IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 207 



All this you tell us, with so good success, 



That our oblig'd posterity shall profess 



To have been your friend, was a great happiness. 



And now, when many worthier would be proud 

 To appear before you, if they were allow'd, 

 I take up room enough to serve a crowd : 



Where, to commend what you have choicely writ, 

 Both my poor testimony and my wit 

 Are equally invalid and unfit : 



Yet this, and much more, is most justly due : 

 Where what I write as elegant as true, 

 To the best friend I now or ever knew. 



But, my dear friend, 'tis so, that you and I, 

 By a condition of mortality, 



With all this great, and more proud world, must 

 die : 



In which estate, I ask no more of fame. 



Nor other monument of honour claim. 



Than that of your true friend to advance my name. 



And if your many merits shall have bred 

 And abler pen, to write your life when dead ; 

 I think an honester can not be read. 



Charles Cotton. 



January 17 th, 1672. 



