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THE CHRONIC^-E 
 OF THE "COMPLEAT ANGLER.' 
 
iWafftstcr attw Irocte ^tscatorttc, 
 aHaltonc salbe! . . . gftnul bonus 
 ^iscator, iftrm tt ^criptor, ct ralamt potcttg. 
 ®ltriusquE nwJutn ct ictus ct tantcn sapis." 
 
 Jaco. I9up., 19.19. 
 
THE CHRONICLE OF 
 
 XTbe "Compleat HnGler" 
 
 OF IZAAK WALTON AND CHARLES COTTON 
 
 BEING A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF ITS VARIOUS EDITIONS 
 
 AND MUTATIONS 
 
 BY THOMAS WESTWOOD. 
 
 M 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 WITH SOME NOTES AND ADDITIONS BY 
 
 THOMAS SATCHELL. 
 
 W. SATCHELL, 19, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. 
 
 1883. 
 

 LONDON : 
 
 R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, 
 
 BKEAD STREET HILL. 
 
TO JOSEPH CRAWHALL, ESQ. 
 ^$is Volwm 
 
 IS DEDICATED IN REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH CORDIAL AND 
 
 FRIENDLY CO-OPERATION IN THE FIELD 
 
 OF BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 RESEARCH. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGl 
 
 Half-Title i 
 
 Title iii 
 
 Dedication v 
 
 Contents vii 
 
 Preface ix 
 
 Preface to First Edition xiii 
 
 A Skeleton Chronicle xxi 
 
 The Chronicle i 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 With the years come the honours — honours thick and three- 
 fold. In 1864, we recorded fifty-three editions of Izaak 
 Walton's " Compleat Angler " ; we now reach the imposing 
 total of ninety-seven. Ninety- seven editions of all shapes and 
 presentments, the simple and sumptuous, the microscopic and 
 monumental, — the edited and un-edited. If this fact were 
 proclaimed (we whisper to ourselves), some " fine, fresh May 
 morning," in the purlieus of old Tottenham Cross — might he 
 not hear it, our Patriarch of Anglers ? We would fain think he 
 might, for we cannot fancy old Izaak quiet in his grave, ** to 
 dumb forgetfulness a prey," when the Spring is all bloom and 
 boskage, when the throstle is in full song, and the May-fly 
 thick on the water. We fancy him, instead, revisiting all his 
 favourite haunts — climbing, for instance, up " Totnam Hill," an 
 alert shadow, and overtaking Viator, at the old spot, with the 
 old, hearty greeting. N inety-seven editions ! What talk for 
 
 b 
 
X Preface. 
 
 them to beguile the way with, as the two sprites flit together, 
 down the dewy lanes, powdered with May- blossom, shaping 
 their course towards the " Thacht House, at Hodsden," 
 where . . . the ale is so good. And what a tale to repeat, 
 presently, to all the old companions — to Auceps and 
 Venator, to the comely Hostess, to Maudlin the milk- 
 maid, and to more besides — while " noble Mr. Sadler's " 
 pack of otter-hounds bay, joyously, in chorus, on Amwell 
 Hill, hard by ! 
 
 And the more to come, anon — the increase of the fame that 
 has, perhaps, not yet culminated — for who shall say that when 
 the third centenary of Izaak's book comes round, the tale of the 
 editions may not equal the tale of years. True, indeed, 
 that the present chroniclers will not be there, to sum up 
 the total, and to tress the palms — or will be there only as 
 shadows, with Piscator and Viator, to hear the result. May 
 our successors on that occasion be worthy of their task ! 
 
 In our unworthiness, however, we venture to believe that 
 our re-issue of this little work will be found both more exact 
 and certainly more complete than its predecessor, in which 
 seventeen editions of prior date were lacking. It is possible, 
 also, that the Waltonian " bibliophile " may find in it novel 
 and interesting matter that will set him on a new search 
 for unsuspected treasures. 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 As before, then, to the. indulgence of all true lovers of 
 
 Anofline and of Angrlinor lore, we commend the fruit of our 
 
 labours ; for, like " hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton's " fishing-house 
 
 by Dove-side, our Chronicle is, emphatically, Piscatoribus 
 
 sacrum. 
 
 T. W. 
 
 May-Day, 1883. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 WiLi, the bibliophilist forgive me, if, j^rtly with a view to 
 readers not absolutely of his class, and partly for my own 
 personal satisfaction, I have introduced into this catalogue 
 raisomU of the editions of the " Compleat Angler," certain 
 digressions, which, on strict bibliographical grounds, may be 
 deemed irrelevant. The fact is, that the work in question 
 lends itself, less than most, to a mere technical and matter- 
 of-fact recapitulation. It is essentially a book to be loved, 
 and to be discoursed of lovingly. The companion of our 
 boyhood, the delight of our' maturer years, England's one 
 perfect Pastoral — it is difficult, in summing up its revivals, and 
 telling the tale of its triumphs, not to be tempted, occasionally, 
 out of the dusty highway of list-making, into those sinuous 
 meadow-paths of gossip and garrulity, that seem so much 
 more germane to the matter. 
 
 There are few lovers of old books, besides — nay, few 
 readers of any kind, in whom the " Compleat Angler " does 
 
xiv Preface to the ' First Edition. 
 
 not, I choose to believe, excite some pleasant reminiscence, 
 or touch the chord of some tender association. 
 
 It is so with me, at least. My first knowledge of the book 
 connects itself with an early and happy epoch of my life, 
 and with the memory of a great and good friend, long since 
 gathered to his rest. I allude to Charles Lamb, at the feet 
 of which Gamaliel, in the days of his Enfield sojourning, it was 
 my frequent privilege to sit, a boyish but reverent disciple, 
 and to drink in, with insatiate ears, the inspired talk of such 
 a conclave of gossips as has never, perhaps, been collected 
 under one roof, since Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson, and 
 Beaumont, with other demi-gods of that heroic day, made the 
 rafters of the " Mermaid" ring with their divine wit and 
 merriment. 
 
 Alas ! that of that genial Enfield circle of choice spirits, 
 not one should be left ! Coleridge, Wilson, Wordsworth, 
 Hazlittj Barry Cornwall, Hunt, Hood — in the very enumeration 
 of their names, I feel as if something of myself had died out 
 with each — some warmth of life grown chill — some sunshine 
 of the soul faded for ever ! 
 
 "All, all are gone, the old familiar faces!" 
 
 But to revert to Walton. In the ragged regiment of 
 Lamb's book-tatterdemalions, (a regiment I was permitted to 
 manoeuvre at will, though not much taller at the time than 
 
Preface to the First Edition. xv 
 
 its tallest folio), was an early copy of the " Compleat Angler," ^ 
 I believe — (for those were not bibliomaniacal days) — Hawkins' 
 edition of 1 760. This was my chief treasure, my pearl of price ; 
 and, perched on the forked branch of an ancient apple-tree, in 
 the little overgrown orchard, and at an elevation from which 
 I could almost catch a glimpse of the marshy levels of the Lea 
 itself, it was my delight to sally forth with Piscator, on that 
 perennial ^ May morning, to dib with him for " logger-headed 
 chub," to listen to his discourse, to learn his songs by heart, to 
 store up his precepts, and to steep my boyish mind in the 
 picturesque darkness of his manifold superstitions.^ 
 
 ^ In a letter to Coleridge, dated 28th Oct., 1796, Lamb says: "Among all / 
 your quaint readings, did you ever light upon Walton's 'Complete Angler'? I / 
 asked you the question once before; it breathes the very spirit of innocence, / 
 purity, and simplicity of heart ; there are many choice old verses interspersed in / 
 it ; it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it ; it would Christianise > 
 every discordant angry passion : pray make yourself acquainted with it" 
 
 ^ Speaking of the perennialness of great writers' conceptions, and referring 
 more particularly to Chaucer, Mrs. Browning says finely: "He knew the secret 
 of nature and art — that truth is beauty, — and saying, ' I will make A Wife of Bath, 
 as well as Emilie, and you shall remember her as long,' we do remember her as 
 long. And he sent us a train of pilgrims, each with a distinct individuality 
 apart from the pilgrimage, all the way from Southwark and the Tabard Inn to 
 Canterbury and Becket's shrine : and their laughter comes never to an end, and 
 their talk goes on with the stars, and all the railroads which may intersect the 
 spoilt earth for ever, cannot hush the 'tramp, tramp,' of their horses' feet." — 
 TJie Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets, p. 1 1 2. 
 
 ' Lamb also possessed a copy of one of Bagster's reprints, much esteemed 
 by him, on account of its plates, some clever copies of which, by his adopted 
 daughter, Emma Isola (the " Isola Bella whom the poets love," of Barry Cornwall's 
 sonnet), ornamented the walls of his sitting-room. 
 
xwy^ Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 Though no angler himself, Lamb was a lover of angling- 
 books, and I well remember his relating to me, as he paced 
 to and fro, a quaint, scholastic figure, under the apple-tree 
 aforesaid, how he had lit upon his early copy, in some 
 ramshackled repository of marine stores, and how grievous 
 had been his disappointment in finding that its unlikely-looking 
 owner knew as much of its mercantile value as himself. 
 
 This is my association, dear Reader ; doubtless you can 
 pair it off with one, perhaps many, of your own. 
 
 And, having thus attempted to justify my discursiveness, by 
 force of sentiment, if on no better grounds, I will venture 
 to make a few closing observations on angling-books in 
 general. 
 
 The popular acceptation of what would seem to be a special 
 and professional class of literature, is, of course, accountable for 
 only by the character of the works composing it, and the sterling 
 merits of many of their writers. "^The sport, let its maligners 
 say what they will, is eminently conducive to contemplation. 
 While the huntsman gallops across country, heedless of every- 
 thing save his horse's pace, and his hounds' scent, the angler 
 follows the meanders of some woodland brook, opening his 
 soul to all the influences of Nature, and he is soon aware 
 (if he is not the worst of Cockneys) that under her high trees, 
 and by her singing streams, she is evermore busy "inditing 
 of many a lovely poem — her * Flower and Leaf,' on this side — 
 
Preface to the First Edition. xvii 
 
 her ' Cuckoo and the Nightingale,' on that — her * Pafadise of 
 Dainty Devices,' in and out among the valleys — her * Poly- 
 olbion,' away across the hills — her ' Britannia's Pastorals,* on 
 the home meadows — her sonnets of tuftdd primroses — her lyrical 
 outgushings of May blossoming — her epical and didactical 
 solemnities of light and shadow." 
 
 All these, while his creel is filling, or when he retreats at 
 noontide to the " dusky boskage of the wood," the angler 
 gathers in unconsciously, and stores up in his heart of hearts, and 
 out of these, and such as these, are his books made. Hence 
 their many-sidedness and power of adaptation to various tastes, 
 so that, while the taunting or hawking treatise is usually but a 
 mere omnittm gatherum of recipe and formula, the book of 
 fishing acknowledges no such ring-fence, and discoursing of 
 baits and tackle on one page, on the next it dishes you up a 
 savoury mess of philosophy or science, poetry or theology, as 
 the case may be. 
 
 For a high and pure code of sporting morals, for instance, 
 revert to that ancientest tome of all (in a piscatorial sense), the 
 " Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle," in the brown olcl 
 " Book of St. Albans." For poetry of great mark and likeli- 
 hood, unclasp that precious and rare voluine (one of the rarest, 
 says Beloe, in English literature), the "Secrets of Angling," 
 by J. D[ennys], Lord of the Manor of Owlbury-sur-montem. 
 Or, if you are a stickler for recent rhymes, croon to yourself as 
 
 \ c 
 
xviii^."^ Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 you wend streamward, while the lark winnows its way through 
 silvery mist, and 
 
 " From leaf, to leaf the soul o' the wind 
 Seems sliding with the dew — " 
 
 one or other of the " Newcastle Fishers' Garlands," ^ a series of 
 lyrics which contain some as racy and lilting stanzas as any in 
 our tongue. 
 
 ^ The collection of Garlands referred to have, as poems, a claim on our critical 
 recognition, apart from their mere angling significance. They are hearty, genial, 
 vigorous compositions, of a strictly local growth, and replete with local colouring 
 and imagery — veritable north-country lyrics, both in sentiment and accentuation. 
 
 Though monotonous in subject, they are very various in treatment, and many 
 are the chords struck in them between the extremes of the humorous and pathetic. 
 As metrical essays, also, they have great merit ; musical and harmonious in their 
 cadences, when softer themes are touched, in stronger moods, there is a rough 
 bluster in their rhythm, as of a Northumbrian wind that has battled with crags 
 and scars. Coquet is not more changeful than they. They ripple athwart the 
 shallows, purl and prattle amongst the pebbles, grow steady and masterful in the 
 deep pools, and rush, headlong, down the currents. " They are Coquet all over," 
 says Doubleday, one of their writers — adding, too modestly, that it is their chief 
 merit. The love of Coquet is, in fact, the motive spring of most of these poems, 
 certainly of all the best of them, and even a stranger, who has never set eyes on 
 that beautiful stream, is made to feel, through their stanzas, something of the 
 witchery it exercises on those who haunt its banks. 
 
 That the habit of these annual lyrics should have fallen into desuetude from 
 the year 1845 to the present time (when a new and improved edition, with con- 
 tinuations, is about to appear), must be matter of regret to every lover of the 
 gentle craft and of the joyous science. It died out with the litrie knot of cheerful, 
 enthusiastic, genial-minded men, its originators, men who sang the praises oi 
 Coquet as by simple vocation, and whose hearts pulsed to the pulsing of their 
 favourite stream, till death severed the union. Peace he to their memory ! and 
 
Preface to the First Edition. xix 
 
 For theology, on the other hand, have we not, inter aliuy 
 the work under review ; and for science, Davy and his 
 " Salmonia " ; and Yarrell, angler and naturalist in one ; and 
 our latest " angler-naturalist," Cholmondeley Pennell : to say 
 nothing of the ancients — Aldrovandus of Bologna, and Roman 
 Salviani, and Swiss Gesner, in whose ichthyological folios, a 
 frequent chapter, " capiendi ratio]' finds quaint insertion.^ 
 
 honour, and the love of all true anglers ! Coquet may be a brave stream, but they 
 have enhanced its bravery ; about all its turns and windings, along its sheep-dotted 
 haughs, amongst its rocks and boulders, wherever the trout dimples the eddies, 
 and the midge and the "red-heckle" fall like thistle-down on its pools, shall 
 linger, henceforth, the memory of their Garlands, lending a human charm and a 
 new glory, neither " of wood nor water born," to the miracle of its fairness. 
 
 ^ Very remarkable, we may mention, was the sudden effluence of natural 
 science, which characterised the middle of the sixteenth century, on the Continent. 
 Since the da)-s of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Pliny, there had been an utter 
 dearth and a darkness that might be felt in that department of knowledge ; when 
 simultaneously, and as if moved by a common impulsion, arose a bevy of men 
 who devoted their lives to clearing away the clouds of ignorance and superstition, 
 that lowered heavily over the field of their research, and to whom the honour is due, 
 if not of fitting the keystone into the arch, at least of laying the foundation, 
 and raising much of the superstructure of the system of natural history as we 
 possess it at this day. 
 
 The works of Belon, Rondeletius, Salviani, and Gesner were all given to the 
 world between the years 1553 and 1558. Aldrovandus followed soon after, but 
 it was not till a century later that England, which, through its insular situation, 
 probably, had not, until that time, participated in the movement, took it up in the 
 person of Francis Willughby. 
 
 Preeminent amongst the above philosophers was Conrad Gesner, who, in his 
 abode by the blue waters of the Zurich lake, composed that vast compendium of 
 natural lore, which remained a chief authority during more than two centuries, and 
 has not even now been wholly set aside. 
 
XX Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 And if this be not enough, travels by sea and land, ad- 
 ventures, perils, "hair-breadth 'scapes," — you may find them 
 all within the range of the angler's bookshelf, so that we cease 
 to wonder at the fact, that, in almost every large and miscel- 
 laneous library (even where the owners are not professed 
 Piscatorians), a nucleus of angling-books forms an important 
 and esteemed feature. 
 
 Much more might be said on this topic, and indeed the 
 history of angling literature, which has yet to be undertaken,^ would 
 be neither an unprofitable nor untempting task, beckoning the 
 student, as it does, away from the more beaten path of letters, 
 and pointing to sequestered nooks, of the freshness and quaintness 
 of which the uninitiated are little aware. Let us hope that, at 
 no distant epoch, some capable and persevering pioneer may 
 undertake that pilgrimage, and summon us to tell our beads at 
 shrines that have been ignored, or too long forsaken. 
 
 It only remains for me to hope that my little work may 
 prove a useful manual to the Waltonian collector, to whose 
 forbearance I appeal, as a shield for its shortcomings. 
 
 T. W. 
 
 * Sinc6 the above was written, \lfe hiatus has been, in a great degree, filled up 
 by Mr. Osmund Lambert's able and scholarly "Angling Literature," and more 
 recently by Rev. J. J. Manley's excellent " Literature of Sea and River Fishing," 
 one of the Official ** Handbooks " of the International Fisheries Exhibition, 
 
A skeleton Chronicle of dated, redated, and undated editions and 
 reprints, with dissimilar ijnprints, of Izaak Waltons 
 ** Compleat Angler^' enumerated in this work: 
 
 DATE. 
 
 PLACE. 
 
 PUBLISHERS. 
 
 EDITOKS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 1653 
 
 London 
 
 Mairiot 
 
 
 I 
 
 1655 
 
 »i 
 
 »» 
 
 Author 
 
 \\ 
 
 I66I 
 
 ti 
 
 »» 
 
 >> 
 
 13 
 
 1664 
 
 »» 
 
 Marriot; S. Gape 
 
 t« 
 
 >> 
 
 1668 
 
 '■•'»♦ ■ 
 
 Marriot; C. Harper 
 
 >> 
 
 ,, 
 
 1676 
 
 t9 
 
 Marriot 
 
 >> 
 
 »4 
 
 1750 
 
 f • 
 
 H. Kent 
 
 Moses Browne 
 
 20 
 
 1759 
 
 >* 
 
 ,, 
 
 >>_ 
 
 23 
 
 1760 
 
 ty 
 
 T. Hope and others 
 
 Hawkins 
 
 24 
 
 1766 
 
 
 J. Rivington and others 
 
 »> 
 
 28 
 
 1772 
 
 J, 
 
 K. & H. Causton 
 
 Moses Browne 
 
 »9 
 
 177$ 
 
 ,, 
 
 J. & F. Rivington 
 
 Hawkins 
 
 31 
 
 1784 
 
 >> 
 
 J., F., & C, Rivington 
 
 >> 
 
 32 
 
 •1791 . 
 
 >f 
 
 i> >> 
 
 » 
 
 37 
 
 1792 
 
 ff 
 
 Rivington and others 
 
 f» 
 
 >> 
 
 1797 
 
 >t 
 
 »» »» 
 
 »» 
 
 »» 
 
 1808 , 
 
 »f 
 
 S. Bagster 
 
 ." 
 
 39 
 
 — i8io ' 
 
 
 J, 
 
 
 '48 
 
 1815^ 
 
 99 
 
 » 
 
 Hawkins, EDis 
 
 44 
 
 1822 
 
 
 J. Smith 
 
 Hawkins 
 
 49 
 
 1823 
 
 >» 
 
 John Major 
 
 R. Thomson 
 
 SO 
 
 1824 (?) 
 
 .. (7) 
 
 Maunder (?) 
 
 ^•) 
 
 SI 
 
 1824 
 
 >l 
 
 John Major 
 
 Thoms-on, Major 
 
 
 1824 
 
 »» 
 
 Tegg 
 
 Hawkins 
 
 54 
 
 1825 
 
 f> 
 
 Dove, printer 
 
 » 
 
 
 1825 
 
 »♦ 
 
 Pickering 
 
 
 55 
 
 1826 
 
 ft 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 »« 
 
 1826 
 
 l> 
 
 Tegg 
 
 Hawkins 
 
 54 
 
 ^[1828 ?] 
 
 99 
 
 W, Cole 
 
 
 99 
 
 1833 
 
 Edinburgh, &c. 
 
 Chambers and others 
 
 Hawkins, Rennie 
 
 55 
 
 1834 
 
 London, &c. 
 
 A. Bell and otners 
 
 >t 
 
 56 
 
 •1834 
 
 London 
 
 A. Bell & Siropkfn 
 
 >> 
 
 99 
 
 •1834 
 
 Edinburgh, &c. 
 
 Fraser and others 
 
 >> 
 
 99 
 
 1835 
 
 London 
 
 John Major 
 
 Thomson, Major 
 
 57 
 
 1835 
 
 London, &c. 
 
 Tegg and others 
 
 Hawkins, Rennie 
 
 56 
 
 1836 
 
 London 
 
 Pickering 
 
 Nicolas 
 
 58 
 
 1836 
 
 >> 
 
 A. Bell 
 
 Hawkin-s Rennie 
 
 56 
 
 •1836 
 
 Edinburgh, &c. 
 
 Fraser and another 
 
 >• 
 
 >» 
 
 1837, 
 
 London, &c. 
 
 C. Tilt and others 
 
 
 62 
 
 1839 
 
 London 
 
 Lewis 
 
 Major 
 
 57 
 
 --J841 
 
 i» 
 
 Chidley 
 
 
 63 
 
 1842 
 
 It 
 
 Washboume 
 
 Major 
 
 57 
 
 •1844 
 
 » 
 
 Shenvood & Bawyer 
 Piper Bros, & Co. 
 
 
 63 
 
 *[i844?] 
 
 >> 
 
 
 >t- 
 
 t[i844?] 
 
 »» 
 
 Lockwood & Co. 
 
 
 >» 
 
 * Those marked with a star had escaped our notice in 1864. 
 
XXll 
 
 A Skeleton Chronicle. 
 
 DATE. 
 
 PLACE. 
 
 PUBLISHERS. 
 
 SUITORS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 
 *[i844?] 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 Lippincott 
 
 
 63 
 
 
 . 1844 
 
 London 
 
 Bogue ; Wix 
 
 Major 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 *i844 
 
 Manchester 
 
 S. Johnson 
 
 Hawkins, Rennie 
 
 56 
 
 - 
 
 -*i846 
 
 »» 
 
 99 
 
 99 
 
 99 
 
 
 !i847 
 
 Dublin 
 
 W. Curry 
 
 99 
 
 99 
 
 
 *i847 
 
 Manchester 
 
 T. Johnson 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 1847 
 
 New York 
 
 Wiley & Putnam 
 
 Bethune 
 
 66 
 
 
 1848 
 
 »» 
 
 ,, J, 
 
 ,, 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 ♦1848 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 T. Johnson 
 
 Hawkins, Rennie 
 
 56 
 
 
 »i849 
 
 London, &c. 
 
 J. Johnson, etc. 
 
 99 
 
 99 
 
 
 [1849 ?] 
 
 Manchester 
 
 T. Johnson 
 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 1851 
 
 London 
 
 H, Kent Cauiton 
 
 Moses Browne 
 
 67 
 
 
 ♦1851 
 
 Manchester 
 
 T, Johnson 
 
 Hawkins, Rennie 
 
 57 
 
 
 1852 
 
 New York 
 
 Wiley & Putnam 
 
 Bethune 
 
 66 
 
 
 1853 
 
 London 
 
 Ingram, Cooke & Co. 
 
 " Ephemera " 
 
 68 
 
 
 1854 
 
 99 
 
 N. Cooke 
 
 jj 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 1856 
 
 
 Bohn 
 
 E. Jesse 
 
 69 
 
 
 *18S7 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Johnson 
 
 Hawkins, Rennie 
 
 57 
 
 
 1857 
 
 Halifax 
 
 Milner & Sowerby 
 
 99 
 
 99 
 
 
 1858 
 
 London 
 
 Groombridge 
 
 
 70 
 
 
 1859 
 
 »» 
 
 Routledge 
 
 "Ephemera" 
 
 68 
 
 
 *i859 
 
 New York 
 
 Wiley & Putnam 
 
 Bethune 
 
 66 
 
 
 1859 
 
 Hamburg 
 
 Solomon 
 
 *' Ephemera " 
 
 70 
 
 
 i860 
 
 London 
 
 Nattali & Bond 
 
 Nicolas (1836) 
 
 72 
 
 
 1861 
 
 19 
 
 Bohn 
 
 Jesse 
 
 69 
 
 
 1863 
 
 99 
 
 Bell & Daldy, Low 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 1864 
 
 99 
 
 Bell & Daldy 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 1865 
 
 »9 
 
 Bell & Daldy, Low 
 
 
 )9 
 
 
 i866 
 
 Boston 
 
 Ticknor & Fields 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 1866 
 
 99 
 
 Little, Brown, & Co. 
 
 Major (1844) 
 
 
 
 1866 
 
 New York 
 
 Wiley & Sons 
 
 Bethune 
 
 66 
 
 
 1867 
 
 Boston 
 
 Little, Brown & Co. 
 
