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 

 favour of your meanest friends ; I accordingly expect to see 

 these following particular directions for the taking of a trout, 

 to wait upon your better and more general rules for all sorts 

 of angling. And though mine be neither so perfect, so well 

 digested, nor indeed so handsomely couch'd as they might have 

 been, in so long a time as since your leave was granted, yet I 

 dare affirm them to be generally 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 little more than ten days' time to turn 

 me in, and rub up my memory (for, in truth, I have not, in all 

 this long time, though I have often thought on't, and almost as 

 often resolved to go presently about it), I was forced, upon the 

 instant, to scribble what I here present you : which I have also 

 endeavoured to accommodate to your own method. And, if mine 

 be clear enough for the honest brothers of the angle readily to 

 understand, which is the only thing I aim at, then I have my 

 end, and shall need to make no further apology ; a writing of 

 this kind not requiring, if I were master of any such thing, any 

 eloquence to set it off, and recommend it ; so that if you, in 

 your better judgment, or kindness rather, can allow it passable 

 for a thing of this nature, you will then do me the honour if the 

 cypher fixed and carved in the front of my little fishing-house, 

 may be here explained : and to permit me to attend you in public, 

 who, in private have ever been, am, and ever resolve to be, 



Sir, 



BERESFORD, Your most affectionate son and servant, 



loth of March 1675-76. CHARLES COTTON. 



