In April, 1653, Oliver Cromwell, after much bloodshed and amid great
confusion, violently dissolved the “Rump Parliament.” In May of the same
year, Izaak Walton published _The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative
Man’s Recreation_. ’Twas a strange contrast between the tranquil book
and the tempestuous time. But that the contrast was not displeasing may
be inferred from the fact that five editions were issued during the
author’s life, which ended in 1683, at the house of his son-in-law in the
cathedral close at Winchester, Walton being then in his ninety-first year
and at peace with God and man.
Doubtless one of the reasons why those early editions, especially the
first, the second, and the fifth, (in which Walton’s friend Charles
Cotton added his “Instructions How to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a
Clear Stream,”) are now become so rare and costly, is because they were
carried about by honest anglers of the 17th Century in their coat-pockets
or in their wallets, a practice whereby the body of a book is soon worn
out, though its soul be immortal.
That this last is true of Walton’s _Angler_ seems proven by its continual
reappearance. The Hundredth Edition (called after the rivers Lea and
Dove, which Walton loved) was brought out in 1888, by the genial
fisherman and bibliophile, R. B. Marston of the London _Fishing Gazette_.
Among the other English editions I like John Major’s second (1824); and
Sir John Hawkins’, reissued by Bagster (1808); and Pickering’s richly
illustrated two volumes edited by Sir Harris Nicolas (1836). There is
a 32mo reprint by the same publisher, (and a “diamond” from the Oxford
University Press,) small enough to go comfortably in a vest-pocket with
your watch or your pipe. I must speak also of the admirable introductions
to the _Angler_ written in these latter years by James Russell Lowell,
Andrew Lang, and Richard Le Gallienne; and of the great American edition
made by the Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune in 1847, a work in which
the learning, wit, and sympathy of the editor illuminate the pages. This
edition is already hard to find, but no collector of angling books would
willingly go without it.
The gentle reader has a wide choice, then, of the form in which he will
take his Walton,—something rare and richly adorned for the library,
or something small and plain for the pocket or the creel. But in what
shape soever he may choose to read the book, if he be not “a severe,
sour-complexioned man” he will find it good company. There is a most
propitiating paragraph in the “Address” at the beginning of the first
edition. Explaining why he has introduced “some innocent harmless mirth”
into his work, Walton writes:
“I am the willinger to justify this innocent mirth because the whole
discourse is a kind of picture of my own disposition, at least of my
disposition in such days and times as I allow myself, when honest _Nat._
and _R.R._ and I go a-fishing together.”
This indeed is one of the great attractions of the book, that it so
naturally and simply shows the author. I know of no other in which this
quality of self-revelation without pretense or apology is as modest and
engaging,—unless it be the _Essays_ of Charles Lamb, or those of M. de
Montaigne. We feel well acquainted with Walton when we have read the
_Angler_, and perhaps have added to our reading his only other volume,—a
series of brief _Lives_ of certain excellent and beloved men of his time,
wherein he not only portrays their characters but further discloses his
own. They were men of note in their day: Sir Henry Wotton, ambassador
to Venice; Dr. John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s; Richard Hooker, famous
theologian; George Herbert, sacred poet; Bishop Sanderson, eminent
churchman. With most of these, and with other men of like standing,
Walton was in friendship. The company he kept indicates his quality.
Whatever his occupation or his means, he was certainly a gentleman and a
scholar, as well as a good judge of fishing.
Of the actual events of his life, despite diligent research, little is
known, and all to his credit. Perhaps there were no events of public
importance or interest. He came as near as possible to the fortunate
estate of the nation which has a good repute but no history.
He was born in the town of Stafford, August 9th, 1593. Of his schooling
he speaks with becoming modesty; and it must have been brief, for at the
age of sixteen or seventeen he was an apprentice in London. Whether he
was a linendraper or an ironmonger is a matter of dispute. Perhaps he
was first one and then the other. His first shop, in the Royal Burse,
Cornhill, was about seven and a half feet long by five wide. But he must
have done a good business in those narrow quarters; for in 1624 he had a
better place on Fleet Street, and from 1628 to 1644 he was a resident of
the parish of St. Dunstan’s, having a comfortable dwelling (and probably
his shop) in Chancery Lane, “about the seventh house on the left hand
side.” He served twice on the grand jury, and was elected a vestryman of
St. Dunstan’s twice.
