Part 2

We boast in our ranks, some of England’s bravest warriors, her most experienced statesmen, her best divines, and her cleverest philosophers. Our princes have substituted the rod for the sceptre, and have endeavoured to vie with their subjects in the capture of the wily trout.

George the Fourth, was much attached to this amusement, though he was not particularly successful. His fishing apparatus was of the most costly character: the case, containing the various requisites, was covered with the best crimson morocco leather; the edges, sloped with double borders of gold ornaments, representing alternately, salmon, and basket; the outer border, formed a rich gold wreath of the rose, thistle, and shamrock, intertwined by oak leaves, and acorns; the centre of the lid, presented a splendid gold impression of the Royal Arms of Great Britain and Ireland. The case was fastened with one of Bramah’s patent locks, handles, eyes, &c., all double gilt; whilst the interior was lined with the finest Genoese sky-blue velvet. The hooks for angling and fly-fishing were of the most chaste and beautiful description.

That majesty is not famed for proficiency in the art, may be partly accounted for from the circumstance, that fly-fishing is one of the few occupations which depend entirely on the individual skill of the sportsman. Keepers may rise pheasants by the score, and drive hares by the dozen before the well-placed gun; offering shots which the veriest tyro cannot fail to kill: the huntsman by a judicious cast, may exhibit the hounds and their quarry, in the most accommodating proximity to the royal group--the highland deer may be driven within the limits of the rifles range--but, no keeper’s art can oblige a trout to rise; or, compel the salmon to quit its darkened haunt, even for the amusement of princes, or sport of kings. The finny tribe acknowledge no allegiance, and will not be tempted, though the fly be proffered by royal hands. Prompt obedience is expected by kings; a ready compliance with their wishes, is their behest.

Nelson, was an excellent fly-fisher; and, as a proof of his passion for it, continued the pursuit even with his left hand.

Dr. Paley, was ardently attached to this amusement, so much so, that when the Bishop of Durham enquired of him, when one of his most important works would be finished; he said, with great simplicity and good humour, “My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly-fishing season is over;” as if this were a business of his life.

To the list of eminent characters who have been lovers of angling, may be added the name of Robert Burns.

Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, may be noticed as an expert angler.

Professor Wilson, is one of the best fly-fishers that ever threw a fly.

Wordsworth, is an angler, and in many of his poems may be traced images which have reference to, or have been suggested by this delightful art.

Emerson, the mathematician, was a fly-fisher.

Dr. Birch, formerly Secretary to the Royal Society, was a lover of angling; and Dr. Wollaston and Sir Humphrey Davy, are instances of men of the highest philosophic attainments, finding pleasure in the rod and line.

Chantrey, was much attached to this amusement, and prided himself on the superiority of his equipment.

A sport which is thus seen to be so universally popular, has naturally been selected as a subject upon which some of our ablest men have written many instructive and interesting pages. The first treatise in our language appeared in 1496 but the earliest allusion to the art, is by Elian, who flourished in the year 225. In the fifteenth book of his History of Animals, he says, “that a fish of various color is taken in the River Austræum, between Beræa and Thessalonica.” He also describes a fly which frequents the river, which is greatly preyed on by this fish; he states, that the skilful fisherman, dresses an imitation of it on his hook, forming the body of purple coloured wool, and adding two yellow feathers of a cock’s hackle for wings.

The work which appeared in 1496, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and is known by the name of the “Book of St. Albans,” from its having been first printed in the monastery there in 1486. This book is a small folio of seventy-three leaves, and contains short treatises on hawking, hunting, fishing, &c. How long the latter art had been practiced in England before this publication, is not known; but the directions for dressing the twelve different kind of flies, (which even Walton, writing a hundred and fifty years later, availed himself of) are not such, as were likely to be suggested in the infancy of the art.

The treatise commences with the following expositions:--

“Solomon in his parables saith, ‘that a good spirit maketh a flourishing age;’ that is, a fair age and a long.” “If a man lack leech and medicine, he shall make three things, his leech and medicine, and he shall need never no more. The first of them is, a merry thought,--the second is, labour not outrageous,--the third is, diet measurable.”

