LONDON'AND'NEW YORK' -^•(^r COLLEGIUM T/' COLLEGIUM BOSTONIENSE i. Memarial (Qallectiuu Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 witii funding from Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries http://www.arcliive.org/details/compleatanglerOOwalt THE COMPLEAT ANGLER / ZA^i': w/iMvK THE COMPLEAT ANGLER BY IZAAK WALTON AND CHARLES COTTON ■^ Edited with an Introduction by RICHARD LE GALLIENNE Illustrated by EDMUND H. NEW JOHN LANE The Bodley Head LONDON &f NEW YORK MDCCCXC-VII 0)7/ V 33 1^ \J lij iJ) \J ^ Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson Sf Co. At the Ballantyne Press ^mESTNlJT HIT..!,. MASS. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROBERT OFFLEY ASHBURTON EARL OF CREWE OF MADELEY MANOR, IN THE COUNTY OF STAFFORD THIS NEW EDITION OF THE COMPLEAT ANGLER IS HUMBLY DEDICATED Lord of the Madeley peace, the quiet grass. The lilied fond, and muffled sleepy mill; Lord of each legendary fsh that swims Deep down and swift beneath that emerald glass ; While, soft as shadows, round its grassy rims The patient anglers tnove from east to west. Patient at morn, at evening patient still — Peace, if not fish, was theirs, and peace is best : To you, John Offlef s far-descended son. What to your grandsire — past computing " great " — Our Walton gave is here re-dedicate ; Heirloom of ancient friendship friendly still In this old book, though all the talk be done. R. Le G. _.».«i«^ EDITORIAL NOTE The text of this edition is a reprint of the fifth (the last to receive Walton's own revision), w^ith which it has been carefully collated. The spelling has been mcdernised. For his introduction the Editor is indebted to the usual authorities, particularly to Sir Harris Nicolas. In compiling the Notes he has followed the example of his forerunners, and attempted little beyond a selection from the Notes of previous editors, whose work is acknowledged by their initials ; though here and there, with Mr. New's aid, he has been able to elucidate a topographical allusion. " N " stands for Sir Harris Nicolas, " E " for Sir Henry Ellis, «H" for Sir John Hawkins, "M" for Major, and " B " for Dr. Bethune, the American editor of Walton, who has brought much out-of-the-way reading to the illustration of Walton, though he is apt occasionally to be careless, and, what is worse, facetious, and apt, too, to append "Am. Ed." to a note which is mainly a pr}cis of the Notes of previous editions. To Mr. R. H. Shepherd's Waltoniana the Editor is indebted for one or two items in the Appendix, and to Mr. R. B. Marston, the owner of the copyright, for permission to reprint Westwood's Bibliography, as also for kindly aid in bringing it up to date. CONTENTS Part I The First Day Chap. 'Page I. Conference betwixt an Angler, a Hunter, and a Falconer ; each commending his recreation . . . . .21 The Second Day II. Observations of the Otter and Chub ..... 64 The Third Day III. How to fish for, and to dress, the Chavender or Chub . . 73 IV. Observations of the nature and breeding of the Trout, and how to fish for him ; and the Milkmaid's Song . 79 V. More directions how to fish for, and how to make for the Trout an Artificial Minnow and Fly ; and some merri- ment .......... 94 The Fourth Day VI. Observations of the Umber or Grayling ; and directions how to fish for him . . . . . . . .138 ix Contents Chap. T/ige VII. Observations of the Salmon ; with directions how to fish for him .......... 142 VIII. Observations of the Luce, or Pike ; with directions how to fish for him ........ 149 IX. Observations of the Carp ; with directions how to fish for him . . . . . . . . . .160 X. Observations of the Bream ; and directions to catch him . 169 XI. Observations of the Tench ; and advice how to angle for him 177 XII. Observations of the Pearch ; and directions how to fish for him 180 XIII. Observations of the Eel, and other Fish that want Scales ; and how to fish for them . . . . . .185 XIV. Observations of the Barbel ; aud directions how to fish for him .......... 194 XV. Observations of the Gudgeon, the RufFe, and the Bleak ; and how to fish for them . . . . . . .199 XVI. Is of Nothing 203 The Fifth Day XVII. Of Roach and Dace, and how to fish for them ; and of Cadis . . . . . . . . . .213 XVIII. Of the Minnow or Penk, of the Loach, and of the Bull-Head or Miller's Thumb ....... 224 XIX. Of several Rivers ; and some Observations of Fish . . 228 XX. Of Fish-Ponds, and how to order them .... 233 XXI. Directions for making of a Line, and for the colouring of both Rod and Line ........ 236 X Contents Part II Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream by Charles Cotton 'The First Day Chap. 'P'^ge I. Conference betwixt a country Gentleman proficient in the Art of Fly-fishing and a Traveller who becomes his Pupil 269 II. Observations of the principal Rivers in Derbyshire; Viator lodges at Piscator Junior's House ..... 279 'The Second Day III. Conference containing an account of Mr. Cotton's fishing- house -. . 291 IV. Of Angling for Trout or Grayling at the " Top," at the " Middle," and at the " Bottom " 297 V. Of Fly-fishing and Fly-making ...... 299 VI. A practical Lesson in Fly-fishing for Trout and Grayling . 307 VII. Of artificial Flies for the months of January, February, March, April, and May ; showing also how to dib or dape with the Green-Drake or May-fly, and how to make that famous Fly artificially . . . . . . .317 VIII. Of the Stone-Fly ; also a list of Flies for June, July, August, September, October, November, and December ; with some remarks on the Green-Drake and Stone-Fly and on Poaching . . . _ -335 xi Contents The Third Day Chap. Tage IX. A Short Dialogue ; Viator fishes by himself. . . . 343 X. Directions how to dress a Trout or Grayling . . . 345 XI. Of AngUng at the Bottom for Trout or Grayling . . 347 XII. Of Angling at the Middle for Trout or Grayling : Farewell of Viator with Piscator Junior ..... 353 Appendix .......... 359 Notes .......... 394 The Anglers' Calendar, by Hi Regan .... 429 xu !H^te to the Illustrations The primary aim of the Artist has been to illustrate " The Compleat Jngler" as thoroughly as possible from a topographical point of view. The majority of the engravings illustrate the routes described by Walton^ from Tottenham to Ware, and by Cotton, from Brailsford to his seat at Beresford Hall; and places connected with the lives of the Authors. Jldaps are also given for the better understanding of the routes. Many of the scenes, especially those nearer the Metropolis, have changed sadly, and several buildings of interest have disappeared or been altered beyond recognition. In these cases the drawings have been made from old pictures or prints, and their origin is given in the List of Illustrations. Wherever possihle, the drawings have been made on the spot, hut in several instances the Artist has made use of photographs, and wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Messrs. R. Bull [Ashbourne), Griffin [Weybridge), Poulton, Salmon [Winchester), Valentine, and Wilson. He is also indebted to Messrs. C. A. and C. P. Christie, Dr. Horley, Messrs. E. Marsh, P. Norman, f. Tydeman, f. F. Wardle, and others for their kind and courteous assistance. As for the fish, they have been studied alive and dead; alive, in their element, for there alone can their varied motions be learnt ; and dead, that their form might be more correctly given. The decorative headings and initials speak for themselves ; they will all be seen to have a connection, more or less obvious, with the context. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Full Page Tage Izaak Walton [Photogravure) ...... To face tide From the portrait by Jacob Huystnafi in the National Gallery. Charles Cotton [Photogravure) . . . . .To face page Ixxi From the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely in the possession of Stapleton Martin, Esq. Statue of Izaak Walton on the Great Screen at Winchester Cathedral xxvii Greengate Street, Stafford ........ xxviii Walton was said to have been born in the tifnber house on the left. The Corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, showing house once occupied by Walton ......... xli From an engraving in the British Museum. Prior Silksteed's Chapel in the South Transept of Winchester Cathedral xlvii Walton lies buried just inside the open door. To the left lie his daughter and son-in-lazv ^ Dr. and Mrs. William Hawkins. On the " Shawford Brook " near Walton's Cottage Farnham Castle ...... The Fishing House, Beresford Dale Entrance to the Fishing House XV . Ixiii . Ixvii Ixxv Ixxxiii List of Illustrations -Page Ixxxvi 20 23 Madeley Church ......... Here John Offley lies buried. Madeley Manor .......... From the engraving in Plot's History of Staffordshire. Map of the River Lea from Waltham to Tottenham .... Tottenham High Cross ......... From an engraving by Rawle after an original drawing by Drutmnotid published in 1804. Tottenham High Cross ......... 27 Bruce Castle, Tottenham ....... From an ancient picture at Bruce Castle. Ashmole's House in Ship Yard ....... Frojn an engraving in the British Museum. Waltham Cross ......... After an engraving by G. J. Parkins from a drawing by T. Under- zuood, published in 1791 ; in the possession off. Tydeman, Esq. Waltham Cross ....... An " Eleanor" cross, built in 1294. The " Four Swans " Inn and Sign, Waltham Cross . This Inn is said to date fro?n the end of the \'^th century. Map of the River Lea from Ware to Cheshunt . The " Four Swans," Waltham Cross The Abbey Gate and Church Tower of Waltham Abbey Theobald's Park, from the New River The seat of Sir Henry B. Meux, Bart. The "Bulls Head" Inn, Turnford .... Shawford Brook . . . . . Behind Walton's Cottage at Shallow ford. 32 47 53 57 61 66 83 89 100 108 126 XVI List of Illustrations Rawdon House, Hoddesdon Built in 1622 by Sir Marmaduke Rawdon, At Hoddesdon ..... The Great Bed of Ware .... This bed is said to have been made in 1463, and is mentioned by Shake- speare in " Twelfth Night." It is now kept at the Rye House Inn. At Hoddesdon ....... Showing the Bull Hotel and Clock Tower. The " Red Lion " and Baesh's School, Stanstead Abbots The Old Church, Stanstead Abbots The Ruins of Netherhall The ancient seat of the Colt family Amwell Church from above View at Ware from the river bridge Summer-houses on the Lea at Ware Baldock Street, Ware On the Lea at Ware Beresford Hall (now demolished) The seat of Charles Cotton. Map of the road from Brailsford to Ashbourne Ashbourne Church from the South West .... Ashbourne ......... The main street, from the Church, showing the Grammar School on The " Green Man and Black's Head," Ashbourne Map of the Dove from Hartington to Thorpe . xvii the left Tage 163 173 187 197 209 221 229 241 260 268 271 285 290 List of Illustrations Thorpe Cloud ....... ^rissington Hall ....... The seat of the FitzHerbert family. Bridge over the Dove at Milldale ; below Hanson Toot Alstonfield Church from the East Interior of Alston field Church . The Pike Pool in Beresford Dale The Fishing House (front view) Charles Cotton's Pew in Alstonfield Church In Beresford Dale (looking up) ■Page 293 301 309 313 32 J 325 329 339 355 Vignettes, &c. The Fishing House ........ Arms of Dr. Hawkins ........ Walton's son-in-law, from the tomb at Winchester. St. Mary's Church, Stafford In this church Walton was baptized. House at Stafford (now demolished) ...... Walton's probable birth-place. The Royal Exchange in Walton's time ..... Izaak Walton's Marriage Chest ...... In the possession of the Right Honourable the Earl of Warwick, The inscription runs as follows : IZAAK WALTON. RACHEL FLOUD. Joyned Together In Ye Holie Sonde Of Wedlocke On Ye z-]th Daie Of Decembere. A. 1626 D. WE ONCE WERE TWO, WE TWO MADE ONE WE NO MORE TWO, THROUGH LIFE BEE ONE. xviii Title Page . xxvi XXIX xxxn . XXXV xxxvii List of Illustrations St. Dunstan's in the West Walto?i's Parish church. ch, Stafford. Stafford, from the Sow ...... Temple Bar before the Fire ..... Walton's Cottage at Shallowford, near Stafford . Bishop Morley's Palace, Winchester A corner in Walton's cottage at Shallowford Remains of Hall, Fenny Bentley .... A seat of the Beresford family. Tomb of Sir Thomas Beresford in Fenny Bentley church An ancestor of Charles Cotton. Charles Cotton's cave, Beresford Dale Izaak Walton Fro7n the bust in St. Mary's Chu, Coltsfoot .... Arms of John Offley, Esq. From his tomb in Madeley Church. Ruins of Madeley Manor Sallow Willow Old House at Madeley Madeley Church from the East Primroses .... Heading, " First Day " . Standon Manor Compiled from engravings in Chauncy's and Clutterbuck's Histories of Hertfordshire, and a drawing by Samuel Ireland in the British Museum. xix Tage xlix liv lix Ixi Ixvi Ixx Ixxi Ixxix , Ixxxv Ixxxvii I 3 5 6 7 9 II 21 24 List of Illustrations Tage Tottenham Hill and Cross ........ 3a Tottenham Church from the N.E. . . 1 34 " Cook's Ferry " 37 Formerly an inn of this name ; at one time known as Bleak Hall. Almshouses in Edmonton Churchyard ...... 41 John Tradescant .......... 45 After the engraving in the " Musaum Tradescantianum." Tradescant's House at Lambeth (now demolished) .... 46 Elias Ashmole .......... 49 After the engraving in the " Theatrum chemicum 'Britannicum." Edmonton Church from the S.W. . . . . . . .51 Toll Bridge, Flanders Weir Fishery ...... 55 Chingford Church from the S.E 58 The " Old Thatched House " Inn, Hoddesdon . . . . -63 Now the offices of Messrs. Christie, brewers. Heading, "Second Day" .64 Heading, " Third Day " 68 Harold's Bridge, Waltham . • T^ Chub 73 At Waltham Abbey 77 Marsh marigolds .......... 78 Trout . . . .... . . . . . -79 At Waltham Abbey 81 Interior of Waltham Abbey ........ 86 Cottages on the road near " Theobalds " 88 XX List of Illustrations Tage Hawthorn Blossom .......... 90 Primroses . . . . . . . . . . -91 Theobald's Lane, near the site of the Palace ..... 94 Amwell Magna Fishery ; part of the river Lea, below Amwell . . 98 Salmon Trout ........... 102 Heading, " Fourth Day " 103 Theobald's Palace . . . . . . . . . .105 From the engraving in the Vetusta Monumenta after the picture in the FitzWilliam Museum, Cambridge. Interior of Theobald's Palace ........ 107 From an engraving in the 'British Museum. House on the site of Theobald's Palace, showing ancient windows . 1 1 1 Back of the " Cock " Inn, Waltham, lately rebuilt . . . • 115 From a photograph in the possession of C. A. Christie, Esq., Hoddesdon. Cheshunt Church . . . . . . . . . .117 Interior of Cheshunt Great House . . . . . . .120 This was the manor-house of St. Andrews-le-Mote which was given by Henry VIII. to Cardinal Wolsey, and in the next century belonged to the Dennys and Dacres {Murray). GoiFs Oak 121 This oak is said to have been planted in 1066, by Sir Theodore Godfrey. Rose . . . . . . . . . . . .123 Heading " The Angler's Song " ....... 127 Bridge over the Shawford Brook ....... 128 Cheshunt Great House ......... 133 The Lea at Broxbourne ......... 137 Grayling . 138 xxi List of Illustrations Tage Broxbourne Church from the river . . . . . . -141 Salmon . . . . . . . . . ' . . • 14^ Ancient Market Hall, Hoddesdon (now demolished) . . . .145 From a?i engraving in the possession of Dr. Horky, Hoddesdon. Young Salmon . . . . . . . . . .148 Pike 149 Pike rising after small fish . . . , . . . -159 Carp . . . . . . . . . . . .160 Water Frog . . . . . . . . . . .166 The " Rye House" Inn, on the Banks of the Lea . . . .168 Bream . . . . . . . . . . . .169 Hoddesdon Clock Tower . . . . . . . .171 From an old print in the British (Museum. Pike chasing small fishes . . . . . . . . .175 Tench . . . . . . . . . . . .177 The Rye-House . . . . . . . . . • ^79 From a water-colour drawing made by J. Buckler in 1826, in the British (Museum. Perch . 180 DafFodils 182 Amwell Church from the river . . . . . . .184 Eels _ 185 Great Amwell . . . .189 From an engraving by W. Watts, after a drawing by F. Feary in " The Poetical Works of John Scott," 2nd Edition, 1795. xxii List of Illustrations Tage Amwell Magna Fishery ; part of the Lea, below Amwell . . . igi Charr . . . . . . . . . . . .192 Guiniad . . . . . . . . . . . .193 Barbel 194 Gudgeon . . . . . . . . . . .199 RufFe or Pope ........... 200 Sir Henry Wotton .......... 201 Bleak 202 Amwell from the Lea Valley ........ 203 Water Lilies . . . . . . ' . . . . . 206 Heading "Fifth Day" 211 The " George the Fourth " Inn, Amwell, formerly The " Quart Pot " 212 Roach 213 Dace 217 Amwell Church from the Lea valley . . . . . . .219 Sketch at Ware from the river ........ 223 Minnows ........... 224 Loach ............ 225 Bull-head or Miller's Thumb . 227 Stickleback ........... 228 View on the Avon at Evesham . . . . . . . . 232 An old Fishpond .......... 233 Ware . . . . . . , . . . . . 236 xxiii List of Illustrations Amwell Church and the New River , The " Cock " Inn, Ware . The " George " Inn, Ware The "Bull's Head," Ware Kingfisher . . . . . Meadowsweet . . . . , Bream ...... Arrowhead Inscription and monogram over the door of Charles Cotton's Fishing House ........... Charles Cotton's Arms ..... From his pezv in Ahtonjield Church. Beresford Hall ...... From an engraving after a drawing by Stothard. The Beresford Arms ..... For?nerly over the entrance of Bentley Hall ; now in Fenny Bentley Church. Heading " First Day " View at Brailsford ...... Bridge over Brailsford Brook .... Spittle Hill from the Bridge over Henmore Brook Spittle Hill The " Peacock " at Rowsley .... Ashbourne from the S.E. ..... "Smith's Yard," Ashbourne .... xxiv 'Page 237 244 247 250 251 252 257 259 261 263 265 267 269 273 277 279 281 283 284 287 List of Illustrations Heading "Second Day," the Fishing House " The Channel," Ashbourne Okeover Hall and Church, near Ashbourne Thorpe Cloud from the Village. Dovedale from the foot of Thorpe Cloud Ashbourne Church, from the West . In the Dove Valley, under Thorpe Cloud Well at Tissington .... Dovedale ; looking towards Thorpe Cloud Dovedale and Hanson Toot from Reynard's Cave Hanson Grange ..... Alstonfield Manor House Hanson Toot from near Alstonfield . Beresford Hall ..... From an engraving after Slot hard. Fireplace in the Fishing House Remains of Beresford Hall The Pike Pool (from above) Butterbur Leaves on the Banks of the Dove Hartington Hall ..... Walton's Chamber, Beresford Hall . From " A Series of Views" . . . " intended to i//ustrate Charles Cotton's Work^' edited by Frederick (Manning, 1866. Heading "Third Day," on the Dove belov/ the Pike Pool . XXV Page 291 295 296 297 298 299 307 3" 315 317 319 323 327 328 331 333 334 335 342 343 List of Illustrations Page Old Stone Table in the grounds of Beresford Hall .... 344 The Hall, Beresford Hall . . . . . . . . . 345 From " A Series of Fiews" etc. {see note to illustration on p. 342). The Fishing House and river . . . . . . . . 347 Remains at Beresford Hall ........ 353 Tailpiece, Tadpoles ......... 357 XXVI ^Waitayt', INTRODUCTION I. Outlines of Walton's Life IN his address to the reader of the first collected edition of his Lives, Walton says : " And now I wish, that as that learned Jew, Josephus, and others, so these men had also writ their own lives ; but since it is not the fashion of these times, I wish their relations or friends would do it for them, before delays make it too difficult." It was but natural that so good a biographer should desire to establish biography as a family duty, or at all events as one of those duteous " courtesies that are done to the dead," to borrow a phrase of the younger Donne's. Had Walton lived to our day, as there seemed some possibility of his doing, he would no doubt have been somewhat more than satisfied with the activity of biographers ; and perhaps have noted for particular remark the biographic conscientiousness of the modern interviewer, eager to catch and record every minute of a great man's life as it flies. Perhaps it is a little strange that his friend Cotton, or his son the Canon, did not remember Walton's words, and note for us some of the ways and talk xxix Introduction of a man who must have been as good a subject for, as he was an artist in, biography. No doubt. Cotton, who was to survive his master but four years, dying amid debts and difficulties, had more instant demands upon his faculties ; but Canon Izaak Walton, in his long quiet life in Salisbury Close, might surely have written some notes of a father to whose biographical faculty, and consequent acceptability with bishops, he owed his canonry. Later on Dr. Johnson talked of writing Walton's life, but his well-known admiration for the "Lives " found no other expression than possibly a certain influence on the form of his own " Lives of the Poets," and his suggestion to Moses Browne that he should reprint " The Compleat Angler," then somewhat fallen into neglect. Browne published his edition in 1750, having weeded the text of what he was pleased to regard as certain " redundancies," " super- fluities," and "absurdities," an editorial proceeding to which we owe the first authoritative life of our author, as it prompted Sir John Hawkins to publish his edition (1760), in which the text was restored to its original integrity, and to which were for the first time prefixed "The Lives of the Authors." Browne had supplied what Westwood calls " some loose biographical litter," but the honour of being Walton's first serious biographer belongs to Sir John Hawkins, on whose biography all subsequent biographies have been founded. According to Mr. R. B. Marston, however, this is an honour which he should from the beginning have shared with the famous antiquary William Oldys, to whose collections he owed most of his Walton material, and by whom entirely was written the life of Cotton. Dr. Thomas Zouch was Walton's next original biographer, his life being prefixed to his edition of the "Lives" in 1796 ; and then in 1836 came Sir Harris Nicolas, who, if Sir John Hawkins was the first, may almost be said to be the first and last of Walton's biographers. For the scientific thoroughness of his research has left hardly a single stone unturned for subsequent editors, and, compared with his elaborately minute narrative, every fact reinforced by a phalanx of notes, Sir John Hawkins's work seems a mere outline, with the occasional vagueness of myth. Thus, for later editors there is little left to be done anew with XXX Introduction the life of Izaak Walton, either in the way of fact or reflection. Sir Harris Nicolas has recorded nearly all the facts, and Dr. Zouch and Mr. R. B. Marston have made all the appropriate reflections. In the following resetting of the old narrative, so far as our common nature permits, I shall limit myself to facts, or the conjectures of facts, remembering Walton's admonition that " the mind of man is best satisfied by the knowledge of events." Izaak Walton was born at Stafibrd, in the parish of St. Mary, on August 9, 1593. Till recently two houses competed for the honour of being his birthplace, one a noble old Elizabethan house in Green- gate Street, and the other a humble little house in East Gate Street, pulled down within the last seven or eight years. Tradition and probability were most strongly in favour of the latter. Of his father, Jervis Walton, nothing is known beyond the fact that he died in February, 1596-7, of his mother nothing at all, not even her name, though Dr. Zouch makes out that she was a daughter of Edmund Cranmer, Archdeacon of Canterbury, a statement which seems entirely without foundation, and which probably arose from some traditional confusion due to Walton's own marriage into the Cranmer family. A conjectural pedigree of Walton's father is to be found in Sir Harris Nicolas's Life, by which it would appear that he was the son of George Walton, bailiff, of Yoxall, who may have been related to Richard Walton of Hanbury, whose will was dated, 31 October 1557 — the earliest date in Waltonian genealogy. From his baptism (which is thus recorded in the register of St. Mary's: "1593 Septemb. Baptiz. fuit Isaac FiUus Jervis Walton 21° die mensis et anni prasdict.") till we find him a London apprentice probably at the age of sixteen, and for many years after that, and for occasional long periods all through his life, his history is mainly conjecture. That he was educated at the Grammar School of his native town seems likely. What that education amounted to we can only judge from his- writings. Lowell has been somewhat scornful of his poor attainments. Walton " could never have been taught even the rudiments of Latin," he says, with startling erudition, " for he spells the third person singular of the perfect tense of obire^ xxxi Introduction obiet ; separate, seperate ; and divided, devided " / * Sir Harris Nicolas is more hopeful of poor Walton's Latin. " It is not probable," he thinks, "that he received a regular classical education; but although translations existed of nearly all the Latin works which he quotes, it is nevertheless certain that he had some knowledge of that language. His reading in English literature was various and extensive, particularly in divinity." However, apart from the fact * Lowell might have instanced a much better known example of strange Wal- tonian Latin in the " piscatoribys " for "piscatoribus " in the well-known inscription on the Dovedale fishing-house. But then that is probably stonemason Latin, unless Cotton, the author of the "Virgil Travestie," was responsible for it. xxxii Introduction that the printer, of whom Walton had frequent occasion to complain, might easily account for that eccentric conjugation of obire, and the bad spelling, it is of small consequence how much or little Latin, or other technical learning, Walton possessed. It is only important to realise that he was sufficiently familiar with such models of good and beautiful style in literature, as to have written English with classic dignity and distinction (such as Lowell, in the rather common essay from which I quote is far from attaining), not to speak of an immortalising charm, which even a more correct conjugation of Latin verbs could hardly have increased. That Walton was devoted to literature at quite an early age, and that among his youthful friends he was a marked man because of that devotion, are among the first facts that we become aware of after his baptism. In 1619 was published a short poem, entitled 'The Loves of Amos and Laura, by S.P. (conjectured to be Samuel Purchas, author of the famous Pilgrimage), and this was dedicated to Walton in the following poem : To My Approved and Much Respected Friend, Iz. Wa. To thee, thou more than thrice beloved friend, I too unworthy of so great a bliss ; These harsh-tun'd lines I here to thee commend. Thou being cause It Is now as It Is : For hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might These have been burled In oblivious night. If they were pleasing, 1 would call thein thine. And disavow my title to the verse : But being bad, I needs must call them mine. No III thing can be clothed In thy verse. Accept them then, and where I have offended. Rase thou It out, and let It be amended. S.P. This dedication does not occur in the only known copy of the first edition (16 13), which, however, is imperfect, and from which it may have been lost, but Sir Harris Nicolas points out that, as the xxxiii c Introduction text is precisely the same in both editions, any obligations to Walton acknowledged by "S.P.," in 1619, must have been equally due in 1613 ; from which he further deduces that, "as Walton was only twenty years of age in 16 13, the love of literature, which never deserted him, must have commenced at a very early period of his life." The date of Walton's first coming to London, and the business in which he became engaged, have been matters of much speculation and research. The usual statement has been that at about the age of twenty he was apprenticed to a kinsman of his, Henry Walton, a Whitechapel haberdasher. The only authority I can find for this statement is Sir Harris Nicolas's elaborate genealogical guess. There was a Henry Walton, haberdasher, in Whitechapel about this time, whom we come at through the will of a cousin Samuel Walton, of St. Mary's Cray, in Kent, and whose connection with Staffordshire is further deduced from the same document. Henry Walton may have been a kinsman of \x'Sl2lK. Walton, and Izaak Walton may have been his apprentice, and there are other mays and mights still more conjectural. One fact against the haberdasher or "sempster" theory is that the records of the Haberdashers' Company do not contain the names of Henry or Izaak Walton, between 1600 and 1630, whereas it has been discovered that the records of the Ironmongers Company for 1 6 1 8 do contain the name of \L2L2k..