32 



Fish Stories 



means waiting by the brook, " a rest to the mind, a cheer er 

 to the spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet 

 thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of content- 

 ment." It begets " habits of peace and patience in those 

 who prefer and practice it." It is like " the virtue of humil- 

 ity," which has calmness of spirit and a world of other 

 blessings attending upon it. 



Those who write men's lives tell us that Izaak Walton 

 was born in Stafford on the 9th of August, 1593, and that 

 on the 15th day of December, 1683, he passed away '' in the 

 ninetieth year of his innocency." It does not matter what 

 his lineage was, for no one knows anything worth counting, 

 nor do I know what pretended to be his education. There 

 are marks in his spelling which show that it was not class- 

 ical, nor need it be, to one who like him was " born beneath 

 the Fishes' sign, of Constellations happiest." He went to 

 London, this we know, and lived there many years, as a 

 trader of some kind, selling something or other, wholesale 

 or retail, but even here, this is a dispute among the makers 

 of books. 



Some argue that because his shop was small he must 

 have been a wholesale dealer, and others take a reverse 

 position. Clearly the greatness of his soul was not depend- 

 ent on the bigness of his shop, and so, let us hope that he 

 sold at a profit, especially when he sold his shop, and let it 

 go at that. It is recorded that he held little parish offices, 

 discharging their duties blamelessly, while in his leisure 

 time he wrote love-verses graciously, and wrote, with noble 

 sympathy, the lives of men whom he had loved, Donne and 

 Wotton, among others, and Sanderson and Herbert. 



It is related that in 1624 he married Rachel Floud, and 

 lived with her in Fleet Street and in Chancery Lane. After 

 her death, he went back in 1644 to Staffordshire, and here he 

 wedded Anne Kerr. Of his ten children, two alone sur- 

 vived him, and these did naught which may concern us. 



What touches us is his return " to linger long, long days 



