VIAT. Stay, what's here over the door? PISCATORIBUS SACRUM.* Why then, I perceive I have some title here; for I am one of them, though one of the worst; and here below it is the cypher too you spoke of, and 'tis prettily contrived. Has my master Walton ever been here to see it, for it seems new built?+

PISC. Yes, he saw it cut in the stone before it was set up; but never in the posture it now stands; for the house was but building when he was last here, and not raised so high as the arch of the door. And I am afraid he will not see it yet; for he has lately writ me word, he doubts his coming down this summer; which, I do assure you, was the worst news he could possibly have sent me.

VIAT. Men must sometimes mind their affairs to make more room for their pleasures: and 'tis odds he is as much displeased with the business that keeps him from you, as you are that he comes not. But I am most pleased with this little house of any thing I ever saw: it stands in a kind of peninsula too, with a delicate clear river about it. I dare hardly go in, lest I should not like it so well within as without: but, by your leave, I'll try. Why, this is better and better, fine lights, fine wainscoted, and all exceeding neat, with a marble table and all in the middle!

PISC. Enough, sir, enough; I have laid open to you the part where I can worst defend myself, and now you attack me there. Come, boy, set two chairs; and whilst I am taking a

*There is, under this motto, the cypher prefigured in the title-page to the second part of this work. And some part of the fishing-house has been already described; but the pleasantness of the river, mountains, and meadows about it, cannot, unless Sir Philip Sidney, or Mr. Cotton's father, were again alive to do it.

I have been favoured with an accurate description of this fishing-house, by a person, who, being in that country, with a view to oblige me, went to see it. The account he gave of it is, that it is of stone, and the room inside a cube of fifteen feet; that it is paved with black and white marble, and that in the middle is a square black marble table, supported by two stone feet. The room is wainscoted, with curious mouldings that divide the pannels up to the ceiling. In the larger pannels are represented, in painting, some of the most pleasant of the adjacent scenes, with persons fishing; and in the smaller, the various sorts of tackle and implements used in angling. In the farther corner, on the left, is a fire-place with a chimney; on the right, a large beaufet, with foldingdoors, whereon are the portraits of Mr. Cotton, with a boy servant, and Walton, in the dress of the time. Underneath is a cupboard; on the door whereof the figures of a trout and a grayling are well portrayed. The edifice is at this time (1748) in but indifferent condition; the paintings, and even the wainscoting, in many places, being much decayed.-Hawkins (son of Sir John).

pipe of tobacco, which is always my breakfast, we will, if you please, talk of some other subject.

VIAT. None fitter, then, sir, for the time and place, than those instructions you promised.

PISC. I begin to doubt, by something I discover in you, whether I am able to instruct you or no; though, if you are really a stranger to our clear northern rivers, I still think I can: and therefore, since it is yet too early in the morning at this time of the year, to-day being but the seventh of March, to cast a fly upon the water, if you will direct me what kind of fishing for a trout I shall read you a lecture on, I am willing and ready to obey you.

VIAT. Why, sir, if you will so far oblige me, and that it may not be too troublesome to you, I would entreat you would run through the whole body of it; and I will not conceal from you that I am so far in love with you, your courtesy, and pretty More-Land seat, as to resolve to stay with you long enough by intervals, for I will not oppress you to hear all you can say upon that subject.

PISC. You cannot oblige me more than by such a promise: and therefore, without more ceremony, I will begin to tell you, that my father Walton having read to you before, it would look like a presumption in me (and, peradventure, would do so in any other man), to pretend to give lessons for angling after him, who, I do really believe, understands as much of it at least as any man in England, did I not preacquaint you, that I am not tempted to it by any vain opinion of myself, that I am able to give you better directions; but having, from my childhood, pursued the recreation of angling in very clear rivers, truly I think by much, some of them at least, the clearest in this kingdom, and the manner of angling here with us, by reason of that exceeding clearness, being something different from the method commonly used in others, which by being not near so bright, admit of stronger tackle, and allow a nearer approach to the stream; I may peradventure give you some instructions that may be of use, even in your own rivers, and shall bring you acquainted with more flies, and show you how to make them, and with what dubbing too, than he has taken notice of in his COMPLETE ANGLER.

VIAT. I beseech you, sir, do: and if you will lend me your steel, I will light a pipe the while; for that is commonly my breakfast in a morning too.

S

258

CHAPTER IV.

[Second Day.]

