So, rotten sides of broken ships do change VENATOR. 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? PISCATOR. My honest scholar, it is now past five of the clock: we will fish till nine, and then go to breakfast. Go you to yonder 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, wholesome hungry breakfast. And I will then give you direction for the making and using of your flies : and in the mean time, 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. VENATOR. I thank you, master. I will observe and practise your direction as far as I am able. PISCATOR. 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. done, scholar: I thank you. Well 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. VENATOR. I am glad of that: but I have no fortune: sure, master, yours is a better rod and better tackling. PISCATOR. Nay, then, take mine; and I will fish with yours. Look you, scholar, I have another. Come, do as you did before. Oh me! he has broke all : And now I have a bite at another. there's half a line and a good hook lost. VENATOR. Ay, and a good Trout too. PISCATOR. Nay, the Trout is not lost; for pray take notice, no man can lose what he never had. VENATOR. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second angle: I have no fortune. PISCATOR. Look you, scholar, I have yet another. And now, These verses occur in the sixth day of the first week of Du Bartas, by Sylvester, ed. 1608, 4to, p. 182. Lets say grace and fats to breatifact what say you. I'metar to the providence of an Ad angleri'aces not this meat taste well: and was not this plove well chosen? having caught three brace of Trouts, I will tell you a short tale as we walk 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 fellowpupil the copy of a sermon that was first preached with great commendation by him that composed 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 was thus answered: "I lent you indeed, my fiddle, but not my fiddle-stick; for you are to know that every one cannot make music with my words, which are fitted for my own mouth." And so, my scholar, you are to know, that as the ill-pronunciation or ill-accenting 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 fiddle-stick, that is, you yet have not skill to know how to carry your hand and line, nor 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. What say you, But now, let's say grace, and fall to breakfast. scholar, to the providence of an old angler? Does not this meat taste well? and was not this place well chosen to eat it? for this sycamore-tree will shade us from the sun's heat. VENATOR. All excellent good; and my stomach excellent good too. And I now 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 *Leonard Lessius, a very learned Jesuit, professor of divinity in the College of Jesuits at Louvain he was born at Antwerp, 1554; and became very famous for his skill in divinity, civil law, mathematics, physic, and history: he wrote several theological tracts, and a book entitled Hygiasticon, seu vera ratio valetudinis bonæ & vitæ ad extremam senectutem conservanda. From this tract of Lessius it is probable the passage in the text is cited. He died 1623.-H. seriously approve of that saying of yours, "that you had 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 many very 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. PISCATOR. 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 flyfisher.9 You are to note, that there are twelve kinds of artificial-made Flies, to angle with upon 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 wings of the drake. The fourth is the ruddy-fly, in the beginning 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 lapt 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 VARIATION. 9 And because you shall not think yourself more engaged to me than indeed you really are, therefore I will tell you freely, I find Mr Thomas Barker, a gentleman that has spent much time and money in Angling deal so judiciously and freely in a little book of his of Angling with a fly for a Trout, that I will give you his very directions without much variation.-1st edit. Then follow Barker's instructions, differing little from them as printed in a subsequent part of the text. The "excellent fly-fisher" to whom Walton alludes, was Leonard Mascall, from whose "Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line, &c., 4to, Lond. 1600," the ensuing list of flies is copied verbatim. |
