this feeling when he left on his tombstone the motto, "Disputandi pruritus Ecclesiarum scabies," as a warning voice to survivors.

Whatever some may think of Walton's theological tendencies, all must admit the Christian elevation of that morality which shines in his works. There is no repulsive asceticism, no contempt of the innocent amusements, and minor joys which contribute to the grace and refinement of life. But, on the other hand, there is not the least approach towards that libertine insolence, which marks with a lasting brand the productions of the most elegant writers of his day. Even the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, which a bishop, Dr. Earle, declared to be too pure and sainted to be called plays, are laden with the vilest indecencies. Walton was no Puritan; but he every where expresses, in his own quiet way, a strong disgust at that low and miserable wit, which delights in pouring its pollution over the noblest and most sacred subjects. "Most of his conceits," says he, speaking of such a man, were either Scripture jests or lascivious jests; for which I count no man witty." Such was Izaak Walton; at first a draper of Fleet Street, but afterwards the friend and associate of many who were famous then, and are remembered still. The above brief estimate of his character will, it is hoped, enable the readers of the following condensed memoir to note, with a clearer insight, the successive events of Walton's life. It may also prepare them to peruse with greater interest the "Lives" of the eminent men whose characters Walton has drawn, with that affectionate reverence with which he ever regarded the good and the learned.

The period during which Walton lived is, perhaps, without a parallel in the history of England. It wit

nessed the development of that great party struggle which, beginning under Elizabeth, grew mightily under James; and in the reign of his son brought a King, a Viceroy, and an Archbishop to the scaffold. The flame seemed trampled out for a while, amid the triumphs of the Restoration; but soon the smouldering ashes gave signs of a rekindling, and again there came a conflagration which destroyed the throne of the Stuarts, and drove out the royal occupants as wanderers over the earth. Walton lived during ninety years of this eventful era, dying but five years before the "glorious Revolution;" and this fact alone might give to the life even of a quiet man a peculiar interest: The space allotted to this memoir will not admit of many notices of these critical changes; a few remarks to indicate the state of the public feeling in the midst of which Walton lived and wrote must suffice.

Since the beginning of the present century many facts relating to Walton have been discovered which were unknown to his earlier biographers. We are thus able to trace more clearly the course of his life, and the character of his friendships. The most chronologically complete Life of the old angler is certainly that by Sir Harris Nicolas, and the writer of this memoir must express his obligations to that work, for several facts not clearly, or not at all, ascertained before.

Izaak Walton was born at Stafford on the 9th of August, 1593, and was baptized in St. Mary's Church on the 21st of the following month. His father, Jervis Walton, died in little more than two years after the birth of Izaak, and was buried at Stafford. Dr. Zouch, in his Life of Walton, says that the mother was a niece of Archbishop Cranmer; there does not seem to be any evidence for this assertion. Nothing is known of

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her; the truth being, as Sir Harris Nicolas remarked, that not even her name has been discovered." It is probable indeed that Dr. Zouch has mistaken the family of Walton's first wife, for that of his mother.

No biographer has been able to collect any particulars relating to the childhood and youth, or to any part of the first twenty years of Walton's life. Parochial registers have been searched, and old family papers scrutinized, but all in vain. Over this part of his life, therefore, and over the nature of his earliest education and first impressions, we must be content to let the veil rest. Yet what important events were crowded into these twenty years. The stern and morose Philip of Spain, the vindictive foe of England and the sincerely bitter antagonist of the Reformation, died during the first part of this period. Five years after, when Walton was in his tenth year, Elizabeth of England left the throne open to the heir of the Stuart kings. Two years later the alarm and horror excited by the gunpowder-plot must have strongly impressed his imagination.

What effect was thus early produced upon his mind by those exciting events we can but conjecture. One fact, however, leads us to suppose, that the contemplative character of Walton had drawn him towards literature, even before he had reached his twentieth year. A poem entitled "The Love of Amos and Laura,' was published in 1613, which Walton had suggested to its author, and to which he seems to have contributed some corrections. We learn these particulars from a subsequent edition of the work issued in 1619, with a dedication to Walton by the unknown author, who has only given us the initials of his name, S. P. These few facts are of some interest; for they prove that even at so early an age Walton's suggestions were received and his judgment

esteemed by one public writer at the least. This work is in the British Museum, bound up in a small volume with two other poems of very questionable character. It may be found in the catalogue under the word Alcilia.

When did Walton first come to London, and where was his first home in the metropolis? These are questions to which a clear answer might reasonably be expected. But the dates of these events cannot be ascertained with exactness. If indeed we are disposed to adopt the popular and easy method of taking every loose tradition for proved truth, we can soon make some progress. One story, which places young Walton as apprentice to a relation, Henry Walton, who kept a haberdasher's shop in Whitechapel, has indeed some little evidence in its favour. Another fixes "his first settlement in London" in one of the hundred and twenty small shops built by Sir Thomas Gresham, over the "walks" of the Exchange. As these shops were but " seven feet and a half long and five wide' we are called upon to admire the thrifty spirit of the young draper. Now all this may be true, but all this may be false; there is no evidence for the chief part of the statement, unless we are willing to act upon a mere guess of Sir John Hawkins, whose Life of Walton was not published till seventy-seven years after the venerable angler's death. Sir John rather hastily says, 'We may reasonably suppose he was one of the first inhabitants of the Burse." But why we may "reasonably suppose" any thing of the kind is not hinted. Dr. Ward, who was born a little before Walton's death, alludes in his Life of Sir Thomas Gresham to these small shops, and says Sir Thomas placed in them "young men of small fortunes, but industrious." Not a word has he about Walton. Sir John Hawkins,

says

"Wal

with this passage before him, that "perhaps ton was one of those young men. The value of this "perhaps" may be left to the reader to estimate. It has been thought right to show how little is known about this matter, as in a modern work of considerable popularity the old story is repeated without the least hesitation.

The first decisive evidence relating to Walton's abode in London is found in a deed once in the possession of Sir John Hawkins. From this document it appears that Walton was, in 1624, the joint occupant of a residence "on the north side of Fleet Street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery Lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow." This deed describes Walton as a linendraper, and his fellow-tenant was John Mason, a hosier. Both the old deed and the old house have perished; the former was burned in 1770, and the latter appears to have been pulled down in 1799, at the same time with the richly decorated mansion called the Harrow. Sir John Hawkins, describing its state in his time, calls it "the old timber house at the south-west corner of Chancery Lane." Many an old edifice, adorned with richly carved timber work, and inhabited by men of high rank, formerly stood in Fleet Street. The Harrow was one of these, and it seems to have been here that the students of the Temple contrived, for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, one of those quaint spectacles for which the Inns of Court were then famous. Several figures of angels were made to descend from the top of this house, and present the Queen with a crown of laurel and gold, as she passed down Fleet Street, on her celebrated visit in January, 1571, to Sir Thomas Gresham and the Exchange. In an engraving from an original drawing taken on the spot in 1794, this house is shown;