* Still more conclusive is the fact dwelt upon by Mr. Marston, that in his marriage licence with Rachel Floud, dated December 27, 1626, he is described as of the " Cittie of London, Ironmonger." Why a man who was a haberdasher should describe himself as an ironmonger in his marriage licence is certainly difficult to determine — except on the unlikely theory that Rachel Floud had a partiality for ironmongers. Sir John Hawkins had supposed that Walton first settled in London as a shopkeeper in the Royal Exchange, under the patronage of Sir Thomas Gresham, but this seems to be a fable. Haberdasher, sempster, " wholesale linen draper, or Hamburg merchant," these * " 1618. I2th November. Isaac Walton, late apprentice to Thomas Grinsell, was now admitted and sworne a free brother of this companie, and paid for his admittance xiij*, and for default of presentm' and enrollment X^" xxxiv Introduction have been the traditional descriptions of Walton's business ; but I fear that these graceful and fanciful professions must cease to claim him, and that in future he must be written down an ironmonger. " Let no one," to quote the impassioned words of Dr. Zouch, who, along with one or two other editors, seems to have been uncomfort- able because Walton was a tradesman, " however elevated in rank or station, however accomplished with learning, or exalted in genius," esteem him the less for that. Well, if Walton became " apprentice of Thomas Grinsell " at the usual age, he would have commenced his life in London at the age of sixteen, in the year 1611. So conjectures Mr. Marston, and so we can leave the matter. Though Walton's manner of business be still uncertain, the place of it has long been known, and Walton's residence in Chancery XXXV Introduction Lane and Fleet Street a matter of familiar tradition. Sir John Hawkins states that in 1624, "Walton dwelt on the north side of Fleet Street in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery Lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow, and that this house was then in the joint occupation of himself and a hosier called John Mason." " Half a shop was sufficient for the business of Walton," comments one of his old editors. From 1628 to 1644 he seems to have lived in Chancery Lane itself, in " about the seventh house on the left-hand side," but Sir Harris Nicolas points out that in the parish-books of Saint Dunstan's his house is not, like the others, described as a shop. From the same parish records it has been unearthed that during the years from 1632 to 1640, Walton fulfilled the ordinary civic duties of a householder, as scavenger, juryman, constable, grand juryman, overseer of the poor, sidesman and vestryman — facts of humble biographical importance. But long before Walton filled any of these posts of public useful- ness, his residence in the parish of St. Dunstan's had brought him into acquaintance and life-long friendship with its famous vicar. Dr. John Donne, a friendship of the first importance in Walton's life, as to it he probably owed his introduction to that literary and ecclesiastical society, in which, haberdasher or ironmonger as he might be, he was so evidently persona grata. That this should be so has not unnaturally been a matter of surprise to his editors, and Dr. Johnson remarked that " it was wonderful that Walton, who was in a very low station in life, should have been familiarly received by so many great men, and that at a time when the ranks of society were kept more separate than they are now." Johnson suggests as explanation that he was no longer a tradesman but had become a professional author, but actually his retirement from business did not take place till 1643. After all, the circumstance need not have so greatly surprised a man who similarly owed his position to his own personality and talents. However it be, we find him, while still living in Fleet Street, on terms of intimacy and affection with such men as Sir Henry Wotton, Dr. Henry King (son of the Bishop of London), John Hales of Eton, xxxvi Introduction l^mAZJai^^n^^M/^^ ■iHa^m^i and certain eminent divines — for Walton, as Lowell has said, had " a special genius for bishops." Was it this episcopal bias that led him on December 27, 1626, to take to wife Rachel Floud, of Canterbury, closely connected by descent with the Cranmers, including the famous Archbishop? Through his wife's family Walton probably still further widened his episcopal connection. With Rachel Walton lived, apparently in an entirely happy union, for nearly fourteen years, during which, how- ever, he suffered severe domestic affliction in the loss of no less than seven children. His wife's mother had also died during their residence in Chancery Lane, and on the loth July, 1640, his wife was to die too, having survived only six weeks the birth of another daughter. But death seems to have come merely as a solemn incident of life to Walton's serene, unimpassioned, and devoutly religious spirit. A literal, undoubting faith such as his, and a preoccupation in little hobbies, must afford a great shelter from the keenness of life's tragedy and pathos. xxxvii Introduction Six years after this Walton was to marry again, to be again bereaved in April 1662. His second wife, like his first, was found among the bishops, being Anne Ken, of the Kens of Somersetshire, and half-sister to that Bishop Ken whose name has become a synonym for piety. She bore him one daughter Ann, married to Dr. Hawkins, of Winchester, and two sons, one of whom died in infancy, and one Isaac, the Canon, who survived him. She was buried in Worcester Cathedral, Walton himself writing for her the following epitaph. Ex terris Here lyeth buryed soe much as could dye, of ANNE the wife of IZAAK WALTON who was a woman of remarkable prudence, and of the Pritnitive Piety; her great and generall knowledge being adorned with such true humility, and blest with soe much Christian meehiesse, as made her worthy of a more memorable Monument. She dyed {Alas that she is dead!) the 17th of Aprill 1662 aged 52 Study to he like her. In his life of Hooker, Walton speaks of " a secret sacred wheel of Providence — most visible in marriages — guided by His hand that ' allows not the race to the swift,' nor 'bread to the wise,' nor good wives to good men,^' his view apparently being that bad wives are allotted to good men to exercise their virtues. It would seem, how- ever, that the remark had no reference to his own matrimonial experience. xxxviii Introduction Walton had left Chancery Lane in August 1644, finding It " dangerous for honest men to be there," and for some years his place of residence is doubtful. Some have surmised that he retired to Stafford, to pass long days by Shawford brook, but Sir Harris Nicolas is of opinion that, except for occasional visits to Stafford, he did not leave London till after the Restoration. In 1650 he was probably living in Clerkenwell, and in 1651, soon after the battle of Worcester, his pacific contemplative life comes for a moment in contact with the danger and trouble of the time. The King's baggage had fallen into Cromwell's hands, but a certain Colonel Blague had managed to save one of Charles's rings, known as " the lesser George." Having taken shelter at Blore Pipe House, near Eccleshall, Blague had handed it to his host Mr. George Barlow, who passed it on to one Robert Milward, who again gave it into the " trusty hands " of Mr. Izaak Walton. Blague was mean- while a prisoner in the Tower, but, effecting his escape, he received the ring again from Walton, and succeeded in restoring it to the King over the water. This is Walton's first and only appearance as a man of action, so we must make the most of it. In 1655 we catch a glimpse of him once again in the more con- genial society of the clergy, that famous glimpse of him talking with Bishop Sanderson in Little Britain, a meeting which he has thus described with so much charm : About the time of his printing this excellent preface, I met him accidentally in London, in sad-coloured clothes, and God knows, far from being costly. The place of our meeting was near to Little Britain, where he had been to buy a book which he then had in his hand. We had no inclination to part presently, and therefore turned to stand in a corner under a penthouse (for it began to rain), and immediately the wind rose, and the wind increased so much, that both became so incon- venient, as to force us into a cleanly house, where we had bread, cheese, ale, and a fire for our ready money. The rain and wind were so obliging to me, as to force our stay here for at least an hour, to my great content and advantage ; for in that time he made to me many useful observations of the present times with much clearness and conscientious freedom. Fuller's Church History was published in 1655, and it was soon xxxix Introduction after its publication that we get another similar glimpse of Walton in conversation with its author : Walton being asked by Fuller, who was aware of his being intimate with several bishops and other eminent clergymen, what he thought of that work himself, and what opinions he had heard his friends express of it, Walton replied " he thought it should be acceptable to all tempers, because there were shades in it for the warm, and sunshine for those of a cold constitution, that with youthful readers, the facetious parts would be profitable to make the serious more palatable ; while some reverend old readers might fancy themselves in his History of the Church, as in a flower-garden or one full of evergreens." " And why not," said Fuller, "the Church History so decked as well as the Church itself at a most holy season, on the Tabernacle of old at the feast of boughs." " That was but for a season," said Walton ; " in your feast of boughs they may conceive we are so overshowed throughout, that the parson is more seen than the congregation, and this, sometimes invisible to his own acquaint- ance, who may wander in the search, till they are lost in the labyrinth." " Oh," said Fuller, " the very children of our Israel may find their way out of this wilderness." "True," replied Walton, "as, indeed, they have here such a Moses to conduct them." In the December of 1662, the year in which his wife died, Walton obtained from Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London (still another episcopal friend), a forty years' lease of a new building, adjoining a house called the " Cross Keys," in Paternoster Row. This building was burnt down in the Great Fire, and on July i, 1670, Walton presented a petition to the Court of Judicature, asking for extension of lease on condition of his rebuilding it ; which petition was granted. On this occasion Walton was described as " Isaac Walton, gentle- man." Of one of Walton's closest friends mention has yet to be made. This was Dr. George Morley, whom Walton first knew as a canon of Christchurch, Oxford. He was, however, expelled from his canonry somewhere about 1648, for refusing to take the covenant. There was a story that he took shelter with Walton at his Stafford- shire cottage from April 1648 to IVIay 1649 5 ^ut for this there is no authority. He was one of Ben Jonson's twelve adopted "sons," and wrote some commendatory verses prefixed to the T^he Compkat Angler. His friendship with Walton was destined to be life-long. xl hitroductio?i On the Restoration he was made Dean of Christchurch, and pre- sently Bishop of Worcester, and it was during a visit to him at Worcester that Walton's second wife is supposed to have died. Very shortly after her death Morley was made Bishop of Winchester, and invited Walton to make his home with him. The invitation was accepted, and Walton continued to live with him at Winchester, with occasional visits to London and to Morley's episcopal residence of Farnham Castle, till the end of his life. That he spent the Christ- mas of 1678 at Farnham Castle seems likely from the following inscription in a copy of the fifth edition of The Compleat Angler given to his friend, Mrs. Wallop : For Mrs. Wallop, I think I did some years past, send you a boolce ot Angling : This is printed since, and I think better ; and, because nothing that I can pretend a tytell too, can be too good for you : pray accept of this also, from me that am really, Madam, yo' most affectionate ffriend ; and most humble servant. IZAAK WALTON. Farnham Castell, Decern''. 19°, 167? It was under one of Bishop Morley's roofs, and at his suggestion, that he wrote the lives of Hooker, Herbert, and Sanderson ; and it is likely that the Hooker — and possibly the Herbert — were written at Morley's house at Chelsea. On May 26, 1683, we find him again at Farnham Castle ; but this seems to have been his last journey, for there is no record of his again leaving Winchester. On August 9, in the same year, he was ninety years old, and on that day he commenced to make his will. It was finished on the 1 6th and executed on the 24th, and is written throughout in his own hand, with several erasures. Not the least characteristic of his writ- ings, it ran as follows : xlii Introduction August the 9°, 1683. In tf)£ i^aim of CJoil, Amen. I, Izaak Walton, the elder, of Winchester, being this present day in the neintyeth yeare of my age, and in perfect memory, for wich praysed be God : but Considering how sodainly I may be deprived of boeth, doe therfore make this my last will and testament as foUoweth. And first, I doe [declare]* my beliefe to be, that their is only one God, who hath made the whole world, and me and all mankinde ; to whome I shall give an acount of all my actions, which are not to be justified, but I hope pardoned, for the merits of my saviour Jesus. — And because [the profession of] Cristianity does, at this time, seime to be subdevided into papist and protestant, I take it to be at least convenient to declare my beleife to be, in all poynts of faith, as the Church of England now professeth. And this I doe the rather because of a very long and very trew friendship with some of the Roman Church. And for my worldly estate (which I have nether got by falshood or flattery, or the extreme crewelty of the law of this nation), I doe hereby give and be- queth it as followeth : First, I give my son-in-law. Doc' Hawkins, and to his Wife, to them I give all my tytell and right of or in a part of a howse and shop in Pater-noster-rowe, in London, which I hold by lease from the Lord Bishop of London for about 50 years to come, and I doe also give to them all my right and tytell of or to a howse in Chancery-lane, London, where in Mrs. Greinwood now dwelleth, in which is now about 16 years to come. I give these two leases to them, they saving my executor from all damage concerning the same. [[And I doe also give to my saide dafter all my books this day at Win- chester and Droxford : and what ever ells I can call mine their, except a trunk of linen w^'' I give my son Izaak Walton, but if he doe not marry, or use the saide linen himselfe, then I give the same to my grand-doughter Anne Hawkins.]] And I give to my son Izaak all my right and tytell to a lease of Noring- ton farme, which I hold from the lord B" of Winton : And I doe also give him all my right and tytell to a farme or land nere to Stafford, which I bought of Mr. Walter Noell ; I say, I give it to him and [his] heares for ever ; but upon the condition following, namely : if my sone shall not marry before he shall be of the age of forty and one yeare, or, being marryed, shall dye before the saide age, and leve noe son to inherit the saide farme or land, or if his son [or sonns] shall not live to ataine the age of twentie and one yeare, to dispose otherwayes of it, then I give the saide farme or land to the * The words and sentences in square brackets were interlineations, and a passage in double square brackets was erased because "twice repeated." xliii Introduction towne or corperation of Stafford, (in which I was borne), for the good and benifit of some of the saide towne, as I shall direct, and as followeth (but first note, that it is at this present time rented for 21 lO"" a yeare, (and is like to hold the said rent, if care be taken to keipe the barne and bowsing in repaire). And I wood have and doe give ten pownd of the saide rent to binde out yearely two boyes, the sons of honest and pore parents, to be apprentises to some tradesmen or handycraft-men, to the intent the saide boyes [may] the better afterward get their owne living. And I doe also give five pownd yearly out of the said rent, to be given to some meade-servant that hath attain'd the age of twenty and [one] yeare, (not les), and dwelt long in one servis, or to some honest pore man's daughter that hath attain'd to that age, to [be] paide her at or on the day of her marriage. And this being done, my will is, that what rent shall remaine of the saide farme or land, shall be disposed of as followeth : First, I doe give twenty shillings yearely, to be spent by the maior of Staf- ford, and those that shall colect the said rent and dispose of it as I have and shall hereafter direct ; and that what mony or rent shall remaine undisposed offe, shall be imployed to buie coles for some pore people, that shall most neide them, in the said towne ; the said coles to be delivered the last weike in Janewary, or in every first weike in Febrewary ; I say then, because I take that time to be the hardest and most pinching times with pore people ; and God reward those that shall doe this with out partialitie, and with honestie and a good contience. And if the saide maior and others of the saide towne of Stafford shall prove so necligent, or dishonest, as not to imploy the rent by me given as in- tended and exprest in this my will, which God forbid, then I give the saide rents and profits of the saide farme or land to the towne and chiefe mages- trats or governers of Ecles-hall, to be disposed by them in such maner as I have ordered the disposall of it by the towne of Stafford, the said Farme or land being nere the towne of Ecles-hall. And I give to my son-in-law, Doctor Hawkins, whome I love as my owne son ; and to my dafter, his wife ; and my son Izaak ; to each of them a ring, with these words or motto: "Love my memory. I. W., obiet ; " to the Lord B^ of Winton a ring, with this motto : " A mite for a million. L W., obiet ; " and to the freinds hearafter named, I give to each of them a ring, with this motto : " A friends farewell. L W., obiet." And my will is, the said rings be deliverd within fortie dayes after my deth ; and that the price or valew of all the saide rings shall be 13'' 4"^ a peice. I give to Doctor Hawkins Docto' Donns Sermons, which I have hear'd preacht and read with much content. To my son Izaak I give Doc' Sibbs his " Soules Conflict ; " and to my doughter his " Brewsed Reide ; " desiring xliv Introduction them to reade them so as to be well acquanted with them. And I also give to her all my bookes at Winchester and Droxford, and what ever in those two places are or I can call mine, except a trunk of linen, which I give to my son Izaak ; but if he doe not live to [marry or] make use of it, then I give the same to my grand-dafter, Anne Hawkins. And I give my dafter Doc' Halls Works, which be now at Farnham. To my son Izaak I give all my books, not yet given, at Farnham Castell ; and a deske of prints and pickters ; also a cabinet nere my beds head, in w"* are som iittell things that he will valew, tho of noe greate worth. And my will and desyre is, that he will be kinde to his Ante Beacham, and his ant Rose Ken, by alowing the first about fiftie shilling a yeare, in or for bacon and cheise, not more, and paying 4 a yeare toward the bordin of her son's dyut to Mr. John Whitehead : for his Ante Ken, I desyre him to be kinde to her acording to her necessitie and his owne abillitie ; and I comend one of her children, to breide up as I have saide I intend to doe, if he shall be able to doe it, as I know he will ; for they be good folke. I give to Mr. John Darbishire the Sermons of Mr. Antony Far- ingdon or of do' Sanderson, which my executor thinks fit. To my servant, Thomas Edghill, I give five pownd in mony, and all my clothes, linen and wollen, — except one sute of clothes, which I give to Mr. Holinshed and forty shiling, — if the saide Thomas be my servant at my deth ; if not, my cloths only. And I give my old friend, Mr. Richard Marriot, ten pownd in mony, to be paid him within 3 months after my deth ; and I desyre my son to shew kindenes to him if he shall neide, and my son can spare it. And I doe hereby will and declare my son Izaak to be my sole executo' of this my last will and testament ; and Do'. Hawkins to see that he performs it, which I doubt not but he will. I desyre my buriall may be nere the place of my deth, and free from any ostentation or charg, but privately. This I make to be my last will (to which I shall only add the codicell for rings), this 16. day of August, 1683. Witnes to this will. Izaak Walton. The rings I give are as on the other side. To my brother Jon Ken. to my brother Beacham. to my sister his wife. to my sister his wife, to my brother Doc''. Ken. to the lady Anne How. to my sister Pye. to Mrs. King Do'' Philips wife. to Mr. Francis Morley. to Mr. Valantine Harecourt. to S'' George Vernon. to Mrs. Elyza Johnson, to his wife. to Mrs. Mary Rogers. xlv Introduction to his 3 dafters. to Mrs. Nelson. to Mr. Rich. Walton. to Mr. Palmer. to Mr. Taylor. to Mr. Tho. Garrard. to the Lord B' of Sarum. to Mr. Rede his servant. to my Coz. Dorothy Kenrick. to my Coz. Lewin. to Mr. Walter Higgs. to Mr. Cha. Cotton. to Mr. Rich. Marryot. to Mrs. Elyza Milward. to Mrs. Doro. Wallop, to Mr. Will. Milward, of Christ- church, Oxford, to Mr. John Darbeshire. to Mrs. Vuedvill. to Mrs. Rock, to Mr. Peter White, to Mr. John Lloyde. to my cozen Greinsells widow. 1 6 Mrs. Dalbin must not be gotten. for- 22 Note that severall lines are blotted cut of" this will for they were twice repeted : And, that this will is now signed and sealed, this twenty and fourth day of October 1683 in the presence of us : IzAAK Walton. Witnes : Abra. Markland. Jos. Taylor. Thomas Crawley. Probatum apud London, &c. Coram venli et egregio viro d'no Thoma Exton Milite Legum D'core surro &c., quarto die mensis, Februarii Anno D'ni (stylo Angliae) 1683 juramento Isaaci Walton jun"^ filii d'ci dePti et Extoris &c., cui &c., de bene &c. Jurat. His will was thus endorsed by himself: "Izaak Walton's last will, octo,, 1683." On December 15th Walton was dead. His death seems to have taken place at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Hawkins, a preben- dary of Winchester. He was buried in Winchester Cathedral, in a chapel in the south transept, called Prior Silkstead's Chapel. A large black marble slab bears the following inscription : xlvi Introduction Here resteth the Body of MR. ISAAC WALTON Who dyed the 15" of December 1683 Alas he's gone before. Gone to returne no more! Our panting Breasts aspire After their aged Stre, JVhose well spent life did last^ Full ninety yeares and past^ But now he hath begun That which will ne're he done Crown d with eternall blisse : We wish our Souls with his. VOTIS MODESTIS SIC FLERUNT LIBERI. And now we may pass on to the record of his literary life, and to a fuller account of his relations with those friends whom so far we have but mentioned. xlviii Introduction tH-N II. Walton s Literary Life and Friendships IF Walton had a " special genius for bishops," he had an even rarer genius for friendship. His literary life may be said to have been begotten of two particularly interesting friendships, for his first appearance in print was in the form of an elegy upon Donne,* prefixed to the 1633 edition of Donne's poems, of which it is probable he was the editor ; and when later, in 1 640, he prefixed his life of Donne to a volume of Donne's sermons, it was because Sir Henry Wotton had died in 1639, without fulfilling his intention of himself writing the life of the great dean. Walton had been busy, at Wotton's request, collecting materials for that life, and had on one occasion jogged his memory about the matter. Wotton's reply, preserved in the Reliquiae IVottonian^, can hardly be spared here, * See Appendix. xlix d Introduction for the Illustration it affords of the familiar intercourse between the two men : [Date, probably early part of 1639.] My Worthy Friend, I am not able to yield any reason ; no, not so much as may satisfy myself, why a most ingenious letter of yours hath lain so long by me (as it were in lavender) without an answer, save this only, the pleasure I have taken in your style and conceptions, together with a meditation of the subject you propound, may seem to have cast me into a gentle slumber. But being now awaked, I do herein return you most hearty thanks for the kind prosecution of your first motion, touching a just office due to the memory of our ever memorable friend, to whose good fame, though it be needless to add anything (and my age considered, almost hopeless from my pen ;) yet I will endeavour to perform my promise, if it were but even for this cause, that in saying somewhat of the life of so deserving a man, I may perchance over-live mine own. That which you add of Dr. King (now made Dean of Rochester, and by that translated into my native soil) is a great spur unto me : with whom I hope shortly to confer about it in my passage towards Boughton Malherb, which was my genial air, and invite him to a friendship with that family where his predecessor was familiarly acquainted. I shall write to you at large by the next messenger (being at present a little in business), and then I shall set down certain general heads, wherein I desire information by your loving diligence ; hoping shortly to enjoy your own ever welcome company in this approaching time of the Fly and the Cork. And so I rest. Your very hearty poor friend to serve you, H. WOTTON, In addition to the Elegy, Walton had meanwhile written some lines for the portrait of Donne in the second edition of Donne's poems (1635),* and had also contributed complimentary verses to ne Merchants Map of Commerce, 1638 ;* but it is with his life of Donne that his literary work really commences. It appears to have won immediate and unanimous praise. Charles I. spoke of it with approbation ; John Hales told Dr. King that " he had not seen a life * See Appendix. 