fession, resided under the family roof. Dwelling whilst young and aged within a stone's-throw of one of the most limpid and picturesque streams in England, with trout bounding in it and grayling rising rapidly at the March-brown or the May-fly, as it floated along, is it to be wondered at if he became a fly-fisher? The wonder would be if he had not. He did; and the most accomplished one of his day.

Long before his father's death he married-a love-match apparently, for it involved him in pecuniary difficulties from which he could never afterwards release himself. On his father's death he became sole possessor of Beresford Hall, but, alas, he had deeply mortgaged the property, and rental was swallowed up in interest! It would appear that his time was occupied with fly-fishing and poetry, the latter consisting of translations from well-known foreign poets, Virgil amongst the rest, of whose Æneid he wrote a travestie. His works are very numerous, and it is thought he wrote for bread. In 1653, the first edition of "The Complete Angler" by Walton appeared, and hence arose an intimacy and then a lasting friendship between the fly-fisher of the Dove and the bottomfisher of the Lea. So ardent did this friendship become that Cotton beseeched Walton to adopt him, which the latter granted, and thenceforward Cotton called father the now recognised father of Anglers. Walton paid frequent visits to Beresford Hall, between which and the river Dove, Cotton had erected a fishing house (see infra, p. 255), in honour of his piscatorial parent. These circumstances, together with a formal adoption by Walton of Mr. Cotton for his son, already mentioned, were doubtless the inducements with the latter to the writing of a second part of the "Complete Angler," and therein to explain more fully the art of fishing either with a natural or an artificial fly, as 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 year 1676; and ever since the two parts have been considered as one book. It is the text of this edition that we reprint, and annotate so lengthily.

Cotton died in 1687 and Walton in 1683; the former surviving their conjoint literary and piscatorial labours eleven years, the latter seven. Cotton had married a second wife, the Countess Dowager Ardglass, and though she had a jointure of £1500 a-year, the life use of that sum tended merely to alleviate his narrow means, but not remove them. Still the estate was never forfeited. We saw Beresford Hall in 1838. It was then a large farm-house; the tenant an elderly lady. On her decease the late Marquis of Beresford purchased it, and has improved the place considerably, preserving, of course, the celebrated fishinghouse with its immortal inscription SACRUM PISCATORIBUS.

PISC. You are happily overtaken, sir; may a man be so bold as to inquire how far you travel this way?

VIAT. Yes sure, sir, very freely, though it be a question I cannot very well resolve you, as not knowing myself how far it is to Ashborn, where I intend to-night to take up my inn.

PISC. Why then, sir, seeing I perceive you to be a stranger in these parts, I shall take upon me to inform you, that from the town you last came through, called Brelsford,* it is five miles; and you are not yet above half a mile on this side.

*Now spelt "Brailsford." It is a mere road-side village. Brailsford brook was once celebrated for its trout. I cannot speak highly of it now.-ED.

VIAT. So much? Derby; and, methinks, I have rode almost so far already. PISC. O sir, find no fault with large measure of good land, which Derbyshire abounds in, as much as most counties of England.

I was told it was but ten miles from

VIAT. It may be so; and good land, I confess, affords a pleasant prospect: but, by your good leave, sir, large measure of foul way is not altogether so acceptable.

Pisc. True, sir; but the foul way serves to justify the fertility of the soil, according to the proverb, "There is good land where there is foul way;" and is of good use to inform you of the riches of the country you are come into, and of its continual travel and traffic to the country town you came from: which is also very observable by the fulness of its road, and the loaden horses you meet everywhere upon the

way.

VIAT. Well, sir, I will be content to think as well of your country as you would desire; and I shall have a great deal of reason both to think and to speak very well of you, if I may obtain the happiness of your company to the fore-mentioned place, provided your affairs lead you that way, and that they will permit you to slack your pace, out of complacency to a traveller utterly a stranger in these parts, and who am still to wander further out of my own knowledge.

Pisc. Sir, you invite me to my own advantage, and I am ready to attend you, my way lying through that town; but my business, that is, my home, some miles beyond it: however, I shall have time enough to lodge you in your quarters, and afterward to perform my own journey. In the mean time, may I be so bold as to inquire the end of your journey?

