In matter of fact, again, Izaak follows the ancient Treatise. We know his jury of twelve flies: the Treatise says:—
‘These ben the xij flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to the trought and graylling, and dubbe like as ye shall now here me tell.
‘Marche. The donne fly, the body of the donne woll, and the wyngis of the pertryche. Another donne flye, the body of blacke woll, the wyngis of the blackyst drake; and the lay under the wynge and under the tayle.’
Walton has:—
‘The first is the dun fly in March: the body is made of dun wool, the wings of the partridge’s feathers. The second is another dun fly: the body of black wool; and the wings made of the black drake’s feathers, and of the feathers under his tail.’
Again, the Treatise has:—
Auguste. The drake fly. The body of black wull and lappyd abowte wyth blacke sylke: winges of the mayle of the blacke drake wyth a blacke heed.’
Walton has:—
‘The twelfth is the dark drake-fly, good in August: the body made with black wool, lapt about with black silk, his wings are made with the mail of the black drake, with a black head.’
This is word for word a transcript of the fifteenth century Treatise. But Izaak cites, not the ancient Treatise, but Mr. Thomas Barker. [{6}] Barker, in fact, gives many more, and more variegated flies than Izaak offers in the jury of twelve which he rendered, from the old Treatise, into modern English. Sir Harris Nicolas says that the jury is from Leonard Mascall’s Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line (London, 1609), but Mascall merely stole from the fifteenth-century book. In Cotton’s practice, and that of The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681), flies were as numerous as among ourselves, and had, in many cases, the same names. Walton absurdly bids us ‘let no part of the line touch the water, but the fly only.’ Barker says, ‘Let the fly light first into the water.’ Both men insist on fishing down stream, which is, of course, the opposite of the true art, for fish lie with their heads up stream, and trout are best approached from behind. Cotton admits of fishing both up and down, as the wind and stream may serve: and, of course, in heavy water, in Scotland, this is all very well. But none of the old anglers, to my knowledge, was a dry-fly fisher, and Izaak was no fly-fisher at all. He took what he said from Mascall, who took it from the old Treatise, in which, it is probable, Walton read, and followed the pleasant and to him congenial spirit of the mediæval angler. All these writers tooled with huge rods, fifteen or eighteen feet in length, and Izaak had apparently never used a reel. For salmon, he says, ‘some use a wheel about the middle of their rods or near their hand, which is to be observed better by seeing one of them, than by a large demonstration of words.’
Mr. Westwood has made a catalogue of books cited by Walton in his Compleat Angler. There is Ælian (who makes the first known reference to fly-fishing); Aldrovandus, De Piscibus (1638); Dubravius, De Piscibus (1559); and the English translation (1599) Gerard’s Herball (1633); Gesner, De Piscibus (s.a.) and Historia Naturalis (1558); Phil. Holland’s Pliny (1601); Rondelet, De Piscibus Marines (1554); Silvianus Aquatilium Historiæ (1554): these nearly exhaust Walton’s supply of authorities in natural history. He was devoted, as we saw, to authority, and had a childlike faith in the fantastic theories which date from Pliny. ‘Pliny hath an opinion that many flies have their birth, or being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the leaves of trees.’ It is a pious opinion! Izaak is hardly so superstitious as the author of The Angler’s Vade Mecum. I cannot imagine him taking ‘Man’s fat and cat’s fat, of each half an ounce, mummy finely powdered, three drains,’ and a number of other abominations, to ‘make an Oyntment according to Art, and when you Angle, anoint 8 inches of the line next the Hook therewith.’ Or, ‘Take the Bones and 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 Worms,—but others like Grave Earth as well.’ No doubt grave earth is quite as efficacious.