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first edition of "Pickwick" though surely not without that measure of
interest which all, save the quite unlettered or unintelligent, must
feel in seeing the first visible shape of a book of such resounding
significance in English literature._

_Such interest may, without fear of denial, be claimed for a facsimile
of the first edition of "The Compleat Angler" after "Robinson Crusoe"
perhaps the most popular of English classics. Thomas Westwood, whose
gentle poetry, it is to be feared, has won but few listeners, has drawn
this fancy picture of the commotion in St. Dunstan's Churchyard on a
May morning of the year 1653, when Richard Marriott first published the
famous discourse, little dreaming that he had been chosen for the
godfather of so distinguished an immortality. The lines form an
epilogue to twelve beautiful sonnets _a propos_ of the bi-centenary of
Walton's death:_

"What, not a word for thee, O little tome,
Brown-jerkined, friendly-faced--of all my books
The one that wears the quaintest, kindliest looks--
Seems most completely, cosily at home
Amongst its fellows. Ah! if thou couldst tell
Thy story--how, in sixteen fifty-three,
Good Master Marriott, standing at its door,
Saw Anglers hurrying--fifty--nay, three score,
To buy thee ere noon pealed from Dunstan's bell:--
And how he stared and ... shook his sides with glee.
One story, this, which fact or fiction weaves.
Meanwhile, adorn my shelf, beloved of all--
Old book! with lavender between thy leaves,
And twenty ballads round thee on the wall."

_Whether there was quite such a rush as this on its publishing day we
have no certain knowledge, though Westwood, in his "Chronicle of the
Compleat Angler" speaks of "the almost immediate sale of the entire
edition." According to Sir Harris Nicolas, it was thus advertised in
_The Perfect Diurnall: from Monday, May 9th, to Monday, May 16th,
1653_:_

_"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 Gipsee, never
known Play of the Spanish Gipsee, never till now published: Both printed
for Richard Marriot, to be sold at his shop in Saint Dunstan's
Churchyard, Fleet street."_

_And it was thus calmly, unexcitedly noticed in the _Mercurius
Politicus: from Thursday, May 12, to Thursday, May 19, 1653_: "There is
newly extant, a Book of 18d. price,