The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 328, August 23, 1828. Various

return to the rivers. At this time there are, in consequence, many young trouts, which remain, I should imagine, till next year, when I believe they go to the rivers; for during that time I have seldom caught trouts weighing more than from half a pound to a pound, though in such a "beck" as "Cannon's," which runs directly into the Eden, I have taken them at all times very large—and this is how I account for the difference. I should observe, that at the "back end" of the year, immensely large trouts may be caught, which come up to spawn; but they are generally, when caught, immediately thrown into their element again, as they are worth nothing, on account of the looseness of their flesh.

      But to the subject. Trout binning is a name given to a peculiar method of taking trout. A man wades any rocky stream (Pot-beck for instance) with a sledge-hammer, with which he strikes every stone likely to contain fish. The force of the blow stuns the fish, and they roll from under the rock half dead, when the "binner" throws them out with his hand.

      Night-Fishing.—I have frequently gone out with a fishing party at about ten o'clock at night to spear trout. We supplied ourselves with an eel spear and a lantern, and visited Cannon's "beck." We drew the light gently over the water near the brink. Immediately the light appeared, both trouts and eels were splashing about the lantern in great quantities. We then took the spear, and as they approached, thrust it down upon them, sometimes bringing up with it three or four together. One night we took nearly twenty pounds of trout and eels, which, for the short time we were out, may be considered very fair sport, and some of those were of a very large size.

      Should you notice this, I may be led to recur to the subject in a future paper.

      1

      The sum of 144l. 5s. was expended in the rebuilding.

      2

      By an odd mode of expression in the MS., it should seem as if this tower itself, or at

1

The sum of 144l. 5s. was expended in the rebuilding.

2

By an odd mode of expression in the MS., it should seem as if this tower itself, or at least some building adjoining it, was formerly made use of as a royal residence, for the words are, from hence went a fair embattled wall, guarded for the most part with the mill-stream underneath, till it came in the high tower, going under St. George's College, and the king's house employed formerly as a campanile belonging to that church.

3

Grose fell into an error on this point, in his 3rd volume of Antiquitica, for in his copy of Aga's plan, he placed a large keep tower just at the foot of an artificial mount—an anomaly in fortification. The same punster who described fortification as two twenty fications, would call this a Grose blunder.

4

When Robert D'Oiley, in the reign of Henry V. built the abbey at Osney, for monks and regulars, and gave them the revenues, &c. of the church of St. George, in the Castle, it is said in the Osney chronicle, that there "Robert Pulen began to read at Oxford the Holy Scriptures, which had fallen into neglect in England. And after both the church of England and that of France had profited greatly by his doctrine, he was called away by Pope Lucius II., who made him chancellor of the holy Roman church." This short effort, to which the Pope's preferment put a stop, seems to have been the true origin of the DIVINITY LECTURE, and of the DIVINITY SCHOOLS at Oxford; and of the studies of the SORBONNE at Paris.