Never was there a better illustration of “fisherman’s luck” than the success of Walton’s book. He set out to make a little “discourse of fish and fishing,” a “pleasant curiositie” he calls it, full of useful information concerning the history and practice of the gentle art, and, as the author modestly claims on his title-page, “not unworthy the perusal of most anglers.” Instead of this he produced an imperishable classic, which has been read with delight by thousands who have never wet a line. It was as if a man went forth to angle for smelts and caught a lordly salmon. As a manual of practical instruction the book is long since out of date. The kind of rod which Walton describes is too cumbrous for the modern angler, who catches his trout with a split bamboo weighing no more than four or five ounces, and a thin waterproofed line of silk beside which Father Izaak’s favourite line twisted of seven horse-hairs would look like a bed-cord. Most of his recipes for captivating baits and lures, and his hints about “oyl,” or “camphire” with which they may be made infallibly attractive to reluctant fish, are now more curious than valuable. They seem like ancient superstitions,—although this very summer I have had recommended to me a secret magic ointment one drop of which upon a salmon-fly would (supposedly) render it irresistible. (Yes, reader, I did try it; but its actual effect, owing to various incalculable circumstances, could not be verified. The salmon took the anointed fly sometimes, but at other times they took the unanointed, and so I could not make affidavit that it was the oil that allured them. It may have been some tickling in the brain, some dim memory of the time when they were little parr, living in fresh water for their first eighteen months and feeding mainly on floating insects, that made them wish to rise again.) But to return to my subject. The angler of to-day who wishes to understand the technics of modern fishing-gear will go to such books as H. B. Wells’ _Fly Rods and Fly Tackle_, or to Dr. George Holden’s _The Idyl of the Split Bamboo_. This very year two volumes have been published, each of which in its way goes far beyond Walton: Mr. William Radcliffe’s _Fishing from the Earliest Times_, which will undoubtedly take its place as the standard history of the ancient craft of fish-catching; and Mr. Edward R. Hewitt’s _Secrets of the Salmon_, a brilliant and suggestive piece of work, full of acute scientific observation and successful experiment. These belong to what De Quincey called “the literature of knowledge.” But the _Angler_ belongs to “the literature of power,”—that which has a quickening and inspiring influence upon the spirit,—and here it is unsurpassed, I may even say unrivalled, by any book ever written about any sport. Charles Lamb wrote to Coleridge commending it to his perusal: “It might sweeten a man’s temper at any time to read _The Compleat Angler_.”