Sir Walter and Walton. 245 



ever since held it a settled maxim of our 

 belief, in defiance of which we are ready 

 to do battle, that no brother of the angle 

 can by any possibility prove a recreant.' " * 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND WALTON. 



I daresay it would not be difficult to 

 find a good many writers who, like Landor, 

 gently scoff at Walton (see his " Imaginary 

 Conversation " between Walton, Cotton, 

 and Oldways), or, like his contemporary 

 Captain Franck, who, in his Northern 

 Memoirs, tells us he met Walton at Stafford, 

 and that because he offered Walton a 

 very probable natural solution of some 

 supernatural statement he (Walton) had 

 quoted from Gesner, Walton went off in a 

 huff. To judge from his book, I should 

 say it was far more likely Walton, if he 

 was " huffd " at all, was so by Franck's 

 " affected pedantry " and " stupendous 

 pretentiousness " There has been only 

 one reprint of Franck's book (which was 

 written in Walton's lifetime in fact, in 

 1658, though not published till 1685, two 

 years after Walton's death), and the 

 author must have turned in his grave 

 when the reprint was published; for its 



* The American Review, No. xvi., December 

 1830, p. 376. I wonder who was editor of The 

 American Review at this time? R. B. M. 