1 Introduction written with more advantage to the subject, or more reputation to the writer than that of Dr. Donne." A letter from Donne's son, expressing his gratitude, is to be found in Nicholas's "Life," and, long after. Dr. Johnson gave it as his opinion that Walton was " a great panegyrist," and that Donne's was the best life he had written. Of the closeness of Walton's friendship with Donne, the fact that Walton was among the three or four friends gathered round his death-bed is evidence, and also that Donne left him the quaint memorial seal which he ever afterwards used, and which will be found engraved at the foot of his will. For the next ten years, Walton's literary work is confined to stray verses and prefaces. In 1642 he is supposed to have published a letter by George Cranmer to Hooker, concerning " the new' Church discipline ; " in 1643 he wrote some lines on the death of his friend, the poet William Cartwright, first published in the 1651 edition of Cartwright's poems ;* in 1646 there is little doubt that he contri- buted the charming address " To the Reader " (so much in his own pretty style) in Francis Quarles's Shepherd's Eclogues * its signature, " John Marriott," being probably an innocent literary deception ; for the year 1650 his literary output was a couplet found written in his copy of Dr. Richard Sibbes's ^he Returning Backslider, preserved at Salisbury.* But in 1651 he published another of bis incompar- able biographies, the charming life of Sir Henry Wotton prefixed to the Reliquia Wottoniana, of which also he was the editor. Sir Henry Wotton is one of the most fascinating figures of the seventeenth century, and his " Reliquis " are curiously illustrative of his wandering life and his sensitive many-sided character ; for never was such a quaint jumble of materials — notes on Italian archi- tecture, " characters " of contemporary statesmen, reminiscences of diplomatic missions to Venice, " meditations " upon Christmas day, and the twenty-second chapter of Genesis, delightful gay letters to familiar friends, grave letters of business to " my Lord Zouch," and in the midst, like a little bunch of myrrh, a handful of lyrics of a rare meditative sweetness. In one of these, prettily entitled " On a * See Appendix. li Introduction Bank as I sat a-Fishing," he very likely refers to Walton, for he is doubtless the " friend " of these lines : The jealous Trout^ that low did lie. Rose at a well dissembled fly : There stood my friend, with patient skill Attending of his trembling quill. Probably a reminiscence of one of the many fishing excursions Walton and his friend used to make together along the Thames near Eton, where Wotton had a fishing-house. The " Reliquiae " contain two letters to " Iz. Wa." One has already been quoted. The other ran as follows : My Worthy Friend. Since I last saw you I have been confined to my chamber by a quotidian fever, I thank God, of more contumacy than malignity. It had once left me, as I thought, but it was only to fetch more com- pany, returning with a surcrew of those splenetic vapours, that are called hypochondriacal ; of which most say the cure is good company ; and I desire no better physician than yourself. I have in one of those fits endeavoured to make it more easy by composing a short Hymn ; and since I have apparelled my best thoughts so lightly as in verse, I hope I shall be pardoned a second vanity, if I communicate it with such a friend as yourself ; to whom I wish a cheerful spirit, and a thankful heart to value it, as one of the greatest blessings of our good God, in whose dear love I leave you, remaining. Your poor friend to serve you, H. WOTTON. Oh thou great Power ! in whom I move. For whom I live, to whom I die. Behold me through thy beams of love, IVhilst on this couch of tears I lie; And cleanse my sordid soul within, By thy Christ's blood, the hath of sin. No hallowed oils, no grains I need. No rags of saints, no purging fire. One rosy drop fro?n David'' s seed, Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire. Oh precious Ransom ! which once paid That Consummatum est was said. lii Introduction And said by him, that said no more. But seaPd it with his sacred breath ; Thou then that has despung'd my score. And dying wast the death of death. Be to me now, on thee I call. My life, my strength, my joy, my all. H. worroN. In 1652 Walton seems to have contributed an address to the Reader to " The Heroe of Lorenzo, or The way to Eminencie and Perfection. A piece of serious Spanish wit Originally in that language written, and in English. By Sir John SkefEngton, Kt. and Barronet ; " * and in the same year he contributed some com- mendatory verses to the " Scintillula Altaris " of his " worthy friend," Edward Sparke.* With the year 1653 came the charming classic, which in the present volume is published for the hundred and twenty-first time. It was a troublous year in which this " contemplative man's recreation " was born. For us, looking back, it seems hard to realise that quiet men might go a-angling by tranquil rivers, and that there should be a sale, and a ready one, for so peaceful a book ; but one remembers Sir Thomas Browne meditating in a like quietude at Norwich ; one thinks, too, to take an example from a later time, of Theophile Gautier bringing out a new edition of his poems during the siege of Paris, and it is healing to reflect that even in such troublous times there is always peace somewhere in the world for peaceable men. I shall deal more particularly with "The Compleat Angler later on. Meanwhile let us proceed with Walton's quiet history. In 1654 appeared an enlarged second edition of the Reliquia Wottoniana, in 1655 an enlarged second edition of The Compleat Angler, and in 1658 a second edition of The Life of Donne, also revised and enlarged. In 1660 Walton's satisfaction at the Restora- tion was expressed in a " humble eclogue," addressed to " my ingenious friend, Mr. Brome, on his various and excellent poems," "written the 29 of May 1660," and first published in the first * See Appendix. liii Introduction edition of Alexander Brome's Songs and Other Poems, 1661.* In 1 66 1 came a third edition of Tlie Compleat Angler, and in that year Walton also contributed some verses to the fourth edition of a religious poem, entitled 'The Synagogue, by the Rev. Christopher Harvie, who had paid Walton a similar compliment in the second edition of '■The Compleat Angler. In 1665 appeared The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker, which Walton had written during the first two * See Appendix. liv Introduction years of his residence with Bishop Morley at Winchester. To the Life was prefixed that delightful letter from Dr. King, Bishop of Chichester, from which one of Walton's many soubriquets of affection is borrowed. " Honest Izaak," it began : Though a familiarity of more than forty years continuance, and the constant experience of your love, even in the worst of the late sad times, be sufficient to endear our friendship, yet, I must confess my affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to many that know and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public spirit, testified in a diligent, true and useful collection of so many material passages as you have now afforded me in the life of venerable Mr. Hooker ; of which, since desired by such a friend as yourself, I shall not deny to give the testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned books; but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you, that you have been happy in choosing to write the lives of three such persons as posterity hath just cause to honour ; which they will do the more for the true relation of them by your happy pen ; of all which I shall give you my unfeigned censure. Walton's preface is particularly interesting from the allusion he makes to some other friendships. The friend who had persuaded him to the task, " a friend whom I reverence, and ought to obey," was, of course, Bishop Morley. He goes on to speak of his long " happy affinity with William Cranmer — now with God — a grand- nephew unto the great Archbishop of that name," and " I had also," he continues, " a friendship with the Reverend Dr. Usher, the late learned Archbishop of Armagh ; and with Dr. Morton, the late learned and charitable Bishop of Durham ; as also the learned John Hales, of Eton College ; and with them also — who loved the very name of Mr. Hooker — I have had many discourses concerning him " The year 1668 is marked by a fourth edition of The Compleat Angler, and in 1670 appeared The Life of Mr. George Herbert. This year also appeared the first collected edition of the Lives, dedicated to Bishop Morley. In 1673 appeared a third edition of the Reliquia JVottoniana, and from a letter to his publisher, Marriott,* it appears that Walton was then collecting materials for a life of John Hales. * See Appendix. Iv Introduction In 1674 appeared an edition of Herbert's Temple, with Walton's Life prefixed, and in 1675 appeared the second collected edition of the Lives, on which occasion Cotton addressed a long and affec- tionate poem to Walton, which he had written apparently on January 17, 1672—3.* In 1676 appeared the fifth and finally revised edition of l!he Corn- pleat Angler, to which further reference will be made. In 1678 Walton published his Life of Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, being then in his eighty-fifth year, but as vigorous mentally as ever. This Life Is of particular interest for the personal glimpses which it gives us of Walton, and his attitude to the movements of his own day. I have already quoted the charming picture of Walton and Sanderson meeting in Little Britain in " that dangerous year, 1655," but this charming valedictory reference to his own length of years, as he finishes telling of Sanderson's dying, should not be omitted : " Thus this pattern of meekness and primitive innocence changed this for a better life. 'Tis now too late to wish that my life may be like his ; for I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age ; but I humbly beseech Almighty God that my death may ; and do as earnestly beg of every reader to say Amen. ' Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile.' Ps. xxxii. 2." Two or three quotations from 'The Life of Sanderson and other Lives, illustrative of Walton's politics and religious opinions, will be better placed in the Appendix. In 1680 was published a pamphlet entitled " Love and Truth : in two modest and peacable Letters, concerning the distempers of the Present Times : written from a quiet and conformable Citizen of London to Two Busie and Factious Shopkeepers in Coventry." These letters have been attributed to Walton (confidently by Zouch) and there has been much controversy on the matter. Their style certainly recalls Walton, and Sir Harris Nicolas hesitates to decide. William Pickering, in an interesting MS. note to his copy now in the British Museum, decides unhesitatingly against Walton's author- ship, and the balance of opinion seems to be that way. Space * See Appendix. Ivi Introduction forbids our discussing the pros and cons here, the more so as the matter is of no great importance, for even if the letters were proved to be Walton's, the fact could hardly persuade one that they are exciting to read. In 1680, however, it is certain that Walton did no great service to the memory of Ben Jonson by sending the following data, or rather gossip, to his friend Aubrey, the antiquary, who it would appear, had applied to him for the information. FFOR Y" FfRIENDS Q™ THIS. I only knew Ben Jonson : But my Lord of Winton knew him very well ; and says, he was in the 6°, that is, the uppermost fForme in West- minster scole, at which time his father dyed, and his mother married a bricklayer, who made him (much against his will) help him in his trade; but in a short time, his scolemaister, Mr. Camden, got him a better imployment, which was to attend or accompany a son of Sir Walter Rauley's on his travills. Within a short time after their return, they parted (I think not in cole bloud) and with a love sutable to what they had in their travilles (not to be commended). And then Ben began to set up for himself in the trade by which he got his subsistance and fame, of which I need not give any account. He got in time to have a lOOj^ a yeare from the King, also a pension from the cittie, and the like from many of the nobihtie and some of the gentry, w^h was well pay'd, for love or fere of his railing in verse, or prose, or boeth. My lord told me, he told him he was (in his long retyrement and sickness, when he saw him, which was often) much afflickted, that he had profained the Scripture in his playes, and lamented it with horror : yet that, at that time of his long retyrement, his pension (so much as came in) was giuen to a woman that gouern'd him (with whome he liv'd and dyed near the Abie in Westminster) ; and that nether he nor she tooke too much care for next weike : and wood be sure not to want wine, of w<^h he usually tooke too much before he went to bed, if not oftener and soner. My Lord tells me, he knowes not, but thinks he was born in Westminster. The question may be put to Mr. Wood very easily upon what grounds he is positive as to his being born their ; he is a friendly man, and will resolve it. So much for braue Ben. You will not think the rest so tedyous as I doe this I. W. Nqu''. 22, 80. Ivii Introduction GifFord's criticism upon this is justifiably severe. " Izaak Walton," he writes, " cannot be mentioned without respect ; but his letter was written nearly half a century after Jonson's death, and when the writer was in his eighty-seventh year. It is made up of the common stories of the time, and a it^N anecdotes procured, while he was writing, from the Bishop of Winchester, who must himself, at the date of Izaak's letter, have been verging on ninety. It is not easy to discover what was the Bishop's and what was Walton's, but on these Wood constructed his Life of Jonson. He brings little of his own but a few dates." In 1683 Walton had reached the advanced age of ninety, and if the theory which makes himself the real author of " Thealma and Clearchus, a Pastoral History, in smooth and easie verse," which he published this year, be true, it may well be an example of that second childhood's tenderness towards their early verses which is often observed to overcome the aging prose-writer. However, Walton declared the poem to have been " written long since, by John Chalk- hill Esqre ; an Acquaint and Friend of Edmund Spencer," and as there were more than one John Chalkhill among his second wife's connections, and as even so innocent a dissimulation would probably have been repugnant to Walton, there seems no good ground for doubting his statement. Sir Harris Nicolas will not hear of Walton being the author, but Lowell, on the other hand, is of opinion that Walton very much tinkered his friend's poem and that it is " mainly Walton's as it now stands." The publication of Thealma and Clearchus brings Walton's literary life to an end, and here I may take the opportunity of remarking that Walton's poetry, which the reader may study for himself in the appendix, has perhaps been a little unduly depreciated. It is often no doubt little more than versified prose, but " poetry " of this order shares the advantage of the necessity imposed upon prose of having something, however prosaic, to say. Moreover, the same downright sincerity of feeling, which so often makes poetry of his prose, comes to the rescue of his verse also, verse which seldom lacks the prose excellence of apt and pithy phrase. On the other hand, in Lowell's opinion, Walton's prose, like that of many another prose- Iviii Introduction writer, owes no little to the secret practice of verse. "I think," he says, " that Walton's prose owes much of its charm to the poetic sentiment in him which was denied a refuge in verse, and that his practice in metres may have given to his happier periods a measure and a music they would otherwise have wanted." Lowell's own success and failure were so parallel to this that his judgment is the more authoritative. His remarks on Walton's Elegy upon Donne are equally worth noting. " The versification of this," he says, " if sometimes rather stiff, is for the most part firm and lix Introduction not inharmonious. It is easier in its gait than that of Donne in his Satires, and shows the manly influence of Jonson. Walton, at any rate, in course of time, attained, at least in prose, to some- thing which, if it may not be called style, was a very charming way of writing, all the more so that he has an innocent air of not knowing how it is done. Natural endowment and pre-disposition may count for nine in ten of the chances of success in this com- petition ; but no man ever achieved, as Walton sometimes did, a simplicity which leaves criticism helpless, by the even light of nature alone." To the number of Walton's friends before mentioned must be added the poet Drayton, of whom he twice speaks with affection in "The Compleat Angler, once as his " honest old friend," and again as " his old deceased friend ; " also Walter, Lord Aston, to whom he presented a copy of his collected Lives, still preserved, with this note beneath Walton's inscription : " Izake Walton gift to me, June y° 14, 1 670, w* I most thankfully for his memmory off mee acknowledge a greate kindnesse. WALTER ASTON." Ix Introduction _. -^ /f^W^ Walton's cottage ' *;^,V; ShillowfoTcl "".-. ///. T/ie Compleat Angler ^ I ""HE history of 'The Compleat Angler is a romance in itself, and I it has been written once and for all by Thomas Westv/ood, -ft- in his Chronicle of the Compleat Angler , a model of what one might call devotional bilsliography. From that I have ventured to appropriate the skeleton bibliography printed in the Appendix, and to that I must refer readers who would read the story in its fulness. That so restful a pastoral should have been published in so turbulent a time has already been commented upon. Some have suggested that that very paradox may have accounted for its immediate success, so welcome was such a note of peace. Certainly its quietist message was one pertinent to the moment, and it had the rare fortune to be heard. The sale of the first edition seems to have been immediate, and the second speedily called for. This second is Ixi Introduction really the first of the book as we know it to-day, and that perhaps accounts for its greater rarity, for Walton had increased its length by at least a third, and made many changes and additions. In the first edition the interlocutors had been but two, " Piscator " and " Viator," and in the second they are three, as we know them, "Venator" taking the place of "Viator," whom, however. Cotton resuscitates in his second part. In some respects Walton would have done well to allow his book to remain in the form it had now attained, for I must agree with Sir Harris Nicolas that the changes and additions made in the fifth edition (the third and fourth having practically been reprints of the second) were somewhat short of improvements. " The garrulity and sentiments," says Nicolas, " of an octogenarian are very apparent in some of the alterations ; and the subdued colouring of religious feeling which prevails throughout the former editions, and forms one of the charms of the piece, is, in this impression, so much heightened as to become almost obtrusive;" and he gives as an example the homiletical passage in the last chapter, immediately after Venator's recipe for colouring rods, which, he says truly, is in fact a religious essay. In this fifth edition also he made the artistic mistake of inviting Cotton to write an unnecessary second part, but it was so he decreed that his book should take its final shape, and it is on this fifth edition that all subsequent editions have been based. To some copies of this edition still a third part was added, namely "The E'x.perienc' d Angler, or Angling Improved, by Colonel Richard Venables, a letter from Walton to whom will be found in the Appendix. When including this third part, the book is entitled The Universal Angler, but Venables's portion was not retained in later editions. Of these the most impor- tant have been those of Moses Browne, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Harris Nicolas, John Major, Dr. Bethune, and Mr. R. B. Marston. Sir Harris Nicolas's is the most complete, and will probably remain the authoritative edition, John Major's is the daintiest (but greatly marred by its shopkeeper's preface), and Dr. Bethune's is the most learned. Perhaps no English book except The Pilgrim's "Progress and Robinson Crusoe has been so beloved. Generation after generation Ixii tsf- ':)")' V - 'ir ' I) mCc/na/ifozj/orcf Introduction has brought to it its young affections, and there seems every reason to suppose that the average of something like a new edition for every two and a half years, which so far The Compleat Angler has maintained, will even be surpassed in the future. This veneration for Walton is one of the curious phenomena of literature. Perhaps Dr. Johnson set the fashion by saying that he considered " the preservation and elucidation of Walton " " a pious work." He himself has become the god of a similar idolatry, and Lamb perhaps is the only other writer who has inspired quite the same kind of devotion. For it is not mere hero-worship, it is an actually religious sentiment on the part of the Waltonian. In his loving imagination Saint Izaak is as truly a saint as any in the Calendar. We can observe the same process of canonisation going on in the case of Lamb. Lamb's question to Coleridge, "Among all your quaint readings, did you ever light upon Walton's Complete Angler? ... it breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of heart ; there are many choice old verses interspersed in it ; it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it ; it would Christianise every discordant angry passion : pray make yourself acquainted with it " — and his many references to Walton in his essays have no doubt swelled his fame even more than the pontifical praise of Johnson. Then he has had Scott for his panegyrist and Wordsworth for his sonneteer. Nor should we forget the poet Bowles. All his admirers have not written so wisely or so well as these. Like Burns, Walton has suffered from maudlin devotees, he has been slapped on the back by the robustious, cooed to in the voice of the sucking dove by the sentimental, some have written in the " man and a brother," grand lodge " masonic " vein, others as though he were a sort of aged pet lamb ; but that was inevitable — fame is no fame without the plebs, and the paths of glory must often pass beneath triumphal arches not always in the best taste. Besides, how- ever absurd the form it may take, this devotion to the memory of a lovely soul is surely far from absurd. For, after all, Walton is a sentiment, at least as an angler ; for I understand that the ordinary Philistine angler, to whom all that pretty warbling talk of birds and ixiv Ijttroductio7t honey-suckle hedges has no appeal in comparison with a creel full of speckled trout, thinks but small beer of poor Izaak's antiquated angling methods. It is probably among those who have never cast a line (like the present editor), or, like Washington Irving, have but fished " to satisfy the sentiment," that the majority of Waltonians are to be found. As a practical guide to angling. The Compleat Angler was exploded even in its own day. Robert Franck belonged to the order of Philistine, as distinct from that of contemplative, anglers, and naturally he had little patience with Walton's unpractical digressions. He vents his spleen in a curious book, entitled Northern Memoirs, written in dialogue between Theophilus and Arnoldus, published in 1694, and re-edited by Sir Walter Scott, in 1 82 1. Arnoldus complains that Walton " stuiFs his book with morals from Dubravius and others, not giving us one precedent of his own practical experiments." Theophilus loftily rejoins : " I remember the book, but you inculcate his errata ; however, it may pass muster among common muddlers." But Arnoldus thinks not, " for," he continues, " I remember in Stafford, I urged his own argu- ment upon him, that pickerel weed of itself breeds pickerel. Which question was no sooner stated, but he transmits himself to his authority, viz., Gesner, Dubravius, and Aldrovandus, which I readily opposed, and offered my reasons to prove the contrary." Arnoldus finally relates how the Compleat Angler, getting the worst of the argument, dropped it, " and leaves Gesner to defend it," and " so huffed away." Of course, from his point of view Franck was perfectly justified. For one might as well consult a fifteenth-century pharmacopoeia on Russian influenza as consult "Honest Izaak " on any of the higher branches of his art. But who minds that ? Angling was simply an excuse for Walton's artless garrulity, a peg on which to hang his ever-fragrant discourse of stream and meadow. He followed angling, as indeed any such sport is most intelligently followed, as a pretext for a day or two in the fields, not so much to fill his basket as to refresh his spirit, and store his memory with the sweetness of country sights and sounds. The angler Ixv e Introductioii who merely angles for the sake of what he can catch is not so much an angler as a fishmonger. The truer angler is more often like Scott and Mr. Lang, " no fisher, but a well-wisher to the game," such a one as Mr. Bridges describes in one of his prettiest verses: — Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hook Within its hidden depths, and Against a tree Leaning his rod, reads in some pleasant hook. Forgetting soon his pride of fishery ; And dreams, or falls asleep. While curious fishes peep About his nibbled bait, or scornfully Dart off and rise and leap. Ixvi Introduction How much better to be this angler who only dreams, to have one's creel empty indeed, but one's head sweetly giddy with the shining "ghosts of fish" — the angler who fishes for the sake of doing something else, to " some incognisable end," which certainly is not trout. It is curious to note that that fantastic natural history, which was the scorn of the fierce scientific Franck, is one of the features of 'The Compleat Angler which most attracts us to-day. Aldrovandus, ^lianus, Dubravius, Rondeletius — what names had the scientists of those days ! Names monstrous to the eye as the monsters they celebrate. It is hard sometimes to make up one's mind whether Walton's solemn deference to these extinct naturalists of the extinct is not a form of humour with him, as indeed one sometimes wonders too of his no less fantastic piety. Take, for instance, his familiar argument in favour of anglers that four of Christ's disciples were fishermen, and " first, that He never reproved these for their employment or calling, as He did scribes and the money-changers. And secondly, He found that the hearts of such men by nature were fitted for con- templation and quietness ; men of mild, and sweet and peaceable spirits, as indeed most anglers are . . . And it is observable, that it was our Saviour's will, that these our four Fishermen should have a priority of nomination in the catalogue of His Twelve Apostles, Matt. X. 2-4, Acts i. 13, as namely, first St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. James, and St. John, and then the rest in their order." It is difficult for us to realise that Walton probably meant all this quite seriously, so hard is it by any stretch of imagination to transport oneself into that atmosphere of primitive innocence in which the childlike soul of Walton breathed. But to doubt Walton's absolute seriousness in such a passage is to miss one of the essential conditions of his temperament, its complete, unquestioning reliance upon authority. He was entirely the product of the old