Ixxxvi LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. [1676, 



Complete Angler," which was then in the press. Little more 

 than ten days were allowed him for the purpose, at the end of 

 which he had completed the task. His letter to Walton, which 

 accompanied the manuscript, was written at Beresford, on the 10th 

 of March 1676 ; and a printed copy of his treatise was returned 

 to him, with an answer, dated at London on the 29th of the 

 following month. Cotton, who is the Piscator of his own dia- 

 logue, observes, that Walton had lately written to say that he 

 doubted whether he could visit him in the ensuing summer ; but 

 he informed Cotton in the letter just mentioned, which was 

 written some weeks afterwards, that although he was then more 

 than one hundred miles from him, and in the eighty-third year of 

 his age, yet he would forget both, and in the next month. May, 

 begin a pilgrimage to see him. It is therefore likely that Walton 

 spent some weeks at Beresford, in May and June 1676 ; and he 

 was possibly induced to change his mind by going there, in con- 

 sequence of business having brought him to London, by which 

 journey he was drawn much, nearer to Derbyshire. The intimacy 

 which existed between Walton and Cotton is well known to every 

 reader of " The Complete Angler." Their literary, no less than their 

 piscatory pursuits, were alike ; and it is easy to believe that the 

 author of the beautiful "Stanzas Irregulier" must have possessed 

 a disposition with which Walton's perfectly harmonised. At an 

 early period of their intimacy. Cotton designated him his " father," 

 and styled himself his " son," a practice which was then very 

 common between parties whose pursuits were congenial, when the 

 younger received instructions in them from the elder, and when it 

 was desired to give the most affectionate character to their associa- 

 tion. 



Walton frequently visited Cotton at Beresford during the spring 

 and summer months, sometimes alone, and at others accompanied 

 by his son or by a friend. Not long before the year 1676 Cotton 

 built a little fishing-house on the Staffordshire side of the banks of 

 the Dove, where the windings of the river form a small peninsula.^ 



8 The state of the fishing-house was thus described by a visitor in 1824: — "Just above 

 the Pike, a small wooden foot-bridge leads over the stream towards Hartshorn, in 

 Derbyshire ; it bears the date of 1818, but is merely the successor of one more ancient, 

 as is evident from Piscator 's saying, * Cross the bridge, and go down the other side.' 

 Somewhat higher up on the Staffordshire^bank, the windings of the river form a small 

 peninsula, on which stands the far-famed fishing-house ; but alas 1 how changed since 

 the time when, in the words of Venator, 'it was finely wainscoted, with a marble table 

 in the middle, and all exceeding neat.' The stone slabs which compose the floor are 

 partly broken up, the windows are entirely destroyed, the doors decaying, and without 

 fastenings, the roof is dilapidated, and the vane which surmounts it is rusty, and nodding 

 to its fall. The fireplace alone remains in good preservation. Hawkins tells us that 

 the exterior was formerly adorned with paintings, in fresco, of Cotton, Walton, and the 



