There are two rivers bearing the beautiful name of the Dove—a name derived from “the shimmering gleam of water, corresponding to the lustre of the dove’s white wing.” There are also two Dove Dales. In Longfellow’s “Poems of Places,” Wordsworth’s tender verses beginning—
“She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,”
are often ascribed to the Derbyshire river, which is more than worthy of such a dedication. But the Dove which the venerable recluse of Rydal Mount referred to is the wayward mountain streamlet of his own beloved Lakeland; and the Dove Dale of that district, in its romantic beauty and historic associations, is but a wayside dell in comparison with the enchanting glen where Izaak Walton discoursed upon philanthropy and fishing, and the gallant Charles Cotton alternately entertained the ancient angler, and hid himself in caves to escape the polite attentions of unpleasant creditors. The phrase, however—
“A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,”
aptly, if unconsciously, describes Dove Head, where the Derbyshire Dove escapes from the morose moorlands of Axe Edge, the mountain cradle of four other rivers—the Wye, the Dane, the Goyt, and the Manifold.