order. We see in him an exquisite example of that perfection of character which that old order not infrequently developed. He is perhaps more the ideal Churchman than the ideal Christian, a respecter of castes and an unquestioning supporter of the powers that be. He is the type of man who grows obediently as he is trained, and gives God the glory. Ixviii Introduction It is inevitable that such a type has its limitations. It Is apt to be hard on merely human feelings, and one encounters Walton's limita- tions when he comes to deal with such a matter as Donne's beautiful passionate love-story. Donne's wife married him against the open hostility of her family, and their life together to the very end (even when she had become the mother of twelve children) was an idyl of devoted love — yet Walton declares their marriage to have been " the remarkable error " of Donne's life, and even goes so far as to say, " a marriage, too, without the allowance of those friends, whose approbation always was, and ever will be, necessary, to make even a virtuous love become lawful " ! One would have expected the gentle fisherman to have treated so charming a love-story more tenderly, but I am afraid " Honest Izaak's " view of woman was much like that of Mr. Coventry Patmore, and his respect for social usage and dividing-lines as inexorable. But a saint Is, of necessity, somewhat Inhuman, and Izaak, being a true saint, he was not, doubtless, without saintly drawbacks — though they are hard to discover. To adapt Wordsworth's sonnet, he was a saint who wrote with a quill "dropt from an angel's wing." One can hardly think of one so innocent-minded writing so well. There always seems a spice of the devil In any form of skill, and we don't readily think of the good man being clever as well. It seems a sort of wickedness in him, somehow. But perhaps Walton was not quite so artless in this matter as he seemed. No artist can be really artless. Take, for instance, that apparently simple sentence in the life of Herbert, where, speaking of certain of Donne's hymns, he says, "These hymns are now lost to us ; but doubtless they were such as they two now sing In heaven." How touchlngly quaint, we say, how primitive in Its old-world Innocency ! And yet Lowell has pointed out, that on the Inside of his Eusebius, preserved at Salisbury, Walton has written three attempts at this sentence, each of them very far from the concise beauty to which he at last constrained himself. In his prayer-book are to be found his studies for his wife's epitaph, and his account of the death of Hooker and the Lives generally received considerable retouching. We have seen him working at T^he Compleat Angler till the last ; and if It was Ixix Introduction artlessness that planned his pastoral, managed his dialogues, and in- troduced his variations from his chosen theme, it was that artlessness which is one with art. So much nature was never got into a book without a corresponding outlay of art — and has any one else brought the singing of birds, the fragrance of meadows, the meditative peace of the riverside, into a book, with so undying a freshness as he? And how well he knew daintily to set a sprig of " old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good," here and there among his pages, poetry thus immortalised by the association — for no other writer so hallows his quotations. But it is in vain we strive by critical reagents to analyse the un- fading charm of this old book ; is it not simply that the soul of a good man still breathes through its pages like lavender .'' yVaCtbn's. Cottage ixx fUyyiip ( ,/t i^frcmi Introduction IV. Charles Cotton 1HAVE elsewhere ventured to express the opinion that Cotton's so-called "second part " of "fhe Compleat Angler, whatever the literary skill with which the style of Walton is imitated, not to say parodied, whatever its illustrative and associative value, or its im- portance as a contribution to the art and science of fly-fishing, is nevertheless — printed as an integral part of that charming classic — an impertinence. Its proper place is an appendix, whither I should have relegated it in this edition, had not tradition been too strong to be gainsaid. Whom fame has joined together let no man put asunder. Yet, as I have said, I cannot be " the only reader of the book for whom it ends with that gentle benediction : ' And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his providence, and be quiet, and Ixxi Introduction go a Angling ' ; and that sweet exhortation from i Thess. iv. 1 1 , ' Study to be quiet.' " After the exquisite quietism of this farewell, it is distracting to come precipitately upon the fine gentleman with the great wig and the Frenchified airs." But I resent the arbitrary wedlock for Cotton, too. It has caused him to be preached at for years by sententiously pious editors, who, it is plain, feel him no fit company for Walton, and only tolerate him at all because Walton's affection " pleads against oblivion for his name." Dr. Bethune's sanctimonious horror on the matter is so delicious that I cannot forbear quoting him : The friendship which our venerated Walton had for Cotton, besides his being the author of the following amusing and excellent treatise, will naturally lead the reader to desire a better knowledge of him ; but, it must be confessed, that the duty thus laid upon the editor is by no means so pleasant as he could wish. The character of the adopted son differs so widely from that of his pure-minded father, as to make it a mystery how even a common taste for angling could have made the friend of Wotton bear with the habits of the younger man. Perhaps the friendship Walton had for Cotton's father was affectionately entailed upon the offspring ; perhaps similarity of poHtical opinions may have biased even the very sober judgment ; perhaps a charitable hope to do the reckless wit good by a close association made the merciful heart more tolerant ; no doubt the venerable presence restrained the tongue from the licence of the pen which the burlesque poet made a second nature ; but however it came about, an affectionate intercourse was maintained between them, as the reader already knows, and will soon know further. Let us hope that Walton's serious occupations and inter- course with pious men of learning kept him happily away from com- panions where loose writings would be named ; and that, ignorant of Cotton's vicious folly, he judged him rather by the truly beautiful sentiments breathed through the " Stanzes Irreguliers." One would like to hear " hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton's " laughter — and remarks — on this passage. The incongruity of the friendship is obvious, and we may be sure, with Lowell, that " there must have been delicately understood and mutually respectful conventions of silence in an intimacy between Ixxii Introduction the placidly believing author of the Lives and the translator of him who created the essay." But saint and sinner have been friends before and after Walton and Cotton, and the likeableness of a friend is more important to a friendship than his opinions, or even his morals. Besides, if Walton was a saint, he had plainly not forgotten the good gospel advice given to unpractical children of light, and Lowell no doubt indicates one bond between him and Cotton, when he says that " Walton loved a gentleman of the blood as honestly as Johnson did, and was, I am sure, as sturdily independent withal .... himself of obscurest lineage, there was nothing he relished more keenly than the long pedigrees of other people." When that gentleman of the blood was an angler, with one of the best trout streams in England rippling through his lands, a man of taste, a staunch cavalier, a loyal Churchman, and a kind, hearty, good-natured young man, reverent to age and respectful towards sanctities, if perhaps a thought too gay and giddy in his life and poems, as young men will be — well, why shouldn't even the Bishop of Chichester's " Honest Izaak," take him for his friend .'' For Cotton Walton probably had that charm of antithesis which is so attractive to men of the world, who by a sort of intellectual urbanity often understand and interpret goodness and purity better than the good and pure themselves. Probably he had the man of the world's delight in character for its own sake, independent of the particular type's likeness or unlikeness to himself. There must have been times when, mentally, Walton made him yawn tremendously ; times when he would smother his smiles at the old man's prudishness ; times even when he may have been tempted to " damn " his sententiousness. The same happens with Walton's readers to this day, but they go on loving him all the same ; and so it was, no doubt, with Cotton. Besides, it must not be forgotten that Walton had been a friend of the father before the son,* a father so closely repeated in the son, * In Cotton's poem to Walton quoted in the appendix, he says, a propos of the lives of Donne and Wotton : How happy was my father, then, to see Those men he lov'd, by him he lov'd, to be Rescued from frailties and mortality. Ixxiii Introduction that the same description will almost literally serve for both — though, of the two, the father seems to have been the more brilliant man. That description, stately yet almost tender, is supplied by Lord Clarendon in the following passage, quoted from his autobiography : Charles Cotton was a gentleman born to a competent fortune, and so qualified in his person and education, that for many years he continued the greatest ornament of the town, in the esteem of those who had been best bred. His natural parts were very great, his wit flowing in all the parts of conversation ; the superstructure of learning not raised to a considerable height : but having passed some years in Cambridge, and then in France, and conversing always with learned men, his expressions were ever proper and significant, and gave great lustre to his discourse upon any argument ; so that he was thought by those who were not intimate with him, to have been much better acquainted with books than he was. He had all those qualities which in youth raise men to the reputation of being fine gentlemen ; such a pleasantness and gaiety of humour, such a sweetness and gentleness of nature, and such a civility and delightfulness in conversation, that no man, in court or out of it, appeared a more accomplished person : all these extraordinary quali- fications being supported by as extraordinary a clearness of courage and fearlessness of spirit, of which he gave too often manifestation. Some unhappy suits in law, and waste of his fortune in those suits, made some impression on his mind which, being impaired by domestic afflictions, and those indulgences to himself which naturally attend those afflictions, rendered his age less reverenced than his youth had been, and gave his best friends cause to have wished that he had not lived so long. The fortunate son of this delightful father, and by him and his mother, Olive Stanhope, sprung from some of the noblest Derby- shire and Staffordshire families, Charles Cotton was born at Beres- ford, April 28, 1630. Particulars of his youth are almost as vague as particulars of the youth of Walton ; but in his case, on account of his birth, they are more safely conjecturable. That he was sent to Cambridge is likely, though not definitely known ; it being sur- mised, however, from his affection for his tutor, Ralph Rawson, as expressed in a dedication to a translation of an ode by Joannes Secundus, included in his Poems on Several Occasions (1689). It seems certain, however, that he took no degree; but, like many who have done the same, his acquaintance with and love for literature at an early age seems to have been none the less. His Ixxiv lllCVi',',//!//;"" . ; \ rr^'i -//.i'l'i/ E K NT- Introduction classical attainments and his knowledge of French and Italian, combined with the usual polite accomplishments of his time, appear to have been considerable ; and he seems to have written poetry from his youth, though little of it was published till after the Restoration. He boasted two poets among his family connections — Colonel Richard Lovelace, a friend of his father's, and Sir Aston Cockayne, a cousin of his mother's. Lovelace, who had written an elegy on his aunt Cassandra Cotton, and had likewise addressed an ode on " The Grasshopper " to his father, later on inscribed "The Triumphs of Philamore and Amoret, to the noblest of our youth and best of friends, Charles Cotton, Esquire, being at Beresford, at his house in Staffordshire, from London." Cotton is supposed to have befriended him in his poverty, and he wrote an elegy to his memory, which was printed at the end of Lucasta and Posthume Poems in 1659. Sir Aston Cockayne, if but a very minor poet, had a pretty gift for flattering his friends. He seems from the first to have taken the praise of Cotton for his mission in life, and his poem, "To my most honoured cousin, Mr. Charles Cotton the Younger, upon his excellent Poems," is a by no means despicable piece of hyperbole. I quote the greater part of it for its references to Cotton's beauty and accomplishments, but also for its own intrinsic curiosity : To iny Most Honoured Cousin, Mr. Charles Cotton, the Younger, upon his Excellent Poems. Bear back, you crowd of wits, that have so long Been the prime glory of the English tongue, And roofn for our arch-poet make, and follow His steps, as you would do your great Apollo. Nor is he his inferior, for see His picture, and you'll say that this is he ; So young and handsome both, so tress' d alike. That curious Lilly, or most skilPd Vandyke, Would prefer neither, only here's the odds. This gives us better verse, than that the Gods. Beware, you poets, that {at distance) you The reverence afford him that is due Ixxvi Introductio7j Unto his mighty merit^ and not dare Tour puny threads with his lines to compare .... The Greek and Latin language he commands^ So all that then was "writ in both these lands ; The French and the Italian he hath gain'd And all the wit that in them is contained. So, if he pleases to translate a piece From France or Italy, old Rome or Greece, The understanding reader soon will find. It is the best of any of that kind ; But when he lets his own rare fancy loose, There is no flight so noble as his muse. Treats he of war ? Bellona doth advance. And leads his march with her refulgent lance. Sings he of love ? Cupid about him lurks. And Venus in her chariot draws his works. Whaie'er his subject be, he'll make it fit To live hereafter emperor of wit. He is the Muses' darling, all the nine Phoebus disclaim, and term him ?nore divine. The wondrous Tasso, that so long hath borne The sacred laurel, shall remain forlorn. Alonso de Ercilla, that in strong And mighty lines hath Araucana sung. And Sallust, that the ancient Hebrew: story Hath poetiz'd, submit unto your glory. So the chief swans of Tagus, Arne, and Seine, Must yield to Thames, and veil unto your strain. Hail, generous maga'zine of wit, you bright Planet of learning, dissipate the night Of dulness, wherein us this age involves. And [from our ignorance) redee?n our souls. A word at parting. Sir, I could not choose Thus to congratulate your happy muse ; And {though I vilify your worth) my zeal [And so in mercy think) intended well. The world will find your lines are great and strong. The nihil ultra of the English tongue. Cotton's young manhood seems to have been spent like the manhood of other young men of his class and time ; college, foreign ixxvii Introduction travel and the town, with a touch of such graver interests as angling, gardening and planting. (He wrote an admirable Planters' Manual in '^75-) In 1656 he married his cousin Isabella, daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, and in 1658 his father died. On the Restoration he began his public career as author by a prose panegyric of the king, and in 1664 he published his Scarronides, or the First Book of Virgil Travestie, a burlesque, neither brighter nor duller than the average wit of his day, but which, however, enjoyed great popularity (going through no less than fourteen editions), possibly on account of its indecencies. In these, however, it cannot be said to have been singular in that liberal age. B'rom this time onwards. Cotton became a fairly busy literary man. He seems to have been driven to translating as a means of enlivening the " vacancy of a country life," of which he frequently complains, rather than from any profit it brought him. A list of his writings will be found at the end of this note. In 1670 his wife died, leaving him with three sons and five daughters, and in 1675 we find him married again, his second wife being Mary, daughter of Sir William Russell, and widow of the Earl of Ardglass. Like his father before him, his life seems to have been much harassed by the narrowness of his means. On two occasions he found it necessary to petition Parliament to sanction the sale of portions of his estate, and there is a cave near where Beresford Hall stood, in which, according to local tradition, he used to hide from his creditors ; a story generally discredited by his biographers, but somewhat borne out by this passage from a poem addressed to Alexander Brome, complaining of his country exile, with no company — But such, as I still pray, I may not see. Such craggy rough-hewn rogues, as do not fit. Sharpen and set, but blunt the edge of wit ; Any of which {^and fear has a quick eye) If through a perspective I chance to spy. Though a mile off, I take the alarm and run As if I saw the devil, or a dun ; Ixxviii Introduction 1 Uoinlf ^ And in the neighbouring rocks take sanctuary^ Praying the hills to fall and cover me ; So that my solace lies amongst my grounds^ And my best company'' s my horse and hounds. Another story represents him scribbling the following not very- brilliant quatrain on the walls of a debtor's prison in London : A prison is a place of cure Wherein no one can thrive; A touchstone sure to try a friend^ A grave for men alive. Cotton's friendship with Walton, as we have seen, probably dated from his boyhood, and had found poetical expression before, preparing a fifth edition of his pastoral, Walton had invited him to Ixxix Introdiictio?i contribute those " Instructions how to angle for a trout or grayling in a clear stream," which Cotton, he himself tells us, wrote in about ten days, and sent back to his friend. In the same year in which the joint Compleat Angler appeared. Cotton had finished building the little fishing-house which still stands among its trees, in a bend of the Dove, sacred to anglers and ancient friendship. Mr. New's illustrations make unnecessary any more modern description than Cotton's own (Part II., Chap. III.) and indeed the place is to this day so pleasant that one may still say of it in Walton's words that " the pleasantness of the river, mountains and meadows about it, cannot be described ; unless Sir Philip Sidney, or Mr. Cotton's father were alive again to do it." Cotton survived his old friend but four years, dying of a fever on some date uncertain during 1687, but said to be February 13. He is entirely remembered to-day by his association with Walton, and his translation of Montaigne, which have carried down to us the tradition of his handsome person and courtly manners, but which have hardly won due recognition for his poetry. Without declaring it, with Sir Aston Cockayne, "the nihil ultra oi the English tongue," we may still feel that it has charms and excellencies, real if modest, which make forgetfulness of it unjust, and which justify Cotton's long-neglected claim to a recognised place among English poets, a claim which a new edition of his poems might establish ; though it is to be feared, that he would shine best in a judicious selection. His bane was fluency, and not seldom we have to plod through deserts of mediocre verse before we reach any poetry worth while. But the poetry is there, and when with Cotton the moment of literary projection did come, the product had a charming inevitability, and is marked by a rare excellence of simplicity, to which Coleridge has paid a tribute in the Biographia Literaria. The following verses from the " Contentation," one of the several poems " directed " to Walton, may be taken as an example : '27j contentation that alone Can make us happy here belovo^ And when this little life is gone^ IVill lift us up to heav'n too. Ixxx Introduction A very little satisfies An honest and a grateful heart; And who would more than will suffice^ Does covet more than is his part. That man is happy in his share^ Who is warm clad, and cleanly fed ; Whose necessaries bound his care. And honest labour makes his bed. Who free from debt, and clear from crimes. Honours those laws that others fear ; Who ill of princes, in worst times. Will neither speak himself nor hear. Who from the busy world retires To be more useful to it still. And to no greater good aspires. But only the eschewing ill. Who with his angle and his books Can think the longest day well spent. And praises God when back he looks. And finds that all was innocent. This man is happier far than he. Whom public business oft betrays. Through labyrinths of policy To crooked and forbidden ways. The world is full of beaten roads. But yet so slippery withall. That where one walks secure, 'tis odds A hundred and a hundred fall. Untrodden paths are then the best. Where the frequented are unsure. And he comes soonest to his rest. Whose journey has been most secure. It is content alone that makes Our pilgrimage a pleasure here. And who buys sorrow cheapest, takes An ill commodity too dear, Ixxxi f Introduction Nor was Cotton's muse always so mild, as this manly rebuke of Waller, censure so well-deserved, will show : To Poet E. W., occasioned for his writing a Panegyric on Oliver Cromwell From whence^ vile Poet^ didst thou glean the wit., And words for such a vitious poem fit ? Where couldst thou paper find was not too white., Or ink that could be black enough to write ? What servile devil tempted thee to be A flatterer of thine own slavery ? To kiss thy bondage and extol the deed. At once that made thy prince and country bleed? I wonder much thy false heart did not dread. And shame to write what all men blush to read; Thus with a base ingratitude to rear Trophies unto thy master's murtherer ? Who called thee coward — much mistook The characters of thy pedantic look ; Thou hast at once abused thyself and us, lie's stout that dares to flatter a tyranne thus. Put up thy pen and ink, muzzle thy muse. Adulterate hag fit for the common stews. No good ?nan's library ; writ thou hast. Treason in rhyme, has all thy works defaced ; Such is thy fault, that when I think to find A punishment of the severest kind For thy offence, my malice cannot name A greater, than once to commit the same. Where was thy reason then, when thou began To write against the sense of God and man ? Within thy guilty breast despair took place. Thou wouldst despairing die despite of grace. At once thou^rt judge and malefactor shown. Each sentence in thy poem is thine own. Then what thou hast pronounced go execute. Hang up thyself, and say I bid thee do it , Fear not thy memory, that cannot die. This panegyric is thy elegy. Which shall be when or wheresoever read, A living poem to upbraid the dead. Ixxxii Introduction Cotton's Literary Work [This list is reprinted from Mr. R. B. Marston's " Lea and Dove " edition] 1649 An Elegy upon the Death of Henry, Lord Hastings. 1651 Verses prefixed to Edmund Prestwich's translation to the Hippolitus of Seneca. 1 65 1 Verses on the Execution of James, Earl of Derby. 1654 Verses in which he castigates Waller for writing a panegyric on the Protector. 1664 Scarronides, or Virgil Travestie, being the first book of Virgil's /Ends, in English burlesque. 8vo. 1667 A Translation of The Moral Thilosophy of the Stoics, fiom the French of Du Vaix. Some verses on the Poems of his friend, Alexander Brome. 1670 Scarronides, second edition. Translation of Gerard's History of the Life of the Duke of Espernon, dedicated to Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury. 1671 A Translation of Corneille's Tragedy, Les Horaces. Voyage to Ireland, in Burlesque. 1670 Translation of the Commentaries of Blaise de Montluc, Marshal of -74 France. The Compleat Gamester. (Attributed to him.) The Fair One of Tunis, a novel, translated from the French. 1675 Burlesque upon Burlesque ; or the Scoffer Scoffed. The Planter's Manual, being instructions for cultivating all sorts of fruit trees. 8vo. 1676 The Second Part of The Compleat Angler ,• Being Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream. 1681 The Wonders of the Peak. A description in verse of the natural wonders of the Peak District in Derbyshire. 1685 Translation of the Essays of Montaigne. 