Izaak Walton 



ome new bit of scenery, such as have 

 made the Peak and its surroundings so 

 famous. At " Pike Pool/' for instance, a 

 favorite haunt, we can fancy how young 

 Cotton would venture (a day in April) to 

 give Master Walton a wrinkle or two in 

 the art of fly-fishing, which the latter 

 would receive with all meekness and grat- 

 itude. While the old master himself 

 would, in turn, expatiate with gentle but 

 insisting garrulity on the all-important 

 theme " How to angle for a trout or gray- 

 ling in a clear stream." But an imagi- 

 nary following in the wake of the two 

 worthies of the rod and reel would require 

 an entire idle midsummer day. 



The high praise that is the due of The 

 Complete Angler cannot be extended to Wal- 

 ton's other writings ; though his Lives of 

 Dr. Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Richard 

 Hooker, George Herbert, and Bishop San- 

 derson are, as might be expected from 

 this generous-minded man, models of their 

 kind in point of tenderness of regard and 

 intensity of admiration for their respective 

 subjects. It is only fair to say, however, 

 that this biographical undertaking was in 

 no way the deliberate design of Izaak 

 Walton, but was thrust upon him by a 

 3 oo 



