Introduction xxxvii 



fashion in this critical age/ 1 for Walton, we have 

 said, was the last of the Elizabethans, and the new 

 times were all for Waller and Dryden. "Chevy 

 Chace" and " Johnny Armstrong 11 were dear to 

 Walton as to Scott, but through a century these 

 old favourites were to be neglected, save by Mr. 

 Pepys and Addison. Indeed, there is no more 

 curious proof of the great unhappy change then 

 coming to make poetry a mechanic art, than the 

 circumstance that Walton is much nearer to us, in 

 his likings, than to the men between 1670 and 1770. 

 Gay was to sing of angling, but in " the strong lines 

 that are now in fashion ". All this while Piscator 

 has been angling with worm and minnow to no 

 purpose, though he picks up "a trout will fill six 

 reasonable bellies" in the evening. So we leave 

 them after their ale, ''in fresh sheets that smell of 

 lavender". Izaak's practical advice is not of much 

 worth ; we read him rather for sentences like this : 

 " I'll tell you, scholar : when I sat last on this prim- 

 rose bank, and looked down these meadows, I 

 thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of the 

 city of Florence, ' that they were too pleasant to be 

 looked upon, but only on holy-days'". He did not 

 say, like Fox, when Burke spoke of " a seat under 

 a tree, with a friend, a bottle, and a book," " Why 

 a book ? " Izaak took his book with him a practice 

 in which, at least, I am fain to imitate this excellent 

 old man. 



As to salmon, Walton scarcely speaks a true word 

 about their habits, except by accident. Concerning 

 pike, he quotes the theory that they are bred by 

 pickerel weed, only as what " some think ". In 

 describing the use of frogs as bait, he makes the 

 famous, or infamous, remark, " Use him as though 

 you loved him . . . that he may live the longer." 

 A bait-fisher may be a good man, as Izaak was, but 



