Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton 



AND so by gentle stages I have led up to the "Common 

 Father of all Anglers," the immortal Izaak Walton, on 

 whom so many reams of paper and gallons of ink have 

 been expended that I am almost ashamed to do more 

 than mention his name. I confess that my own feeling 

 towards " meek Walton's heavenly memory ".is something 

 akin to that of the old Greek who fled from Athens 

 because he was tired of hearing Aristides called "the 

 Just." The worship of " Father Izaak " has been a trifle 

 overdone. It has become a fetish among some angling 

 writers, to whom " The Compleat Angler " is as sacred as 

 the Bible or the Koran. The carnal mind resents having 

 this pattern of piscatorial piety held up to its admiration 

 and thrust down its throat. But, though my gorge rises 

 against the fulsome adulation of your Waltonian idolator, 

 for old Izaak himself I have still at heart a feeling of 

 affection and reverence. There was too little of the 

 " devil " in him to make a real sportsman, but his saintly 

 character was thoroughly in harmony with the mild form 

 of angling which he practised. There are moods in 

 which " The Compleat Angler " comes to one as a soft 



35 



