242 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



within a stone's-throw of one of the most limpid and picturesque streams 

 in England, with trout bounding in it and grayling rising rapidly at the 

 March-brown or the May-fly, as it floated along, is it to be wondered at 

 if he became a fly-fisher ? The wonder would be if he had not. He 

 did ; and the most accomplished one of his day. 



Long before his father's death he married a love-match apparently, 

 for it involved him in pecuniary difficulties from which he could never 

 afterwards release himself. On his father's death he became sole pos- 

 sessor of Beresford Hall, but, alas, he had deeply mortgaged the property, 

 and rental was swallowed up in interest ! It would appear that his time 

 was occupied with fly-fishing and poetry, the latter consisting of transla- 

 tions from well-known foreign poets, Virgil amongst the rest, of whose 

 jEneid he wrote a travestie. His works are very numerous, and it is 

 thought he wrote for bread. In 1653, the first edition of" The Complete 

 Angler" by Walton appeared, and hence arose an intimacy and then a 

 lasting friendship between the fly- fisher of the Dove and the bottom- 

 fisher of the Lea. So ardent did this friendship become, that Cotton 

 beseeched Walton to adopt him, which the latter granted, and thence- 

 forward Cotton called father the now recognised father of Anglers. 

 Walton paid frequent visits to Beresford Hall, between which and the 

 river Dove, Cotton had erected a fishing-house (see infra) p. 260), in 

 honour of his piscatorial parent. These circumstances, together with a 

 formal adoption by Walton of Mr. Cotton for his son, already men- 

 tioned, were doubtless the inducements with the latter to the writing of 

 a second part of the " Complete Angler," and therein to explain more 

 fully the art of fishing either with a natural or an artificial fly, as also 

 the various methods of making the latter : the book, as the author 

 assures us, was written in the short space of ten days, and first came 

 abroad with the fifth edition of the first part in the year 1676 ; and ever 

 since the two parts have been considered as one book. It is the text of 

 this edition that we reprint, and annotate so lengthily. 



Cotton died in 1687 and Walton in 1683; the former surviving their 

 conjoint literary and piscatorial labours eleven years, the latter seven. 

 Cotton had married a second wife, the Countess Dowager Ardglass, and 

 though she had a jointure of 1500 a-year, the life use of that sum 

 tended merely to alleviate his narrow means, but not remove them. 

 Still the estate was never forfeited. We saw Beresford Hall in 1838. 

 It was then a large farm-house ; the tenant an elderly lady. On her 

 decease the late Marquis of Beresford purchased it, and has improved 

 the place considerably, preserving, of course, the celebrated fishing- 

 house with its immortal inscription SACBUM PISCATOBIBTJS. 