 Major (1844) 
 
 73 
 
 
 1869 
 
 London 
 
 A. Murray 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 1870 
 
 9» 
 
 Bell & Daldy 
 
 Jesse 
 
 69 
 
 
 1872 
 
 99 
 
 A. Murray 
 
 
 74 
 
 
 1875 
 
 
 G. Bell & Sons 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 i87S 
 
 99 
 
 Chatto & Windus 
 
 Nicolas (1836) 
 
 72 
 
 
 1876 
 
 99 
 
 G. Bell & Sons 
 
 Jesse 
 
 69 
 
 
 1876 
 
 99 
 
 E. Stock 
 
 
 74 
 
 
 1877 
 
 
 »> 
 
 
 
 
 [1878] 
 
 99 
 
 Routledge 
 
 " Ephemera " 
 
 7*5 
 
 
 [1878J 
 
 99 
 
 F. Warne 
 
 G. C. Davies 
 
 99 
 
 
 1878 
 
 99 
 
 Ward, Lock, & Co. 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 1879 
 
 99 
 
 G. Bell & Sons 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 1879 
 
 99 
 
 " FishinsT Gazette." 
 
 
 9» 
 
 
 1880 
 
 New York 
 
 Wiley and Sons 
 
 Bethune 
 
 76 
 
 
 [1880] 
 
 London 
 
 E. Stc^k 
 Routleclge 
 
 
 74 
 
 
 1881 
 
 London, &c. 
 
 "Ephemera" 
 
 82 
 
 
 [1881] 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 Lippincott 
 
 Major (i844> 
 
 9> 
 
 
 I1881] 
 
 L'lndon 
 
 Strahan & Co. 
 
 9. („) 
 
 99 
 
 
 {1882 
 
 99 
 
 William Griggs] 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 
 1883 
 
 •1 
 
 Nimmo & Bain 
 
 Major (1844) 
 
 99 
 
THE CHRONICLE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE "COMPLEAT ANGLER" 
 
 OF IZAAK WALTON AND CHARLES COTTON. 
 
 The apparition of the " Compleat Angler," in the year of 
 
 grace and revolution, 1653, formed an antithesis in itself, to 
 
 which the almost immediate sale of the entire edition gave 
 
 increased point and emphasis. Corydon piping. 
 
 First you might say, tenui avend, amons^st the horse- 
 Edition, I r y r ,1 1 
 1653.1 hoofs and athwart the lances .... the most 
 
 peaceful of Pastorals ushered into and accepted by 
 
 the world at the stormiest and most turbulent of times. 
 
 Quiet-hearted men there must still have been in England, 
 
 1 "The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a 
 Discourse of Fish and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. 
 
 " Simon Peter saiif, I go a fishijig ; and they said. We also wil go with thee. 
 John 21,3. 
 
 '■'London, Printed by T. Maxey for Rich. Harriot, in S. Dunstans Churchyard, 
 Fleet street. 1653." 
 
 Collation : a to R 3 in eights ; or pp. xvi. 246. The first sentence of the title is 
 
 B 
 
2l'\\ \'\y\\,Th^ ^(^hi'<)niicle of the " Compleat Angler !' 
 
 whose feet never ceased to brush the dew from meadow and 
 river-bank — who, while house was divided against house, and 
 hand raised against hand, still sought their pastime and 
 philosophy in their accustomed haunts, and seated under honey- 
 suckle hedges, in the heat of the day, scanned the pages of 
 the " Contemplative Man's Recreation," while the river rippled 
 and the throstle piped, or summed up their sport at nightfall. 
 
 engraved on scroll, with dolphins above and below, and clusters of fish pendant on 
 either side. 
 
 The first copies that left the press are distinguishable by several misprints which 
 do not exist in the later impressions of the edition. Some of these may be 
 mentioned : the recto of A 3, has '* dilgence " for " diligence " ; p. 68, " field " 
 instead of "fields"; p. 88, " Fordig " for " Fordidg " ; p. 152, "Padoch" for 
 "Padock"; and p. 245, "contention" instead of "contentment." "Topsel ot 
 frogs" appears in the margin of some copies on p. 151 ; and an alteration in the 
 position of one of the cuts of fish has also been made. This occurs at p. 71 
 (misprinted 81) where the trout was first placed in the middle of the page and 
 afterwards removed to ^he foot, for the greater convenience, we may suppose, of 
 printing from the copper plate. 
 
 That the type of the whole work was not kept standing (as we were at one time 
 inclined to believe), and what was, virtually, a second edition taken from it after the 
 correction of errors, seems to be disproved by the fact that the printer had but a 
 small fount at his disposal, for he is occasionally compelled to use the letter q 
 inverted, in place of b, and this occurs at short intervals throughout the book. The 
 earlier and uncorrected impressions appear to have been, for the most part, gathered 
 together by the binder, and such copies as contain the greatest number of misprints 
 were indubitably earlier than those in which the printers' errors have been corrected. 
 The book also contains many misprints that have escaped correction in all the 
 copies we have examined : the recto of a 8, has " observatiens " ; p. t j, " sighs " 
 for "sights"; p. 90, "snn" for "sun"; p. 154, "yonr" for "your"; p. 163, 
 *• the " for " they " ; p. 169, " ate " for " late " ; p. 225, " in " for " it " ; and there 
 are many others. It may also be noted that the pagination of sheet F is in all 
 copies irregular, running 69, 4b, <?/, y2, j/, 84, Sj, 76^ 77,88, Sg, 80. 
 
Tlie Chronicle of the " Compleat Afigler." 3 
 
 in wayside hostels, such as the father of their craft was wont 
 to eulogise, with a comely hostess to bid them welcome, 
 " lavender in the windows," and " twenty ballads stuck Against 
 the wall." ..... A pleasant side-picture enough, if contrasted 
 with the discord and desolation going on elsewhere — with the 
 hurtling (almost within earshot, perchance) of hostile squadron 
 with squadron — the " thunder of the captains and the shouting," 
 and the " garments rolled in blood." 
 
 It was in the beginning of the merry month of May, the angler's 
 special month, that this book,^ the various phases and metamor- 
 phoses of which we have undertaken to chronicle, first appeared. 
 
 * The first trace of its existence is found in an advertisement on the last page 
 (2716) of No. 179 of "The Perfect Diurnal . . . Fr»m Munday May 9 to Munday 
 May 16, 1652 " [1653]. There are five book-advertisements, and one of the loss 
 of two geldings, in this number. The second book-advertisement runs thus : "The 
 Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, being a Discourse of Fish 
 and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers, of 18 pence price. Written 
 by Iz. Wa. Also the known play of the Spanish Gipsee, never till now published. 
 Both printed for Richard Marriot, to be sold at his shop in Saint Dunstans Church- 
 yard, Fleet Street." Another advertisement, beginning, "There is newly extant, a 
 Book of i8d. price, called the Compleat Angler, etc.," is found at the foot of the 
 last page (1470) of No. 154 of the " Mercurius Politicus. . . . From Thursday, 
 May 19th to Thursday May 26, 1653." The " Epistle dedicatory," addressed " To 
 the right worshipful John Offiey of Madeley Manor in the county of Staflford, Esq.," 
 is signed " Iz. Wa.," and the author's name in full does not appear on the title-page 
 before the edition of 1676. The commendatory verses in the second edition are, 
 however, inscribed to " Mr. Izaak Walton." 
 
 Under the title of the " New River at Hornsey," we find an article in Hone's 
 "Everyday Book" (Oct. 10, 1826), which, from internal evidence, appears to have 
 been written by Charles Lamb's friend, George Dyer. At the close of it occurs the 
 following : — 
 
 " Allow me to refer to one of ' Captain Wharton's Almanacs,' as old Lily calls 
 
4 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler r 
 
 And we may picture to ourselves, if we will, the sober- 
 coated fraternity of the angle wending, one by one, through 
 the crowd of sour-faced Puritans, up the great thoroughfare 
 of Fleet Street, to purchase, at Master Richard Harriot's, the 
 new treatise on a sport that had found few chroniclers ^ hitherto, 
 
 them in his ' Life and Times,' and point out what was, perhaps, the earliest adver- 
 tisement of Walton's ' Compleat Angler.' It is on the back of the dedication leaf 
 to *Hemeroscopewn : Anni JEx^ Christianae, 1654.' The Almanac was published, 
 of course, in the preceding year, which was the year wherein Walton's work was 
 printed." 
 
 The advertisement, with one or two trifling variations, is the same as those 
 given above. 
 
 The writer goes on to say : " This advertisement I deem a bibliomaniacal 
 curiosity. The first edition of Walton, a ' booke of eighteen pence price ! ' We 
 can imagine the good old man, on the day of publication, walking from his house 
 ' on the north side of Fleet ^treet, two doors west of the end of Chancery Lane,' 
 to his publisher and neighbour just by, 'Richard Harriot, in St. Dunstan's 
 Churchyard,' for the purpose of inquiring ' how the book went ofif.' " 
 
 ^ Not so iew, however, as is stated by Hawkins, who in his first reprints, limits 
 the number of antecedent angling works to four, and eventually to five, viz. : "The 
 Treatyse of Fyshynge wythe an Angle," forming part of the Book of St. Albans, 
 1496. Leonard Mascall's "Booke of fishing with Hooke and Line," 1590. 
 Tavemer's " Certaine Experiments concerning Fish and Frvite," 1600. Dennys' 
 "Secrets of Angling," 1613, and Barker's "Art of AngUng," 1651. 
 
 To these may be added Gryndall's " Hawking, Hunting, Fouling, and Fishing, 
 with the true measures of Blowing," 1596; Dubravius' "Neue Booke of good 
 Husbandry," 1599, " La Maison Eustique," 1600 ; the " Briefe Treatise of Fishing, 
 with the Art of Angling," included in the "Jewell for Gentrie," 1614, and 
 Markham's "Young Sportman's Instructor," circa 1650. 
 
 But it must be borne in mind that of the above, the tracts, both of Mascall and 
 Gryndall, and the " Briefe Treatise of Fishing," are but re-issues, with variations, 
 of portions of the Book of St. Albans, and that Taverner and Dubravius limit their 
 instructions to the treatment of fish in ponds. 
 
 That there may have been other treatises on the sport, since lost to the wor^d, 
 seems probable from the fact that Walton, in his letter to Ven^bles, given in the 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler]' 
 
 but which was destined to date its royalty from that very 
 epoch and that very pubHcation. 
 
 A diminutive octavo/ clad in a modest overcoat of brown 
 calf — such were the form and fashion of the book as it 
 first appeared. Not a noticeable book, amongst others, by 
 any means, and yet superior to most of its class in point of 
 adornment, by virtue of those plates of fish, which the author 
 thought it just to indorse with his approval,^ and which are, 
 indeed, very daintily and delicately handled. 
 
 " Experienc'd Angler" (1662), speaks of having "read and practised by many 
 books of this kind before made public ; " while in the " Compleat Angler " (chap. xii. 
 p. 228, first edition) he quotes what he calls "an old Rhime, out of an old Fish 
 Book," on the origin of which no light has hitherto been thrown. 
 
 John Hockenhull, on the other hand, in his " Pleasant Hexameter Verses in 
 Praise of Mr. Barker's Book of Angling," asks, — 
 
 "Markham, JVard, Lawson, dare you with Barker now compare?" Who was 
 Ward ? remained a bibliographical nut un cracked till quite recently, when the Rev. 
 H. N. EUacombe opined in *' Notes and Queries " that he was probably the translator 
 of " The Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piemont, by him collected out of divers 
 excellent authors, and now newly corrected and augmented, 161 4-15." 
 
 Ward's edition of Alexis contains two recipes — the first, " To catch River Fish," 
 the second, " How to take great store of Fish." The editor of " Notes and 
 Queries" objected that, among Ward's publications, was no substantive work on 
 angling, but this, in the present case, is scarcely an objection at all, Lawson being 
 in precisely the same position, while even Markham was but a trader in other men's 
 wits, as far as his treatises on the sport are concerned. The three men are not 
 unfairly linked, and it must be remembered that at the period in question (Hocken- 
 hull's verses were probably written before the advent of Walton, and certainly of 
 Venables) a triad of original angling writers would have been hard to find. 
 
 ^ Sir John Hawkins calls it a "small duodecimo," and subsequent writers have 
 faithfully, but erroneously repeated his description. 
 
 ' " And let me adde this, that he that likes not the discourse should like the 
 pictures of the Trout and other fish, which I may commend, because they concern 
 not myself." "To the Reader of this Discourse." First Edition. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Com-pleat Angler. 
 
 There is no name attached to these engravings, but they 
 are ascribed, with a great show of probability, to the noted 
 French engraver, Pierre Lombart, at that time resident in this 
 country, and whose talent was mostly devoted to book-illus- 
 tration. Sir Harris Nicolas, though giving the preference to 
 Lombart, suggests, at the same time, as a possible candidate 
 for the honour, Faithorne or Vaughan, the latter of whom 
 was certainly employed by Harriot on other work.^ 
 
 The belief,- current formerly, that they were wrought on 
 plates of silver, seems negatived by the fact of their having 
 served for no less than four editions of " The Compleat Angler," 
 and the same number of Venables' work, an amount of durability 
 of which silver plates would hardly have been capable.^ 
 
 They were re-engraved, in reverse, by a less artistic hand, 
 for the fifth edition, a circumstance which has escaped notice. 
 
 The fish illustrated in this edition are the trout, pike, carp, 
 tench, perch, and barbel. 
 
 Copies of this edition, though rare at the present time, seem 
 to have been still more so, as far as available purposes went, 
 at the period of Hawkins' first re-issues ; for that editor not 
 only confesses that he had never met with the second edition,^ 
 
 1 For biographical and other particulars respecting these artists, see Bryan's 
 '* Dictionary of Painters and Engravers." Bohn, 1858. 
 
 Some mention of Lombart occurs, also, in Evelyn's *' Sculptura, or the 
 History and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper," 1662. 
 
 ^ Sir John Hawkins, in his fourth edition (1784) says, "There is great reason 
 to suppose-that the plates were of steel." — " Life of Mr. Izaak Walton," p. xiii. 
 
 * ** Life of Mr. Izaak Walton," p. xxviiL 1760. In the edition of 1784 the 
 avowal in question is suppressed, but there is no internal evidence that Hawkins 
 had been more successful in his search at that period. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 7 
 
 but leaves it to be inferred that the first and third had equally 
 escaped his research. Thus he asserts, erroneously, that " * the 
 Compleat Angler ' came into the world attended by laudatory 
 verses by several writers of that day!' and fixes the date of the 
 first edition at "about 1660." 
 
 The genus angling-book collector existed, in fact, at the 
 epoch in question, only in embryo, and not a few copies, we 
 may suppose, were lying perdu on high shelves and in out-of- 
 the-way corners, unappreciated, if not altogether forgotten. 
 
 Passing out of fashion, the book had also passed out of 
 sight ; but the divining-rod of bookseller and bibliophilist was 
 soon to do its work,^ and whatever copies still exist have been 
 
 * " It is a curious phenomenon in the old book trade," says Mr. Burton, in his 
 amusing volume, "The Book- Hunter," "that rarities do not always remain rare; 
 volumes seeming to multiply through some cryptogamic process, when we know 
 perfectly that no additional copies are printed and thrown offi The fact is that the 
 rumour of scarcity and value and of a hunt after them, draws them from their hiding- 
 places. If we may judge from the esteem in which they were once held, the Elzevirs 
 must have been great rarities in this country, but they are now plentiful enough — 
 the heavy prices in the British market having no doubt sucked them out of dingy 
 repositories in Germany and Holland, so that even in this department of commerce 
 the law of supply and demand is not entirely abrogated. He who dashes at all the 
 books called rare, or even very rare, by Clement and his brethren, will be ^gt to 
 suflfer the keen disappointment of finding that there are many who participate with 
 him in the possession of the same treasures. In fact, let a book but make its 
 appearance in that author's ' Biblioth^que Curieuse, Historique et Critique, ou 
 Catalogue Raisonne de Livres difficiles a trouver,' or in Graesse's * Tresor de Livres 
 Rares et Precieux,' — let it be mentioned as a rarity in Ebert's ' AUegemeines 
 Bibliographisches Lexicon,' or in Debure, Osmond, or the ' Repertorium Biblio- 
 graphicum,' — such proclamation is immediate notice to many fortunate- possessors 
 who were no more aware of the value of their dingy-looking volumes than Monsieur 
 Jourdain knew himself to be in the habitual daily practice of talking prose." — 
 R 211 
 
8 The Chronicle of the *' Compleat Angler^ 
 
 transferred, since then, to known hands, and promoted from 
 dust and oblivion to a distinguished place among the crown 
 jewels of their possessors. 
 
 Their value, has of course, risen accordingly. In Dr. 
 Bethune's time (1847), a fine and perfect copy of the first edition 
 was estimated by him at twelve guineas ; the same is now worth 
 from 70/. to 80/., and even more, — an enhancement of value in 
 which the other editions have not participated. This advance 
 will probably continue, for the number of collectors has increased 
 and is increasing, with whom the rule obtains, aut Ccssar, aut 
 nullus. A First Walton confers distinction on its owner. A 
 Second is but a Second, though it may be rarer. If a copy be 
 perfect, its condition somewhat affects its value, but an imperfect 
 copy seeks a market in vain, save at a low price. Auction prices 
 are but fallible guides, for copies rarely reach the auction room ; 
 
 That copies of the early editions of the " Compleat Angler " have been multiplied 
 within the last thirty years, by some such agency as that suggested in the above 
 extract, is all but certain. They have not ceased, however, to belong to the cate- 
 gory of rare books, a fact for which their size and the familiar uses to which the 
 work has been applied, account in a great degree. Employed as the angler's 
 pocket companion, many copies have, no doubt, succumbed to the process of 
 combined wear and tear, while others may have perished by mischance, dropped, 
 unconsciously, by Piscator in the high grass by the river side, or carelessly left 
 behind on the mossy bank where he had indulged in his afternoon's siesta. 
 
 The writer of the preface to Stock's recent facsimile of the edition of 1653, 
 adopts the same view and says : " This was a book ... to be pushed into corners 
 of fishing baskets, crammed into well-filled pockets, hugged over running stream, or 
 deep and Shady pool, thrown down anywhere in the excitement of a bite, and 
 exposed to all the perils by land and water known to beset the small properties 
 of that class of men who " hate contentions, and love gutetnesse, and vertue, and 
 angling." 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Attgler 
 
 and the prices, at which they may have been occasionally sold 
 there, afford no criterion of their true value. Nevertheless, as 
 showing- an approximative value in former times, we have 
 retained some of the statistics given in our former edition.^ / 
 Learned commentators have cudgelled their brains perseveringly 
 to discover out of what mine the author of this favourite work 
 dug his ore. One of them suggests a certain " Treatise on the 
 nature of God," attributed to Bishop Morton, and published 
 in 1599. Another points to Heresbach's " Foure Bookes of 
 Husbandry," translated from the Latin, in so delightful a:nd 
 picturesque a form, by Barnaby Googe, in 1572.^ And a third 
 
 ^ These statistics are as follows: — Haworth, 892, 10/. 15^. Milner, 151, 15/. 
 Higgs, 34, 11/. Pickering, first sale, 301, 11/. iis. Nassau, pt. ii,, 905, 3/. loj. 
 Bindley, pt. iv. 884, 61. Jadis, presentation copy, russia, 13/. 13^. Utterson, 
 111. 155-. Gardner, 2326, mounted with guards and some words mended, 
 10/. 175. 6d. A fac-simile copy in manuscript, beautifully transcribed in imitation 
 of the original, with the old plates inlaid, and with the Rev. Mr. Cotton's note on 
 the fly-leaf (" This copy of Izaak Walton's 'Compleat Angler' is true, accurate, and 
 faithful, ad verbum verbo, usque ad macfilam "), was sold, at the dispersion of that 
 gentleman's collection, for 4/. 4J. Beckford Library, Nov. 1883, 87/. 
 
 2 Another suggestion as to Walton's indebtedness might have been directed 
 to Heresbach's "De venatione, Avcvpio at que Piscatione" (appended to the Latin 
 version of the " Husbandry "), with which the " Compleat Angler " has a far more in- 
 timate analogy. The treatise in question is in the dialogue form, and the interlocutors 
 (five in number) have names significant of their several vocations. Accordingly 
 Philotherus eulogises the sport of hunting. Lagus descants on the pastime of 
 hunting the hare, the fox, the badger, and the stag. Elaphorrhous passes in review 
 the chase of the deer, the wild bear, the wolf, the boar, etc. Ornitheuta treats of 
 the sport of fowhng, and Halieus describes the different modes of fishing, and the 
 varieties of fish. The similarity of design is evident, but the resemblance goes no 
 further. A loose and garbled translation of this treatise may be found in Liger's 
 "Theatre d' Agriculture," 4to. 17 13, and a more complete and faithful translation 
 has been given, recently, in " The Angler's Note-book." 
 
 C 
 
The Chronicle of the " Conipleat Angler T 
 
 suggests Plutarch's dialogue on the problem, " Whether water 
 or land Animals are most crafty," as Englished by Dr. Philemon 
 Holland, in 1602. 
 
 "In our opinion the real mine was Izaak's fertile wits, and 
 the pure gold he gives us, his own gold and nobody 
 else's. 
 
 /I It had been the fashion, both in classical and mediaeval 
 times, to adopt the colloquial form in pastorals, and frequently 
 to make the composition turn on a discussion between the 
 various interlocutors as to the relative merits of the vocation 
 of each. This fashion and frame-work Walton adopted, but 
 wrought out his subject in a manner essentially original, and 
 which It is Impossible to identify, beyond a few mere superficial 
 features, with the productions of any of his forerunners or 
 contemporaries. He wrote his book in a charmingly homely 
 and unconventional style, with the same pen that wrote his 
 "Lives," — those "Lives" that for their tenderness, piety, and 
 pathos, have never been surpassed, and that have won from a 
 great poet of our own times a recognition that we may cite 
 here, in that it can scarcely be too frequently repeated : 
 
 "Walton's * Book of Lives ' : 
 There are no colours in the fairest sky 
 So fair as these. The feather, whence the pen 
 Was shaped, that traced the lives of these good men, 
 Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened eye. 
 We read of faith and purest charity. 
 In Statesman, Priest, and humble citizen : 
 O could we copy their mild virtues, then 
 What joy to live ; what blessedness to die I 
 Methinks their very names shine still and bright ; 
 Apart — like glow-worms on a summer i^ght ; 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler." 1 1 
 
 Or lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray ; or seen — like stars on high. 
 Satellites burning, in a lucid ring, 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory." 
 
 To give an analysis of the "Compleat Angler," on the 
 present occasion, would be a superfluous labour ; and an 
 appreciation, even, of its merits, seems equally uncalled for, 
 for we are safe in asserting that there are few libraries in the 
 land, worthy of the name, in which, in one shape or other, it 
 does not hold a foremost and an honoured place. 
 
 The success of Walton's first essay in angling literature 
 
 seems to have stimulated him to increased effort in preparing 
 
 the second for the press. The work was, in fact, 
 
 Second all but re-writtcn ; more than one-third was added to 
 
 Edition, ...-.,, 
 
 1655.x Its origmal bulk, and many improvements were m- 
 troduced into it. The interlocutors are three, in this 
 edition : Piscator, Venator, (who takes the place of Viator — 
 we are sorry to lose Viator), and Auceps. The chapters are 
 twenty-one in number, the type, however, being larger than 
 in the previous edition. Some very slight variations occur in 
 the Dedication, but several passages were added to the " Address to 
 the Reader," wherein Walton says," that in this second impression 
 
 ^ *' The compleat angler or the contemplative man's recreation. Being a dis- 
 course of rivers, and fish-ponds, and fish, and fishing. Not imworthy the perusal 
 of most anglers." The second edition much enlarged. John 21. 3. Simon# Peter 
 saith unto them, I go a fishing, they said unto him, we also go with thee. London, 
 printed by T. M. for Rich, Harriot, and are to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstans 
 Church-yard Fleet-street. 1655. 12°. 
 
12 The Chronicle of the '' Compleat Angler ^ 
 
 there are many enlargements, gathered both by my own obser- 
 vation and the communication of my friends." 
 
 To the plates of fish are added the bream, the eel, the loach, 
 and the bullhead ; and the commendatory verses appear, in 
 this edition, for the first time.^ 
 
 Mr. Bindley, the eminent book-collector, was of opinion that 
 perfect copies of the second edition are rarer even than the 
 first, and he was perhaps right. The book, nevertheless, as we 
 have observed, does not command the same high prices.^ 
 
 The third edition was issued in 1661, but before many copies 
 
 ^ Collation ; A to Q in 12s. ; or, pp. xxiv, 355, i (blank), iii (Contents), i (blank) : 
 The engraved scroll is again used on title. The commendatory verses are by seven 
 writers. The first "To my dear brother-in-law Mr. Izaak Walton" is signed "Jo. 
 Floud, Mr. of Arts ; " the next •' C. H., Mr. of Arts," that is " Ch. Harvie" as given 
 in 1676 ; then follow "Tho. Weaver, Mr. of Arts," " Edw. Powel, Master of Arts,'' 
 "Alex. Brome," "Rob. Floud C," and " Henry Bayley, Artium Magister." 
 
