50 IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 



We read of a stone near Madeley Pond on 

 which Walton is said to have carved his initials. 

 In some twenty of his own books now in 

 the Cathedral Library at Salisbury^ can be 

 seen his name or initials (all, however, may not 

 be autographs), and now and again some book will 

 turn up at auction, ear-marked in that way, as 

 having been once in his possession, and therefore 

 fetching far more than its fair market value 

 on that account.^ Johnson called Walton "a 

 great panegyrist," and once Bos well said to him : i 

 "No quality will get a man more friends than a 

 disposition to admire the qualities of others. I | 

 do not mean flattery but a sincere admiration." | 

 Dr Johnson: "Nay, sir, flattery pleases very j 

 generally. " In his Life of Donne, Walton himself 

 says : "It is observed that a desire of glory or 

 commendation is rooted in the very nature of man ; 

 and that those of the severest and most mortified 

 lives, though they may become so humble as to 

 banish self-flattery, and such weeds as naturally 

 grow there ; yet they have not been able to kill 



1 In the Winchester edition of The Com'plete Angler (1902), the 

 editor inserts a letter dated the 23rd of March 1901, from the librarian 

 of Salisbury Cathedral Library, in which he gives a list of Walton's 

 books in that library. This list varies from the list given by Sir 

 Harris Nicolas. 



" In the Cathedral Library at Worcester his name can be seen in- 

 scribed in a copy of the first edition of his Lives (1670), which he 

 presented to Mra Eliza Johnson, to whom he bequeathed a ring by 

 his will. 



