206 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



and complete artist. But my copy of the 

 Gentleman Angler has this note, written in an 

 eighteenth-century hand, possibly contem- 

 porary : 'A list of this Gent flys are handed 

 about in Manuscript.' I would give a good 

 deal to see that list and to know who Mr. 

 Jemmit was. His name appeals to me : in fact 

 all their names appeal to me, these individuals, 

 casually mentioned in fishing books, of whom 

 nothing else is known. Who was Captain 

 Henry Jackson, kinsman and neighbour of 

 Cotton, by many degrees the best fly maker he 

 ever met, who taught him all the fly dressing he 

 knew? Who was the very good angler whose 

 list of flies came into Chetham's hand, since his 

 book was almost finished at press ? And who, 

 above all, who were Merril and Faulkner, whom 

 Franck thought so infinitely superior to 

 Walton : and who was that paragon of them 

 all, 'Isaac Owldham, a man that fish'd Salmon 

 but with three Hairs at Hook' ? We shall 

 never know, alas! alas! His 'Collections and 

 Experiments were lost with himself.' Probably 

 future ages will not know who Dickie 

 Routledge was, the greatest fisherman of my 

 lifetime. He is dead, and his knowledge with 

 him. His collections and experiments are lost 

 with himself. Nor has he been described. We 

 have no portrait of him, as we have Addison's 

 portrait of Mr. William Wimble (brother to a 

 baronet, and descended of the ancient family 

 of the Wimbles); who 'makes a May-fly to a 



