slippery, cobling stones.* Believe me, Sir, there you were nimble, or else you had been down. But now you are got over, look to yourself: for, on my word, if a fish rise here, he is like to be such a one as will endanger your tackle. How now!

VIATOR. I think you have such command here over the fishes, that you can raise them by your word, as they say conjurors can do spirits, and afterward make them do what you bid them; for here's a Trout has taken my fly; I had rather have lost a crown. What luck's this! he was a lovely fish, and turned up a side like a Salmon.

PISCATOR. O Sir, this is a war where you sometimes win, and must sometimes expect to lose. Never concern yourself for the loss of your fly; for ten to one I teach you to make a better. Who's that calls?

SERVANT. Sir, will it please you to come to dinner?

PISCATOR. We come. You hear, Sir, we are called and now take your choice, whether you will climb this steep hill before you, from the top of which you will go directly into the house, or back again, over these stepping-stones, and about by the bridge.

VIATOR. Nay, sure the nearest way is best; at least my stomach tells me so; and I am now so well acquainted with the rocks, that I fear them not.

PISCATOR. Come then, follow me. And so soon as we have dined, we will down again to the little house: where I will begin, at the place I left off, about fly-fishing, and read you another lecture; for I have a great deal more to say upon that subject.

VIATOR. The more the better; I could never have met with a more obliging master, my first excepted. Nor such sport can all the rivers about London ever afford as is to be found in this pretty river.

PISCATOR. You deserve to have better; both because I see you are willing to take pains, and for liking this little so well; and better I hope to show you before we part.

VIATOR.

CHAP. VII.

COME, Sir, having now well dined, and being again set in your little house, I will now challenge your promise, and entreat you to proceed in your instruction for fly-fishing; which, that you may be the better encouraged * Mr Bagster, who visited the spot in the autumn of 1814, for the purpose of identifying the scenery, and who went step by step over the ground which is the scene of this dialogue, says that "the undeviating accuracy of delineation is very striking; but at this spot an alteration was made a few years since, by cutting away part of the rock, and removing the bridge, the site of which is still marked by fragments of stone."

to do, I will assure you, that I have not lost, I think, one syllable of what you have told me: but very well retain all your directions, both for the rod, line, and making a fly, and now desire an account of the flies themselves.

PISCATOR. Why, Sir, I am ready to give it you, and shall have the whole afternoon to do it in, if nobody come in to interrupt us; for you must know (besides the unfitness of the day) that the afternoons, so early in March, signify very little to angling with a fly, though with a minnow, or a worm, something might (I confess) be done.

To begin, then, where I left off, My father Walton tells us of but twelve artificial flies only, to angle with at the top, and gives their names; of which some are common with us here; and I think I guess at most of them by his description, and I believe they all breed and are taken in our rivers, though we do not make them either of the same dubbing or fashion. And it may be in the rivers about London, which I presume he has most frequented, and where 'tis likely he has done most execution, there is not much notice taken of many more: but we are acquainted with several others here, though perhaps I may reckon some of his by other names too; but if I do, I shall make you amends by an addition to his catalogue. And although the forenamed great master in the art of angling, for so in truth he is, tells you that no man should, in honesty, catch a Trout till the middle of March, yet I hope he will give a man leave sooner to take a Grayling, which, as I told you, is in the dead months in his best season: and do assure you, which I remember by a very remarkable token, I did once take upon the sixth day of December one, and only one, of the biggest Graylings, and the best in season, that ever I yet saw or tasted; and do usually take Trouts too, and with a fly, not only before the middle of this month, but almost every year in February, unless it be a very ill spring indeed; and have sometimes in January, so early as New-year's tide, and in frost and snow, taken Grayling in a warm sunshine day for an hour or two about noon and to fish for him with a Grub, it is then the best time of all. I shall therefore begin my fly-fishing with that month (though, I confess, very few begin so soon, and that such as are so fond of the sport as to embrace all opportunities can rarely in that month find a day fit for their purpose), and tell you that, upon my knowledge, these flies, in a warm sun, for an hour or two in the day, are certainly taken.