CHAPTER I.
A Meeting at Derby, between an Angler and a Painter.
Welcome, Mr. Gentleman Angler: welcome to Derby.
Angler. Good morrow, brother, I am glad to see you look so cheering and courteous; for I must confess I am later than our fix’t appointment.
Painter. Sir, now I possess you, I’m too glad-hearted to chide your lagging: yet, to say the truth, I expected you this hour agone; for methought your sprightful anglers were apt to prevent the sun’s rising on a delicate May morning.
Angler. Give me your pardon this turn, and doubt not to find me stirring with the lark every day that you and I purpose to walk in each other’s company by the banks of the Dove.
Painter. My pardon you shall have the more willingly, if you fail not a traveller’s good stomach for breakfast.
Angler. You may trust me. I am as keenly set as a moss trooper.
Painter. I am glad to hear it, for I have told the civil hostess to treat us well.
Angler. You are worthy to be a brother of the angle; and this I am resolved you shall be when we are come to the river that I love so well:—but let us see what we may have for our breakfast, and fall to it merrily.
Painter. Here it is, and all of the best; so let us say grace, and begin.
Angler. With all my heart;—and that will give it a relish.
Painter. How now, brave Sir! What say you?
Angler. By pick and pie ’tis all excellent. When I am Lord Great Chamberlain you shall be my caterer. Come, Sir, for a glass of ale; my service to you. Now I envy not the daintiest court gallants in the land, that are asleep on their beds of down.
Painter. I am amazed how some sluggards will lie a-bed almost till dinner time.
Angler. They know none of the ingenuous delights of fishermen. So let us bless God, that we have not only a mind to rise with the sun, but the power to it, for that is still better. And, as plain-hearted Mr. Walton says, ‘that our present happiness may appear to be greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me, how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and the tooth ache, and this we are free from; and every misery that I miss is a new mercy.’
Painter. And how many are now languishing in the sad captivity of dungeons, ‘feeding on bread of affliction, and water of affliction.’——But, come; tell me how it has fared with you, since we parted from each other’s company, now two days agone, when you resolved to entertain yourself with some hours fishing in the lower parts of the River Dove, near to the town of Uttoxeter.
Angler. That I will relate to you by and by, as we journey towards Ashbourne; and because the morning wears apace, let us take another cup of barley wine and be gone; for we have some hours, and many more miles, on this side Alstonfields, where you and I must lodge to-night.
Painter. It is well thought; so Mistress Hostess here is payment for your choice breakfast, and thanks for your civility, and so we wish you good morrow.——And now, brother, seeing we are past Derby Bridge, and are come out of the town, look forth on the freshness of the landscape, and the dewdrops that hang on every blade and bush, sparkling in the beams of the sun.
Angler. What happy thoughts possess a man’s mind when he breathes the air of the morning, and contemplates the bounties of nature!
Painter. Aye; then the heart is full of unspeakable thoughts that soar upward from earth to heaven, and so higher still on the spiritual wings of reverential love unto Him, who is above this vault so beautiful, so vast, and is the Creator and Sustainer of all.
Angler. And listen to the very song-birds chirping their untaught morning harmony to God, who ‘causeth the day-spring from on high to know his place.’
Painter. This simple feathered choir teaches mankind to be cheerful, and to sing joyful psalms, and to make melody in their heart to the Lord: nay, what can be pleasanter than to do this, ‘when the very morning stars sing together.’ And what says even the learned heathen, Epictetus?[1]—‘If we have any wisdom, what is more becoming in public and in private, than to sing hymns to the Deity? If I were a nightingale, I should do as the nightingales do—if a swan, as the swans; but because I am a reasonable creature, I must the rather praise God. So I will never leave that practice myself, and I do exhort all others to it.’—And now give me leave to put you in mind to tell me something of your lonely walks round about Uttoxeter, that we may beguile the way with cheerful conversation between this and Ashbourne.
Angler. That I shall willingly do: and first, you are to know, I passed by the great forest of Needwood, that has some of the pleasantest chases and parks in all England, and is so full of marvellous big oaks and fat bucks; then, after Needwood I came to Tutbury.
