34 LIFE OF WALTON. 



ation he had few equals * ; and in the propensities 

 and attainments of a well-bred gentleman, no superior. 

 To which character, it may be added, that he pos- 

 sessed a rich vein of poetry; which he occasionally 

 exercised in compositions of the descriptive and elegiac 

 kind, specimens whereof occur in the course of this 

 book. There is extant, of his writing, the volume|of 

 Remains heretofore mentioned ; collected and publish- 

 ed, as the dedication tells us, by Walton himself; 

 containing among other valuable tracts, his Element* 

 of Architecture t : but the author's long residence 

 abroad had in some degree corrupted his style, which^ 

 though in many particulars original and elegant, is 

 like Sir William Temple's, overcharged with Galli- 

 cisms, and other foreign modes of expression . He was a 

 lover of angling, and such a proficient in the art, that, 

 as he once told Walton, he intended to write a discourse 

 on it : but death prevented him. His reasons for the 

 choice of this recreation were, that it was, " after tedi- 

 f{ ous study, a rest to his mind, a chearer of his spi- 

 u rits, a diyertcr of sadness, a calmer of unquiet 

 " thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of 

 * c contentedness ; and begat habits of peace and pa- 

 " tience ." 



These sentiments of Sir Henry Wotton, which are 

 given in his very words, bespeak a" mind habituated to 

 reflection, and at ease in the enjoyment of his faculties : 

 but they fall short of that lovely portrait of human hap- 

 piness, doubtless taken from the image in his own breast, 



>rson intended for a foreign embassy that came to him 

 i, he gave this shrewd advice : " Ever," said he, " sftak truth % 



* To a person 

 for instruction, he [ 



*' for if you do, you shall never b believeid y and 'twill put your adversaries, 

 " (who will still hunt iounterj'to a loss in all their disquisitions and under- 

 *' takings." See also his advice to Milton, concerning travel, in his Letter 

 prefixed to Milton's Comus. 



f This treatise of Sir Henry's is, undoubtedly, the best on the subject 

 of any^ in the modern languages : a few years after his death it was trans- 

 lated into Latin, and printed at the end of Pitruvius, with an eulogium 

 on the author. 



\ As where he says, " At Augusta I took language that the princet 

 " and states of the union had deferred that assembly." Heliju. Wottw, 

 edit. 1635. 



Vidt Walton's EphtU Dedicatory, & t infra, cap, I, pa. 121, 



