Waltoniana by Isaak Walton
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Waltoniana
INEDITED REMAINS IN VERSE AND
PROSE OF IZAAK WALTON
AUTHOR OF THE COMPLETE ANGLER
_WITH NOTES AND PREFACE_
BY
RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD
LONDON
1878
CONTENTS.
1633. I. An Elegie upon Dr. Donne.
1635. II. Lines on a Portrait of Donne.
1638. III. Commendatory Verses prefixed to The Merchants Mappe of
Commerce.
1645. IV. Preface to Quarles' Shepherds Oracles.
1650. V. Couplet on Dr. Richard Sibbes.
1651. VI. Dedication of Reliquiae Wottonianae.
VII. On the Death of William Cartwright.
1652. VIII. Preface to Sir John Skeffington's Heroe of Lorenzo.
IX. Commendatory Verses to the Author of Scintillula Altaris.
1658. X. Dedication of the Life of Donne and Advertisement to the
Reader.
1660. XI. Daman and Dorus: An humble Eglog.
1661. XII. To my Reverend Friend the Author of The Synagogue.
1662. XIII. Epitaph on his Second Wife, Anne Ken.
1670. XIV. Letter to Edward Ward.
1672. XV. Dedication of the Third Edition of Reliquiae Wottonianae.
1673. XVI. Letter to Marriott.
1678. XVII. Preface &c. to Thealma & Clearchus.
1680. XVIII. Letter to John Aubrey.
1683. XIX. Izaak Walton's Last Will and Testament.
PREFACE.
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
"Thro' near a century of pleasant years."[1]
We have said that the reader regrets that Walton should have left so
little behind him: his "Angler" and his Lives are all that is known to
most. But we are now enabled to present those who love his memory with
a collection of fugitive pieces, in verse and prose, extending in date
of composition over a period of fifty years,--beginning with the Elegy
on Donne, in 1633, and terminating only with his death in 1683. All these,
however unambitious, are more or less characteristic of the man, and
impregnated with the same spirit of genial piety that distinguishes the
two well-known books to which they form a supplement.
Walton's devotion to literature must have begun at an early age; for in
a little poem, entitled _The Love of Amos and Laura_, published in 1619,
when he was only twenty-six, and attributed variously to Samuel Purchas,
author of "The Pilgrims," and to Samuel Page, we find the following
dedication to him:--
"TO MY APPROVED AND MUCH RESPECTED FRIEND, IZ. WA.
"To thee, thou more then thrice beloved friend,
I too unworthy of so great a blisse:
These harsh-tun'd lines I here to thee commend,
Thou being cause it is now as it is:
For hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might
These have beene buried in obliuious night.
"If they were pleasing, I would call them thine,
And disauow my title to the verse:
But being bad, I needes must call them mine.
No ill thing can be cloathed in thy verse.
Accept them then, and where I have offended,
Rase thou it out, and let it be amended.
"S.P." [2]
What poems Walton wrote in his youth, we have now no means of knowing; it
has not been discovered that any have been printed, unless we adopt the
theory advocated by Mr. Singer,[3] and by a writer in the "Retrospective
Review,"[4] that the poem of _Thealma and Clearchus_, which he published
in the last year of his life, as a posthumous fragment of his relation
John Chalkhill, was really a juvenile work of his own. Some plausibility
is lent to this notion by the fact that Walton speaks of the author with
so much reticence and reserve in his preface to the volume, and also that
in introducing two of Chalkhill's songs into the "Complete Angler," he
does not bestow on them the customary words of commendation. This theory
has been rebutted by others, who assert that Walton was of too truthful
and guileless a nature to resort to such an artifice. We confess that we
are unable to see anything dishonest in the adoption, as a pseudonym, of
the name of a deceased friend, or anything more than Walton appears to
have done on another occasion when he published his two letters on "Love
and Truth." It is certain, however, that a family of Chalkhills existed,
with whom Walton was closely connected by his marriage with the sister of
Bishop Ken. But that an "acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser,"
capable of writing such a poem as _Thealma and Clearchus_, should have
kept his talents so concealed, that in an age of commendatory verses no
slightest contemporary record of him exists--is, to say the least,
extraordinary. There are cogent arguments then on both sides of the
question, and there is very little positive proof on either: so we must
be content to leave the matter in some doubt and obscurity.
