BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. Ixxi 



fictitious plan of the publication is inconsistent with \iose 

 ton's scrupulous regard for veracity and straightforwb 



adherence to fact In no other instance is he knowi. 



to have used an imaginary signature .... and when 

 nearlv eiarhty-seven years of acje he must have been too 

 indifl'erent to the world's censure or praise to have had 

 recourse, for the first time in his life, to anything which 

 bore the appearance of deception." 



The amiable, most useful, and industrious life of our 

 beloved Walton was now drawing to its close, yet he seems ' 



to have retained his faculties, both of body and mind, to 

 the last. This was doubtless owing, in a great degree, to 

 his temperate habits, his contented mind, and his love of 

 angling. On this last reason, Stephen Oliver, jr., writes 

 so well that I cannot do better than to quote what he says 

 (pp. 25-29) : " I am persuaded that angling is greatly con- 

 ducive to health and longevity. It cannot have been from 

 mere accident, or from their having originally stronger 

 constitutions than other mortals, that so many anglers have 

 lived to an age far exceeding the ordinary term of hu- 

 man existence. Their pursuits by the side of running 

 streams, whose motion imparts increased activity to the 

 vital principle of the air ; their exercise regular, without 

 being violent ; and that composure of mind — so necessary 

 to the perfect health of the body — to which angling so 

 materially contributes, must all have had an influence on 

 their physical constitution, the effect of which is perceived 

 in the protracted duration of their lives. Henry Jenkins, 

 who lived to the age of one hundred and ninety-six years, 

 and who boasted, when giving evidence in a court of 

 justice to a fact of one hundred and twenty years' date, 

 that he could duh a flv as well as any man in Yorkshire, 

 continued angling for more than a century after the greater 

 number of those who were born at the same time, were 

 mouldering in their graves. . . . Dr. Nowell (whose love 

 for angling Walton celebrates) .... lived to the age of } 



V 



