BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. lix 



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 aw^ay and returns not." How little 

 father Walton thought of book anglers, he wittily shows : 

 " How to make a man that was none to be an angler by a 

 book, he that undertakes it undertakes a harder task than 

 Mr. Hales, a most valiant and excellent fencer, who in a 

 litele book called ' A Private School of Defence,' under- 

 took by it to teach that art or science, and was laughed at 

 for his labour .... because that art was not to be taught 

 by words, but practice." 



The method of treating a subject in a supposed conversa- 

 tion between two or more persons w^as, as the reader knows, 

 common among the ancients, and readily adopted by writers 

 after the revival of literature in the West ; so that Walton 



* As no mention of their deaths is made in the previous edition, they 

 must have died after 1655. 



How great a loss, that of a dear friend, with whom we have often and 

 long angled, is, none can tell but one who has felt it. The intimate com- 

 munings ; the morning walk, full of hopeful anticipations; the cheerful, 

 confidential chat, when resting for our noon-tide meal under some tree that 

 shaded the gurgling water ; the saunter home in the mellow twilight, 

 moving to contemplative silence, which made us not worse company for 

 each other, all live in our recollections. We miss him when arranging 

 our tackle, choosing our flies, or trying a new rod ; he is not nigh with 

 his prompt counsel, when we hook and play some larger trout ; or when at 

 home we open the well-filled basket. We look for his active form at 

 every turn of the stream, listen for his exulting halloo, and long for the 

 pressure of his arm locked with ours. Ever after he is gone a sadness 

 hangs over the best fishing day ; success loses half its pleasure, and, though 

 agreeable companions offer to succeed him, we had rather ply the line 

 alone : but, blessed is the consolation, when we can say with Walton, he 

 is " now with God." 



Very dear, my brother, my friend, wert thou to me when thou wert on 

 earth ; still dearer, now thou art in heaven ! 



