INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. II 



write a discourse of the Art and in praise of Angling, and," 

 continues Walton, "doubtless he had done so, if death had 

 not prevented him ; the remembrance of which hath often 

 made me sorry : for if he had lived to do it, then the unlearned 

 angler had seen some better treatise of this art, a treatise that 

 might have proved worthy his perusal, which, though some 

 have undertaken, I could never yet see in English." 



Here again our modest author finds an excuse for the under- 

 taking of a work, of which it seems almost too weak a praise to 

 say, that its parallel could scarcely have been hoped for, even 

 from the elegant mind of Sir Henry Wotton himself. 



Our author, who was born at Stafford in 1593, but who 

 lived the greatest part of his time in London, published the 

 first edition of this celebrated work in 1653, and lived to see it 

 go through no less than five editions ; the last of which, in 

 1676, was accompanied by a Second Part, written by his in- 

 timate friend and adopted son, Charles Cotton of Beresford 

 Hall, in the County of Stafford, Esq. This Second Part, in 

 which Mr. Cotton, from his local opportunities, was enabled 

 to treat more at large on Fly-fishing than Walton had proposed 

 to do, forms an important part of the work, in more than one 

 point of view ; but chiefly, as conveying the fullest evidence 

 of that reverence, and almost homage, which its accomplished 

 author entertained for the character of Walton. 



The Fishing-house on the banks of the Dove seems to have 

 been built expressly to perpetuate the memory of their friend- 

 ship ; the motto over its door was ' ' Piscatoribus sacrum" 

 with the initials of Walton and Cotton interwoven in a cipher 

 upon the keystone of the building, and the same cipher was, 

 by Mr. Cotton's desire, placed in the title-page of the first 

 edition of his portion of the work, and has been continued in 

 all those since published. 



This part of our history will be fully illustrated by the fol- 



and was the progenitor of the present Lord Crewe. The family is connected 

 by marriages with the noble houses of Hastings, Powis, and Wilton. 



