XXVI INTRODUCTION. 



it seems) unpremeditated upon the wing of the 

 fancies it embodies, which Taylor taught his con- 

 temporaries, and himself carried to perfection in that 

 famous description of the lark : 



" For so I have seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, 

 soaring upward and singing as he rises and hopes to get 

 to Heaven, and climb above the clouds ; but the poor 

 bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern 

 wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, de- 

 scending more at every breath of the tempest than it could 

 recover by the vibration and frequent weighing of its 

 wings ; till the little creature was forced to sit down and 

 pant and stay till the storm was over ; and then it made 

 a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had 

 learned music and motion from an angel as he passed 

 sometimes through the air about his ministries here 

 below." 



The reader of " The Angler " will not fail to mark 

 that Walton's style is extremely uneven. Like the 

 author of "The Urn Burial," he is fine in flashes; 

 and one sometimes wonders while reading him that 

 a man who can write so well should at times take it 

 upon his conscience to write so ill. 



But Izaak Walton's oases, his green and watered 

 places, are frequent enough ; and the conscientious 

 reader who toils his way through the briery jungles 

 (and even there he may pluck an occasional berry) 

 of the tangled dissertations on hooks and tackle and 

 bait and primitive piety, may be cheerfully sure of 

 emerging presently in some green meadow studded 

 with cowslips and lady-smocks and sweet with the 

 breath of hawthorn and honeysuckle, where the 

 larks are soaring skyward, and tuneful milkmaids 