It was during his residence here that he lost his first wife, Rachel
Floud, and the seven children whom she had borne to him. In 1644, finding
the city “dangerous for honest men” on account of the civil strife
and disorder, he retired from London, and probably from business, and
lived in the country, “sometimes at Stafford,” (according to Anthony
Wood, the antiquary,) “but mostly in the families of the eminent
clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved.” This life gave him
large opportunity for his favourite avocation of fishing, and widened
the circle of his friendships, for wherever he came as a guest he was
cherished as a friend. I make no doubt that the love of angling, to which
innocent recreation he was attached by a temperate and enduring passion,
was either the occasion or the promoter of many of these intimacies.
For it has often been observed that this sport inclines those that
practise it to friendliness; and there are no closer or more lasting
companionships than such as are formed beside flowing streams by men who
study to be quiet and go a-fishing.
After his second marriage, about 1646, to Anne Ken, half-sister of Bishop
Thomas Ken, (author of the well-known hymns, “Awake, my soul, and with
the sun,” and “All praise to Thee, my God, this night,”) Walton went to
live for some years at Clerkenwell. While he was there, the book for
which he had been long preparing, _The Compleat Angler_, was published,
and gave him his sure place in English literature and in the heart of an
innumerable company of readers.
Never was there a better illustration of “fisherman’s luck” than the
success of Walton’s book. He set out to make a little “discourse of
fish and fishing,” a “pleasant curiositie” he calls it, full of useful
information concerning the history and practice of the gentle art, and,
as the author modestly claims on his title-page, “not unworthy the
perusal of most anglers.” Instead of this he produced an imperishable
classic, which has been read with delight by thousands who have never wet
a line. It was as if a man went forth to angle for smelts and caught a
lordly salmon.
As a manual of practical instruction the book is long since out of
date. The kind of rod which Walton describes is too cumbrous for the
modern angler, who catches his trout with a split bamboo weighing no
more than four or five ounces, and a thin waterproofed line of silk
beside which Father Izaak’s favourite line twisted of seven horse-hairs
would look like a bed-cord. Most of his recipes for captivating baits
and lures, and his hints about “oyl,” or “camphire” with which they may
be made infallibly attractive to reluctant fish, are now more curious
than valuable. They seem like ancient superstitions,—although this very
summer I have had recommended to me a secret magic ointment one drop
of which upon a salmon-fly would (supposedly) render it irresistible.
(Yes, reader, I did try it; but its actual effect, owing to various
incalculable circumstances, could not be verified. The salmon took the
anointed fly sometimes, but at other times they took the unanointed, and
so I could not make affidavit that it was the oil that allured them.
It may have been some tickling in the brain, some dim memory of the
time when they were little parr, living in fresh water for their first
eighteen months and feeding mainly on floating insects, that made them
wish to rise again.)
But to return to my subject. The angler of to-day who wishes to
understand the technics of modern fishing-gear will go to such books
as H. B. Wells’ _Fly Rods and Fly Tackle_, or to Dr. George Holden’s
_The Idyl of the Split Bamboo_. This very year two volumes have been
published, each of which in its way goes far beyond Walton: Mr.
William Radcliffe’s _Fishing from the Earliest Times_, which will
undoubtedly take its place as the standard history of the ancient craft
of fish-catching; and Mr. Edward R. Hewitt’s _Secrets of the Salmon_,
a brilliant and suggestive piece of work, full of acute scientific
observation and successful experiment. These belong to what De Quincey
called “the literature of knowledge.” But the _Angler_ belongs to “the
literature of power,”—that which has a quickening and inspiring influence
upon the spirit,—and here it is unsurpassed, I may even say unrivalled,
by any book ever written about any sport. Charles Lamb wrote to Coleridge
commending it to his perusal: “It might sweeten a man’s temper at any
time to read _The Compleat Angler_.”
The unfailing charm of the book lives in its delicately clear
descriptions of the country and of rural life; in its quaint pastoral
scenes, like the interview with the milkmaid and her mother, and the
convocation of gipsies under the hedge; and in its sincerely happy
incitements to patience, cheerfulness, a contented spirit, and a tranquil
mind.
In its first form the book opened with a dialogue between Piscator and
Viator; but later this was revised to a three-sided conversation in which
Venator, a hunter, and Auceps, a falconer, take the place of Viator and
try valiantly to uphold the merits of their respective sports as superior
to angling. Of course Piscator easily gets the best of them, (authors
always have this power to reserve victory for their favourites,) and
Auceps goes off stage, vanquished, while Venator remains as a convert
and willing disciple, to follow his “Master” by quiet streams and drink
in his pleasant and profitable discourse. As a dialogue it is not very
convincing, it lacks salt and pepper; Venator is too easy a convert;
he makes two or three rather neat repartees, but in general, he seems
to have no mind of his own. But as a monologue it is very agreeable,
being written in a sincere, colloquial, unaffected yet not undignified
manner, with a plenty of digressions. And these, like the by-paths on a
journey, are the pleasantest parts of all. Piscator’s talk appears easy,
unconstrained, rambling, yet always sure-footed, like the walk of one who
has wandered by the little rivers so long that he can move forward safely
without watching every step, finding his footing by a kind of instinct
while his eyes follow the water and the rising fish.
