WALTON, IZAAK (1593-1683), English writer, author of The Compleat Angler, was born at Stafford on Aug 9, 1593 ; the register of his baptism gives his father's name as Jervis, and nothing more is known of his parentage. He settled in London as an ironmonger, and at first had one of the small shops, 71 ft..
by 5 ft., in the upper storey of Gresham's Royal Burse or Ex change in Cornhill. In 1614 he had a shop in Fleet Street, two doors west of Chancery Lane. Here, in the parish of St. Dun stan's, he gained the friendship of Dr. John Donne, then vicar of that church. His first wife, Rachel Floud, great-great-niece of Archbishop Cranmer, died in 1640. He married again soon after, his second wife being Anne Ken—the pastoral "Kenna" of The Angler's Wish—step-sister of Thomas Ken, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells. After the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor, he retired from business. He had bought some land near his birth place, Stafford, and he went to live there; but, according to Wood, spent most of his time "in the families of the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved"; and in 165o he was again living in Clerkenwell.
In 1653 came out the first edition of his famous book, The Compleat Angler. His second wife died in 1662, and was buried in Worcester cathedral church, where there is a monument to her memory. One of his daughters married Dr. Hawkins, a prebendary of Winchester. The last forty years of his long life seem to have been spent in ideal leisure and occupation, the old man travelling here and there, visiting his "eminent clergymen" and other brethren of the angle, compiling the biographies of congenial spirits, and collecting here a little and there a little for the enlarge ment of his famous treatise. After 1662 he found a home at Farnham Castle with George Morley, bishop of Winchester, to whom he dedicated his Life of George Herbert and also that of Richard Hooker; and from time to time he visited Charles Cotton in his fishing house on the Dove. He died in his daughter's house at Winchester on Dec. 15, 1683, and was buried in the cathedral. It is characteristic of his kindly nature that he left his property at Shalford for the benefit of the poor of his native town.
Walton hooked a much bigger fish than he angled for when he offered his quaint treatise, The Compleat Angler, to the public. There is hardly a name in English literature, even of the first rank, whose immortality is more secure, or whose personality is the subject of a more enthusiastic cult. The Compleat Angler, dedicated to his friend John Offley, was published in 1653, but Walton continued to add to its completeness in his leisurely way for a quarter of a century. Later editions appeared during his
lifetime, in 1655, 1661, 1668 and 1676. In the 1676 edition the thirteen chapters of the original had grown to twenty-one, and a second part was added by his brother angler Charles Cotton, who took up "Venator" where Walton had left him and completed his instruction in fly-fishing and the making of flies.
Walton did not profess to be an expert with the fly; the fly fishing in his first edition was contributed by Thomas Barker, a retired cook and humorist, who produced a treatise of his own in 1659; but in the use of the live worm, the grasshopper and the frog "Piscator" himself could speak as a master. The famous passage about the frog—often misquoted about the worm—"use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little as you may possibly, that he may live the longer"—appears in the orig inal edition. The additions made as the work grew were not merely to the technical part; happy quotations, new turns of phrase, songs, poems and anecdotes were introduced as if the leisurely author, who wrote it as a recreation, had kept it con stantly in his mind and talked it over point by point with his numerous brethren. There were originally only two interlocutors in the opening scene, "Piscator" and "Victor"; but in the second edition, as if in answer to an objection that "Piscator" had it too much his own way in praise of angling, he introduced the falconer, "Auceps," changed "Viator" into "Venator" and made the new companions each dilate on the joys of his favourite sport. Although The Compleat Angler was not Walton's first literary work, his leisurely labours as a biographer seem to have grown out of his devotion to angling. It was probably as an angler that he made the acquaintance of Sir Henry Wotton, but it is clear that Walton had more than a love of fishing and a humorous temper to recommend him to the friendship of the accomplished ambassador. At any rate, Wotton, who had intended to write the life of John Donne, and had already corresponded with Walton on the subject, left the task to him. Walton had already con tributed an Elegy to the 1633 edition of Donne's poems, and he completed and published the life, much to the satisfaction of the most learned critics, in 164o. Sir Henry Wotton dying in 1639, Walton undertook his life also; it was finished in 1642 and pub lished in 1651. His life of Hooker was published in 1662, that of George Herbert in 167o and that of Bishop Sanderson in 1678.