THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 97 



of Grinsell's, he must have shown wonderful literary- 

 proclivities. 



Even if these lines did not appear till the edition 

 of 16 1 9, Walton was then a very young man. It 

 does seem marvellous that a young man from the 

 country, a sempster's apprentice, should already 

 have achieved such a literary reputation as should 

 elicit S. P.'s poem. 



It is somewhat curious that in a letter of Walton's, 

 previously unpublished, dated November, 1670, 

 which in book form was first published by Mr. R. B. 

 Marston, the following is a postscript — 



"If you incline to write to me, direct your 

 letter to be left at Mr. Grinsell's, a grocer, in 

 King Streite, in Westminster." ^ 



^ One might hazard the suggestion that Walton, having 

 lost both his parents in Stafford, the father in 1596 and the 

 mother previously, was brought to London at a much earlier 

 period ; that in London he was educated — (^possibly at 

 Westminster') — before he was apprenticed to Grinsell, with 

 whom the letter above quoted suggests there was a family 

 connection with the Grinsells of Westminster, which had 

 continued for sixty years afterwards. I have, however, been 

 informed by an old friend, Mr. G. F. R. B., the best authority 

 on Westminster School, that the records of " the admissions 

 of 1 593-1609 do not exist." If it could be proved it would 

 throw a flood of light on all else that is mysterious in 

 Walton's life. The only reply I have heard to this suggestion 



H 