1687 Was engaged in translating the Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis at the time of his death, in February 1687. This work was published in 1694, by his son, Beresford Cotton. In 1689 Poems on Several Occasions, a collection of some of his poems, was published. Ixxxiv The Compleat Angler Or the Contemplative Man's Recreation Part I 1=^ -— ^, Being a Discourse of Rivers, Fishponds, Fish, and Fishing Written by Izaak Walton :;:- EH- NT- The Compleat 'Angler an element of more worth than weight, an element that doubtless exceeds both the earth and water ; for though I sometimes deal in both, yet the air is most properly mine, I and my hawks use that most, and it yields us most recreation : it stops not the high soaring of my noble, generous falcon ; in it she ascends to such a height as the dull eyes of beasts and fish are not able to reach to ; their bodies are too gross for such high elevations : in the air my troops of hawks soar up on high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, then they attend upon and converse with the gods ; therefore I think my eagle is so justly styled "Jove's servant in ordinary ;" and that Tery falcon that I am now going to see, deserves no meaner title, for she usually in her flight endangers herself, like the son of Dasdalus, to have her wings scorched by the sun's heat, she flies so near it ; but her mettle makes her careless of danger ; for then she heeds nothing, but makes her nimble pinions cut the fluid air, and so makes her highway over the steepest mountains and deepest rivers, and in her glorious career looks with contempt upon those high steeples and magnificent palaces which we adore and wonder at ; from which height I can make her to descend by a word from my mouth (which she both knows and obeys), to accept of meat from my hand, to own me for her master, to go home with me, and be willing the next day to afford me the like recreation. And more : this element of air which I" profess to trade in, the worth of it is such, and it is of such necessity, that no creature what- soever, not only those numerous creatures that feed on the face of the earth, but those various creatures that have their dwelling within the waters, every creature that hath life in its nostrils, stands in need of my element. The waters cannot preserve the fish without air, witness the not breaking of ice in an extreme frost : the reason is, for that if the inspiring and expiring organ of an animal be stopped, it suddenly yields to nature, and dies. Thus necessary is air to the existence both of fish and beasts, nay, even to man himself ; the air or breath of life with which God at first inspired mankind, he, if he wants it, dies presently, becomes a sad object to all that loved and beheld him, and in an instant turns to putrefaction. Nay more, the very birds of the air (those that be not hawks) are 28 The Compleat Angler both so many and so useful and pleasant to mankind, that I must not let them pass without some observations. They both feed and refresh him — feed him with their choice bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices. I will not undertake to mention the several kinds of fowl by which this is done ; and his curious palate pleased by day, and which with their very excrements afford him a soft lodging at night. These I will pass by ; but not those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. As, first, the lark, when she means to rejoice, to cheer herself and those that hear her ; she then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends higher into the air, and having ended her heavenly employ- ment, grows then mute and sad, to think she must descend to the dull earth, which she would not touch, but for necessity. How do the blackbird and thrassel, with their melodious voices, bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to ^ Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as, namely, the leverock, the titlark, the little linnet, and the honest robin, that loves mankind both alive and dead. But the nightingale (another of my airy creatures) breathes such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that at mid- night, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, " Lord, what music hast Thou pro- vided for the saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth .'' " And this makes me the less to wonder at the many aviaries in Italy, or at the great charge of Varro his aviary, the ruins of which are yet to be seen in Rome, and is still so famous there, that it is reckoned for one of those notables which men of foreign nations either record, or lay up in their memories, when they return from travel. This for the birds of pleasure, of which very much more might be said. My next shall be of birds of political use. I think 'tis- 29 'The Compleat Angler not to be doubted that swallows have been taught to carry letters betwixt two armies. But 'tis certain, that when the Turks besieged Malta or Rhodes (I now remember not which 'twas), pigeons are then related to carry and recarry letters. And Mr. G. Sandys, in his Travels (fol. 269) relates it to be done betwixt Aleppo and Babylon. But if that be disbelieved, 'tis not to be doubted that the dove was sent out of the ark by Noah, to give him notice of land, when to him all appeared to be sea ; and the dove proved a faithful and comfortable messenger. And for the sacrifices of the law, a pair of turtle-doves or young pigeons were as well accepted as costly bulls and rams. And when God would feed the prophet Elijah (i Kings, xvii.) after a kind of miraculous manner, he did it by ravens, who brought him meat morning and evening. Lastly, the Holy Ghost, when He descended visibly upon our Saviour, did it by assuming the shape of a dove. And to conclude this part of my discourse, pray remember these wonders were done by birds of the air, the element in which they and I take so much pleasure. 30 The Compleat ^?tgler There is also a little contemptible winged creature (an inhabitant of my aerial element), namely, the laborious bee, of whose prudence, policy, and regular government of their own commonwealth I might say much, as also of their several kinds, and how useful their honey and wax are both for meat and medicines to man- kind ; but I will leave them to their sweet labour, without the least disturbance, believing them to be all very busy at this very time amongst the herbs and flowers that we see nature puts forth this May morning. And now to return to my hawks, from whom I have made too long a digression ; you are to note, that they are usually dis- tinguished into two kinds ; namely, the long-winged and the short- winged hawk : of the first kind, there be chiefly in use amongst us in this nation, The Gerfalcon and yerkin^ The Falcon and Tassel-gentel, The Laner and Lanaret, The Bockerel and Bockeret^ The Saker and Sacaret^ The Aferlin and Jack Merlin^ The Hobby and Jack : There is the Stelletto of Spain, The Blood-red Rook from Turkey, The Waskite from Virginia : Jnd there is of short-winged hawks. The Eagle and Iron, The (joshawk and Tarcel, The Sparhawk and Musket, The French Pye, of two sorts. These are reckoned hawks of note and worth ; but we have also hawks of an inferior rank, The Stanyel, the Ringtail, The Raven, the Buzzard, The Forked Kite, the Bald Buzzard, The Hen-driver, and others that I forbear to name. 31 'The C ample at Angler Gentlemen, if I should enlarge my discourse to the observation of the eiries, the brancher, the ramish hawk, the haggard, and the two sorts of lentners, and then treat of their several ayries, their mewings, rare order of casting, and the renovation of their feathers : their reclaiming, dieting, and then come to their rare stories of practice ; I say, if I should enter into these, and many other observa- tions that I could make, it would be much, very much pleasure to me : but lest I should break the rules of civility to you, by taking up more than the proportion of time allotted to me, I will here break oiF, and entreat you, Mr. Venator, to say what you are able in the commendation of hunting, to which you are so much affected ; and, if time will serve, I will beg your favour for a further enlargement of some of those several heads of which I have spoken. But no more at present. Ven. Well, sir, and I will now take my turn, and will first begin with a commendation of the Earth, as you have done most excellently of the Air : the earth being that element upon which I drive my pleasant, wholesome, hungry trade. The earth is a solid, settled element : an element most universally beneficial both to man and beast : to men who have their several recreations upon it, as horse- races, hunting, sweet smells, pleasant walks : the earth feeds man, and all those several beasts that both feed him and afford him recreation. What pleasure doth man take in hunting the stately stag, the generous buck, the wild boar, the cunning otter, the crafty fox, and the fearful hare ? And if I may descend to a lower game, what pleasure is it sometimes with gins to betray the very vermin of the earth .'' as, namely, the fitchet, the fulimart, the ferret, the pole- cat, the mould-warp, and the like creatures that live upon the face and within the bowels of the earth. How doth the earth bring forth herbs, flowers, and fruits, both for physic and the pleasure of mankind! and above all, to me at least, the fruitful vine, of which, when I drink moderately, it clears my brain, cheers my heart, and sharpens my wit. How could Cleopatra have feasted Mark Antony, with eight wild boars roasted whole at one supper, and other meat suitable, if the earth had not been a bountiful mother .'' But to pass by the mighty elephant, which the earth breeds and nourisheth, and 33 c The Compleat = EMJ-J 72 CHAPTER III How to Fish for, and to Dress, the Chavender, or Chub. ISC. The Chub, though he eat well thus dressed, yet as he is usually dressed he does not. He is objected against, not only for being full of small forked bones, dispersed through all his body, but that he eats waterish, and that the flesh of him is not firm, but short and tasteless. The French esteem him so mean as to call him un vilain ; nevertheless, he may be so dressed as to make him very good meat ; as, namely, if he be a large chub, then dress him thus : First, scale him, and then v/ash him clean, and then take out his guts ; and to that end make the hole as little and near to his gills as you may conveniently, and especially make clean his throat from the grass and weeds that are usually in it (for if that be not very clean, it will make him to taste very sour). Having so done, put some sweet herbs into his belly ; and then tie him with two or three splinters to a spit, and roast him, basted often with vinegar, or rather verjuice and butter, with good store of salt mixed with it. Being thus dressed, you will find him a much better dish of meat than you, or most folk, even than anglers themselves, do imagine : for this dries up the fluid watery humour with which all chubs do abound. 73 F The Cojnpleat ^Angler But take this rule with you, that a chub newly taken and newly dressed, is so much better than a chub of a day's keeping after he is dead, that I can compare him to nothing so fitly as to cherries newly gathered from a tree, and others that have been bruised and lain a day or two in water. But the chub being thus used, and dressed presently, and not washed after he is gutted (for note, that lying long in water, and washing the blood out of any fish after they be gutted, abates much of their sweetness), you will find the chub being dressed in the blood, and quickly, to be such meat as will recompense your labour, and disabuse your opinion. Or you may dress the chavender or chub thus : When you have scaled him, and cut off his tail and fins, and washed him very clean, then chine or slit him through the middle, as a salt fish is usually cut ; then give him three or four cuts or scotches on the back with your knife, and broil him on charcoal, or wood-coal that is free from smoke, and all the time he is a-broiling baste him with the best sweet butter, and good store of salt mixed with it ; and to this add a little thyme cut exceeding small, or bruised into the butter. The cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste taken away, for which so many except against him. Thus was the cheven dressed that you now liked so well, and commended so much. But note again, that if this chub that you ate of had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been worth a rush. And remember that his throat be washed very clean, I say very clean, and his body not washed after he is gutted, as indeed no fish should be. Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken to recover the lost credit of the poor despised chub. And now I will give you some rules how to catch him ; and I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catching a chub, for there is no fish better to enter a young angler, he is so easily caught, but then it must be this parti- cular way. Go to the same hole in which I caught my chub, where in most hot days you will find a dozen or twenty chevens floating near the top of the water : get two or three grasshoppers as you go over the meadow, and get secretly behind the tree, and stand as free from motion as is possible ; then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let 74 The Compleat ^Angler your hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your rod on some bough of the tree. But it is likely the chubs will sink down towards the bottom of the water at the first shadow of your rod (for a chub is the fearfulest of fishes), and will do so if a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow on the water ; but they will presently rise up to the top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them again. I say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look out the best chub (which you, setting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see), and move your rod as softly as a snail moves, to that chub you intend to catch ; let your bait fall gently upon the water three or four inches before him, and he will infallibly take the bait, and you will be as sure to catch him ; for he is one of the leather-mouthed fishes, of which a hook does scarce ever lose its hold ; and therefore give him play enough before you offer to take him out of the water. Go your way presently ; take my rod and do as I bid you ; and I will sit down and mend my tackling till you return back. Ven. Truly, my loving master, you have offered me as fair as I could wish. I'll go, and observe your directions. Look you, master, what I have done, that which joys my heart, caught just such another chub as yours was. Pisc. Marry, and I am glad of it : I am like to have a towardly scholar of you. I now see that with advice and practice, you will make an angler in a short time. Have but a love to it ; and I'll warrant you. Ven. But, master, what if I could not have found a grasshopper .'' Pisc. Then I may tell you that a black snail, with his belly slit to show his white, or a piece of soft cheese, will usually do as well : nay, sometimes a worm, or any kind of fly, as the ant-fly, the flesh- fly, or wall-fly, or the dor or beetle (which you may find under cow- tird), or a bob, which you will find in the same place, and in time will be a beetle ; it is a short white worm, like to and bigger than a gentle, or a cod-worm, or a case-worm, any of these will do very well to fish in such a manner. And after this manner you may catch a trout in a hot evening : when as you walk by a brook, and shall see or hear him leap at flies, then if you get a grasshopper, put 75 The Compleat Angler it on your hook, with your Hne about two yards long, standing behind a bush or tree where his hole is, and make your bait stir up and down on the top of the water, you may, if you stand close, be sure of a bite, but not sure to catch him, for he is not a leather- mouthed fish : and after this manner you may fish for him with almost any kind of live fly, but especially with a grasshopper. Ven. But before you go further, I pray, good master, what mean you by a leather-mouthed fish ? Pisc. By a leather-mouthed fish I mean such as have their teeth in their throat, as the chub or cheven, and so the barbel, the gud- geon, and carp, and divers others have ; and the hook being stuck into the leather or skin of the mouth of such fish, does very seldom or never lose its hold : but, on the contrary, a pike, a perch, or trout, and so some other fish, which have not their teeth in their throats, but in their mouths, which you shall observe to be very full of bones, and the skin very thin, and little of it ; I say, of these fish the hook never takes so sure hold, but you often lose your fish, unless he have gorged it. Ven. I thank you, good master, for this observation ; but now, what shall be done with my chub or cheven that I have caught .'' Pisc. Marry, sir, it shall be given away to some poor body, for I'll warrant you I'll give you a trout for your supper : and it is a good beginning of your art to offer your first-fruits to the poor, who will both thank God and you for it, which I see by your silence you seem to consent to. And for your willingness to part with it so charitably, I will also teach more concerning chub-fishing : you are to note that in March and April he is usually taken with worms ; in May, June, and July, he will bite at any fly, or at cherries, or at beetles with their legs and wings cut off:, or at any kind of snail, or at the black bee that breeds in clay walls ; and he never refuses a grasshopper, on the top of a swift stream, nor, at the bottom, the young humble bee that breeds in long grass, and is ordinarily found by the mower of it. In August, and in the cooler months, a yellow paste made of the strongest cheese, and pounded in a mortar, with a little butter and saffron, so much of it, as being beaten small, will turn it to a lemon colour. And some make a paste, for the winter 76 The Compleat Angler months, at which time the chub is accounted best (for then it is ob- served that the forked bones are lost, or turned into a kind of gristle, especially if he be baked), of cheese and turpentine. He will bite also at a minnow, or penk, as a trout will : of which I shall tell you more hereafter, and of divers other baits. But take this for a rule, that, in hot weather, he is to be fished for towards the mid-water, or near the top ; and in colder weather nearer the bottom. And if you fish for him on the top, with a beetle or any fly, then be sure to let your line be very long, and keep out of sight. And having told you that his spawn is excellent meat, and that the head of a large cheven, the throat being well washed, is the best part of him, I will say no more of this fish at the present, but wish you may catch the next you fish for. But, lest you may judge me too nice in urging to have the chub dressed so presently after he is taken, I will commend to your considera- tion how curious former times have been in the like kind. You shall read in Seneca, his Natural Questions (Lib. 3, Cap. 17,) that the ancients were so curious in the newness of their fish, that that seemed not new enough that was not put alive into the guest's hand ; 77 WALTHAM ABBEY 'The Compleat Angler and he says that to that end they did usually keep them living In glass bottles in their dining rooms : and they did glory much in their entertaining of friends, to have that fish taken from under their table alive that was instantly to be fed upon. And he says, they took great pleasure to see their Mullets change to several colours, when they were dying. But enough of this, for I doubt I have stayed too long from giving you some observations of the trout, and how to fish for him, which shall take up the next of my spare time. 78 .■..;;,;^^,« ^r, , ^> '^, ^ * , CHAPTER IV Observations of the Nature and Breeding of the Trout, and how to Fish for him ; and the Milkmaid's Song. JHE Trout is a fish highly valued both in this and ^ foreign nations : he may be justly said (as the old poet said of wine, and we English say of venison) to be a generous fish : a fish that is so like the buck that he also has his seasons ; for it is ob- served, that he comes in and goes out of season with the stag and buck ; Gesner says, his name is of a German offspring, and says he is a fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel ; and that he may justly contend with all fresh-water fish, as the Mullet may with all sea-fish, for precedency and daintiness of taste, and that being in right season, the most dainty palates have allowed prece- dency to him. And before I go further in my discourse, let me tell you, that you are to observe, that as there be some barren does, that are good in summer, so there be some barren trouts that are good in winter ; but there are not many that are so, for usually they be in their perfection in the month of May, and decline with the buck. Now you are to take notice, that in several countries, as in Germany and in other parts, compared to ours, fish do differ much in their bigness and shape, and other ways, and so do trouts ; it is well known that in 79 The Compleat Angler the Lake Leman (the Lake of Geneva) there are trouts taken of three cubits long, as is affirmed by Gesner, a writer of good credit ; and Mercator says, the trouts that are taken in the Lake of Geneva, are a great part of the merchandise of that famous city. And you are further to know, that there be certain waters, that breed trouts remarkable both for their number and smallness. I know a little brook in Kent, that breeds them to a number incredible, and you may take them twenty or forty in an hour, but none greater than about the size of a gudgeon : there are also in divers rivers, especially that relate to, or be near to the sea (as Winchester, or the Thames about Windsor) a little trout called samlet, or skegger trout (in both which places I have caught twenty or forty at a standing) that will bite as fast and as freely as minnows : these be by some taken to be young salmon ; but in those waters they never grow to be bigger than a herring. There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a trout (called there a Fordidge trout), a trout that bears the name of the town where it is usually caught, that is accounted the rarest of fish ; many of them near the bigness of a salmon, but known by their different colour ; and in their best season they cut very white ; and none of these have been known to be caught with an angle, unless it were one that was caught by Sir George Hastings (an excellent angler, and now with God) ; and he hath told me, he thought that trout bit not for hunger but wantonness; and it is rather to be believed, because both he, then, and many others before him, have been curious to search into their bellies, what the food was by which they lived ; and have found out nothing by which they might satisfy their curiosity. Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported by good authors, that grasshoppers, and some fish, have no mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the porousness of their gills, man knows not how : and this may be believed, if we consider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, who is said, in the Psalms, " to feed the young ravens that call upon him." And they be kept alive, and fed by dew, or worms that breed in their nests, or some other ways that we mortals know not ; and this may 80 The Compleat ^Angler be believed of the Fordidge trout, which, as it is said of the Stork that, "he knows his season," so he knows his times, I think almost his day, of coming into that river out of the sea, where he lives, and, it is like, feeds nine months of the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. And you are to note that those townsmen are very punctual in observing the time of beginning to fish for them ; and boast much that their river affords a trout, that exceeds all others. And just so does Sussex boast of several fish ; as namely, a Shelsey cockle, a Chichester lobster, an Arundel mullet, and an Amerly trout. And now for some confirmation of the Fordidge trout : you are to know that this trout is thought to eat nothing in the fresh water, and it may be better believed, because it is well known that swallows, and bats, and wagtails, which are called half-year birds, and not seen The Compleat Angler to fly in England for six months in the year, but about Michaelmas leave us for a better climate than this ; yet some of them that have been left behind their fellows, have been found (many thousands at a time) in hollow trees, or clay caves ; where they have been observed to live and sleep out the whole winter without meat ; and so Albertus observes, that there is one kind of frog that hath her mouth naturally shut up about the end of August, and that she lives so all the winter; and though it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many among us to be doubted. And so much for these Fordidge trouts, which never afford an angler sport, but either live their time of being in the fresh water, by their meat formerly got in the sea (not unlike the swallow or frog), or by the virtue of the fresh water only ; or, as the birds of Paradise and the chameleon are said to live, by the sun and the air. There is also in Northumberland a trout called a bull-trout, of a much greater length and bigness than any in the southern parts. And there are, in many rivers that relate to the sea, salmon-trouts, as much different from others, both in shape and in their spots, as we see sheep in some countries differ one from another in their shape and bigness, and in the fineness of their wool : and, certainly, as some pastures breed larger sheep, so do some rivers, by reason of the ground over which they run, breed larger trouts. Now the next thing that I will commend to your consideration is, that the trout is of a more sudden growth than other fish. Con- cerning which, you are also to take notice, that he lives not so long as the perch, and divers other fishes do, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of Life and Death. And next you are to take notice, that he is not like the crocodile, which if he lives never so long, yet always thrives till his death ; but it is not so with the trout, for after he has come to his full growth, he declines in his body, and keeps his bigness, or thrives only in his head till his death. And you are to know, that he will about, especially before, the time of his spawning, get almost miraculously through weirs and flood-gates against the streams ; even through such high and swift places as is almost incredible. Next, that the 82 EHM- IVaMamCrosf The Compleat Angler trout usually spawns about October or November, but in some rivers a little sooner or later : which is the more observable, because most other fish spawn in the spring or summer, when the sun hath warmed both the earth and the water, and made it fit for generation. And you are to note that he continues many months out of season ; for it may be observed of the trout, that he is like the buck or the ox, that he will not be fat in many months, though he go in the very same pasture that horses do, which will be fat in one month : and so you may observe that most other fishes recover strength, and grow sooner fat and in season than the trout doth. And next you are to note, that till the sun gets to such a height as to warm the earth and the water, the trout is sick, and lean, and lousy, and unwholesome : for you shall in winter find him to have a big head, and then to be lank, and thin, and lean : at which time many of them have sticking on them sugs, or trout-lice, which is a kind of worm, in shape like a clove or pin, with a big head, and sticks close to him and sucks his moisture ; those, I think, the trout breeds himself, and never thrives till he free himself from them, which is when warm weather comes ; and then, as he grows stronger, he gets from the dead, still water, into the sharp streams, and the gravel, and there rubs off these worms or lice ; and then, as he grows stronger, so he gets him into swifter and swifter streams, and there lies at the watch for any fly or minnow that comes near to him ; and he especially loves the May-fly, which is bred of the cod- worm or cadis ; and these make the trout bold and lusty, and he is usually fatter and better meat at the end of that month than at any time of the year. Now you are to know that it is observed, that usually the best trouts are either red or yellow; though some (as the Fordidge trout) be white and yet good ; but that is not usual : and it is a note observable, that the female trout hath usually a less head, and a deeper body than the male trout, and is usually the better meat. And note, that a hog-back and a little head to either trout, salmon, or any other fish, is a sign that that fish is in season. But yet you are to note, that as you see some willows or palm- trees bud and blossom sooner than others do, so some trouts be, in 84 The Compleat ^Angler rivers, sooner in season : and as some hollies or oaks are longer before they cast their leaves, so are some trouts in rivers longer before they go out of season. And you are to note, that there are several kinds of trouts : but these several kinds are not considered but by very {e.yf men ; for they go under the general name of trouts : just as pigeons do, in most places ; though, it is certain, there are tame and wild pigeons ; and of the tame, there be helmets and runts, and carriers and cropers; and indeed too many to name. Nay, the Royal Society have found and published lately, that there be thirty and three kinds of spiders ; and yet all (for aught I know) go under that one general name of spider. And it is so with many kinds of fish, and of trouts especially ; which differ in their bigness and shape and spots and colour. The great Kentish hens may be an instance, compared to other hens. And, doubtless, there is a kind of small trout, which will never thrive to be big ; that breeds very many more than others do, that be of a larger size : which you may rather believe, if you consider that the little wren and titmouse will have twenty young ones at a time, when usually the noble hawk, or the musical thrassel or blackbird, exceed not four or five. And now you shall see me try my skill to catch a trout ; and at my next walking, either this evening or to-morrow morning, I will give you direction how you yourself shall fish for him. Ven. Trust me, master, I see now it is a harder matter to catch a trout than a chub : for I have put on patience, and followed you these two hours, and not seen a fish stir, neither at your minnow nor your worm. Pisc. Well, scholar, you must endure worse luck some time, or you will never make a good angler. But what say you now .'' There is a trout now, and a good one too, if I can but hold him, and two or three more turns will tire him. Now you see he lies still, and the sleight is to land him. Reach me that landing net ; so, sir, now he is mine own, what say you now ? Is not this worth all my labour and your patience ? Ven. On my word, master, this is a gallant trout; what shall we do with him .? 