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'bee friends: bid him fend word if he would 'have any thing fent down for them. Mr. ' Upton remembers him to you and your wife,

him I will

Let us get

defire your

' and defires to know whether his meare bee 'brought in bed or noe, and I defire to knowe 'how my black damfell doth; pray get your ' own horses in good cafe, in case I fend for you, or you are to meet mee: remember mee ' to all my friends, but especially to John Hayes, 'John Baffet, Dic Ball, and tell 'bring his cognizance with mee. 'the blew coate where wee can; nephew to looke in my trunk of books, and 'there you shall finde a large booke in writing ' with a parchment cover, blotied on one fide ' with inke towards the nooke of it, its of pre'ferving & conferving, & fend it up by this 'bearer, by whome I think I shall send you 'further newes of my coming downe, if Mr. 'Parker be not the caufe; but however doe 'what I have defired. Send me word what's 'become of that gratious elfe Pud; so I rest,

"Your loving Mris

'my bleffing to the two
' comrades that keepe the

'OLIVE COTTON.

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Painter. What a primitive kindness of nature there is in every line. I declare to you, brother, it is more deserving to be treasured up in an angler's cabinet than those Latin epiftles I have seen of famed Mistress Anna Maria Shurman.

Angler. It is the letter of a careful and benevolent mistress.

Hoft. Ay, Sirs! and that fhe was indeed. Alas! if she had lived long enough, it had been happier for Mr. Cotton. But she was snatched away, like a too delicate flower, as she was.*

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* She died at the of 38, as appears age

from a poem

of Sir Afton Cockaine:-'On the death of his dear 'coufin germaine, Mrs. Olive Cotton, who deceased at

Beresford, in the 38th year of her age, and lies buried

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Will it please you, Sir, to receive this letter? for I have some others by me.

Painter. I thank you heartily, Mr. Marsh, and I may not decline a kindness so freely offered; and here is my copy of the fishinghouse, which is not worthy to be called a return for fuch a gift.

Hoft. Sir, my humble duty and thanks to you, and if ever you come this way again, and it please God I live, you shall then find this natural view of the fishing-house glazed and hanging up over my parlour chimney.

Angler. Well, I hope fome happy day we may all meet here again: and fo let us to bed, and pleasant dreams to every one.

CHAPTER V.

The return of the Angler and Painter to Ashbourne, through Dove Dale.

Angler.

ELL, brother, now we are come over the river into Derbyshire, and are arrived under Wolfscote Hill, tell me what you thought of our honeft hoft at Alftonfields, and his charges. Painter. I know not which to admire moft, the good cheer and beds that he gave us, or the moderateness of the score. There we have lived like brave gentlemen for three days, and been moft civilly and handsomely treated, and the charge was no more than I have paid for a day's reckoning at an inn in Westminster.

Angler. If I may speak my real thoughts, I have not met a more modeft and decently behaved man than Herbert Marsh; fo I shall make honourable mention of him to all my

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