94 THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 



him some little autobiographic sketch of himself 

 and his surroundings, and so saved his biographers 

 of several generations the exceeding trouble of 

 hunting up dates and pedigrees, the general result 

 of which in the end is to leave " confusion worse 

 confounded." 



We want to know what Walton did with himself 

 between the date of his birth and the date of his 

 arrival in London (indeed, we want to know that 

 date with certainty), and then we want to know 

 what he did when he got there. All this he might 

 have saved us the trouble of trying to find out by 

 digging up and blundering through musty records 

 to find no certainty in the end. 



" So little is known of his early history," says 

 Mr. R. B. Marston, " that Sir Harris Nicolas found 

 himself obliged, after a most diligent search, to 

 record the following passage " — 



"Of his childhood, his guardians, or the 

 means by which he was supported nothing 

 whatever is known, not a single fact can be 

 stated respecting him from the time of his bap- 

 tism until he obtained his twentieth year when 

 he appears to have been a resident in London." 



This is vague and unsatisfactory. 



