COTTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 69 



tage that unless the lengths are evenly matched 

 all the play is on one hair, and also the open 

 hairs are apt to entangle your hook, especially 

 in rough water. Single hair is generally too 

 fine, but never use more than double, for he who 

 cannot kill a trout twenty inches long with it 

 deserves not the name of angler. Barker, on 

 the other hand, says that you can kill the great- 

 est trout that swims on single hair, if you have 

 sea-room, and that single hair will kill five for 

 one killed by three hairs twisted. Venables 

 liked a casting line of Lute or Viol string, but 

 it must be changed often as it quickly rots. 

 Perhaps it was he who taught this secret to a 

 great man. On 18 March 1667 Mr. Samuel 

 Pepys writes in his diary : This day Mr. 

 Caesar told me a pretty experiment of his ang- 

 ling with a minikin, a gutt-string varnished 

 over, which keeps it from swelling, and is 

 beyond any hair for strength and smallness. 

 The secret I like mightily.' Pepys' enthusiasm 

 opens vision. What a fishing book he might 

 have written; did he ever fish with Walton, or 

 buy flies from Barker, at Henry the Seventh's 

 gifts next door to the Gatehouse at Westmin- 

 ster? Did he ever spend a rollicking night 

 with Cotton, drinking and singing and talking 

 of fishing and women? Wonderful man, wrote 

 Byron of Scott, how I should like to get drunk 

 with him ! A night with Pepys and Cotton 

 would have been well worth a headache. 



About this time a substitute called Indian 