 2 Haworth, 895, 3/. x^s. Milner, 152, 6/. 15^. Higgs, 36 and 37, 3/. 15X, and 
 3/. 9^. Cotton, 160 and 161, 3/. 6s. and 4/. ds. Valentine, 229, 5/. 5^. Pickering, 
 first sale, morocco, 303, 7/. 10^. (Seven copies were disposed of at Pickering's second 
 sale, but of these five were imperfect.) Nassau, pt. ii., 906, 2/. %s. Bindley, pt. iii., 
 ^933? 2/. \os. Towneley, pt. i., 804, 2/. 15J. Jadis, morocco, 6/. loj. Heber, 
 pt. viii., title inlaid, 3/. Utterson, morocco, 6/. \2s. dd. Gardner, 2327, 2/. 17^. 
 
 ' " The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a 
 Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing." To which is added The Laws, 
 of Angling : with a new Table of the Particulars in this Book. The third Edition 
 much enlarged. 
 
 " London, Printed by J. G. for Rich. Marriott at his shop in St. Dunstans 
 Church-yard, Fleet: street, 1661." 
 
 Sigs. A to s in eights, or pp. xvi., 255, i (blank), vii (the laws of angling). 
 
 Haworth, 897, i/. Milner, 153, 4/. 7^. Higgs, 38 and 39, 3/. i$s. and 2/. 12^. 
 Valentine, 230 and 231, 2/. 6s. and 2/. 9X. Walsh, 89, 3/, i6s. Pickering, first 
 sale, 304 and 305, 4/. and 3/. 5J. Taylieure, 233, 2/. 6s. Haslewood, 1498 
 and 1499, 3/. \6s. and 2/. 3^. 6d. Jadis, 4/. 3^. Skegg, 3/. 6s. Utterson, 
 3/. \y. 6d. Gardner, 2/. i8j. Bliss, 3/. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Contpleat Angler.'' 13 
 
 had been sold and for some reason (not now discoverable, 
 
 though possibly pecuniary), the sale of the book was 
 
 Edition transferred from Richard Marriot to Simon Gape, 
 
 1661 and by whom the remainder of the impression was 
 
 sent forth with a fresh title-page dated 1664. The 
 
 *' Epistle Dedicatory " and the address " To the Reader " were 
 
 at the same time reprinted with some orthographical, but no 
 
 other, alterations. 
 
 Although the work is stated in the title-page to be " much 
 enlarged," this must apply rather to a comparison with the 
 first edition, as the changes in the body of the work are but 
 few and unimportant, with reference to the second. In the 
 Dedication a few phrases are altered, the Address to the Reader 
 is rehandled, a new Table of Contents is given, Alex. Brome's 
 Commendatory Verses are omitted (why we know not), and 
 the chapter on the Laws of Angling (as indicated in the title) 
 appears for the first time. 
 
 In the fourth edition, published in 1668, we have 
 Fourth a mere paginary reprint of its immediate forerunner, 
 i668.»' with the exception of the "errata," which are here 
 corrected in the work. 
 
 1 "The Corapleat Angler or the contemplative man's recreation. . . . The 
 third edition much enlarged. London, printed for R. Marriot, and are to be sold 
 by Simon Gape, neer the Inner Temple Gate in Fleet-street, 1664." 
 
 2 The former part of the title the same as the preceding. 
 
 " The fourth Edition, much corrected and enlarged. London, Printed for R. 
 Marriot, and are to be sold by Charles Harper, at his Shop, the next door to the 
 Crown near Sergeants-Inn in Chancery- Lane, 1668." Collation : A to S in eights ; 
 or pp. xvi. 255, i (blank), vii (The laws of angling), i (blank), viii (Contents and 
 Table). 
 
14 Tfie Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler ^ 
 
 It was followed, in 1676, by the fifth, which sometimes 
 
 bears the title of *' The Universal Angler," when 
 
 Fifth consisting of Walton, Cotton, and Venables in con- 
 
 1676.1 junction. Twenty pages were added to the work 
 
 in this edition, and further improvements introduced. 
 
 Haworth, 899, i/.ig^. Milner, 154, 2/. 15^. Higgs, 41,. 3/. is. Cotton, 163, 
 3/. 17X. Valentine, 232, 3/. 35. Pickering, first sale, 306, 4/. Bindley, pt. iii., 
 i934> 15-y- Taylieure, 234, \l. t^s. Haslewood, 1500 and 1501, 3/. xs. and 
 j/. 12S. White Knights, 4361, i/. 2s. Jadis, 4/. 
 
 ' We give the titles and collation of the collective work. 
 
 The scroll of the engraved title has on this occasion, been " worked over," 
 much to its detriment, and " The first part," engraved underneath it. " Part I. Being 
 a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing. Written by Izaak Walton. 
 The Fifth Edition^ much corrected and enlarged. London, Printed for Richard 
 Marriott, 1676." 
 
 After which comes the collective title : " The Universal Angler, Made so, by 
 Three Books of Fishing. The First Written by Mr. Izaak Walton ; The Second 
 By Charies Cotton, Esq ; The Third By Col. Robert Venables. All which may 
 be bound together, or sold each of them severally. London, Printed for Richard 
 Marriott, and sold by most Booksellers, mdclxxvi." On the next page is a half- 
 title : " Part I. Being a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing. Written 
 by Izaak Walton. The Fifth Edition, much corrected and enlarged. London, 
 Printed for R. 'Harriot, and are to be sold by Charles Harper at his Shop, the next 
 door to the Crown near Sergeants-Inn in Chancery- Lane, 1676." 24 preliminary 
 pages, of which i blank; body of the work 275 pages. Laws of Angling and 
 Table, 5 leaves. Sigs. a to v 3, in eights. 
 
 Title to Second Part : '* The Compleat Angler. Being Instructions how to 
 Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear stream. Part II. (Underneath engraved, 
 the interlaced cypher of Walton and Cotton.) 
 
 *' Qui mihi non credit faciat licet ipse periclum : 
 Et fuerit scriptis aequior ille meis. 
 
 London, Printed for Richard Marriott, and Henry Brome, in St. Pauls Church-yard, 
 M.DCLXXV1." 4 preliminary pages ; body of the work 112 pages. A3 to h 8, in 
 eights. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler ^ 15 
 
 The union of Walton and Cotton has been perpetuated in 
 all subsequent reprints, but Venables' treatise, which, though 
 meritorious, belongs to another order of composition, has since 
 been excluded. 
 
 The illustrations in the latter were, as before observed, 
 duplicates of those given with the "Compleat Angler." 
 
 Here the series of editions published during the lifetime 
 of the author comes to a close. Seven years later, and the 
 old man laid down his pen, as he had already laid aside his rod, 
 for ever ; and, full of years, and of such honours as befitted his 
 meekness and his piety, was gathered to his rest.^ And long 
 and dreary was the interregnum that followed, and barren as 
 "from Dan to Beersheba," — something of the grave's silence 
 
 To Venables' Treatise is also prefixed an engraved title : " The Experienc'd 
 Angler, or. Angling Improved." In a scroll surrounded with tackle, a pike, &c. 
 Underneath, "Sold by Rich. Marriott." 
 
 Printed tide to Third Part : " The Experienc'd Angler : or, Angling Improv'd. 
 Being a General Discourse of Angling. Imparting the Aptest ways and Choicest 
 Experiments for the taking of most sorts of Fish in Pond or River. By Col. 
 Robert Venables. The Fourth Edition^ much mlarged. London, Printed for 
 Richard Harriot, 1676. 12 preliminary pages; body of the work 96 pages, not 
 including Index, 6 pages. Sigs. from a 3 to h 3, in eights. 
 
 Haworth, 906, 2/. 65. Milner, 156, 2/. 16^. Higgs, 43>3^- S-^- Valentine, 233, 
 2/. 8x. Pickering, first sale, 307, 4/. 8^. Lynch Cotton, 122, 2/. Prince, 3/. dr., 
 and with Walton's autograph, 35/. White Knights, i/. ds. Bindley, 2176, with 
 Walton's autograph, 2/. 14^. Towneley, 4/. 8x. Hanrott, i/. is. Utterson, 
 2/. \os. The first, second, third, and fifth editions, sold at the dispersion of 
 Cotton's collection, 156, for 53/., and the first five at Prince's sale, 129, for 
 50/. \os. The same at Harwood's sale, in 6 vols, (the sixth being Walton 
 and Cotton, 1676, without Venables), for 42/. afterwards resold — Fergusson, 44/. 
 
 ^ Alas ! that no friendly and reverential veto interposed to cancel the doggerel 
 graven on his tomb ! 
 
1 6 The Chronicle of the '' Compleat Angler!' 
 
 and oblivion seeming to have fallen both on Walton's memory 
 and on his work. 
 
 He had set up a high standard in angling literature, but it 
 found neither rivals nor imitators. During the seventy-four 
 years that elapsed between the date of the fifth edition and 
 that of the first revival, only five names of any note are met 
 with in this field, Chetham, Franck, Howlett, Bowlker, and 
 Brookes. Of these, four were mere makers of manuals, more 
 or less praiseworthy, and the fifth (Franck) stands out in 
 ludicrous relief, self-pilloried by his own ponderous pomposity 
 of style and arrogance of judgment' 
 
 ^ " Richard Franck, Philanthropus," he styles himself. He was author of 
 •'Northern Memoirs, calculated for the Meridian of Scotland" (1694), in which he 
 estimates Walton thus: — 
 
 " Arnoldus. Isaac Walton stuffs his book with morals from Dubravius and others, 
 not giving us one precedent of his own practical experiments, except otherwise, 
 when he prefers the trencher before the trolling-rod ; who lays the stress of his 
 arguments on other men's observations, wherewith he stuffs his undigested octavo ; 
 so brings himself under the Angler's censure, and the common calamity of the 
 plagiary, to be pitied (poor man !) for his loss of time in scribbling and transcribing 
 other men's notions. These are the drones that rob the hive, yei flatter the bees 
 they bring them honey. 
 
 "Theophilus. I remember the book, but you inculcate his errata; however, 
 it may pass muster among common muddlers. 
 
 "Arnoldus. No truly, I think not" 
 
 Curt and conclusive, of a surety ! So by no stress of courtesy, may this 
 despised and muddling abortion of poor Isaac's be permitted to pass muster ! And 
 thereupon, one falls to thinking of the very many editions through which the con- 
 demned work has, after all, contrived to pass. How it has been illustrated by great 
 artists, annotated by learfjed professors, been loved by readers of all classes, in all 
 times, and treasured up as one of the most precious literary heirlooms of the age 
 that produced it, while the pretentious " Northern Memoirs " can now hardly be had 
 
The Chronicle of the *' Compleat Angler.'' 17 
 
 Was it through the decline of faith, and the waning of the 
 old superstition that, during this intermediate period, the angler 
 and his lore were alike dethroned from their high places ? 
 Piscator, in the good old times, trod (in a figure) the dais, 
 and wore cloth of gold, as a follower of the " Pleasures of 
 Princes." He stood apart from the profanum vulgus, by virtue 
 alike of his grave and dignified demeanour, and of the cloud 
 of spirituality and recondite erudition with which he surrounded 
 his art. He was sui generis. Piscator nascitttr, non fit, was his 
 cool assumption, even Parnassus' hill not seeming too lofty to 
 serve him for a parallel. 
 
 In his decadence, on the contrary, all was changed. Cloth of 
 frieze became the fashion of his raiment, and hjs position the 
 common, everyday level (or perhaps a degree lower), with the 
 implied obligation of giving tKe wall to any hunting or hawking 
 passer-by. And having descended from his pedestal, the 01 ttoX- 
 \ot, as usual, began to pelt him, with their jeers, and even a few, 
 indeed, who were not of the ot iroWoi, and should have known 
 better, stuck their burrs on him ; and his literature, as we have 
 just said, was dethroned with him, and lost, altogether, its ancient 
 tone and standard. 
 
 for love or money, and are ticketed *' very scarce " in the catalogues of antiquarian 
 booksellers. Curt and conclusive too, if thou couldst but have foreseen it. Master 
 Richard Franck, Philanthropus ! 
 
 That there are some good points, however, about " Northern Memoirs " cannot 
 be denied. Its author was no cockney angler. He had gone further afield than 
 pastoral Thames, or suburban Lea ; he had thrown his fly on the waters of the 
 great lakes, and had done battle with salmo ferox in his fastnesses. But his book on 
 the whole, is as heavy and indigestible a lump of turgid rhetoric as ever encumbered 
 the angler's bookshelf, or perhaps any bookshelf whatsoever, if the truth be told. 
 
 D 
 
1 8 The Chronicle of the ^' Compieat Angler.'' 
 
 An angling writer (to establish a comparison) of this latter 
 period, was apt to enter on the subject with a penny- whistle pre- 
 lude of apology and deprecation. Smarting, it may be, from the 
 sting of the Johnsonian definition of his sport, he wasted much 
 mean and servile pleading to prove the injustice of the insinuation. 
 He crept through his treatise on all fours, as it were, and backed 
 out of it at the close, ungraciously and disgracefully — shrinking, 
 often enough, from affixing his sign-manual to his work, through 
 a latent dread (not altogether unfounded) of being identified 
 with the lexicographer's memorable " fool." 
 
 The antique scribe's exordium, on the contrary, was in some 
 such organ-note as this : 
 
 ** Since Pleasure is a rapture, or power in this last age, stolne 
 into the hearts of men, and there lodged up with such a carefull 
 guard and attendance, that nothings is more supreame, or ruleth 
 with greater strength in their affections, and since all are now 
 become the sonnes of Pleasure and every good is measured by the 
 delight it produceth : what worke unto man can be more thanke- 
 full than the discourse of that pleasure which is most comely, 
 most honest, and giveth th-e most liberty to Divine meditation, and 
 that, without all question, is the Art of Angling, which, having 
 ever beene most hurtlessly necessary, hath been the sport or 
 recreation of God's Saints, of most holy Fathers, and of many 
 worthy and reverend Devines, both dead and at this time breath- 
 ing. For the use thereof (in its own true and unabused nature) 
 carryeth in it neyther covetousness, deceipt, nor anger, the three 
 maine spirits which ever (in some ill measure) rule in all other 
 pastimes ; neyther are they alone predominant, without the 
 attendance of their severall handmaid^, as Theft, Blasphemy, 
 
TJie Ckrofiicle of the '' Co7)iplcat Angler.'' 19 
 
 or Bloudshed ; for in Dice-play, Cards, Bowles, or any sport 
 where money is the goale to which mens minds are directed, 
 what can man's avarice there be accounted other than a familiar 
 robbery, each seeking by deceipt to couzen and spoyle other of 
 that blisse of means which God had bestowed to support them 
 and their families ? . . . But in this Art of Angling there is no 
 such evill, no such sinneful violence, for the greatest thing it 
 coveteth is, for much labour, a little Fish, hardly so much as 
 will suffice nature in a reasonable stomacke : for the Angler must 
 intice, not command his reward . . . shewing unto all men that 
 will undergoe any delight therein that it was first invented, 
 taught, and shall for ever bee maintained by Patie7ice only. 
 And yet I may not say only Patience, for her other three Sisters 
 have likewise a commanding power in this exercise, for Justice 
 directeth and appointeth out those places where men may, with 
 liberty, use their sport and neyther doe iniury to their neighbours, 
 nor incur the censure of incivility. Tempera^ue layeth downe 
 the measure of the action and moderateth desire in such good 
 proportion that no excesse is found in the overflow of their 
 affections. Lastly Fortitude inableth the minde to undergoe the 
 travell and exchange of weathers with a healthfull ease, and 
 not to dispaire with a little expense of time, but to persevere 
 with a constant imagination in the end to obtaine both pleasure 
 and satisfaction . . . And thus you see this Art is good, as having 
 no coherence of evill ; worthy of use, inasmuch as it is mixed 
 with a delightful! profit : and most auncient as being the 
 recreation of the first Patriarks." ^ 
 
 ^ "The Pleasvres of Princes, or Goodmens Recreations." Small 4to., 1614. 
 Chap. I. 
 
20 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 
 
 Measure, if you can, the interval which separates the pitiful 
 puerility, characteristic of our angling lore in its intermediate 
 period, and the above solemn laudation, wherein the praise of 
 the art may be said to culminate, associated, as it is, with all 
 things that are " lovely and of good report," named in a breath 
 with the great, the wise, and the reverend, and, for an audacious 
 and half profane apotheosis, caught up, as it were, in a glory, 
 with the Saints of God ! To measure the interval between these 
 two, is, alas ! to fathom also the depth of the fall. 
 
 But literary tastes, antecedently to this period, had undergone 
 signal changes in a general sense, and not in the angling depart- 
 ment solely. Artifice had too often been allowed to take the 
 place of art, and "gilding refined gold" and ''painting the lily," 
 had ceased to be the heresies they were once esteemed. To 
 be simple and natural was a rule disused, in fact, whether in 
 literature, or in life ; nature had exchanged roses for rouge, 
 and simplicity had acquired a penchant for powder and patches. 
 
 And at the acme of all this came Moses Browne (formerly 
 pen-cutter, afterwards ordained priest, and the right man at 
 the right time, in his own estimation . . .), bent on 
 Browne's endowing the world with a new edition of the " Corn- 
 First Edition, pleat Angler" enhanced with some finishing touches of 
 
 1750.' 
 
 his own. And by dint of oil and emery, elbow-grease. 
 
 ' " The Compleat Angler : Or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. In Two 
 Parts. Containing, I. A large and particular Account of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, 
 and Fishing : Written by the ingenious and celebrated Mr. Isaac Walton. II. The 
 best and fullest instructions how to angle for a Trout and Grayling in a clear 
 Stream. By Charles Cotton, Esq. ; and . published by Mr. Walton. Comprising all 
 that has been accounted Valuable, Instructive, or Curious, that has ever appeared 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler r 21- 
 
 and self-sufficiency, a new edition was produced in such an advanced 
 state of French polish, as was considered creditable alike to 
 the parts and patience of the manipulator. Old Izaak's " inaccu- 
 racies " and "redundancies" were pruned away with an unsparing 
 hand, and his " absurdities " suppressed altogether. His "rough 
 places," not to speak it profanely, were " made smooth," and his 
 " high places " brought, perhaps, a little low, by the same process. 
 We acknowledge our obligations to Moses Browne for his 
 revival of a book that had too long fallen into desuetude, but 
 we mutter, anathema nmranatha ! in a mild sense, nevertheless, 
 over such priggish impertinence. 
 
 on this Subject. Interspersed with a Variety of practical Experiments ; learned 
 Observations; beautiful Descriptions; philosophical, moral, and religious Reflec- 
 tions ; Pieces of innocent Mirth and Humour ; poetical. Compositions, &c., so as 
 to render it entertaining to Readers of every Taste and Character whatsoever : 
 with Exact Representations of all the Fish, and the Addition of several Copper Plates, 
 designed as an Embellishment to the work. Carefully and correctly published, 
 from the best editions, with a number of occasional Notes. By Moses Browne, 
 Author of Piscatory Eclogues. To which are added, The Laws of Angling ; and 
 an Appendix, shewing at one View, the most proper Rivers, particular Haunts, 
 Baits ; their Seasons, and Hours in the Day of Biting ; General Directions in Practice, 
 for every kind of Fish that is to be angled for ; alphabetically disposed, in a Method 
 peculiarly useful, and never yet attempted. With short Rules concerning the Tackle, 
 Baits, the several ways of Fishing, and Weather proper for Angling. 
 
 " London : Printed and Sold by Henry Kent, at the Printing office in Finch Lane, 
 near the Royal Exchange, mdccl." lamo. 
 
 Collation: 16 pages preliminary ; 3 1 2 pages, viii. (Index). Frontispiece by H. 
 Burgh and five separate illustrations besides cuts of fish in text. 
 
 Haworth, 908, 115. Haslewood, additional illustrations, 2/. 2s. Valentine, 
 235, 2S. 6d. Cotton, 165, i/. Taylieure, 235, 3^. 6d. Edwards, 6s. 6d. Milner, 
 i57> V- Stace, 83, 2s. 6d. Bindley, (>s. with Bowlker. Higgs, 19, xl. y. 
 Pickering, 308, 4J-. and 6s. White Knights, 9J. 
 
22 The Chronicle of the " Coinpleat Angler ^ 
 
 Moses Browne's first edition appeared, as has been shown, 
 in 1750. Its general appearance indicated but little typographi- 
 cal progress during the hundred years that separated it from 
 its first prototype. The woodcuts of fish are especially coarse 
 and inferior to the corresponding plates in the edition of 1653, 
 and the praise to be awarded to the more ambitious scenic 
 illustrations, must be restricted to the choice of subject. 
 
 The frontispiece shows, in the foreground, a languid-looking 
 fine' gentleman, in a cocked-hat and bob-wig, with a fish between 
 his fingers, and a couple of rods, or rather pokers, lying at his 
 feet, is seen seated, sub teg7nine fagi, by the side of a stream, in 
 a pensive posture, while, in the middle distance, sits just such 
 another fine gentleman, with just such another bob-wig and 
 poker, his back turned to the spectator, and his legs, apparently, 
 dangling in the water. These two love-lorn Adonises represent, 
 we presume, the ideal angler of the day, as he appeared in his 
 court costume, in the suburban purlieus of Putney or Islington, 
 more engrossed with his ruffles than his sport, and in the habit 
 of inditing a sonnet to his " Mistress' eyebrow," when the bleak 
 left off biting. 
 
 Browne's edition was preluded by an " Editor's Preface," in 
 which he certainly evinces much enthusiasm for his author. 
 But how little he was acquainted with the incidents of Walton's 
 life, and how very gradually, in this respect, he flounders out 
 of error into truth, may be judged by the fact that, while 
 adverting to Cotton's contribution of the second part, he states 
 that he (Cotton) married Walton's daughter ; an error 
 which he repeats, nine years after, in his second edition, and 
 only corrects in the third (1772), when he opens his eyes at 
 
The Chronicle of the '* Coinpleat Angler ^ 
 
 last (thanks to Oldys's Memoir) to the adoptive character of 
 the relationship. 
 
 The " Appendix " and " Short Rules," supplied by Browne, 
 were useful additions to the original work. 
 
 Browne's second reprint appeared in 1759, all but coming 
 
 into direct collision with Hawkins' first edition, published in the 
 
 following year, and giving rise, as it was, to certain 
 
 Brownie's heart-bumings and jealousies on both sides. He 
 
 Second Edi- aunouuces it, in the title-page, as " very much 
 
 amended and improved." 
 
 ' " The compleat angler : or, contemplative man's recreation. In two parts. 
 By the ingenious and celebrated Mr. Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton, Esq. ; I. 
 Being a discourse of rivers, fish-ponds, fish, and fishing. II. Instructions how 
 to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear stream. Correctly and very accurately 
 published. (With draughts of all the fish : ornamented with a number of copper 
 plates, and a great variety of useful and copious notes.) By Moses Browne, author 
 of Piscatory eclogues, etc. The Second Edition, very much amended and improved. 
 With the laws that concern angling. And an appendix, which shows at one view, 
 the proper rivers, haunts, baits, seasons, and hours of biting : general directions, 
 etc.^ for every fish that is to be angled for ; alphabetically digested, in a method 
 singularly useful, and never yet attempted. With short rules relating to the tackle, 
 baits, the several ways of angling, and weather improper and proper for the sport. 
 The whole comprising all that is valuable, instructing, or curious, that has appeared 
 on the subject. Peter saith unto them, .... John xxi. 3. London : printed and 
 sold by Henry Kent, etc. 1759." 12**. 
 
 Collation : frontispiece, pp. xxiv, 216; front, part 2; pp. 217-340, viii. (Index), 
 and 8 plates. 
 
 Higgs, 44, i/. \s. Cotton, 166, \os., and with an autograph of Moses Browne, 
 i/. 4^. Taylieure, 237, 5^. Donovan, 902, 3^. Milner, 158, 7^. dd. Stace, 84, 
 3^. dd. Lowndes, 714, 4^. Walsh, 74, 2s. dd. Haslewood, 10^. dd. Pickering, 
 first sale, 6^. White Knights, i/. 3^. Bindley, i/. 175. Skettell, 2/. Stanley, 
 3/. 5^. Towneley, 3/. 15^. Strawberry Hill, 3/. Utterson, i/. ^s. Crawford, 
 i/. 19^. 
 
24 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!'' 
 
 One of the improvements (not an infelicitous idea) was the 
 inclosing " within particular marks, the parts which treat merely 
 of Directions for the Sport, that they may be passed over, and 
 nothing but the entertaining parts of the Book present them- 
 selves for those to whom those other might appear dull and 
 unpleasant ; at the same time that it will answer the double 
 purpose that such who want more immediately to peruse the 
 aforesaid Directions, &c., may find them more readily by these 
 marks and follow them (as in a chain) through the several 
 pages." 
 
