deuowtly, in sayenge affectuously youre custumable prayer;1 and, thus doynge, ye shall eschewe and voyde many vices.

But to return to the last-mentioned work of our author, The Complete Angler: it came into the world attended with Encomiastic Verses by several writers of that day; and had in the title-page, though Walton thought proper to omit it in the future editions, this apposite motto:

"SIMON PETER said, I go a fishing; and they said, we also will go with thee." John 21. 3.

And here occasion is given us to remark, that the circumstance of time, and the distracted state of the kingdom at the period when the book was written, reaching indeed to the publication of the third edition thereof, are evidences of the author's inward temper and disposition; for who-but a man whose mind was the habitation of piety, prudence, humility, peace and cheerfulness-could delineate such a character as that of the principal interlocutor in this dialogue; and make him reason, contemplate, instruct, converse, jest, sing, and recite verses, with that sober pleasantry, that unlicentious hilarity, that Piscator does? and this, too, at a time when the whole kingdom was in arms; and confusion and desolation were carried to an extreme sufficient to have excited such a resentment against the authors of them, as might have soured the best temper, and rendered it, in no small degree, unfit for social intercourse. 3

If it should be objected, that what is here said may be equally true of an indolent man, or of a mind insensible to all outward accidents, and devoted to its own ease and gratification, to this it may be answered, that the person here spoken of was not such a man: on the contrary, in sundry views of his character, he appears to have been endowed both with activity and industry; an industrious tradesman; industrious in collecting biographical memoirs and historical facts, and in rescuing from oblivion the memory and writings of many of his learned friends: and, surely, against the suspicion of insensibility HE must stand acquitted, who appears to have had the strongest attachments, that could consist with christian charity, both to opinions and men; to episcopacy, to the doctrines, discipline, and the liturgy of the established church; and to those divines and others that favoured the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of this country,-the subversion whereof, it was his misfortune both to see and feel. Seeing, therefore, that amidst the public calamities, and in a state of exile from that city where the earliest and dearest of his connections had been formed, he was thus capable of enjoying himself in the manner he appears to have done; patiently submitting to those evils which he could not prevent, we must pronounce him to have been

(1) A note of the pious simplicity of former times, which united prayer with recreation.

(2) This is a mistake; it was upon the publication of the second edition, that the commendatory verses appeared.

(3) This kind of resentment we cannot better estimate, than by a com parison thereof with its opposite affection, whatever we may call it; which in one instance, to wit, the restoration of King Charles II. had such an effect upon Mr. Oughtred, the mathematician, that, for joy on receiving the news that the parliament had voted the king's return, he expired.

an illustrious exemplar of the private and social virtues, and upon the whole a wise and good man.

To these remarks, respecting the moral qualities of Walton, I add, that his mental endowments were so considerable as to merit notice; it is true, that his stock of learning, properly so called, was not great; yet were his attainments in literature far beyond what could be expected from a man bred to trade, and not to a learned profession; for let it be remembered, that-besides being well versed in the study of the holy scriptures, and the writings of the most eminent divines of his time he appears to have been well acquainted with history, ecclesiastical, civil, and natural; to have acquired a very correct judgment in poetry; and by phrases of his own combination and invention, to have formed a style so natural, intelligible, and elegant, as to have had more admirers than successful imitators.

And although in the prosecution of his design to teach the contemplative man the art of angling, there is a plainness and simplicity of discourse, that indicates little more than bare instruction, yet is there intermingled with it wit and gentle reprehension; and we may in some instances discover, that though he professes himself no friend to scoffing, he knew very well how to deal with scoffers, and to defend his art, as we see he does, against such as attempted to degrade it; and particularly against those two persons in the dialogue, Auceps and Venator, who affected to fear a long and watery discourse in defence of his art-the former of whom he puts to silence, and the other he converts and takes for his pupil.

What reception in general the book met with, may be naturally inferred from the dates of the subsequent editions thereof; the second came abroad in 1655, the third in 1664, the fourth in 1668, and the fifth and last in 1676. It is pleasing to trace the several variations which the author from time to time made in these subsequent editions, as well by adding new facts and discoveries, as by enlarging on the more entertaining parts of the dialogue: And so far did he indulge himself in this method of improvement, that, besides that in the second edition he has introduced a new interlocutor, to wit, Auceps, a falconer, and by that addition gives a new form to the dialogue; he from thence takes occasion to urge a variety of reasons in favour of his art, and to assert its preference as well to hawking as hunting. The third and fourth editions of his book have several entire new chapters; and the fifth, the last of the editions published in his lifetime, contains no less than eight chapters more than the first, and twenty pages more than the fourth.

