viii INTRODUCTION. 



Walton's father is unknown, and not even the name of his 

 mother has come down to us; but Walton's first wife, 

 Rachel Floud, descended from Edmund Cranmer, Arch- 

 deacon of Canterbury, and his second, Anne Ken, was half- 

 sister to Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; we find 

 his children, too, such of them as lived to maturity, in good 

 positions in life, the son, who took holy orders, eventually 

 becoming a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, and the daughter 

 being married to Dr. Hawkins, a Prebendary of Winchester: 

 whence one may conclude that his descent was more than 

 worthy of the occupation in which he engaged. What the 

 actual circumstances of his youth were, whether he went regu- 

 larly to school and to church, and whether he was as diligent 

 a scholar as an angler, we have no knowledge. There is 

 reason to believe that he was not without friends of his own 

 name ; but our information as to the whole course of his 

 life is slight. We learn as much of it, indeed, as of the life 

 of Shakespeare namely, the place of his birth, that he 

 received more or less of an education, that he went to the 

 capital and engaged in some employment, that he fell in 

 love, was married, and formed friendships, and that he 

 finally made a good ending. 



After his birth we do not hear anything more of Walton 

 till the year 1618. By that time he has come to London, 

 and his name appears on the roll of the Ironmongers' 

 Company. But, as has been pointed out, it does not 

 necessarily follow that Walton was an ironmonger to trade. 

 The old tradition, handed down by his early biographers, 

 that he was a linen-draper, would seem preferable to this 

 suggestion, and we are at liberty to suppose that it was so, 

 where nothing definite is known to the contrary. Again, in 

 the licence for his marriage with Rachel Floud in 1626, 

 he is mentioned as being of the "Cittie of London,. Iron- 