Painter. Indeed!
Angler. Come, Sir, if you have that choice ballad by memory, pr’ythee let us hear it.
Painter. Some parts I could repeat; but rather let me hear of your walk from Tutbury: and pr’ythee when thou wast thereabouts, didst ‘demaunde one bacon flyke, hanging in the Halle of the Lord of Whichenovre?’[3]
Angler. Nay—do you take me for a Benedick? Let the flyke be claimed by the wondrous wight that ‘would not chaunge his wife for none other, farer ne fowler, rycher ne pourer of alle the wymen of the worlde.’
Painter. And how is his highness, the ‘king of the minstrels?’[4]
Angler. Gone to his rest, with brave John of Gaunt, and the Prior of Tutbury. Alas! since the roundheads once kept watch and ward in Tutbury Castle, the merry minstrelsy is hushed in the hall. But now you may consider me to be arrived in the town of Uttoxeter, full of composed thoughts, and there I found a tidy house of refreshment, and put myself to bed betimes, that I might be away before the day dawn; and so I was, and let me tell you my first waking thoughts, after remembering my prayers, were of the River Dove, and my happy practice of angling.
Painter. That indeed was natural, and I make bold to think you caught some brace of trouts before breakfast?
Angler. Not so, brother; for you are to note every angler must needs be blest with a hopeful and patient disposition, since he may sometimes look to come home as he went forth, that is to say, with an empty pannier—
Painter. As the reward of his patience! Well, patience is an herb, they say, makes a ‘good boiled sallad:’ why, Sir, an angler need to be ‘Patience on a monument,’ that he may sit silently by the river, and look down at nothing but his float.
Angler. Well! I give you leave to censure, since you know none of those sweet pleasures that attend on angling: and I remit you to Mr. Izaak Walton, ‘that dear lover and frequent practicer of my art,’ for many clear reasons and examples to prove that it may be esteemed one of the most honest and commendable recreations a gentleman can practise.
Painter. A hopeful entertainment, truly! Nevertheless, I cannot but smile at your dumpish anglers that wait so meekly for their fortunes, as to seem fixed with all the gravity of sculptured images on the margin of their streams.
Angler. So, so! good brother, you may smile and wonder too; nay, I will laugh with you, and after that will not be ashamed to confess how I am possessed with a constant love of my gentle craft. But for the present let me bring your thoughts towards the Dove, near to Uttoxeter.
Painter. Aye, let us hear more of that; then you made some contemplative trial of the trouts?
Angler. But it was all in vain; for the wind was contrary, and they took no liking to my flies, and so I missed my sport: but I hope for better acceptance the next time I go a-courting that way.
Painter. Then I beseech you, gentle Mr. Angler, how did you pass the hours, since the trouts, out of their coyness, declined from your acquaintance? If I might conjecture, you straightway fell into a consideration of Master Izaak Walton’s praise of fishes and fishing.
Angler. And if I did? Give me leave to tell you, he hath set forth the delights of this recreation with such refined and ingenuous arguments, as to persuade many a man to become a fisher, who was before very averse to it. Nay, I shall hope to make you put on new thoughts of angling before we part company; for, of all men, limners have most cause to love my art, seeing they may recline by the side of a lake or river, and leave their angle rods ‘to fish for themselves,’ and this Mr. Walton declares, and truly, to be ‘like putting money to use; for then these angle rods work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice’—
Painter. Or paint pictures!
Angler. Even so: and I may declare to you I have seen such pleasant prospects of woodlands, and rivers, and streams, that have flowed along the valleys and through many a mead in England, when I have been a-fishing, as the best limner might desire to look at; and yet not be able to imitate with all his daintiness of hand. And some of these I made a discovery of, within a little mile or two round Uttoxeter, by the banks of the Dove; for seeing I was not like to fish to profit, I considered within myself what I should do; and after a while I resolved to examine into those parts of the river, and so be admitted into a more familiar acquaintance with its landskips.
Painter. Well thought; and I declare to you I am ready to esteem it my loss that I was not in your company.
