MY MOST WORTHY FATHER AKD FRIEND, 



MR IZAAK WALTON, THE ELDER. 



SIR, Being you were pleased, some years past, to grant me your free 

 leave to do what I have here attempted ; and observing you never retract 

 any promise when made in favour of your meanest friends, I accordingly 

 expect to see these following particular directions for the taking of a 

 Trout, to wait upon your better and more general rules for all sorts of 

 angling. And though mine be neither so perfect, so well digested, nor 

 indeed so handsomely couched, as they might have been, in so long a 

 time as since your leave was granted, yet I dare affirm them to be generally 

 true : and they had appeared, too, in something a neater dress, but that 

 I was surprised with the sudden news of a sudden new edition of your 

 Complete Angler,- so that, having but a little more than ten days' time 

 to turn me in, and rub up my memory, (for in truth, I have not, in all 

 this long time, though I have often thought on 't, and almost as often 

 resolved to go presently about it,) I was forced, upon the instant, to 

 scribble what I here present you, which I have also endeavoured to 

 accommodate to your own method. And, if mine be clear enough for 

 the honest brothers of the angle readily to understand, (which is the 

 only thing I aim at,) then I have my end ; and shall need to make no 

 farther apology ; a writing of this kind not requiring (if I were master 

 of any such thing) any eloquence to set it off or recommend it ; so that 

 if you, in your better judgment, or kindness rather, can allow it passable 

 for a thing of this nature, you will then do me honour if the cipher fixed 

 and carved in the front of my little fishing-house may be here explained : 

 and to permit me to attend you in public, who, in private, have ever 

 been, am, and ever resolve to be, 



SIR, 

 Your most affectionate son and servant, 



CHARLES COTTON. 



BERESFORD, 

 1Mb of March, 1675-6. 



