270 FISHING GOSSIP. 
trial, they may select those for their daily use which on 
experience they shall find to be best. One or two of those that 
are most highly commended, would, I own, be more pleasing 
to me were they more simple, and less superstitiously com- 
pounded. In particular this by Monsieur Charras, apothe- 
cary royal to the late French king, Lewis the Fourteenth :— 
‘Take of man’s fat and cat’s fat, of each half an ounce ; 
mummy, finely powdered, three drams ; cummin-seed, finely 
powdered, one dram ; distilled oil of aniseed and spike, of 
each six drops ; civet, two grains ; and camphire, four grains : 
make an ointment according to art. When you angle with 
this, anoint eight inches of the line next the hook. Keep it 
in a pewter box, made something taper ; and, when you use 
it never angle with less than two or three hairs next the hook ; 
because if you angle with one hair it will not stick so well to 
the line, . 
“ Gum ivy (not the oil of ivy) is of a yellowish-red colour, 
and of a strong scent and sharp taste. To get it true, drive 
several large nails into thick ivy stalks, and having wriggled .. 
them till they become very loose, let them remain, and a gum 
will issue out of the hole. This gum is excellent for the 
angier’s use: perhaps nothing more so under the form of an 
unguent.” 
Then we meet with other writers who have each 
in turn some favourite nostrum: now it is oil of 
olive, now chymical oil of lavender or camomile :— 
“ But for a trout in a muddy water, and for gudgeons in a 
clean stream, the best ungent is compounded, viz.— 
“Take assafcetida, 3 drams ; camphire, 1 dram ; Venice 
turpentine, 1 dram ; beat altogether with some drops of the 
chymical oils of lavender and camomile, of each an equal 
quantity.” 
