132 THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 



or the Wye. Young Charles Cotton, then a young 

 man of twenty-three or twenty-four, may have 

 met him on these excursions soon after he had 

 read his book, and began the friendship which 

 lasted so many years. 



Walton and Cotton, their First 

 . Acquaintance 



Mr. R. B. Marston, himself an enthusiastic angler, 

 says — 



"When Walton and Cotton first met is 

 uncertain ; but as Sir Harris Nicolas points 

 out, Walton was evidently acquainted with 

 Cotton's father, it is then probable that the 

 two friends met first in London, and that their 

 common love of angling led to many a 

 pleasant discourse on the art. Walton would 

 instruct his young friend on the mysteries of 

 bait-fishing of all kinds, and discourse in his 

 own genial and discursive manner of fishing 

 in particular, and all the world in general. 

 Cotton doubtless painted in poetic language 

 the natural beauties of Dove Dale, Beresford 

 Dale, in which was his home, and the fascina- 

 tion of fly-fishing for trout and grayling ; it 



