Introduction xli 



above twenty years ". Cotton prefers rods " made 

 in Yorkshire," having advanced from the home- 

 made stage. His were spliced, and kept up all 

 through the season, as he had his water at his own 

 door, while Walton trudged to the Lee and other 

 streams near London, when he was not fishing the 

 Itchen, or Shawford Brook. The Angler's Vade 

 Mecum recommends eighteen-feet rods : preferring 

 a fir butt, fashioned by the arrow-maker, a hazel 

 top, and a tip of whalebone. This authority, even 

 more than Walton, deals in mysterious " Oynt- 

 ments" of gum ivy, horse-leek, asafcetida, man's fat, 

 cat's fat, powdered skulls, and grave earth. A 

 ghoulish body is the angler of the Vade Mecum. 

 He recommends up-stream fishing, with worm, in 

 a clear water, and so is a predecessor of Mr. 

 Stewart. "When you have hooked a good fish, 

 have an especial care to keep the rod bent, lest he 

 run to the end of the line" (he means, as does 

 Walton, lest he pull the rod horizontal) " and break 

 either hook or hold." An old owner of my copy 

 adds, in manuscript, " And hale him not to near ye 

 top of the water, lest in flaskering he break ye line ". 

 This is a favourite device of sea trout, which are 

 very apt to " flasker " on the top of the water. The 

 Vade Mecum, in advance of Walton on this point, 

 recommends a swivel in minnow-fishing: but has 

 no idea of an artificial minnow of silk. I have 

 known an ingenious lady who, when the bodies of 

 her phantom minnows gave out, in Norway, supplied 

 their place successfully with bed-quilting artfully 

 sewn. In fact, anything bright and spinning will 

 allure fish, though in the upper Ettrick, where large 

 trout exist, they will take the natural, but perhaps 

 never the phantom or angel minnow. I once tried 

 a spinning Alexandra fly over some large pond 

 trout They followed it eagerly, but never took 



