The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton (1824)Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 - 288 pages This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1824. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. If there were a single circumstance by which the fame of those "honourable men," the effigies of whom now face the reader, could possibly be enhanced, it was that of having for their biographer one, who, with the soundest judgment, possessed a sweetness of disposition ever inclining to the bright side of things; --a veracity not to be questioned, and a felicity of expression peculiarly his own: thus gifted, like the skilful artist, at once both flattering and faithful, he brought to the task of delineation, that delicacy due to family feeling, combined with the justice demanded by strict impartiality: the existence, and the application therefore, of such rare qualities, are equally the subject of exultation. On the other hand, that Izaak Walton should have been deemed by his contemporaries, the fittest of all persons to perform so important a task, were sufficient by reflection alone, to ensure to himself an imperishable name; the pictorial allusion, therefa fore, at the head of this Introductory Essay, will probably be deemed particularly appropriate: --it contains the Portraits of Dr. John Donne, Mr. George Herbert, Bishop Sanderson, Mr. Richard Hooker, and Sir Henry Wotton, whose lives, at different times, were written by Walton. The praise bestowed on the Life of Dr. Donne; ] by Dr. King, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, in a letter to Walton himself, is equally applicable to the rest: --" I am glad that the general demonstration of his worth was so fairly preserved, and represented to the world by your pen, in the history of his life; indeed so well, that, beside others, the best critic of our later time, Mr. John Hales of Eaton, affirmed to me he had not seen a life, written with more advantage to the subject, or reputation to ... |