The first production to which our author attached the well-known
signature of "Iz. Wa." was an Elegy on the Death of Dr. Donne, the Dean
of St. Paul's, prefixed to a collection of Donne's Poems. Walton was then
forty years of age. From this time forward we find him more or less
engaged, at not very long intervals, on literary labours, till the very
year of his death.
The care which Walton spent on his productions seems to have been very
great. He wrote and re-wrote, corrected, amended, rescinded, and added.
This very poem--the Elegy on Donne--he completely remodelled in his old
age, when he inserted it in the collection of his Lives. But we have
thought it well to give the original version here as a literary curiosity,
and the first work of his that has come down to us. The original Lives
themselves--especially those of Wotton and Donne--were mere sketches of
what they are in their present enlarged form.
Walton had the good fortune to be thrown very early in life into the
society and intimacy of men who were his superiors in rank and education.
But he had enough of culture, joined to his inherent reverence of mind,
to appreciate and understand all that they had and he wanted.
The preface to Sir John Skeffington's _Heroe of Lorenzo_ had for two
centuries lain forgotten, and escaped the notice of Walton's biographers,
till in 1852 it was discovered by Dr. Bliss of Oxford, and communicated by
him to the late William Pickering.
The original Spanish work was first published in 1630. The author's real
name was not Lorenzo, but Balthazar Gracian, a Jesuit of Aragon, who
flourished during the first half of the seventeenth century, when the
cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose, and rose to its
greatest consideration.[5] It is a collection of short, wise apothegms
and maxims for the conduct of life, sometimes illustrated by stories of
valour, or prowess, or magnanimity, of the old Castilian heroes who figure
in "Count Lucanor." The book, though now no longer read, must have been
very popular at one time, for there exist two or three later English
versions of it, without, however, the nervous concentration of style and
idiomatic diction that characterize the translation sent forth to the
world under Walton's auspices.
The two Letters published in 1680 under the title of Love and Truth,[6]
were written respectively in the years 1668 and 1679. The evidence of
their authorship is twofold, and we think quite conclusive. In one of the
very few copies known to exist, and now in the library of Emanuel College,
Cambridge, its original possessor, Archbishop Sancroft, has written:--"Is.
Walton's 2 letters conc. ye Distemp's of ye Times, 1680," and Dr. Zouch
appended to his reprint of the tract[7] a number of parallel passages
from other acknowledged writings of Walton, of themselves almost
sufficient to fix the question on internal evidence alone.
In the British Museum copy of this tract is the following note on one of
the fly-leaves in the autograph of the late William Pickering:--
"The present is the only copy I have met with after twenty years'
search, excepting the one in Emanuel College, Cambridge. W. Pickering."
The copy described above [_i.e._, the Emanuel College copy] appears to
be the same edition as the present [that now in the British Museum], but
has the following variation. After the title-page is printed
The Author to the Stationer
"Mr. Brome," &c., and the Epistle ends with "Your friend," without the
N.N. which is found in this copy. But what is more remarkable, the printed
word Author is run through, and corrected with a pen, and over it written
_Publisher_, which is evidently in the handwriting of Walton. So Mr.
Pickering further certifies.
The following allusion towards the bottom of p. 37 confirms the idea of
Walton's authorship. Speaking of Hugh Peters and John Lilbourn, the writer
says:--"Their turbulent lives and uncomfortable deaths are not I hope yet
worn out of the memory of many. He that compares them with the holy life
and happy death of Mr. George Herbert, as it is plainly and _I hope truly_
writ by Mr. Isaac Walton, may in it find a perfect pattern for an humble
and devout Christian to imitate," &c.
The following are the chief parallel passages in this pamphlet and in
Walton's other writings, as indicated by Zouch:--
_Second Letter_, _p. 19._ _Life of George Herbert._
I wish as heartily as you Mr. George Herbert having
do that all such Clergy-mens changed his sword and
Wives as have silk Cloaths silk clothes into a canonical
be-daubed with Lace, and coat, thus warned Mrs. Herbert
their heads hanged about against this egregious folly
with painted Ribands, were of _striving for precedency_:--
enjoyned Penance for their "You are now a minister's
pride: And their Husbands wife, and must now so far forget
punisht for being so tame, or your father's house, as not
so lovingly-simple, as to suffer to claim a precedence of any
them; for, by such Cloaths, of your parishioners," &c.
they proclaim their own Ambition,
and their Husbands folly.
