Walton, Izaak

Izaak (1593-1683), a quiet, easy-going London linen merchant. His delight lay in fishing, reading, and writing. He wrote a number of quaint, rambling Lives of the people of his time. His Com-pleat Angler is a description, usually in dialogue form, of English lanes, inns, farms, fishes, rods, bait, boating, and angling. It is a delightful volume, most artfully interwoven with observations worthy of Shakespeare himself. It is the first of outdoor books.

Look, under that broad beech-tree I sat down, when I was last this way a-fishing; and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree near to the brow of that primrose hill. There I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their center, the tempestuous sea; and sometimes I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs, some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the cheerful sun.