otter, are pleasantly told, and his adventurous meetings with poachers and painters are amusing in themselves, as well as instructive in their tendency to illustrate, not only the deeper mysteries of piscatorial art, but the life and conversation of the amphibious people who dwell by the sides of rivers. His first arrival in "fair Melrose," the moonlight lustre of which was then unsung, is thus described—

"It was late, and I looked forth on the tranquil scene from my window. The moonbeams played upon the distant hilltops, but the lower masses slept as yet in shadow; again the pale light caught the waters of the Tweed, the lapse of whose streams fell faintly on the ear, like the murmuring of a sea-shell. In front rose up the mouldering abbey, deep in shadow; its pinnacles, and buttresses, and light tracery, but dimly seen in the solemn mass. A faint light twinkled for a space among the tomb-stones, soon it was extinct, and two figures passed off in the shadow, who had been digging a grave even at that late hour. As the night advanced, a change began to take place. Clouds heaved up over the horizon; the wind was heard in murmurs; the rack hurried athwart the moon; and utter darkness fell upon river, mountain, and haugh. Then the gust swelled louder, and the storm struck fierce and sudden against the casement. But as the morrow dawned, though rain-drops still hung upon the leaf, the clouds sailed away, the sun broke forth, and all was fair and tranquil."—P. 97.

The fisherman was sent for express, and his general garb and fly-bedizened hat, are soon portrayed; while the "waxing" of the Tweed, and how the Eildon Hills were of old cloven by the art of grammarye, conclude the fourth chapter, and bring us only to the hundredth page.

The ensuing section of the work opens with some general observations on the scenery of that now noted district of the south of Scotland, blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances, we doubt not deeply felt, which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate, of its dissevered ties, its buried hopes, and lost affections! How many bitter endurances, reflected from the bosom of the past, are ever mingling with all those ongoings of human life and action which we call enjoyments! How mixed in their effects are even the natural glories of this our fair creation! What golden sunset casts not its far-beaming splendour, not only on the great mountains and the glittering sea, but also breaks, as if in mockery, into ghastly chambers where the desolation of death, "the wages of sin," is miserably brooding! And yet how solemnizing, how elevating in their influences, are all the highest beauties both of art and nature, notwithstanding the awe, approaching to fearfulness, with which they not seldom affect our spirits. The veneration with which we gaze even on insensate walls which once formed the loved abode of genius and virtue, is a natural tribute to a noble nature, and flows from one of the purest and most sustaining sources of emotion by which our humanity is distinguished. It almost looks as if, in accordance with the Platonic philosophy, there remained to man, from an original and more lofty state of existence, some dim remembrance of perfection.

"This inborn and implanted recollection of the godlike," says Schlegel, "remains ever dark and mysterious; for man is surrounded by the sensible world, which being in itself changeable and imperfect, encircles him with images of imperfection, changeableness, corruption, and error, and thus casts perpetual obscurity over that light which is within him. Wherever, in the sensible and natural world, he perceives any thing which bears a resemblance to the attributes of the God-head, which can serve as a symbol of a high perfection, the old recollections of his soul are awakened and refreshed. The love of the beautiful fills and animates the soul of the beholder with an awe and reverence which belong not to the beautiful itself—at least not to any sensible manifestation of it—but to that unseen original of which material beauty is the type. From this admiration, this new-awakened recollection, and this instantaneous inspiration, spring all higher knowledge and truth. These are not the product of cold, leisurely, and voluntary reflection, but occupy at once a station far superior to what either thought, or art, or speculation, can attain; and enter into our inmost souls with the power and presence of a gift from the divinity."

Mr Scrope's first visit to the Tweed was made before the "Ariosto of the North" had sung those undying strains which have since added so much associated interest to the finely varied courses of that fair river. But many fond lovers of nature, then as now,

"Though wanting the accomplishment of verse,"

were well acquainted with all its unrecorded beauties.

"What stranger," asks our author, "just emerging from the angular enclosures of the south, scored and subdued by tillage, would not feel his heart expand at the first sight of the heathy mountains, swelling out into vast proportions, over which man had no dominion? At the dawn of day he sees, perhaps, the mist ascending slowly up the dusky river, taking its departure to some distant undefined region; below the mountain range his sight rests upon a deep and narrow glen, gloomy with woods, shelving down to its centre. What is hid in that mysterious mass the eye may not visit; but a sound comes down from afar, as of the rushing and din of waters. It is the voice of the Tweed, as it bursts from the melancholy hills, and comes rejoicing down the sunny vale, taking its free course through the haugh, and glittering amongst sylvan bowers—swelling out at times fair and ample, and again contracted into gorges and sounding cataracts—lost for a space in its mazes behind a jutting brae, and re-appearing in dashes of light through bolls of trees opposed to it in shadow.