85 The Compleat Angler ilSliliUUUmaia Pisc. Marry, e'en eat him to supper; we'll go to my hostess, from whence we came; she told me, as I was going out of door, that my brother Peter, a good angler and a cheerful companion, had sent word that he would lodge there to-night, and bring a friend with him. My hos- tess has two beds, and I know you and I may have the best ; we'll rejoice with my brother Peter and his friend, tell tales, or sing ballads, or make a catch, or find some harmless sport to content us and pass away a little time, without offence to God or man. Ven. a match, good master, let's go to that house ; for the linen looks white, and smells of lavender, and I love to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so. Let's be going, good master, for I am hungry again with fishing. Pisc. Nay, stay a little, good scholar ; I caught my last trout with a worm ; now I will put on a minnow, and try a quarter of an hour about yonder trees for another ; and so walk towards our lodging. Look you, scholar, thereabout we shall have a bite presently or not at all. Have with you, sir ! o' my word I have hold of him. Oh ! it is a great logger-headed chub ; come hang him upon that willow twig, and let's be going. But turn out of the way a little, good scholar, towards yonder high honeysuckle hedge ; there we'll sit and sing, whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant meadows. 86 'The Compleat Angler Look ! under that broad beech 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 them- selves 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 hath happily expressed it, / was for that time lifted above earthy And possess' d joys not promised in my birth. As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me : 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be (as too many men too often do) ; but she cast away all care, and sung like a nightingale ; her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it : 'twas that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago ; and the milkmaid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good, I think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this critical age. Look yonder ! on my word, yonder they both be a-milking again. I will give her the chub, and persuade them to sing those two songs to us. God speed you, good woman ! I have been a-fishing, and am going to Bleak Hall to my bed, and having caught more fish than will sup myself and my friend, I will bestow this upon you and your daughter, for I use to sell none. MiLK-W. Marry, God requite you^ sir, and we'll eat it cheerfully; and if vou come this way a-fishing two months hence, a grace of 87 The Compleat Angler nearJ7ieo6alcfs EHN God, I'll give you a syllabub of new verjuice in a new-made haycock for it, and my Maudlin shall sing you one of her best ballads ; for she and I both love all anglers, they be such honest, civil, quiet men ; in the meantime will you drink a draught of red cow's milk ? you shall have it freely. Pisc. No, I thank you ; but, I pray, do us a courtesy that shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet we will think our- selves still something in your debt ; it is but to sing us a song that was sung by your daughter when I last passed over this meadow about eight or nine days since. MiLK-W. What song was it, I pray.'' Was it Come shepherds^ deck your herds ? or, ^s at noon Dulcina rested ? or, Philida flouts me ? or. Chevy Chace ? or, Johnny Armstrong ? or, Troy Town ? Pisc. No, it is none of those ; it is a song that your daughter sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it. MiLK-W. O, I know it now. I learned the first part in my golden age, when I was about the age of my poor daughter ; and the latter part, which indeed fits me best now, but two or three years l. •J.iJS;"? TVa/fr/iam E-H-N- The Compleat •lAngler ago, when the cares of the world bej/an to take hold of me,: but you shall, God willing, hear them both, and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come, Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentleman with a merry heart, and I'll sing the second, when you have done. THE MILKMAID'S SONG Come live with me^ and he my love^ And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys^ groves^ or hills, or field. Or woods and steepy mountains yield ; Where we will sit upon the rocks. And see the shepherds feed our fiocks By shallows rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses. And then a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroider'' d all with leaves of myrtle; 90 The Compleat Angler A gown ?nade of the finest wool Which froin our pretty lambs we pull ; Slippers lined choicely for the cold, TVith buckles of the purest gold ; A belt of straw and ivy buds. With coral clasps and amber studs : And if these pleasures may thee move. Come live with ?ne, and be my love. Thy silver dishes for thy meat. As precious as the gods do eat. Shall, on an ivory table, be Prepared each day for thee and me. The shepherd swains shall dance atid sing. For thy delight, each Aday morning. If these delights thy mind may rnove. Then live with me, and be my love. 9^ The Compleat ^Angler Ven. Trust me, my master, it is a choice song, and sweetly sung by honest Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause that our good Queen Elizabeth did so often wish herself a milkmaid all the month of May, because they are not troubled with fears and cares, but sing sweetly all the day, and sleep securely all the night : and without doubt, honest, innocent, pretty Maudlin does so. I'll bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's milkmaid's wish upon her, " That she may die in the spring, and being dead, may have good store of flowers stuck round about her winding sheet." THE MILKMAID'S MOTHER'S ANSWER If all the world and love were youngs And truth in every shepherds tongue^ These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee, and be thy love. But Time drives flocks from field to fold. When rivers rage and rocks grow cold; Then Philomel becometh dumb. And age complains of care to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields. A honey tongue, a heart of gall. Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses. Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies. Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten; In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and ivy buds. Thy coral clasps and amber studs. All these in me no means can move To come to thee, and be thy love. What should we talk of dainties, then. Of better meat than's fit for men ? 92 The Compleat Angler These are but vain ; that's only good WTiich God hath bless'd, and sent for food. But could youth last and love still breed^ Had joys no date^ or age no need. Then those delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love. Mother. Well ! I have done my song. But stay, honest anglers ; for I will make Maudlin to sing you one short song more. Maudlin ! sing that song that you sung last night, when young Coridon the shepherd played so purely on his oaten pipe to you and your cousin Betty. Maud. I will, mother. / married a wife of late. The more's my unhappy fate ; I married her for love. As my fancy did me move. And not for a worldly estate ; But, oh ! the green sickness Soon changed her likeness And all her beauty did fall. But ^tls not so With those that go Through frost and snow. As all men know. And carry the mllklng-pall. Pisc. Well sung, good woman ; I thank you. I'll give you another dish of fish one of these days, and then beg another song of you. Come, scholar, let Maudlin alone ; do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes mine hostess, to call us to supper. How now .'' Is my brother Peter come .'' Host. Yes, and a friend with him ; they are both glad to hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and long to be at supper, for they be very hungry. 93 CHAPTER V More Directions how to Fish for, and how to make for the Trout an Artificial Minnow and Flies; with some Merriment. ISC. Well met, brother Peter : I heard you and a friend would lodge here to-night, and that hath made me to bring my friend to lodge here too. My friend is one that would fain be a brother of the angle ; he hath been an angler but this day, and I have taught him how to catch a chub by dapping with a grasshopper, and the chub that he caught was a lusty one of nineteen inches long. But pray, brother Peter, who is your companion ^ Peter. Brother Piscator, my friend is an honest countryman, and his name is Coridon, and he is a downright witty companion, that met me here purposely to be pleasant and eat a trout, and I have not yet wetted my line since we met together ; but I hope to fit him with a trout for his breakfast, for Pll be early up. 94 The Compleat ^Angler Pisc. Nay, brother, you shall not stay so long ? for, look you, here is a trout will fill six reasonable bellies. Come, hostess, dress it presently, and get us what other meat the house will afFord, and give us some of your best barley-wine, the good liquor that our honest forefathers did use to drink of; the drink which preserved their health, and made them live so long, and do so many good deeds. Peter. O' my word, this trout is perfect in season. Come, I thank you, and here is a hearty draught to you, and to all the brothers of the angle wheresoever they be, and to my young brother's good fortune to-morrow. I will furnish him with a rod if you will furnish him with the rest of the tackling ; we will set him up and make him a fisher. And I will tell him one thing for his encouragement, that his fortune hath made him happy to be scholar to such a master; a master that knows as much, both of the nature and breeding of fish, as any man; and can also tell him as well how to catch and cook them, from the minnow to the salmon, as any that I ever met withal. Pisc. Trust me, brother Peter, I find my scholar to be so suitable to my own humour, which is, to be free and pleasant and civilly merry, that my resolution is to hide nothing that I know from him. Believe me, scholar, this is my resolution ; and so here's to you a hearty draught, and to all that love us and the honest art of angling. Ven. Trust me, good master, you shall not sow your seed in barren ground ; for I hope to return you an increase answerable to your hopes : but, however, you shall find me obedient and thankful and serviceable to my best ability. Pisc. 'Tis enough, honest scholar ! come, let's to supper. Come, my friend Coridon, this trout looks lovely ; it was twenty-two inches when it was taken ! and the belly of it looked, some part of it, as yellow as a marigold, and part of it as white as a lily ; and yet, me- thinks, it looks better in this good sauce. CoRiDON. Indeed, honest friend, it looks well, and tastes well: I thank you for it, and so doth my friend Peter, or else he is to blame. Peter. Yes, and so do I, we all thank you ; and when we have 95 The Compleat Angler supped, I will get my friend Coridon to sing you a song for requital. Cor. I will sing a song, if anybody will sing another ; else, to be plain with you, I will sing none : I am none of those that sing for meat, but for company : I say, " 'Tis merry in hall, when men sing all." Pisc. I'll promise you I'll sing a song that was lately made at my request by Mr. William Basse, one that hath made the choice songs of The Hunter in his Career, and of Tom of Bedlam, and many others of note ; and this that I will sing is in praise of angling. CoR. And then mine shall be, the praise of a countryman's life: what will the rest sing of .f" Peter. I will promise you, I will sing another song in praise of angling to-morrow night ; for we will not part till then, but fish to- morrow, and sup together, and the next day every man leave fishing, and fall to his business. Ven. 'Tis a match ; and I will provide you a song or a catch against then too, which shall give some addition of mirth to the company ; for we will be civil, and as merry as beggars. Pisc. 'Tis a match, my masters ; let's e'en say grace, and turn to the fire, drink the other cup to wet our whistles, and so sing away all sad thoughts. Come on, my masters, who begins } I think, it is best to draw cuts, and avoid contention. Peter. It is a match. Look, the shortest cut falls to Coridon. CoR. Well, then, I will begin, for I hate contention. CORIDON'S SONG Ohy the sweet contentment The countryman doth find ! He'tgh troloUie lollie loe^ Heigh troloUie lollie lee. That quiet contemplation Posses set h all mv mind ; Then care away. And wend along with me. 96 'The Compleat Angler For courts are full of flattery. As hath too oft been tried; Heigh troloUle lollie loe, etc. The city full of wantonness. And both are full af pride : Then care away, etc. But, oh I the honest countryman Speaks truly from his heart ; Heigh trolollie lollie he, etc. His pride is in his tillage. His horses and his cart : Then care away, etc. Our clothing is good sheepskins. Gray russet for our wives ; Heigh trolollie lollie he, etc. ''Tis warmth, and not gay clothing. That doth prolong our lives : Then care away, etc. The ploughman, though he labour hard, Tet on the holiday. Heigh trolollie lollie he, etc. No emperor so merrily Doth pass his time away. Then care away, etc. To recompense our tillage. The heavens afford us showers ; Heigh trolollie lollie he, etc. And for our sweet refreshments The earth affords us bowers ; Then care away, etc. The cuckoo and the nightingale Full merrily do sing. Heigh trolollie lollie he, etc. 97 The Compleat Angler And with their pleasant roundelays Bid welcome to the spring : Then care away, etc. This is not half the happiness The countryman enjoys ; Heigh trolollie lollie he, etc. Though others think they have as much. Yet he that says so lies : Then come away, turn Countryman with tne. — Jo. Chalkhill. Pisc. Well sung, Coridon ; this song was sung with mettle, and was choicely fitted to the occasion ; I shall love you for it as long as I know you ; I would you were a brother of the angle ; for a companion that is cheerful, and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning ; nor men (that The Compleat Angler cannot well bear it) to repent the money they spent when they be warmed with drink : and take this for a rule, you may pick out such times, and such companions, that you may make yourselves merrier for a little than a great deal of money ; for, " 'Tis the company and not the charge that makes the feast ; " and such a companion you prove, I thank you for it. But I will not compliment you out of the debt that I owe you ; and therefore I will begin my song, and wish it may be so well liked. THE ANGLER'S SONG As inward love breeds outward talk^ The hound some praise^ and some the hawk ; Some^ better pleased with private sport. Use tennis; some a mistress court; But these delights I neither wish Nor envy, while I freely fish. Who hunts, doth oft in danger ride; Who hawks, lures oft both far and wide ; Who uses games, shall often prove A loser ; but who falls in love Is fetter'd in fond Cupid's snare ; My angle breeds me no such care. Of recreation there is none So free as fishing is alone ; All other pastimes do no less Than mind and hody both possess ; My hand alone my work can do. So I can fish and study too. I care not, 1, to fish in seas — Fresh rivers best my mind do please. Whose sweet calm course I contemplate. And seek in life to imitate : In civil bounds I fain would keep. And for my past offences weep. 99 — -^^^^-"'^■>wt--:i|7-,-— ■,Y,':i^v-- • .||,_- ~' .^^i-.v,,:- .v\\<{-u *N1l 'yn^oiiaDj- S^ar/i H.' WV The Compleat Angler And when the timorous trout I wait To taie, and he devours my bait. How poor a thing, sometimes I find. Will captivate a greedy mind ; And when none bite, I praise the wise. Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise. But yet, though while I fish I fast, I make good fortune my repast; And thereunto my friend invite. In whom I more than that delight : Who is more welcome to my dish Than to my angle was my fish. As well content no prize to take. As use of taken prize to make : For so our Lord was pleased, when He fishers made fishers of men ; Where (which is in no other game) A man may fish and praise His name. The first men that our Saviour dear Did choose to wait upon Him here. Bless" d fishers were, and fish the last Food was that He on earth did taste: I therefore strive to follow those Whom He to follow Him hath chose. Cor. Well sung, brother, you have paid your debt in good coin. We anglers are all beholden to the good man that made this song : come, hostess, give us more ale, and let's drink to him. And now let's every one go to bed, that we may rise early : but first let's pay our reckoning, for I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning, for my purpose is to prevent the sun-rising. Peter. A match. Come, Coridon, you are to be my bedfellow. I know, brother, you and your scholar will lie together. But where shall we meet to-morrow night ? for my friend Coridon and I will go up the water towards Ware. lOI The Compleat Angler Pisc. And my scholar and I will go down towards Waltham. Cor. Then let's meet here, for here are fresh sheets that smell or lavender ; and I am sure we cannot expect better meat or better usage in any place. Peter. 'Tis a match. Good night to everybody. Pisc. And so say I. Ven. And so say I. I02 "The Compleat Angler DAY ilSC. Good-morrow, good hostess ; 1 see my brother Peter is still in bed : come, give my scholar and me a morning drink, and a bit of meat to breakfast; and be sure to get a good dish of meat or two against supper, for we shall come home as hungry as hawks. Come, scholar, ^^ let's be going. Ven. Well now, good master, as we walk towards the river give me direction, according to your promise, how I shall fish for a trout. Pisc. My honest scholar, I will take this very convenient oppor- tunity to do it. The trout is usually caught with a worm or a minnow (which some call a penk) or with a fly, viz., either a natural or an artificial fly : concerning which three I will give you some observations and directions. And, first, for worms : of these there be very many sorts : some breed only in the earth, as the earth-worm ; others of or amongst plants, as the dung-worm ; and others breed either out of excre- ments, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in the horns of sheep or deer ; or some of dead flesh, as the maggot or gentle, and others. Now these be most of them particularly good for particular fishes : but for the trout, the dew-worm (which some also call the lob-worm) and the brandling are the chief ; and especially the first for a great trout, and the latter for a less. There be also of lob-worms some called squirrel-tails (a worm that has a red head, a streak down the back, and a broad tail) which are noted to be the best, because they 103 'The Compleat Angler are the toughest and most lively, and live longest in the water : for you are to know that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick, stirring worm : and for a brandling, he is usually found in an old dunghill, or some very rotten place near to it : but most usually in cow-dung, or hog's dung, rather than horse-dung, which is somewhat too hot and dry for that worm. But the best of them are to be found in the bark of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps after they have used it about their leather. There are also divers other kinds of worms, which for colour and shape alter even as the ground out of which they are got ; as the marsh-worm, the tag-tail, the flag-worm, the dock-worm, the oak- worm, the gilt -tail, the twachel, or lob-worm, which of all others is the most excellent bait for a salmon ; and too many to name, even as many sorts as some think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or of several kinds of birds in the air ; of which I shall say no more, but tell you that what worms soever you fish with are the better for being well scoured, that is, long kept before they be used : and in case you have not been so provident, then the way to cleanse and scour them quickly is to put them all night in water, if they be lob- worms, and then put them into your bag with fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an hour in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use : but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and every week or eight days in winter ; or, at least, the moss taken from them and clean washed, and wrung be- twixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And when your worms, especially the brandling, begins to be sick and lose of his bigness, then you may recover him by putting a little milk or cream (about a spoonful in a day) into them, by drops on the moss ; and if there be added to the cream an egg beaten and boiled in it, then it will both fatten and preserve them long. And note, that when the knot, which is near to the middle of the brand- ling, begins to swell, then he is sick ; and, if he be not well looked to, is near dying. And for moss, you are to note, that there be 104 The Compleat Angler '""tt divers kinds of it, which I could name to you, but I will only tell you that that which is likest a buck's-horn is the best, except it be soft white moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard to be found. And note, that in a very dry time, when you are put to an extremity for worms, walnut-tree leaves squeezed into water, or salt in water, to make it bitter or salt, and then that water poured on the ground, where you shall see worms are used to rise in the night, will make them to appear above ground presently. And you may take notice, some say that camphor, put into your bag with your moss and worms, gives them a strong and so tempting a smell, that the fish fare the worse and you the better for it. And now I shall show you how to bait your hook with a worm, so as shall prevent you from much trouble, and the loss of many a hook too, when you fish for a trout with a running-line, that is to say, when you fish for him by hand at the ground : I will direct you in this as plainly as I can, that you may not mistake. Suppose it be a big lob-worm, put your hook into him somewhat 105 H The Compleat •tAngler above the middle, and out again a little below the middle ; having so done, draw your worm above the arming of your hook : but note that at the entering of your hook it must not be at the head-end of the worm, but at the tail-end of him, that the point of your hook may come out toward the head-end, and having drawn him above the arming of your hook, then put the point of your hook again into the very head of the worm, till it come near to the place where the point of the hook first came out : and then draw back that part of the worm that was above the shank or arming of your hook, and so fish with it. And if you mean to fish with two worms, then put the second on before you turn back the hook's-head of the first worm : you cannot lose above two or three worms before you attain to what I direct you ; and having attained it, you will find it very useful, and thank me for it, for you will run on the ground without tangling. Now for the Minnow or Penk : he is not easily found and caught till March, or in April, for then he appears first in the river ; nature having taught him to shelter and hide himself, in the winter, in ditches that be near to the river ; and there both to hide, and keep himself warm, in the mud, or in the weeds, which rot not so soon as in a running river, in which place if he were in winter, the dis- tempered floods that are usually in that season would suffer him to take no rest, but carry him headlong to mills and weirs, to his confusion. And of these minnows ; first you are to know that the biggest size is not the best ; and next, that the middle size and the whitest are the best ; and then you are to know, that your minnow must be so put on your hook, that it must turn round when 'tis drawn against the stream ; and, that it may turn nimbly, you must put it on a big-sized hook, as I shall now direct you, which is thus : put your hook in at his mouth, and out at his gill ; then, having drawn your hook two or three inches beyond or through his gill, put it again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail ; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water : that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time ; I say, pull that 1 06 T'he Compleat Angler ^5 part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook : this done, try how it will turn, by drawing it across the water or against the stream ; and if it do not turn nimbly, then turn the tail a little to the right or left hand, and try again, till it turn quick ; for if not, you are in danger to catch nothing : for know, that it is impossible that it should turn too quick ; and you are yet to know, that in case you want a minnow, then a small loach or a stickle-bag, or any other small fish that will turn quick, will serve as well : and you are yet to know, that you may salt them, and by that means keep them ready and fit for use three or four days or longer ; and that of salt, bay-salt is the best. And here let me tell you, what many old anglers know right well, that at some times, and in some waters, a minnow is not to be got ; and therefore let me tell you, I have (which I will show you) an artificial minnow, that will catch a trout as well as an artificial fly, and it was made by a handsome woman that had a fine hand, and a live minnow lying by her : the mould or body of the minnow was 107 The Cotnpleat ^Angler cloth, and wrought upon or over it thus with a needle : the back of it with very sad French green silk, the paler green silk towards the belly, shadowed as perfectly as you can imagine, just as you see a minnow ; the belly was wrought also with a needle, and it was a part of it white silk, and another part of it with silver thread ; the tail and fins were of a quill which was shaven thin ; the eyes were of two little black beads, and the head was so shadowed, and all of it so curiously wrought, and so exactly dissembled that it would beguile any sharp-sighted trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will now show you ; look, here it is, and, if you like it, lend it you, to have two or three made by it ; for they be easily carried about an angler, and be of excellent use ; for note, that a large trout will come as fiercely at a minnow as the highest mettled hawk doth seize on a partridge, or a greyhound on a hare. I have been told that a hundred and sixty minnows have been found in a trout's belly ; either the trout had devoured so many, or the miller that gave it to a