Angler. There are many parts thereabouts would have touched you mightily: for nature, that is so excellent an artificer, hath contrived her works on either side the river with a most unimitable disposition and skilfulness. And you are to note, the river I speak of is the Dove;
as old Michael Drayton[5] declares: and thereabouts I found the Churnet, that gives her the contribution of its streams, and is contented to receive nothing from her in exchange but her speckled trouts,—and this for the sweet satisfaction of an attendance upon her, till her espousals with the Trent below Eggington. Then I may not omit to mention that pleasant river the Blythe, whose fountains spring up near to the ‘ancient castel’ of Caverswall, gathering strength as she flows along by the Earl of Derby’s great park and Castle of Chartley, and then
Painter. Blythe! the very name is full of promise; and I doubt not her banks are lined with prospects of mountains and vales.
Angler. All variegated with moorlands and woodlands;—such alluring scenes for an angler or a painter, and so decked by nature’s hand as to be little spots of enchantment, which caused me a double sorrow that you were not my fellow traveller: and I resolved I would some time or other see those landskips again, if it should please God to let me live long enough, and give me the diversion of some leisurable days.
Painter. Your commendations of the Dove inflame my desires to make acquaintance with her streams; and I rejoice that I am now like to do this in your company; and I beseech you tell me something more of the Churnet, that joins itself thereabouts to the Dove.
Angler. That would I willingly, if time might serve; but we are come within sight of Brailsford.
Painter. Then make me this promise, that we may beguile some future hours together by those lower passages of the Dove, and see where she discharges herself into the Trent.
Angler. Let that be a match between us; and I promise you nothing can be pleasanter for an artist than the lights and shadows of their umbrageous banks, and the pastures, and lowing herds by the river, and the native cascades and rocks, and the peaceful villages with antient churches, that lend their aid to the composure of those retired prospects.
Painter. How did you call this pleasant looking place we are come to?
Angler. Now you are arrived at Brailsford; and there is the Saracen’s Head, that is kept by honest John Bembridge; this way, so please you; and look, here is a well of water, called St. Bernard’s Well, so like to chrystal, that almost a blind beggar may see the pebble stones at the bottom.
Painter. It is surprisingly clear.
Angler. Then, I beseech you, take your pencil, and give me a design, in remembrance of this pleasant walk we have undertaken together.
Painter. I cannot deny any request of yours, for I have left my home for no other end than the satisfaction of your company and civil discourse, and to give you in return all the contentment that my poor art is capable of.
Angler. Why that’s heartily and kindly spoken; and I will be so bold to promise you some entertainment on our journey; for, look you, here is the newest impression of Mr. Walton’s Complete Angler, and here is Part the Second, that is lately printed for a companion to it.
Painter. Indeed! another volume from the fertile pen of Mr. Izaak Walton! what more that is new can he have to say on Angling?
Angler. Stay a while; for this is a Treatise of Fly Fishing, ‘being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream,’ writ by Mr. Charles Cotton, of Beresford Hall, his adopted son; so they are printed together in testimony of their mutual affection. It is a cheerful dialogue between Piscator Junior, that is, Mr. Charles Cotton himself, and Viator, who was a gentleman-traveller he overtook on horseback, between Derby and Ashbourne, half a mile from this place. And if these two treatises together do not kindle in your mind a love for the art, I am certain you will at least gather from the perusal a charitable disposition towards anglers.
Painter. It would be uncivil to deny Mr. Cotton’s merits before I have read his treatise; and for Mr. Walton, I may confess he has a singular vein of wit and affability, and some parts of his other works, that I have dipped into, are writ with so happy a pen, and are so full of judicious discourse, as testify to his modest disposition, and exact diligence and discernment.
Angler. I’m glad you think so.
Painter. But surely it cannot be denied, that he hath sometimes spun a long line for the readers of his discourse on fishing?
Angler. Yet are his lines spun with a curious magical contexture of learning and wit, to allure his readers no less than to deceive all kinds of fishes; for his book extremely abounds with innocent mirth, and what is better than all, you may not deny that in every part he discourses sweetly on the unseen world, and things after death.
Painter. There is not a doubt he hath a thankful and reverential heart.
