Franck,as we saw,called Walton 'a plagiary.'He was a plagiary in the same sense as Virgil and Lord Tennyson and Robert Burns,and,indeed,Homer,and all poets.The Compleat Angler,the father of so many books,is the child of a few.
Walton not only adopts the opinions and advice of the authors whom he cites,but also follows the manner,to a certain extent,of authors whom he does not quote.His very exordium,his key-note,echoes (as Sir Harris Nicolas observes)the opening of A Treatise of the Nature of God (London,1599).
The Treatise starts with a conversation between a gentleman and a scholar:it commences:-Gent.Well overtaken,sir!
Scholar.You are welcome,gentleman.
A more important source is The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle,commonly attributed to Dame Juliana Barnes (printed at Westminster,1496).A manuscript,probably of 1430-1450,has been published by Mr.Satchell (London,1883).This book may be a translation of an unknown French original.It opens:-'Soloman in hys paraboles seith that a glad spirit maket a flowryng age.That ys to sey,a feyre age and a longe'(like Walton's own),'and sith hyt ys so I aske this question,wyche bynne the menys and cause to reduce a man to a mery spryte.'
The angler 'schall have hys holsom walke and mery at hys owne ease,and also many a sweyt eayr of divers erbis and flowres that schall make hym ryght hongre and well disposed in hys body.He schall heyr the melodies melodious of the ermony of byrde:he schall se also the yong swannes and signetes folowing ther eyrours,duckes,cootes,herons,and many other fowlys with ther brodys,wyche me semyt better then all the noyse of houndes,and blastes of hornes and other gamys that fawkners or hunters can make,and yf the angler take the fyssche,hardly then ys ther no man meryer then he in his sprites.'
This is the very 'sprite'of Walton;this has that vernal and matutinal air of opening European literature,full of birds'music,and redolent of dawn.This is the note to which the age following Walton would not listen.
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 mediaeval 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.'