Not having the advantage of a learned education, it may seem unaccountable that Walton so frequently cites authors that have written only in Latin, as Gesner, Cardan, Aldrovandus, Rondeletius, and even Albertus Magnus; but here it may be observed, that the voluminous history of animals, of which the first of these was author, is in effect translated into English by Mr. Edward Topsel, a learned divine; chaplain, as it seems-in the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate-to Dr. Neile, dean of Westminster. The translation was published in 1658, and containing in it numberless particulars concerning frogs, serpents, caterpillars, and other animals, though not of fish, extracted from the other writers above-named, and others with their names to

the respective facts-it furnished Walton with a great variety of intelligence, of which in the later editions of his book he has carefully availed himself: it was therefore through the medium of this transiation alone, that he was enabled to cite the other authors mentioned above; vouching the authority of the original writers, in like manner as he elsewhere does Sir Francis Bacon, whenever occasion occurs to mention his Natural History, or any other of his works. Pliny was translated to his hand by Dr. Philemon Holland, as were also Janus Dubravius De Piscinis & Piscium Natura, and Lebault's Maison Rustique, so often referred to by him in the course of his work.

Nor did the reputation of the Complete Angler subsist only in the opinions of those for whose use it was more peculiarly calculated; but even the learned, either from the known character of the author, or those internal evidences of judgment and veracity contained in it, considered it as a work of merit, and for various purposes referred to its authority: Doctor Thomas Fuller in his Worthies, whenever he has occasion to speak of fish, uses his very words. Doctor Plot, in his History of Staffordshire, has, on the authority of our author, related two of the instances of the voracity of the Pike, mentioned Part I. Chap. 8.; and confirmed them by two other signal ones, that had then lately fallen out in that county.

These are testimonies in favour of Walton's authority in matters respecting fish and fishing. And it will hardly be thought a diminution of that of Fuller, to say, that he was acquainted with, and a friend of, the person whom he thus implicitly commends: a fact which the following relation of a conference between them sufliciently proves.

Fuller, as we all know, wrote a Church History, which, soon after its publication-Walton-having read-applied to the author for some information touching Hooker, whose Life he was then about to write. Upon this occasion Fuller, knowing how intimate Walton was with several of the bishops and ancient clergy, asked his opinion of it, and what reception it met with among his friends? Walton answered, that " he thought it would be acceptable to all tempers, because there were shades in it for the warm, and sunshine for those of a cold constitution: that with youthful readers, the facetious parts would be proper to make the serious more palatable, while some reverend old readers might fancy themselves in his History of the Church as in a flower-garden, or one full of evergreens." And why not,' said Fuller, the Church History so decked, as well as the Church itself at a most holy season, or the Tabernacle of old at the feast of boughs.' "That was but for a season," said Walton: " in your feast of boughs, they may conceive, we are so overshadowed throughout, that the parson is more seen than his congregation,--and this, sometimes, invisible to its own acquaintance, who may wander in the search till they are lost in the labyrinth."- Oh,' said Fuller, 'the very children of our Israel may find their way out of this wilderness.-"True," replied Walton, "as, indeed, they have here such a Moses to conduct them.”1

(1) From a manuscript Collection of diverting sayings, stories, characters, &c. in verse and prose, made about the year 1686, by Charles Cotton, Esq.

To pursue the subject of the Biographical Writings-about two years after the Restoration, Walton wrote the Life of Mr. Richard Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity. He was enjoined to undertake this work by his friend Doctor Gilbert Sheldon, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; who, by the way, was an angler. Bishop King, in a letter to the author,2 says of this Life: "I have often seen Mr. Hooker with my father, who was after bishop of London; from whom, and others at that time, I have heard most of the material passages which you relate in the history of his life." Sir William Dugdale, speaking of the three posthumous books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, refers the reader" to that seasonable historical discourse, lately compiled and published, with great judgment and integrity, by that much deserving person, Mr. Isaac Walton." 3 In this Life we are told, that Hooker, while he was at college, made a visit to the famous Doctor Jewel, then bishop of Salisbury, his good friend and patron: An account of the bishop's reception of him, and behaviour at his departure-as it contains a lively picture of his simplicity and goodness, and of the plain manners of those times-is given in the

note. 4

The Life of Mr. George Herbert, as it stands the fourth and last in the volume wherein that and the three former are collected, seems to have been written the next after Hooker's: it was first published in duodecimo, 1670. Walton professes himself to have been a stranger as to the person of Herbert; and though he assures us his

some time in the library of the Earl of Halifax. Vide Biographia Britannica, 2061, note P. in margine.

