xxii THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF 



TO 



MY MOST WORTHY FATHER" AND FRIEND, 



MR. IZAAK WALTON, 



THE ELDER. 



Sir, 

 Being you were pleased, some years past, to grant me your 

 free leave to do what I have here attempted ; and observing you 

 never retract any promise when made in favor even of your 

 meanest friends ; I accordingly expect to see these following par- 

 ticular directions for the taking of a trout, to wait upon your bet- 

 ter and more general rules for all sorts of angling. And, though 

 mine be neither so perfect, so well digested, nor indeed so hand- 

 somely coucht, as they might have been, in so long a time as 

 since your leave was granted ; yet I dare affirm them to be gene- 

 rally true ; and they had appeared too in something a neater 

 dress, but that I was surprised with the sudden news of a sudden 

 new edition of your Complete Angler ; so that, having but a little 

 more than ten days' time to turn me in, and rub up my memory 



* Piscator, in the conversation introductory to this second part of the 

 Angler, chap, i., tells Venator, speaking of Walton : " I have the happi- 

 ness to know his person, and to be intimately acquainted with him ; and in 

 him, to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy the best and truest friend 

 any man ever had ; nay, I shall yet acquaint you further, that he gives me 

 leave to call him father, and I hope is not yet ashamed to own me for his 

 adopted son." Hawkins refers here to the practice among the Rosicru- 

 cians " of adopting favorite persons as their sons, to whom they imparted 

 their secrets ;" but, surely, there is no need of supposing that Walton 

 imitated them in thus expressing his affection for Cotton as his disciple. 

 The custom is far older and more universal than that of th« hermetic 

 adepts. — Am. Ed. 



