IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 35 



ing ear, and the seeing eye," for appreciating fully 

 the glories and beauties of the natural world with 

 its birds and fish. The last stanza runs : — 



" All these, and many more of His creation 

 That made the heavens, the angler oft doth see : 

 Taking therein no little delectation, 

 To think how strange, how wonderful they be ! 

 Framing thereof an inward contemplation 

 To set his heart from other fancies free. 

 And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye, 

 His mind is wrapt above the starry sky." 



All this is just what the ordinary man cannot 

 understand — it is "foolishness" to him. An 

 '* athlete "is understood, and a "capuchin," as 

 Napoleon calls the religious man, is understood, 

 but only the few can reconcile the meaning of il 

 santo atleta — the athlete sanctified.^ We can 

 claim Walton as being rightly described as an 

 '* athlete," for he states, "no reasonable hedge or 

 ditch shall hold me," when he expresses his eager- 

 ness to join in pursuit of the otter; so he was 

 able, we must suppose, to get across a country at 

 least on foot ! The careful reader will not accept 

 the ridiculous belief of some writers on Walton 

 that he only followed angling " as a pretext for a 

 day or two in the fields " ; on the contrary, it may 

 be taken for granted he was keen. He was not 

 first a lover of the picturesque, and merely, in the 

 second place, an angler. Walton says he does 



^ Dante, Paradiso, XII. 55. 



