the Dedication does not occur in the one imperfect known copy of 1613.
Conceivably the words, 'as now it is' refer to the edition of 1619, which
might have been emended by Walton's advice. But there are no
emendations, hence it is more probable that Walton revised the poem in
1613, when he was a man of twenty, or that he merely advised the author
to publish:--

'For, hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might
These have been buried in oblivion's night.'

S. P. also remarks:--

'No ill thing can be clothed in thy verse';

hence Izaak was already a rhymer, and a harmless one, under the Royal
Prentice, gentle King Jamie.

By this time Walton was probably settled in London. A deed in the
possession of his biographer, Dr. Johnson's friend, Sir John Hawkins,
shows that, in 1614, Walton held half of a shop on the north side of
Fleet Street, two doors west of Chancery Lane: the other occupant was a
hosier. Mr. Nicholl has discovered that Walton was made free of the
Ironmongers' Company on Nov. 12, 1618. He is styled an Ironmonger in his
marriage licence. The facts are given in Mr. Marston's Life of Walton,
prefixed to his edition of _The Compleat Angler_ (1888). It is odd that
a prentice ironmonger should have been a poet and a critic of poetry. Dr.
Donne, before 1614, was Vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West, and in Walton
had a parishioner, a disciple, and a friend. Izaak greatly loved the
society of the clergy: he connected himself with Episcopal families, and