CHARLES COTTON, ESQ. xv 



same strain. The twelve flies in the Berners' Treatise are the 

 substratum of the mystery Cotton has built up wisely and cor- 

 rectly. The practical angler, though fresh from the study of 

 Hofland, Chitty, or Ronald, will be gratified and instructed by 

 reading Cotton after Walton, notwithstanding that Walter Scott 

 says : " Walton's practice was entirely confined to bait-fishing, 

 and even Cotton, his distinguished disciple and follower, though 

 accustomed to fish trout in the Dove with artificial fly, would 

 have been puzzled by ixjish (for so the salmon is called par excel- 

 lence in most parts of Scotland) of twenty pounds ; both being 

 alike strangers to that noble branch of the art." 



It will also be seen, that the son in some places does not hesi- 

 tate to correct, though modestly, his father's mistakes ; particu- 

 larly, the clumsy practice sometimes resorted to by less skilful 

 American anglers of throwing in the rod to an over-grown fish, 

 in the hope of afterwards recovering both fish and tackle. All 

 good experience confirms Cotton's opinion. Besides, it does not 

 appear that either of our authors used the reel* or winch, with 

 which any such bungling is inexcusably unnecessary ; as is 

 also the almost equally awkward method, which seems to have 

 been then practised of catching hold of the line to draw in the 

 fish, except he be so small that you care not if you lose him. 



There has been, and will be, frequent allusion to the Fish- 

 ing-house in which Cotton and his father Walton spent such 

 pleasant hours, and we may better speak of it here than in a note. 

 It was erected before the last visit Walton paid (or hoped to pay) 

 to Cotton in the summer of 1676, and was but begun at the time 

 of his former visit, the date of which is uncertain. It stands " in 

 a kind of peninsula," as Cotton describes it, '• with a delicate 

 clear river about it ;" or, as a writer in the Gentlcmaii's Maga- 

 zine, who saw it in 1824, says: "Just above the Pike, a small 

 wooden foot-bridge leads over the stream towards Hartshorn in 

 Derbyshire ; it bears the date of 1818, but is the successor of 

 that which Viator and Piscator crossed. Somewhat higlier up 



* The history of the reel is a fine subject for the ansjling archaeolojjist. 

 Its origin is as yet in deep obscurity. Walton alludes to it when speaking 

 of salmon-fishing, but evidently without any clear notion of its use. 



