LIFE OF MR. ISAAC WALTON. THE excellent Lord Verulam has noted it, as one of the great deficiencies of biographical history, that it is, for the most part, confined to the actions of kings, princes, and great personages, who are necessarily few; while the memory of less conspicuous, though good men, has been no better preserved, than by vague reports and barren elogies.* It is not therefore to be wondered at, if little care has been taken to perpetuate the remembrance of the person who is the subject of the present inquiry ;. and, indeed, there are many circumstances that seem to account for such an omission; for neither was he distinguished by his rank, or eminent for his learning, or remarkable for the performance of any public service; but as he ever affected a retired life, so was he noted, only, for an ingenious, humble, good man. However, to so eminent a degree did he possess the qualities above ascribed to him, as to afford a very justifiable reason for endeavouring to impress upon the minds of "De vitis cogitantem subit quædam admiratio, tempora ista nostra haud nôsse bona sua; cùm tam rara fit commemoratio et conscriptio vitarum, eorum, qui nostro seculo claruerunt. Etsi enim reges, et qui absolutum principatum obtineant, pauci esse possint; principes etiam in republicà liberâ (tot rebus-publicis in monarchiam conversis) haud multi; utcunque tamen non defuerunt viri egregii (licet зub regibus) qui meliora merentur, quam incertam et vagam memoriæ suæ famam aut elogia arida et jejuna." De Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. ii. cap. 7. mankind, by a collection of many scattered passages concerning him, a due sense of their value and importance. ISAAC, or, as he used to write it, IZAAK WALTON, was born at Stafford, on the ninth day of August, 1593. The Oxford Antiquary, who has thus fixed the place and year of his nativity, has left us no memorials of his family, nor even hinted where or how he was educated; but has only told us, that before the year 1643, Walton was settled, and followed the trade of a sempster, in London.† From his own writings, then, it must be, that the circumstances attending his life must, in a great measure, come; and, as occasions offer, a proper use will be made of them; nevertheless, a due regard will be paid to some traditional memoirs, which (besides that they contain nothing improbable) the authority of those to whom we stand indebted for them, will not allow us to question. His first settlement in London, as a shopkeeper, was in the Royal Burse in Cornhill, built by Sir Thomas Gresham, and finished in 1567. In this situation he could scarcely be said to have had elbow-room; for the shops over the Burse were but seven feet and a half long, and five wide; § yet here did he carry on his trade, till some time before the year 1624; when "he dwelt on the north side of Fleet-street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow." || Now the old timber-house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane, in Fleet-street, till within these few years, was known by that sign: it is therefore beyond doubt that Walton lived at the very next door. And in this house he is-in the deed above referred to, which bears date 1624-said to have followed the trade He was born August the 9th, and baptized, as appears from the parish register of St. Mary, Stafford, September the 21st, 1593. His father, Jervis Walton, died in February 1596, when Isaac was little more than two years old. + Athen. Oxon. vol. i. 305. Ward's Life of Sir Thomas Gresham. p. 12. § Ibid. |