THE 



LIFE OF ISAAC WALTON. 



ISAAC, or as he used to write it, Izaak Walton, was born at 

 Stafford, on the ninth of August, 1593. The Oxford antiquary, 

 (Ant. a-Wood) who has fixed the place and year of his nativity, 

 has left us no memorials of his family, nor even hinted where 

 or how he was educated ; we are only told that before the year 

 1643, Walton was settled, and followed the trade of a sempster, in 

 London. But Sir Harris Nicolas has added to this information 

 that his father was Jervis Walton, likewise of Stafford, who is 

 presumed to have been the second son of George Walton, some- 

 time bailiff of Yoxhall. 



Walton's first settlement in London, as a shopkeeper, was at the 

 Royal Exchange in Cornhill, built by Sir Thomas Gresham, and 

 finished in 1567. In this situation he could scarcely be said to 

 have had elbow-room ; for the shops round the Exchange were 

 but seven feet and a half long, and five wide : yet here he carried 

 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, in Fleet-street, was then, 

 and for many years after, known by that sign : it is, therefore, 

 beyond doubt that Walton lived at the very next door. And in this 

 house he is in the deed above referred to, which bears date 

 1624 said to have followed the trade of a linen-draper. At a 

 later period (from 1628 to 1644) he appears, according to the 

 parish books of St. Dunstan, to have resided in the seventh 

 house from the corner. 



Walton was twice married. In 1626, on the 22nd of December 



