fly. Thence we proceed to trout, and to the charming scene of the
milkmaid and her songs by Raleigh and Marlowe, 'I think much better than
the strong lines that are now in fashion in this critical age,' for
Walton, we have said, was the last of the Elizabethans and the new times
were all for Waller and Dryden. 'Chevy Chace' and 'Johnny Armstrong'
were dear to Walton as to Scott, but through a century these old
favourites were to be neglected, save by Mr. Pepys and Addison. Indeed,
there is no more curious proof of the great unhappy change then coming to
make poetry a mechanic art, than the circumstance that Walton is much
nearer to us, in his likings, than to the men between 1670 and 1770. Gay
was to sing of angling, but in 'the strong lines that are now in
fashion.' All this while Piscator has been angling with worm and minnow
to no purpose, though he picks up 'a trout will fill six reasonable
bellies' in the evening. So we leave them, after their ale, in fresh
sheets that smell of lavender.' Izaak's practical advice is not of much
worth; we read him rather for sentences like this: 'I'll tell you,
scholar: when I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down these
meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of the city of
Florence, "that they were too pleasant to be looked upon, but only on
holy-days."' He did not say, like Fox, when Burke spoke of 'a seat under
a tree, with a friend, a bottle, and a book,' 'Why a book?' Izaak took
his book with him--a practice in which, at least, I am fain to imitate
this excellent old man.

As to salmon, Walton scarcely speaks a true word about their habits,
except by accident. Concerning pike, he quotes the theory that they are
bred by pickerel weed, only as what 'some think.' In describing the use
of frogs as bait, he makes the famous, or infamous, remark, 'Use him as
though you loved him . . . that he may live the longer.' A bait-fisher
_may_ be a good man, as Izaak was, but it is easier for a camel to pass