Introduction to the Compleat Angler | Page 6

'A Mite for a Million.'
There are other bequests, including ten pounds to 'my old friend, Mr.
Richard Marriott,' Walton's bookseller. This good man died in peace

with his publisher, leaving him also a ring. A ring was left to a lady of
the Portsmouth family, 'Mrs. Doro. Wallop.'
Walton died, at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Hawkins, in
Winchester, on Dec. 15, 1683: he is buried in the south aisle of the
Cathedral. The Cathedral library possesses many of Walton's books,
with his name written in them. {5} His Eusebius (1636) contains, on
the fly-leaf, repetitions, in various forms, of one of his studied passages.
Simple as he seems, he is a careful artist in language.
Such are the scanty records, and scantier relics, of a very long life.
Circumstances and inclination combined to make Walpole choose the
fallentis semita vitae. Without ambition, save to be in the society of
good men, he passed through turmoil, ever companioned by content.
For him existence had its trials: he saw all that he held most sacred
overthrown; laws broken up; his king publicly murdered; his friends
outcasts; his worship proscribed; he himself suffered in property from
the raid of the Kirk into England. He underwent many bereavements:
child after child he lost, but content he did not lose, nor sweetness of
heart, nor belief. His was one of those happy characters which are
never found disassociated from unquestioning faith. Of old he might
have been the ancient religious Athenian in the opening of Plato's
Republic, or Virgil's aged gardener. The happiness of such natures
would be incomplete without religion, but only by such tranquil and
blessed souls can religion be accepted with no doubt or scruple, no
dread, and no misgiving. In his Preface to Thealma and Clearchus
Walton writes, and we may use his own words about his own works:
'The Reader will here find such various events and rewards of innocent
Truth and undissembled Honesty, as is like to leave in him (if he be a
good-natured reader) more sympathising and virtuous impressions, than
ten times so much time spent in impertinent, critical, and needless
disputes about religion.' Walton relied on authority; on 'a plain,
unperplexed catechism.' In an age of the strangest and most dissident
theological speculations, an age of Quakers, Anabaptists, Antinomians,
Fifth Monarchy Men, Covenanters, Independents, Gibbites,
Presbyterians, and what not, Walton was true to the authority of the
Church of England, with no prejudice against the ancient Catholic faith.

As Gesner was his authority for pickerel weed begetting pike, so the
Anglican bishops were security for Walton's creed.
To him, if we may say so, it was easy to be saved, while Bunyan, a
greater humorist, could be saved only in following a path that skirted
madness, and 'as by fire.' To Bunyan, Walton would have seemed a
figure like his own Ignorance; a pilgrim who never stuck in the Slough
of Despond, nor met Apollyon in the Valley of the Shadow, nor was
captive in Doubting Castle, nor stoned in Vanity Fair. And of Bunyan,
Walton would have said that he was among those Nonconformists who
'might be sincere, well-meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so
like charity, as thereby to cover a multitude of errors.' To Walton there
seemed spiritual solace in remembering 'that we have comforted and
been helpful to a dejected or distressed family.' Bunyan would have
regarded this belief as a heresy, and (theoretically) charitable deeds 'as
filthy rags.' Differently constituted, these excellent men accepted
religion in different ways. Christian bows beneath a burden of sin;
Piscator beneath a basket of trout. Let us be grateful for the diversities
of human nature, and the dissimilar paths which lead Piscator and
Christian alike to the City not built with hands. Both were seekers for a
City which to have sought through life, in patience, honesty, loyalty,
and love, is to have found it. Of Walton's book we may say:--
'Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula quae te Ter pure lecto poterunt
recreare libello.'

WALTON AS A BIOGRAPHER
It was probably by his Lives, rather than, in the first instance, by his
Angler, that Walton won the liking of Dr. Johnson, whence came his
literary resurrection. It is true that Moses Browne and Hawkins, both
friends of Johnson's, edited The Compleat Angler before 1775-1776,
when we find Dr. Home of Magdalene, Oxford, contemplating a
'benoted' edition of the Lives, by Johnson's advice. But the Walton of
the Lives is, rather than the Walton of the Angler, the man after
Johnson's own heart. The Angler is 'a picture of my own disposition' on

holidays. The Lives display the same disposition in serious moods, and
in face of the eternal problems of man's life in society. Johnson, we
know, was very fond of biography,