 The above is extracted from the " Editor's Preface," which 
 for this edition had been re- written, giving a few more details of 
 Walton's career, but perpetuating, as we have already shown, the 
 old error touching his relationship with Cotton. 
 
 Some new engravings (four in number) are also added to 
 this reprint, from the same hand, that of H, Burgh. 
 
 Browne's spurious revival was now to be succeeded and super- 
 seded by another and more permanent one, that of Mr. John 
 Hawkins, in 1760, and the announcement of which 
 Hawkins' Jn the prints of the day gave rise, as we have iust 
 
 First Edition, "^ .... , . ^ 
 
 i76o.> said, to sundry skirmishes and passages ot arms 
 between the rival editors. 
 
 ^ "The Complete Angler: Or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts. The First 
 written by Mr. Izaak Walton, The Second by Charles Cotton, E)sq. ; To which are 
 now prefixed, The Lives of the Authors. Illustrated with Cuts of the several Kinds 
 of River-Fish, and of the Implements used in Angling, Views of the principal Scenes 
 described in the Book, and Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. 
 
 " London : Printed only for Thomas Hope, at the Bible and Anchor, opposite 
 
The Chronicle of the " Conipleat Angler '' 
 
 We hardly know whether the triumph of the "Compleat 
 Angler," on its first advent, in the thick of the great Roundhead 
 and Cavalier struggle, was an incident more paradoxical in its 
 kind, than the re-establishment of the pastoral as an English 
 classic in 
 
 " The tea-cup times of hood and hoop, 
 And when the patch was worn." 
 
 Perhaps we may infer from the fact, that the tide of affectation 
 and false graces in literature was already beginning to ebb, and 
 that the public taste was returning to a sounder and saner order 
 of appreciations. 
 
 At all events, in this new edition, the original text was 
 restored to its primitive purity ; the pruning-knife was not 
 resumed ; all poetical tinkering was repudiated, and old Isaac's 
 " redundancies," " superfluities," and "absurdities," were brought 
 back to light, and left to stand or fall on their own merits or 
 demerits. 
 
 the North-gate oi \h& Royal Exchange y Threadneedle Street ; and sold by him and 
 Sackville Parker, at Oxford ; Richard Matthews, at Cambridge^ and Samuel 
 Trimmer, at Derby. 1760."' 
 
 Collation : frontispiece, pp. Ivi. xxii. 304, portrait (Cotton), pp. xlviii., iv., ii., iv., 
 128, viii. (Index), 14 plates. The engravings, by Ryland, from designs by Wale, are 
 dated 1759. Ryland's history is a tragic one, he was executed on a charge and 
 presumption of forgery, in 1783. 
 
 Haworth, 912, 2/. 11s. Higgs, 46, i/. 15J. Valentine, 237, xl> 4?. Cotton, 
 i68, i/. "js. Strawberry Hill, in old red morocco, 15/. Taylieure, 238, 17J. Milner, 
 159, 2/. i4f. Haslewood, 3/. y. Walsh, 71, 12s. Bindley, i/. 17^. White 
 Knights, i/. 3^. Skettell, 2/. Stanley, 3/. 55. Towneley, 3/. 15J. Utterson, i/. 5^. 
 Crawford, i/. \os. 
 
 E 
 
26 The Chronicle of the " Coinplcat Angler.'' 
 
 It was a gage thrown down to Vandalism, whereat Van- 
 dalism, in guise of Moses Browne, was no doubt mightily 
 astonished. 
 
 Browne's recriminations, and the charges he brings against 
 Hawkins of plagiarism and appropriation, seem to us quite un- 
 founded. That Wale, in Hawkins' reprint, adopted the same 
 series of subjects for his illustrations as Browne's designer, is a 
 fact, but these subjects rather forced themselves on the choice 
 of the artist, than were sought for by him, and were certainly the 
 most salient, for artistic purposes, the work contained. This in- 
 terpretation has been confirmed, in recent times, by the example 
 of Stothard and Absolon, both artists of unquestionable origin- 
 ality, but who have worked in precisely the same grooves as 
 their predecessors. Apart from this, the treatment of the subjects 
 by Wale was altogether dissimilar ; he avoided the anachronisms 
 into which the former designer had fallen, and with the exception 
 of the allegorical frontispiece, which, like most allegories, was 
 mare " leather and prunella," his series of drawings assuredly bore 
 away the bell from those of his competitor. 
 
 As to Browne's asseveration that Hawkins' life of Walton was 
 merely borrowed from his own, the charge is simply absurd. 
 Browne wrote no life of Walton worthy of being so called. 
 He merely swept together some loose biographical litter, in 
 the course of his editing, but took no pains either to sift or to 
 enlarge it as the years went by. 
 
 Hawkins was the first biographer of Walton in any tangible 
 sense, and it is on his foundation that after workers in the 
 same field have built up the fabric to fuller and more complete 
 dimensions. That his memoir is meagre, insufficient, sometimes 
 
The Chronicle of t/ie " Cantpleat Angler" 27 
 
 inexact, is true, but to judge justly of it we must judge leniently, 
 remembering how many and great were the difficulties that 
 beset the task and that baffled the seeker. How essentially 
 private, tranquil, and unobtrusive, for instance, Walton's career 
 was, from first to last ; how, though associated with some of the 
 greatest and wisest of his time, he took no rank with them in 
 public places, under the eyes of men, but sought them out in 
 their retirement, sitting meekly at their feet, in their shadow . . . 
 meekly, not servilely ; how, at a comparatively early age, he 
 withdrew to his country retreat, hiding himself still more effectu- 
 all)'^ in the seclusion of his study, and in those pastoral pursuits 
 which were his chief delight ; and how, finally, he lived, for 
 the most part, at a period of great political ferment and convul- 
 sion, and in the midst of such doing and undoing as is apt to 
 sweep away the traces of secondary events, and of the routine of 
 ordinary existences. 
 
 Writing biography under such circumstances is like decipher- 
 inof the characters on a tomb, that the rains of centuries have 
 channelled, and that moss and lichen have overgrown. A word 
 here, a line there, may be made out, but the most patient effort, 
 the most unfailing sagacity, are required to produce a continuous 
 and perfect transcript of the whole. 
 
 The life of W^alton, as we possess it now, is, in fact, a mosaic 
 by many hands ; but to Hawkins accfl-ues the merit of having been 
 the earliest worker in the quarry, if not the most consummate and 
 successful one. 
 
 His edition of 1760 was in demy octavo, and of a goodly 
 aspect, printed on fine paper, and with bold, legible type. Of 
 the figures in the plates, it was stated in a note, that they were 
 
28 The Chronicle of the " Co7npleat Angler!' 
 
 "dressed in the habit of the times," and the plates themselves, 
 were declared in an advertisement to have "cost upwards of a 
 hundred pounds." 
 
 The work was also announced as being *' the only correct 
 and complete edition." 
 
 The biography of Walton extends to fifty-six pages, and 
 that of Cotton, by W. 0[ldys], to forty-eight. The annotation is 
 copious, and has been, for the most part, retained in subsequent 
 reprints. 
 
 Hawkins' so-called second edition, in 1766, is but 
 
 Second^E^di- ^ re-issue of the first, with a new title-page. 
 
 tion, 1765.1 In proof that Browne's version had not fallen into 
 
 Moses absolute disfavour, a third and last edition was pro- 
 
 Browne's (Juced in 1/72, " p-reatlv improved in a number of 
 
 Third Edition, t i ■> b ] V 
 
 i772.« places above any of the preceding ones, by the addi- 
 tion of twenty pages and of several useful notes of 
 
 * *' The Compleat Angler : or, Contemplative Man's Recreation, Illustrated 
 with upwards of thirty copper cuts of the several kinds of river fish, and of the 
 implements used in Angling, views of the principal scenes described in the Book, 
 engraved by Mr. Ryland. To which is now prefixed, the Lives of the Authors and 
 Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. The Second Edition. London : 
 Printed for J. Rivington, at the Bible and Crown^ in St. Puurs Church-yard ; J. 
 Caslon, in Stationers Court ; and R. Withy, in Cornhill. mdcclxvi." 
 
 Milner, finely bound, i6o, 5/. J5J. dd. Higgs, 48, i/. 5^. Valentine, 238, 
 %s. 6d. Pickering, 309, i/. is. Haslewood, additional illustrations, i/. 11^. 6d. 
 Walsh, 73, i/. 135. White Knights, 4364, \Zs. Bindley, pt. iii., 1936, 95. 
 
 » "The Compleat Angler: or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. In Two 
 Parts. By the ingenious and celebrated Mr. Isaac Walton, and Charles Cotton, 
 Esq ; I. Being a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. II. Instruc- 
 tions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear stream. Correctly and very 
 accurately published. (With draughts, of all the fish ; ornamented with a number 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler T 29 
 
 Directions for the Sport. The Songs," he adds, " that are simple 
 and natural, wrote with humour and character, I have endeavoured 
 to make still more agreeable by indulging myself in an incli- 
 nation I found of setting each to music, as they now for the 
 first time appear, and are my only public and perhaps my 
 last attempt in which I shall aim to please myself or others in 
 this way." 
 
 There is no life-belt like vanity in literary aquatics, and, 
 armed with this accoutrement, Browne strikes out, persistently, 
 in a sea that had grown over rough for him, and appeals, as 
 before, to the public, for support and commendation, on the 
 primitive and offensive ground of his tinkering and tampering. 
 ** I shall be pleased," he says, " to have the closest comparison 
 made between us, with the acutest eye of the candid and 
 judicious, especially the Poetical Parts, that cost me much 
 labour, and indeed (the italics are ours) of necessity required 
 my indispensable help!' 
 
 of copper plates, and a great variety of useful and copious notes.) By Moses 
 Browne, author of Piscatory Eclogues, etc. The Eighth Edition, with the addition of 
 all the songs set to muSic. Also the Laws that concern Angling. And an Appendix 
 which shews at one view .... rules concerning .... weather improper and 
 proper for the sport. The whole comprising all that is valuable, instructing, or 
 curious, that has appeared on the subject. Peter saith .... John xxi. 3. Walton's 
 own motto to First Edition. London ; Printed and sold by Richard and Henry 
 Causton (successors to the late Mr. Henry Kent), at the Printing Office, No. 21, 
 Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange. 1772." 8**. Collation: frontispiece, pp. 
 xxiv., 238 (the last blank) ; front., pt. 2, pp. 239-363, viii, (Index), 8 leaves. The 
 plates are the same as in the 1759 edition. 
 
 Haworth, 909, 6.f. ; and 911, 13^. Valentine, 236, 5^. dd. Higgs, 45, 2/. 3^. 
 Bindley, 95. White Knights, 155. Edw^ards, ds. (ui. 
 
Tht Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler.'' 
 
 That the public did not respond very cordially to this 
 pathetic and positive appeal, may be inferred from the fact, 
 that our irreverent editor's Walton-done-Browne seems to have 
 sunk like a stone, soon after this, into the depths of Lethe, 
 to be fished up therefrom no more — at least by him. 
 
 But while we are severe on the editor, let us be just to 
 the man. Browne was a parvenu^ it is true, but a parventi in 
 the most honest and honourable sense. From a very low rank 
 in life, he made his way upward, by dint of energy and talent, 
 and through much penury, neglect, and vicissitude, to the 
 dignified position of Vicar of Olney, and afterwards Chaplain 
 of Morden College, in Kent. In the record of his chequered 
 career, no noticeable blot is to be discovered, and that he was 
 infected with the prevailing literary foibles of the time is by 
 no means to be visited on him alone.^ 
 
 Even on Waltonian ground, it is well to accord him what 
 
 ^ Browne entered into holy orders, under the patronage of Hervey, author of 
 the " Meditations," Besides his piscatory poems, he was the author of a volume 
 entitled " Sunday Thoughts," and several other pieces, some of which are possessed 
 of considerable merit. In his youth (he was born in 1703), he wrote two dramas, 
 which were represented together, and have pretty nearly an*equal degree of merit. 
 They were "Polidus," 1723, and "All Bedevilled," also 1723. Neither of 
 them, however, was performed at a theatre royal, or even by regular actors ; but 
 only by some gentlemen of the author's acquaintance, for their own diversion, and 
 the gratification of his vanity, at a place which, in the title-page, is called the 
 private theatre, in St. Alban's Street. — " Biographia Dramatica," vol. i. 
 
 " It was in his house," says a Saturday Reviewer, " that Lady Hesketh lodged, 
 when she came to the dreary lace-making town of Olney, to cheer the spirit of 
 Cowper." His poems, though they have not obtained a place in the general 
 collections, are, in Southey's opinion, "better entitled to it than some that are 
 found there." .; 
 
The Chronicle of the " Cojnpleat Angler^ 31 
 
 praise we may. That Hawkins was the reviver, de facto, of 
 the " Compleat Angler," is undeniable ; but how far he was 
 stimulated thereto by Browne's sham revival, is a question we 
 will leave open to the latter's advantage, if advantage there be. 
 That Browne was really fond of the work he maltreated, is 
 evident from his affectionate praise of it; and it is possible 
 that out of that very fondness sprang the errors of judgment 
 that have drawn down on him the strictures of Walton's more 
 respectful admirers. 
 
 Hawkins' third edition was again a paginary reprint, and 
 in the same form. Copies of this issue, as of the 
 
 Hawkins' 
 
 Third first, are scarce. 
 
 Edition, -pi^^ fourth edition was published in 1784, "with 
 
 large additions." In the editor's (now Sir John 
 
 Hawkins) advertisement, he states that he had revised the 
 
 work, and inserted " sundry such facts, discoveries, notices, 
 
 authorities, and observations, as he flattered himself would 
 
 1 " The Complete Angler ; or, Conteiflplative Man's Recreation. Being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts. The First 
 written by Mr. Isaac Walton, the Second by Charles Cotton, Esq. Illustrated with 
 upwards of thirty copper cuts of the several kinds of river-fish, of the implements 
 used in Angling, and Views of the princip>al scenes described in the Book. To 
 which are prefixed, the Lives of the Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, and 
 Explanatory. By Sir John Hawkins, Knt. The Third Edition. London, Printed 
 for John and Francis Rivington (No. 62), at the Bible and Crown, in St Paul's 
 Church-yard; and T. Caslon, in Stationers' Court, mdcclxxv." 8vo. 
 
 Collation: Frontispiece, pp. Ixxvii. 304; portrait of Cotton; pp. xlviii. x. 128, 
 viii. (Index), and 14 plates. 
 
 Stace, 85, 3^. dd. Taylieure, 239, 3^. Valentine, 239, 3^. Cotton, 169, 15J. 
 Haslewood, 8i. dd. Bindley, 9^'. Lowndes, 5^-. dd. 
 
32 l^he Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler. ' 
 
 greatly tend to improve it." He then goes on to 
 Fourth explain that he had enlarged the Life of Walton, 
 
 Edition, ^^^ substituted a "new account of Mr. Cotton, 
 1784.^ 
 
 extracted, chiefly from his own writings, less 
 
 diffuse and desultory than that which accompanied the former 
 
 edition." 
 
 The suppressed memoir, as we have already intimated, was 
 the work of Oldys, whose initials are appended to it, and who 
 died the year after its publication. The new biography was by 
 Hawkins himself. 
 
 To the Appendix is added an account of fish taken by a 
 gentleman in Wales from 1753 to 1764, and also an " Ecloga 
 Piscatoria," attributed to Metastasio. 
 
 Modern commentators have been slow to acknowledge the 
 value of Hawkins' editorial services. They pooh-pooh his 
 Piscatorship, carp and cavil at his science, and put on double 
 spectacles to discover his enthusiasm — and fail. That he had 
 weak points, and that these were of them, we do not deny ; 
 but as a pioneer in his department, he has, we repeat, a claim 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation ; Being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish- Ponds, Fish, and Fishing : in Two Parts ; The First 
 written by Mr. Isaac Walton, the Second by Charles Cotton, Esq; with the Lives 
 of the Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By Sir John 
 Hawkins, Knt. The Fourth Edition, with large Additions. London, Printed for 
 John, Francis, and Charles Rivington (No. 62), at the Bible and Crown, St. Paul's 
 Churchyard, mdcclxxxiv." 
 
 Collation : Frontispiece, pp. Ixxxii. 268 ; portrait of Cotton, pp. xxxiv. iii. x. 
 (Index), and 14 plates. 
 
 Lowndes, 719, 3^. Haworth, 913, 7^. Gd. Stanley, iis. Bliss, ^s. 6d. 
 
The Chro7iicle of the " Covipleat Angler r 33 
 
 on our regard and recognition, which it would be ungracious 
 to repudiate. 
 
 Five years, however, after the date of this fourth edition, the 
 " Compleat Angler " was orphaned of both its editors. Moses 
 Browne departed hence in 1787, at the ripe age of eighty-four; 
 and in 1789 Hawkins also, though a much younger man, rested 
 from his labours. • 
 
 That there was no cause for despondency on this ground, 
 we are aware ; and looking from that epoch, down the long vista 
 of the coming years, we see editors, many and able — editors, and 
 still editors, in ever-increasing numbers, flocking to the rescue. 
 What, — if in a perverse mood, — we were to start a heresy and wish 
 the procession had been less multitudinous ; not that there had 
 been fewer reprints, but fewer editors. What, if we suggested 
 that something less of heavy learning and abstruse research 
 would have been a more merciful dispensation under the circum- 
 stances — that the Pelion of Erudition, piled on the Ossa of 
 Science, is an overwhelming accompaniment, for such a work 
 as the one under review ! What — to throw aside all reservation 
 — if we were to opine that Walton's pretty pastoral had been 
 hardly dealt with, and that it maybe neither good taste, nor sound 
 judgment to flood the obscurity of our antique literature with 
 the garish noonday of the nineteenth century — to bring the two 
 into collision-^the stained oriel, on the one hand, with its 
 beautiful dapplings of many-coloured lustre, and the broad, 
 white casement on the other, dazzling, without fleck or flaw ! 
 We have not averred these things, however — we have merely 
 dropped them, with a " peradventure " .... have our readers 
 anything to say ? 
 
 F 
 
The Chronicle oj the " Compleat AnglerT 
 
 One avowal we will make, however, " out and out." Modern 
 critics there are, who have indulged in many thin-lipped 
 sneers at old Izaak's superstition and fond credulity. Against 
 this we are bound to put in our protest. Walton was 
 essentially a man of his time, walking by the lights of his 
 time ; we have no right to exact from him the wide-awake 
 knowingness and scepticism of later days. Superstition, besides, 
 struck its roots deep in the organisation of the angler of that 
 period ; it was lord and master over him, in fact. It made 
 choice of the time when he should fish, and of the path that he 
 should take. It had something to say of the ordering of his 
 apparel, and much of the appliances of his tackle ; it crept into 
 his bait-box ; it was kneaded up with his paste ; it even twisted 
 itself into the links of his line, and made marvellous havoc of 
 the fish he took. It was parcel grotesque, parcel ghastly ; it 
 tampered with mummy's dust, and dead men's fat ; it dabbled 
 in mystical oils and occult chemistry ; it was astrological, necro- 
 mantical, diabolical ; it was anything and everything, in short, 
 save simple and matter-of-fact and sensible. 
 
 But it must be acknowledged, as an offset against this, that 
 certain of the old-world writers on the sport were little short of 
 heroical in their fashion of building up to his complete stature, 
 their ideal Angler, 
 
 Something in this way the structure rose. 
 
 He must have simple-mindedness — (that was the raw 
 material, and indispensable enough. Heaven knows !) He must 
 be a general scholar, skilled in all the liberal sciences ; and a 
 grammarian, to know how to discourse fitly of his art. He 
 must have sweetness of speech, " to intice other to share his 
 
The Chronicle of the " Co77ipleat Angler.'' 35 
 
 delight ; " and " strength of arguments to maintaine and defend 
 his profession." Knowledge, too, of the sun, moon, and stars, 
 he should possess. He should be well versed in geography and 
 practised in navigation. He should also be an adept in music, 
 that " whensoever eyther melancholy, heavinesse of thought, 
 or the perturbation of his own fancies, stirreth up sadnesse 
 in him, he may remave the same with some godly Hymne or 
 Antheme." 
 
 In addition to all this, he must be w;ell grounded in faith, 
 patience, moderation, and charity. He must be very humble, 
 and, at the same time, strong and valiant, so as " neyther to be 
 amazed with stormes nor affrighted w^th Thunder." He must 
 be generous, " not working for his owne belly, as if it could 
 never be satissfied," and of "a thankefull nature, praising the 
 Author of all goodnesse." And to wind up, he must be of a 
 perfect memory, and of a strong constitution of body, " able to 
 endure much fasting, and not of a gnawing stomacke." ^ 
 
 In a word, this consummate angler must be able to square 
 the entire circle of the sciences, combine the various perfections 
 of the philosopher, the stoic, and the Christian, and be an 
 "admirable Crichton " tO' boot, in general accomplishments! 
 No wonder such men, or any faint approach to such, were 
 styled " gentlemen anglers," and one may picture their dignified 
 gait, and the grave, scholastic pensiveness of their countenances, 
 as they paced, angle in hand, the shaven lawns of Thames, or 
 traced the meanderings of classic Dove. These, surely, were 
 
 ^ "The Pleasvres of Princes, or Good mens Recreations." 1614. Chap. 3. 
 Of the Anglers apparrcU, and inward quallities," p. 15. 
 
36 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 
 
 not the men to apologise for the practice of their art, as 
 we have shown to have been done by certain of their 
 degenerate descendants. Johnsonian jokes, Byronian sarcasms, 
 or the jeers of the critics aforesaid, would have bounded 
 off them like hailstones from a slate roof. No vulnerable 
 heel had they for such puny shafts to gall. To them 
 angling was as much a matter of praying as of playing, for was 
 there not an entire series of pious ejaculations for the devout 
 angler's special use and benefit ? Ejaculation the first, when he 
 crossed his threshold in the morning twilight; ejaculation the 
 second, when he first dipped line in water; ejaculation the third, 
 when the fish took the bait ; and ejaculation the fourth, when he 
 was fairly landed. Apologise; forsooth ! not they. The pastime 
 was ars nobilis to them, in the broadest sense. They magnified 
 their vocation, seeking to raise it above all other sports, by stress 
 of much subtlety of argument and considerable scope of fancy, 
 almost putting the shoes off their feet the while, as if it were, in 
 some sort, holy ground. 
 
 And time and the world have dealt gently with these men, 
 and with their works, keeping the memory of the former green, 
 and storing up the latter in lavender,' as Izaak's hostess stored 
 her sheets. In spite of new lights and wide-awake knowledge, 
 we cling to the old books still, loving them for their naivetd, their 
 single-heartedness, and that unfading freshness of country life 
 which hangs persistently about them, and which even now recalls 
 to our ear the leaves' ripple and the river's murmur, as we thread 
 their lines and turn their pages. 
 
 Whereupon, reissuing out of that Egyptian darkness, into the 
 full modern daylight once more, do we bring back with us on 
 
The Chronicle of the " Co7npleat Angler!' 37 
 
 our lips a smile or a sneer ? Not the latter, surely, O worshipful 
 critics — there is no need. We are wiser, it is true, than our 
 forefathers, more scientific, less credulous, but that we are better 
 men, or even very much better Anglers (which is one of the chief 
 points in question), is not-proven. 
 
 Recovering from this digression, we find Mr. John Sidney 
 
 Hawkins standing in his father's shoes, and presenting us, in 
 
 1791^ (redated 1792)"^ and 1797^, with two further 
 
 Hawkins* editions of our favourite book. In the former he 
 
 Fifth and 
 
 Sixth Editions, calls attention to certain " corrections and additions 
 
 ^^1707^ of the last editor found in the margin of his copy 
 
 of the fourth edition, which, though not many, have 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation : being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing ; with the Lives of the 
 Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By Sir John Hawkins, 
 Knt. The Fifth Edition, with Additions. London, Printed for J., F., and C. 
 Rivington (No. 62), St. Paul's Churchyard. 1791." 8°. 
 
 Collation : Frontispiece, pp. Ixxxii. 268 ; portrait of Cotton, pp. xxxiv. (the 
 last misprinted xxiv.), iii. x. (Index), and 9 plates. 
 
 Haworth, 914, 6^. and i/. Valentine, 240, i^. Cotton, 170, 5J. Taylieure, 
 24, \s. 6d. Stace, 86, 4^. Lowndes, 721, y. and 4^. 6d. Bindley, 1/. 8j., large paper. 
 
 2 " The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation : being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing ; with the Lives of the 
 Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By Sir John Hawkins, 
 Knt The Fifth Edition, with Additions. London, Printed for F. and C. 
 Rivington, G. G. I. and 1. Robinson, W. Goldsmith, J. and J. Taylor, R. Faulder, 
 Scatcherd, and Whitaker, and E. JefTerey. 1792." 8°. 
 