Angler. Aye, and is an orthodox christian, that loves our dear mother The Church, her primitive orders of apostolic ministry and government, her holy sacraments and her service book, which are even now a mark for the butt-shafts of unquiet carking separatists, who dispute against the laws both ecclesiastical and civil.
Painter. Oh! I am grieved to think how those censurers be so full of their own whimsies, and unconformable to discipline, that if you spoke to them with angels’ tongues they would not be persuaded to hold to the Catholic Church in England, which learned Lord Bacon declares to be as sound and orthodox in the doctrine thereof as any church in the world.
Angler. True,—and Mr. Walton is of the same opinion: and some of his writings are choice pieces of christian philosophy; and a life of innocency, and his modest peaceableness of mind have endeared him to many of our most grave and pious prelates now living.
Painter. Nevertheless for his Complete Angler it is pleasant to see with what seriousness he dilates on the antiquity and other qualities of his art. He is like Master Shakespeare’s dauphin in a panegyric on his palfrey. ‘When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes—’
Angler. ‘No more, cousin,’ I beseech you.
Painter. ‘Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: ’tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on, and for the world to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at him.’[6]
Angler. Ha—ha—ha! would my dear master were by to defend his poor jennet.
Painter. Well, well; I would not deny him the privilege of riding astride on his hobby horse, seeing how the greatest scholar of the last age composed a panegyric on Folly, and made a dedication of it to Sir Thomas More, that wise Chancellor of England.
Angler. Since I perceive how you are resolved to run at tilt against poor, civil, honest anglers, I will forbear, and ‘study to be quiet,’ after the example of my master, who, if he has not the meekness of Moses, (and that I will not declare,) yet is the meekest man I know of in this disputing age.
Painter. Nay, brother, I did but jest: and doubtless Mr. Walton is a man of primitive piety, for his lives of Dr. Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, venerable Mr. Richard Hooker, and Mr. George Herbert, could only be composed by one of like religious affections with those memorable men.
Angler. And call to mind that picture he has drawn of Dr. Donne’s last sickness that ended in his death.
Painter. I remember the words, how he declares that good man was at length ‘so happy as to have nothing to do but to die;’ and how ‘he lay fifteen days earnestly expecting his hourly change, and in the last hour of his last day, as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit, his soul having, I verily believe, some revelation of the beatifical vision, he said, “I were miserable if I might not die;” and how afterward, being speechless, and seeing heaven by that illumination by which he saw it, he did, as St. Stephen, look steadfastly into it, till he saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God his Father, and being satisfied with this blessed sight, his soul ascended, and his last breath departed from him.’ For he was so rooted and grounded in celestial love, he shook the king of terrors, and disarmed him of his sting, and the dark grave was shorn of his victory.
Angler. True; for he had long had his blameless conversation in heaven: he was a spiritual soldier that had quenched all the fiery darts of the mysterious wicked one by the shield of faith, and now, like holy Paul, he yearned to be released from things below, and to take part in the invisible harmonious choirs in heavenly places. And what a natural picture of primitive manners Mr. Walton hath drawn in his life of the ever-memorable Mr. Hooker, who, when he was in his eighteenth year, and as soon as he was perfectly recovered from a dangerous sickness at Corpus Christi College in Oxford, took a journey to Exeter, to satisfy and see his good mother, who in all that time of his sickness had ‘in her hourly prayers as earnestly begged his life of God, as Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, did, that he might become a true Christian.’
Painter. I have never read, or have forgot that journey of his.
Angler. Well then, I may tell you, he walked from Oxford unto Exeter, ‘with a companion of his own college, and both on foot; which was then either more in fashion, or want of money, or their humility, made it so: but on foot they went, and took Salisbury in their way, purposely to see the good bishop’ (that was Bishop Jewel, his constant and dear patron and the bestower of an annual pension for his comfortable subsistence;) ‘and the good bishop made Mr. Hooker and his companion dine with him at his own table: and at his parting the bishop gave him good counsel and his benediction, but forgot to give him money; which, when the bishop had considered, he sent a servant in all haste to call Richard back to him: and at Richard’s return, the bishop delivered into his hand a walking-staff, with which he professed he had travelled through many parts of Germany,’ and he called it ‘his horse which had carried him many a mile with much ease.’ And he said, ‘Richard, I do not give but lend you my horse: be sure you be honest, and bring my horse back to me at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give ten groats to bear your charges to Exeter: and here is ten groats more, which I charge you to deliver to your mother, and tell her I send her a bishop’s benediction with it, and beg the continuance of her prayers for me. And if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you ten groats more to carry you on foot to the college; and so God bless you, good Richard.’