And I say the like, concerning
their _striving for Precedency_.
_P. 20._ _Life of George Herbert._
And, I confess also, what One cure for the wickedness
you say of a Clergy-mans of the times would be,
bidding _to fast_ on the Eves of for the clergy themselves
Holy-days, in Lent, and the to keep the Ember-weeks
_Ember Weeks_: And I wish strictly, &c.
those biddings were forborn,
or better practised by themselves.
_P. 20._ _Life of George Herbert._
And, I wish as heartily as Those ministers that huddled
you can, that they would not up the church prayers
only read, but pray, the without a visible reverence
Common Prayer; and not and affection: namely, such
huddle it up so fast (as too as semed to say the Lord's
many do) by getting into a Prayer or collect in a breath.
middle of a second Collect,
before a devout Hearer can
say Amen to the first.
_Preface to Sanderson's XXI
_P. 20._ Sermons, 1655._
And now, having unbowelled But since I had thus adventured
my very soul thus to unbowel myself,
freely to you, &c. and to lay open the very inmost
thoughts of my heart.
_P.21._ _Life of Sanderton._
A Corrosive, or (as _Solomon_ Riches so gotten, and added
says of ill-gotten riches) to his great estate, would
_like gravel in his teeth_. prove _like gravel in his teeth_.
_P. 21._ _Life of Sir H. Wotton._
Those _Bishops and Martyrs_ It was the advice of Sir
that assisted in this Reformation, Henry Wotton, "Take heed
did not (as Sir _Henry Wotton_ of thinking the farther you go
said wisely) think _the farther_ from the Church of Rome,
they went from the Church of Rome, the nearer you are to God."
the nearer they got to heaven.
_P. 23._ _Life of Richard Hooker._
To make the Women, the Here the very women and
Shop-keepers, and the middle- shopkeepers were able to judge
witted People ... less of predestination, and determine
busie, and more humble and what laws were fit to
lowly in their own eyes, and be obeyed or abolished.
to think that they are neither
called, nor are fit to meddle
with, and judge of the most
hidden and mysterious points
in _Divinity_, and Government
of the _Church_ and _State_.
_P. 36._ _Life of Sanderson._
I desire you to look back Some years before the unhappy
with me to the beginning of Long Parliament, this
the late Long Parliament nation being then happy and
1640, at which time we in peace.
were the quietest and happiest
people in the Christian World.
To the present Editor the collection and annotation of these Remains has
been a most welcome labour of love. Some of his oldest and most cherished
memories connect themselves with the author of the "Complete Angler." That
book was one of the first that he ever read with real and genuine delight;
and even before reading days commenced, in the earliest dawn of memory,
the place where Walton had cut his familiar signature of "Iz. Wa." on
Chaucer's tomb in Westminster Abbey, was pointed out to him often by a
kindred spirit now here no more. The name of Walton will also be found
enshrined in the earliest prose production[8] to which the Editor
prefixed his own name.
R.H.S.
FOOTNOTES
[1] "Happy old man, whose worth all mankind knows
Except himself, who charitably shows
The ready road to Virtue, and to Praise,
The road to many long, and happy days;
The noble arts of generous piety,
And how to compass true felicity.
----he knows no anxious cares,
Thro' near a Century of pleasant years;
Easy he lives and cheerful shall he die,
Well spoken of by late posterity."
June 5, 1683.
_(Flatman's Commendatory Verses prefixed to "Thealma and Clearchus;"
Poems and Songs by Thomas Flatman, Third Edition.)_
[2] _The Love of Amos and Laura. Written by S.P. London. Printed for
Richard Hawkins, dwelling in Chancery-Lane, neere Serieants Inne,
1619._ Printed at the end of a volume entitled, _Alcilia, Philoparthens
louing Folly, &c._, which, from its being signed at the end with the
initials "J.C.," has been attributed to Walton's friend, John
Chalkhill, whose posthumous poem, _Thealma and Clearchus_, he published
in the last year of his life. The lines to Walton do not appear in the
earlier quarto edition of the book issued by the same publisher in 1613,
or in the later quarto of 1628.
[3] _Thealma and Clearchus; a Pastoral Romance, by John Chalkhill.
