18 LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. 



temper appears in it, that so eminently distinguishes the piece 

 it accompanies. 



The description of Flies, with the materials for, and dif- 

 ferent methods of, making them, though they may admit of 

 some improvement and accordingly the reader will meet with 

 several valuable ones in the notes on the chapter of artificial 

 flies are indisputably the most exact and copious of all that 

 have ever yet been published. 



At the end of the Second Part, though in this edition it has 

 been thought proper to transpose them, are [were] some verses 

 of Cotton's writing, which he calls The Retirement, or Stanzes 

 Irreguliers. Of them, and also of the book, take this charac- 

 ter from Langbaine : " This book is not unworthy of the 

 perusal of the gravest men that are lovers of this innocent 

 recreation ; and those who are not anglers, but have a taste 

 for poetry, may find Mr Cotton's character better described by 

 himself, in a copy of verses printed at the end of that book, 

 called The Retirement, than any I might present the reader 

 from Colonel Lovelace, Sir Aston Cockaine, Robert Herrick, 

 Esq. or Mr Alexander Brome ; all which have writ verses in 

 our author's praise ; but, in my poor judgment, far short of 

 these Stanzes Irreguliers^ * In short, these books contain a 

 great number of excellent rules and valuable discoveries ; and 

 it may, with truth, be said, that few have ever perused them, 

 but have, unless it was their own fault, found themselves not 

 only better anglers, but better men. 



A book which had been published by Col. Robert Venables, 

 some years before, ]- called the Experienced Angler, or Angling 

 Improved, which has its merit, was also now reprinted ; and 

 the booksellers prefixed to it a title of the Universal Angler : 

 under which they sometimes sold the three bound together ; 

 but the book being written in a manner very different from 

 that of the Complete Angler, it was not thought proper to let 

 it accompany the present edition ; however, some use has 

 been made of it in the notes. It has a preface signed I. W. 

 undoubtedly of Walton's writing. 



And here it may not be amiss to remark, that between the 

 two parts of the Complete Angler there is an obvious difference; 

 the latter [Part,] though it abounds in descriptions of a wild 

 and romantic country, and exemplifies the intercourse of 

 hospitable urbanity, is of a didactic form, and contains in it 

 more of instruction in the art it professes to teach, than of 



* Lives of the English Dramatic Poets, art. Charles Cotton, Esq. 

 f In 1682. 



