I did not demand, Mr. Rambler,
the critical acumen of Mrs. Montagu, or the erudition of Mrs.
Carter, but I believe you will agree with me that a wife, and
especially the wife of a clergyman and a scholar, should be able to
read a page of Dr. Barrow's sermons without yawning, and should not
drop Mr. Pope's Iliad or Odyssey in five minutes unless she happened
to light upon some particularly exciting adventure. I therefore
dismissed the thought of these young ladies, and the daughters of
the surveyor were for the same reasons ineligible, with the added
objection that if I chose one of them the squire and his family
would never enter the church again.
One day I went over to B. to leave my watch for repairs. I noticed
a fishing-rod in the shop, and as I was fond of the sport I asked
the watchmaker if it was his. He said that he generally went
fishing when he could spare himself a holiday, and that he had just
spent two days on the Avon. I was thinking of the Stratford river
and foolishly inquired which Avon, forgetting the one near us.
'Our Avon,' he replied; 'our Avon, of course, sir; THE Avon.
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