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Side 65 av 112
Walton was a great quoter. 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 Aelian, 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 not scorn to make
use of what may he called LIVE 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unpublished remarks of his near contemporaries, caught in friendly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
"A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune."
Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he
quotes. It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to
write about angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying,
some wise reflection from his pages, suggests itself at almost every
turn of the subject.
And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable
one that his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of
angling is extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list
of the collection presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard
University, or study the catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr.
Dean Sage, of Albany, who himself has contributed an admirable book
on THE RISTIGOUCHE.
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