Introduction 



not inharmonious. It is easier in its gait than that of Donne in 

 his Satires, and shows the manly influence of Jonson. Walton, 

 at any rate, in course of time, attained, at least in prose, to some- 

 thing which, if it may not be called style, was a very charming 

 way of writing, all the more so that he has an innocent air of not 

 knowing how it is done. Natural endowment and pre-disposition 

 may count for nine in ten of the chances of success in this com- 

 petition ; but no man ever achieved, as Walton sometimes did, a 

 simplicity which leaves criticism helpless, by the even light of nature 

 alone." 



To the number of Walton's friends before mentioned must be 

 added the poet Drayton, of whom he twice speaks with affection in 

 The Compleat Angler, once as his " honest old friend," and again as 

 " his old deceased friend ; " also Walter, Lord Aston, to whom 

 he presented a copy of his collected Lives, still preserved, with this 

 note beneath Walton's inscription : 



" Izake Walton gift to me, June y e 14, 1670, w ch I most thankfully 

 for his memmory off mee acknowledge a greate kindnesse. 



WALTER ASTON." 



Ix 



