Izaak Walton 



must be born to it.' I hooked myself in- 

 stead of the fish ; tangled my line in every 

 tree ; lost my bait ; broke my rod ; until I 

 gave up the attempt in despair, and passed 

 the day under trees reading Old Izaak ; 

 satisfied that it was his fascinating vein 

 of honest simplicity and rural feeling that 

 had bewitched me, and not the passion for 

 angling. . . . But, above all, I recollect 

 the * good, honest, wholesome, hungry ' 

 repast which we made under a beech-tree, 

 just by a spring of pure, sweet water that 

 stole out of the side of a hill; and how, 

 when it was over, one of the party read 

 old Izaak Walton's scene with the Milk- 

 maid, while I lay on the grass and built 

 castles in a bright pile of clouds until I 

 fell asleep." 



As the more lasting value of Walton's 

 literary achievements belongs to The Com- 

 plete Angler, so, in all probability, will the 

 great mass of his admirers prefer to asso- 

 ciate his angling exploits with the Dove 

 rather than with the Lea, or with any 

 other stream which he has made classic. 

 Yet it is both true and strange that in his 

 own part of the pastoral he refers but 

 twice to the Dove, and that quite inciden- 

 tally. The reason for this is apparently 

 (first), that the locale of the pastoral was 

 295 