 This is the 1791 edition, with a new title-page, the title of the second part, 
 dated 1791, being retained. The greater portion of the impression appears to 
 have been thus treated, and copies retaining the original title-page are very 
 rare, and have not been hitherto noticed. One is in the collection of Mr. CooHng 
 of Derby. 
 
 3 " The Complete Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation : being a 
 
38 The Chronicle of the " Conipleat Angler!' 
 
 been all made use of on this occasion, from a wish that the book 
 might receive the advantage of his last corrections. I have 
 in no other respect," he adds, "varied from the last of the 
 former editions, excepting when it was warranted by some 
 memoranda of my father's, being wholly unacquainted with the 
 subject." 
 
 The plates in this reprint are reduced in number, the 
 remainder being worn out ; but the book, we are told, is 
 " printed with a better type, and on better paper, than could 
 otherwise have been afforded." 
 
 These latter improvements appeal, we are bound to confess, 
 more to our faith than our sight. 
 
 The edition of 1 797 is again a paginary reprint, the engrav- 
 ings (with the exception of the tackle plates) being now suppressed 
 altogether. The renewed assurance of better type and paper 
 becomes, this time, a fib of the first magnitude. Very shabby 
 and seedy specimens, in fact, are these last of the direct Hawkins 
 series, which they close unworthily. The circumstance of Mr. 
 John Sidney being "wholly unacquainted with the subject," and 
 therefore as wholly devoid of zeal and enthusiasm, accounts, 
 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing with the Lives of the 
 
 Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By Sir John Hawkins, 
 Knt. The Sixth Edition, with Additions. London, Printed for F. and C. 
 Rivington, G. G. and L Robinson, J. and J. Taylor. R. Faulder, W. Bent, 
 L Scatcherd, E. Jefferey, and T. N. Longman. 1797." 8°. 
 
 Collation: Frontispiece, pp. viii. Ixxvi. 263 ; 'portrait of Cotton ; pp. xxxii. iii, 
 X. (Index), and 3 plates of tackle. 
 
 Valentine, 241, ^j. Haworth, 915, 5^. Haslewood, 8j. dd. Bindley, 15.?. 
 fine paper. Only fifty copies of the latter printed. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Cofnpleat Angler." 39 
 
 we suppose, in some degree, for their threadbare and declining 
 condition. 
 
 But the age is declining also, and a new era is about to dawn. 
 Presently we cross the threshold of the nineteenth century, and 
 have presentiments of better and grander things. 
 
 The better come first, in the shape of a handsome octavo 
 
 reprint, by Bagster in 1808. This is the "tallest" 
 
 Bagster'8 edition we have seen hitherto, overtoppinpf, as it 
 
 First Edition, . ^^ f 
 
 1808.1 does, by a whole head and shoulders, its puny 
 ancestor of 1653. But the pigmy, as our readers 
 are aware, was destined to become gigantic in its later 
 growth. 
 
 Bagster's present version was also printed in royal octavo 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler ; or. Contemplative Man's Recreation ; being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts : the First 
 written by Mr. Isaac Walton, the Second by Charles Cotton, Esq. With the Lives 
 of the Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, Supplementary, and Explanatory. 
 By Sir John Hawkins, Knt. London, Printed for Samuel Bagster, in the Strand. 
 1808." 8°. & 4°. 
 
 Collation: half-title: ("The Complete Angler. The Seventh Edition. With 
 improvements and additions, both of matter and plates," with woodcut of angler 
 above), frontispiece, title, pp. 512, and 14 plates. 
 
 Haslewood, in the " Censura Literaria," speaks of this edition as having been 
 disclaimed by Mr. J. S. Hawkins, and refers to the " Gent. Mag.," January 7, 
 1809, p. 6. 
 
 Valentine, 242, 4to., i/. 6s. Higgs, 49, with extra illustrations, 63/. Lowndes, 
 722, Zs. 6d. Taylieure, 243, 4J. 6d. Haworth, 916, i/. Haslewood, 4to, with 
 MSS. and additional illustrations, 5/. 7^. 6d. Bindley, i/. 8j., large paper. Prince, 
 7/., 4to., with extra illustrations. Drury, 19^. Brockett, i/. 10s. Stowe, i/. ix., 
 large paper. Utterson, 2/. 5J., extra illustrations. Strettell, 7/. 2^. 6d., 4to., with 
 proofs of the illustrations of the edition of 181 5 inserted. Baker, 4/. 4?., with 
 duplicate set of plates. Beckford Library, Nov. 1883, 4to. 15/. 
 
40 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 
 
 and quarto,^ and was, in all its forms, of a very comely presence. 
 It is Hawkins redivivus as regards the notes and biographies, 
 but the new editor (Bagster himself, we believe,) revised and 
 made some additions to the former. The engravings are still 
 those of Ryland from Wale, but executed afresh from the origi- 
 nal drawings, by Audinet, and in a very creditable style. The 
 plates of fish in the text, also by Audinet, are finely finished, and 
 faithful, and are the best associated, hitherto, with the work. 
 New views of " Pike Pool " and of Cotton's Fishing House, 
 taken by Mr. Samuel, are amongst the illustrations. Dr. Bethune, 
 indeed, doubts whether the plates of iish have since been 
 surpassed ; but this we think an injustice to the series that 
 illustrated the following edition. 
 
 Portraits of Walton, Cotton, and Hawkins, as well as of 
 Sanderson, Hooker, Wotton, Herbert, and Donne, were given 
 in this reissue, for the first time. 
 
 Much enthusiasm has been lavished on Bagster's first edition. 
 Mr. Symonds Higgs' quarto copy was illustrated with above 
 two hundred and seventy prints and drawings, consisting of 
 copies of rare portraits, proof impressions of plates of fish, 
 topographical prints, monuments, &c. It was bound for him 
 by Gosden, as we learn from a note in Higgs' sale catalogue, 
 at five guineas price ; the bands of the book being made of 
 wood from the door of Cotton's fishing-house, taken off by Mr. 
 Higgs near the lock, where he was sure old Izaak must have 
 touched it. It sold for 63/. at the dispersion of that gentleman's 
 library. 
 
 ^ The quarto copies were published at five guineas, and are now very rare, great 
 part of the stock having perished in the fire at Bagster's warehouse. 
 
The Chronicle of the '' Coinpleat Angler ^ 41 
 
 Mr. Higgs, by the way, proved himself, in this latter instance, 
 to be a singular mixture of the idolater and the iconoclast. 
 
 " Gosden's own illustrated copy," says Dr. Bethune " (if I 
 make out correctly a pencilled note appended to the above), 
 unbound, single leaves, in a portfolio, was disposed of at no/. !" 
 
 It was probably about this period that angling-book collecting 
 first took shape and consistence. At all events, the earliest 
 record of it, that has come under our observation, occurs in a 
 sale-catalogue of the library of Philip Splldt, Esq. (1814), in 
 which attention is specially invited to a " very rare collection of 
 books on angling." But that the taste was not then what it 
 was destined afterwards to become — one of the manifold phases 
 of bibliomania — is evident from the circumstance that this so-called 
 "rare collection " consisted of but twenty-seven volumes, and that 
 scarcely a single work amongst them merited the designation in 
 any serious sense. 
 
 How little zealous research had, hitherto, been brought to 
 bear on the question, is shown by Mr. Ellis's " Catalogue of 
 Books on Anorlinof, with some brief notices of several of their 
 authors," which he contributed to the " British Bibliographer " in 
 181 1. This earliest register of the literature of the sport contains 
 but eighty-six works, although it should have included nearly 
 twice that number. 
 
 Of the amount of labour accomplished since then, and of the 
 large increase of angling-books, within the last fifty years, our 
 readers will have an idea when we inform them that the latest 
 list, the " Bibliotheca Piscatoria," ^ for the compilation of which 
 
 ^ I^ndon : W. Satchell, 19, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, 1883. 
 
 G 
 
42 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler.'" 
 
 the present writers are responsible, includes no less than 3,158 
 editions and reprints of 2,148 distinct works on the sport, the 
 fisheries, and fish-culture. 
 
 As regards the modern multiplication of such books, there 
 can be little question that it is to be attributed less to the 
 numerical increase of anglers, than to the improved character 
 of the works themselves, and to the wider range of subjects 
 which they now embrace. Recent days have, in fact, brought 
 back to the angler and his literature, a reaction and a rehabili- 
 tation. With Sir Humphry Davy and Christopher North was 
 ushered in an era of sound, practical, philosophical, and manly 
 writers, who have succeeded in raising the art to a fair 
 average level, as remote from the mystical assumptions of the 
 earlier epoch, as from the maudlin feebleness that stamped 
 the period of its decadence. And with this position we have 
 every reason to be satisfied. 
 
 Mr. H. R. Francis, in his clever Cambridge Essay,^ entitled 
 ** The Fly Fisher and his Library," recommends the associa- 
 tion of a collection of angling-books with the plant of every 
 angling club in the kingdom, a motion which, in our first 
 edition, we seconded cordially, recommending it, in particular, 
 to the adoption of the " Walton and Cotton Club," on which 
 body corporate, from its more metropolitan position, seemed to 
 devolve the right of initiative. 
 
 By way of amendment we would suggest that such libraries 
 should be cosmopolite in their character, and not exclusively 
 British, as collections of the kind have hitherto been. So long 
 
 ^ London : J. W. Parker and Son, 1856, pp. 233-60, 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 43 
 
 as the English angler plied his craft within his insular limits 
 alone, his farthest-falling line never reaching beyond John o' 
 Groat's house on the one hand, and the Land's End on the 
 other, it was natural he should be indifferent as to what foreign 
 professors might have to say of his sport. But now, that he 
 may cry with Ulysses, 
 
 "I have become a name, 
 For always roaming with a hungry heart" — 
 
 now that Ultima Thule knows the ripple of his fly on its 
 boreal waters — that the banks of Pyrenean streams keep the 
 track of his footprints — that Superior and Erie and Ontario 
 have yielded to his skill their gigantic broods — that India and 
 Africa have paid him tribute, and that, at last, even Australian 
 rivers are being peopled by his instrumentality — now, in short, 
 that he has " whipped all creation," though not in the bellicose 
 American sense, surely it is time that his library doors should 
 be opened to the contributions of other lands and other 
 languages. 
 
 These contributions (from an approximative analysis of the 
 Angli7ig department of the " Bibliotheca Piscatoria "), would 
 appear to be as follows : America, fifty-eight works ; Germany, 
 one hundred and seventy-six ; France, one hundred and twenty ; 
 Italy, thirty-six; Holland, twenty; Spain, five; the northern 
 nations, nine ; China, one ; Russia, one ; and the classical 
 writers, eleven ; while the United Kingdom, for its quota, 
 yields nine hundred and twenty-nine, thus proving (if proof 
 were needed) how far more deeply than elsewhere both the 
 sport and its literature have taken root among us. 
 
44 'i he Chronicle of the " Covipleat Angler T 
 
 To return to the " Compleat Angler," we have 
 sfco"/ "^^^ ^^ x.2k.^ note of Bagster's second edition, issued 
 Edition, ill 1815, ^^^ printed in two sizes, demy octavo and 
 
 royal octavo. 
 The editorship, on this occasion, was confided to Mr. Henry 
 iniis, of the British Museum, and whom we have just cited as 
 the compiler of the first printed list of angling-books. His 
 additions to the rapidly accumulating body of notes are mainly 
 bibliographical and biographical, and require no special comment 
 at our hands. 
 
 A fresh series of plates of fish was given with this reprint, 
 and they are, in our opinion, superior to those of 1808. A 
 portrait of Walton, from the picture by Housman, was also 
 added. 
 
 Great is our leaning, we confess, to this edition, which was 
 printed in the viilage of Broxbourne, by the River Lea, and in 
 the very footprints of old Izaak. The river itself meanders 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation : being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts. With the 
 Lives of the Authors, and Notes Historical, Supplementary, and Explanatory. By 
 Sir John Hawkins, Knt., and the present Editor. London, Printed for Samuel 
 Bagster, in the Strand, by R. Watts, at Broxbourne, on the River Lea, Herts, 
 1815." 8^ 
 
 Collation: portrait; facsimile (of original) title; pp. 514, xx. (index), and 50 
 plates. The " present Editor " was Mr. Henry Ellis, of the British Museum. 
 Published at i/. 4^., and in royal 8°, 2/. zs. 
 
 Valentine, 243, iji'., large paper. Cotton, 171, i/. 7^., large paper. Haworth, 
 917, 1 5 J., large paper. Haslewood, with additional illustrations, 4/., large paper, 
 and with rare portrait by Bovi, &c., 6/. io.y. State, 11 j. Walsh, 78, lu., large 
 paper. Higgs, 51, 3/. \2s. Pickering, 15J. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Conipleat Angler y 45 
 
 down the opening page, and seated under a pollard-willow, by 
 Lea-side, with this book on our knee, we drop, readily, into 
 a reverie. We cease to read the page — we seem to hear the 
 quiet monotone of the old man's voice, and are startled, 
 presently, by the plashing of the water as he plays and lands 
 his fish : 
 
 " Look you, there is a tryal of my skill ! there is that very 
 chub that I showed you, with the white spot on his tail." 
 
 And the broad-Jeaved water-flags flap to and fro, as the 
 wind stirs them, and the swallow dips, and the dragon-fly 
 rustles by, and from a neighbouring copse, a bird sets up a 
 mellow, joyous trill, whereat the quiet undertone resumes : ^ 
 
 " Lo ! there, the nightingale ! another of our airy creatures, 
 which breathes such sweet loud music out of her little in- 
 strumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles 
 are not ceased. He that at midnight (when the very labourer 
 sleeps securely) should hear (as I have very often) the clear 
 airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the 
 doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted 
 above earth and say, Lord, what musick hast Thou provided 
 for the Saints in Heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such 
 musick on earth ? " 
 
 Pleasant, too, for its own sake, and dear to all anglers, is that 
 pastoral, sedgy Lea. Pleasant always, as we see it mapped out 
 in our memory of the long-gone years, with its broad reaches of 
 pasture land on either side, outspread in the morning twilight, 
 white with dew, and dappled with kine ; here and there, in 
 
 * Speaking for Auceps. 
 
46 Tlie Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler.'' 
 
 the distance, a round-shouldered hill, or a clump of trees, 
 tipped with a village spire — the gleaming of the river, broken, 
 at intervals, with rustic bridges, and its banks girt with a thick 
 belt of sedge, out of which the god Pan might have plucked 
 reeds manifold for his piping. We have learnt that river by- 
 heart, in a double sense ; it was the haunt of our boyhood, 
 and we know every bend, and tumbling-bay, and pool in it. 
 We could show you where that chub, with the white spot on 
 his tail, was taken ; we could lead you blinjlfold to the pool, 
 where Piscator fishes out for Peter that opportune trout ; and 
 we could seat you (so unwavering are our illusions) under that 
 very honeysuckle hedge, where master and pupil sat discoursing 
 of holy Mr. Herbert, and reciting his quaint, curious verses, 
 while the pattering of the spring shower died off among the 
 leaves. 
 
 Many are the days since we trod those familiar paths, and 
 many the waters we have fished since then. Now, all things 
 are changed. Our feet brush the Ardennes heather as we 
 hurry to our sport, and instead of the level lowlands, we have 
 red, precipitous walls of rock, thick forests, and a tossing and 
 foaming mountain river.^ We fill our creel fuller than we eve 
 
 * Having done homage to our beloved Lea, we may, perhaps, be permitted to 
 inscribe here a few lines in celebration of the stream described in the above 
 passage : — 
 
 A Stream in Arden. 
 
 I sing a stream in Arden. It might be 
 
 The self-same stream to which our Shakespeare led 
 
 His melancholy Jacques, and eased his soul 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat A^tgler^ 47 
 
 filled it of yore, but we are faithful to the old love still, and 
 were the choice given us, far rather would we be catching 
 " logger- headed chub," in that Lea- water of our youth, than 
 
 With contemplation, — for the feathery boughs 
 Of immemorial trees droop o'er its course, 
 And shed their pensive shadows on its sward. 
 
 On moorland levels, 'mid the purple heather 
 And golden gorse, my brooklet hath its birth, 
 It bubbles into life and song together, — 
 Crows, purls, and prattles to its reeds and ferns. 
 Then gambols down the dell, and frisks along, 
 Full of fair changes and fine fantasies, 
 And pretty breaks of temper, — now a pool. 
 Clear, calm, a mirror for the clouds and stars ; — 
 Now a sharp shallow, rattling o'er the rocks, — 
 Now fairy cascades, petulant with foam, — 
 And now a stream, careering strong and steady. 
 As with a foretaste of the open seas. 
 
 r 
 
 The pastures love my brook and press it close 
 With velvet cincture, and the enamoured hills. 
 Though clov'n to the chine to let it pass, and smit 
 As with a Parthian arrow, silver-barbed. 
 Toss their green tops with joy at sight of it, 
 And whisper a non dolet to the winds. 
 
 And I, the angler, love it well and croon 
 Its praises in spontaneous undertones, 
 What time I pace its paths at summer dawn. 
 Ere yet the morning star hath left the sky. 
 And all the world is young; or else, at eve, 
 My pastime o'er, where, through its leafy roof. 
 The sunset glory shimmers, and the trout 
 Dimple the violet water with their rings, — 
 
4^ The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 
 
 the most speckled of trout, or silver-sided of salmon, in other, 
 though immemorially famous streams. 
 
 Between the two foregoing- Waltons, Bagster issued in 1810 
 
 a so-called facsimile of the edition of 1653. We say so-called, 
 
 because, though the plates are in close imitation of 
 
 Bagster's their prototypes, and were engraved on silver, in 
 
 1810.' ' conformity with the common credence on the subject, 
 
 there is no attempt at identity in the general getting 
 
 up of the work. A portrait of Walton, engraved by Scott, 
 
 also from the picture by Housman, is prefixed. 
 
 The stock of this edition shared the fate of that of 1808, 
 and was partly consumed in the fire at Bagster's. 
 
 In 1822, Gosden, the sporting bookbinder, presented the 
 world with his reprint of Walton, an octavo volume, with 
 
 Oh ! then old dreams beset me and I sink, 
 Silent, in some green hiding place, and hear 
 Dryad with Hamadryad hold discourse, 
 Naiad with Naiad, pagan dreams with dreams 
 Of later superstitions interfused, 
 Kelpy and Kobold, till the rose and pearl 
 Fade, languish — till a solemn hush descends 
 From starry heavens, and sudden, o'er the hills. 
 Rises, familiar, the full harvest moon. 
 
 ' "The Compleat Angler, by Isaac Walton. Tendon, Printed for S. Bagster, 
 in the Strand. 18 10." 8°. 
 
 Collation : pp. xviii. 246. 
 
 Valentine, 228, 4^. Milner, 162, \l. u,, thick paper. Grace, 1076, 7^. Stace, 
 87, 5^. dd. Lowndes, 723, 4^. td. Bindley, 14J. Cotton, 159, 5J. 6</. Walsh, 
 68, 4J. Pickering, ds. Harward, x^s. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Conipleat Angler." 49 
 
 Hawkins' notes and biographies, and no other in- 
 Gosden's novations than a new set of plates, and a preface, 
 
 1822.1' "<^t written, we presume, by Gosden himself, who, 
 though an enthusiastic lover of angling literature, 
 had by no means graduated in any university, if we may judge 
 by the specimens of his composition on record. 
 
 The new plates are practical in their l^arings, but scarcely 
 in unison with the quaint character of the book. They are, 
 in fact, anachronisms. They did triple duty, being offered for 
 sale, in a separate shape, and employed to illustrate the reprint 
 of Zouch's " Life of Walton," in 1823 and subsequently. They 
 have now become plates of all work. They were accompanied 
 by portraits of Walton and Cotton, in mezzotint, the former 
 from Housman, the latter from Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 Gosden was a collector, as well as a trader ; and there are 
 few angling libraries, at the present day, that do not possess 
 works adorned with one or other of his book-plates, and some- 
 times enriched, besides, with his very ungrammatical annotations. 
 
 The following year must be marked with a white stone, as 
 a turning-point in the fortunes of the " Compleat Angler." 
 
 The work had held a high place, hitherto, in the esteem of 
 
 1 " The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation ; being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts. With the 
 Lives of the Authors, and Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By Sir 
 John Hawkins, Knt. London, Printed for James Smith, 163, Strand. 1822." 8°. 
 
 Collation; frontispiece, pp. Ix. 383; 15 plates.. The plates have been 
 re-engraved. Some copies have portrait only and no plates. 
 
 Taylieure, 243, 5^. Cotton, 177, 2/. 5J. Milner, 161, 2/. 16s. Haslewood, 
 additional illustrations, i/. Grace, 1080, 2I. 12s. 6d. Walsh, 79, i/. is. 
 
 H 
 
50 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!'' 
 
 the judicious and discerning, but was destined, through the 
 
 publication, in 1823, of Major's first edition, to 
 
 FirTt^ attain to a wider range of circulation, and a greatly 
 
 Edition, increased popularity. Dazzled as our eyes are 
 1823.^ 
 
 with the splendour of subsequent typographical 
 
 successes, we may wonder at the amount of admiration excited, 
 
 sixty years ago, b)^ this pretty book, which was looked upon 
 
 as a marvel in its kind, pointed out as such on the shelves of 
 
 libraries, or passed from hand to hand, amidst the encomiums 
 
 of delighted connoisseurs. And a pretty book it is, even now ; 
 
 the old drawings by Wale, ** greatly heightened in the effect 
 
 by the pencil of Mr. Frederick Nash," having been engraved 
 
 for it, in more finished style, by Cook and Pye, the woodcuts 
 
 of fish skilfully executed, and the editing performed by a 
 
 practised and competent hand.^ 
 
 Unfortunately its publisher, not content with these advantages, 
 
 thought it incumbent on him to add an " Introductory Essay," 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton : extensively 
 embellished with Engravings on Copper and Wood, from original Paintings and 
 Drawings, by first-rate Artists. To which are added, an Introductory Essay ; the 
 Linnsean Arrangement of the various River-Fish delineated in the Work ; and 
 Illustrative Notes. London : John Major, Fleet-Street, adjoining Serjeants'-Inn. 
 
 MDCCCXXin." 
 
 Collation: frontispiece, pp. Ix. 411, 14 plates, and 77 woodcuts. Price i8j., or 
 large paper, i/. \2S. 
 
 Taylieure, 244, i/. ly., large paper. Valentine, 246, 10^. Cotton, 173-4, 85., 
 and 2/. i4y., large paper. Prince, 135, i/. By. Haslewood, duplicate proofs, 
 3/. 15^. Stace, 90, i/. 4^.. Lowndes, 725, 19J. Walsh, 80, i/. i2i, large paper. 
 Higgs, 54, 2/. 19J. Brockett, 2/. 9^. Utterson, with "Zouch's Life of Walton," 
 2/. 7J. 
 
 2 Tliat of Mr. R. Thomson, Author of the " Chronicles of London Bridge," 1827. 
 
The Chronick of the "^ Cotiipleat Avgler^ 51 
 
 from his own pen, the effect of which is to mar the unity of 
 the work. The writer, though worthy and inoffensive, was vain, 
 vulgar, and silly, and his essay is precisely what we should expect 
 from a shopkeeper turned man of letters, for the nonce. It is, 
 in fact, a farrago of twaddle, from end to end. In one passage, 
 he attempts to gloss over Walton's humble position in early life, 
 and establish a claim for consideration, not so much on his own 
 intrinsic merits, as on the ground of his high relations and fine 
 acquaintances ; a piece of snobbishness, which draws down on 
 him the justly indignant rebuke of Dr. Bethune : 
 
 " Impertinent is not a word strong enough to characterise 
 such an attempt to put honest Izaak's worth on another footing 
 than his own pious virtue and unaffected talent. If the simple- 
 minded angler and writer of plain, artless English could rise 
 from his grave, not all his meekness, nor even Major's beautiful 
 edition, could prevent him from giving the man a fillip for thus 
 putting tawdry on his decent garments. Especially is such a 
 folly out of place in a preface to the ' Complete Angler,' through- 
 out which the humble author, unspoiled by association with 
 learned, dignified clergymen and others who had heaped praises 
 on him, represents himself as a foot-traveller content with a 
 wayside inn . . , nay, ready to share his bed with the companion 
 of his walks by the river side. Cotton was a gentleman, and 
 put his collocutors on horseback ; Sir Humphry Davy invites his 
 friends to go an anghng in a light carriage with him, as befitted 
 a knighted philosopher ; let it be our comfort to know that good 
 father Walton was the ready friend of the angler who goes afoot. 
 Gentleman he was by orthography and spirit, but gentleman 
 in any other sense, he cared not to be. As he himself says, * I 
 
52 The Chronicle of the " Compleai Angler.'' 
 
 would rather prove myself a gentleman by being learned and 
 humble, valiant and inoffensive, virtuous and communicable, than 
 by any fond ostentation of riches, or, wanting those virtues myself, 
 boast that these were in my ancestors. And yet I grant that 
 where a noble and an ancient descent and such virtues meet in 
 any man, it is a double dignification of that person.' We should 
 not like him more — we could not like him less, — if he had had 
 • all the blood of all the Howards.' " ^ 
 
 The above castigation is not a whit too severe, and we marvel 
 that no contemporary critic was found to punish with the knout 
 this wretched Essay, which is not only fawning and servile in 
 its tone throughout, but has a click of the counter, besides, that 
 is especially distasteful.^ 
 
 ^ *' The Complete Angler." New York, 1847, pp. Iv.-vii. of the "Bibliographical 
 Preface." 
 
