TO MY MOST WORTHY FATHER AND FRIEND, MR. IZAAK WALTON, THE ELDER. SIR,-Being you were pleased, some years past, to grant me your free leave to do what I have here attempted; and observing you never retract any promise when made in favour of your meanest friends; I accordingly expect to see these following particular directions for the taking of a trout, to wait upon your better and more general rules for all sorts of angling. And though mine be neither so perfect, so well digested, nor indeed so handsomely couch'd as they might have been, in so long a time as since your leave was granted, yet I dare affirm them to be generally true: and they had appeared too in something a neater dress, but that I was surprised with the sudden news of a sudden new edition of your " Complete Angler;" so that, having little more than ten days' time to turn me in, and rub up my memory (for, in truth, I have not, in all this long time, though I have often thought on't, and almost as often resolved to go presently about it), I was forced, upon the instant, to scribble what I here present you: which I have also endeavoured to accommodate to your own method. And, if mine be clear enough for the honest brothers of the angle readily to understand, which is the only thing I aim at, then I have my end, and shall need to make no further apology; a writing of this kind not requiring, if I were master of any such thing, any eloquence to set it off, and recommend it; so that if you, in your better judgment, or kindness rather, can allow it passable for a thing of this nature, you will then do me the honour if the cypher fixed and carved in the front of my little fishinghouse, may be here explained: and to permit me to attend you in public, who, in private have ever been, am, and ever resolve to be, SIR,-You now see I have returned you your very pleasant and useful discourse of "The Art of Fly-fishing," printed just as it was sent me; for I have been so obedient to your desires, as to endure all the praises you have ventured to fix upon me in it. And when I have thanked you for them, as the effects of an undissembled love, then, let me tell you, sir, that I will readily endeavour to live up to the character you have given of me, if there were no other reason, yet for this alone, that you, that love me so well, and always think what you speak, may not, for my sake, suffer by a mistake in your judgment. And, sir, I have ventured to fill a part of your margin, by way of paraphrase for the reader's clearer understanding the situation both of your fishing-house, and the pleasantness of that you dwell in. And I have ventured also to give him a "Copy of Verses" that you were pleased to send me, now some years past, in which he may see a good picture of both; and so much of your own mind too, as will make any reader, that is blessed with a generous soul, to love you the better. I confess, that for doing this you may justly judge me too bold: if you do, I will say so too; and so far commute for my offence, that, though I be more than a hundred miles from you, and in the eighty-third year of my age, yet I will forget both, and the next month begin a pilgrimage to beg your pardon; for I would die in your favour, and till then will live, London, April 29, 1676. Sir, Your most affectionate father and friend, CHARLES COTTON was a country gentleman by birth and education. His father was of a high Hampshire family, his mother, daughter of Sir J. Stanhope, of Elvaston, Derbyshire, of a still higher, for she was nearly related by consanguinity to the Earls of Chesterfield and Harrington. He was born in 1630, and was thirty-seven years younger than Walton, who, as before stated, was born in 1593. At first he was educated by a private tutor, and then transferred to the University of Cambridge. He gained no honours, or, at least he took no degrees there. He seems to have cultivated the muses merely-not the musæ severiores --and returned to the paternal home an accomplished but not a profound scholar. By virtue of his mother's title, his father became possessor of Beresford Hall, delightfully situated between the romantic Dovedale and the Peak, and close by the banks of the Dove-then the best trout and grayling stream in the empire. Here young Cotton, having no profession, resided under the family roof. Dwelling whilst young and aged within a stone's-throw of one of the most limpid and picturesque streams in England, with trout bounding in it and grayling rising rapidly at the March-brown or the May-fly, as it floated along, is it to be wondered at if he became a fly-fisher? The wonder would be if he had not. He did; and the most accomplished one of his day. Long before his father's death he married—a love-match apparently, for it involved him in pecuniary difficulties from which he could never afterwards release himself. On his father's death he became sole possessor of Beresford Hall, but, alas, he had deeply mortgaged the property, and rental was swallowed up in interest! It would appear that his time was occupied with fly-fishing and poetry, the latter consisting of