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Show FISHERMAN'S LUCK honest man overwhelming distress. I should call it a complimentary dislike. The third author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to Walton was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it neces· sary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief to his feelings. Walton was a great quater. His book is not "stuffed," as Franck jealously alleged, but it is certainly well sauced with piquant references to other writers, as early as the author of the Book of Job, and as late as John Dennys, who betrayed to the world The Secrets of Angling in 1613. Walton further seasoned his book with fragments of information about fish and fishing, more or less apocryphal, gathered from JE!ian, Pliny, Plutarch, Sir Francis Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner, Rondeletius, the learned Aldrovandus, the venerable Bede, the divine Du Bartas, and many others. He borrowed freely for the adornment of his discourse, and did 152 FISHING IN BOOKS not scorn to make use of what may be called liu quotations,-that is to say, the unpublished remarks of his near contemporaries, caught in friendly conversation, or handed down by oral tradition. But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced, the delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers. This was all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite incomparable. I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles Lamb and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs. Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet lavender. It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods. It tastes of simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of new verjuice in a new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to give Piscator the next time he came that way. Its music plays the tune of A Contented Heart over and over again without dulness, and charms us into harmony with lli3 |