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THE OCTOBER HOLE, NEAR HODDESDON, ON THE LEA.

his angling doings. It was under a honeysuckle hedge on the banks of the Lea that he talked to his scholar of the pleasures he had there found.

"Look, under that broad beach-tree, I sat down when I was last this way a-fishing and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that primrose hill: there I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea; yet sometimes opposed by rugged roots and pebble stones, which broke their waves and turned them into foam; and sometimes I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs, some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the cheerful sun; and saw others craving comfort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat these and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, that I thought, as the poet has happily expressed it—

I was for that time lifted above earth,

And possess'd joys not promised in my birth.'

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Presently we come to Hoddesdon, where was the "Thatcht-House," where "Venator" proposed to "drink his morning draft." "A cottage at the northern extremity of the town is pointed

out as the original, but it is doubtful," says Thorne, and if doubtful then it must be more

so now.

Broxbourne is the next place which may detain us for a minute.

Want's Inn is, or was in

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Thorne's time, much frequented by London anglers. Passing Wormley and Cheshunt we reach Waltham Cross, erected by Edward I. to the memory of his consort Eleanor. It is of great beauty. We soon reach Edmonton, in whose churchyard lie the remains of Charles

Lamb. It was at Edmonton that John Gilpin and his wife should have dined. A painting of Gilpin's ride is fixed outside a public house in the town, and the house is commonly known as Gilpin's Bell"; it is not "the Bell at

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dine, but it is the house which was much frequented by Charles Lamb.

About a mile from Edmonton, by the Lea side, stands Bleak Hall, the house to which "Piscator" took his scholar "Venator," and which was then "an honest alehouse where might be found a cleanly room, lavendar in the windows,

I

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