xii INTRODUCTION 



years before he succumbed to a long and painful disease 

 borne with fortitude under the depression of reduced cir- 

 cumstances, he received the freedom of the City of London, 

 principally for his services in connection with Christ's 

 Hospital. 



From the hasty sketch drafted in the above outlines, it 

 will be seen that throughout all Pepys' manhood the cir- 

 cumstances of his daily life and environment were much more 

 similar to those of Evelyn than to those of Walton, who may 

 well be ranked as their senior by almost one generation. 

 Like Evelyn, Izaak Walton was rather the child of the 

 country than a boy of the town. Born in Stafford in 1593, 

 he only came to settle in London after he had attained early 

 manhood. Thus, though a citizen exposing his linen drap- 

 ery and mens' millinery for sale first in the Gresham 

 Exchange on the Cornhill, then in Fleet Street, and latterly 

 in Chancery Lane, the Bond Street of that time, he ever 

 cherished a longing for more rural surroundings and a desire 

 to exchange life in the city for residence in a smaller provin- 

 cial town. On the civil war breaking out in Charles the Ist's 

 time, he retired from business and went to live near his birth 

 place, Stafford, where he had previously bought some land. 

 Here the last forty years of his long life were spent in ease 

 and recreation. When not angling or visiting friends, 

 mostly brethren of the angle, he engaged in the light literary 

 work of compiling biographies and in collecting material for 

 the enrichment of his Commie at Angler. Published in 1653, 

 this ran through five editions in 23 years, besides a reprint 

 in 1664 of the third edition (1661). 



In spite of the many similarities between Evelyn and Pepys 

 as to university education, official position, political parti- 

 sanship, and social and scientific status in London, there 

 are yet such essential differences between what has been 

 bequeathed to us by these two friends that comparison be- 

 tween them is almost impossible. They are both authors : 

 but it was by chance rather than by design that Pepys ulti- 

 mately acquired repute as an author, whereas Evelyn at once 

 achieved the literary fame he desired and wrote for. Neither 

 of the two works published by Pepys, The Portugal History 

 (1677) and the Memories of the Royal Navy (1690), procured 



