WALTON, IZAAK, an English author, known as the father of angling; born in Stafford, England, Aug. 9, 1593. About 1623 he was carrying on business on his own account as a senipster or man mil liner in London, and having by 1643 acquired a competency, he retired to the quiet enjoyment of country life. His first wife, Rachel Floud, great grand niece of Archbishop Cranmer, having died in 1640, he married about seven years later Ann Ken, whose brother, at that time a mere boy, afterward became the famous bishop. In London Walton had became intimate with Dr. Donne, Dr. Wharton, and Sir Henry Wotton, and in his later years he enjoyed the hospitality of many eminent clergymen of the Church of England. Walton's fame is mainly based on his "Compleat Angler; or the Contemplative Man's Companion," which was first published in 1653 and appeared in a considerably modified form in 1655. Few more popu lar books exist, and the editions are consequently numerous. Walton's nat
ural history is frequently of the crud est and most credulous kind; his prac tical precepts are open to correction at the hands of the modern proficient; he possesses only a partial mastery over the difficult literary form (that of the dialogue) in which his work is cast; his style is remarkable neither for rugged strength nor polished precision; but he succeeded in catching the spirit both of the gentle craft and the pleasant Eng lish scenery in which he had learned its delights. On the publication of Dr. Donne's "Sermons" Walton supplied a "Life" of the author, and he afterward wrote similar lives of Wotton, Hooker (1665), Herbert (1670), and Sanderson (1678). A monument to Walton was placed in St. Mary's Church, Stafford (the church of his baptism), in 1878. He died in Winchester, England, Dec. 15, 1683.