Pisc. Well, sir, you see the ale is come without calling; for though I do not know yours, my people know my diet, which is always one glass so soon as I am drest, and no more, till dinner and so my servants have served you.

VIAT. My thanks! And now, if you please, let us look out this fine morning.

PISC. With all my heart. Boy, take the key of my fishinghouse, and carry down those two angle-rods in the hall window, thither, with my fish-pannier, pouch, and landingnet; and stay you there till we come. Come, sir, we'll walk after, where, by the way, I expect you should raise all the exceptions against our country you can.

VIAT. Nay, sir, do not think me so ill-natured nor so uncivil; I only made a little bold with it last night to divert you, and was only in jest.

PISC. You were then in as good earnest as I am now with you but had you been really angry at it, I could not blame you for, to say the truth, it is not very taking at first sight. But look you, sir, now you are abroad, does not the sun shine as bright here as in Essex, Middlesex, or Kent, or any of your southern counties?

VIAT. It is a delicate morning, indeed; and I now think this a marvellous pretty place.

PISC. Whether you think so or no, you cannot oblige me more than to say so; and those of my friends who know my

humour, and are so kind as to comply with it, usually flatter me that way. But look you, sir, now you are at the brink of the hill, how do you like my river, the vale it winds through like a snake, and the situation of my little fishinghouse?

VIAT. Trust me, 'tis all very fine, and the house seems at this distance a neat building.

PISC. Good enough for that purpose: and here is a bowling-green too, close by it; so, though I am myself no very good bowler, I am not totally devoted to my own pleasure, but that I have also some regard to other men's. And now, sir, you are come to the door, pray walk in, and there we will sit and talk as long as you please.

PISCATORIBUS

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

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

VIAT. Men must sometimes mind their affairs to make

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

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

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

PISC. Enough, sir, enough; I have laid open to you the part where I can worst defend myself, and now you attack me there. Come, boy, set two chairs; and whilst I am taking a pipe of tobacco, which is always my breakfast, we will, if you please, talk of some other subject.

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

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

you a

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

Pisc. You cannot oblige me more than by such a promise: and therefore, without more ceremony, I will begin to tell you, that my father Walton having read to you before, it would look like a presumption in me (and, peradventure, would do so in any other man), to pretend to give lessons for angling after him, who, I do really believe, understands as much of it at least as any man in England, did I not preacquaint you, that I am not tempted to it by any vain opinion of myself, that I am able to give you better directions; but having, from my childhood, pursued the recreation of angling in very clear rivers, truly I think by much, some of them at least, the clearest in this kingdom, and the manner

of angling here with us, by reason of that exceeding clearness, being something different from the method commonly used in others, which by being not near so bright, admit of stronger tackle, and allow a nearer approach to the stream; I may peradventure give you some instructions that may be of use, even in your own rivers, and shall bring you acquainted with more flies, and show you how to make them, and with what dubbing too, than he has taken notice of in his COMPLETE ANGLER. VIAT. I beseech you, sir, do: and if you will lend me your steel, I will light a pipe the while; for that is commonly my breakfast in a morning too.

CHAPTER IV.

[Second Bay.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER V.

OF FLY FISHING.

[Second Day.]

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

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

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

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

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

* I have already described this mode of angling at the end of chap. iii. p. 59.-ED.