Waltoniana

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 cluster 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 glass at a wayside ale-house-leading a simple, cheerful, blameless life