وو thought it would be acceptable to all tempers, because there were shades in it for the warm, and sunshine for those of a cold constitution: that with youthful readers, the facetious parts would be proper to make the serious more palatable, while some reverend old readers might fancy themselves, in his History of the Church, as in a flower garden, or one full of evergreens. "And why not," said Fuller, "the Church History so decked, as well as the Church itself at a most holy season, or the Tabernacle of old at the feast of boughs ?"-" That was but for a season," said Walton; "in your feast of boughs, they may conceive, we are so overshadowed throughout, that the parson is more seen than his congregation, and this, sometimes, invisible to its own acquaintance, who may wander in the search till they are lost in the labyrinth."" Oh!" said Fuller, "the very children of our Israel may find their way out of this wilderness."- "True," replied Walton, "as, indeed, they have here such a Moses to conduct them."* Το pursue the subject of the biographical writings: About two years after the Restoration, Walton wrote the Life of Mr Richard Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity. He was enjoined to undertake this work by his friend Dr Gilbert Sheldon, † afterward archbishop of Canterbury, who, by the way, was an angler. Bishop King, in a letter to the author, says of this life, "I have often seen Mr Hooker with my father, who was after bishop of London; from whom, and others at that time, I have heard most of the material passages which you relate in the history of his life." Sir William Dugdale, speaking of the three posthumous books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, refers the reader "to that seasonable historical discourse, lately compiled and published, with great judgment and integrity, by that much deserving person, Mr Isaac Walton."§ The Life of Mr George Herbert, as it stands the fourth and last in the volume, wherein that, and the three former are collected, seems to have been written the next after Hooker's: • From a manuscript collection of diverting sayings, stories, characters, &c. in verse and prose, made about the year 1686, by Charles Cotton, Esq. some time in the library of the Earl of Halifax. Vide Biographia Britannica, 2061, note p. in margin. The editors of the above work have styled this colloquy a witty confabulation, but it seems remarkable for nothing but its singularity, which consists in the starting of a metaphor and hunting it down. + Walton's Epistle to the Reader of the Lives, in 8vo. 1670. Before the Lives. Short View of the late Troubles in England, folio, 1681, p. 39. it was first published in duodecimo, 1670. Walton professes himself to have been a stranger as to the person of Herbert ;* and though he assures us his life of him was a freewill offering, it abounds with curious information, and is no way inferior to any of the former. Two of these Lives, viz. those of Hooker, and Herbert, we are told, were written under the roof of Walton's good friend and patron, Dr George Morley, bishop of Winchester; which particular seems to agree with Wood's account, that, "after his quitting London, he lived mostly in the families of the eminent clergy at that time." Zouch says, that apartments for Walton and his daughters were reserved both in the house of the Bishop of Winchester, and in that of the bishop of Salisbury. And who that considers the inoffensiveness of his manners, and the pains he took in celebrating the lives and actions of good men, can doubt his being much beloved by them? In the year 1670, these Lives were collected and published in octavo, with a Dedication to the above bishop of Winchester, and a Preface, containing the motives for writing them : this preface is followed by a Copy of Verses, by his intimate friend and adopted son, Charles Cotton, of Beresford, in Staffordshire, esq. the author of the Second Part of the Complete Angler, of whom farther mention will hereafter be made; and by the Letter from Bishop King, so often referred to in the course of his life. The Complete Angler having, in the space of twenty-three years, gone through four editions, Walton, in the year 1676, and in the eighty-third of his age, was preparing a fifth, with additions, for the press; when Mr Cotton wrote a second part of that work. It seems Mr Cotton submitted the manuscript to Walton's perusal, who returned it with his approbation, § and a few marginal strictures; and in that year they came abroad together. Mr Cotton's book had the title of the Complete Angler, being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear stream, Part II.; and it has ever since been received as a Second Part of Walton's book. In the title-page is a cipher composed of the initial letters o both their names; which cipher, Mr Cotton tells us, he had caused to be cut in stone, and set up over a fishing house, *Introduction to Herbert's Life. + Epistle to the Reader of the Collection of Lives. See Walton's Letter to Cotton, before the Second Part. that he had erected near his dwelling, on the bank of the little river Dove, which divides the counties of Stafford and Derby. Mr Cotton's book is a judicious supplement to Walton's; for it must not be concealed, that Walton, though he was so expert an angler, knew but little of fly-fishing; and indeed he is so ingenuous as to confess, that the greater part of what he has said on that subject was communicated to him by Mr Thomas Barker, and not the result of his own experience. This Mr Barker was a good-humoured, gossiping old man, and seems to have been a cook; for he says, "he had been admitted into most of the ambassadors' kitchens, that had come to England for forty years, and dressed fish for them; for which," he says, "he was duly paid by the Lord Protector.” * Не spent a great deal of time, and, it seems, money too, in fishing; and in the latter part of his life, dwelt in an almshouse, near the Gatehouse, Westminster. In 1651, two years before the first publication of Walton's work, he published a work in duodecimo, called the Art of Angling, to which he affixed his name: † he published, in 1653, a second edition, in quarto, under the same title, but without his name: and in 1659, he published the third edition of it, under the enlarged title of Barker's Delight, or the Art of Angling and for that singular vein of humour that runs through it, a most diverting book it is. The Dedication of this performance to Edward Lord Montague, general of the navy, is given in the margin :‡ and *Barker's Delight, p. 20. Walton, in the first edition, page 108, says, "I