202 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



And maketh soules holy and wise : 

 By blessed thoughts and meditation : 



This, this is Anglers' recreation ! 

 Health, profit, pleasure, mixt together, 



All sport's to this not worth a feather. 



Franck cannot be classed with anyone else in 

 the world. He is unique. His preface does 

 not submit his work to the public. No. It 

 manuducts the reader through the slender 

 margin of his uncultivated book. When he 

 wants to say that it is spring time, he says that 

 the Vernon Ingress smiles. A hackle fly is not 

 a wingless fly : nothing so simple : it is a fly 

 which possesses indigency of wings. His 

 political opinions necessitate his hiding him- 

 self : he takes umbrage in London. He gives 

 an admirable account of a novice and an old 

 hand fishing for salmon in Scotland. The 

 novice is broken, the other successful. The 

 novice is nervous and uncomfortable : he is 

 described as not much deliciated. To make a 

 fish rise is to teach him the art of invasion. 

 And so on. But the odd thing is that it is 

 obvious that Franck was an excellent fisherman. 



Chetham, a late contemporary of Walton, 

 supplemented the conspicuous excellence of his 

 fly dressing by certain obscene mixtures which 

 he recommends as 'Oyntments to alure fish to 

 the bait.' Here is one : 'Take the Bones or 

 Scull of a Dead-man, at the opening of a Grave, 

 and beat the same into pouder, and put of this 

 pouder in the Moss wherein you keep your 