But we must not imagine that such a style as this, fluent as it seems and
easy to read as it is for any one with an ear for music, either comes
by nature or is attained without effort. Walton speaks somewhere of his
“artless pencil”; but this is true only in the sense that he makes us
forget the processes of his art in the simplicity of its results. He was
in fact very nice in his selection and ordering of words. He wrote and
rewrote his simplest sentences and revised his work in each of the five
earlier editions, except possibly the fourth.
Take, for example, the bit which I have already quoted from the
“address to the reader” in the first edition, and compare it with the
corresponding passage in the fifth edition:
“I am the willinger to justify _the pleasant part of it_, because,
_though it is known I can be serious at reasonable times_, yet the
whole discourse is, _or rather was_, a picture of my own disposition,
_especially_ in such days and times as I _have laid aside business, and
gone a-fishing with_ honest Nat. and R. Roe; _but they are gone, and with
them most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth away and
returns not_.”
All the phrases in italics are either altered or added.
He cites Montaigne’s opinion of cats,—a familiar judgment expressed with
lightness,—and in the first edition Winds up his quotation with the
sentence, “To this purpose speaks Montaigne concerning cats.” In the
fifth edition this is humourously improved to, “Thus _freely_ speaks
Montaigne concerning cats,”—as if it were something noteworthy to take a
liberty with this petted animal.
The beautiful description of the song of the nightingale, and of the
lark, and the fine passage beginning, “Every misery that I miss is a new
mercy,” are jewels that Walton added in revision.
In the first edition he gravely tells how the salmon “will force
themselves over the tops of weirs and hedges or stops in the water, _by
taking their tails into their mouths and leaping over those places_,
even to a height beyond common belief.” But upon reflection this
fish-story seems to him dubious; and so in the later edition you find the
mouth-and-tail legend in a poetical quotation, to which Walton cautiously
adds, “_This Michael Drayton tells you_ of this leap or summer-salt of
the salmon.”
It would be easy to continue these illustrations of Walton’s care in
revising his work through successive editions; indeed a long article, or
even a little book might be made upon this subject, and if I had the time
I should like to do it.
Another theme would well repay study, and that is the influence of
the King James Version of the Bible upon his style and thought. That
wonderful example of pure, strong, and stately English prose, was first
printed and published when Walton was eighteen years old, about the
time he came to London as an apprentice. Yet to such good purpose did
he read and study it that his two books, the _Angler_ and the _Lives_,
are full of apt quotations from it, and almost every page shows the
exemplary effect of its admirable diction. Indeed it has often seemed to
me that his fine description of the style of the Prophet Amos, (in the
first chapter of the _Angler_,) reveals something of the manner in which
Walton himself desired to write; and in this desire he was not altogether
unsuccessful.
How clearly the man shines through his book! An honest, kindly man, not
ashamed of his trade, nor of his amusements, nor of his inmost faith.
A man contented with his modest place in the world, and never doubting
that it was a good world or that God made it. A firm man, not without
his settled convictions and strong aversions, yet “content that every
reader should enjoy his own opinion.” A liberal-mannered man, enjoying
the music of birds and of merry songs and glees, grateful for good food,
and “barly-wine, the good liquor that our honest Fore-fathers did use
to drink of,” and a fragrant pipe afterwards; sitting down to meat not
only with “the eminent clergymen of England,” but also, (as his Master
did,) with publicans and sinners; and counting among his friends such
dignitaries as Dr. John Hales, Bishop King, and Sir Henry Wotton, and
such lively and vagarious persons as Ben Jonson, Carey, and Charles
Cotton. A loyal, steadfast man, not given to change, anxiety of mind, or
vain complaining, but holding to the day’s duty and the day’s reward of
joy as God sent them to him, and bearing the day’s grief with fortitude.
Thus he worked and read and angled quietly through the stormy years of
the Civil War and the Commonwealth, wishing that men would beat their
swords into fish-hooks, and cast their leaden bullets into sinkers, and
study peace and the Divine will.