IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 5 



my education and mean abilities, it is not with- 

 out some little wonder at myself that I am 

 come to be publicly in print," and he would not 

 boast " of acquired learning or study." However, 

 he must have conversed much with learned men, 

 and walking with wise men, without doubt, made 

 him wise. Canon Beeching points out in his 

 Religio Laid (Smith, Elder & Co., 1902) that it 

 is important to insist that Walton was a man of 

 education, and draws attention to his handwriting, 

 "which is beautiful and scholarlike." Early in 

 life he seems to have made friends with the best- 

 known literary men of the day, and with those 

 who "excelled in virtue." He appears to have 

 followed the counsel given to cleave unto him that 

 is wise, and be willing to hear every godly dis- 

 course, and when he saw a man of understanding 

 — to get betimes unto him, and to let his foot 

 wear the steps of his door (Ecclesiasticus vi. 

 34, 36). 



Walton came to London before the year 1613, 

 and was engaged in business in or near Chancery 

 Lane for many years. Perhaps the real nature of 

 his business will never now be discovered. It is 

 usually supposed that he was a linendraper, 

 sempster, haberdasher, milliner or merchant. 

 That he was an ironmonger, as has been lately so 

 confidently asserted, is improbable. It is true that, 

 on the 12th of November 1618, he was admitted 