friend of mine had forced them down his throat after he had taken him. Now for flies, which is the third bait wherewith trouts are usually taken. You are to know that there are so many sorts of flies as there be of fruits : I will name you but some of them ; as the dun- fly, the stone-fly, the red-fly, the moor-fly, the tawny-fly, the shell- fly, the cloudy or blackish-fly, the flag-fly, the vine-fly ; there be of flies, caterpillars, and canker-flies, and bear-flies ; and indeed too many either for me to name, or for you to remember : and their breeding is so various and wonderful, that I might easily amaze myself, and tire you in a relation of them. And, yet, I will exercise your promised patience by saying a little of the caterpillar, or the palmer-fly or worm ; that by them you may guess what a work it were, in a discourse, but to run over those very many flies, worms, and little living creatures with which the sun and summer adorn and beautify the river-banks and meadows, both for the recrea- tion and contemplation of us anglers ; pleasures which, I think, I myself enjoy more than any other man that is not of my profession. Pliny holds an opinion that many have their birth or being from a dew that in the spring falls from the leaves of trees ; and that some 109 The Cofnpleat Angler kinds of them are from a dew left upon herbs or flowers ; and others, from a dew left upon coleworts or cabbages : all which kinds of dews being thickened and condensed, are by the sun's generative heat most of them hatched, and in three days made living creatures ; and these of several shapes and colours ; some being hard and tough, some smooth and soft ; some are horned in their head, some in their tail, some have none ; some have hair, some none ; some have sixteen feet, some less, and some have none ; but (as our Topsel hath with great diligence observed) those which have none move upon the earth, or upon broad leaves, their motion being not unlike to the waves of the sea. Some of them, he also observes, to be bred of the eggs of other caterpillars, and that those in their time turn to be butterflies ; and again, that their eggs turn the following year to be caterpillars. And some affirm that every plant has his particular fly or caterpillar, which it breeds and feeds. I have seen, and may therefore affirm it, a green caterpillar or worm, as big as a small peascod, which had fourteen legs, eight on the belly, four under the neck, and two near the tail. It was found on a hedge of privet, and was taken thence and put into a large box, and a little branch or two of privet put to it, on which I saw it feed as sharply as a dog gnaws a bone ; it lived thus five or six days, and thrived and changed the colour two or three times ; but by some neglect in the keeper of it, it then died, and did not turn to a fly : but if it had lived, it had doubtless turned to one of those flies that some call flies of prey, which those that walk by the rivers may, in summer, see fasten on smaller flies, and, I think, make them their food. And 'tis observ- able, that as there be these flies of prey, which be very large, so there be others, very little, created, I think, only to feed them, and breed out of I know not what ; whose life, they say, nature intended not to exceed an hour : and yet that life is thus made shorter by other flies, or by accident. It is needless to tell you what the curious searchers into nature's productions have observed of these worms and flies : but yet I shall tell you what Aldrovandus, our Topsel, and others say of the palmer-worm, or caterpillar, that whereas others content themselves to feed on particular herbs or leaves (for most think those very no The Compleat Angler 071 t/usit^ of leaves that gave them Hfe and shape give them a particular feeding and nourishment, and that upon them they usually abide) yet he observes that this is called a pilgrim, or palmer-worm, for his very wandering life and various food : not contenting himself, as others do, with any one certain place for his abode, nor any certain kind of herb or flower for his feeding, but will boldly and disorderly wander up and down, and not endure to be kept to a diet, or fixed to a particular place. Nay, the very colours of caterpillars are, as one has observed, very elegant and beautiful. I shall (for a taste of the rest) describe one of them ; which I will, some time the next month, show you feeding on a willow-tree ; and you shall find him jpunctually to answer this very description : his lips and mouth somewhat yellow ; his eyes black as jet ; his forehead purple ; his feet and hinder parts green ; his tail two-forked and black ; the whole body stained with III The Compleat Angler a kind of red spots, which run along the neck and shoulder-blade, not unlike the form of St. Andrew's cross, or the letter X, made thus cross-wise, and a white line drawn down his back to his tail ; all which add much beauty to his whole body. And it is to me observable, that at a fixed age this caterpillar gives over to eat, and towards winter comes to be covered over with a strange shell or crust, called an aurelia : and so lives a kind of dead life, without eating, all the winter ; and, as others of several kinds turn to be several kinds of flies and vermin the spring following, so this cater- pillar then turns to be a painted butterfly. Come, come, my scholar, you see the river stops our morning walk, and I will also here stop my discourse ; only as we sit down under this honeysuckle hedge, whilst I look a line to fit the rod that our brother Peter hath lent you, I shall for a little confirmation of what I have said, repeat the observation of Du Bartas. God^ not contented to each kind to give. And to infuse the virtue generative. By His wise power tnade many creatures breed Of lifeless bodies, without Venus'' deed. So the cold humour breeds the salamander. Who, in effect like to her bii'th's commander. With child with hundred ivinters, with her touch ^uencheth the fire, though glowing ne'er so much. So in the fire, in burning furnace springs The Jly Perausta, with the flaming wings ; Without the fire it dies, in it it joys. Living in that which all things else destroys. So slow Bootes underneath him sees. In tV icy islands, goslings hatch'' d of trees. Whose fruitful leaves, falling 'into the water. Are turned ('tis known) to living fowls soon after. So rotten planks of broken ships do change To barnacles. O transformation strange ! 'Twas first a green tree, then a broken hull. Lately a tnushroom, now a flying gull. 112 The Compleat i^ngler Ven. O my good master, this morning-walk has been spent to my great pleasure and wonder : but I pray, when shall I have your direction how to make artificial flies, like to those that the trout loves best, and also how to use them ? Pisc. My honest scholar, it is now past five of the clock, we will fish till nine, and then go to breakfast. Go you to yon sycamore- tree and hide your bottle of drink under the hollow root of it ; for about that time, and in that place, we will make a brave breakfast with a piece of powdered beef, and a radish or two that I have in my fish-bag ; we shall, I warrant you, make a good, honest, whole- some, hungry breakfast, and I will then give you direction for the making and using of your flies ; and in the meantime there is your rod, and line, and my advice is, that you fish as you see me do, and let's try which can catch the first fish. Ven. I thank you, master, I will observe and practise your direc- tion as far as I am able. Pisc. Look you, scholar, you see I have hold of a good fish : I now see it is a trout, I pray put that net under him, and touch not my line, for if you do, then we break all. Well done, scholar, I thank you. Now for another. Trust me, I have another bite : come, scholar, come lay down your rod, and help me to land this as you did the other. So now we shall be sure to have a good dish of fish for supper. Ven. I am glad of that ; but I have no fortune : sure, master, yours is a better rod and better tackling. Pisc. Nay, then, take mine, and I will fish with yours. Look you, scholar, I have another. Come, do as you did before. And now I have a bite at another. Oh me ! he has broke all : there's half a line and a good hook lost. Ven. Ay, and a good trout too. Pisc. Nay, the trout is not lost ; for pray take notice, no man can lose what he never had. Ven. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second angle : I have no fortune. Pisc. Look you, scholar, I have yet another. And now, having caught three brace of trouts, I will tell you a short tale as we walk 113 The Compleat ^?tgler towards our breakfast. A scholar (a preacher I should say) that was to preach to procure the approbation of a parish, that he might be their lecturer, had got from his fellow pupil the copy of a sermon that was first preached with great commendation by him that com- posed it : and though the borrower of it preached it, word for word, as it was at first, yet it was utterly disliked as it was preached by the second to his congregation : which the sermon-borrower complained of to the lender of it ; and thus was answered : "I lent you, indeed, my fiddle, but not my fiddlestick ; for you are to know that every one cannot make music with my words, which are fitted to my own mouth." And so, my scholar, you are to know, that as the ill pronunciation or ill accentmg of words in a sermon spoils it, so the ill carriage of your line, or not fishing even to a foot in a right place, makes you lose your labour : and you are to know, that though you have my fiddle, that is, my very rod and tacklings with which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my fiddlestick, that is, you yet have not skill to know how to carry your hand and line, or how to guide it to a right place : and this must be taught you (for you are to remember, I told you angling is an art) either by practice or a long observation, or both. But take this for a rule, when you fish for a trout with a worm, let your line have so much, and not more lead than will fit the stream in which you fish ; that is to say, more in a great troublesome stream than in a smaller that is quieter ; as near as may be, so much as will sink the bait to the bottom, and keep it still in motion, and not more. But now let's say grace and fall to breakfast : what say you, scholar, to the providence of an old angler } Does not this meat taste well } and was not this place well chosen to eat it i for this sycamore-tree will shade us from the sun's heat. Ven. All excellent good, and my stomach excellent good too. And now I remember and find that true which devout Lessius says : " That poor men, and those that fast often, have much more pleasure in eating than rich men and gluttons, that always feed before their stomachs are empty of their last meat, and call for more : for by that means they rob themselves of that pleasure that hunger brings to poor men." And I do seriously approve of that saying of yours, 114 The Cojjtpleat tA7igler ~^^^^\ " that you would rather be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded, temperate, poor angler than a drunken lord." But I hope there is none such ; however, I am certain of this, that I have been at very many costly dinners that have not afforded me half the content that this has done, for which I thank God and you. And now, good master, proceed to your promised direction for making and ordering my artificial fly. Pisc. My honest scholar, I will do it ; for it is a debt due unto you by my promise : and because you shall not think yourself more engaged to me than indeed you really are, I will freely give you such directions as were lately given to me by an ingenious brother of the angle, an honest man and a most excellent fly-fisher. You are to note, that there are twelve kinds of artificially made 115 The Compleat Angler flies to angle with on the top of the water. Note, by the way, that the fittest season of using these is in a blustering windy day, when the waters are so troubled that the natural fly cannot be seen, or rest upon them. The first is the dun-fly, in March : the body is made of dun wool ; the wings, of the partridge's feathers. The second is another dun-fly : the body of black wool ; and the wings made of the black drake's feathers, and of the feathers under his tail. The third is the stone-fly, in April : the body is made of black wool ; made yellow under the wings and under the tail, and so made with the wings of the drake. The fourth is the ruddy-fly, in the begin- nmg of May : the body made of red wool, wrapt about with black silk ; and the feathers are the wings of the drake, with the feathers of a red capon also, which hang dangling on his sides next to the tail. The fifth is the yellow or greenish fly (in May likewise) : the body made of yellow wool : and the wings made of the red cock's hackle or tail. The sixth is the black-fly, in May also : the body made of black wool, and lapped about with the herle of a peacock's tail ; the wings are made of the wings of a brown capon, with his blue feathers in his head. The seventh is the sad yellow-fly, in June : the body is made of black wool, with a yellow list on either side ; and the wings taken off the wings of a buzzard, bound with black braked hemp. The eighth is the moorish-fly : made with the body of duskish wool ; and the wings made of the blackish mail of the drake. The ninth is the tawny-fly, good until the middle of June : the body made of tawny wool, the wings made contrary, one against the other, made of the whitish mail of the wild drake. The tenth is the wasp- fly, in July : the body made of black wool, lapped about with yellow silk ; the wings made of the feathers of the drake, or of the buzzard. The eleventh is the shell fly, good in mid- July : the body made of greenish wool, lapped about with the herle of a peacock's tail, and the wings made of the wings of the buzzard. The twelfth is the dark drake-fly, good in August : the body made with black wool, lapped about with black silk ; his wings are made with the mail of the black drake, with a black head. Thus have you a jury of flies, likely to betray and condemn all the trouts in the river. I shall next give you some other directions for fly fishing, such as Ii6 The Compleat ^tAjigler are given by Mr. Thomas Barker, a gentleman that hath spent much time in fishing ; but I shall do it with a little variation. First, let your rod be light, and very gentle ; I take the best to be of two pieces : and let not your line exceed, (especially for three or four links next to the hook,) I say, not exceed three or four hairs at the most, though you may fish a little stronger above, in the upper part of your line ; but if you can attain to angle with one hair, you shall have more rises, and catch more fish. Now you must be sure not to cumber yourself with too long a line, as most do. And before you begin to angle, cast to have the wind on your back ; and the sun, if it shines, to be before you ; and to fish down the stream ; and carry the point or top of your rod downward, by which means, the shadow of yourself and rod too will be least offensive to the fish ; 117 The Compleat Angler for the sight of any shade amazes the fish, and spoils your sport — of which you must take a great care. In the middle of March (till which time a man should not, in honesty, catch a trout), or in April, if the weather be dark, or a little windy or cloudy, the best fishing is with the palmer-worm, of which I last spoke to you ; but of these there be divers kinds, or at least of divers colours ; these and the May-fly are the ground of all fly-angling, which are to be thus made : First, you must arm your hook with the line in the inside of it, then take your scissors, and cut so much of a brown mallard's feather, as in your own reason will make the wings of it, you having withal regard to the bigness or littleness of your hook ; then lay the outmost part of your feather next to your hook, then the point of your feather next the shank of your hook ; and having done so, whip it three or four times about the hook with the same silk with which your hook was armed ; and, having made the silk fast, take the hackle of a cock or capon's neck, or a plover's top, which is usually better ; take off the one side of the feather, and then take the hackle, silk, or crewel, gold or silver thread, make these fast at the bent of the hook, that is to say, below your arming ; then you must take the hackle, the silver or gold thread, and work it up to the wings, shifting or still removing your finger, as you turn the silk about the hook; and still looking at every stop or turn, that your gold, or what materials soever you make your fly of, do lie right and neatly ; and if you find they do so, then, when you have made the head, make all fast and then work your hackle up to the head, and make that fast : and then with a needle or pin divide the wing into two, and then with the arming silk whip it about crossways betwixt the wings, and then with your thumb you must turn the point of the feather towards the bent of the hook, and then work three or four times about the shank of the hook, and then view the proportion, and if all be neat and to your liking, fasten. I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a dull capacity able to make a fly well : and yet I know this, with a little practice, will help an ingenious angler in a good degree ; but to see a fly made by an artist in that kind is the best teaching to make it. Ii8 The Compleat Angler And then an ingenious angler may walk by the river and mark what flies fall on the water that day, and catch one of them, if he sees the trouts leap at a fly of that kind ; and then having always hooks ready hung with him, and having a bag always with him, with bear's hair, or the hair of a brown or sad-coloured heifer, hackles of a cock or capon, several coloured silk and crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers of a drake's head, black or brown sheep's wool, or hog's wool or hair, thread of gold and of silver ; silk of several colours (especially sad-coloured, to make the fly's head) and there be also other coloured feathers, both of little birds and of speckled fowl. I say, having those with him in a bag, and trying to make a fly, though he miss at first, yet shall he at last hit it better, even to such a perfection as none can well teach him ; and if he hit to make his fly right, and have the luck to hit also where there is store of trouts, a dark day, and a right wind, he will catch such store of them, as will encourage him to grow more and more in love with the art of fly-making. Ven. But, my loving master, if any wind will not serve, then I wish I were in Lapland, to buy a good wind of one of the honest witches, that sell so many winds there, and so cheap. Pisc. Marry, scholar, but I would not be there, nor indeed from under this tree : for look how it begins to rain ; and by the clouds, if I mistake not, we shall presently have a smoking shower; and therefore sit close ; this sycamore-tree will shelter us : and I will tell you, as they shall come into my mind, more observations of fly- fishing for a trout. But first, for the wind ; you are to take notice, that of the winds, the south wind is said to be the best. One observes that . . . wheti the wind is south. It blows your bait into a fish''s ?nouth. Next to that, the west wind is believed to be the best; and having told you that the east wind is the worst I need not tell you which wind is the best in the third degree : and yet (as Solomon observes), that "he that considers the wind shall never sow," so he that busies his head too much about them (if the weather be not 119 "The CoMpleat '^Angler GfiesfianT made extreme cold by an east wind) shall be a little superstitious : for as it is observed by some that " there is no good horse of a bad colour," so I have observed, that if it be a cloudy day, and not extreme cold, let the wind set in what corner it will and do its worst, I heed it not. And yet take this for a rule, that I would willingly fish standing on the lee-shore : and you are to take notice, that the fish lies or swims nearer the bottom, and in deeper water, in winter than in summer ; and also nearer the bottom in any cold day, and then gets nearest the lee-side of the water. But I promised to tell you more of the flying-fish for a trout, 1 20 "The Compleat ^Angler which I may have time enough to do, for you see it rains IVIay- butter. First, for a May-fly, you may make his body with greenish- coloured crewel or willowish colour, darkening it in most places with waxed silk, or ribbed with black hair, or some of them ribbed with silver thread ; and such wings for the colour as you see the fly to have at that season, nay, at that very day on the water. Or you may make the oak-fly with an orange tawny, and black ground, and the brown of a mallard's feather for the wings ; and you are to know, that these two are most excellent flies, that is, the May-fly 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 121 I 'The Compleat Angler 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, the body of which is orange colour and black 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 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 affbrds 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 so 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, is to be had on any hawthorn bush after the leaves be come forth. With these and a short line (as I showed, to angle for a chub), you may dape or dop, and also with a grasshopper, 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 122 The Compleat ^Angler 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 — jind thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie ; My music shows you have your closes — jijid all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul. Like seasoned timber, never gives ; But when the whole world turns to coal. Then chief y lives. 123 The Co7npleat Angler 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 ! Prayer by the Book F and Common ? Tes ! why not ? The spirit of grace And supplication Is not left free alone For time and place. But manner too : to read, or speak, by rote. Is all alike to him that prays Ins heart, what ivith his mouth he says. They that in private, by themselves alone. Do pray, may take What liberty they please. In choosing of the ways Wherein to make Their souPs most intimate affections known To him that sees in secret, when They're most conceaVd from other men. But he that unto others leads the way In public prayer. Should do it so As all that hear 7?tay know They need not fear 124 The Compleat <^ngler To tune their hearts unto his tongue^ and say. Amen ; not doubt they were betrayed To blaspheme, when they meant to have prafd. Devotion will add life unto the letter : And why should not That which authority Prescribes, esteemed be Advantage got F If the prayer be good, the commoner the better ; Prayer in the Churches 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 you shall choose which shall be yours ; and it is an even lay, one of them catches. 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 Melibceus 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 preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, " Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did ; " and so (if I might be judge) " God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling." I'll tell you, scholar, when I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down these meadows, I thought of them, as Charles the emperor did of the city of Florence, " That they were too pleasant 125 E- H JM-: The Compleat Angler to be looked on, but only on holidays." As I then sat on this very grass, I turned my present thoughts into verse : 'twas a wish, which I'll repeat to you. Swi* -.■'»•.'••- -■■V'^'- — i^.'-'?'-i^tir-•,i^?i'''\'■?*C'^~■■ Km: '^'^-mM iwl/,, . \\<' ■ "4§Ct I in these flowery meads would be : These crystal streams should solace me ; To whose harmonious bubbling noise I with my angle would rejoice^ Sit here^ and see the turtle dove Court his chaste mate to acts of love ; Or^ on that bank, feel the west wind Breathe health and plenty : ■please my mind. To see sweet dewdrops kiss these flowers. And then washed off by April showers ; Here, hear my Kenna sing a song ; * There, see a blackbird feed her young, * Like Hermit Poor. 127 'The Compleat Angler Or a leverock build her nest : Here, give my weary spirits rest. And raise my low-pitched thoughts above Earth, or what poor mortals love : Thus, free from lawsuits and the noise Of princes' courts, I would rejoice ; Or, with my Bryan and a book. Loiter long days near Shawford brook ; There sit by him, and eat my meat ; There see the sun both rise and set; There bid good morning to next day ; There meditate my titne away ; And angle on, and beg to have A quiet passage to a welcome grave. When I had ended this composure, I left this place, and saw a brother of the angle sit under that honeysuckle hedge (one that will prove worth your acquaintance) : I sat down by him, and presently we met with an accidental piece of merriment, which I will relate to you ; for it rains still. On the other side of this very hedge sat a gang of gipsies, and near to them sat a gang of beggars. The gipsies were then to divide all the money that had been got that week, either by stealing linen or poultry, or by fortune-telling, or legerdemain, or indeed by any other sleights and secrets belonging to their mysterious government. And the sum that was got that week proved to be but twenty and some odd shillings. The odd money was agreed to be distributed amongst the poor of their own corporation ; and for the remaining twenty shillings, that was to be divided unto four gentlemen gipsies, according to their several degrees in their commonwealth. 128 The Compleat Angler And the first or chiefest gipsy was, by consent, to have a third part of the 20S., which all men know is 6s. 8d. The second was to have a fourth part of the 20s., which all men know to be 5 s. The third was to have a fifth part of the 20s., which all men know to be 4s. The fourth and last gipsy was to have a sixth part of the 20s., which all men know to be 3 s. 4d. As for example, 3 times 6s. 8d. is 20s. And so is 4 times 5s. . . 20s. And so is 5 times 4s. . . 20s. And so is 6 times 3s. 4d. . 20s. And yet he that divided the money was so very a gipsy, that though he gave to every one these said sums, yet he kept is. of it for himself. As for example, s. d. 6 8 5 o 4 o 3 4 make but . .190 But now you shall know, that when the four gipsies saw that he had got IS. by dividing the money, though not one of them knew any reason to demand more, yet, like lords and courtiers, every gipsy envied him that was the gainer, and wrangled with him, and every one said the remaining shilling belonged to him : and so they fell to so high a contest about it, as none that knows the faithfulness of one gipsy to another will easily believe ; only we that have lived these last twenty years are certain that money has been able to do much mischief. However, the gipsies were too wise to go to law, and did therefore choose their choice friends Rook and Shark, and our late English Gusman, to be their arbitrators and umpires ; and so they left this honeysuckle hedge, and went to tell fortunes, and cheat, and get more money and lodging in the next village. 