The few events in the long life of Izaak Walton have been carefully investigated by Sir Harris Nicolas.All that can be extricated from documents by the alchemy of research has been selected,and I am unaware of any important acquisitions since Sir Harris Nicolas's second edition of 1860.Izaak was of an old family of Staffordshire yeomen,probably descendants of George Walton of Yoxhall,who died in 1571.Izaak's father was Jarvis Walton,who died in February 1595-6;of Izaak's mother nothing is known.Izaak himself was born at Stafford,on August 9,1593,and was baptized on September 21.He died on December 15,1683,having lived in the reigns of Elizabeth,James I.Charles I.under the Commonwealth,and under Charles II.The anxious and changeful age through which he passed is in contrast with his very pacific character and tranquil pursuits.
Of Walton's education nothing is known,except on the evidence of his writings.He may have read Latin,but most of the books he cites had English translations.Did he learn his religion from 'his mother or his nurse'?It will be seen that the free speculation of his age left him untouched:perhaps his piety was awakened,from childhood,under the instruction of a pious mother.Had he been orphaned of both parents (as has been suggested)he might have been less amenable to authority,and a less notable example of the virtues which Anglicanism so vainly opposed to Puritanismism.His literary beginnings are obscure.There exists a copy of a work,The Loves of Amos and Laura,written by S.P.published in 1613,and again in 1619.The edition of 1619is dedicated to 'Iz.Wa.':
'Thou being cause IT IS AS NOW IT IS';the Dedication does not occur in the one imperfect known copy of 1613.Conceivably the words,'as now it is'refer to the edition of 1619,which might have been emended by Walton's advice.But there are no emendations,hence it is more probable that Walton revised the poem in 1613,when he was a man of twenty,or that he merely advised the author to publish:-'For,hadst thou held thy tongue,by silence might These have been buried in oblivion's night.'
S.P.also remarks:
'No ill thing can be clothed in thy verse';hence Izaak was already a rhymer,and a harmless one,under the Royal Prentice,gentle King Jamie.
By this time Walton was probably settled in London.A deed in the possession of his biographer,Dr.Johnson's friend,Sir John Hawkins,shows that,in 1614,Walton held half of a shop on the north side of Fleet Street,two doors west of Chancery Lane:the other occupant was a hosier.Mr.Nicholl has discovered that Walton was made free of the Ironmongers.'
Company on Nov.12,1618.He is styled an Ironmonger in his marriage licence.The facts are given in Mr.Marston's Life of Walton,prefixed to his edition of The Compleat Angler (1888).It is odd that a prentice ironmonger should have been a poet and a critic of poetry.Dr.Donne,before 1614,was Vicar of St.Dunstan's in the West,and in Walton had a parishioner,a disciple,and a friend.Izaak greatly loved the society of the clergy:he connected himself with Episcopal families,and had a natural taste for a Bishop.
Through Donne,perhaps,or it may be in converse across the counter,he made acquaintance with Hales of Eton,Dr.King,and Sir Henry Wotton,himself an angler,and one who,like Donne and Izaak,loved a ghost story,and had several in his family.Drayton,the river-poet,author of the Polyolbion,is also spoken of by Walton as 'my old deceased friend.'
On Dec.27,1626,Walton married,at Canterbury,Rachel Floud,a niece,on the maternal side,by several descents,of Cranmer,the famous Archbishop of Canterbury.The Cranmers were intimate with the family of the judicious Hooker,and Walton was again connected with kinsfolk of that celebrated divine.Donne died in 1631,leaving to Walton,and to other friends,a bloodstone engraved with Christ crucified on an anchor:the seal is impressed on Walton's will.When Donne's poems were published in 1633,Walton added commendatory verses:-'As all lament (Or should)this general cause of discontent.'
The parenthetic 'or should'is much in Walton's manner.
'Witness my mild pen,not used to upbraid the world,'is also a pleasant and accurate piece of self-criticism.'I am his convert,'Walton exclaims.In a citation from a manuscript which cannot be found,and perhaps never existed,Walton is spoken of as 'a very sweet poet in his youth,and more than all in matters of love.'{1}Donne had been in the same case:he,or Time,may have converted Walton from amorous ditties.
Walton,in an edition of Donne's poems of 1635,writes of 'This book (dry emblem)which begins With love;but ends with tears and sighs for sins.'
The preacher and his convert had probably a similar history of the heart:as we shall see,Walton,like the Cyclops,had known love.Early in 1639,Wotton wrote to Walton about a proposed Life of Donne,to be written by himself,and hoped 'to enjoy your own ever welcome company in the approaching time of the Fly and the Cork.'Wotton was a fly-fisher;the cork,or float,or 'trembling quill,'marks Izaak for the bottom-fisher he was.Wotton died in December 1639;Walton prefixed his own Life of Donne to that divine's sermons in 1640.He says,in the Dedication of the reprint of 1658,that 'it had the approbation of our late learned and eloquent King,'the martyred Charles I.Living in,or at the corner of Chancery Lane,Walton is known to have held parochial office:he was even elected 'scavenger.'He had the misfortune to lose seven children--of whom the last died in 1641--his wife,and his mother-in-law.In 1644he left Chancery Lane,and probably retired from trade.He was,of course,a Royalist.