Painter. I may promise you I shall remember that pilgrimage on foot of ‘good Richard,’ to his poor mother’s house at Exeter, and the bishop’s walking-staff and his blessing, and his so nigh-forgotten groats.
Angler. And so in Mr. Walton’s Complete Angler you will find many passages that exhibit his own serenity of mind, and such touches of rural life as will requite you for the pains of reading: but now let me see the picture you have drawn of Brailsford Well.
Painter. Here it is.
Angler. I declare ’tis simply and clearly designed.
Painter. I perceive you are resolved to be gentle with my first essaye; but I am glad it contents you, and now let us be going.
Angler. With all my heart.
Painter. How now! here is a cheerful rivulet, that I see running from the meadows into the road.
Angler. This is Brailsford Brook, and look you, here is a bridge.
Painter. And yonder is a handsome church and tower. I must, with your leave, step into these meadows and draw the landskip.
Angler. Aye, I beseech you; for here is the spot of ground where the pleasant conference began between Mr. Charles Cotton and his new friend, that he accosted on the road as they were both going to Ashbourne.
‘You are happily overtaken, Sir,’ said he; ‘may a man be so bold as to inquire how far you travel this way?’
Painter. They were strangers, then?
Angler. Nevertheless they so affected one another, after that salutation and other pleasant discourse, as not to part company till they had enjoyed some days’ innocent recreation a-fishing at Beresford Hall. Nay more, Viator declared, on the second day, that he was ‘so far in love with Piscator and his country, and pretty moorland seat, as to resolve to stay with him long enough, by intervals, to hear all he had to say of his art.’
Painter. And pr’ythee, how did Mr. Cotton reply to this familiar declaration?
Angler. How did he reply! with all the politeness of an angler;—‘Sir, you cannot oblige me more than by such a promise.’
Painter. Well said! Then here they made their first acquaintance?
Angler. And here is one of those little sparkling brooks that you shall meet every where in this country; nay, Mr. Cotton declares, ‘they are full of trouts, and some of them the best (it is said) by many degrees in England.’
Painter. Trouts! and in so mean a stream as this?
Angler. But I do not say they shall be all big trouts; for, as Mr. Walton hath it, ‘some rivers, by reason of the ground over which they run, breed larger trouts, like as some pastures breed larger sheep;’ and some streams there are, not many times broader than Brailsford Brook, that breed trouts three and four pounds in weight: but you may not think to find the biggest trouts at all times the best meat. And he that studies the nature and seasons of fishes may observe how sometimes the trouts will change their haunts, and travel up a stream for many miles, in their natural desire after the fresh waters; nay, to the very fountain-head of some brook, and there wade among the clear sandy shallows; indeed, I have seen trouts taken out of the dark springs that rise in the caverns of the Great Peak underneath Castleton.
Painter. After what you say, I doubt not but Brailsford Brook may breed good trouts; and I care not whence they come, so we have a brace for supper.
Angler. That I promise you, and skilfully drest too:
And this was the fashion of an experienced angler, that hath discovered ‘many rare secrets, very necessary to be known by all that delight in the recreation both of catching the fish, and dressing thereof.’[7]
Painter. Aye, aye; your meditative fishers have always some singular discoveries to enhance the practice of their art. I remember one honest gentleman,[8] of a most fertile wit, called angling the ‘Pleasure of Princes, or Goodmen’s Recreation.’
Angler. In that he did no more than was both reasonable and true.
Painter. And the same notable gentleman unravelled this mystery, ‘that the angler’s apparell should by no means be garish, light coloured, or shining, for whatsoever hath a glittering hue reflecteth upon the water, and immediately it affrighteth the fish.’