"Thus it holds its fitful course. The stranger might wander in the quiet vale, and far below the blue summits he might see the shaggy flock grouped upon some sunny knoll, or struggling among the scattered birch-trees, and lower down on the haugh, his eye perchance might rest awhile on some cattle standing on a tongue of land by the margin of the river, with their dark and rich brown forms opposed to the brightness of the waters. All these outward pictures he might see and feel; but he would see no farther: the lore had not spread its witchery over the scene—the legends slept in oblivion. The stark moss-trooper, and the clanking stride of the warrior, had not again started into life; nor had the light blazed gloriously in the sepulchre of the wizard with the mighty book. The slogan swelled not anew upon the gale, sounding, through the glens and over the misty mountains; nor had the minstrel's harp made music in the stately halls of Newark, or beside the lonely braes of Yarrow.

"Since that time I have seen the Cottage of Abbotsford, with the rustic porch, lying peacefully on the haugh between the lone hills, and have listened to the wild rush of the Tweed as it hurried beneath it. As time progressed, and as hopes arose, I have seen that cottage converted into a picturesque mansion, with every luxury and comfort attached to it, and have partaken of its hospitality; the unproductive hills I have viewed covered with thriving plantations, and the whole aspect of the country civilized, without losing its romantic character. But, amidst all these revolutions, I have never perceived any change in the mind of him who made them,—'the choice and master spirit of the age.' There he dwelt in the hearts of the people, diffusing life and happiness around him; he made a home beside the border river, in a country and a nation that have derived benefit from his presence, and consequence from his genius. From his chamber he looked out upon the grey ruins of the Abbey, and the sun which set in splendour beneath the Eildon Hills. Like that sun, his course has been run; and, though disastrous clouds came across him in his career, he went down in unfading glory.

"These golden hours, alas! have long passed away; but often have I visions of the sylvan valley, and its glittering waters, with dreams of social intercourse. Abbotsford, Mertoun, Chiefswood, Huntly-Burn, Allerley—when shall I forget ye?"—P. 102.

How many share these sad and vain regrets! The very voice of the living waters, which once glittered so rejoicingly through the green pastures, or reflected in their still expanse the lichen-covered crag or varied woodland, seems now to utter an "illœtabile murmur," while

"A trouble not of clouds or weeping rain, Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light, Engender'd, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height."

On the 21st of September 1832, Sir Walter Scott breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. "It was a beautiful day," we have been elsewhere told, "so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic image of repose."17

We must here unwillingly conclude our account of Mr Scrope's volume, although we have scarcely even entered on many of its most important portions. Bait fishing for salmon, and the darker, though torch-illumined, mysteries of the leister, occupy the terminal chapters. A careful study of the whole will amply repay the angler, the naturalist, the artist, and the general admirer of the inexhaustible beauties of rural scenery—nowhere witnessed or enjoyed to such advantage as by the side of a first-rate river.

THE WHIPPIAD, A SATIRICAL POEM

BY REGINALD HEBER, BISHOP OF CALCUTTA

In offering this little poem to the public, some few words, by way of explanation, are deemed necessary. Most of the circumstances alluded to in it will be familiar to Oxford readers of Bishop Heber's standing, but especially to those of his own college, Brazenose. The origin of the poem was simply this:—A young friend of his, B——d P——t, went to call upon him at Brazenose, and, without being aware of the heinous crime he was committing, cracked a four-horse whip in the quadrangle. This moved the ire of a certain doctor, a fellow and tutor, and at that time also dean of the college, commonly called Dr Toe from a defect in one of his feet. The doctor had unfortunately made himself obnoxious to most of those of his own college, under-graduates as well as others, by his absurd conduct and regulations. On the following day Mr P——t cracked the whip in the quadrangle, when the doctor issued from his rooms in great wrath, and after remonstrating with Mr P——t, and endeavouring to take the whip from him, a scuffle ensued, in which the whip was broken, and the doctor overpowered and thrown down by the victorious P——t, who had fortunately taken his degree of Master of Arts. Heber, then an under-graduate of only a few terms' standing, wrote the first canto the same evening, and the intrinsic merit of the poem will recommend it to most readers. But it will be doubly interesting when considered as one of the first, if not the very first, of the poetical productions of that eminent and distinguished scholar. In it may be traced the dawnings of that genius which was afterwards to delight the world in an enlarged sphere of usefulness.

K.

