his book he has carefully availed himself: it was therefore through the medium of this translation alone, that he was enabled to cite the other authors mentioned above; vouching the authority of the original writers, in like manner as he elsewhere does Sir Francis Bacon, whenever occasion occurs to mention his Natural History, or any other of his works. Pliny was translated to his hand by Dr. Philemon Holland, as were also Janus Dubravius De Piscinis et Piscium Naturá, and Lebault's Maison Rustique, so often referred to by him in the course of his work.

Nor did the reputation of the Complete Angler subsist only in the opinions of those for whose use it was more peculiarly calculated; but even the learned, either from the known character of the author, or those internal evidences of judgment and veracity contained in it, considered it as a work of merit, and for various purposes referred to its authority: Doctor Thomas Fuller in his Worthies, whenever he has occasion to speak of fish, uses his very words. Doctor Plot, in his History of Staffordshire, has, on the authority of our author, related two of the instances of the voracity of the Pike, mentioned part i., chap. 8.; and confirmed them by two other signal ones, that had then lately fallen out in that county.

These are testimonies in favour of Walton's authority in matters respecting fish and fishing. And it will hardly be thought a diminution of that of Fuller, to say, that he was acquainted with, and a friend of the person whom he thus implicitly commends: a fact which the following relation of a conference between them sufficiently proves.

Fuller, as we all know, wrote a Church History, which, soon after its publication, having read, Walton applied to the author for some information touching Hooker, whose life he was then about to write. Upon this occasion Fuller, knowing how intimate Walton was with several of the bishops and ancient clergy, asked his opinion of it, and what reception it met with among his friends? Walton

answered, that "he thought it would be acceptable to all tempers, because there were shades in it for the warm, and sunshine for those of a cold constitution: that with youthful readers, the facetious parts would be profitable to make the serious more palatable, while some reverend old readers might fancy themselves, in his History of the Church, as in a flower garden, or one full of evergreens."—" And why not," said Fuller, "the Church History so decked, as well as the Church itself at a most holy season, or the Tabernacle of old at the feast of boughs ?"—" That was but for a season," said Walton: "in your feast of boughs, they may conceive, we are so overshadowed throughout, that the parson is more seen than his congregation, and this, sometimes, invisible to its own acquaintance, who may wander in the search till they are lost in the labyrinth." "Oh," said Fuller, "the very children of our Israel may find their way out of this wilderness."-" True," replied Walton, "6 as, indeed, they have here such a Moses to conduct them."*

To pursue the subject of the biographical writings— about two years after the Restoration, Walton wrote the Life of Mr. Richard Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity. He was enjoined to undertake this work by his friend Doctor Gilbert Sheldon,† afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; who, by the way, was an angler. Bishop King, in a letter to the author, says of this Life: "I have often seen Mr. Hooker with my father, who was after bishop of London; from whom, and others at that time, I have heard most of the material passages which you relate in

* From a manuscript Collection of diverting Sayings, Stories, Characters, &c., in verse and prose, made about the year 1686, by Charles Cotton, Esq., some time in the library of the Earl of Halifax. Vide Biographia Britannica, 2061, note P. in margine.

The editors of the above work have styled this colloquy a witty confabulation, but it seems remarkable for nothing but its singularity, which consists in the starting of a metaphor, and hunting it down.

+ Walton's Epistle to the reader of the Lives, in 8vo., 1670.

Before the Lives.

the history of his life." Sir William Dugdale, speaking of the three posthumous books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, refers the reader "to that seasonable historical discourse lately compiled and published, with great judgment and integrity, by that much deserving person, Mr. Isaac Walton." In this Life we are told, that Hooker, while he was at college, made a visit to the famous Doctor Jewel, then bishop of Salisbury, his good friend and patron: An account of the bishop's reception of him, and behaviour at his departure—as it contains a lively picture of his simplicity and goodness, and of the plain manners of those times-is given in the note.†

The Life of Mr. George Herbert, as it stands the fourth and last in the volume wherein that and the three former are collected, seems to have been written the next after Hooker's: it was first published in duodecimo, 1670. Walton professes himself to have been a stranger as to the person of Herbert; and though he assures us his life of • Short View of the late Troubles in England, folio, 1681, p. 39.

