Izaak Walton. 



quately epitomized in half as many lines. 

 Yet such is the case with Izaak Walton, 

 the patron saint of the great confraternity 

 of anglers, who was born into the world 

 a little over three hundred years ago, 

 whose fame is as fresh as ever, yet of the 

 greater part of whose life we know almost 

 nothing. To most students of literary bi- 

 ography; and especially to the -followers 

 of that prince of anglers and good fellows, 

 genuine interest in the man and his deeds 

 only begins with the period of his retire- 

 ment from active life. Indeed, it is no 

 discourtesy to his memory to go further 

 than this, and say (for Walton loved the 

 truth more than sunshine) that, in its per- 

 manent value to posterity, the life of the 

 author of The Complete Angler began only 

 with his sixtieth year, and when that fa- 

 mous work was first sent forth to the world 

 The tantalizing paucity of facts as to 

 a character that must have been most in- 

 teresting, a character of whom it has 

 been said that he possessed all the virtues 

 of a typical squire, unblemished even by 

 the shadow of a vice, is almost as notable 

 as in the case of the greatest life of all, 

 with its quiet beginning at Stratford-on- 

 Avon, not a hundred miles from Stafford, 

 where Walton was born. Stratford and 

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