CANTO FIRST

Where whiten'd Cain the curse of heaven defies,18 And leaden slumber seals his brother's eyes, Where o'er the porch in brazen splendour glows The vast projection of the mystic nose, Triumph erewhile of Bacon's fabled arts,19 Now well-hung symbol of the student's parts; 'Midst those unhallow'd walls and gloomy cells Where every thing but Contemplation dwells, Dire was the feud our sculptured Alfred saw,20 And thy grim-bearded bust, Erigena, When scouts came flocking from the empty hall, And porters trembled at the Doctor's call; Ah! call'd in vain, with laugh supprest they stood And bit their nails, a dirty-finger'd brood. E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight,21 And John beheld, and chuckled at the sight.22 Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight With iron pennons more obscured the night— Thou, too, of British birth, who dost reside In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing tide,23 Say, spirit, say, for thy enlivening bowl With fell ambition fired thy favourite's soul, From what dread cause began the bloodless fray Pregnant with shame, with laughter, and dismay? Calm was the night, and all was sunk to rest, Save Shawstone's party, and the Doctor's breast: He saw with pain his ancient glory fled, And thick oblivion gathering round his head. Alas! no more his pupils crowding come, To wait indignant in their tyrant's room,24 No more in hall the fluttering theme he tears, Or lolling, picks his teeth at morning prayers; Unmark'd, unfear'd, on dogs he vents his hate, And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate. But now to listless indolence a prey, Stretch'd on his couch, he sad and darkling lay; As not unlike in venom and in size, Close in his hole the hungry spider lies. "And oh!" he cries, "am I so powerless grown, That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone? Oh! for some nobler strife, some senior foe, To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!" He spoke—the powers of mischief heard his cries, And steep'd in sullen sleep his rheumy eyes. He slept—but rested not, his guardian sprite Rose to his view in visions of the night, And thus, with many a tear and many a sigh, He heard, or seem'd to hear, the mimic demon cry:—25 "Is this a time for distant strife to pray, When all my power is melting fast away, Like mists dissolving at the beams of day, When masters dare their ancient rights resume, And bold intruders fill the common room, Whilst thou, poor wretch, forsaken, shunn'd by all, Must pick thy commons in the empty hall? Nay more! regardless of thy hours and thee, They scorn the ancient, frugal hour of three.26 Good Heavens! at four their costly treat is spread, And juniors lord it at the table's head; See fellows' benches sleeveless striplings bear,27 Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.28 Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground, The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound? Awake! arise! though many a danger lour, By one bright deed to vindicate thy power." He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds, With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds. So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd, Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade, If weary with his toil perchance, he hears His master's lash re-echoing in his ears, Though loath, he lifts his paws, and bounds in air, And hops and rages whilst the rabble stare.

CANTO THE SECOND

You the great foe of this Assembly! I the great foe? Why the great foe? In that being one of the meanest, barest, poorest, ——Thou goest foremost.—SHAKSPEARE'S Coriolanus. Forth from his cell the wily warrior hies, And swift to seize the unwary victim flies. For sure he deem'd, since now declining day Had dimn'd the brightness of his visual ray, He deem'd on helpless under-graduate foes To purge the bile that in his liver rose. Fierce schemes of vengeance in his bosom swell, Jobations dire, and Impositions fell. And now a cross he'd meditate, and swear29 Six ells of Virgil should the crime repair.30 Along the grass with heedless haste he trod,31 And with unequal footsteps press'd the sod— That hallow'd sod, that consecrated ground, By eclogues, fines, and crosses fenced around. When lo! he sees, yet scarcely can believe, The destined victim wears a master's sleeve; So when those heroes, Britain's pride and care, In dark Batavian meadows urge the war; Oft as they roam'd, in fogs and darkness lost, They found a Frenchman what they deem'd a post. The Doctor saw; and, filled with wild amaze, He fix'd on P——t32 his quick convulsive gaze. Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw, Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw.33 Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart, Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart. "And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest, Presume to break a senior's holy rest?34 Full well you know, who thus my anger dare, To horse-whips what antipathy I bear. Shall I, in vain, immersed in logic lore, O'er Saunderson and Allrick try to pore— I, who the major to the minor join, And prove conclusively that seven's not nine? With expectation big, and hope elate, The critic world my learned labours wait: And shall not Strabo then respect command, And shall not Strabo stay thy insulting hand? Strabo!35 whose pages, eighteen years and more, Have been my public shame, my private bore? Hence, to thy room, audacious wretch! retire, Nor think thy sleeves shall save thee from mine ire." He spoke; such fury sparkled in his face, The Buttery trembled to its tottering base, The frighted rats in corners laid them down, And all but P——t was daunted at his frown; Firm and intrepid stood the reverend man, As thrice he stroked his face, and thus began: "And hopest thou then," the injured Bernard said, "To launch thy thunders on a master's head? O, wont to deal the trope and dart the fist, Half-learn'd logician, half-form'd pugilist, Censor impure, who dar'st, with slanderous aim, And envy's dart, assault a H——r's name. Senior, self-called, can I forget the day, When titt'ring under-graduates mock'd thy sway, And drove thee foaming from the Hall away? Gods, with what raps the conscious tables rung, From every form how shrill the cuckoo sung!36 Oh! sounds unblest—Oh! notes of deadliest fear— Harsh to the tutor's or the lover's ear, The hint, perchance, thy warmest hopes may quell, And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bel."37 At that loved name, with fury doubly keen, Fierce on the Deacon rush'd the raging Dean; Nor less the dauntless Deacon dare withstand The brandish'd weight of Toe's uplifted hand. The38 ghost of themes departed, that, of yore, Disgraced alike, the Doctor praised or tore, On paper wings flit dimly through the night, And, hovering low in air, beheld the fight. Each ill-starr'd verse its filthy den forsakes, Black from the spit, or reeking from the jakes; The blot-stain'd troop their shadowy pages spread, And call for vengeance on the murderer's head.