BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. Ixxxiii 



were prepared to illustrate the work further ; and a tall 

 copy with proof impressions, appropriately bound, cannot 

 be imported for less than one hundred dollars. 



Thus have we traced The Complete Angler from the 

 original square duodecimo through all sizes, the 48mo. 

 (Pickering, 1825), to the imperial quarto, and from the 

 original 18^. to twenty guineas : but, in whatever 

 form, it is " a golden book," and the richest art of the 

 publisher furnishes but a dim setting to such a priceless 

 jewel. 



It may please the reader to know some instances of the 

 enthusiasm to which some of Walton's admirers, besides 

 Mr. Pickering, have been transported. The Rev. Mr. 

 Cotton had in his possession a fac simile copy of the first 

 edition, in manuscript imitation of the original, " true, 

 faithful, and accurate, ad verhum verbo etiam usque ad ma- 

 culam, with the old plates admirably inlaid." Mr. Symond 

 Higgs's quarto copy of the 1808 edition was illustrated 

 with above two hundred and seventy prints and drawings, 

 consisting of drawings from rare portraits, proof impres- 

 sions of plates of fish, topographical prints, monuments, 

 &c., which can in any way illustrate the text. " It was 

 bound for him by Gosden (at five guineas price), the bands 

 of the book made of wood from the door of Cotton's 

 fishing-house, taken oflT by Mr. Higgs near the lock, 

 where he was sure old Izaak must have touched it." (MS. 

 note of Mr. Gosden to my copy of Higgs's Sale Cata- 

 logue.) It sold for £63. Gosden's own illustrated copy 

 (if I make out correctly a pencilled note appended to the 

 above), unbound, single leaves, in a port-folio, sold for 

 £110!!! 



I have now brought my notices of Walton, and of 

 Fishing and Fishing Books before his time, to a close : 

 and lest the reader should be tired of me (as he may 

 already), I shortly end, with Walton's own words, and 

 " stay him no further than to wish him a rainy morning to 



