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ther in a mortar, with some drops of the chemical oil of lavender, or spike. When you angle, anoint eight inches of your line with it, next your hook, and it is excellent for trout in muddy water, and for gudgeons in clear. Probatum est.

Assafoetida grows in Media, Lybia, and Syria; it is a gummy juice of Laser, Laserpitium, or Sylphion, gathered from the root or stalk when cut open; chuse that which is pure, fine, and clammy, and smelling almost like garlic. It will keep many years, but is often adulterated by mixing meal, bran, and the gum Segapenum together.

Camphor is a resinous gum, partly flowing of its own accord, but chiefly by incision, from a tall tree growing in India: the Bornean Camphor is best. Chuse that which is white and clear like chrystal, strong-scented, will easily crumble between the fingers, and being set on fire is difficult to be extinguished. There is a fictious sort, which being put into a hot loaf will parch, but the true will melt: it will keep many years in flax-seed if it is not exposed to the air, otherwise it will evaporate and consume to nothing.

Mr. Walton, in his Complete Angler, says, that if you dissolve gum-ivy in oil of spike, anoint your bait for a pike with it, that he will take it the

sooner.

I shall now give the reader the ne plus ultra of all these kinds of ointments, composed by Mons. Charras, apothecary-royal to Louis the Fourteenth. Take cat's fat, heron's fat, and the best assafoetida, of each two drachms, mummy, finely powdered, ditto, cummin seed, finely powdered, two scruples, and camphor, galbanum, and Venice turpentine, of each one drachm, and civet two grains. Make them, secundum artem, into a thinnish ointment,

with

with the chemical oils of lavender, aniseed, and camomile, and keep it in a narrow-mouthed, and well-glazed gallipot, covered with a bladder and leather, and it will keep two years. When you want to use it, put some into a small taper pewter box, and anoint your bait with it, and about eight or nine inches of the line, and when it is washed off, repeat the unction. Probatum est.

"All arts and shapes, the wily angler tries, "To cloak his fraud, and tempt the finny prize: "Their sight, their smell, he carefully explores, "And blends the druggist's and the chemist's

stores;

"Devising still, with fancy ever new,

"Pastes, oils, and unguents, of each scent and hue."

How to make Fish-hooks.

In order to make a good hook, there are requisite a hammer, a knife, a pair of pincers, an iron semi-cleam, a file, a wrest, a bender, tongs, both long and short, an anvil, and steel needles of different sizes. Heat a needle of the size you want, in a charcoal fire, and raise the beard with your knife, then let it cool. Sharpen the point, either with a file or on a grindstone, then put it into the fire again, and bend it into what shape you please; make the upper part of the shank four square, and file the edges smooth, then put it into the fire a third time, and heat it gently; take it out suddenly, and plunge it into water, and your operation is finished.

Use not a small hook for great baits, nor a large one for small ones:- Barbels and chubs must have large ones, but perches, tenches, breams, and eels, much smaller. Trouts in clear waters, graylings,

salmon

salmon-smelts, roach and dace, ruffs and gudgeons, must have small hooks: and, though many angle for trouts with large hooks in thick waters, yet small ones are the best. Experience will point out the inconvenience of large hooks.-The noble salmon alone must have a large one.

A Glue for Angling-rods.

Pour some water on some quick-lime, until the ebullition ceases, then pour the water from it, and boil your glue very gently with this water, and it will make a very good glue.

A Receipt that renders Leather more capable to keep out Wet.

As dry feet are very necessary to health, I have copied an excellent receipt for the angler's use, that will prevent his boots or shoes letting in water. Take a pint of linseed-oil, with half a pound of mutton suet, six or eight ounces of bees-wax, and a halfpenny worth of rosin; boil all these in a pipkin together, and then let it cool till it be lukewarm; take a little hair brush, and lay it on your boots; but it is much better to be laid on the leather before the boots are made, and brushed with it once over when they are; as for your old boots or shoes, you must brush them with it when they are dry. As I am now acting the part of physician, let me advise you, whenever you are out in the heat of summer, fishing, and are thirsty, never to drink water, as the consequences arising from such an indiscretion may prove fatal; but either take a little brandy or rum out with you, in a wicker bottle, or wait till you come to some

bousc

house where you can have a little; the effects it has of quenching the thirst, and cooling the body, are instantaneous.

The angler being now furnished with every requisite for the art of ground-angling, his strictly adhering to the theory laid down, in his practice, is the only thing he has to do, and he may depend on his endeavours being crowned with success. The second part of this little essay will treat of artificial fly-fishing, under every head that can prove of utility to the angler; which certainly bears the belle in that delightful recreation, that adds strength and vigor to the body, keeps the mind in a perfect state of serenity and tranquillity, and alleviates the cares and troubles attendant on mortality.

In short, how delightful is every species of this diversion, in such à paradise as the Poet describes:

Behind, where alders from the weather screen,
Before, the lawn presents its lengthen'd scene:
Close on that side trills soft the emptying brook,
While this fresh woods and sloping hills o'erlook:
Thick over head the rose and woodbine meet,
Uniting shade to shade, and sweet to sweet;
The pea and blooming bean their odours yield,
And new-mown hay perfumes the fragrant field.
To hear the nightingale delights the meads,
And grasshoppers chirp shrill amid the reeds;
While from the pinfold, there, the bleating sheep
Cheer the still twilight, and divert from sleep;
The gale's perfume, the echo's mimic sound,
The night-bird's song, and lowing kine around;
In hollow banks the hum of must'ring bees,
And zephyrs whisp'ring soft amid the trees.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

PART THE SECOND.

THE

COMPLETE FLY-FISHER;

OR

EVERY MAN HIS OWN FLY-MAKER.

With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Let me with judgment, cast the feather'd hook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,

And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.
To frame the little animal, provide

All the gay hues that wait on female pride:
Let Nature guide thee, sometimes golden wire
The shining bellies of the fly require;

The peacock's plumes, thy tackle must not fail,
Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail.
Each gaudy bird some slender tribute brings,
And lends the growing insect proper wings :
Silks of all colors must their aid impart,
And every fur promote the fisher's art.

GAY.

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