Izaak Walton 33 



by Swaynham brook," catching "wafts of the singing in 

 Heaven, when the wind is in the right quarter," and always 

 in the right quarter was the wind with him. 



After nine years in Staffordshire, appeared in 1653 the 

 first edition of the " Compleat Angler." It is, as all book- 

 lovers know, a book of dialogue, in which the angler teaches 

 to the hunter and the falconer the charms and secrets of 

 his craft. The running monologue of the wise man that 

 knows fish is full of fair descriptions, quaint sayings, good 

 humor and sweet patience, all thrown together with care- 

 less art, the work of the master-hand that shows no artifice, 

 It teaches the philosophy of him who thirsts not, and hun- 

 gers not unduly, and is, moreover, full of that choice learn- 

 ing which is not science because it is not truth, neither is 

 it set in order. " No life," he says, " can be so happy, or so 

 pleasant, as the life of a well-governed Angler, for when the 

 lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is 

 preventing or contriving plots, there we sit on cowslip banks, 

 hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quiet- 

 ness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide 

 by us." 



And the birds delight him as well as the streams and all 

 their fishes. The lark rises from the grassy bank, and with 

 him she never descends to the dull earth from mere neces- 

 sity. The blackbird and the thrassel " bid welcome to the 

 cheerful spring, and in their fixed mouths warble forth such 

 ditties as no art nor instrument can reach to." " The honest 

 robin that loves mankind both alive and dead, displays her 

 virtues to him. But most of all, the nightingale delights 

 his heart, and leads him to say, 'Lord, what music hast 

 Thou provided for the saints in heaven, when Thou afforded 

 bad men such music on earth ! ' " " I'll tell you, scholar," 

 he says, " that when I sat last on this primrose bank and 

 looked down upon these meadows, I thought of them as 

 Charles the Emperor of the City of Florence, that they 

 were too pleasant to be looked upon, but only on holy-days." 



