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The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton
The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton Author:Izaak Walton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: brother-in-law to the amiable' Bishop Ken; whilst his direct consanguinity with Archbishop Cranmer himself is erroneously insisted on :—by extraordinary ingenuit... more »y, therefore, mystery has been created out of the very circumstances calculated to afford elucidation ; for what is this but presenting Walton to us in the midst of his own relations and family friends ? proving him to have been in a walk of life, whatever it exactly was, consistent even with their alliance, as well as countenance and protection! That he was bred to trade may be accounted for, either from the circumstance of his father's dying when he was only two years old, or even from his own choice : and that there existed no necessary incompatibility between the character he held and that of a gentleman, surely he may be said to have demonstrated, of whom that which is most certainly known, would do honour to any station whatever: his " only son Isaac" we find bred to the church, seemingly as a matter of course; and that his only daughter was married to a dignified clergyman, Dr. Hawkins of Winchester, strengthens all the foregoing arguments. All these particulars we are enabled to collect, notwithstanding that history and tradition are equally parsimonious respecting this extraordinary man ; wherever conjecture, therefore, supplies of necessity, the place of fact, let us in the name of goodness, (which were but synonymous with saying in the name of Izaak Walton I) regulate our decisions with one constant view to his immortal honour ! There is, at least, one delightful reflection to be drawn from the internal evidence of his own work;—he did really and substantially enjoy, in his own person, that true happiness which he would teach us all to acquire : with that genuine, philosophical spirit which is worthy of un...« less