PISC. Why then, sir, to begin methodically, as a master in any art should do; and I will not deny but that I think myself a master in this, I shall divide angling for trout or grayling into these three ways; at the top, at the bottom, and in the middle. Which three ways, though they are all of them, as I shall hereafter endeavour to make it appear, in some sort common to both those kinds of fish, yet are they not so generally and absolutely so, but that they will necessarily require a distinction, which, in due place, I will also give you.

That which we call angling at the top is with a fly; at the bottom, with a ground-bait; in the middle, with a minnow or ground-bait.

Angling at the top is of two sorts; with a quick [live] fly, or with an artificial fly.

That we call angling at the bottom is also of two sorts; by the hand, or with a cork or float.

That we call angling in the middle is also of two sorts; with a minnow for a trout, or with a ground-bait for a grayling.*

Of all which several sorts of angling, I will, if you can have the patience to hear me, give you the best account I can. VIAT. The trouble will be yours, and mine the pleasure and the obligation: I beseech you therefore to proceed. PISC. Why then, first of fly-fishing.

* Angling "in the middle," means trolling and spinning. Fishing with a ground-bait for grayling is not angling at the middle, but at the bottom. There is a method of fishing for grayling and other fish called "sinking and drawing," which consists in part of fishing at the bottom, the middle, and nearly at the top.

259

CHAPTER V.

OF FLY-FISHING.

[Second Day.]

PISC. Fly-fishing, or fishing at the top, is, as I said before, of two sorts; with a natural and living fly, or with an artificial and made fly.

First then, of the natural fly: of which we generally use but two sorts; and those but in the two months of May and June only; namely, the green drake and the stone-fly: though I have made use of a third, that way, called the camlet-fly, with very good success, for grayling, but never saw it angled with by any other, after this manner, my master only excepted, who died many years ago, and was one of the best anglers that ever I knew.

These are to be angled with, with a short line, not much more than half the length of your rod, if the air be still; or with a longer, very near, or all out, as long as your rod, if

you have wind to carry it from you. And this way of

any

fishing we call daping, dabbing, or dibbing;* wherein you are always to have your line flying before you up or down the river, as the wind serves, and to angle as near as you can to the bank of the same side whereon you stand, though where you see a fish rise near you, you may guide your quick [live] fly over him, whether in the middle, or on the contrary side; and if you are pretty well out of sight, either by kneeling or the interposition of a bank or bush, you may almost be sure to raise, and take him too, if it be presently done; the fish will, otherwise, peradventure be removed to some other place, if it be in the still deeps, where he is always in motion, and roving and down to look for prey, though, in a stream, you may always almost, especially if there be a good stone near, find him in the same place. Your line ought in this case to be three good hairs next the hook, both by reason you are in

up

* I have already described this mode of angling at the end of chap. iii. p. 49.-ED.

this kind of angling to expect the biggest fish, and also that wanting length to give him line after he is struck, you must be forced to tug for it; to which I will also add that not an inch of your line being to be suffered to touch the water in dibbing, it may be allowed to be the stronger. I should now give you a description of those flies, their shape and colour, and then give you an account of their breeding, and withal show you how to keep and use them; but shall defer them to their proper place and season.

VIAT. In earnest, sir, you discourse very rationally of this affair,* and I am glad to find myself mistaken in you; for in truth I did not expect so much from you.

PISC. Nay, sir, I can tell you a great deal more than this, and will conceal nothing from you. But I must now come to the second way of angling at the top, which is with an artificial fly, which also I will show you how to make before I have done, but first shall acquaint you, that with this you are to angle with a line longer by a yard and a half, or sometimes two yards, than your rod; and with both this and the other, in a still day in the streams, in a breeze that curls the water in the still deeps, where (excepting in May and June, that the best trouts will lie in shallow streams to watch for prey, and even then too) you are like to hit the best fish.

For the length of your rod, you are always to be governed by the breadth of the river you shall chuse to angle at; and for a trout-river, one of five or six yards long † is commonly enough; and longer, though never so neatly and artificially made, it ought not to be, if you intend to fish at ease; and if otherwise, where lies the sport?

Of these, the best that ever I saw are made in Yorkshire, which are all of one piece; that is to say, of several, six, eight, ten, or twelve pieces, so neatly pieced and tied together with fine thread below, and silk above, as to make it taper like a switch, and to ply with a true bent to your hand; and these too are light, being made of fir-wood for two or three lengths nearest to the hand, and of other wood nearer to the top, that a man might very easily manage the longest of

*This compliment is well-deserved: Cotton understood "daping, dabbing, or dibbing" well, and teaches it soundly.-Ed.

Too long by one or two yards. See remarks on fishing-rods at the end of chap. xxi., part i.-ED.