Introduction ix 



the Dedication does not occur in the one imperfect 

 known copy of 1613. Conceivably the words, "as 

 now it is " refer to the edition of 1619, which might 

 have been emended by Walton's advice. But there 

 are no emendations, hence it is more probable that 

 Walton revised the poem in 1613, when he was a 

 man of twenty, or that he merely advised the author 

 to publish : 



11 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 Royal Prentice, gentle King Jamie. 

 By this time Walton was probably settled in 

 London. A deed in the possession of his bio- 

 grapher, Dr. Johnson's friend, Sir John Hawkins, 

 shows that, in 1614, Walton held half of a shop 

 on the north side of Fleet Street, two doors west 

 of Chancery Lane : the other occupant was a hosier. 

 Mr. Nicholl has discovered that Walton was made 

 free of the Ironmongers' Company on Nov. 12, 

 1618. He is styled anjronmonger in his marriage 

 licence. The facts are given in Mr. Marston's Life 

 of Walton, prefixed to his edition of The Compleat 

 Angler (1888). It is odd that a prentice iron- 

 monger should have been a poet and a critic of 

 poetry. Dr. Donne, before 1614, was Vicar of St. 

 Dunstan's in the West, and in Walton had a parish- 

 ioner, a disciple, and a friend. Izaak greatly loved 

 the society of the clergy : he connected himself with 

 Episcopal families, and had a natural taste for a 

 Bishop. Through Donne, perhaps, or it may be 

 in converse across the counter, he made acquaint- 

 ance with Hales of Eton, Dr. King, and Sir Henry 

 Wotton, himself an angler, and one who, 



