BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. Ivii 



is a double dignification of that person." We should not 

 like him more, we could not like him less, if he had had 



" All the blood of all the Howards," 



for, like his convert, Venator, we " do seriously approve of 

 that saying of his, that he would rather be a civil, well- 

 grounded, temperate, poor angler, than a drunken lord." 

 (Chap. V.) 



His literary habits having been confirmed and his lite- 

 rary reputation established by his Lives of Donne and 

 Wotton, with a number of smaller productions, he pub- 

 lished the first edition of his Complete Angler in 1653, 

 being then in his sixtieth year, his judgment ripe as his 

 experience had been great. Angling had been his favorite 

 pastime while a resident of London ; " the river which he 

 seems mostly to have frequented for this diversion being 

 the Lea which falls into the Thames a little below Black- 

 wall, unless we will suppose that the vicinity of the New 

 River to the place of his habitation might sometimes 

 tempt him out" (Hawkins); nor would he have been 

 likelv to cease from the harmless indult^ence when retired 

 from business into the more pleasant country, which afford- 

 ed him additional opportunities for the enjoyment. From 

 the date of his friend Edw. Powel's commendatory verses, 

 April 3d, 1650, we may infer that the work was prepared 

 for the press as early as that year, though delayed probably 

 because of the troublous times. He was moved to un- 

 dertake it, partly, as he tells us in his preface, by the 

 solicitations of friends anxious to profit by his practical 

 wisdom, " having been too easily drawn to do all to please 

 others ;" and partly by the unfinished example of his dear 

 fellow-angler, the excellent, learned, witty, and cheerful 

 Sir Henry Wotton, " one of the delights of mankind," for 

 in his Epistle Dedicatory he says : " This pleasant curio- 



sitie of Fish and Fishing has been thought worthy the pens 



c* 



