ii BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



won, and a quiet chat enjoyed with the Master and his 

 Scholar under a wide tree shedding off the rain ; or by 

 the fire of the wayside Inn, while the hostess, ''clean, 

 handsome, and civil," is taking out "sheets smelling of 

 lavender," for our beds, in a room that has '* more than 

 twenty ballads stuck against the wall ;" or within the little 

 shrine. Sacrum Fiscatoribits, built by Cotton for his father, 

 and '* all true men who love quiet and go an angling." I 

 trust that I have drunk enough of the old angler's spirit 

 not to let such pastime break in upon better things ; but, 

 on the other hand, I have worked the harder frOm thank- 

 fulness to iiiM who taught the brook to wind with musical 

 gurglings, as it rolls on to the Great Sea. 



It has been my wont at such times, to note down what I 

 happened to find, giving greater zest to father Walton's 

 quaint homilies, not in any hope that others would think it 

 worth while to share my gatherings, but rather for my 

 better memory and coming delight. The good publishers 

 of this darling book, hearing of my little store, have asked 

 me to put it at their disposal for your use, kind reader ; and, 

 as I count (with honest Shirley in his Angler's Magazine) 

 " that a person has a mean soul, that could die without 

 disclosing anything he knows, that he might benefit or 

 please his fellow-creatures," I have done as they wished. 

 The whole work has been gone over ; the several editions 

 collated, some notes chosen from the various editors, and, as 

 you will see, more added by myself. Of how much worth 

 these last are, you shall judge ; but you can never know 

 what happy hours I have spent in prepaiing them, or how 

 truly I wish they may be to your liking. A good and 

 pious friend of mine (how good and pious I dare not say, 

 for he will surely read what I write, and I would spare 

 him'a blush even at his own true praise) has told me that it 

 was reading this book, which awakened the love of God 

 in his heart ; nor may we wonder, that such meek-hearted, 

 cheerful strains of godly contentment should have been 



