602 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



literature began "with him who has never since been 

 rivalled in grace, humour, and invention," and he adds 



"Walton's Cumplcat Angler, published in 1653, seems by the 

 title a rtrange choice out of all the books of half a century ; yet 

 its simplicity, its sweetness, its natural grace, and happy inter- 

 mixture of graver strains with the precepts of angling, have 

 rendered this book deservedly popular, and a model which one 

 of the most famous among our late philosophers, and a successful 

 disciple of Izaak Walton in his favourite art (Sir Humphrey 

 Davy) has condescended (in his Salmonid) to imitate." 



Among the most recent weighty testimonies to Walton as 

 an author was that accorded to him a few years ago by the 

 Dean of Lichfield on the unveiling of a marble bust of 

 Walton in St. Mary's Church, Stafford, in which town he 

 was born, and in which church he was baptized in 1593. 

 The Dean also dwelt eloquently on Walton's character ; but 

 as that does not directly concern us here, suffice it to say 

 that from what is well known of his life, it accorded with a 

 very high Christian standard. He was remarkable for his 

 integrity, his simplicity, his peaceable disposition, for the 

 warmth and steadfastness of his friendship, for his loyalty 

 to his sovereign, for his humility and devotion towards 

 God. The times in which he lived were amongst the most 

 critical in our national history. His long life stretched 

 over the last ten years of Elizabeth's reign, and reached 

 onwards to within two years of the end of that of 

 Charles II., and during the whole of that eventful period 

 "honest Izaak" (as he was called by his familiars) pursued 

 the even tenour of his way, mourning over the calamities 

 which he could not avert, thanking God for the measure of 

 good which he enjoyed, and endeavouring to stamp on 

 others the impress of his own pure and contented spirit. 



December the 15th next will be the two - hundredth 

 anniversary of his death beneath the shadow of Winchester 



