16 LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. 



that he had erected near his dwelling, on the bank of the 

 little river Dove, which divides the counties of Stafford and 

 Derby. 



Mr Cotton's book is a judicious supplement to Walton's ; 

 for it must not be concealed, that Walton, though he was so 

 expert an angler, knew but little of fly-fishing ; and indeed he 

 is so ingenuous as to confess, that the greater part of what 

 he has said on that subject was communicated to him by Mr 

 Thomas Barker, and not the result of his own experience. 

 This Mr Barker was a good-humoured, gossiping old man, 

 and seems to have been a cook ; for he says, "he had been 

 admitted into most of the ambassadors' kitchens, that had come 

 to England for forty years, and dressed fish for them ; for 

 which," he says, " he was duly paid by the Lord Protector." * 

 He spent a great deal of time, and, it seems, money too, in 

 fishing ; and in the latter part of his life, dwelt in an alms- 

 house, near the Gatehouse, Westminster. In 1651, two years 

 before the first publication of Walton's work, he published a 

 work in duodecimo, called the Artof Angling, to which he affixed 

 his name : f he published, in 1653, a second edition, in quarto, 

 under the same title, but without his name : and in 1 659, he 

 published the third edition of it, under the enlarged title of 

 Barker's Delight, or the Art of Angling : and for that singulai 

 vein of humour that runs through it, a most diverting book 

 it is. The Dedication of this performance to Edward Lord 

 Montague, general of the navy, is given in the margin : and 



* Barker's Delight, p. 20. 



} Walton, in the first edition, page 108, says, " I will tell you freely, 

 I find Mr Thomas Barker, a gentleman that has spent much time and 

 money in angling, deal so judicious and freely in a little book of his of 

 angling, and especially of making and angling with a fly for a trout, that 

 I will give you his very directions without much variation, which shall 

 follow." In his fifth edition, he again mentions the use which he had 

 made of Barker's book, but in different words : " I shall give some other 

 directions for fly-fishing, such as are given by Mr Thomas Barker, a 

 gentleman that hath spent much time in fishing ; but I shall do it with 

 a little variation." 



| " Noble Lord ! I do present this my book as I have named it, 

 Barker's Delight, to your honour. I pray God send you safe home to 

 your good lady ;md sweet babes. Amen, Amen. If you shall find any 

 thing delightful in the reading of it, I shall heartily rejoice ; for I know 

 you are one who takes delight in that pleasure, and have good judgment and 

 experience, as many noble persons and gentlemen of true piety and honour 

 do and have. The favour that I have found from you, and a great many 

 more, that did and do love that pleasure, shall never be buried in oblivion 

 by me. J am now grown old, and am willing to enlarge my little book. 



