134 THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 



fastidious. The single hair next the hook 

 which Cotton recommends is to this day the 

 most sportsmanlike link between the hook and 

 the main line that an angler can use ; I say- 

 most sportsmanlike because while it may be as 

 fine as drawn gut, it is not so strong, and con- 

 sequently requires more skill in the handling. 

 But trout are not so plentiful now as in 

 Cotton's time, at any rate anglers are far 

 more numerous, and although a single hair 

 line is still considered by very many North 

 Country anglers as the best, I always use and 

 always advise the use of fine gut, simply 

 because you may make a basket with gut 

 while you are killing a brace or two on 

 hair. . . . 



" The genuine esteem and friendship in 

 which Walton and Cotton held each other is 

 one of the most charming episodes in literary 

 history, and it says much for the influence of 

 our art that it should so have united the quiet, 

 good old London citizen with Charles Cotton, 

 a man who, judging from his writings, must 

 have been, to say the least of it, somewhat of a 

 Bohemian. It is a thousand pities that Walton, 

 who has left us some of the most perfect 