VIAT. 'Tis into Lancashire, sir; and about some business of concern to a near relation of mine; for I assure you, I do not use to take such long journeys as from Essex upon the single account of pleasure.

PISC. From thence, sir! I do not then wonder you should appear dissatisfied with the length of the miles, and the foulness of the way: though I am sorry you should begin to quarrel with them so soon; for, believe me, sir, you will find the miles much longer, and the way much worse, before you come to your journey's end.

VIAT. Why! truly, sir! for that I am prepared to expect the worst; but methinks the way is mended since I had the good fortune to fall into your good company.

PISC. You are not obliged to my company for that, but because you are already past the worst, and the greatest part of your way to your lodging.

VIAT. I am very glad to hear it, both for the ease of myself and my horse; but especially, because I may then expect a freer enjoyment of your conversation: though the shortness of the way will, I fear, make me lose it the sooner.

PISC. That, sir, is not worth your care: and I am sure you deserve much better for being content with so ill company. But we have already talked away two miles of your journey; for, from the brook before us, that runs at the foot of this sandy hill, you have but three miles to Ashborn.

VIAT. I meet, everywhere in this country, with these little brooks; and they look as if they were full of fish: have they not trouts in them?

PISC. That is a question which is to be excused in a stranger, as you are: otherwise, give me leave to tell you, it would seem a kind of affront to our country, to make a doubt of what we pretend to be famous for, next, if not before, our malt, wool, lead, and coal; for you are to understand, that we think we have as many fine rivers, rivulets, and brooks, as any country whatever; and they are all full of trouts, and some of them the best, it is said, by many degrees, in England.

VIAT. I was first, sir, in love with you; and now shall be so enamoured of your country by this account you give me of it, as to wish myself a Derbyshire man, or at least that I might live in it: for you must know I am a pretender to the angle, and, doubtless, a trout affords the most pleasure to the angler of any sort of fish whatever; and the best trouts must needs make the best sport: but this brook, and some others I have met with upon this way, are too full of wood for that recreation.

PISC. This, sir! why this, and several others like it, which you have passed, and some that you are like to pass, have scarce any name amongst us: but we can show you as fine rivers, and as clear from wood, or any other incumbrance to hinder an angler, as any you ever saw; and for clear,

beautiful streams, Hantshire itself, by Mr. Izaak Walton's good leave, can show none such; nor I think any country in Europe.*

VIAT. You go far, sir, in the praise of your country rivers, and I perceive have read Mr. Walton's "Complete Angler," by your naming of Hantshire; and I pray what is your opinion of that book?

PISC. My opinion of Mr. Walton's book is the same with every man's that understands anything of the art of angling, that it is an excellent good one, and that the fore-mentioned gentleman understands as much of fish, and fishing, as any man living: but I must tell you further, that I have the happiness to know his person, and to be intimately acquainted with him, and in him to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy the best, and the truest friend any man ever had; nay, I shall yet acquaint you further, that he gives me leave to call him Father, and I hope is not yet ashamed to own me for his adopted Son.

VIAT. In earnest, sir, I am ravished to meet with a friend of Mr. Izaak Walton's, and one that does him so much right in so good and true a character; for I must boast to you, that I have the good fortune to know him too, and came acquainted with him much after the same manner I do with you; that he was my Master, who first taught me to love angling, and then to become an angler; and to be plain with you, I am the very man deciphered in his book under the name of Venator; for I was wholly addicted to the chace, till he taught me as good, a more quiet, innocent, and less dangerous diversion.

Pisc. Sir, I think myself happy in your acquaintance, and

* This praise will not hold good now. Apart from certain preserved portions of the Dove, the other Derbyshire rivers are not first rate. They certainly are very pretty clear streams, and are difficult to fly-fish; the well-known Lathkil, on account of its extreme limpidness, the most difficult of all. The trout of this brook are the most highly-coloured in the county, but not the best flavoured. The Wye, near Haddon Hall, and Longford-brook, running by and through the Earl of Leicester's seat, and demesne of Longford, about six miles from Ashbourn, are favourite streams of mine. The Scotch and Irish trout streams are far better than those of Derbyshire, and so are some in Northumberland, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Devonshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, and one or two in Surrey and Middlesex. The Driffield, in Yorkshire, and the Test, in Hampshire, are better angling rivers than the Dove.-ED.