32 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



In the foregoing will, as in everything which he wrote, will 

 be found something characteristic of the man ; the subjoined 

 genuine little scrap, exhibiting a fac -simile of his handwriting, 

 will be new even to the Waltonian reader. 



For Do T . C. Bewmount. 



pray S r , Accept this pore presant, by the as meane hand that 

 brings it from 



Y r . affec. servant, 



Izaak Walton.* 



Were we required to give a designation to Walton's style of 

 writing, we should say that naivete is his perpetual character- 

 istic ; and that, whether he be humorous, instructive, or affect- 

 ing, we have to acknowledge a degree of elegance which it 

 were hopeless to attain and impossible not to admire. 



Cathedral, with the view of taking some steps towards the erection of a me- 

 morial more worthy of the man, and more honorable to those who delight in 

 that recreation which he has so beautifully portrayed." Whatever may have 

 hitherto obstructed the above expressed intention, I still feel perfectly satis- 

 fied that it will be yet carried into effect. One gentleman, I was credibly in- 

 formed, offered to put down two hundred guineas to commence the work. 

 But let a one-guinea subscription be set on foot and the lovers of literature 

 and angling will carry it in a summer's day ! The Dean of Winchester I un- 

 .derstood to have expressed himself delighted that an honor so justly due 

 should be paid to him as the " Historian of the Church " 



* Some little inscription similar to the foregoing generally accompanied 

 those copies of his works which he gave to his friends ; when they have oc- 

 curred at sales, they have produced several guineas above the value of the 

 work itself. He also wrote his name in all his own reading books, and Sir H. 

 Nicolas has enumerated about twenty thus enriched, now preserved in thq 

 Cathedral Library, Salisbury. 