Angler. And this, before you and I have done walking, you may prove to your cost, with your gaysome doublet and jerkin.
Painter. So, Master Piscator, ‘let your apparell be plaine and comely, of darke colour, as russett, tawney, or such like, close to your body, without any new fashioned slashes or hanging sleeves waving loose like sayles about you.’[9]
Angler. Well, well; in every art ’tis good to have a master; and that this is one of our ‘Secrets,’ these verses of a happy angler may declare:
And pr’ythee look to your own tooles; for you will do well, if you have one of honest Gervase Markham’s Twelve Virtues of an Angler—to wit: ‘A knowledge in proportions of all sorts, to give a geographical description of the angles and channels of rivers, how they fall from their heads, and what compasses they fetch in their several windings.’[11]
Painter. You shall see—you shall see—but I am ready to attend you, for I have drawn this careless picture; and so let us towards Ashbourne.——Why, how is this? We are scarce two miles from Brailsford, and here we have another rivulet rustling through the grass.
Angler. This brook before us, at the foot of yon sandy hill, has been noticed by Mr. Cotton to have ‘scarce any name amongst us, and to be too woody for the recreation of fishing.’
Painter. That I may easily believe, for it seems but a narrow thread of water, winding along the meadows, and almost hid beneath those ash trees.
Angler. Yet, you may take a store of trouts in this nameless rivulet by Longford Mill, which is not far from where we stand; and I have the undoubted authority of Mr. John Davors to say, ‘the trout makes the angler most gentlemanlie and readiest sport of all other fishes.’[12] But look before you, for we are now come to the top of Spittle Hill, over against Ashbourne.
Painter. Indeed! and there the town lies in a bottom; and I declare—a goodly church! and beyond it, on the other side, I see some stately mountains, and one that lifts his top as high as the clouds.
Angler. And therefore called Thorpe Cloud; and you are to note the Dove winds round the base, through her rugged channel of rocks. Would I were there! But I am so bold as to request a sketch of this chequered prospect before us from your lively pencil.
Painter. It shall be done; for it is, indeed, a fine and spacious landskip; and I shall be happy if my poor drawings can give you satisfaction.
Angler. They do, indeed; so I pray you begin, and forget not yonder hills that are behind the town, for we may hope ‘to stretch our legs up’ some of them by and by. But how will you draw the natural perspective of the road, which now drops with so great a steepness from before us?
Painter. Thus it is—here Viator and Piscator discourse together. You may see them in outline, both on horseback, and there is the fall in the ground.
Angler. It is ingeniously contrived!—But I must tell you Mr. Cotton travelled with his serving man—therefore, so please you, let us have a third rider that should follow behind the other two, for they were all mounted on horseback.—So! that is admirable; and I can now see before me the polite angler that allured his companion to visit his ‘pretty moorland seat’ in Staffordshire. Oh, how the hours do lag ere we come to that ‘marvellous pretty place.’
Painter. Was that the Beresford Hall you spoke of?
Angler. The same: but if you desire to know how they conversed together as they arrived at Spittle Hill, I will read it to you in Mr. Cotton’s own words, whiles you are to finish the landskip.
Painter. I am ready to hear it, and what is more, to take a pleasure in listening.
Angler. Well, you may note Piscator was so pleased with his companion, that he had earnestly and honestly invited him to his house, and promised he would be extremely welcome; then Viator felt a surprise, ‘with so friendly an invitation upon so short acquaintance,’ and said ‘he could not in modesty accept his offer, and must therefore beg his pardon;’ but Mr. Cotton would not be denied; and at length, as they drew near to Spittle Hill, where you and I at this moment stand, he repeated his invitation, and said, ‘Now, Sir, if I am not mistaken, I have half overcome you; and that I may wholly conquer that modesty of your’s, I will take upon me to be so familiar as to say, you must accept my invitation, which that you may be the more easily persuaded to do, I will tell you, that my house stands upon the margin of one of the finest rivers for trout and grayling in England,’ (which you are to observe was the Dove,) ‘and that I have lately built a little fishing-house upon it, dedicated to anglers, over the door of which you will see the two first letters of my father Walton’s name and mine twisted in cypher; that you shall lie in the same bed he has sometimes been contented with, and have such country entertainment as my friends sometimes accept, and be welcome, too, as the best of them all.’
