ks cited by Walton in his
_Compleat Angler_. There is AElian (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 Historiae_ (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.

These remarks show how Izaak was equipped in books and in practical
information: it follows that his book is to be read, not for instruction,
but for human pleasure.

So much for what Walton owed to others. For all the rest, for what has
made him the favourite of schoolboys and sages, of poets and
philosophers, he is indebted to none but his Maker and his genius. That
he was a lover of Montaigne we know; and, had Montaigne been a fisher, he
might have written somewhat like Izaak, but without the piety, the
perfume, and the charm. There are authors whose living voices, if we
know them in the flesh, we seem to hear in our ears as we peruse their
works. Of such was Mr. Jowett, sometime Master of Balliol College, a
good man, now with God. It has ever seemed to me that friends of Walton
must thus have heard his voice as they read him, and that it reaches us
too, though faintly. Indeed, we have here 'a kind of picture of his own
disposition,' as he tells us Piscator is the Walton whom honest Nat. and
R. Roe and Sir Henry Wotton knew on fishing-days. The book is a set of
confess