1)8 WALTON TO THE HEADER. 



And I wish the reader also to take notice, that in writ' 

 ing of it I have made myself a recreation of a recrea- 

 tion; and that U might prove so to him, and not read 

 dull and tediously > I have in several places mixed, not 

 any scurrility, but some innocent, harmless mirth, of 

 which, if thou he a severe, sour-complexioned man^ 

 then I here disallow thce to be a competent judge ; for 

 divines say, there are offences given, and offences not 

 giren but taken. 



And I am the willinger to justify the pleasant part 

 of it, because though it is known I can be serious at 

 seasonable times, yet the whole discourse is, or rather 

 was, a picture of my own disposition, especially in such 

 days and times as I have laid aside business, and gone 

 a fishing with honest Nat. and R. Roe * ; but they are 

 gone, and with them most of my pleasant hours, even 

 as a shadow that passeth away, and returns not. 



And next let me add this 9 that he that likes not the 

 book, should like the excellent picture of the Trout, and 

 some of the other jish : which I may take a liberty to, 

 commend, because they concern not myself. 



Next let me tell the reader, that in that which is the 

 more useful part of this discourse, that is to say, the ob- 

 servations of the nature and breeding, and seasons,, and 

 catching of fish, I am not so simple as not to know, that 

 a captiou-s reader may find exceptions against some- 

 thing said of some of these; and therefore I must en- 

 treat him to consider, that experience teaches us to 

 know that several countries alter the time, and I think 

 almost the manner, of fishes' breeding, but doubtless 

 of their being in season ; as may appear by three ri- 

 vers in Monmouthshire, namely, Severn, Wye, and 

 Usk, where Camden, Brit. f. 633, observes, that in the 

 river Wye, Salmon are in season from September to 

 April ; and we are certain, that in Thames and Trent, 

 and in most other rivers, they be in season the six hot- 

 ter months. 



* These persons are supposed to have been related to Walton, from 

 this circumstance, that in a copy, handed down, of his Lives of JDpnne, Sir 

 jfJ. Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, there is written by the Author on the, 

 frontispiece, " For my cousin Roe." 



