Waltoniana Part 1

Waltonia.

by Isaak Walton.

PREFACE.

Few men who have written books have been able to win so large a share of the personal affection of their readers as honest Izaak Walton has done, and few books are laid down with so genuine a feeling of regret as the "Complete Angler" certainly is, that they are no longer. "One of the gentlest and tenderest spirits of the seventeenth century," we all know his dear old face, with its cheerful, happy, serene look, and we should all have liked to accompany him on one of those angling excursions from Tottenham High Cross, and to have listened to the quaint, garrulous, sportive talk, the outcome of a religion which was like his homely garb, not too good for every-day wear. We see him, now diligent in his business, now commemorating the virtues of that cl.u.s.ter of scholars and churchmen with whose friendship he was favoured in youth, and teaching his young brother-in-law, Thomas Ken, to walk in their saintly footsteps,--now busy with his rod and line, or walking and talking with a friend, staying now and then to quaff an honest gla.s.s at a wayside ale-house--leading a simple, cheerful, blameless life

"Thro' near a century of pleasant years."[1]

We have said that the reader regrets that Walton should have left so little behind him: his "Angler" and his Lives are all that is known to most. But we are now enabled to present those who love his memory with a collection of fugitive pieces, in verse and prose, extending in date of composition over a period of fifty years,--beginning with the Elegy on Donne, in 1633, and terminating only with his death in 1683. All these, however unambitious, are more or less characteristic of the man, and impregnated with the same spirit of genial piety that distinguishes the two well-known books to which they form a supplement.

Walton's devotion to literature must have begun at an early age; for in a little poem, ent.i.tled _The Love of Amos and Laura_, published in 1619, when he was only twenty-six, and attributed variously to Samuel Purchas, author of "The Pilgrims," and to Samuel Page, we find the following dedication to him:--

"TO MY APPROVED AND MUCH RESPECTED FRIEND, IZ. WA.

"To thee, thou more then thrice beloved friend, I too unworthy of so great a blisse: These harsh-tun'd lines I here to thee commend, Thou being cause it is now as it is: For hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might These have beene buried in obliuious night.

"If they were pleasing, I would call them thine, And disauow my t.i.tle to the verse: But being bad, I needes must call them mine.

No ill thing can be cloathed in thy verse.

Accept them then, and where I have offended, Rase thou it out, and let it be amended.

"S.P." [2]

What poems Walton wrote in his youth, we have now no means of knowing; it has not been discovered that any have been printed, unless we adopt the theory advocated by Mr. Singer,[3] and by a writer in the "Retrospective Review,"[4] that the poem of _Thealma and Clearchus_, which he published in the last year of his life, as a posthumous fragment of his relation John Chalkhill, was really a juvenile work of his own. Some plausibility is lent to this notion by the fact that Walton speaks of the author with so much reticence and reserve in his preface to the volume, and also that in introducing two of Chalkhill's songs into the "Complete Angler," he does not bestow on them the customary words of commendation. This theory has been reb.u.t.ted by others, who a.s.sert that Walton was of too truthful and guileless a nature to resort to such an artifice. We confess that we are unable to see anything dishonest in the adoption, as a pseudonym, of the name of a deceased friend, or anything more than Walton appears to have done on another occasion when he published his two letters on "Love and Truth." It is certain, however, that a family of Chalkhills existed, with whom Walton was closely connected by his marriage with the sister of Bishop Ken. But that an "acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser,"

capable of writing such a poem as _Thealma and Clearchus_, should have kept his talents so concealed, that in an age of commendatory verses no slightest contemporary record of him exists--is, to say the least, extraordinary. There are cogent arguments then on both sides of the question, and there is very little positive proof on either: so we must be content to leave the matter in some doubt and obscurity.

The first production to which our author attached the well-known signature of "Iz. Wa." was an Elegy on the Death of Dr. Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's, prefixed to a collection of Donne's Poems. Walton was then forty years of age. From this time forward we find him more or less engaged, at not very long intervals, on literary labours, till the very year of his death.

