Ixvi BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



another station, in probability mounts with her. When, note, 

 the next pond she happily arrives at, possibly she may leave 

 the spawn behind her, which my Compleat Angler no 

 sooner deliberated, but drop'd his argument, and leaves 

 Gessner to defend it, and so huff'd away : which renders 

 him rather a formal opinionist than a reform'd and prac- 

 tical artist, because to celebrate such antiquated records, 

 whereby to maintain such an improbable assertion. 



" Theophl This was the point, I confess : pray, go on. 



" Am. In his book, intituled The Compleat Angler, you 

 mav read there of various and diversified colors, as also 

 the'forms and proportions of flies. Where, poor man, he 

 perplexes himself to rally and scrape together such a 

 parcel of fragments, which he fancies arguments convinc- 

 ing enough to instruct the adults and minority of youth 

 into the slender margin of his uncultivated art, never made 

 practicable by himself, I'm convinced. When, note, the 

 true character of an industrious angler more deservedly 

 falls upon Merrill and Faulkener, or rather upon Isaac 

 Owldham, a man that fish'd salmon with three hairs at 

 hook, whose collections and experiments were lost with 



himself." 



These extracts show the spleen of Franck against our 

 author ; and the fact of his having a conversation with 

 him before the third edition of the Complete Angler, of a 

 character well calculated to draw out the remark, alluded 

 to, in Walton's preface. 



The fourth edition, in 1668, Ellis describes as " a pagi- 

 nary reprint from the third ;" though it is said on the title- 

 page to have been " much corrected and enlarged," mean- 

 ing, probably, from the/rs^. The list o{ errata is correct- 

 edTbut in tlie Address to the Reader the expression " this 

 third impression" remains. 



In 1670, when Walton had reached his eighty-third 

 year, the fifth, and last edition during his life, appeared, 

 with not a few additions and improvements, though it 



