Walton anfc Cbarlcs Cotton 39 



suppose, familiar to everyone. In what year he came up 

 from his birthplace, Stafford, to London is 'not known 

 for certain. But it has recently been discovered that 

 he was made a member of the Ironmongers' Company 

 on November I2th, 1618, and, seven years' residence 

 being the qualification, this would place the date of 

 his arrival in London approximately at 1611. He is 

 described in the entry in the books of the Company 

 as "late apprentice to Mr. Grinsell." It does not follow, 

 of course, that Walton was an ironmonger because he 

 was a liveryman of that Company ; but Mr. Marston, 

 nevertheless, claims to have settled by documentary 

 evidence the fact that Walton was not, as has been 

 generally supposed, a " sempster," or linen-draper, but 

 an ironmonger. I cannot say that the emendation 

 commends itself to me. I would rather think of the 

 gentle Izaak as a purveyor of "soft goods" than of 

 "hardware." It seems more in harmony with the 

 fitness of things that the former should have been his 

 trade. For then one can understand how his nature 

 should have been " subdued to what it worked in." The 

 handling of hosiery I can conceive to have a softening 

 influence conducive to such mildness of manner and 

 meekness of disposition as we find in the author of " The 

 Compleat Angler." But the touch of ironmongery 

 tends, methinks, to a hardening and blunting of the 

 finer feelings, and would surely have been repugnant 

 to those sensitive fingers which impaled the frog and 

 worm upon the hook with the exquisite tenderness of a 

 lover. However, if " Father Izaak " were an ironmonger, 

 it is all the more credit to him that he did not let the 



