mallard's feather for the wings.' And you are to know, that these two are most excellent flies, that is, the Mayfly and the Oak-fly.

And let me again tell you, that you keep as far from the water as you can possibly, whether you fish with a fly or worm; and fish down the stream. And when you fish with a fly, if it be possible, let no part of your line touch the water, but your fly only; and be still moving your fly upon the water, or casting it into the water, you yourself being also always moving down the stream.

Mr. Barker commends several sorts of the palmer-flies; not only those ribbed with silver and gold, but others that have their bodies all made of black; or some with red, and a red hackle. You may also make the HAWTHORN-FLY: which is all black, and not big but very small, the smaller the better. Or the oak-fly,* * See the prethe body of which is orange colour and black ceding page. crewel, with a brown wing. Or a fly made with a peacock's feather is excellent in a bright day: you must be sure you want not in your magazine-bag the peacock's

(1) Some dub the Oak-fly, with black wool, and Isabella-coloured mohair, and bright brownish bear's hair, warped on with yellow silk, but the head of an ashcolour; others dub it with an orange, tawny, and black ground; others with blackish wool and gold-twist; the wings of the brown of a mallard's feather. Bowlker, in his Art of Angling, p. 63, says, "The body may be made of a bittern's feather, and the wings of the feather of a woodcock's wing."

(2) This is impossible, unless you dib with the artificial as with the natural fly, which is never practised. The method of throwing or casting is more particularly treated of, in the notes on Chap. V. Part II.

(3) A brother of the angle must always be sped
With three black palmers, and also two red;
And all made with hackles. In a cloudy day,
Or in windy weather, angle you may:

But morning and evening, if the day be bright:
And the chief point of all is to keep out of sight.
"In the month of May, none but the May-fly,
"For every month, one," is a pitiful lye.

The black Hawthorn-fly must be very small;

And the sandy hog's hair is, sure, best of all

(For the mallard-wing May-fly, and peacock's train,

Will look like the flesh-fly,) to kill Trout amuin.

feather; and grounds of such wool and crewel as will make the grasshopper. And note, that usually the smallest flies are the best; and note also, that the light fly does usually make most sport in a dark day, and the darkest and least fly in a bright or clear day: and lastly note, that you are to repair upon any occasion to your magazine-bag; and upon any occasion, vary and make them lighter or sadder, according to your fancy, or the day.

And now I shall tell you, that the fishing with a NATURAL-FLY is excellent, and affords much pleasure. They may be found thus: the May-fly, usually in and about that month, near to the river side, especially against rain: the Oak fly, on the butt or body of an oak or ash, from the beginning of May to the end of August; it is a brownish fly and easy to be found, and stands usually with his head downward, that is to say, towards the root of the tree:' the small black-fly, or Hawthorn-fly,

* Compare this with

what is said

The Oak-fly is good, if it have a brown wing.
So is the grasshopper, that in July doth sing:
With a green body make him, on a middle-siz'd hook,
But when you have catcht fish, then play the good cook.
Once more, my good brother, I'll speak in thy ear:
Hog's, red cow's, and bear's wool, to float best appear:

at the end of And so doth your fur, if rightly it fall:

Walton's

Preface.

But always remember, Make two, and make all.*
A specimen of Mr. Barker's poetry!

(1) The Oak-fly is known also by the names of the Ash-fly and the Woodcock. fly; and in Shropshire it is called the cannon or Downhill-fly. Bowlker, in his Art of Angling, page 63, says: "This fly, as I have lately been informed by a gentleman of veracity, is bred in those little balls which grow on the boughs of large oaks, commonly called oak-apples; which he accidentally discovered, by opening several of these balls which had been gathered in the winter, and brought into the house; in each of which was found the cannon-fly, some of which being enlivened by the warmth of the room immediately took flight, and fixed in the window with the head downwards, the position they observe on the trees." This discovery, by which the formation of galls is accounted for, as well as the substances above-mentioned, was made long ago by the sagacious Malpighi, who had with great diligence attended to the operations of insects in the act of depositing their eggs; and in his treatise De Gallis, he describes the hollow instrument wherewith many flies are provided, with which they perforate the tegument of leaves, fruits, or buds, and through the hollow of it inject their eggs into the wounds which they have made, where, in process of time, they hatch

is to be had on any hawthorn bush after the leaves be come forth. With these and a short line,

(as I shewed to angle for a Chub,*) you * See page 53. may dape or dop, and also with a grasshop

per, behind a tree, or in any deep hole; still making it to move on the top of the water as if it were alive, and still keeping yourself out of sight, you shall certainly have sport if there be Trouts; yea, in a hot day, but especially in the evening of a hot day, you will have sport.

