Hal. At Lintz, on the Danube, I could have given you a fish dinner of a different description, which you might have liked as a variety. The four kinds of perch, the spiegil carpfen, and the siluris glanis; all good fish, and which I am sorry we have not in England, where I doubt not they might be easily naturalized, and where they would form an admirable addition to the table in inland counties. Since England has become Protestant, the cultivation of fresh water fish has been much neglected. The burbot, or lotte, which already exists in some of the streams tributary to the Trent, and which is a most admirable fish, might be diffused without much difficulty; and nothing could be more easy than to naturalize the spiegil carpfen and siluris; and I see no reason why the perca lucio perca and zingil should not succeed in some of our clear lakes and ponds, which abound in coarse fish. The new Zoological Society, I hope, will attempt something of this kind; and it will be a better object than introducing birds and beasts of prey—though I have no objection to any sources of rational amusement or philosophical curiosity.
Conveying Fish.
Phys.—In Austria, the art of carrying and keeping fish is better understood than in England. Every inn has a box containing grayling, trout, carp, or char, into which water from a spring runs; and no one thinks of carrying or sending dead fish for a dinner. A fish-barrel full of cool water, which is replenished at every fresh source amongst these mountains, is carried on the shoulders of the fisherman. And the fish, when confined in wells, are fed with bullock's liver, cut into fine pieces, so that they are often in better season in the tank or stew than when they were taken. I have seen trout, grayling, and char even, feed voraciously, and take their food almost from the hand. These methods of carrying and preserving fish have, I believe, been adopted from the monastic establishments. At Admondt, in Styria, attached to the magnificent monastery of that name, are abundant ponds and reservoirs for every species of fresh water fish; and the char, grayling, and trout are preserved in different waters— covered, enclosed, and under lock and key.
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
PAROCHIAL HISTORIES.
We wonder why clergymen do not oftener write accounts of their parishes; not mere statistical accounts, though these are most valuable, as witness the contributions of the Scottish Clergy to the truly patriotic Sir John Sinclair's work; but accounts comprehending every thing interesting to all human beings, whatever be their political or religious creed. A description of a church that has principally ceased to exist, is in general very, very, very dry; inscriptions on tombstones, without comment, or moral, are hard reading; an old pan dug up among rubbish proves a sore affliction in the hands of the antiquary, and twenty pages quarto, with plates, about a rusty spur without a rowel, is, in our humble opinion, an abuse of the art of printing. But how easy—how pleasant, to mix up together all sorts of information in due proportions into one whole, in the shape of an octavo—epitomizing every kind of history belonging to the parish, from peer's palace to peasant's hut! What are clergymen perpetually about? Not always preaching and praying; or marrying, christening, and burying people. They ought to tell us all about it; to moralize, to poetize, to philosophize; to paint the manners living as they rise, or dead as they fall; to take Time by the forelock, and measure the marks of his footsteps; to show us the smoke curling up from embowered chimneys; or, since woods must go down, to record the conquests of the biting axe; to celebrate the raising of every considerable roof-tree, to lament all dilapidations and crumbling away of ivied walls; to inform us how many fathoms deep is the lake with its abbeyed island—why the pool below the aged bridge gets shallower and shallower every year, so that it can no more shelter a salmon—what are the sports, and games, and pastimes of the parishioners—what books they read, if any—if the punishment of the stocks be obsolete—or the stang—or the jougs—if the bowels of the people yearn after strange doctrine—if the parish has produced any good or great murderer, incendiary, or other criminal. In short, why might not the history of each of the twenty or thirty thousand parishes of Great Britain—we speak at random—be each a history of human nature, at once entertaining and instructive? How infinitely better such books than pamphlets on political economy, for example, now encumbering the whole land! Nay, even than single sermons, or bundles of sermons, all like so many sticks—strong when tied all together, but when taken separately, weak and frush. We have no great opinion of county histories in general, though we believe there are some goodish ones, from which we purpose, ere long, to construct some superior articles. A county history, to be worth much, should run from sixty to six hundred volumes. No library could well stand that for many years. But a judicious selection might be made from the thirty thousand parish histories—that would afford charming reading to the largest family during the longest nights—in the intervals between the Scotch Novels. Form the circle round the fire—when winter crimps and freezes—or round the open bow-window, now that summer roasts and broils, and get her whose voice is like a silver bell to read it up, right on from beginning to end, only skipping a few lists of names now and then, and we pledge our credit on the prediction, that you will be delighted as on a summer ramble, now in sunlight and now in moonlight, over hill and dale, adorned with towers, turrets, pinnacles of halls and churches, and the low roofs,—blue or brown, slated or strawed.—
"Of huts where poor men lie!"
Blackwood's Magazine.