Ivi BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



and that of a gentleman, surely he may be said to have 

 demonstrated, of whom that which is most certainly known 

 would do honor to any station whatever ; his ' only son 

 Isaac ' we find bred to the Church seemingly as a matter 

 of course ; and that his only daughter was married to a 

 dignified clergyman, Dr. Hawkins of Winchester, strength- 

 ens all the foregoing arguments." The italics are Mr. 

 Major's own. Impertinent is not a word strong enough 

 to characterize such an attempt to put honest Izaak's 

 worth on another footing than his own pious virtue and 

 unaflfected talent. If the simple-hearted angler, and writer 

 of plain artless English, could rise from his grave, not all 

 his meekness, nor even Major's beautiful edition, could 

 prevent him from giving the man a fillip for thus putting 

 tawdry on his decent garments. Especially is such a folly 

 out of place in a preface to the Complete Angler, through- 

 out which the humble author, unspoiled by association 

 with learned, dignified clergymen, and others who had 

 heaped praises upon him, represents himself as a foot- 

 traveller, content with a wayside inn, delighted to 

 have " ballads stuck on the walls" and "sheets smelling 

 of lavender," nay, ready to share his bed with tlie 

 companion of his walks by the riverside. Cotton was 

 a gentleman, and puts his collocutors on horseback : 

 Sir Humphrey Davy invites his friends to go an angling 

 " in a light carriage " with him, as befitted a knighted 

 philosopher : let it be our comfort to know that good 

 father Walton was the ready friend of the angler who 

 goes afoot. Gentleman he was by orthography and spirit, 

 but gentleman in any other sense he cared not to be. 

 As he himself says: " I w^ould rather prove myself a gentle- 

 man by being learned and humble, valiant and inofl^ensive, 

 virtuous and communicable, than by any fond ostentation 

 of riches, or, wanting those virtues myself, boast that these 

 were in my ancestors ; and yet I grant that where a noble 

 and ancient descent and such virtues meet in any man, it 