 2 To the edition of 1844, Major adds certain notes, which we quote here that 
 our readers may have the measure of the man's fatuity. 
 
 "On the appearance of the first Edition in 1823, Mr. P'lsraeli, who somewhere 
 speaks of the Doric sweetness of Izaak Walton, observed to me — ' One often sees 
 a pretty book which is interesting to a particular class ; but you have hit on a 
 work ih.zX pleases everybody ! ' And Mr. Alexander Chalmers was pleased to say that 
 I had given quite a new tone to the subject, and had * Waltonized the land ! ' 
 
 " For my own part I can only say that I had long been asking myself in the 
 language of Abraham Cowley, * What shall I do to be for ever known ? ' And my 
 good Genius whispered, ' Give your days and nights to emblazon the worth of Izaak 
 Walton.' " 
 
 It is to be regretted that this good Genius did not, at the same time, point a 
 prospective veto in the direction of the Introductory Essay. 
 
 In another note he says : " The bantling is, in truth, my own, but its sponsors 
 are innumerable ; one kind patron, a gentleman of fortune, used to say to his friends, 
 * You must have this edition, for / have a share in it ! ' And a total stranger once 
 assured me that he had bestowed no less than six guineas on the binding of the work, 
 as a specimen of the skill of Charles Lewis ! " 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler y 53 
 
 Between this edition and Major's second, we may cite on the 
 
 authority of the "London Catalogue, 1815 — 1832," a 
 
 Reprint by reprint, published (London) by Maunder. The cata- 
 
 1S24. logue describes it as foolscap 8vo, and gives the 
 
 price Oi". All our attempts to obtain a copy have 
 
 proved abortive. 
 
 So great was the success of Major's publication, that a fresh 
 
 issue was called for in the following year, and a new set of 
 
 plates, still from Wale, given with it.^ It was dis- 
 
 Se^cond tiuguished also by a copy of verses from the pen 
 
 Edition, of the editor, which were very properly suppressed 
 
 1824.^ • 1 r 1 T • T M • 
 
 in the fourth edition. Like its predecessor, it was 
 printed in two sizes, crown octavo and royal octavo, and in the 
 latter form the engravings were proof impressions. Both these 
 books have maintained their place in public estimation, although 
 far surpassed by the reprint of 1844. 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton : . . . and illus- 
 trative Notes. Second Edition. London, John Major. 1824." 8°. Collation: 
 pp. Iviii. 416 } with 77 woodcuts and 14 copper plates, the latter re-engraved by 
 W. R. Smith from Wale and Nash. A copy of verses from the pen of the editor, 
 afterwards suppressed, distinguishes this edition, which was printed in small and 
 large octavo, the engravings in the latter form being proof impressions. These 
 volumes were received with enthusiasm at the time of publication, and have 
 maintained their place in public estimation, although far surpassed by the reprint 
 of 1844. 
 
 Cotton, 175-6, 2/. 9^., and i/. \s. Lowndes, 726, 6^. (>d. Walsh, 81, 
 (soiled) 1 4-5-. 
 
 - The old plates ^^ rebit" says Bohn's Lowndes (1864), but a difference of size, 
 and other variations, negative this statement. The new ones were engraved by 
 W. R. Smith. 
 
54 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler! 
 
 We shall now have to chronicle, currente calamo^ 
 
 Dove's and without close analysis, several consecutive edi- 
 
 1825.1' tions. A revival of Hawkins, in small i2mo, with 
 
 Whitting- Another, prettily printed by Whittinofham, 2 vols., 
 
 ham's Edition, . '^ \^ • • o ^ ^^ ■ ■ i 
 
 1824 and 1826.- 2 4mo, m 1824, and again in 1826. 1 his is also a 
 verbatim reprint of Hawkins, 1 797. 
 Cole's p^^ edition in i2mo (no date, circa 1828), pub- 
 
 Edition, ^ . . . ' , 
 
 n. d.» lished by Cole. It has indifferent portraits of Walton 
 
 * " The Complete Angler ; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a 
 Discourse on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. By I. Walton and C. Cotton. 
 With the Lives of the Authors ; and Notes, Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. 
 By Sir John Hart'kins, Knt. London, Printed for the Proprietors [of the English 
 Classics] by J. F. Dove. 1825." 12°. 
 
 Collation : portrait, engraved title, pp. 420, 4 plates of fish from well-engraved 
 blocks now in the Denison collection. These blocks, eighteen in number, are 
 believed to be the work of Thomas Bewick. They came from the collection of Mr. 
 E. B. Jupp, sold at Christie's in February, 1878. A few (50) prints on India paper 
 were taken with this title : " Woodcuts of British Fishes. Engraved by Thomas 
 Bewick. London, Jas. Toovey. 1878." Svo. 
 
 2 " The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. Chiswick : 
 Printed by C. Whittingham, College House. Sold by Thomas Tegg, 73, Cheapside ; 
 R. Jennings, Poultry, London ; and Richard Griffin and Co., Glasgow. 1824." 
 Collation : L frontispiece, pp. viii. 269 ; IL frontispiece, pp. iv. 284. Counts 
 eights. 
 
 To the edition of 1826, some woodcuts of fish were added, and one or two 
 vignettes, designed by W. Harvey, and engraved by S. Williams and others. 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler ; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. By Isaac 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. Embellished with Portraits of the Authors, and 
 Engravings of the River-fish described in the work. London : Printed for WilHam 
 Cole, 10, Newgate-street." Collation : i)p. xx. 314, and two portraits. 
 
The Chronicle of the '' Compleat Angler y 55 
 
 Also, Pickering's first edition, in 3 2 mo, 1825. 
 Pickering's With a frontispiece by Stothard, and an engraved 
 1825.1 ' title (both of which were enlarged for the edition 
 of 1836), and abridged biographies. 
 
 This was followed by Pickering's second edition, 
 
 PickcTiii&r's 
 
 Second 1 826, 1 6mo, with a portrait of Walton and an en- 
 
 ^"826°?' graved title (dated 1827), with vignette (the milk-maid 
 
 scene), also afterwards enlarged for the edition of 1836. 
 
 In the last three editions, the annotation is suppressed. 
 
 In 1833, we have Professor Rennie's first edition (i2mo), 
 
 which, though published under cover of a scientific name, has 
 
 no great claim on our respect. Even as a naturalist,. 
 
 Rennie's j^g editor has not corrected the errors of the original 
 
 Editions,^ 
 
 1833, 1834, without Stumbling. Thus, when Walton (page 193), 
 *8^^ ^s^e' speaks of the kingfisher's nest as a curious structure, 
 1836, 1844, " not to be made by the art of man," Rennie flip- 
 1847! 1848! pantly adds, ** Walton here mistakes for a kingfisher's 
 1849, i849(?), nest, the round crustaceous shell of the sea-urchin " ! 
 
 1851, 1857, ^ . , , -rill 
 
 1857, 1858. Uwmg, we presume, to the low price 01 the book, 
 
 it has gained a certain currency, and no less than 
 
 ^ " The Compleat Angler ; or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Two 
 Parts. The First by Izaak Walton, The Second by Charles Cotton. London : 
 William Pickering. mdcccxxv." Collation: pp. xvi. 314, iv. (Notes and Index). 
 
 2 " The Complete Angler .... London : William Pickering, mdcccxxvi. 
 Collation : portrait, engraved title, pp. xxv. 232 ; portrait, pp. 233-325, iv. (Index). 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler ; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a Dis- 
 course on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. With Lives and Notes. By 
 Sir John Hawkins, Knight. Edited by James Rennie, a.m.. Professor of Zoology, 
 King's College, London. Edinburgh : Published for the proprietors by W. and R. 
 Chambers; London, W. Orr; Dublin, W. Curry, Jun., and Co. 1833." 8° 
 
56 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angle}'!' 
 
 sixteen reprints have been issued by different publishers, at the 
 several dates given in the margin. As they were all identical 
 with the first, the duty of revision and improvement never 
 seeming to have presented itself to the professorial mind, we 
 shall not deem it necessary to refer to them again. The Rennie 
 
 Collation : portrait, pp. iv, 328, with engraved plate of music, views of Walton's 
 house and of Amwell Hill, and cuts of fish, &c., in text. 
 
 "Walton and Cotton's Complete Angler; or. Contemplative Man's Recreation. 
 [Remainder of title as in former edition.] London, Allan, Bell, and Co., Sirapkin 
 and Marshall; Edinburgh, Fraser and Co.; Dublin, W. Curry, Jun., and Co. 
 1834." This edition forms a volume of the " British Library" and is apparently 
 the only one containing a list of illustrations at the end. It was printed at 
 Edinburgh, as were also the five following editions, and from the stereotype plates 
 used in the edition of 1833, 
 
 " The Complete Angler ; or. Contemplative Man's Recreation. [Continuation 
 of title as before,] A New Edition. London, Allan, Bell, and Co., and Simpkin 
 and Marshall. 1834." 
 
 [Same title.] Edinburgh : Published by Fraser and Co. ; Smith, Elder, and 
 Co., Cornhill, London ; W. Curry, Jun., and Co., Dublin. 1834." 
 
 [Same title, deleting "A New Edition."] "London ; Thomas Tegg and Son, 
 Cheapside ; R. Griffin and Co., Glasgow; Tegg, Wise, and Co., Dubhn. 1835." 
 
 [Same title.] " London : Allan, Bell, and Co. 1836." 
 
 Same title.] "Edinburgh: Fraser and Co. ; London, H. Washbourne. 1836." 
 
 [Same title.] " Manchester, Samuel Johnson and Son. 1844." This is a 
 paginary reprint of the Edinburgh editions, with the same illustrations from fresh 
 plates, which are used in the nine editions that follow. 
 
 [Same title.] " Manchester, Samuel Johnson and Son. 1846." 
 
 [Same title.] " Dublin, W. Curry, Jun., and Co. 1847." 
 
 [Same title.] " Manchester : Printed and published by Thomas Johnson, 
 Livesey Street. 1847." 
 
 [Same title.] " Liverpool, Thomas Johnson. 1848." 
 
 [Same title,] *' London : John Johnson, 30, High Holborn ; Thomas Johnson, 
 22, Livesey Street, Manchester. 1849." 
 
 [Same title.] " Manchester : printed and published by Thomas Johnson, 
 Livesey Street. [1849?]" 
 
The Chronicle of the '' Compleat Angler^ 57 
 
 reprints popularise Walton, but also vulgarise him — a fact \ve 
 cannot readily condone. 
 
 In 1835 Major issued his third edition, but shorn of .its 
 ancient glories, the plates of all kinds being much worn and 
 
 „ . . deteriorated. A portrait of Dr. Wharton, the "good 
 
 Major s ^ '^ 
 
 Third Edition, man that dares do anything rather than tell an 
 ' ^^' untruth," was its only new feature. 
 Lewis's A reprint of Major, by Lewis, appeared in 
 
 wa^^hboume's 1 839 (crown 8vo), and another, by Washboume, 
 
 Major, 1842.3 jj^ jg^2. 
 
 [Same title.] " Manchester : printed and published by Thomas Johnson, 
 Livesey Street. 1851." 
 
 [Same title.] " Manchester, Johnson. 1857." 
 
 [Same title.] " Halifax ; Milner and Sowerby. 1857." 
 
 There are probably other editions of these stereotype reprints. The seventeen 
 given above are all that we have actually seen. The collation of all, with the 
 exception stated, is pp. iv. 328, and 3 lines of music, and views 
 
 • " The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton : extensively 
 embellished with engravings on copper and wood, from original paintings and 
 drawings, by first-rate artists. To which are added, an Introductory Essay ; the 
 Linnaean arrangement of the various river fish delineated in the work ; and 
 illustrative Notes. Third Edition. London, J. Major, Great Russell Street, 
 Bloomsbury. Printed by W. Nicol, 51, Pall Mall. 1835." 8°. . 
 
 A paginary reprint of Major's second edition (1824), with the 77 woodcuts and 
 15 copper plates. 
 
 2 "The Complete Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation : being a 
 Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. By Izaak Walton and Charles 
 Cotton. With Notes, Biographical and Explanatory, and the Lives of the Authors. 
 London, L. A. Lewis, 125, Fleet Street. 1839." 8". Collation: pp. xxvi. IxxiL 
 396. It contains 76 woodcuts and 15 copper plates. 
 
 3 [Same title.] London : Henry Washboume, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street 
 
 MDCCCXUI." 
 
 Collation : frontispiece, pp. iv. xciv. 396. Price of this and the foregoing, i zs, 
 
 I 
 
5^ The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 
 
 In these the " Introductory Essay" was replaced by the old 
 biographies of Walton and Cotton, by Hawkins. 
 
 In 1836 we do obeisance to Pickering's third edition, in 
 which Walton's simple work puts on the purple of an unaccus- 
 tomed sovereignty, and is scarcely to be recognised 
 Pickering's jq jj-g ^^^ ^si^ Splendid investiture. The result of 
 
 Third Edition, , 5 j r 1 • 
 
 1836.1 seven years contmuous labour, and ot much patient 
 research and fostering care on the part of its pub- 
 lisher, this edition requires, more than most, our mature and 
 critical consideration. 
 
 It is in two tall volumes, the form being imperial octavo. 
 Paper and type, as might be expected from a publisher pre- 
 eminent for the beauty of the books issued by him, are both 
 admirable in tHeir kind, and the title-page, as Mr. H. R. Francis 
 rightly remarks, is of a perfection that might " trouble the ghosts 
 of the Aldi." 
 
 * " The Complete Angler ; or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a 
 Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing, written by Izaak Walton ; and 
 Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear stream, by Charles 
 Cotton. With original Memoirs and Notes, by Sir Harris Nicolas, K.C.M.G. 
 (Underneath, an adaptation of the Aldine mark, with "Aldi Discip. Anglvs.") 
 London : William Pickering, 1836." 
 
 Collation : Vol. I, portrait, pp. xvi. ccxii. ii. portrait ; engraved frontispiece (by 
 Stothard) : pp. 129 ; 130 blank. Vol. II. pp. iv. 131-436, xxxii. (Index), and list 
 of plates. 
 
 Prince, 5/. i8j., with 580 ancient and modem portraits, &c., 24/. \os. Lowndes, 
 3/. 19J. Walsh, additional illustrations, 14/. 105. Sotheby, 5/. \os. Har- 
 wood, 5/. 7^. (id. Bernal, with extra portraits and proof plates from Major's and 
 Bagster's Editions, and from other works on Angling, 3 vols, elephant size, morocco, 
 40/. Utterson, extra illustrations, 14/. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Conipleat Angler'* 59 
 
 The illustrators are Stothard and Inskipp, the former being- 
 charged with the scenic plates and the views of the localities, and 
 the latter, principally, with the fish. The engravers are Fox, 
 Cooke, Richardson, and other eminent hands ; and the editor, 
 Sir Harris Nicolas, assisted by several competent authorities, 
 whose names he designates in his Preface. 
 
 The biographies extend to two hundred and twelve pages. 
 The notes are of a most elaborate character — all the variations 
 in the first five editions, are indicated, — pedigrees of Walton, 
 Cotton, and others are given, and a comprehensive index is 
 added, extending to thirty-two pages. 
 
 Such are the materials that go to make up these very 
 noticeable volumes, which were issued^ at the patrician price 
 of six guineas for ordinary impressions, and ten guineas for 
 proofs. 
 
 The sentiment inspired by a cursory survey of them 
 is, no doubt, one of admiration ; but the after and more 
 permanent impression results, we are pained to confess, in 
 a sense of comparative failure. The book, sooth to say, is a 
 pompous book, and with much that is overdone in it. We seek 
 for our modest kingcups and pimpernels, and find them buried 
 beneath a heap of learned and heterogeneous lumber. We turn 
 the pages over with a feeling of disproportion, a perception of 
 incongruity and unfitness. Inskipp's fish, indeed, with some excep- 
 tions, display all the force and freshness of nature ; but Stothard's 
 plates seem to us weak and futile, insignificant as regards the size 
 
 ^ In numbers, commencing 1835. 
 
6o The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 
 
 of the work in which they figure, and unworthy, aUke, both of it 
 and of the artist. 
 
 Stothard was probably selected for this task less for his 
 eligibility than from the fact of his being the painter a la mode 
 of the day. Of his graceful services as a book illustrator, we 
 have a lively remembrance, but the " Compleat Angler " seems to 
 have lain beyond his beat, his genius being of that Watteauish 
 character that luxuriates more in Arcadian revels and the fetes 
 champ'etres of conventional life than in the embodiment of the 
 simple English pastoral. He was no angler, besides, and the 
 fact betrays itself, as might be expected, in many minute but 
 conclusive points. That his costumes, in these plates, are 
 archseologically correct, in a general sense, we doubt not, but 
 that they are correct in their application to the angler, we refuse 
 to credit. All frill and frippery, Piscator and his associates are 
 attired, as if for a stroll, snuff-box and cane in hand, among the 
 scented exquisites of the Mall, rather than for rough encounter 
 with brake and briar by the river side. Their faces, throughout, 
 are weak and meaningless, and Piscator, in the salutation plate, 
 were it not for the rod he carries, might be mistaken for a 
 beggar, in easy circumstances, imploring an alms. 
 
 The views of the localities, also, fall short of the mark, 
 for, though truthful and precise, they are flat and meagre in 
 the execution, and have an awkward knack of sprawling across 
 the page. 
 
 The biographies, on the other hand, present the reader 
 with several new facts, are very conscientious and laborious, 
 and leave but little in the way of data for any future gleaner 
 in the same scanty field. But here, again, we have an editor 
 
The Chronicle of the '^ Compleat Anglery 6i 
 
 who is no angler, a deficiency that is painfully felt as we peruse 
 these dryly written, matter-of-fact, unsympathetic pages, in which 
 no semblance of colour or vitality is given to the lay figures they 
 place before us. As raw material, parts of them (for there is 
 much extraneous matter, and many points dilated on of infini- 
 tesimally small interest) may be usefully employed by some 
 future biographer of Walton, who, we trust, will treat his subject 
 from the piscatorial as well as the antiquarian and genealogical 
 point of view, and pen his record, not in any dusky retreat of 
 study — in air heavy with erudition, — but under the green leaves 
 and by the gurgling water — at Broxbourne, for instance, or 
 pleasant Amwell on the Hill. 
 
 This fine book, in a word, is over-dressed. It is Maudlin, 
 the milkmaid, tricked out in a gown of brocade, with a mantle 
 of cloth of gold. Pretty Maudlin were comelier far in her own 
 artless attire, with a posy for sole adornment. But this is a sin 
 to be judged gently and tenderly, springing, as it did, from 
 over-love ; Pickering's wish was to raise a worthy monument 
 to Walton's fame, but, by a common error of judgment, 
 he lost sight of the relation that should always exist in 
 such a case between the memorial and the man, or his work, 
 commemorated. 
 
 On Corydon's grave we plant flowers amongst the 
 grass — 
 
 " Purple narcissus, like the morning rays, 
 Pale ganderglas and azure culverkays." ' 
 
 * Dennys's "Secrets of Angling," 1613. 
 
62 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 
 
 We do not crush it beneath a weight of marble magnificence, 
 pedestals, with their votive urns, or a colossal genius with 
 gilded tears. 
 
 Nevertheless, as this monument has been reared, let us accept 
 it for what it is — one of the handsomest publications of modern 
 times, an ornament to the angler's library, unique of its kind, 
 and perhaps destined to remain so. 
 
 As for the huge amalgam of note upon note, and 
 comment upon comment, we plead guilty, with no ** per- 
 adventure" this time, to a heathenish longing for a sweeping 
 and final clearance, such as would give us the " Compleat 
 Angler," illustrated and annotated, if you will, but by 
 the artist's pencil alone, and in which we should have 
 Walton solus, not Walton baited and badgered by fifty 
 learned professors, all catechising, criticising, and cavilling at 
 him at once. 
 
 In 1837 we have, in "Tilt's Miniature Classical Library," a 
 
 reprint of Walton's fifth edition and of Cotton's first, in two 
 
 volumes, 32mo, with a note, on page xi., excusing the 
 
 absence of annotation on the very sensible ground 
 
 that it has "often only the effect of disturbing the tone of the 
 
 more agreeable thoughts excited by the text." 
 
 In 1 84 1 an edition was published by I. J. Chidley, which is 
 a re-issue of Cole's [of 1828] ; and this was succeeded in its turn 
 
 * ** The Complete Angler. By Izaac Walton and Charles Cotton. London : 
 Charles Tilt, 86, Fleet-street ; J. Menzies, Edinburgh ; T. Wardle, Philadelphia. 
 MDCCcxxxvii." Collation: Vol. I., frontispiece, pp. xi. 152; Vol. IT. frontispiece, 
 pp. iv. 149. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!\ 63 
 
 • 
 
 ^ . „ by another minute reprint correspondinof in size and 
 
 Chidley, 1841.^ . . , r & 
 
 text with Tih's. This edition, of which the title- 
 page is undated, appears to have been supplied to several 
 booksellers, for we find copies bearing the name of Sherwood 
 g^ . and Bowyer (dated on cover 1844, forming a volume 
 
 and others of the " British Pocket Classics" or " Pocket English 
 ' ^' Classics"), and also of Lockwood and Co., Piper 
 Brothers and Co., and Lippincott, Philadelphia. It was printed 
 by Spottiswoode and Co. 
 
 In 1844 appeared Major's fourth edition (the two by Lewis 
 
 and Washbourne not having been published under his super- 
 
 Maor's intendence). It was printed, as before, in two sizes, 
 
 last Edition, crowu and royal octavo. The obnoxious " Intro- 
 
 * ^' ductory Essay," aggravated by the absurd additions 
 
 we have quoted, still sticks to the work, like a burr ; but with this 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler ; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. By Isaak 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. Embellished with portraits of the Authors, and 
 engravings of the river-fish described in the work. London. I. J. Chidley. 1841." 
 8°. Collation: pp. xx. 314, 2 portraits. This is Cole's edition, with fresh title- 
 page. The portrait of Walton bears the name of " W. Cole," while Cotton's is 
 inscribed with that of " Hodgson and Co." 
 
 ^ "The Complete Angler; or. Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Dis- 
 course on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. By Izaak Walton and Charles 
 Cotton. [Two parts.] London : Lockwood and Co." 32mo. Collation : pp. iv. 
 335 ; other copies, pp. vi. 335. A reduced facsimile of scroll precedes the 
 title-page. 
 
 ^ "The Complete Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, of Izaak 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. Edited by John Major. Fourth Edition. London : 
 D. Bogue, Fleet-street; H. Wix, New Bridge Street. 1844." 8°. 
 
 Collation ; pp. Ix. 418 ; 12 steel engravings, nine of which were drawn by John 
 Absolon and engraved by J. T. Willmore, A.R.A. ; and 74 woodcuts in text. 
 
64 The Chronicle of the " Compleai Angler^ 
 
 remark our censure exhausts itself; in other respects the volume 
 approaches more nearly to our ideal of an edition consistent in 
 all its parts than any of its predecessors or successors. 
 
 Wale's designs, repeated ad nauseam, are here suppressed, 
 and a new series, by Absolon, substituted, embodying the same 
 subjects indeed, but conceived in no plagiaristic spirit. They 
 are quaint, unaffected, and picturesque, and have the signal merit 
 of seeming an emanation from and efflorescence of the book 
 itself, rather than a set of artistic notions grafted upon it.^ The 
 difficulty of a capable and conscientious book-illustration is, in 
 fact, great : renouncing his own individuality at the outset, the 
 artist must make himself one with the author, must clothe him- 
 self with his genius, put on his moods, penetrate into the inner 
 heart of his conceptions, and from thence transmute them, by the 
 alchemy of his art, into form, colour, and expression. Without 
 this identity between author and artist there may be the asso- 
 ciation of pictures with books, but no book-illustration, properly 
 so called ; and our readers do not require to be told that 
 ninety-nine out of a hundred of the pretty picture-books of the 
 day belong to the former and defective category. 
 
