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.”