from the home-made stage. His were spliced, and kept up all through the
season, as he had his water at his own door, while Walton trudged to the
Lee and other streams near London, when he was not fishing the Itchen, or
Shawford Brook. _The Angler's Vade Mecum_ recommends eighteen-feet rods:
preferring a fir butt, fashioned by the arrow-maker, a hazel top, and a
tip of whalebone. This authority, even more than Walton, deals in
mysterious 'Oyntments' of gum ivy, horse-leek, asafoetida, man's fat,
cat's fat, powdered skulls, and grave earth. A ghoulish body is the
angler of the _Vade Mecum_. He recommends up-stream fishing, with worm,
in a clear water, and so is a predecessor of Mr. Stewart. 'When you have
hooked a good fish, have an especial care to keep the rod bent, lest he
run to the end of the line' (he means, as does Walton, lest he pull the
rod horizontal) 'and break either hook or hold.' An old owner of my copy
adds, in manuscript, 'And hale him not to near ye top of the water, lest
in flaskering he break ye line.'

This is a favourite device of sea trout, which are very apt to 'flasker'
on the top of the water. The _Vade Mecum_, in advance of Walton on this
point, recommends a swivel in minnow-fishing: but has no idea of an
artificial minnow of silk. I have known an ingenious lady who, when the
bodies of her phantom minnows gave out, in Norway, supplied their place
successfully with bed-quilting artfully sewn. In fact, anything bright
and spinning will allure fish, though in the upper Ettrick, where large
trout exist, they will take the natural, but perhaps never the phantom or
angel minnow. I once tried a spinning Alexandra fly over some large pond
trout. They followed it eagerly, but never took hold, on the first day;
afterwards they would not look at it at all. The _Vade Mecum_ man, like
Dr. Hamilton, recommends a light fly for a light day, a dark fly for a
dark day and dark weather; others hold the converse opinion. Every one
agrees that the smallness of the flies should be in proportion to the