第2章 HIS LIFE(2)

Speaking of the entry of the Scots,who came,as one of them said,'for the goods,--and chattels of the English,'he remarks,'I saw and suffered by it.'{2}He also mentions that he 'saw'shops shut by their owners till Laud should be put to death,in January 1645.In his Life of Sanderson,Walton vouches for an anecdote of 'the knowing and conscientious King,'Charles,who,he says,meant to do public penance for Strafford's death,and for the abolishing of Episcopacy in Scotland.But the condition,'peaceable possession of the Crown,'was not granted to Charles,nor could have been granted to a prince who wished to reintroduce Bishops in Scotland.Walton had his information from Dr.

Morley.On Nov.25,1645,Walton probably wrote,though John Marriott signed,an Address to the Reader,printed,in 1646,with Quarles's Shepherd's Eclogues.The piece is a little idyll in prose,and 'angle,lines,and flies'are not omitted in the description of 'the fruitful month of May,'while Pan is implored to restore Arcadian peace to Britannia,'and grant that each honest shepherd may again sit under his own vine and fig-tree,and feed his own flock,'when the King comes,no doubt.'About'1646Walton married Anne,half-sister of Bishop Ken,a lady 'of much Christian meeknesse.'Sir Harris Nicolas thinks that he only visited Stafford occasionally,in these troubled years.He mentions fishing in 'Shawford brook';he was likely to fish wherever there was water,and the brook flowed through land which,as Mr.Marston shows,he acquired about 1656.In 1650a child was born to Walton in Clerkenwell;it died,but another,Isaac,was born in September 1651.In 1651he published the Reliquiae Wottonianae,with a Memoir of Sir Henry Wotton.The knight had valued Walton's company as a cure for 'those splenetic vapours that are called hypochondriacal.'

Worcester fight was on September 3,1651;the king was defeated,and fled,escaping,thanks to a stand made by Wogan,and to the loyalty of Mistress Jane Lane,and of many other faithful adherents.A jewel of Charles's,the lesser George,was preserved by Colonel Blague,who intrusted it to Mr.

Barlow of Blore Pipe House,in Staffordshire.Mr.Barlow gave it to Mr.Milward,a Royalist prisoner in Stafford,and he,in turn,intrusted it to Walton,who managed to convey it to Colonel Blague in the Tower.The colonel escaped,and the George was given back to the king.Ashmole,who tells the story,mentions Walton as 'well beloved of all good men.'

This incident is,perhaps,the only known adventure in the long life of old Izaak.The peaceful angler,with a royal jewel in his pocket,must have encountered many dangers on the highway.He was a man of sixty when he published his Compleat Angler in 1653,and so secured immortality.The quiet beauties of his manner in his various biographies would only have made him known to a few students,who could never have recognised Byron's 'quaint,old,cruel coxcomb'in their author.'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.'Izaak speaks of the possibility that his book may reach a second edition.There are now editions more than a hundred!Waltonians should read Mr.Thomas Westwood's Preface to his Chronicle of the Compleat Angler:it is reprinted in Mr.Marston's edition.Mr.Westwood learned to admire Walton at the feet of Charles Lamb:-'No fisher,But a well-wisher To the game,'as Scott describes himself.{3}

Lamb recommended Walton to Coleridge;'it breathes the very spirit of innocence,purity,and simplicity of heart;it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it;it would Christianise every angry,discordant passion;pray make yourself acquainted with it.'(Oct.28,1796.)According to Mr.Westwood,Lamb had 'an early copy,'found in a repository of marine stores,but not,even then,to be bought a bargain.

Mr.Westwood fears that Lamb's copy was only Hawkins's edition of 1760.The original is extremely scarce.Mr.Locker had a fine copy;there is another in the library of Dorchester House:both are in their primitive livery of brown sheep,or calf.The book is one which only the wealthy collector can hope,with luck,to call his own.A small octavo,sold at eighteen-pence,The Compleat Angler was certain to be thumbed into nothingness,after enduring much from May showers,July suns,and fishy companionship.It is almost a wonder that any examples of Walton's and Bunyan's first editions have survived into our day.The little volume was meant to find a place in the bulging pockets of anglers,and was well adapted to that end.The work should be reprinted in a similar format:quarto editions are out of place.