The writer then proceeds to a comparison of angling, with hunting, hawking, and fowling, and after enumerating the inconveniences attendant on the three last, thus recounts the pleasures and advantages of angling.

“Thus me seemeth, that hunting and hawking, and also fowling, are so laborious and grievous, that none of them may perform, nor be the means to induce a man to a merry spirit; which is the cause of his long life, according unto the said parable of Solomon.

“Doubtless then it followeth that it needs must be the desport of fishing with an angle, for all other manner of fishing is laborious and grievous, often making folks full wet and cold, which many times hath been cause of great infirmities.

“But the angler may have no cold, nor no disease, nor anger, except he be the cause himself. For he may not lose at the most, but a line and a hook, of which he may have store plenty of his own making, as this simple treatise shall teach him. So then his loss is not grievous, and other griefs may he not have, saving if any fish break away, after that he is taken on the hook, or else that he catch nought. Which is not grievous. For if he fail of one, he may not fail of another, if he doeth as this treatise teacheth; except there be naught in the water.

“And yet, at least he has his wholesome walk and merry at his ease, and hath a sweet air of the sweet savour of the mead flowers that maketh him hungry. He heareth the melodious harmony of fowls. He seeth the young swans, herons, ducks, coots, and many other fowls with their broods: which seemeth to me, better than all the noise of hounds, the blast of horns, and the cry that hunters, falconers, and fowlers, can make.

“And if the angler take fish, surely then, there is no man merrier than he is in his spirit.

“Also, whoso will use the game of angling, he must rise early; which thing is profitable to man in this wise, (that is to wit) most to the health of his soul, for it shall cause him to be holy. And to the health of his body, for it shall cause him to be whole. Also to the increase of his goods, for it shall make him rich, as the old English proverb says, in this wise, ‘whoso will rise early, shall be holy, healthy, and wealthy.’

“Thus, have I proved in my intent, that the sport of angling is the very means and cause that induceth a man unto a merry spirit. Which after the said parable of Solomon, and the said doctrine of physic, maketh a flowering age and a long.

“And therefore to all you that be virtuous, genteel, and free born, I write and make this simple treatise following, by which ye may have the full craft of angling to desport you at your pleasure, to the intent that your age may be the more flower and the more longer to endure.”

From the first publication of this book to the appearance of “Walton’s Complete Angler,” there seems to have been no improvement of the original work; on the contrary, the “doers” of new editions of the book under new titles seem to have had but little skill in the art of fly-fishing, and their alterations, as Pinkerton said of Evelyn’s amendments of his work on medals, “are for the worse.”

In 1653, appeared the first edition of “Walton’s Complete Angler; or, Contemplative Man’s Recreation:” in small duodecimo, adorned with cuts of most of the fish mentioned in it. It came into the world attended with laudatory verses by several writers of the day, and had in the title page, (though Walton thought proper to omit it in future editions) this apposite motto, “Simon Peter said, I go a fishing, and they said, we also will go with thee.” John xxi. 3.

Isaac Walton, was born at Stafford, in August, 1593. He settled in London as a shopkeeper, in the Royal Exchange; and, as in the year 1624, he was fixed in a different part of the city, it is supposed, he was one of the first inhabitants of that building; and being then but twenty-three years, was perhaps one of those industrious young men whom, as we are told, the munificent founder himself, Sir Thomas Gresham, placed in the shops erected over that edifice. We next hear of him in Chancery Lane, where he carried on the trade of a linen draper. About 1643, he left London with a fortune, very far short of what would now be called a competency; we are told he subsequently “lived at Stafford and elsewhere, but mostly in the families of the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved.” He employed his time in writing several biographical works, and at the advanced age of eighty-three, (which, to use his own words) “might have procured him a writ of ease, and secured him from all further trouble in that kind,” he undertook to write the life of Dr. Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, which was published in 1677. In 1683, when he was ninety years old, he published “Thealma and Clearchus,” a pastoral history, in smooth and easy verse. He lived but a short time after the publication of this poem; for, as Wood says, “he ended his days on the fifteenth day of December, 1683,--in the great frost at Winchester, at the house of Dr. William Hawkins, a prebendary of the church there, where he lies buried.”