THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 97 



of Grinsell's, he must have shown wonderful literary 

 proclivities. 



Even if these lines did not appear till the edition 

 of 16 19, Walton was then a very young man. It 

 does seem marvellous that a young man from the 

 country, a sempster's apprentice, should already 

 have achieved such a literary reputation as should 

 elicit S. P.'s poem. 



It is somewhat curious that in a letter of Walton's, 

 previously unpublished, dated November, 1670, 

 which in book form was first published by Mr. R. B. 

 Marston, the following is a postscript — 



'' If you incline to write to me, direct your 

 letter to be left at Mr. Grinsell's, a grocer, in 

 King Streite, in Westminster." ^ 



1 One might hazard the suggestion that Walton, having 

 lost both his parents in Stafford, the father in 1 596 and the 

 mother previously, was brought to London at a much earlier 

 period ; that in London he was educated — (^possibly at 

 Westminster') — before he was apprenticed to Grinsell, with 

 whom the letter above quoted suggests there was a family- 

 connection with the Grinsells of Westminster, which had 

 continued for sixty years afterwards. I have, however, been 

 informed by an old friend, Mr. G. F. R. B., the best authority 

 on Westminster School, that the records of " the admissions 

 of 1593-1609 do not exist" If it could be proved it would 

 throw a flood of light on all else that is mysterious in 

 Walton's life. The only reply I have heard to this suggestion 



H 