translations from well-known foreign poets, Virgil amongst the rest, of whose Eneid he wrote a travestie. His works are very numerous, and it is thought he wrote for bread. In 1653, the first edition of "The Complete Angler" by Walton appeared, and hence arose an intimacy and then a lasting friendship between the fly-fisher of the Dove and the bottomfisher of the Lea. So ardent did this friendship become, that Cotton beseeched Walton to adopt him, which the latter granted, and thenceforward Cotton called father the now recognised father of Anglers. Walton paid frequent visits to Beresford Hall, between which and the river Dove, Cotton had erected a fishing-house (see infra, p. 260), in honour of his piscatorial parent. These circumstances, together with a formal adoption by Walton of Mr. Cotton for his son, already mentioned, were doubtless the inducements with the latter to the writing of a second part of the "Complete Angler," and therein to explain more fully the art of fishing either with a natural or an artificial fly, as also the various methods of making the latter: the book, as the author assures us, was written in the short space of ten days, and first came abroad with the fifth edition of the first part in the year 1676; and ever since the two parts have been considered as one book. It is the text of this edition that we reprint, and annotate so lengthily. Cotton died in 1687 and Walton in 1683; the former surviving their conjoint literary and piscatorial labours eleven years, the latter seven. Cotton had married a second wife, the Countess Dowager Ardglass, and though she had a jointure of £1500 a-year, the life use of that sum tended merely to alleviate his narrow means, but not remove them. Still the estate was never forfeited. We saw Beresford Hall in 1838. It was then a large farm-house; the tenant an elderly lady. On her decease the late Marquis of Beresford purchased it, and has improved the place considerably, preserving, of course, the celebrated fishinghouse with its immortal inscription-SACRUM PISCATORIBUS. PISC. You are happily overtaken, sir; may a man be so bold as to inquire how far you travel this way? VIAT. Yes sure, sir, very freely, though it be a question I cannot very well resolve you, as not knowing myself how far it is to Ashborn, where I intend to-night to take up my inn. PISC. Why then, sir, seeing I perceive you to be a stranger in these parts, I shall take upon me to inform you, that from the town you last came through, called Brelsford,* it is five miles; and you are not yet above half a mile on this side. VIAT. So much? I was told it was but ten miles from Derby; and, methinks, I have rode almost so far already. *Now spelt "Brailsford." It is a mere road-side village. Brailsford brook was once celebrated for its trout. I cannot speak highly of it now.-ED. PISC. O sir, find no fault with large measure of good land, which Derbyshire abounds in, as much as most counties of England. VIAT. It may be so; and good land, I confess, affords a pleasant prospect: but, by your good leave, sir, large measure of foul way is not altogether so acceptable. PISC. True, sir; but the foul way serves to justify the fertility of the soil, according to the proverb, "There is good land where there is foul way;" and is of good use to inform you of the riches of the country you are come into, and of its continual travel and traffic to the country town you came from which is also very observable by the fulness of its road, and the loaden horses you meet everywhere upon the way. : VIAT. Well, sir, I will be content to think as well of your country as you would desire; and I shall have a great deal of reason both to think and to speak very well of if I may you, obtain the happiness of your company to the fore-mentioned place, provided your affairs lead you that way, and that they will permit you to slack your pace, out of complacency to a traveller utterly a stranger in these parts, and who am still to wander further out of my own knowledge. PISC. Sir, you invite me to my own advantage, and I am ready to attend you, my way lying through that town; but my business, that is, my home, some miles beyond it: however, I shall have time enough to lodge you in your quarters, and afterward to perform my own journey. In the mean time, may I be so bold as to inquire the end of your journey? VIAT. 'Tis into Lancashire, sir; and about some business of concern to a near relation of mine; for I assure you, I do not use to take such long journeys as from Essex upon the single account of pleasure. PISC. From thence, sir! I do not then wonder you should appear dissatisfied with the length of the miles, and the foulness of the way: though I am sorry you should begin to quarrel with them so soon; for, believe me, sir, you will find the miles much longer, and the way much worse, before you come to your journey's end. VIAT. Why! truly, sir! for that I am prepared to expect the worst; but methinks the way is mended since I had the good fortune to fall into your good company. PISC. You are not obliged to my company for that, but |