First Published by Isaac Walton, 1683. A New Edition. Revised and
Corrected (by S.W. Singer). Chiswick: 1820._
[4] Vol. iv. (1821), pp. 230-249.
[5] Ticknor's _History of Spanish Literature_ (Lond. 1849), vol. iii.
p. 177.
[6] _Love and Truth: / in / Two modest and peaceable / Letters /
concerning / The distempers of the present Times. / Written /
From a quiet and Conformable Citizen of / LONDON, to two busie
and Factious/ Shop-keepers in Coventry./_
1 Pet. 4. 15.
But let none of you suffer as a busiebody in other mens /
matters. /
LONDON, / Printed by _M.C._ for _Henry Brome_ at the Gun /
in St. _Pauls_ Church-yard. 1680.
COLLATION: 4to. pp. iv. (with Title) 40 (Sig. A 1 and 2;
B to E 4).
[7] York, 1795, pp. x. 70.
[8] _The School of Pantagruel_, Sunbury, 1862, p. 9.
* * * * *
AN ELEGIE UPON DR. DONNE.
1633.
[_Juvenilia: or Certaine Paradoxes and Problemes, written by I. Donne.
London, Printed by E.P. for Henry Seyle, and are to be sold at the signe
of the Tygers head, in Saint Pauls Church-yard, Anno Dom_. 1633
(pp. 382-384)._
_Poems, by J.D. with Elegies on the Author's Death. London. Printed by
M.F. for JOHN MARRIOT, and are to be sold at his Shop in St. Dunstans
Church-yard in Fleet-street, 1635._
The text is printed from the revised version of 1635, and the original
readings of 1633 are given at the foot of the page.]
_An Elegie upon_ DR. DONNE.
Our _Donne_ is dead; England should mourne, may say
We had a man where language chose to stay
And shew her gracefull power.[1] I would not praise
That and his vast wit (which in these vaine dayes
Make many proud) but, as they serv'd to unlock
That Cabinet, his minde: where such a stock
Of knowledge was repos'd, as all lament
(Or should) this generall cause of discontent.
And I rejoyce I am not so severe,
But (as I write a line) to weepe a teare
For his decease; Such sad extremities
May make such men as I write Elegies.
And wonder not; for, when a generall losse
Falls on a nation, and they slight the crosse,
God hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them
From stupifaction; witnesse my milde pen,
Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must
Freely and boldly, for, the cause is just.
Dull age, Oh I would spare thee, but th'art worse,
Thou art not onely dull, but hast a curse
Of black ingratitude; if not, couldst thou
Part with _miraculous Donne_, and make no vow
For thee, and thine, successively to pay
A sad remembrance to his dying day?
Did his youth scatter _Poetry_, wherein
Was all Philosophy? was every sinne,
Character'd in his _Satyrs_? Made so foule
That some have fear'd their shapes, and kept their soule
Safer by reading verse? Did he give _dayes_
Past marble monuments, to those, whose praise
He would perpetuate? Did he (I feare
The dull will doubt:) these at his twentieth year?
But, more matur'd; Did his full soule conceive,
And in harmonious-holy-numbers weave
A [2]_Crown of sacred sonnets_, fit to adorne
A dying Martyrs brow: or, to be worne
On that blest head of _Mary Magdalen_,
After she wip'd Christs feet, but not till then?
Did hee (fit for such penitents as shee
And he to use) leave us a _Litany_,
Which all devout men love, and sure, it shall,
As times grow better, grow more classicall?
Did he write _Hymnes_, for piety, for wit,[3]
Equall to those, great grave _Prudentius_ writ?
Spake he all _Languages_? knew he all Lawes?
The grounds and use of _Physick_; but because
'Twas mercenary, wav'd it? Went to see
That blessed place of _Christs nativity_?
Did he returne and preach him? preach him so
As since S. _Paul_ none did, none could? Those know,
(Such as were blest to heare him) this is truth.[4]
Did he confirm thy aged?[5] convert thy youth?
Did he these wonders? And is this deare losse
Mourn'd by so few? (few for so great a crosse.)