Painter. Mr. Cotton has a cheerful natural way with him; and what a delight he takes in his river Dove above all others, and his little fishing-house upon the margin.
Angler. As witness these verses he addressed to his adopted father, Mr. Izaak Walton:
And we shall find it as pleasant as he has represented it. And all this benevolence between Piscator and Viator was, because they both affected the person of Mr. Izaak Walton and his art of angling.
Painter. How love will temper the spirits of men! Surely it is a spark of the divine mind,—a secret charm implanted in our nature to mould us to the image of the Highest.—But how came it to pass that Viator participated in Mr. Cotton’s happy disinterested friendship for Mr. Walton?
Angler. It is most certain he did; for when they discoursed on fishing, and accidental mention was made of Mr. Walton’s Complete Angler, Piscator asked, ‘what is your opinion of that book?’ to which Mr. Cotton replied, ‘my opinion of Mr. Walton’s book is the same with every man’s that understands any thing of the art of angling, that it is an excellent good one;’ and he then added, ‘but I must tell you further, that I have the happiness to know his person, and to be intimately acquainted with him, and in him to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy the best and the truest friend any man ever had; nay, I shall yet acquaint you that he gives me leave to call him father, and I hope is not yet ashamed to own me for his Adopted Son.’ Whereupon Viator replied, ‘In earnest, Sir! I am ravished to meet with a friend of Mr. Izaak Walton’s, and one that does him so much right in a good and true character, for I must boast to you that I have the good fortune to know him too, and came acquainted with him in the same manner I do with you; that he was my master who first taught me to love angling, and thus to become an angler; and to be plain with you, I am the very man decyphered in his book under the name of Venator.’
Painter. Excellent! that was a pleasant surprise to him!
Angler. ‘For,’ (he continues) ‘I was wholly addicted to the chase, until he taught me as good—a more quiet, innocent, and less dangerous diversion.’ And this also Mr. Roger Jackson declares, who undertook the printing of the Secrets of Angling, ‘out of a virtuous desire to give his countrie satisfaction;’ for he declared, in his dedication of that book to his much respected friend Mr. John Harborne, of Tackley, in the county of Oxford, Esquire, that, ‘the art of angling is much more worthy practice and approbation than hunting and hawking; for it is a sport every way as pleasant, less chargeable, more profitable, and nothing so much subject to choller and impatience as those are.’ And now listen to the answer of Piscator, for he said, ‘Sir, I think myself happy in your acquaintance, and before we part, shall entreat leave to embrace you. You have said enough to recommend you to my best opinion, for my father Walton will be seen twice in no man’s company he does not like; and likes none but such as he believes to be very honest men.’ Thus you may note how the declaration of Viator, that he was acquainted with Mr. Walton, touched a chord which vibrated to the other’s affections, and harmonized their spirits to a most innocent friendship.
Painter. What an engaging encounter of the two strangers, who thus discovered to each other their affection for pious and peaceable Mr. Walton! With what a grace doth holiness encircle him that wears it! surely ’tis a crown without thorns or cares, decked with spiritual jewels. I declare to you, I am moved to a better acquaintance with all three: notwithstanding I have always looked upon angling to be a solitary recreation, not worthy so much as our vacant hours.
Angler. I hope before we part company you will be undeceived, and learn how we anglers can recreate our spirits, when the sun rises over the hills; and this I promise in reward for your sudden resolve to come on your travels with me, only to the intent that by your art and sociable conversation you might give me pleasure.
Painter. I now thank you heartily, because you moved me to this journey; nay more, if I might believe my present thoughts, I shall be surprised into a desire to try and angle in the river Dove, that you take so great a delight in.
Angler. That were strange indeed,—to see your leisure divided between the pencil and the angle rod!—yet if I could once inveigle you to the practice of our harmless sport, so full of hopes and composure, you would soon confess to its excellency, and say with the unknown poet,[14]