RUNNYMEDE.
Over Denham’s gorgeous clouds of fancy, clothing the sides of this Thamesian mountain, some pretty villas, with lawns and gardens, are dotted among the trees, with which Cooper’s Hill is beautifully planted. Its gentle slopes, green and gradual, scarcely attain steepness at any point; and the wild hyperbole which makes the airy mountain hide his proud head in the clouds is absurdly misleading. The view from its summit is wide and fair; and the silver windings of the river towards Windsor Castle, which stands up in its pride of strength, are finely shown on the face of the landscape; and if Denham lost himself in picturing a hill, he is at home again in his representation of a plain. Runnymede, as fair a pasture as it was seven hundred years ago, is still unbroken, still sheltered by the hill and enriched by the river. An army might assemble there, as in the feudal days of old.
WINDSOR TO HAMPTON COURT.
Bell Weir, and the Picnic, as the island a little above Runnymede is called, are favourite resorts of holiday-makers, anglers among others; and no more delightful part of the river for rest and recreation, as well as for sport, can be found than in the beautiful reaches which succeed one another as the stream winds, now this way, now that, between banks that never lose their charm of interest and variety. On the Picnic, however, picnics are ceasing or have ceased. Liberty, so cheerfully accorded, has, with too many picnic-parties, been turned to licence, and permission to use the island for such kind of pleasure-making had at last to be stopped. If the bold Briton can be brought to see the gracelessness of accepting a grace, and then abusing it, perhaps there may be a renewal, in time, of the concession. Close to the weir, on the Surrey side of the river, is an excellent inn, aptly, though it may be tritely, called the “Angler’s Rest.” Barbel, roach, club, and gudgeon are plentiful round the Bell Weir; and trout are often taken. Thames gudgeon run somewhat small, and anglers who do not combine culinary taste and skill with their proficiency in the craft are apt to regard the little fish as no more than a good sort of live-bait. And this, indeed, he is, especially if you are pike-fishing. Arthur Smith, the amiable brother of Albert, who thought a pike, stuffed and baked, very good eating, knew the partiality of this voracious fish for gudgeon. Indeed, Master Jack, who is both a gourmand and a gourmet—the characters being oftener united than is commonly supposed—will pass by any other prey to get at the silver morsel, which has been called by some human epicures the freshwater smelt. So, by-the-by, will a perch, the only fish that can live with pike on terms of armed neutrality or amicable defiance. Freshwater smelt, indeed! Why, the despised gudgeon, properly cleansed and treated with salt, is, when freshly caught and delicately fried, the smelt’s decided superior; and it is perfectly surprising that the former is not more in request—is never asked for, in fact—at London restaurants. Yet, in Paris, at Bignon’s, Champeaux’, the Café Anglais, the Café de la Paix, the Maison Doré, or at the Cascade in the Bois de Boulogne, or at the Tête Noir at St. Cloud, no judicious diner misses goujon, when that fish is to be had, as it generally is. Why must we wait till we go abroad before we think of asking for gudgeon? Why should we pooh-pooh the dainty little fellow? Is it because it is so easy to catch him that his very name has passed into a proverb? Depend upon it, in spite of the ridicule which follows gudgeon-fishing as the facile entertainment of “a young angler,” we make a great mistake, and lose many a dainty dish, in this scornful, or at least jocular, disregard of so sweet and delicate a fish.
Gudgeons swim in shoals, are always greedy biters, and, in fact, hook themselves with so charming and ready a will, that ladies and boys have no greater trouble than pulling them out of the water as soon as the hook, baited with a red worm, is dropped into it. No other labour, and no skill or activity beyond, is needed. The hook must be small, and the worm must be small also; and the gravelly bottom should be raked, to stir up the aquatic insects and larvæ, and so to summon the confiding fish together. Angling and rowing are not the only pursuits on the river or by its banks. The student of natural history and the landscape-painter, by which, in these days, is mostly meant the same, may botanise to their hearts’ content; and, if they care more for popular and poetic than for scientific botany, may be glad to find there are still such beings as country folk, and still such names for flowering plants as codlings-and-cream, which the vulgar call Epilobium hirsutum. Call it what you will, this same plant, which is in truth the large-flowered willow-herb, and has a wholesome, but not very distinct or pungent odour, supposed to resemble the scent of apples with cream, as above named, is liked by cattle, and was at one time recommended for cultivation as fodder in wet places where other useful plants will not grow. The true forget-me-not—the Vergiss-mein-nicht of the German tale—grows in extraordinary luxuriance and beauty in these fresh grassy places. An amphibious little weed, with red-shaded green leaves floating on the water, and with pink spike-blossoms, called the persicaria, is beautiful and harmless when dancing on the rippled recesses of the river, but a bane to farming when it takes to a life on shore. We are close to Egham now, and may either put up at the “Angler’s Rest” or enter the town and seek bed and board at the “Catherine Wheel.”
LONDON STONE.