Transcribed from the 1896 J. M. Dent edition , emailccx074@coventry.ac.uk
To write on Walton is, indeed, to hold a candle to the sun. The editor has been content to give a summary of the chief or ratherthe only known, events in Walton’s long life, adding a noticeof his character as displayed in his Biographies and in The CompleatAngler, with comments on the ancient and modern practice of fishing,illustrated by passages from Walton’s foregoers and contemporaries. Like all editors of Walton, he owes much to his predecessors, Sir JohnHawkins, Oldys, Major, and, above all, to the learned Sir Harris Nicolas.
The few events in the long life of Izaak Walton have been carefullyinvestigated by Sir Harris Nicolas. All that can be extricatedfrom documents by the alchemy of research has been selected, and I amunaware of any important acquisitions since Sir Harris Nicolas’ssecond edition of 1860. Izaak was of an old family of Staffordshireyeomen, probably descendants of George Walton of Yoxhall, who died in1571. Izaak’s father was Jarvis Walton, who died in February1595-6; of Izaak’s mother nothing is known. Izaak himselfwas born at Stafford, on August 9, 1593, and was baptized on September21. He died on December 15, 1683, having lived in the reigns ofElizabeth, James I., Charles I., under the Commonwealth, and under CharlesII. The anxious and changeful age through which he passed is incontrast with his very pacific character and tranquil pursuits.
Of Walton’s education nothing is known, except on the evidenceof his writings. He may have read Latin, but most of the bookshe cites had English translations. Did he learn his religion from‘his mother or his nurse’? It will be seen that thefree speculation of his age left him untouched: perhaps his piety wasawakened, from childhood, under the instruction of a pious mother. Had he been orphaned of both parents (as has been suggested) he mighthave been less amenable to authority, and a less notable example ofthe virtues which Anglicanism so vainly opposed to Puritanismism. His literary beginnings are obscure. There exists a copy of awork, The Loves of Amos and Laura, written by S. P., publishedin 1613, and again in 1619. The edition of 1619 is dedicated to‘Iz. Wa.’:—
‘Thou being cause it is as now it is’;
the Dedication does not occur in the one imperfect known copy of1613. Conceivably the words, ‘as now it is’ referto the edition of 1619, which might have been emended by Walton’sadvice. But there are no emendations, hence it is more probablethat Walton revised the poem in 1613, when he was a man of twenty, orthat he merely advised the author to publish:—
‘For, hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might
These have been buried in oblivion’s night.’
S. P. also remarks:—
‘No ill thing can be clothed in thy verse’;
hence Izaak was already a rhymer, and a harmless one, under the RoyalPrentice, gentle King Jamie.
By this time Walton was probably settled in London. A deedin the possession of his biographer, Dr. Johnson’s friend, SirJohn Hawkins, shows that, in 1614, Walton held half of a shop on thenorth side of Fleet Street, two doors west of Chancery Lane: the otheroccupant was a hosier. Mr. Nicholl has discovered that Waltonwas made free of the Ironmongers’ Company on Nov. 12, 1618. He is styled an Ironmonger in his marriage licence. The factsare given in Mr. Marston’s Life of Walton, prefixed to his editionof The Compleat Angler (1888). It is odd that a prenticeironmonger should have been a poet and a critic of poetry. Dr.Donne, before 16