A Quaint Comrade by Quiet Streams by Henry Van Dyke

In April, 1653, Oliver Cromwell, after much bloodshed and amid great / confusion, violently dissolved the "Rump Parliament. " In May of the same / year, Izaak Walton published _The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative / Man's Recreation_. 'Twas a strange contrast between the tranquil book / and the tempestuous time. But that the contrast was not displeasing may / be inferred from the fact that five editions were issued during the / author's life, which ended in 1683, at the house of his son-in-law in the / cathedral close at Winchester, Walton being then in his ninety-first year / and at peace with God and man.

Doubtless one of the reasons why those early editions, especially the / first, the second, and the fifth, (in which Walton's friend Charles / Cotton added his "Instructions How to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a / Clear Stream,") are now become so rare and costly, is because they were / carried about by honest anglers of the 17th Century in their coat-pockets / or in their wallets, a practice whereby the body of a book is soon worn / out, though its soul be immortal.

That this last is true of Walton's _Angler_ seems proven by its continual / reappearance. The Hundredth Edition (called after the rivers Lea and / Dove, which Walton loved) was brought out in 1888, by the genial / fisherman and bibliophile, R. B. Marston of the London _Fishing Gazette_. / Among the other English editions I like John Major's second (1824); and / Sir John Hawkins', reissued by Bagster (1808); and Pickering's richly / illustrated two volumes edited by Sir Harris Nicolas (1836). There is / a 32mo reprint by the same publisher, (and a "diamond" from the Oxford / University Press,) small enough to go comfortably in a vest-pocket with / your watch or your pipe. I must speak also of the admirable introductions / to the _Angler_ written in these latter years by James Russell Lowell, / Andrew Lang, and Richard Le Gallienne; and of the great American edition / made by the Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune in 1847, a work in which / the learning, wit, and sympathy of the editor illuminate the pages. This / edition is already hard to find, but no collector of angling books would / willingly go without it.

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.