TO THE KEADER OF THIS DISCOURSE, 



BUT ESPECIALLY 



TO THE HONEST ANGLER. 



I THINK fit to tell thee these following truths, that I did neither 

 undertake, nor write, nor publish, and much less own, this Discourse 

 to please myself; and, having been too easily drawn to do all to 

 please others, as I propose not the gaming of credit by this under- 

 taking, so I would not willingly lose any part of that to which I had 

 a just title before I begun it, and do therefore desire and hope, if I 

 deserve not commendations, yet I may obtain pardon. 



And though this Discourse may be liable to some exceptions, yet I 

 cannot doubt but that most readers may receive so much pleasure or 

 profit by it, as may make it worthy the time of their perusal, if they 

 be not too grave or too busy men. And this is all the confidence that 

 I can put on, concerning the merit of what is here offered to their 

 consideration and censure ; and if the last prove too severe, as I have a 

 liberty, so I am resolved to use it, and neglect all sour censures. 



And I wish the reader also to take notice, that in writing of it I 

 have made myself a recreation of a recreation ; and that it might prove 

 so to him, and not read dull and tediously, I have in several places 

 mixed, not any 'scurrility, but some innocent, harmless mirth, of 

 which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here dis- 

 allow 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 seasonable times, yet the whole 

 Discourse is, or rather was, a picture of my own disposition, especially 

 in such days and times as I have laid aside business, and gone a 

 fishing with honest Nat. and R. Roe ; 1 but they are gone, and with 



1 These persons are supposed to have been related to Walton, from this 

 circumstance, that in a copy, handed down, of his "Lives of Donne, Sir 

 H. Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert," there is written by the Author on the 

 frontispiece, " for my cousin Roe." H. 



