TO MY MOST WORTHY 



FATHER* AND FRIEND, 



Mr. IZAAK WALTON, 



THE ELDER. 

 SIR, 



BEING you were pleased, some years past, 

 to grant me your free leave to do what I have 

 here attempted ; and observing you never re- 

 tract any promise, when made in favour even of 

 your meanest friends 5 I accordingly expect to 

 see these following Particular Directions for the 

 taking of a Trout, to wait upon your better and 

 more general Rules for all sorts of Angling. 

 And, though mine be neither so perfect, so well 

 digested, nor indeed so handsomely coucht, 

 as they might have been, in so long a time as 

 since your leave was granted, yet I dare affirm 

 them to be generally true: and they had ap- 

 peared too in something a neater dress, but 

 that I was surprized with the sudden news of 

 a sudden new edition of your Complete Angler; 

 so that, having but a little more than ten days' 



* The reader will see the reason why Cotton calls Walton his 

 father, in a subsequent note, page 380, 



