Introduction xix 



Richard Hooker (1665). The peroration, as it were, 

 was altered and expanded in 1670, and this is but 

 one example of Walton's care of his periods. One 

 beautiful passage he is known to have rewritten*' 

 several times, till his ear was satisfied with its 

 cadences. In 1670 he published his Life of George 

 Herbert. " I wish, if God shall be so pleased, that 

 I may be so happy as to die like him." In 1673, 

 in a Dedication of the third edition of Reliquiae 

 Wottonianae, Walton alludes to his friendship with 

 a much younger and gayer man than himself, 

 Charles Cotton (born 1630), the friend of Colonel 

 Richard Lovelace, and of Sir John Suckling: the 

 translator of Scarron's travesty of Virgil, and of 

 Montaigne's Essays. Cotton was a roisterer, a man 

 at one time deep in debt, but he was a Royalist, a 

 scholar, and an angler. The friendship between 

 him and Walton is creditable to the freshness of 

 the old man and to the kindness of the younger, 

 who, to be sure, laughed at Izaak's heavily dubbed 

 London flies. " In him," says Cotton, " I have the 

 happiness to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy 

 the best and the truest friend any man ever had." 

 We are reminded of Johnson with Langton and 

 Topham Beauclerk. Meanwhile Izaak the younger 

 had grown up, was educated under Dr. Fell at 

 Christ Church, and made the Grand Tour in 1675, 

 visiting Rome and Venice. In March 1676 he 

 proceeded M.A. and took Holy Orders. In this 

 year Cotton wrote his treatise on fly-fishing, to be 

 published with Walton's new edition ; and the 

 famous fishing house on the Dove, with the blended 

 initials of the two friends, was built. In 1678, 

 Walton wrote his Life of Sanderson. . . . "'Tisnow 

 too late to wish that my life may be like his, for 

 I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age, but I 

 humbly beseech Almighty God that my death may 



