SKETCH OF WALTON'S LIFE. 



THE fame of Petrarch rests upon his Sonnets, and not upon his larger 

 Italian poems, or upon his elaborate Latin ones, on which he relied for 

 immortality. The fame of Walton and wide and percnnias cere is that 

 fame rests upon his simply written " Complete Angler," and not by any 

 means on works which very likely he more prized, viz., "The Lives of 

 Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert, and Sanderson," and poems that he 

 wrote or edited. Why so? Because the "Complete Angler" is so 

 written, that it not only comes home to the "hearths and bosoms" of all 

 anglers, but nearly of all men. It is an angling pastoral, babbling of all 

 things that " are in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or in the waters 

 under the earth." The immortal author of it was born at Stafford, in 

 the month of August, 1593. We hear no more of him until lie attained 

 his 30th year, when he is found carrying on the business of a " sernpster," 

 or man-milliner, in London. His first shop was a very small one, situate 

 in the "Iloyal Burse," Cornhill ; that is to say, the lloyal Exchange. 

 "Yet here," writes Sir John Hawkins, "did he carry on his trade till 

 some time before the year 1624 : when he dwelt on the north side of 

 Fleet-street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and 

 abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the * Harrow,' now the old 

 timber-house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane" (the house is 

 now a goldsmith's, No. 128). Here he carried on the business of a linen- 

 draper, occupying only half a shop, the other half belonging to John 

 Mason, a hosier. 



Walton did not marry until he was about forty years of age, and then, 

 in 1632, he removed to a house in Chancery-lane, then seven doors higher 

 up than the corner house on the left hand, or western side. Here he re- 

 sumed his old trade as a sempster, or milliner. His wife was the sister 

 of Dr. Kenn, Bishop of Bath and Wells, one of the seven bishops sent to 

 the Tower in the reign of James II. She was a prudent and pious wo- 

 man, largely accomplished, and in her society Walton enjoyed content 

 and happiness. He left business and London, 1643 at the age of fifty 

 on a fair competency, and lived sometimes at Stafford, and elsewhere ; 

 but mostly in the families of eminent English clergymen, by whom he was 

 much beloved. His favourite recreation whilst in London was angling, 

 in which art he was considered the greatest proficient of his day. The 

 rivers he frequented, were the Lea and New Elver, and occasionally, in 

 all probability, the Thames. The first edition of his " Complete Angler" 

 appeared in 1653, when he was in his sixtieth year, and its popularity 

 was so great, that it ran through four editions in the space of twenty- 

 three years. Walton, in the year 1676, and in the eighty-third year of 

 his age, was preparing a fifth, with additions, for the press ; when Mr. 

 Cotton wrote the second part of the work. It seems Mr. Cotton sub- 