"As soon as he was perfectly recovered from this sickness, he took a journey from Oxford to Exeter, to satisfy and see his good mother; being accompanied with a countryman and companion of his own college, and both on foot; which was, then, either more in fashion-or want of money, or their humility made it so: but on foot they went, and took Salisbury in their way, purposely to see the good bishop, who made Mr. Hooker and his companion dine with him at his own table; which Mr. Hooker boasted of with much joy and gratitude, when he saw his mother and friends. And at the bishop's parting with him, the bishop gave him good counsel, and his benediction, but forgot to give him money, which, when the bishop had considered, he sent a servant in all haste to call Richard back to him: and at Richard's return, the bishop said to him; Richard! I sent for you back to lend you a horse, which hath carried me many a mile, and, I thank God, with much ease; and presently delivered into his hands a walking staff, with which he professed he had travelled through many parts of Germany; and he said, Richard! I do not give, but lend you my horse; be sure you be honest, and bring my horse back to me at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give you ten groats, to bear your charges to Exeter; and here is ten groats more, which I charge you to deliver to your mother; and tell her, I send her a bishop's benediction with it, and beg the continuance of her prayers for me. And if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you ten groats more to carry you on foot to the college; and so God bless you, good Richard!"-Life of Hooker, in the Collection of Lives, edit. 1670.

+ Introduction to Herbert's Life.

him was a freewill-offering, it abounds with curious information, and is no way inferior to any of the former.

Two of these Lives; viz. those of Hooker and Herbert, we are told, were written under the roof of Walton's good friend and patron, Dr. George Morley, bishop of Winchester; † which particular seems to agree with Wood's account, that, "after his quitting London, he lived mostly in the families of the eminent clergy of that time.” ‡ And who that considers the inoffensiveness of his manners, and the pains he took in celebrating the lives and actions of good men, can doubt his being much beloved by them?

In the year 1670, these Lives were collected and published in octavo; with a dedication to the above bishop of Winchester; and a preface, containing the motives for writing them :-this preface is followed by a Copy of Verses, by his intimate friend and adopted son, Charles Cotton, of Beresford in Staffordshire, Esq., the author of the Second Part of the Complete Angler, of whom further mention will hereafter be made; and by the Letter from Bishop King, so often referred to in the course of this Life. The Complete Angler having, in the space of twentythree years, gone through four editions,-Walton, in the year 1676, and in the eighty-third of his age, was preparing a fifth, with additions, for the press; when Mr. Cotton wrote a second part of that work. It seems Mr. Cotton submitted the manuscript to Walton's perusal, who returned it with his approbation, § and a few marginal strictures; and in that year they came abroad together. Mr. Cotton's book had the title of The Complete Angler; being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling,

Epistle to the reader of the Collection of Lives.

† Dedication of the Lives.

After the Restoration, apartments were reserved for Walton and his daughters, both in the house of the above-named prelate, and in that of Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury.-Zouch.

§ See Walton's Letter to Cotton, before the Second Part.

in a clear Stream; Part II.: and it has ever since been received as a Second Part of Walton's book. In the titlepage, is a cipher composed of the initial letters of both their names; which cipher, Mr. Cotton tells us, he had caused to be cut in stone, and set up over a fishing-house," that he had erected near his dwelling, on the bank of the little river Dove, which divides the counties of Stafford and Derby.

Mr. Cotton's book is a judicious supplement to Walton's; for it must not be concealed, that Walton, though he was so expert an angler, knew but little of fly-fishing; and indeed he is so ingenuous as to confess, that the greater part of what he has said on that subject was communicated to him by Mr. Thomas Barker,† and not the result of his own experience. This Mr. Barker was a good-humoured gossiping old man, and seems to have been a cook; for he says, "he had been admitted into the most ambassadors' kitchens, that had come to England for forty years, and drest fish for them:" for which, he says, "he was duly paid by the Lord Protector." He spent a great deal of time, and, it seems, money too, in fishing; and in the latter part of his life, dwelt in an almshouse near the Gatehouse, Westminster. In 1651, two years before the first publication of Walton's work, he published a work in 12mo. called The Art of Angling, to which he affixed his name: § he published in 1653 a second edition, in 4to. under the same title, but without his name:

§ To this Walton, in his first edition, p. 108, thus acknowledges his obligations: "I will tell you freely, I find Mr. Thomas Barker, a gentleman that has spent much time and money in angling, deal so judiciously and freely in a little book of his of angling, and especially of making and angling with a fly for a trout, that I will give you his very directions without much variation, which shall follow." In his fifth edition, he again mentions the use which he had made of Barker's book, but in different words: "I shall give some other directions for fly-fishing, such as are given by Mr. Thomas Barker, a gentleman that hath spent much time in fishing, but I shall do it with a little variation."