LIFE OF WALTON., XI 



what would n*w be called a competency,! seems to have retired 

 altogether from business ; at which time (to use the words of Wood) 

 " finding it dangerous for honest men to be there, he left that city, 

 and lived sometimes at Stafford, 2 and elsewhere ; but mostly in the 

 families of the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much 

 beloved." 3 



While he continued in London, his favourite recreation was angling, 

 in which he was the greatest proficient of his time ; and indeed, so 

 great were his skill and experience in that art, that there is scarce 

 any writer on the subject since his time, who has not made the rules 

 and practice of Walton his very foundation. It is therefore with the 

 greatest propriety that Langbaine calls him " the common father of 

 all anglers." * 



The river that he seems mostly to have frequented for this purpose 

 was the Lea, which has its source above Ware in Hertfordshire, and 

 falls into the Thames a little below Black- Wall ; * unless we will sup- 

 pose that the vicinity of the New-River 6 to the place of his habita- 

 tion, might sometimes tempt him out with his friends, honest Nat. 

 and R. Roe, whose loss he so pathetically mentions,? to spend an 

 afternoon there. 



In the year 1662, he was by death deprived of the solace and com- 

 fort of a good wife, as appears by the following monumental 

 inscription in the chapel of Our Lady, in the cathedral church of 

 Worcester 



EXTERRIS 



D. 

 M.S. 



HERE MI. i II BURIED 

 so much as could dye of 



AN"NE, the Wife of IZAAK WALTON; 

 who was a Woman of remarkable Prudence, 



and of the Primitive Piety ; 



her great, and general Knowledge 



being adorned with such true Ham i lily. 



and blest with so much Christian Meekness, 



as made her worthy of a more memorable Monument. 



She dyed (alas that she is dead !) 



the 17 th of April, 1662, Aged 52. 



Study to be like her. 



Living, while in London, in the parish of St. Dunstan in the West, 

 whereof Dr. John Donne, dean of St. Paul's, was vicar, he became 

 of course a frequent hearer of that excellent preacher, and, at length, 

 (as he himself expresses it,) 8 his convert. Upon his decease in 



(1) See his Will, at the end of the Life. 



(2) He lived upon a small estate near the toWn of Stafford , where, ac 

 cording to his own account, he suffered during the time of the civil wars; 

 having by his loyalty rendered himself obnoxious to the persons in 

 power. 



(3) Athen. Oxon. Vol. I. 305. 



(4) Live* of the English Dramatic Poets, art. C/ta. Cotton, Esq. 

 r (5) See Chap. XIX. note, page -219. 



(6) That great work, the bringing water from Chadwell and Amwell, in 

 Hertfordshire, to London, by means of the trench called the New River, 

 was completed on Michaelmas day, 1613. Slew's Survey, fol. 1633. p. 12. 



(7) Preface to Complete Angler. 



(S; rerses of Walton at the end of Dr. Donne's Life. 



b2 



