Izaak Walton 



year he believed himself to be fully able 

 to maintain a wife ; for he then married, 

 albeit " he had neither patrimony nor vis- 

 ible means of subsisting. " The lady he 

 espoused was Isabella, daughter of Sir 

 Thomas Hutchison, of Owthorpe, in the 

 county of Nottingham. The death of his 

 father, which occurred about two years 

 afterward, put him in possession of the 

 family estate. From this time forth Cot- 

 ton appears to have followed a literary vein, 

 the product being chiefly pamphlets, trans- 

 lations, poems on sundry topics, and last, 

 though by no means least, his famous con- 

 tribution to The Complete Angler. But for 

 this last-named accomplishment, the other 

 writings of Cotton must have been long ago 

 forgotten, except, haply, by the antiqua- 

 rian or relic-hunter. A sample of his skill 

 in verse-making (lines addressed to Aphra 

 Benn, the dramatist) is here given : 



" Some hands write some things well, are elsewhere lame, 

 But on all themes your powers are the same: 

 Of buskin and of sock you know the pace 

 And tread in both with equal skill and grace. 

 But when you write of love, Astraea, then 

 Love dips his arrow where you wet your pen. 

 Such charming lines did never paper grace, 

 Soft as your sex, and smooth as beauty's face." 



This is surely quite in the style of 

 writers of the time of Charles the Second. 



298 