129 The Compleat Angler When these were gone, we heard a high contention amongst the beggars, whether it was easiest to rip a cloak or to unrip a cloak. One beggar affirmed it was all one. But that was denied by asking her if doing and undoing were all one. Then another said 'twas easiest to unrip a cloak, for that was to let it alone. But she was answered by asking her how she unripped it, if she let it alone : and she confessed herself mistaken. These and twenty such-like ques- tions were proposed, and answered with as much beggarly logic and earnestness as was ever heard to proceed from the mouth of the most pertinacious schismatic : and sometimes all the beggars (whose number was neither more nor less than the poet's nine muses) talked altogether about this ripping and unripping, and so loud that not one heard what the other said : but at last one beggar craved audience, and told them that old father Clause, whom Ben Jonson in his Beggar s Bush created king of their corporation, was to lodge at an alehouse called " Catch-her-by-the-way," not far from Waltham Cross, and in the high road towards London ; and he therefore desired them to spend no more time about that and such-like ques- tions, but refer all to father Clause at night, for he was an upright judge, and in the meantime draw cuts what song should be next sung, and who should sing it. They all agreed to the motion ; and the lot fell to her that was the youngest and veriest virgin of the company ; and she sung Frank Davison's song, which he made forty years ago ; and all the others of the company joined to sing the burthen with her. The ditty was this : but first the burthen : Bright shines the sun ; play^ beggars, play ! Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. What noise of viols is so sweet As when our merry clappers ring? What mirth doth want when beggars meet ? A beggar's life is for a king. Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list. Go where we will — so stocks be miss'd. Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play ! Here's scraps enovgh to serve to-day. 130 The Compleat Angler Tloe world is ours, and ours alone; For we alone have world at will. We purchase not — all is our own ; Both fields and streets we beggars fill. Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play ! Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. A hundred herds of black and white Upon our gowns securely feed ; And yet if any dare us bite. He dies, therefore, as sure as creed. Thus beggars lord it as they please. And only beggars live at ease. Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play I Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. Ven. I thank you, good master, for this piece of merriment, and this song, which was well humoured by the maker, and well remem- bered by you. Pisc. But, I pray, forget not the catch which you promised to make against night ; for our countryman, honest Coridon, will expect your catch, and my song, which 1 must be forced to patch up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that I have forgotten a part of it. But come, now it hath done raining, let's stretch our legs a little in a gentle walk to the river, and try what interest our angles will pay us for lending them so long to be used by the trouts ; lent them, indeed, like usurers, for our profit and their destruction. Ven. Oh me ! look you, master, a fish ! a fish ! Oh, alas, master, I have lost her ! Pisc. Ay, marry, sir, that was a good fish indeed : if I had had the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to one he should not have broke my line by running to the rod's end, as you suffered him. I would have held him within the bent of my rod (unless he had been fellow to the great trout that is near an ell long, which was of such a length and depth that he had his picture drawn, and now is to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, at the George, in Ware), and it may be by giving that very great trout 131 The Compleat ^Angler the rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, I might have caught him at the long run ; for so I use always to do when I meet with an overgrown fish ; and you will learn to do so too hereafter : for I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art ; or, at least, it is an art to catch fish. Ven. But, master, I have heard that the great trout you speak of is a salmon. Pisc. Trust me, scholar, I know not what to say to it. There are many country people that believe hares change sexes every year: and there be very many learned men think so too, for in their dissecting them they find many reasons to incline them to that belief. And to make the wonder seem yet less, that hares change sexes, note, that Doctor Mer. Casaubon affirms in his book of credible and incredible things, that Caspar Peucerus, a learned physician, tells us of a people that once a year turn wolves, partly in shape and partly in conditions. And so, whether this were a salmon when he came into the fresh water, and his not returning into the sea hath altered him to another colour or kind, I am not able to say ; but I am certain he hath all the signs of being a trout both for his shape, colour, and spots ; and yet many think he is not. Ven. But, master, will this trout which I had hold of die ? for it is like he hath the hook in his belly. Pisc. I will tell you, scholar, that unless the hook be fast in his very gorge, 'tis more than probable he will live ; and a little time, with the help of the water, will rust the hook, and it will in time wear away ; as the gravel doth in the horse-hoof, which only leaves a false quarter. And now, scholar, let's go to my rod. Look you, scholar, I have a fish too, but it proves a logger-headed chub ; and this is not much amiss, for this will pleasure some poor body, as we go to our lodging to meet our brother I^eter and honest Coridon. Come, now bait your hook again, and lay it into the water, for it rains again : and we will even retire to the sycamore-tree, and there I will give you more directions concerning fishing ; for I would fain make you an artist. Ven. Yes, good master, I pray let it be so. 132 "The Compleat Angler Pisc. Well, scholar, now we are sat down and are at ease, I shall tell you a little more of trout-fishing, before I speak of salmon (which I purpose shall be next) and then of the pike or luce. You are to 'know there is night as well as day-fishing for a trout, and that in the night the best trouts come out of their holes : and the manner of taking them is on the top of the water, with a great lob or garden-worm, or rather two, which you are to fish within a place where the waters run somewhat quietly, for in a stream the bait will not be so well discerned. I say, in a quiet or dead place, near to some swift : there draw your bait over the top of the water, to and fro ; and if there be a good trout in the hole he will take it, especially if the night be dark ; for then he is bold, and lies near the top of the water, watching the motion of any frog, or water-rat, or mouse that swims between him and the sky : these he hunts after if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where these great old trouts usually lie near to their holds ; for you are to note, that the great old trout Is both subtle and fearful, and lies close all day, and -^".'/.'.'■iii,. ■.•'I-,; ■,;;.■ • ■"• . ,.■■ o ■■■■■ ■:.'.. •il'V. ' ■ 'ii. ^sfi- .'.',; .,1' A_, ,'.:,' - •Al'-''.'.'.' ..'.; "" ••iii"."',,;-;i"''"'''(^rs.' '-■• ■ .■.■"■'■•'/' •■■"/ ..„.. .\u:hU, .III-. I- .' ''.;.■■■■'';■ :.■! ■ • ■• •Id.'";,.- I/'.' ■•■;,>\i"' I/; •■■'//, 'i,.; I'll." ■.,''; (i."'.v. "".If;!"-- , .. ... ',V'i""|. ""•■■-' /■.■".'.■■.:;-.-.''L-.,^''""- ,||,,,;..^^- .'.'■:■■'■. ' .'•"■■■■'f.\ ...... ■^''.iih;iii. 'v-,! 1 .1 1 : ]{iim'u:.li'//ll'. ■;,'")'.- (Aes/ucnT ''// ^z:> The Compleat ^Angler does not usually stir out of his hold, but lies in it as close in the day as the timorous hare does in her form, for the chief feeding of either is seldom in the day, but usually in the night, and then the great trout feeds very boldly. And you must fish for him with a strong line, and not a little hook ; and let him have time to gorge your hook, for he does not usually forsake it, as he oft will in the day-fishing. And if the night be not dark, then fish so with an artificial fly of a light colour, and at the snap : nay, he will sometimes rise at a dead mouse, or a piece of cloth, or anything that seems to swim across the water, or to be in motion. This is a choice way, but I have not often used it, because it is void of the pleasures that such days as these, that we two now enjoy, affx)rd an angler. And you are to know that in Hampshire, which I think exceeds all England for swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, and store of trouts, they used to catch trouts in the night, by the light of a torch or straw, which, when they have discovered, they strike with a trout- spear, or other ways. This kind of way they catch very many ; but I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen it. Ven. But, master, do not trouts see us in the night .'' Pisc. Yes, and hear and smell too, both then and in the day-time ; for Gesner observes, the otter smells a fish forty furlongs ofi^ him in the water : and that it may be true, seems to be affirned by Sir Francis Bacon, in the eighth century of his Natural History, who there proves that water may be the medium of sounds, by demon- strating it thus : " that if you knock two stones together very deep under the water, those that stand on a bank near to that place may hear the noise without any diminution of it by the water." He also offers the like experiment concerning the letting an anchor fall, by a very long cable or rope, on a rock, or the sand within the sea. And this being so well observed and demonstrated as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that eels unbed themselves and stir at the noise of thunder ; and not only, as some think, by the motion or stirring of the earth, which is occasioned by that thunder. And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon (Exper. 792) has made me ^2>S 'The Compleat Angler crave pardon of one that I laughed at, for affirming that he knew carps come to a certain place in a pond, to be fed, at the ringing of a bell, or the beating of a drum ; and however, it shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am fishing, until Sir Francis Bacon be confuted, which I shall give any man leave to do. And, lest you may think him singular in his opinion, I will tell you, this seems to be believed by our learned Dr. Hakewill, who (in his Apology of God's Power and Providence, fol. 360) quotes Pliny to report that one of the emperors had particular fish-ponds, and in them several fish that appeared and came when they were called by their particular names ; and St. James tells us (chap. 3. 7) that all things in the sea have been tamed by mankind. And Pliny tells us (lib. 9. 35) that Antonia, the wife of Darsus, had a lamprey, at whose gills she hung jewels or ear-rings ; and that others have been so tender-hearted as to shed tears at the death of fishes which they have kept and loved. And these observations, which will to most hearers seem wonderful, seem to have a further confirmation from Martial (lib. 4, Epigr. 30), who writes thus : PISCJTOR, FUGE; NE NOCENS, ETC. Angler I wouldst thou be guiltless ? then forbear ; For these are sacred fishes that swim here. Who know their sovereign, and will lick his hand; Than which nonets greater in the world's command: Nay more, they've names, and, when thev called are. Do to their several owners^ call repair. All the further use that I shall make of this shall be, to advise anglers to be patient and forbear swearing, lest they be heard, and catch no fish. And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain, that certain fields near Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are observed to make the sheep that graze upon them more fat than the next, and also to bear finer wool ; that is to say that that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yield finer wool than they did that year before they came to feed in it, and coarser again if they 136 The Compleat ^Angler shall return to their former pasture ; and again return to a finer wool, being fed in the fine-wool ground. Which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, if I catch a trout in one meadow he shall be white and faint, and very like to be lousy ; and as certainly, if I catch a trout in the next meadow, he shall be strong, and red, and lusty, and much better meat. Trust me, scholar, I have caught many a trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the enamelled colour of him hath been such as have joyed me to look on him ; and I have then with much pleasure concluded with Solomon, " Everything is beautiful in his season." I should by promise speak next of the salmon ; but I will by your favour say a little of the umber or grayling, which is so like a trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may exercise your patience with a short discourse of him, and then the next shall be of the salmon. MM ^roxifOiim^^ 137 'QrayUn i^p' eS^?^ £HN- CHAPTER VI Observations of the Umber or Qrayling, and Directions how to Fish for them. ISC. The umber and grayling are thought by some to differ, as the herring and pilchard do. But though they may do so in other nations, I think those in England differ in nothing but their names. Aldrovandus says they be of a trout kind ; and Gesner says, that in his country (which is in Switzerland) he is accounted the choicest of all fish. And in Italy, he is in the month of May so highly valued, that he is sold at a much higher rate than any other fish. The French (which call the chub un vilain) call the umber of the lake Leman un umble chevalier ; and they value the umber or grayling so highly, that they say he feeds on gold, and say that many have been caught out of their famous river Loire, and of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. And some think that he feeds on 138 PBagL/eH^BB o g^^ l ^ , s s ""g d -^efJ a o no The Compleat ^Angler water-thyme, and smells of it at his first taking out of the water; and they may think so with as good reason as we do that our smelts smell like violets at their first being caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the salmon, the grayling, and trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp streams, are made by their mother nature of such exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not it is not my purpose to dispute ; but 'tis certain, all that write of the umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, that the fat of an umber or grayling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness, or anything that breeds in the eyes. Salvian takes him to be called umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out of sight, more like a shadow or a ghost than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell and taste ; but I shall only tell you, that St. Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan (who lived when the church kept fasting days) calls him the flower-fish, or flower of fishes : and that he was so far in love with him that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long discourse ; but I must, and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish. First, note, that he grows not to the bigness of a trout ; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the trout does, and is usually taken with the same baits as the trout is, and after the same manner ; for he will bite both at the minnow, or worm, or fly ; though he bites not often at the minnow, and is very gamesome at the fly, and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a trout ; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers of a parakita, a strange outlandish bird ; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat or a small moth, or indeed at most flies that are not too big. He is a flsh that lurks close all winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid- April, and in May, and in the hot months : he is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white ; his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him, than any other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in 140 The C ample at Angler the delicate river Dove and in Trent, and some other small rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet he is not so general a fish as the trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him ; and now come to some observations of the salmon, and how to catch him. ffi^«j ,'..''Vi>i\'-'i». ^ ^wxOourn^ j 141 E K-M- ^ CHAPTER VII Observations of the Salmon ; with Di?-ections how to Fish for him. ISC. The salmon is accounted the king of fresh- water fish ; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high or far from it as admits of no tincture of salt or brackishness. He is said to breed, or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the month of August : some say that then they dig a hole or grave in a safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs or spawn (after the melter has done his natural office), and then hide it most cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones, and then leave it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which He infuses into that cold element, makes it brood and beget life in the spawn, and to become samlets early in the spring next following. The salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before 142 The Compleat <,Angler winter, both the melter and spawner ; but if they be stopped by flood-gates or weirs or lost in the fresh waters, then those so left be- hind by degrees grow sick, and lean, and unseasonable, and kipper ; that is to say, have bony gristles grow out of their lower chaps (not unlike a hawk's beak) which hinders their feeding ; and in time such fish, so left behind, pine away and die. 'Tis observed that he may live thus one year from the sea ; but he then grows insipid and taste- less, and loses both his blood and strength, and pines and dies the second year. And 'tis noted that those little salmons called skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating to the sea, are bred by such sick salmons that might not go to the sea ; and that though they abound, yet they never thrive to any considerable bigness. But if the old salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle, which shows him to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off (as the eagle is said to cast his bill) and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, to enjoy the former pleasures that there possessed him ; for (as one has wittily observed) he has, like some persons of honour and riches, which have both their winter and summer houses, the fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for winter, to spend his life in ; which is not (as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of Life and Death') above ten years. And it is to be observed that though the salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in fresh rivers ; and it is observed that the farther they get from the sea, they be both the fatter and better. Next I shall tell you, that though they make very hard shift to get out of the fresh rivers into the sea, yet they will make a harder shift to get out of the salt into the fresh rivers, to spawn, or possess the pleasures that they have formerly found in them : to which end they will force themselves through flood-gates, or over weirs or hedges, or stops in the water, even to a height beyond common belief. Gesner speaks of such places as are known to be above eight feet high above water. And our Camden mentions (in his 'Britannia) the like wonder to be in Pembrokeshire, where the river Tivy falls into the sea ; and that the fall is so downright, and so high, that the people stand and wonder at the strength and sleight by which they see the 143 The Compleat Angler salmon use to get out of the sea into the said river ; and the manner and height of the place is so notable, that it is known, far, by the name of the "Salmon-leap." Concerning which, take this also out of Michael Drayton, my honest old friend, as he tells it you in his Polyolbion : — And when the salmon seeks a fresher stream to Jind^ Which hither from the sea comes yearly by his kind; As he towards season grows, and stems the wafry tract Where Tivy falling down, makes a high cataract. Forced by the rising rocks that there her course oppose. As though within her bounds they meant her to inclose ; Here, when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive. And finds that by his strength he does but vainly strive. His tail takes in his mouth, and, bending like a bow. That's to full compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw ; Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand That, bended end to end, and started from man^s hand. Far oft itself doth cast ; so does the salmon vault : And if at first he fail, his second summersault He instantly essays ; and from his nimble ring. Still yerking, never leaves until himself he fling Above the opposing stream This Michael Drayton tells you of this leap or summersault of the salmon. And next I shall tell you, that it is observed by Gesner and others, that there is no better salmon than in England ; and that though some of our northern counties have as fat and as large as the river Thames, yet none are of so excellent a taste. And as I have told you that Sir Francis Bacon observes, the age of a salmon exceeds not ten years ; so let me next tell you, that his growth is very sudden ; it is said, that after he is got into the sea, he becomes from a samlet not so big as a gudgeon, to be a salmon, in as short a time as a gosling becomes to be a goose. Much of this has been observed by tying a ribbon, or some known tape or thread, in the tail of some young salmons, which have been taken in weirs as 144 The Compleat Angler they have swimmed towards the salt water, and then by taking a part of them again with the known mark at the same place at their return from the sea, which is usually about six months after ; and the like experiment hath been tried upon young swallows, who have, after six months' absence, been observed to return to the same chimney, there to make their nests and habitations for the summer following : which has inclined many to think, that every salmon usually returns to the same river in which it was bred, as young pigeons taken out of the same dovecote have also been observed to do. And you are yet to observe farther, that the he- salmon is usually bigger than the spawner ; and that he is more kipper, and less able to endure a winter in the fresh water than she is : yet she is, at that time of looking less kipper and better, as watery, and as bad meat. And yet you are to observe that as there is no general rule without an exception, so there are some ie.vf rivers in this nation that have trouts and salmons in season in winter, as it is certain there be in the 145 "The Compleat ^Angler river Wye, in Monmouthshire, where they be in season (as Camden observes) from September till April. But, my scholar, the observ- ation of this and many other things, I must in manners omit, because they will prove too large for our narrow compass of time, and there- fore I shall next fall upon my directions how to fish for this salmon. And for that, first you shall observe, that usually he stays not long in a place (as trouts will), but (as I said) covets still to go nearer the spring head ; and that he does not (as the trout and many other fish) lie near the water-side, or bank, or roots of trees, but swims in the deep and broad parts of the water, and usually in the middle, and near the ground ; and that there you are to fish for him, and that he is to be caught as the trout is, with a worm, a minnow (which some call a penk), or with a fly. And you are to observe that he is very seldom observed to bite at a minnow (yet sometimes he will) and not usually at a fly ; but more usually at a worm, and then most usually at a lob or garden-worm, which should be well scoured, that is to say, kept seven or eight days in moss before you fish with them : and if you double your time of eight into sixteen, twenty, or more days, it is still the better ; for the worms will still be clearer, tougher, and more lively, and continue so longer upon your hook ; and they may be kept longer by keeping them cool and in fresh moss, and some advise to put camphor into it. Note also, that many used to fish for a salmon with a ring of wire on the top of their rod, through which the line may run to as great a length as is needful when he is hooked. And to that end, some use a wheel about the middle of their rod, or near their hand ; which is to be observed better by seeing one of them, than by a large demonstration of words. And now I shall tell you that which may be called a secret : I have been a-fishing with old Oliver Henley (now with God), a noted fisher both for trout and salmon, and have observed that he would usually take three or four worms out of his bag, and put them into a little box in his pocket, where he would usually let them continue half-an-hour or more before he would bait his hook with them. I have asked him his reason, and he has replied : " He did but pick 146 The Compleat 'Angler the best out to be in readiness against he baited his hook the next time ; " but he has been observed, both by others and myself, to catch more fish than I or any other body that has ever gone a-fishing with him could do, and especially salmons ; and I have been told lately by one of his most intimate and secret friends, that the box in which he put those worms was anointed with a drop, or two or three, of the oil of ivy-berries, made by expression or infusion ; and told, that by the worms remaining in that box an hour, or a like time, they had incorporated a kind of smell that was irresistibly attractive, enough to force any fish within the smell of them to bite. This I heard not long since from a friend, but have not tried it; yet I grant it probable, and refer my reader to Sir Francis Bacon's Natural History, where he proves fishes may hear, and doubtless can more probably smell : and I am certain Gesner says the otter can smell in the water, and I know not but that fish may do so too; 'tis left for a lover of angling, or any that desires to improve that art, to try this conclusion. I shall also impart two other experiments (but not tried by myself), which I will deliver in the same words that they were given me, by an excellent angler, and a very friend. In writing : he told me the latter was too good to be told but in a learned language, lest it should be made common. " Take the stinking oil drawn out of the polybody of the oak by a retort, mixed with turpentine and hive-honey, and anoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtless draw the fish to it." The other is this : " Vulnera hedera grandissima inflicta sudant hal- samum oleo gelato, albicatrtique per simile, odor is vero longe suavissimiy 'Tis supremely sweet to any fish, and yet asafcetida may do the like. But in these things I have no great faith, yet grant it probable, and have had from some chemical men (namely, from Sir George Hastings and others) an affirmation of them to be very advantageous: but no more of these, especially not In this place. I might here, before I take my leave of the salmon, tell you that there Is more than one sort of them ; as, namely, a tecon, and another called In some places a samlet, or by some a skegger ; but these and others, which I forbear to name, may be fish of another 147 The Compleat