IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 45 



made it an equal favourite with every reader of 

 taste and feeling" {Plain Speaker). This high 

 authority also wrote : *'I should suppose no other 

 language than ours can show such a book as 

 an oft-mentioned one, Walton's Complete Angler, 

 so full of naivete, of unaffected sprightliness, of 

 busy trifling, of dainty songs, of refreshing brooks, 

 of shady arbours, of happy thoughts, and of the 

 herb called heart's-ease ! " ("Merry England" in 

 Sketches and Essays). Miss Mary Eussell Mitford, 

 in her Recollections of a Literary Life, says : 

 "Certainly it was not amongst the least of the 

 many excel] encies of Izaak Walton's charming 

 book, that he helped to render popular so many 

 pure and beautiful lyrics." Thomas Westwood's 

 estimate of the value of the book is neatly given : 

 it "is essentially a book to be loved, and to be 

 discoursed of lovingly." 



The following remarks I take from the Works 

 of Alexander Pope, ivith Memoirs of His Life, by 

 William L. Bowles, Vol. I., p. 135 : " Let me take 

 this opportunity of recommending the amiable 

 and venerable Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, 

 a work the most singular of its kind, breathing 

 the very spirit of contentment, of quiet and un- 

 affected philanthropy, and interspersed with some 

 beautiful relics of poetry, old songs and ballads," 

 It has been asked, see Notes and Queries (3rd 

 S., VIII., p. 353), who it was that wrote of 



