LITE OF COTTOX. 251 



4 



For his colour, uiy pains and your trouble I'll spare, 



For the creature was wholly denuded of hair, 



And, except for two things, as bare as my nail, 



A tuft of a mane and a sprig of a tail. 



Now, such as the beast was, e'en such was the rider, 



With a head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider, 



A voice like a cricket, a look like a rat, 



The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat. 



E'en such was my guide, and his beast : let them pass, 



The one for an horse, and the other an ass. 



In this poem, he relates, with singular pleasantry, that, at Chester, 

 coming out of church, he was taken notice of by the Mayor of the 

 city, for his rich garb, and particularly a gold belt that he then wore ; 

 and by him invited home to supper, and very hospitably entertained. 



In the same year, and also the year after, more correctly, he pub- 

 lished a translation of the Tragedy, entitled, Les Horaces, i. e. the 

 Horatii, from the French of Pierre Corneille; and, in 1674, the Fair 

 one of Tunis, a novel, translated also from the French ; as also a 

 translation of the Commentaries of Blaise de M ontluc, marshal of 

 France, a thrasonical gascon (as Lord Herbert has shewn, in his 

 History of Hen. VIII.) far better skilled in the arts of flight than of 

 battle. 



In 1675, Mr. Cotton published two little books; The Planter's 

 Manual, being Instructions for cultivating all sorts of fruit-trees, 

 8vo.; and a Burlesque of sundry select Dialogues of Lucian, with the 

 title of Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer scoffed, I2mo. 

 which has much the same merit as the Virgil Travestie. 



Angling having been the favourite recreation of Mr. Cotton for 

 many years before this, we cannot but suppose that the publication 

 of such a book as the Complete Angler of Mr. Walton had attracted 

 his notice, and probably excited in him a desire to become acquainted 

 with the author ; and that, setting aside other circumstances, the ad- 

 vantageous situation of Mr. Cotton, near the finest Trout-river in the 

 kingdom, might conduce to beget a great intimacy between them. 

 For certain it is, that before the year 1676 they were united by the 

 closest ties of friendship : Walton, as also his son, bad been frequent 

 visitants to Mr. Cotton, at Beresford ; who, for the accommodation of 

 the former, no less than of himself, had erected a fishing-house on 

 the bank of the river, with a stone in the front thereof, containing a 

 cipher that incorporated the initials of both their names. 



These circumstances, together with a formal adoption, by Walton, 

 of Mr. Cotton for his aon, that will be explained in its place, were 

 doubtless the inducements with the latter to the writing of a Second 

 Part of the Complete dngler, and, therein, to explain more fully the 

 art of PISHING either with a NATURAL or an ARTIFICIAL fly, M 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 above 

 year, 1676, and ever since the two Parts have been considered as 

 one book. 



The Second Part of the Complete Angler is, apparently, an imita- 

 tion of the First. It is a course of dialogues ; between the Author, 

 shadowed under the name of Piscator, and a Traveller, the very per- 



