THE LITERATURE OF ELY FISHING. 203 



Worms. But others,' adds Chetham, 'like 

 Grave Earth as well.' I can quite believe that 

 it is equally efficacious. One of his ointments 

 was so deadly that in his first edition he for- 

 bore to give it. It prodigiously causes fish to 

 bite, if used by an artist. It is composed thus : 

 Gf Man's Fat, Cat's Fat, Heron's Fat, and the 

 best Assafoetida, of each two Drams, Mummy 

 finely powdred two Drams, mixed with various 

 other chemicals into an indifferent thin oint- 

 ment. With this anoint eight inches of your 

 line next the hook. The Man's Fat you can 

 get of the London Chyrurgeons concerned in 

 anatomy, and the Heron's Fat from the 

 poulterers; the rest are to be had from 

 druggists. I wonder what my poulterer would 

 say if I ordered heron's fat or my chemist if 

 I asked him for cat's fat or mummy finely 

 powdered. The older fishermen had some 

 advantages over us. 



These seventeenth-century writers are a well- 

 marked group. Except Franck, they could all 

 write effective prose. In this they stand 

 together, and they do so in another sense also, 

 for they complete each other, without an undue 

 amount of copying. When we leave them, we 

 leave the reign of the book, and come to that 

 of the manual. There is no great fishing prose 

 work during the eighteenth century. And yet 

 there are writers who deserve a mention. 



Bowlker is the best. His Art of Angling 

 was still in use as a text-book in my boyhood. 