The editors of the above work have styled this colloquy a witty confabulation, but it seems remarkable for nothing but its singularity, which consists in the starting of a metaphor and hunting it down.

(1) Walton's Epist. to the reader of the Lives, in 8vo. 1670.

(2) Before the Lives.

(3) Short View of the late Troubles in England, fol. 1681, p. 39.

(4) "As soon as he was perfectly recovered from this sickness, he took a journey from Oxford to Exeter, to satisfy and see his good mother; being accompanied with a countryman and companion of his own college, and both on toot; which was, then, either more in fashion-or want of money, or their humility made it so: but on foot they went, and took Salisbury in their way, purposely to see the good bishop, who made Mr. Hooker and his companion dine with him at his own table; which Mr. Hooker boasted of with much joy and gratitude, when he saw his mother and friends. And at the bishop's parting with him, the bishop gave him good counsel, and his benediction, but forgot to give him money, which, when the bishop had considered, he sent a servant in all haste to call Richard back to him: and at Richard's return, the bishop said to him: Richard! I sent for you back to lend you a horse, which hath carried me many a mile, and, I thank God, with much ease; and presently delivered into his hands a walking staff, with which he professed he had travelled through many parts of Germany; and he said, Richard? I do not give, but lend you my horse; be sure you be honest, and bring my horse back to me at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give you ten groats to bear your charges to Exeter; and here is ten groats more, which I charge you to deliver to your mother; and tell her, I send her a bishop's benediction with it, and beg the continuance of her prayers for me. And if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you ten groats more to carry you on foot to the college: and so God bless you, good Řichard?' Life of Hooker, in the Collection of Lives, edit. 1670.

(5) Introd. to Herbert's Life.

life of him was a free-will-offering, it abounds with curious information, and is no way inferior to any of the former.

Two of these Lives; viz. those of Hooker and Herbert, we are told, were written under the roof of Walton's good friend and patron, Dr. George Morley, bishop of Winchester; which particular seems to agree with Wood's account, that," after his quitting London, he lived mostly in the families of the eminent clergy of that time."3 And who that considers the inoffensiveness of his manners, and the pains he took in celebrating the lives and actions of good men, can doubt his being much beloved by them?

In the year 1670, these Lives were collected and published in octavo; with a Dedication to the above bishop of Winchester; and a Preface, containing the motives for writing them :—this preface is followed by a Copy of Verses, by his intimate friend and adopted son, Charles Cotton, of Beresford in Staffordshire, Esq. the author of the Second Part of the Complete Angler, of whom further mention will hereafter be made; and by the Letter from bishop King, so often referred to in the course of this Life.

The Complete Angler having, in the space of twenty-three years, gone through four editions,-Walton, in the year 1676, and in the eighty-third of his age, was preparing a fifth, with additions, for the press; when Mr. Cotton wrote a second part of that work: It seems Mr. Cotton submitted the manuscript to Walton's perusal, who returned it with his approbation, and a few marginal strictures: And in that year they came abroad together. Mr. Cotton's book had the title of the Complete Angler; being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling, in a clear stream; Part II. and it has ever since been received as a Second Part of Walton's book. In the title-page,

is a cipher composed of the initial letters of both their names; which cipher, Mr. Cotton tells us, he had caused to be cut in stone, and set up over a fishing-house, 5 that he had erected near his dwelling, on the bank of the little river Dove, which divides the counties of Stafford and Derby.

Mr. Cotton's book is a judicious supplement to Walton's; for it must not be concealed, that Walton, though he was so expert an angler, knew but little of fly-fishing; and indeed he is so ingenuous as to confess, that the greater part of what he has said on that subject was communicated to him by Mr. Thomas Barker, and not the result of his own experience. This Mr. Barker was a good-humoured gossiping old man, and seems to have been a cook; for he says, "he had been admitted into the most ambassadors' kitchens, that had come to England for forty years, and drest fish for them;" for which, he says, "he was duly paid by the Lord Protector."7 He spent a

(1) Epistle to the Reader of the Collection of Lives.

(2) Dedication of the Lives.

(3) Zouch says that apartments for Walton and his daughters were reserved both in the house of the bishop of Winchester, and in that of the bishop of Salisbury.

(4) See Walton's Letter to Cotton, before the Second Part.

(5) Vide infra, Part II.

(6) Vide infra.

(7) Barker's Delight, p. 20.