 The woodcuts of fish, in Major's new issue, give the varying 
 tones and surfaces with great success ; and the vignettes of 
 scenery, by Creswick and others, leave far behind them those 
 of former editions. Some of these, indeed, are so charming 
 
 1 " The new designs by Absolon," says Major, " form the crown of my present 
 efforts ; nothing could exceed his zeal whilst they were on his easel ; skilful anglers 
 stood for the men, and fair and handsome ladies volunteered for the females ; the 
 result, I warmly anticipate, will come with a pleasing surprise upon the minds of the 
 most affectionate admirers of our author," p. xxxix. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler ^ 65 
 
 as to suggest the idea of a more extensive illustration of the 
 " Compleat Angler," confined entirely to this department of art, 
 which seems specially adapted for the adornment of books 
 treating of country pursuits and pastimes, and which possesses 
 a freshness, freedom, and artlessness that we seek for in vain 
 from the more ambitious burin. Vignettes we possess by 
 the Fosters and Creswicks of the day — sketches of sylvan 
 scenery, in which we almost see the leaves lifted by the summer 
 wind, and hear the plashing of the waterfall as it tumbles, all 
 froth and foam, over the weir. Thus our bosky dells and 
 dingles, our green English lanes, our silver-threaded brooks, our 
 wood-openings, with their delicate tracery of boughs against a 
 pale sky, and their intricate network of leaves and spray, are 
 subjects that have passed of right into the hands of the artist in 
 wood as their fitting interpreter. While, on the other hand, in 
 cases demanding greater depth of tone and treatment — the savage 
 austerity of bare rock and windy ravine, the ruggedness of imme- 
 morial forests, with their gaunt and blasted trunks, or the chaotic 
 tumult of a sky blurred and blackened with tempest — a modern 
 instance, in Gustave Dore's illustrations of Dante's "Inferno," 
 proves that appeal may be made with equal success to the same 
 school of engraving, a school that, from its recent development, 
 seems destined to rule paramount over all others. Dr. Bethune 
 says of this reprint : " Art could scarcely go further, and no more 
 elegant volume could find place in a library." 
 
 The next addition to our rapidly lengthening list is the 
 American reprint, published at New York in 1847, under the 
 editorial auspices of Dr. G. W. Bethune. Could we admit the 
 necessity of erudition in this case, we should be disposed 
 
 K 
 
66 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 
 
 The to assign to Dr. Bethune's version a foremost rank in 
 American ^^ annotated series. 
 
 1847,1 1848, The wisdom he brings to bear on his task is of 
 
 'and 1866' ^^ benevolent order, cordial, reverent, and sympa- 
 thetic, and his criticism has nothing in common either 
 with the flippant or the dry-as-dust school. For the lover of 
 angling-books, and for the collector especially, there is no edition 
 so useful as this. In his " Bibliographical Preface," the editor gives 
 an extended catalogue raisonnd of the earlier literature of the sport, 
 and in the Appendix, we have his " Waltonian Library," or list 
 of angling-books, including some three hundred works, besides 
 many on ichthyology.'^ He gives us also an enlarged list of the 
 
 * " The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, by Isaac 
 Walton. And Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear 
 stream, by Charles Cotton. With copious Notes, for the most part original, a 
 Bibliographical Preface, giving an Account of Fishing and Fishing Books, from the 
 earliest Antiquity to the time of Walton, and a notice of Cotton and his writings by 
 the American Editor \i.e. George W. Bethune, d.d,]. To which is added an 
 Appendix including illustrative Ballads, Music, Papers on American Fishing, and 
 the most complete Catalogue of Books on Angling, etc., ever printed. Also, a 
 general index to the whole work. New York, Wiley and Putnam. 1847." 8°. 
 
 Collation: Part I. pp. vi. cxii. 249; Part II. pp. 210. Some copies were in 
 imperial Qctavo, with duplicate impressions of the plates. 
 
 * In Mr. J. Wynne's " Private Libraries of New York," we find the following 
 mention of Dr. Bethune and his Angling Library : — 
 
 " During the darker seasons of the year, when forbidden the actual use of his 
 rod, our friend has occupied himself with excursions through sale catalogues, fishing 
 out from their dingy pages whatever tends to honour his favourite author and 
 favourite art, so that his spoils now number nearly five hundred volumes of all sizes 
 and dates. Pains have been taken to have, not only copies of the works included 
 by the list, but also the several editions ; and when it is of a work mentioned by 
 Walton, an edition which the good old man himself may have seen. Thus the 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!* 67 
 
 authorities referred to by Walton ; another of the books formerly 
 belonging to him (and containing his autograph inscriptions), 
 in the Cathedral Library of Salisbury ; a third, of those which 
 have been attributed to him ; and a fourth, of the works of 
 Cotton. These addenda are gathered, of course, from various 
 known sources, but nowhere else do we find united so complete 
 a body of angling-book statistics, and so large an accumulation 
 of collateral data. 
 
 Of the getting-up of the volume, we cannot speak with 
 praise. It is behind the time : the type, blunt and blotty, the 
 illustrations (a few worn-out plates, borrowed from Major, 1844), 
 a disgrace. Reprints of this edition appeared in 1848, 1852, 
 1859, and 1866, from the same stereotype plates. 
 
 In 185 1, we have to notice an edition, in crown octavo, 
 
 published by Henry Kent Causton, who, on the strength of 
 
 his descent from the Richard and Henry Causton 
 
 Causton's figuring as printers and publishers of Moses Browne's 
 
 1851.1' revival (1772), finds it incumbent on him to attempt 
 a quixotic rehabilitation of Browne's editing, and 
 
 collection has all the editions of Walton, Cotton, and Venables in existence, and, 
 with. but few exceptions, all the works referred to by Walton, or which tend to illus- 
 trate his favourite rambles by the Lea or the Dove. Every scrap of Walton's writing, 
 and every compliment paid to him, have been carefully gathered and garnered up, 
 with prints and autographs, and some precious manuscripts. Nor does the depart- 
 ment end here ; but embraces most of the older and many of the modern writers 
 on ichthyology and angling." 
 
 1 " The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. In 
 Two Parts. By Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton. With a new Introduction and 
 Notes ; and embellished with 85 Engravings on Copper and Wood. London ; 
 Henry Kent Causton, 185 1." 8°. 
 
 Collation : pp. Ixviii. 418, and 15 plates including frontispiece. 
 
68 Ihe Chronicle of the '' Compleat Angler T 
 
 even to perpetuate some of his ** expurgations," and all his 
 notes. 
 
 In a distracting-looking, but not ill-written " Introduction," 
 he gives a summary of Walton's career, and examines the vari- 
 ous and conflicting evidence brought to bear on the subject, 
 dealing about him the while some heavy blows, especially in the 
 direction of genealogical editors. 
 
 He perpetuates, also, we are sorry to say. Wale's series of 
 drawings borrowed from Major, and which, in this their last 
 stage of evaporation, look ghastly and impalpable as ghosts at 
 noonday. Shabby in its externals, this book seems to have 
 enjoyed but a neglected existence, and has already passed out 
 of sight. 
 
 Two years later Messrs. Ingram and Cooke present us, in 
 
 their " Illustrated Library," with the " Complete Angler," edited 
 
 by " Ephemera " (Fitzgibbon), of " Bell's Life," who 
 
 Editions, gi'^fts on it, in notes and appendices, his own system 
 
 1853,1 1854, -^ of the practice of the sport as expounded more fully 
 
 in his " Hand-Book of Angling." This edition, on 
 
 1 " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. [Woodcut.] 
 New Edition. Edited by 'Ephemera' of 'Bell's Life in London' \i.e. Edward 
 Fitzgibbon.] London : Ingram, Cooke, and Co. 1853." Z^. 
 
 Collation: frontispiece, pp. xiv., facsimile title-page, pp. 326, and 3 plates. A 
 pretty and useful edition. A voluijtie of "The Illustrated Library." 
 
 2 " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. [Woodcut] 
 Edited by ' Ephemera.' Second Edition. London : Nathaniel Cooke. 1854." 8*. 
 
 Collation : frontispiece, pp. xiv., 309, and 2 leaves with explanations of plates. 
 
 8 "The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. [Woodcut] 
 Edited by ' Ephemera,' of ' Bell's Life in London.' London : Routledge. 
 1859." 8». 
 
The Chronicle of the " CompUcU Angler.'' 69 
 
 practical, working grounds, deserves commendation. It is adorned 
 with some sketchy woodcuts and plates of fish and flies. A fresh 
 issue was called for in 1854, and a third published by Messrs. 
 Routledge and Co. in 1859. The two latter issues, however, are 
 but paginary reprints. 
 
 Turning the various versions over in his mind, Mr. Edward 
 
 Jesse, in 1856, considered himself called upon to add yet another 
 
 to the number, and into this he " shoots," to use a 
 
 Edulons carter's phrase, a heap of his own notes, on the top 
 
 1856, 1870, of the already vast accumulation. At this stagre of 
 
 and 1876.1 , ,. , . . ^ 
 
 the proceedmg we have to stand a-tiptoe to see 
 Walton at all. Mr. Jesse was known as a man of amiable manners, 
 some knowledge of natural history, and a very elastic credulity, 
 and we say grace over his notes . . . but partake not. 
 
 Mr. Bohn, on the other hand, as publisher of the work, 
 drives into it vi et armis, " neck and crop," and in other forcible 
 fashions, an indiscriminate swarm of woodcuts, line-engravings, 
 &c., recruited from various sources, and making Up a 
 
 Collation : front, engraved title, pp. 313, and 3 leaves with explanations of 
 plates, and a register; four plates and cuts in text. The plate of fish does not 
 reappear, the cuts being inserted in the text. 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, of Isaac 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. With Lives of the Authors, and variorum Notes, 
 Historical and Practical. Edited by Edward Jesse, Esq. To which are added 
 papers on Fishing-Tackle, Fishing Stations, &c. By Henry G. Bohn. London : 
 Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, mdccclvi." 
 
 Collation : front, pp. xxi. 496, and one leaf with list of fishing-tackle makers. 
 There are 203 woodcuts and 26 engravings, drawn from various sources. Some 
 copies are without the steel engravings. The unsold copies were re-issued with a 
 new title-page in 1861. 
 
70 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler y 
 
 patchwork of illustration to keep in countenance the patchwork of 
 notes. Reading the " Compleat Angler " under such circumstances 
 can only be compared to the study of " Bradshaw," in its effect 
 on the brain. A re-issue of this edition took place in 1870 (the 
 form the same), and another in 1876. 
 
 In 1858 we have Groombridge's miniature reprint, in two 
 volumes, which is apparently a re-issue of Tilt's edition (1837), 
 and acceptable on the same grounds, namely, the 
 *^°Editi"/*^ ^ absence of all tags and tassels, and the merit of a 
 1858.^ plain and unperplexed text ; while, in the following 
 German Y^ar, we are startled by a German translation 
 Translation, (published at Hamburg) of " Ephemera's " edition, 
 in which we find the translator apologising to his 
 readers for old Izaak's length iness, wordiness, and heaviness. 
 He professes to esteem the work, indeed, but in a professional 
 sense alone, and this narrowness of appreciation gives us the 
 measure of his capability. It is the only complete translation 
 of " The Complete Angler " into a foreign tongue with which we 
 are acquainted. '■''' 
 
 In France, Walton has met with even less recognition ; the 
 only translation that we have encountered (and that a very 
 garbled and unfaithful one) of some brief portions of his dia- 
 logue, appears in " Le Pecheur a la Mouche Artificielle," by 
 
 * "London: Groombridge and Sons, Paternoster Row, 1858." 301 pages. 
 24". This is a reprint of Tilt's edition of 1837. 
 
 2 " Der VoUkommene Angler von Isaac Walton und Charles Cotton, heraus- 
 gegeben von Ephemera, iibersetzt von J. Schumacher. Hamburg : P. Salomon 
 and Co. 1859." 8°. 
 
 Collation : pp. xii, 308, and 10 plates of fish and flies. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ yi 
 
 Charles de Massas, and is contributed to that publication by 
 a certain " Alfred d'Angleville," who accompanies it with the 
 collateral assurance that Walton's work is quite unworthy of 
 French readers, and will be very properly replaced by de Massas' 
 own performances. 
 
 And this is the place to state — and to state broadly — how 
 little respect we entertain for French angling literature, in 
 general, one or two of the elder and sincerer works ^ excepted. 
 It is antagonistic to our English ideal, rides rough-shod over 
 Waltonianism, in all its forms, and is invariably condescending, 
 patronising, and semi-satirical in its discussion of the sport. In 
 fact, no Frenchman really believes in angling, or alludes to it with- 
 out persiflage. He discourses of the art, ex cathedra, but always 
 under a swarm of metaphors, that buzz, like gnats, and mask 
 the meagreness of his thesis. His rod, he pickles for the user ; 
 his float bobs up and down on the points of an antithesis ; with 
 his hook he catches more calembours than carp, and his bait 
 serves for similes, that sound like sneers. Shut out, by his 
 organisation, from the true delights of angling, his books reflect 
 the deficiency. Never, in turning their pages, do you catch the 
 nightingale's trill, or sniff the new-mown hay. We have said of 
 Walton's book that it will keep its place in our literature, as long 
 
 1 Such as the "Ruses Innocentes," by one Fortin (1660). In this work we find 
 the angler's craft lurking under the monk's cowl. Fortin was a monk of Grand- 
 mont, who styled himself, quaintly, '* Le Solitaire Inventif." *' Les Ruses " is the 
 earliest substantive French work on the sport, and is the foundation of most subse- 
 quent treatises in that country, up to the end of the eighteenth century. Liger, 
 the Gallic Gervase Markham, borrowed freely from this source in his "Amusemens 
 de la Campagne," and like his prototype, on more occasions than one, forgot to 
 acknowledge his obligation. 
 
72 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 
 
 as the whitethorn blossoms in the hedge-rows, and the lark 
 carols in the cloud. No such compliment, we fancy, will ever be 
 paid to any French book on the sport. 
 
 In i860, we have to notice Messrs. Nattali and Bond's 
 
 re-issue of Pickering's edition of 1836, in two volumes, 
 
 puckering imperial octavo, at a reduced price, and with sundry 
 
 {1836) in 18601 other reductions consequent thereupon ; inferior 
 
 paper, for instance, worn plates, and a general 
 
 decadence of style. A third reprint appeared in 1875. 
 
 The text remains unaltered, even one or two notable blunders 
 being left uncorrected. 
 
 In 1863, we register a pocket edition by Messrs. Bell and 
 Daldy ; the simple text alone, but praiseworthy for its faith- 
 fulness and the beauty of its typography. It was re-issued 
 
 1 "The Complete Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being 
 a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. Written by Izaak Walton. 
 And Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream. By 
 Charles Cotton. With Original Memoirs'and Notes by Sir Harris Nicolas. Second 
 Edition. 2 vols. London: Nattali and Bond, i860." 8vo. 
 
 Collation : Vol. I. portrait, pp. xvi. ccxii. iv. ; portrait ; engraved frontispiece ; 
 pp. 129. Vol. II. pp. iv. 131-436, xxxii. (Index). Pedigrees of Ken and 
 Chalkhill are for the first time added to this edition. 
 
 2 ** The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being 
 a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. Written by Izaak Walton. 
 And Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream. By 
 Charles Cotton. With Original Memoirs and Notes by Sir Harris Nicolas, k.cm.g., 
 and Sixty Illustrations from Designs by Stothard and Inskipp, London : Chatto 
 and Windus. 1875." 8vo. 
 
 Collation: pp. ccv. half-title, pp. 320. The third reprint, on thinner paper, 
 and with well-worn illustrations, of Pickering's edition of 1836. The illustrations 
 are all printed on separate leaves. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 73 
 
 in the following year on a somewhat larger paper, 
 
 Bell and as a volume of the " Elzevir Series " ; and again in 
 
 ^^i.^^'^cf f 1866, with the imprint, " Boston : Ticknor and Fields," 
 1864,2 1865,1 ' ^ 
 
 1866,1875. also in 1875 with that of "George Bell and Son, 
 
 London." 
 
 The American reproduction of the Major of 1844 here 
 
 claims insertion. The woodcuts were re-engraved for this edition, 
 
 and are held to be finer than those employed in the 
 
 American English issue. The steel engravings are from the 
 
 Major original plates. There are twelve of the latter, and 
 
 '"'^^86^^4^^'' seventy-four of the former. Only a hundred copies 
 
 were taken. A further reprint on a larger scale took 
 
 place in the following year. 
 
 In 1869, a reprint of the first edition was issued by Mr. 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. London : 
 Bell and Daldy, and Sampson Low and Co. 1863." i6mo. ; also 1865. 
 
 Collation : pp. xvi. 304, with portrait of Walton, after Housman, as a frontis- 
 piece ; and of Cotton, after Sir P. Lely, before Part II. 
 
 A reprint without note or comment. Finely printed at the Chiswick Press. 
 One of " Bell and Daldy's Pocket Volumes." 
 
 2 " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. London : 
 Bell and Daldy. 1864." 8vo. 
 
 The same as the preceding, on a little larger paper. A volume of the " Elzevir " 
 Series." 
 
 3 " The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, of Izaak 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. Edited by John Major. Boston : Little, Brown, and 
 Co. [Cambridge printed], 1866." 8vo. 
 
 Collation : pp. xiv. 445. 
 
 * " The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, of Izaak 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. Boston : Little, BrownT, and Co. [Cambridge printed], 
 1867," 8vo. 
 
 L 
 
74 The Chronicle of the " Co77ipleat AnglerT 
 
 Alexander Murray, without notes. Edited by the 
 
 \y^^^^^' publisher. This was re-issued in 1872, with some 
 1869,1 1872. i ' ' 
 
 " Notices of Walton." 
 
 In 1876 we have to enter Mr. E. Stock's facsimile. "To 
 
 save all risk of departure from the exact form," it is stated in 
 
 the preface, "the sharp, vigorous little cuts of fish, 
 
 facsimile ^^^ ^^^ Very tasteful title-page, have been re- 
 
 1876,2 1877, produced by a photographic process which is simply 
 
 infallible." We cannot, altogether, accept this view 
 
 of the matter, for the process adopted has made illustrations 
 
 look rough and ragged which have always been commended 
 
 for their neat and delicate execution. We fear, also, 
 
 that the " process " cannot be held accountable for the 
 
 fact that, in the last line of the title-page, " Church-yard " 
 
 of the original appears as " Churcheyard " in the photographic 
 
 facsimile. 
 
 We must now hurry to a close, with a few summary notices, 
 bringing our record up to the present date. 
 
 A reprint of " Ephemera's " edition requires no further 
 
 1 "The Compleat Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being 
 a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. 
 London: Alex. Murray and Son. 1869." 8vo. Collation: pp. 106. A reprint 
 of the first edition without notes, edited by A. Murray. 
 
 " "The Compleat Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. By 
 Izaak Walton. Being a facsimile reprint of the first edition, published in 1653. 
 London: Elliot Stock. 1876." 8vo and 4to. Collation: pp. x. viii. 240. A 
 reprint, with a short preface; Re-issued in 1877, and without date, in 1880, 
 when six copies were printed on vellum. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat AnglerT 75 
 
 mention than to state that the publishers have issued 
 
 ■" Ephemera's " other undated reprints of this edition, with no altera- 
 
 [1878].! tions save in the illustrations. They are unable to 
 
 furnish any information respecting them, and we have 
 
 failed to obtain copies. 
 
 In the same year we have an edition, by Messrs. Frederick 
 
 Warne and Co. It forms one of the " Chandos Library." The 
 
 smaller illustrations from Major's first edition are 
 
 ^^^gj^^°' incorporated with it, and an appendix at the end 
 
 of each chapter contains historical and general notes, 
 
 and a practical essay on the sport. 
 
 Ward and Also a paginary reprint of Alexander Murray and 
 
 Lock's, 1878.' Son's edition of 1 869 on better paper, and in the 
 George Bell & following year a re-issue of Bell and Daldy's edition 
 
 SonsM879.^ of 1 863. 
 
 In 1879 the Fishing Gazette gave a verbatim reprint of the 
 
 ^ " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. Edited by 
 * Ephemera.' London [printed] and New York : Routledge. 1878." 8vo. 
 
 Collation: frontispiece; pp. 313, and three leaves with explanation of plates 
 and register ; 2 plates. 
 
 ■ 2 " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. A New 
 Illustrated Edition, with Notes by G. Christopher Davies, Author of ' The Swan 
 and her Crew,' &c. London : Frederick Warne and Co. 1878." 8vo. 
 
 Collation : frontispiece, pp. xii, 467. 
 
 3 " The Compleat Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being 
 a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. 
 London: Ward, Lock, and Co. 1878." 8vo. 
 
 * " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. London : 
 G. Bell and Sons. 1879." 8vo. 
 
 A reprint of the edition of 1863. 
 
76 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler'' 
 
 first edition, made from Alexander Murray's edition of 
 The -Fishing ^g^ ^^jj.j^ ^j^^ a Notices of Walton," from the edition 
 
 Gazette,' 1879.^ -" _ ' 
 
 of 1872. It appeared in the pages of the Gazette, 
 
 vol. iii., Nos. 93 — 140. 
 
 A re- issue of Dr. Bethune's edition appeared in New York 
 
 in 1880. On this occasion the type has been reset, 
 
 Bethune, ^^^ j^j.^ Bethunc's Contributions to the work are 
 1880.' 
 
 presented, for the first time, in a worthy manner. 
 
 This being our latest American entry, a few remarks on angling 
 literature, among our transatlantic cousins, may not be misplaced. 
 That it is still but a nascent literature with them is shown by 
 our Bibliotheca Piscatoria, which, in 1861, registered but fourteen 
 works, and in 1883, fifty-eight. In the interval, however, a 
 greater enthusiasm has been shown on the subject, numerous 
 angling-book collections have been formed, and as it is well 
 known that American progress, unlike that of the older nations, 
 is rapid and impulsive, we may safely predicate that within the 
 next half century the United States will be running a neck-and- 
 neck race with ourselves in all matters piscatorial. 
 
 Their most important contribution, hitherto, has been Dr. 
 Bethune's Walton ; Dr. Bethune, himself, being also one of the 
 earliest collectors of angling-books, on a large scale, in his own 
 
 1 "The Compleat Angler; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation. 1653." 
 
 2 "The Complete Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, liy 
 Izaak Walton. And Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear 
 Stream. By Charles Cotton. With Copious Notes by the American Editor (Geo. 
 W. Bethune, d.d.). New Edition, with some Additions and Corrections from the 
 Editor's own copy, 2 vols. New York : John Wiley and Sons. 1880." 8vo. 
 
Tfie Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler!' 7^ 
 
 country. Of his editing of the '* Compleat Angler," we have 
 expressed our appreciation in its proper place. 
 
 He was preceded, in 1830, by an anonymous author, whose 
 work has become a rarity, even in its birthplace, while only one 
 or two copies have found their way to our shores. It is entitled 
 "An Authentic Historical Memoir of the Schuylkill Fishing 
 Company, of the State of Schuylkill, from its establishment on 
 that romantic stream, near Philadelphia, in the year 1732 to the 
 present time. By a Member." ^ We lay no claims to literary 
 value in relation to this tract, but as it has the signal merit of 
 giving us an insight into what angling life in America wag a 
 century and a half ago, its interest must be great to all 
 Waltonians. We have therefore not to excuse a brief digression 
 on its behalf. 
 
 In that year of grace, 1732, Philadelphia was the centre of 
 an infant colony, a colony struggling up, indeed, into strength 
 and stability, but with a world of work on all hands, still left 
 to be achieved, ere the rough, primitive forms of the settlement 
 could be mellowed into order and harmony. Toil and turmoil 
 must, therefore, have been the order of the day, and leisure and 
 
 * " An Authentic Historical Memoir of the Shuylkill Fishing Company of the 
 State in Schylkill. From its estabhshment on that romantic stream, near Philadelphia, 
 in the year 1732 to the present time. By a Member [William Milner, Junr.]. 
 
 'If you look to its antiquity, it is most ancient, — 
 If to its dignity, most honourable, — 
 If to its jurisdiction, it is most extensive. 
 
 Philadelphia : Judah Dobson. 1830." 
 Collation: pp. viii. 127, ii. 
 
78 The Chronicle of the " Cotnpleat Angler^ 
 
 recreation mere occasional contingencies. From this point of view, 
 it is nothing short of a marvel that, at the date just cited, certain 
 contemplative citizens of the new capital did actually establish 
 this fishing club, or company, and set it going, with a governor 
 at its head, five assembly men, a treasurer, sheriff, eighteen 
 associates, and the lugubrious appendage of a " coroner." What 
 the functions of the latter were, we are at a loss to conceive. Several 
 of the projectors of the club had come over with Penn from 
 England, and had been fellow-workers with him in his colonial 
 scheme ; and it is but reasonable to suppose that an affectionate 
 memory of the old land they had left for ever, and of happy 
 youthful days spent, angle in hand, beside its lakes and water- 
 courses, lay at the root of their proceeding. If so, they must 
 have been met by many points of divergence. Instead of 
 wending to their sport through the grassy English meadows of 
 " auld lang syne," their path lay through the uncleared wilderness, 
 which, at the period in question, overshadowed the very walls 
 of the town, and -from that centre stretched out west, north, and 
 south, in limitless expansion. In place of speckled trout and 
 silver grayling, they had to fill their creel with lumbering *' cat- 
 fish," or, at best, with ** white perch." ^ And in lieu of partaking, 
 when their sport was over, of smoking sirloin, or venison pastry, 
 flanked with creamy ale, or sack-posset, they were regaled on 
 " rock and gray squirrel," with a thin accompaniment of lemonade. 
 " Punch and pipes," and occasionally a " barbacued pig," are the 
 only English-sounding adjuncts of their repasts. It is but fair 
 to add, however, that the club grew proud of their white perch 
 
 . jitj . 1^ 
 
 * It is the small white bass, or Labrax pallidus of De Kay. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler ^ 79 
 
 in the course of time, and that some American anglers of the 
 present day laud it above the trout. 
 
