WALTON TO THE READER. 



but some innocent, harmless mirth, of which, ifthou be a 

 severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to 

 be a competent judge; for divines say, there are offences 

 given and offences not given but taken. 



And I am the willinger to justify the pleasant part of it, 

 because though it is known I can be serious at all season- 

 able times, yet the whole discourse is, or rather was, a pic- 

 ture of my own disposition, especially in such days and 

 fanes as I have laid aside business, and gone a fishing with 

 honest Nat. and R. Roe ;' but they are gene, and with them 

 most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth 

 away and returns not. 



And next let me add this, that he that likes not the book, 

 should like the excellent picture of the Trout,* and some of 

 the other fish : which I may take a liberty to commend, 

 because they concern not myself. 



Next let me tell the reader, that in that which is the more 

 useful part of this discourse, that is to say, the observations 

 of the nature and breeding, and seasons, and catching of 

 fish, I am not so simple as not to know, that a captious 

 reader may find exceptions against something said of some 

 of these; and therefore I must entreat him to consider, that 

 experience teaches us to know that several countries alter 

 the time, and I think almost the manner, of fishes' breeding, 

 but doubtless of their being in season; as may appear by 

 three rivers in Monmouthshire, namely, Severn, Wye, and 

 Usk, where Camden, Brit. f. 633, observes, that in the river 

 Wye, Salmon are in season from September to April ; and 



(1) These persons ire supposed to have been related to Walton, from the cir- 

 cumstance of acopj, handed down, of his Lives ofDtnne, Sir H. Wotton, Hooker, 

 and Herbert, wherein is written by the Author on the frontispiece, " For my 

 cousin Roe." 



(2) Thesj. Mates, for reasons assigned in the Preface to this Edition, have been 

 omitted. 



