33aafc TKHalton anfc Charles Cotton 43 



second wife was a half-sister of Dr. Ken, the saintly 

 Bishop of Bath and Wells, who, when Dean, refused to 

 let Nell Gwynne lodge in his Deanery, who was one 

 of the seven bishops sent to the Tower by James II., 

 and who is now best known to fame as the author of 

 the Morning and Evening Hymns. By her Izaak had 

 a son and daughter : the former took holy orders, and 

 became in due course Canon of Sarum ; the latter 

 married Dr. William Hawkins, Prebendary of Win- 

 chester, at whose house Walton died " on the fifteenth 

 day of December, 1683, in the great frost." He was 

 buried in the cathedral, where, through the indefatig- 

 able exertions of that enthusiastic angler, Mr. R. B. 

 Marston, a handsome memorial was erected to him by 

 subscription in 1893. But his real monument, more 

 lasting than brass, is "The Compleat Angler," which 

 has become a classic in the language. By a " classic " 

 is usually meant a book which everybody talks about 

 and nobody reads. I don't suppose that ten persons 

 in a thousand who talk of " The Compleat Angler " 

 have ever honestly read it through ; but there will never 

 be a time, one may safely prophesy, when it will not " fit 

 audience find though few." 



The credit and renown attaching to the authorship 

 of " The Compleat Angler " has been practically 

 monopolised by Izaak Walton, whose fame has quite 

 overshadowed that of his friend and coadjutor, Charles 

 Cotton, though the latter was, to my thinking, in- 

 comparably the better sportsman of the two. I do 

 not say that for inimitable simplicity and grace of 



