INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xvii 



to give additional popularity to our author's inimitable 

 work of the Complete Angler ; not to remind the reader 

 that he has other claims to literary reputation than 

 those derived from this truly felicitous achievement. 



In both instances he became an author by mere 

 chance. Sir Henry Wotton had undertaken to write 

 the life of Dr. Donne, and had requested Walton 

 to assist him in collecting materials for that pur- 

 pose, but Sir Henry dying, before it was completed, 

 Walton undertook it himself, and succeeded so fully 

 to the satisfaction of the most learned men of his 

 time, that it was to be attributed to their importu- 

 nity, rather than to his own ambition, that he per- 

 formed the same office for his " dear friend Sir 

 Henry " himself, and those other eminent men 

 whose names have just been enumerated. 



Sir Henry Wotton too, as it appears from the De- 

 dication of the Complete Angler, to John Omey,*Esq., 

 had intended " to write a discourse of the Art and in 

 praise of Angling, and," continues Walton, " doubt- 

 less he had done so, if death had not prevented 

 him ; the remembrance of which hath often made 

 me sorry ; for if he had lived to do it, then the un- 



from jealousy, and anxious only, to see their beloved author 

 made as attractive as possible to the rising generation. 



* This gentleman, whose ancestors had been settled at Made- 

 ley manor, as early as the year 1237, married the heiress of the 

 Crewes, of Crewe Hall, and was the progenitor of the present 

 Lord Crewe. The family is connected by marriages with the 

 noble houses of Hastings, Powis and Wilton. 



b 