will tell you freely, I find Mr Thomas Barker, a gentleman that has spent much time and money in angling, deal so judicious and freely in a little book of his of angling, and especially of making and angling with a fly for a trout, that I will give you his very directions without much variation, which shall follow." In his fifth edition, he again mentions the use which he had made of Barker's book, but in different words: "I shall give some other directions for fly-fishing, such as are given by Mr Thomas Barker, a gentleman that hath spent much time in fishing; but I shall do it with a little variation." + "Noble Lord! I do present this my book as I have named it, Barker's Delight, to your honour. I pray God send you safe home to your good lady and sweet babes. Amen, Amen. If you shall find any thing delightful in the reading of it, I shall heartily rejoice; for I know you are one who takes delight in that pleasure, and have good judgment and experience, as many noble persons and gentlemen of true piety and honour do and have. The favour that I have found from you, and a great many more, that did and do love that pleasure, shall never be buried in oblivion by me. I am now grown old, and am willing to enlarge my little book. the reader will meet with some farther specimens of the author's style and manner of writing, in the notes on the present edition. And of Cotton it must be said, that living in a country where fly-fishing was and is almost the only practice, he had not only the means of acquiring, but actually possessed more skill in the art, as also in the method of making flies, than most men of his time. His book is, in fact, a continuation of Walton's, not only as it teaches at large that branch of the art of angling which Walton had but slightly treated on, but as it takes up Venator, Walton's piscatory disciple, just where his master had left him; and this connection between the two parts will be clearly seen, when it is remarked, that the traveller whom Cotton invites to his house, and so hospitably entertains, and also instructs in the art of fly-fishing,-I say this traveller, and Venator, the pupil of Walton, come out to be one and the same person. Not farther to anticipate what will be found in the Second Part, it shall here suffice to say, that there is great spirit in the dialogue; and that the same conversable, communicative : I have written no more but my own experience and practice; and have set forth the true ground of angling, which I have been gathering these threescore years, having spent many pounds in the gaining of it, as is well known in the place where I was born and educated, which is Bracemeale, in the liberty of Salop; being a freeman and burgess of the same city. If any noble or gentle angler, of what degree soever he be, have a mind to discourse of any of these ways and experiments, I live in Henry the Seventh's Gifts, the next door to the Gatehouse in Westminster, - my name is Barker, where I shall be ready, as long as please God, to satisfy them and maintain my art during life, which is not like to be long; that the younger fry may have my experiments at a smaller charge than I had them for it would be too heavy for every one that loveth that exercise, to be at the charge as I was at first in my youth, the loss of my time, with great expenses. Therefore, I took it in consideration, and thought fit to let it be understood, and to take pains to set forth the true grounds and ways, that I have found by experience both for fitting of the rods and tackles, both for ground baits and flies; with the directions for the making thereof; with observations for times and seasons for the ground baits and flies, both for day and night, with the dressing; wherein I take as much delight as in the taking of them; and, to shew how I can perform it, to furnish my lord's table only with trouts, as it is furnished with flesh, for sixteen or twenty dishes. And I have a desire to preserve their health, (with the help of God,) to go dry in their boots and shoes in angling; ́ for age taketh the pleasure from me." * See his recipe for this purpose, in the notes on Ch. XVII. B temper appears in it, that so eminently distinguishes the piece it accompanies. The description of Flies, with the materials for, and different methods of, making them, though they may admit of some improvement-and accordingly the reader will meet with several valuable ones in the notes on the chapter of artificial flies- —are indisputably the most exact and copious of all that have ever yet been published. At the end of the Second Part, though in this edition it has been thought proper to transpose them, are [were] some verses of Cotton's writing, which he calls The Retirement, or Stanzes Irreguliers. Of them, and also of the book, take this character from Langbaine: "This book is not unworthy of the perusal of the gravest men that are lovers of this innocent recreation; and those who are not anglers, but have a taste for poetry, may find Mr Cotton's character better described by himself, in a copy of verses printed at the end of that book, called The Retirement, than any I might present the reader from Colonel Lovelace, Sir Aston Cockaine, Robert Herrick, Esq. or Mr Alexander Brome; all which have writ verses in our author's praise; but, in my poor judgment, far short of these Stanzes Irreguliers." * In short, these books contain a great number of excellent rules and valuable discoveries; and it may, with truth, be said, that few have ever perused them, but have, unless it was their own fault, found themselves not only better anglers, but better men. A book which had been published by Col. Robert Venables, some years before, † called the Experienced Angler, or Angling Improved, which has its merit, was also now reprinted; and the booksellers prefixed to it a title of the Universal Angler: under which they sometimes sold the three bound together; but the book being written in a manner very different from that of the Complete Angler, it was not thought proper to let it accompany the present edition; however, some use has been made of it in the notes. It has a preface signed I. W. undoubtedly of Walton's writing. And here it may not be amiss to remark, that between the two parts of the Complete Angler there is an obvious difference; the latter [Part,] though it abounds in descriptions of a wild and romantic country, and exemplifies the intercourse of hospitable urbanity, is of a didactic form, and contains in it more of instruction in the art it professes to teach, than of Lives of the English Dramatic Poets, art. Charles Cotton, Esq. † In 1662. |