108 FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT 



I think it is now about mil king-time. And yonder 

 they be at it ! 



The Compleat Angler. 



NOTES 



[Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler, or The 

 Contemplative Man's Recreation, the best technical treatise in 

 the language, was born in 1593, and lived on to the great age of 

 ninety. He was thus for the first twenty-three years of his life 

 contemporary with Shakespeare. He retired from business in 

 London (where he had been a linen-draper) just as the Civil 

 War of Charles I's time was beginning : he was then about fifty 

 years of age ; and he devoted the rest of his long life to his 

 favourite pursuit of angling. He thus enjoyed 'the blessing of 

 St. Peter's Master ' and an escape from the bustle of civil war. 

 His book was published in 1653 : in 1676, when it was in its 

 fifth edition, Charles Cotton (to whom Walton was ' the best 

 and the truest friend ever man had ') contributed to its pages 

 a second part, a treatise on fly-fishing. Both before and after 

 the appearance of The Compleat Angler, Walton wrote some 

 short biographies, of such men as Donne and Wotton, Hooker 

 and Herbert. Whatever he wrote reveals his own personality ; 

 but more especially is the revelation made in his book on 

 angling. This ever fresh and popular book presents him as 

 a person singularly cheerful, suave, and even-minded. His style 

 is pleasant, light, and easy ; and the atmosphere around him is 

 that of rural England in May.] 



LINE 12. fish down the stream. Most anglers nowadays 

 would dispute this direction, on the ground that trout when 

 feeding lie looking up the stream. 



17. middle of March. Old Style, and therefore thirteen days 

 later now. The change to New Style was made September 3, 

 1752, that day being counted as the fourteenth. Since then 

 two more days" have been added to the difference, 1800 and 

 1900 not being considered as leap years. 



20. the palmer worm. So named, as Walton himself informs us, 

 from its wandering about like a palmer (or pilgrim from the 

 Holy Land). He describes it as ' not contenting itself with any 