 Having obtained the grant of about an acre of land, on a 
 wooded rise above the stream, they took possession of it, styled 
 it magniloquently " The State in Schuylkill," and erected on it 
 a wooden tenement (the " Castle ") for their periodical meetings 
 and festive gatherings. Here they are said to have passed a 
 treaty with the chiefs of the Leni-Lenape, or Delaware Indians, 
 who granted to them and their descendants for ever, the right 
 and privilege to hunt the woods and fish the waters of the 
 Schuylkill. 
 
 The early records of the company are, unfortunately, but 
 few and incomplete. Pen-craft is not amongst the primal growths 
 of a colony, and the mantle of our Izaak seems to have been 
 far from falling on any one of the fraternity, and certainly not 
 on him who, a century after its foundation, compiled the memoir 
 in question. For we are compelled to avow of this " member," 
 that though parcel facetious, parcel flowery, parcel bacchanalian, 
 he is passiTii illiterate and feeble. His orthography halts, his 
 syntax has a frequent analogy with that of " Shrewsbury Barker," 
 cook and piscator, whom he refers to as " T. Barker, Esquire." 
 This is a disappointing fact ; for, in skilful hands, the theme 
 might have been woven into a very charming chronicle, rich in 
 quaint glimpses of early colonial life, and presenting the angler's 
 sport to us in startling and unfamiliar aspects. 
 
 When the War of Independence broke out, several of the 
 Schuylkill fishermen took up arms in the good cause, with honour 
 to themselves and their association, but returned (such as were 
 spared), when the strife was at an end, to their pensive pastime 
 
8o The Chronicle of the " Co7npleat Angler!' 
 
 and their beloved white perch with undiminished ardour. There 
 must have been grand talks under the castle walnut-trees, in the 
 long summer twilights, when these glorious absentees came back 
 to their haunts, and unusual must have been the demand for 
 " punch and pipes," while they fought their battles o'er again, 
 for the benefit of their less favoured gossips. One need not be 
 Fine-ear to catch, even now, the rattle of the assault, the thunder 
 of the climax, and Schuylkill, murmuring in the pauses, amongst 
 its rocks and rapids. 
 
 In the ninetieth year of its existence, our company had to 
 draw its stakes and move further afield. A dam, built across the 
 stream in their immediate neighbourhood, frustrated the sport by 
 keeping the fish from their feeding grounds. 
 
 Another site having been selected, the castle was pulled to 
 pieces, packed in a boat, and conveyed, with all the company's 
 heirlooms and household gods, — its " mammoth punch-bowl," — its 
 " Mandarin hats,'' — its " great pewter plates," — " Governor Morris's 
 frying-pan," and " the banner of the Stripes and Stars," to its new 
 destination. There, foundations of stone were laid for it, and the 
 " Hall of Congress " soon reared its head once more with reno- 
 vated splendour. We say this from the Schuylkillian point of 
 view ; for a sketch of the building, figuring as a frontispiece, we 
 took at first, we confess, to be a " little Bethel." A description, 
 however, underneath, set us right. The carpenter who executed 
 this wooden exodus received, we are told, a vote of thanks and 
 the liberty of the State for a year. 
 
 It was in their new location, in 1825, that one of the most 
 exciting incidents of their history occurred, in the shape of a visit 
 from the -famous General la Fayett6, then on a tour through the 
 
The Chronicle of the '' Compleai Angler^ 8r 
 
 provinces of America; while, in 1787, the company had received 
 the still greater honour of a visit from General Washington, 
 but no record of that interesting ceremony has been 
 preserved. 
 
 It will have been seen from the foregoing, that sport in the 
 Schuylkill possessed but little variety ; cat-fish and white perch 
 seem, indeed, to have formed the staple of it, though shad, 
 sturgeon, and drum-fish were sometimes taken. The latter,^ 
 having been recommended as a substitute for " rock-fish," was 
 experimented on by the company ; but, though '* richly dressed 
 in the lobster style," it turned out " as tough as a drum-head," 
 and was eschewed thenceforth. On a solitary occasion a trout 
 was captured ("on a lay-out line, by Mr. Benjamin Scull") that 
 measured fifteen inches. Mr. Scull Avas dubbed " the prince of 
 fishermen " in consequence, and the event was marked with a 
 white stone, that found no parallel. 
 
 Here our retrospection of this curious book may terminate. 
 A hundred and fifty-one years, as we have said, have elapsed 
 since the Association was founded ; modern improvements have 
 greatly altered the character of the river, blasted its rocks, 
 changed its levels, and converted it, from a brawling impetuous 
 torrent, into a purling and peaceable stream, but still the Schuylkill 
 Company lives and prospers (Dr. Bethune is our sponsor for this 
 assertion), and still above the woods rises the glittering vane of 
 its Hall of Congress. Remembering, then, that this American 
 Angling Association is the oldest in the world — that the Walton 
 
 Pogonias cromis. 
 
 M 
 
82 The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 
 
 and Cotton Club is infantine compared with it — that, as its 
 motto declares — • 
 
 " If we look to its antiquity, it is most ancient ; 
 If to its dignity, it is most honourable ; " 
 
 we may well doff our hats to it, in a passing but reverent 
 greeting, Salve, Magister ! 
 
 Returning from this diversion into new fields and foreign 
 
 pastures, a reprint of " Ephemera's " Walton in 1881, claims record. 
 
 It forms a volume of the " Excelsior Series." All 
 
 ^188^"*' *-^^ woodcuts are, in this instance, printed with 
 
 the text. 
 
 This was followed by a re-issue of Major's edition of 1844. 
 
 It is from the stereotype plates used for Messrs. Little, Brown 
 
 and Co.'s edition, published in Boston, U.S.A., in 
 
 reprin\"of the 1^66 and 1 867. The woodcuts, which were (as we 
 
 1844 Major have Stated) re-engraved in America, are printed on 
 
 India paper and "laid down" in the text. The 
 
 plates are also printed on India paper, and are very bright and 
 
 clear. The " List of Embellishments," repeated from the original 
 
 edition, only enumerates twelve steel engravings, but twelve 
 
 1 " The Complete Angler. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. Edited by 
 'Ephemera.' London and New York: George Routledge and Sons. 1881." 
 8vo. 
 
 Collation: pp. 313. •' Excelsior Series." 
 
 2 "The Complete Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Of 
 Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. Edited by John Major. Philadelphia: 
 Lippincott. [Other copies] London : Strahan and Co. (Limited), 34, Paternoster 
 Row. [1881.]" 8vo. 
 
 Collation : pp. xv. 445. 
 
The Chronicle of the " Compleat Angler.'' 83 
 
 others, by Creswick, Cooper, and others — all veterans in service 
 — have been added. One hundred and fifty copies were printed 
 for America, and one hundred for England. 
 
 In 1882 appeared another facsimile of the first edition, 
 produced by a photographic process. At first sight this appears 
 
 an excellent reproduction of the original, but on 
 
 Grigg's placing copies side by side we are compelled to 
 
 1882.1 * qualify our approval. The clear open type of 
 
 Walton's first edition is contracted in the facsimile, 
 and on measuring the size of the pages we find them in all cases 
 narrower and shorter. The book has also not escaped the danger 
 to which all photographic reproductions are exposed while the 
 plates are undergoing the " touching-up " process at the hands of 
 a workman. The inverted q^ of which mention has been made, 
 has been invariably altered to b (see page 177, for instance, 
 where the alteration has been thrice made), and the misprint 
 (" observatiens ") on the recto of a 8 has been corrected. It may 
 also be pointed out that the last page has evidently not been 
 photographed from the original type, but from a pen-and-ink copy. 
 The year 1883 has brought us still another reprint of Major's 
 edition of 1844, with the woodcuts printed on China paper and 
 
 " laid down " in the text. These show no signs of 
 
 Nimmo and r , . • i • i ^ 
 
 Bain's reprint Wear, and many of the impressions are Drighter and 
 
 of the i^^ clearer than in our own copy of the original edition. 
 
 The admirable handling which they have received at 
 
 ^ "The Compleat Angler; or, the Contemplative Man*s Recreation. 1653.. 
 [London : William Griggs. 1882.]" 8vo. 
 
 * " The Complete Angler ; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation, of Izaak 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. Edited by John Major. With Six Original Etchings 
 
84 The Chronicle of the " Compleai Angler'' 
 
 press is particularly noticeable in the skies. Absolon's plates are 
 withdrawn, and in their place we have " six original etchings and 
 two portraits." The etchings are not unpleasing, despite a 
 certain foreign air which pervades them. The portraits are of 
 unequal merit, but that of Walton is excellent. Finely printed 
 on thick royal paper, the book is handsome, and if it be also 
 cumbersome, the feature befits, we suppose, an edition de luxe. It 
 does not displace the first edition in our affections, and we confess 
 ourselves at a loss to perceive any adequate reason for its 
 existence. 
 
 Here our task ends, the ultimate milestone on the long road 
 of two hundred and thirty years being reached at last. 
 
 Through our casement, as we write these closing lines, 
 streams cheerily (and with a shimmer of young leaves and 
 buzzing of insect-wings) the May sunshine — that sunshine which 
 of yore gladdened Piscator on his way, through the morning 
 meadows, to his sport, and that broods, let us believe, with a 
 softened radiance now, on his honoured grave in the gray fane 
 of Winchester. 
 
 When shall we look upon his like again ? Fishers have 
 increased and fishing-books have multiplied, but where is the 
 fisher blest with such a "heavenly memory" as our Izaak, and 
 where is the fishing-book so rich in honour and renown as his .-* 
 On royal and noble shelves — the brown overcoat unscorned by 
 
 and Two Portraits. London : J. C. Nimmo and Bain, 14, King William Street, 
 Strand, W.C. 1883." 
 
 Collation : pp. xv. 445, and 8 plates in duplicate, one copy being on Whatman 
 and the other on Japan paper. 
 
The Chrcniicle of the " Compleat Angler^ 85 
 
 the purple and splendour of courtiers and dramatists and poets — 
 there do we find you, O little book " of eighteen pence price." 
 Shakespeare looks kindly on you ; Bacon eyes you with a 
 smile ; Sir Philip Sidney and you are paired, in the pairing of 
 pastorals ; Elizabethan wisdom and Elizabethan quaintness and 
 pathos own you for an equal. As Dr. Boteler said of the 
 strawberry, "Doubtless God might have made a better berry, 
 but doubtless God never did ; " so do we say of your work — 
 Doubtless a better angling-book there might have been, but 
 such, doubtless, there never has been yet. 
 
 This for farewell. Do we ^eel a pressure, as it were, of 
 hands — Piscator's, Venator's, Auceps' — with a Vale and Bene- 
 dicitef Were we in Lea pastures, we should have no doubt. 
 As it is, in our fancy, we behold those three immortals 
 receding, melting into the May brightness, and we cry Vale 
 and Benedicite in return. 
 
 That the future has still much of good and great in store 
 for the " Compleat Angler " we nothing doubt, but for the present 
 this must suffice, that, summing up the total of the ninety-four 
 editions chronicled in these pages, we may say for the Father 
 of Fishermen what he were too modest to say for himself could 
 he return amongst us — 
 
 "Si monumentum requiris, 
 Circumspice ! " 
 
 A last word — from a worthier pen than ours — that of Walton's 
 contemporar}', the poet of the " Enchiridion," quaint Francis 
 
 Quarles : 
 
 "So may our step have music in it. 
 As it goes down the stair. * 
 
86 The Chronicle of the " Compleal Angler^ 
 
 Quarles loquitur : 
 
 " No more a Stranger now : I lately past 
 Thy curious Building ; calVd; but then my haste 
 Denfd me a full draught ; I did but taste. 
 
 " Thy Wine was rich and pleasing; did appeare 
 No common grape: My haste could 7iot forbeare 
 A second sippe ; I hung a Garland there : 
 
 '• " Past on my way ; I lasht through thick and thinne, 
 
 Dispatched my businesse, and returned agen ; 
 I caird the second time ; unhors'd, went in : 
 
 " Viewed every Room ; each Room was beautifid 
 With new Invention, carv'd on every side, 
 To please the common and the curious efd. 
 
 " View'd every Office ; every Office lay 
 Like a rich Magazen ; and did be^vray 
 Thy Treasure, open'd with thy golden key : 
 
 " Viewed every Orchyard; evety Orchyard did 
 Appeare a Paradise whose fruits were hid 
 {Perchance) with shadowing Leaves, but none forbid: 
 
 " Viewed every Plot; spent some delightful houres 
 In every Garden, full of new-born flowers, 
 Delicious banks and delectable bowers. 
 
 *' Thus having stepfd and travelfd every staire 
 Within, and tasted every fruit thafs rare 
 Without ; I made thy house my thorough-fare. 
 
 " Then give me leave, rare [Walton], (as before 
 I left a Garland at thy Gates) once more 
 To hang this I vie at thy Postern-doore." 
 
 THE END. 
 
LOKDON : 
 
 R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, 
 
 BREAD STRRET UILU 
 
f t I i 
 
'■^^ tcritabic ticligl)t to t!)c gc^olarlp fiij^crman/'EpivBURGH Review. 
 
 TAe Library of ^ 
 
 OldFijhtng Books, 
 
 H COLLECTION, designed for the use of the 
 ^ Scholarly Fisherman and consisting chiefly 
 of reprints of works of unusual interest 
 or extreme rarity, carefully edited, well printed in 
 quarto form, on the best hand-made foolscap paper, 
 and issued in a permanent half-leather binding, 
 Roxburghe style, with gilt top and rough edges. 
 Copies may 
 
 also be obtained in 
 sheets ; and in half 
 or full Morocco 
 bindings [ English 
 or French', at prices 
 varying from One 
 to Seven Guineas 
 per volume. 
 
 ^S Unless orders are lodged 
 " before the volumts are 
 issued, ic will be ditBcuit to 
 secure the whole series, as in 
 some instances the impiession 
 will be limited to the copies 
 aduilly crde.ed. 
 
 F>0M Lkonaxd Mascalu 
 
 JF SATCHELL, 19, Tavistock St„ Strand, JF.C. 
 
 mm^ 
 
 jvii.va.JUi.ii.iu I. jiujujui 
 
 IP *X5 '\) %'.' Ip '^ "^'ji^'plL 
 
 
'($ 
 
 I 1 r r . 'I nPf rt " '^^^ °"^y known manuscript of the ' Treatyse of Fysshyng, 
 
 n Older lOrm or tne l rea- formerly m the possession of Mr. William Herbert, afterwardi 
 
 ;; of Mr. Joseph Haslewood, and now in the famous Denisor 
 
 tyse ot fysshynge Wyth an angle coUedtion, has been examined by Mr. Satchell, who finds it tc 
 
 r • J r contain an independent text, of a date not later than 1450. It 
 
 [CtrCa 1450) now first printed irom a is drawn from the same original as that printed in 1496, but 
 
 ■« /r • • ._! /^ 11 ri' r A/r instead of the * readings between it and the printed copy ' being. 
 
 Manuscript in the Collection ot IVir. ^^ ^^^^^^ i„ ^he preface to Mr. Pickering's reprint, 1827, ' ver, 
 
 DpvTCnM wifh Prpfare and Glo<:sarV few and unimportant; it varies the phrase throughout, and in 
 UENISON, Wltn rrerace anu VJlO^b^ry ^^^^ pj^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ sense, besides containing many shori 
 
 Uy 'T'tiqii*^c Satchell, Price is. dd. passages not included in the printed version. Mr. Satchell hai 
 
 J • J / • prepared the text for publication, and as it is unfortunately im- 
 
 200 copies printed, perfeft, will supply the lacuna from the edition of 1496."— 
 
 Athena um. 
 
 3 
 
 ^JL0 10 i. C \ T ( C^ \ " ^^ congratulate Mr. Westwood on his charming repro 
 
 ^ ne OeCretS or Anglings I O I 3 j ductlon of this old and rare angling poem .... Beloe said o: 
 
 ^^ ■ — — ■ ; it that ' perhaps there does not exist in the circle of Englisl 
 
 by J. fohnl D. rENNYS"], with an literature a rarer book than this.' Indeed, Sir John Hawkin 
 
 ^ '7 , ,._ ^rL confessed he could never get a sight of it. . . . Anglers wil 
 
 IntrodudllOn by Thomas Westwood. now \for the first time'] be able to read this poem as it wa 
 
 f^ • ^ J presented to the world." — Nota and S^ueries. 
 
 rriLC, yj. OU. "Mr. Westwood, angler and poet himself, was the propei 
 
 person to reveal the greatest of angling poets .... J. D.' 
 
 verses are earnest and impassioned, dainty, harmonious, anc 
 
 polished . . . All ' brothers of the angle ' will gratefully accep 
 
 this beautiful reprint of a book which, on account of its rarity 
 
 has been practically unknown to all save a few bookworms.' 
 
 ^jithenaum. 
 
 " Where is our debt of p'ratitude to Mr. Satchell to end 
 
 The * Bibliotheca Piscatoria was a thing to be thankful for 
 
 and now the • Secrets of angling ' — we can only again expres 
 
 our gratitude for the boon." — Field. 
 
 Wy Booke of Fishing with ^„ extremely rare book. 
 
 V-^ Hooke and Line, and of all other _,,. , ,,, , 
 
 instruments thereunto belonging . . . , ^ith^ 1 2 Woodcuts. 
 
 made by L. [eonard] M. [ascall]. Nearfy ready, 
 
 1590. Price, 7 J. dd. 
 
 Will be ready on i^th Dec, the Two Hundredth Anniversary of Walton s death 
 
 9 
 
 TjT he Ghronicle or 1 he C*om- notices of the first edition. 
 
 pleat Angler," of Isaak Walton -__^— _ 
 
 and Charles Cotton : being a Biblio- " a gossiping essay on the various editions of the brightes 
 
 graphical record of its various editions ^°^'^ ""> angling liter4ture, executed with the frankness of 
 
 and mutations, by Thomas West- brother of the pleasant craft the perception of an artist th 
 
 , ' "^ J J. . . , feehng of a poet, the tone of a gentleman, and the allusion 
 
 WOOD. The second edition, with 3„d illustrations that bespeak the scholar. "-^r-!>*«^««. 
 
 some notes and additions by Thomas ^^^ „ • »„ »• •. c, ^.„ ».-,;.«,. 
 
 . / " Entertammg as well U instrucuve." — Saturday Revew. 
 
 Satchell. Price, loj. 6a. ^ .. , 
 
 .... « Mr. Westwood has made out of a subject apparently ur 
 
 *•« The present volume conuins a record of 97 editions ot . . . • l • • n t j u.. :.- -..,;^ 
 
 • Walton's famous book; the previous edition (1864) prom.smg, an essay wh.ch 1. especially marked by its cur,o> 
 
 enumerated 53. felicitat/'— Spectator. 
 
The following^ with 
 
 severa 
 
 I oth 
 
 erSy are 
 
 in an advanced state 
 of preparation : 
 
 ^J^he treatyse of fysshynge wytJi an 
 
 angle, first printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 
 1496, with preface and glossary by Thomas 
 Satchell. Price 7j. 6^. (200 copies printed. J 
 
 ^he Pleasures of Princes (16 14), by 
 
 Gervase Markham, with introduction by 
 Thomas Westwood. Price js. 6d. 
 000000000000000000000000000000000000000 
 
 6 
 
 A^onrad Heresbach's "De piscatione 
 
 compendium" (1570), with a translation by 
 Miss Ellis and introduction by Thomas West- 
 wood. Price yj. 6d. 
 000000000000000000000000000000000000000 
 
 /^V briefve Treatis of Fishing, with the 
 
 ^^ Art of Angling, (1596) by W. [illiam] 
 
 G. [ryndall]. 
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 8 
 
 ^Kook XX. of the Geoponika of Cassia- 
 
 nus Bassus, {circa 950), with a translation of 
 
 the Greek and notes. 
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 10 
 
 Agitations from old English Authors 
 
 touching Fishing and Angling, collected by 
 T. Westwood and T. Satchell. 
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 II 
 
 /TJT Jewell for Gentrie (1614). 
 
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 /Vj -1 J J- T^ ! n»- << TN- Tr.^_i_ >> 
 
 ichard de Fournivairs " De Vetula 
 
 (1470), with Jean Lefevre's Translation. 
 
" Ic is certainly one of the most interesting and masterful works in rhe whole range of bibliographical literature . . . 
 may be fairly said to be as complete as it could well be made, its authors having spared neither time nor pains to perfe(fj w 
 h IS evidently been to them a real ' labour of love ' . . . . This will give some idea of the marvellous store of piscatory ini 
 matJon contained in, or suggested by, the volume, which has been well and by no means hyperbolically described [in Edlnku 
 Revienv] as a ' hagiography for the enthusiancic followers of Walton ; a substantial help to the bibliographer ; a series of fing 
 posts by the side of English history to guide the curious student of diversions which found favour with our forefathers j 
 amusement for the idle angler as he notes the names of those distinguished of old in his craft.' ... In a word it is a liters 
 treasure of which not only anglers but the nation may be justly proud." 
 
 REV. J. J. MANLEY'S "Literature or Sea amd River Fishing" {Fisheries Handbtok). 
 
 Demy Svo.,pp. 432, c/ot^, ^5-f«» Large Paper, Roxburghe binding, 50/. 
 
 Bibliotheca Piscatoria : 
 
 A Catalogue of Books on Angling, the Fisheries and Fish 
 culture, with Bibliographical Notes and an Appendix c 
 Citations touching on Angling and Fishing from old Englis 
 
 Authors. 
 
 By THOMAS WESTWOOD and THOMAS SATCHELL. 
 
 "Indispensable as a companion to the angler blessed (and respects excellently done. It shows a remarkable amo'Jint 
 
 to doubly blessed) with scholarly tastes.'' — Edinburgh Rtvievj. examination and research. The authors are certainly to 
 
 congratulated upon the result of their labours." — ^otsman. 
 
 •' A marnum ofut in every sense of the word. . . . We owe 
 a deep debt of gratitude to the gentlemen who have given " ^ truly great work. —BtU s Life. 
 
 themselves so vast an amount of labour and pains to produce « We realize the immense labour required to complete ii 
 
 this almost marvellojis work. ... To say that it has been a Forest and Stream. 
 
 labour of love is only t > say what must be evident on every 
 
 pi^ofit. Had it not been so, the work could never have "Anglers now possess for the first time some c!< 
 
 been produced." Field. knowledge of the tretturet embraced in the literature of th( 
 
 craft." — Athenaum. 
 
 « Mr. Satchell has spent more than two years in aycer- „ j^ ^^, ^^^ ^^^jl ^^ g^^^j,^,, ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^.j^. 
 
 ta.mng the exact Uties, publuher, pagmat.on illustration, ^^ Weuwood had previously commenced), and threw I 
 
 and the like, belonging toall the works which treat of ^„^„,i :„,.iiu. - .„j ..,i :„,„ .i,- _„-...:, „f .u 
 
 ,. ■•,111 r , 1 • ^1 . personal mtelligence and zeal into the pursuit of the str 
 
 anglmg. disclosed by the most careful searching. Thyesulc . ^^^ , .^e lurking • Secrets of Angling.' .nd the prote 
 
 2 5"!°''' "'' ' '"°""'"'^"' °^ '•'''2'"" ""'^ 8 '*^ *"'''• • iMarkhams,' that the angling-book collector could be said 
 
 -'■ h.ive found a true 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' ... It 
 
 "The type has been distributed, and it will soon be as no mere catalogue of books — the dry details of titles, editior 
 
 difficult to obtiin as many of the rare old books it so lovingly """^ pages are enlivened by pleasant little ripples of bibli 
 
 describes." — Fishing Gtnettt. graphical gossip, by odds and ends of angling lore, and 
 
 many a quaint and amusing cxtraA from the rarest of t 
 
 *• It is something to get a full account offish literature, treasures now. for the first time, adequately described ai 
 
 and, as far as we can tee, this it a AiU account, it it in all properly enumerated." — Derbyshire Mvtriistr. 
 
3C 
 
 A) 21-100m-9,'47(A57028l6)476 
 

 
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