42 1fcin0s of tbe 1Rot>, Ifttfle, anb 6un 



man did not exercise his own powers of observation a 

 little more, and trust less to " learned writers," whose 

 " facts " were evolved from their own inner conscious- 

 ness and not from an intelligent study of nature. It is 

 in this respect that Walton seems to me so infinitely 

 inferior to Gilbert White. 



Walton lived to the patriarchal age of ninety, and 

 retained his faculties unimpaired to the last. Only a 

 few months before his death he published, with a 

 Preface and Biography from his own pen, " Thealma 

 and Clearchus, a pastoral history in smooth and easy 

 verse, written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq., an 

 acquaintance of Edmund Spenser." One of Chalk- 

 hill's songs is quoted in " The Compleat Angler," and 

 this is the only specimen of his " smooth and easy 

 verse" which has survived. To the last old Izaak 

 loved the craft which he did so much to popularise. 

 When he was eighty-three he announced his intention 

 of making a pilgrimage into Derbyshire, a long and 

 hazardous journey for a man of his years in those days 

 of rough travelling, to visit his friend Charles Cotton 

 and enjoy the delights of angling in the beautiful vale 

 of the Dove. He was twice married. His first wife 

 was Rachel Floud, and in his marriage licence he is 

 described as " of the Cittie of London Ironmonger." 

 Mr. Marston regards this as a proof that Walton was 

 an ironmonger by trade. He may have been at that 

 time, or the term may simply imply that he was a 

 liveryman of the Ironmongers' Company ; but the 

 tradition that he was, in his later life, at any rate, a 

 haberdasher is too strong to be disregarded. His 