The care which Walton spent on his productions seems to have been very great. He wrote and re-wrote, corrected, amended, rescinded, and added.

This very poem--the Elegy on Donne--he completely remodelled in his old age, when he inserted it in the collection of his Lives. But we have thought it well to give the original version here as a literary curiosity, and the first work of his that has come down to us. The original Lives themselves--especially those of Wotton and Donne--were mere sketches of what they are in their present enlarged form.

Walton had the good fortune to be thrown very early in life into the society and intimacy of men who were his superiors in rank and education.

But he had enough of culture, joined to his inherent reverence of mind, to appreciate and understand all that they had and he wanted.

The preface to Sir John Skeffington's _Heroe of Lorenzo_ had for two centuries lain forgotten, and escaped the notice of Walton's biographers, till in 1852 it was discovered by Dr. Bliss of Oxford, and communicated by him to the late William Pickering.

The original Spanish work was first published in 1630. The author's real name was not Lorenzo, but Balthazar Gracian, a Jesuit of Aragon, who flourished during the first half of the seventeenth century, when the cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose, and rose to its greatest consideration.[5] It is a collection of short, wise apothegms and maxims for the conduct of life, sometimes ill.u.s.trated by stories of valour, or prowess, or magnanimity, of the old Castilian heroes who figure in "Count Lucanor." The book, though now no longer read, must have been very popular at one time, for there exist two or three later English versions of it, without, however, the nervous concentration of style and idiomatic diction that characterize the translation sent forth to the world under Walton's auspices.

The two Letters published in 1680 under the t.i.tle of Love and Truth,[6]

were written respectively in the years 1668 and 1679. The evidence of their authorship is twofold, and we think quite conclusive. In one of the very few copies known to exist, and now in the library of Emanuel College, Cambridge, its original possessor, Archbishop Sancroft, has written:--"Is.

Walton's 2 letters conc. ye Distemp's of ye Times, 1680," and Dr. Zouch appended to his reprint of the tract[7] a number of parallel pa.s.sages from other acknowledged writings of Walton, of themselves almost sufficient to fix the question on internal evidence alone.

In the British Museum copy of this tract is the following note on one of the fly-leaves in the autograph of the late William Pickering:--

"The present is the only copy I have met with after twenty years'

search, excepting the one in Emanuel College, Cambridge. W. Pickering."

The copy described above [_i.e._, the Emanuel College copy] appears to be the same edition as the present [that now in the British Museum], but has the following variation. After the t.i.tle-page is printed

The Author to the Stationer

"Mr. Brome," &c., and the Epistle ends with "Your friend," without the N.N. which is found in this copy. But what is more remarkable, the printed word Author is run through, and corrected with a pen, and over it written _Publisher_, which is evidently in the handwriting of Walton. So Mr.

Pickering further certifies.

The following allusion towards the bottom of p. 37 confirms the idea of Walton's authorship. Speaking of Hugh Peters and John Lilbourn, the writer says:--"Their turbulent lives and uncomfortable deaths are not I hope yet worn out of the memory of many. He that compares them with the holy life and happy death of Mr. George Herbert, as it is plainly and _I hope truly_ writ by Mr. Isaac Walton, may in it find a perfect pattern for an humble and devout Christian to imitate,"

AN ELEGIE UPON DR. DONNE.

1633.

[_Juvenilia: or Certaine Paradoxes and Problemes, written by I. Donne.

London, Printed by E.P. for Henry Seyle, and are to be sold at the signe of the Tygers head, in Saint Pauls Church-yard, Anno Dom_. 1633 (pp. 382-384)._

_Poems, by J.D. with Elegies on the Author's Death. London. Printed by M.F. for JOHN MARRIOT, and are to be sold at his Shop in St. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street, 1635._

The text is printed from the revised version of 1635, and the original readings of 1633 are given at the foot of the page.]

_An Elegie upon_ DR. DONNE.

