xviii The Complete Angler 



In Scotland he would not have found fresh sheets 

 smelling of lavender. 



\/ Walton was in London " in the dangerous year 

 1655 " * e speaks of his meeting Bishop Sander- 

 son there, " in sad-coloured clothes, and, God knows, 

 far from being costly ". The friends were driven by 

 wind and rain into " a cleanly house, where we had 

 bread, cheese, ale, and a fire, for our ready money. 

 The rain and wind were so obliging to me, as to 

 force our stay there for at least an hour, to my great 

 content and advantage ; for in that time he made to 

 me many useful observations of the present times 

 with much clearness and conscientious freedom." 

 It was a year of Republican and Royalist con- 

 spiracies : the clergy were persecuted and banished 

 from London. 



No more is known of Walton till the happy year 

 1660, when the king came to his own again, and 

 Walton's Episcopal friends to their palaces. Izaak 

 produced an " Eglog," on May 29 : 



" The king ! The king's returned ! And now 

 Let's banish all sad thoughts, and sing : 

 We have our laws, and have our king." 



If Izaak was so eccentric as to go to bed sober 

 on that glorious twenty-ninth of May, I greatly 

 misjudge him. But he grew elderly. In 1661 he 

 chronicles the deaths of " honest Nat. and R. Roe, 

 they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant 

 hours, even as a shadow that passeth away, and 

 returns not". On April 17, 1662, Walton lost his 

 second wife : she died at Worcester, probably on a 

 visit to Bishop Morley. In the same year, the 

 bishop was translated to Winchester, where the 

 palace became Izaak's home. The Itchen (where, 

 no doubt, he angled with worm) must have been 

 his constant haunt. He was busy with his Life oi 



