IO INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



is equally applicable to the rest : " I am glad that the general 

 demonstration of his worth was so fairly preserved and repre- 

 sented to the world by your pen, in the history of his life ; in- 

 deed, so well, that, beside others, the best critic of our later 

 time, Mr. John Hales of Eaton, affirmed to me he had not 

 seen a life written with more advantage to the subject, or repu- 

 tation to the writer, than that of Dr. Donne." 



The posthumous fame of these lives so well accords with this 

 contemporary applause, that they are to be found in almost 

 every respectable library ; yet it were unpardonable on the 

 occasion of this attempt * to give additional popularity to our 

 author's inimitable work of the Complete Angler, not to re- 

 mind the reader that he has other claims to literary reputation 

 than those derived from this truly felicitous achievement. 



In both instances he became an author by mere chance. Sir 

 Henry Wotton had undertaken to write the life of Dr. Donne, 

 and had requested Walton to assist him in collecting materials 

 for that purpose ; but Sir Henry dying before it was completed, 

 Walton undertook it himself, and succeeded so fully to the 

 satisfaction of the most learned men of his time, that it was to 

 be attributed to their importunity, rather than to his own am- 

 bition, that he performed the, same office for his "dear friend 

 Sir Henry" himself, and those other eminent men whose 

 names have just been enumerated. 



Sir Henry Wotton too, as it appears from the Dedication of 

 the Complete Angler to John Offley,f Esq., had intended " to 



*The attempt was so successful, as to leave me forever indebted to the 

 whole body of the public press. DR. SOUTHBY also spoke of this humble 

 Essay in terms too flattering to be here adduced ; but I must crave pardon 

 for the necessary egotism of a few other notes. Twenty-one years having 

 now elapsed, and three editions become scarce, I have, in the endeavor yet 

 further to increase the popularity of this work, again the co-operation of a 

 host of talent and a world of kindness ! whjle the stanchest Waltonians have 

 looked on, free from jealousy, and anxious only to see their beloved author 

 made as attractive as possible to the rising generation. 



t This gentleman, whose ancestors have been settled at Madeley Manor 

 u early as the year 1237, married the heiress of the Crewes, of Crewe Hall, 