Our _Donne_ is dead; England should mourne, may say We had a man where language chose to stay And shew her gracefull power.[1] I would not praise That and his vast wit (which in these vaine dayes Make many proud) but, as they serv'd to unlock That Cabinet, his minde: where such a stock Of knowledge was repos'd, as all lament (Or should) this generall cause of discontent.

And I rejoyce I am not so severe, But (as I write a line) to weepe a teare For his decease; Such sad extremities May make such men as I write Elegies.

And wonder not; for, when a generall losse Falls on a nation, and they slight the crosse, G.o.d hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them From stupifaction; witnesse my milde pen, Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must Freely and boldly, for, the cause is just.

Dull age, Oh I would spare thee, but th'art worse, Thou art not onely dull, but hast a curse Of black ingrat.i.tude; if not, couldst thou Part with _miraculous Donne_, and make no vow For thee, and thine, successively to pay A sad remembrance to his dying day?

Did his youth scatter _Poetry_, wherein Was all Philosophy? was every sinne, Character'd in his _Satyrs_? Made so foule That some have fear'd their shapes, and kept their soule Safer by reading verse? Did he give _dayes_ Past marble monuments, to those, whose praise He would perpetuate? Did he (I feare The dull will doubt:) these at his twentieth year?

But, more matur'd; Did his full soule conceive, And in harmonious-holy-numbers weave A [2]_Crown of sacred sonnets_, fit to adorne A dying Martyrs brow: or, to be worne On that blest head of _Mary Magdalen_, After she wip'd Christs feet, but not till then?

Did hee (fit for such penitents as shee And he to use) leave us a _Litany_, Which all devout men love, and sure, it shall, As times grow better, grow more cla.s.sicall?

Did he write _Hymnes_, for piety, for wit,[3]

Equall to those, great grave _Prudentius_ writ?

Spake he all _Languages_? knew he all Lawes?

The grounds and use of _Physick_; but because 'Twas mercenary, wav'd it? Went to see That blessed place of _Christs nativity_?

Did he returne and preach him? preach him so As since S. _Paul_ none did, none could? Those know, (Such as were blest to heare him) this is truth.[4]

Did he confirm thy aged?[5] convert thy youth?

Did he these wonders? And is this deare losse Mourn'd by so few? (few for so great a crosse.) But sure the silent are ambitious all To be Close Mourners at his Funerall; If not; In common pitty they forbare By repet.i.tions to renew our care; Or, knowing, griefe conceiv'd, conceal'd, consumes Man irreparably, (as poyson'd fumes Doe waste the braine) make silence a safe way, To'inlarge the Soule from these walls, mud and clay, (Materials of this body) to remaine With _Donne_ in heaven, where no promiscuous pain Lessens the joy we have, for, with _him_, all Are satisfy'd with _joyes essentiall_.

Dwell on this joy my thoughts; oh, doe not call[6]

Griefe back, by thinking of his Funerall; Forget hee lov'd mee; Waste not my sad yeares; (Which hast to _Davids_ seventy,) fill'd with feares And sorrow for his death; Forget his parts, Which finde a living grave in good mens hearts; And, (for, my first is dayly payd for sinne) Forget to pay my second sigh for him: Forget his powerfull preaching; and forget I am his _Convert_. Oh my frailty! let My flesh be no more heard, it will obtrude This lethargy: so should my grat.i.tude, My flowes[7] of grat.i.tude should so be broke; Which can no more be, than _Donnes_ vertues spoke By any but himselfe; for which cause, I Write no _Encomium_, but this _Elegie_,[8]

Which, as a free-will-offring, I here give Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve I want abilities, fit to set forth A monument, great, as Donnes matchlesse worth.

IZ. WA.

FOOTNOTES

[1] In the edition of 1633, the poem opens thus:-- Is _Donne_, great _Donne_ deceas'd? then England say Thou'hast lost a man where language chose to stay And shew it's gracefull power, &c.