But sure the silent are ambitious all
To be Close Mourners at his Funerall;
If not; In common pitty they forbare
By repetitions to renew our care;
Or, knowing, griefe conceiv'd, conceal'd, consumes
Man irreparably, (as poyson'd fumes
Doe waste the braine) make silence a safe way,
To'inlarge the Soule from these walls, mud and clay,
(Materials of this body) to remaine
With _Donne_ in heaven, where no promiscuous pain
Lessens the joy we have, for, with _him_, all
Are satisfy'd with _joyes essentiall_.
Dwell on this joy my thoughts; oh, doe not call[6]
Griefe back, by thinking of his Funerall;
Forget hee lov'd mee; Waste not my sad yeares;
(Which hast to _Davids_ seventy,) fill'd with feares
And sorrow for his death; Forget his parts,
Which finde a living grave in good mens hearts;
And, (for, my first is dayly payd for sinne)
Forget to pay my second sigh for him:
Forget his powerfull preaching; and forget
I am his _Convert_. Oh my frailty! let
My flesh be no more heard, it will obtrude
This lethargy: so should my gratitude,
My flowes[7] of gratitude should so be broke;
Which can no more be, than _Donnes_ vertues spoke
By any but himselfe; for which cause, I
Write no _Encomium_, but this _Elegie_,[8]
Which, as a free-will-offring, I here give
Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve
I want abilities, fit to set forth
A monument, great, as Donnes matchlesse worth.
IZ. WA.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In the edition of 1633, the poem opens thus:--
Is _Donne_, great _Donne_ deceas'd? then England say
Thou'hast lost a man where language chose to stay
And shew it's gracefull power, &c.
[2] _La Corona_.
[3] for piety and wit,--1633.
[4] As none but hee did, or could do? They know
(Such as were blest to heare him know) 'tis truth.--1633.
[5] _age_ in the edition of 1633.
[6] My thoughts, Dwell on this _Joy_, and do not call--1633.
[7] _vowes_ in the edition of 1633.
[8] Write no _Encomium_, but an _Elegie_.
Here the poem closed in the edition of 1633.
* * * * *
LINES ON A PORTRAIT OF DONNE IN
HIS EIGHTEENTH YEAR.
1635.
[Engraved under William Marshall's Portrait of Donne, "Anno Domini. 1591.
Aetatis suae 18," prefixed to the second edition of Donne's Poems, 1635.]
_On a Portrait of_ DONNE _taken in his eighteenth year._
This was for youth, Strength, Mirth, and wit that Time
Most count their golden Age; but t'was not thine.
Thine was thy later yeares, so much refind
From youths Drosse, Mirth & wit; as thy pure mind
Thought (like the Angels) nothing but the Praise
Of thy Creator, in those last, best Dayes.
Witnes this Booke, (thy Embleme) which begins
With Love; but endes, with Sighes, & Teares for sin's.
IZ: WA:
* * * * *
COMMENDATORY VERSES PREFIXED TO
THE MERCHANTS MAPPE OF
COMMERCE.
1638.
[The Merchants Mappe of Commerce: wherein the Universall Manner and Matter
of Trade, is compendiously handled. By Lewes Roberts, Merchant. At London,
Printed by R.O. for Ralph Mabb MDCXXXVIII. _fol._
--The Second Edition, Corrected and much Enlarged. London, MDCLXXI. _fol._]
_In praise of my friend the Author, and his Booke._
TO THE READER.
If thou would'st be a _States-man_, and survay
Kingdomes for information; heres a way
Made plaine, and easie: fitter far for thee
Then great _Ortelius_ his _Geographie_.
If thou would'st be a _Gentleman_, in more
Then title onely; this MAP yeelds thee store
Of Observations, fit for Ornament,
Or use, or to give curious eares content.
If thou would'st be a _Merchant_, buy this Booke:
For 'tis a prize worth gold; and doe not looke
Daily for such disbursements; no, 'tis rare,
And should be cast up with thy richest ware.
READER, if thou be any, or all three;
(For these may meet and make a harmonie)
Then prayse this Author for his usefull paines,
Whose aime is publike good, not private gaines.
IZ. WA.
* * * * *
PREFACE TO QUARLES'S SHEPHERD
ORACLES.
1645.
[The Shepheards Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues. By Fra: Quarles.
London, Printed by M.F. for John Marriot and Richard Marriot, and are to
be sold at their shop in S. Dunstans Church-yard Fleetstreet, under the
Dyall. 1646.]