And now, scholar, my direction for fly-fishing is ended with this shower, for it has done raining. And now look about you, and see how pleasantly that meadow looks; nay, and the earth smells as sweetly too. Come let me tell you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as these, and then we will thank God that we enjoy them, and walk to the river and sit down quietly, and try to catch the other brace of Trouts.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,

for thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

and thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;

My music shews you have your closes,

and all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives,

But when the whole world turns to coal,

then chiefly lives.

and are nourished; and this he beheld one of these insects doing in the bud of an oak. See Malpighi, de Gallis, page 47. See also Dr. Plot's History of Staffordshire, 224.

And Dr. Derham says, he himself" had once the good fortune to see an oakball ichneumon strike its terebra into an oak-apple divers times, no doubt to lay its eggs therein." Phys. Theol. Book viii. Chap. 6. Note bb.

There is no comparison between the first of these authorities and those of the two persons last-mentioned: but it is pleasing to apply the accidental discoveries of unlearued men to the confirmation of hypotheses of which they are ignorant.

Ven. I thank you, good master, for your good direction for fly-fishing, and for the sweet enjoyment of the pleasant day, which is so far spent without offence to God or man: and I thank you for the sweet close of your discourse with Mr. Herbert's verses; who, I have heard, loved angling; and I do the rather believe it, because he had a spirit suitable to anglers, and to those primitive Christians that you love, and have so much commended.

Pisc. Well, my loving scholar, and I am pleased to know that you are so well pleased with my direction and discourse.

And since you like these verses of Mr. Herbert's so well, let me tell you what a reverend and learned divine that professes to imitate him, (and has indeed done so most excellently,) hath writ of our book of Common Prayer; which I know you will like the better, because he is a friend of mine, and I am sure no enemy to angling.'

What! PRAY'R by the BOOK? and COMMON? Yes; why not?

The spirit of grace
And supplication
Is not left free ulone
For time and place,

But manner top: TO READ, OR SPEAK, by rote,

Is all alike to him that prays,

In's heart, what with his mouth he says.

They that in private, by themselves alone,

Do pray, may take
What liberty they please,
In chusing of the ways
Wherein to make

Their soul's most intimate affections known

To him that sees in secret, when

Th' are most conceal'd from other men.

(1) This passage goes very near to unfold to us a secret in literary history, viz, the name of the author of the Synagogue, a collection of poems, suppletory to that of Mr. George Herbert entitled the Temple. For we see "Ch. Harvie" subscribed to the ensuing EULOGIUM on the Common Prayer, WHICH is also to be found in the Synagogue. And I find in the Athen. Oxon. Vol. I. 267. a Christopher Hurvey; a Master of Arts, Vicar of Clifton in Warwickshire; born in 1597, and who lived to 1663, and perhaps after. Further, the second copy of commendatory verses, prefixed to this book, has the subscription "Ch.

But he that unto others leads the way

In public prayer,

Should do it so,

As all, that hear, may know
They need not fear

To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say

Amen; not doubt they were betray'd

To blaspheme, when they meant to have pray'd.
Devotion will add life unto the letter:

And why should not
That which authority
Prescribes, esteemed be
Advantage got?

If th' prayer be good, the commoner the better,
Prayer in the Church's WORDS as well
AS SENSE, of all prayers bears the bell.

CH. HARVIE.

And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our angle-rods, which we left in the water to fish for themselves; and shall choose which shall be yours; and it is an even lay, one of them catches.

you

And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying night-hooks, are like putting money to use; for they both work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares under this sycamore, as Virgil's Tityrus and his Melibœus did under their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is pre

Harvie, M.A." The presumption, therefore, is very strong, that both were written by the Christopher Harvey above-mentioned. At the end of the Synagogue are some verses subscribed " Iz. Wa."

(1) These verses were written at or near the time when the Liturgy was abolished by an ordinance of parliament, and while it was agitating, as a theological question, whether, of the two, pre-conceived or extemporary prayer be most agreeable to the sense of Scripture? In favour of the former, I have heard it asserted by a very eloquent person, and one of the ablest writers both in prose and verse now living, that he never, without premeditation, could address his Maker in terms suited to his conceptions; and that of all written composition he had found that of prayer to be the most difficult. Of the same opinion is a very eminent prelate of this day; who, (being himself an excellent judge of literature), in a conversation on the subject, declared it to me, at the same time saying, that, excepting those in the Liturgy, he looked on the prayers of Dr. Jeremy Taylor, that occur in the course of his works, as by far the most eloquent and energetic of any in our language.