54 



The Chronicle of 



which no femblance of colour or vitality is given to the lay- 

 figures they place before us. As raw material, parts of them 

 (for there is much extraneous matter, and many points dilated 

 on of infinitefimally fmall intereft), may be ufefully employed 

 by fome future biographer of Walton, who, we truft, will 

 treat his fubjec~l from the angling, as well as the antiquarian 

 and genealogical point of view, and pen his record, not in any 

 dufky retreat of ftudy — in air heavy with erudition, but under 

 the green leaves and by the gurgling water — at Broxbourne, 

 for inftance, or pleafant Amwell on the Hill. 



This fine book, in a word, is over-dreffed. It is Maudlin, 

 the milkmaid, tricked out in a gown of brocade, with a mantle 

 of cloth of gold. Pretty Maudlin were comelier far in her 

 own artlefs attire, with a pofy for fole adornment. But this is 

 a fin to be judged gently and tenderly, fpringing, as it did, 

 from over-love ; Pickering's wifh was to raife a worthy 

 monument to Walton's fame, but, by a common error of 

 judgment, he loft fight of the relation that mould always exift 

 in fuch a cafe between the memorial and the man, or his 

 work commemorated. 



On Corydon's grave we plant flowers amongft the grafs — 



" Purple narciffus, like the morning rays, 

 Pale ganderglas and azure culverkays." 1 



We do not crufh it beneath a weight of marble magnificence, 

 pedeftals, with their votive urns, or a coloffal genius with 

 gilded tears. 



Neverthelefs, as this monument has been reared, let us 



1 Denny's " Secrets of Angling,'' 1613. 



