Walton and V enables. 145 



WALTON'S LETTER TO COLONEL 



VENABLES. 



To His Ingenious Friend the Author on 

 his " Angling Improtf d" 



" HONOURED SIR, Though I never (to 

 my knowledg) had the happiness to see 

 your Face, yet accidentally coming to a 

 view of this Discourse before it went to 

 the Press, I held myself obliged in point 

 of gratitude for the great advantage I 

 received thereby, to tender you my par- 

 ticular acknowledgment, especially having 

 been for thirty years past, not only a 

 Lover but a practiser of that innocent 

 Recreation, wherein by your judicious 

 Precepts I find my self fitted for a Higher 

 Form j which expression I take the bold- 

 ness to use because I have read and 

 practised by many Books of this kind r 

 formerly made publick ; from which 

 (although I received much advantage in 

 the practick) yet (without prejudice to 

 their worthy authors) I could never find 

 in them that height of Judgment and 

 Reason, which you have manifested in this 

 (as I may call it) EPITOME OF ANGLING 

 since my reading whereof, I cannot look 

 upon some Notes of my own gathering, 

 but methinks I do puerilia tractare. But 



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