I remember a story told in some forgotten | little for what passes in the great world book of travels, which haunted my dreams, of cities and parliaments as the family of and still strikes me as terribly impressive. Tullivers and Dodsons. His horizon I see a traveller benighted by some acci- should be limited by the nearest country nent in a nullah where a tiger has already town, and his politics confined to the supped upon his companion, and listening disputes between the parson and the Disto mysterious sounds, as of fiendish senting minister. He should have thorlaughter, which he is afterwards cruel oughly absorbed the characteristic prejuenough to explain away by some rational- dices of the little society in which he izing theory as to gases. How or why the lives, till he is unaware that it could ever traveller got into or emerged from the enter into any one's head to doubt their scrape, I know not; but some vague as- absolute truth. He should have a share sociation of ferocious wild beasts and of the peculiarity which is often so wood-demons in ghastly and haunted soli-pathetic in children the unhesitating tudes, has ever since been excited in me conviction that some little family arrangeby the mention of a nullah. It is as redo- ment is a part of the eternal and immutalent of awful mysteries as the chasm in ble system of things, and be as much "Kubla Khan." And it is painful to surprised at discovering an irreverent reflect that a nullah may be a common- world outside as the child at the discovplace phenomenon in real life; and that ery that there are persons who do not the anecdote might possibly affect me no consider his papa to be omniscient. That more, could I now read it for the first is the temper of mind which should chartime, than one of the tremendous adven-acterize your genuine rustic. As a rule, tures recorded by Mr. Kingston or Captain Mayne Reid. of course, it condemns him to silence. He has no more reason for supposing As we become less capable of supplying that some quaint peculiarity of his little the magic for ourselves, we require it circle will be interesting to the outside from our author. He must have the art world than a frog for imagining that a the less conscious the better- of plac- natural philosopher would be interested ing us at his own point of view. He by the statement that he was once a tadshould, if possible, be something of a pole. He takes it for granted that we "humorist," in the old-fashioned sense of have all been tadpoles. In the queer, the word; not the man who compounds outlying corners of the world where the oddities, but the man who is an oddity; father goes to bed and is nursed upon the the slave, not the master, of his own ec- birth of a child (a system which has its centricities; one absolutely unconscious attractive side to some persons of that that the strange twist in his mental vision persuasion), the singular custom is so is not shared by mankind, and capable, much a matter of course that a village therefore, of presenting the fancies dic-historian would not think of mentioning tated by his idiosyncrasy as if they corre- it. The man is only induced to exhibit sponded to obvious and generally recog- his humor to the world when, by some nized realities; and of propounding some happy piece of fortune, he has started a quaint and utterly preposterous theory, as hobby not sufficiently appreciated by his though it were a plain deduction from un-neighbors. deniable truths. The modern humorist is the old humorist plus a consciousness of his own eccentricity, and the old humorist is the modern humorist minus that consciousness. The order of his ideas should not (as philosophers would have it) be identical with the order of things, but be determined by odd, arbitrary freaks of purely personal association. This is the kind of originality which we specially demand from an efficient guide to the country; for the country means a region where men have not been ground into monotony by the friction of our social mill. The secret of his charm lies in the clearness with which he brings before us some quaint, old-fashioned type of existence. He must know and care as Then it may be that he becomes a prophet, and in his anxiety to recommend his own pet fancy, unconsciously illustrates also the interesting social stratum in which it sprung to life. The hobby, indeed, is too often unattractive. When a self-taught philosopher airs some pet crotchet, and proves, for example, that the legitimate descendants of the lost tribes are to be found amongst the Ojibbeways, he doubtless throws a singu. lar light upon the intellectual peculiarities of his district. But he illustrates chiefly the melancholy truth that a half-taught philosopher may be as dry and as barren as the one who has been smoke-dried according to all the rules of art in the most learned academy of Europe. There are a few familiar books in which a happy combination of circumstances has provided us with a true country idyll, fresh and racy from the soil, not consciously constructed by the most skilful artistic hand. Two of them have a kind of acknowledged pre-eminence in their own department. The man is not to be envied who has not in his boyhood fallen in love with Izaak Walton and White of Selborne. The boy, indeed, is happily untroubled as to the true source of the charm. He pores over the "Compleat Angler" with the impression that he will gain some hints for beguiling, if not the wily carp, who is accounted the water-fox, at least the innocent roach, who "is accounted the water-sheep for his simplicity or foolishness." His mouth waters as he reads the directions for converting the pike that compound of mud and needles into "a dish of meat too good for any but anglers or very honest men," a transformation which, if authentic, is little less than miraculous. He does not ask what is the secret of the charm of the book even for those to whom fishing is an abomination - a charm which induced even the arch-cockney Dr. Johnson, in spite of his famous definition of angling, to prompt the republication of this angler's bible. It is only as he grows older, and has plodded through other sporting literature, that he can at all explain why the old gentleman's gossip is so fascinating. Walton, undoubtedly, is everywhere charming for his pure, simple English, and the unostentatious vein of natural piety which everywhere lies just beneath the surface of his writing. Now and then, however, in reading the "Lives," we cannot quite avoid a sense that this excellent tradesman has just a touch of the unctuous about him. He is given—it is a fault from which hagiographers can scarcely be free to using the rose-color a little too freely. He holds towards his heroes the relation of a sentimental churchwarden to a revered parish parson. We fancy that the eyes of the preacher would turn instinctively to Walton's seat when he wished to catch an admiring glance from an upturned face, and to assure himself that he was touching the "sacred fount of sympathetic tears.' We imagine Walton lingering near the porch to submit a deferential compliment as to the "florid and seraphical" discourse to which he has been listening, and scarcely raising his glance above the clerical shoebuckles. A portrait taken from this point of view is apt to be rather unsatisfactory. Yet, in describing the "sweet humility "His mar of a George Herbert or of the saintly Mr. Farrer, the tone is at least in keeping, and is consistent even with an occasional gleam of humor, as in the account of poor Hooker, tending sheep and rocking the cradle under stringent feminine supremacy. It is less satisfactory when we ask Walton to throw some light upon the curiously enigmatic character of Donne, with its strange element of morbid gloom, and masculine passion, and subtle and intense intellect. Donne married the woman he loved in spite of her father and to the injury of his own fortunes. riage," however, observes the biographer, 66 was the remarkable error of his life; an error which, though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain paradoxes, yet he was very far from justifying it." From our point of view, the only error was in the desire to justify an action of which he should have been proud. We must make allowance for the difference in Walton's views of domestic authority; but we feel that his prejudice disqualifies him from fairly estimating a character of great intrinsic force. A portrait of Donne cannot be adequately brought within the lines accepted by the writer of orthodox and edifying tracts. In spite of this little failing, this rather massive subservience to the respectabilities, the "Lives" form a delightful book; but we get the genuine Walton at full length in his "Angler." It was first published in dark days; when the biographer might be glad that his pious heroes had been taken from the sight of the coming evil; when the scattered survivors of his favorite school of divines and poets were turned out of their well-beloved colleges and parsonages, hiding in dark corners or plotting with the melancholy band of exiles in France and Holland; when Walton, instead of listening to the sound and witty discourses of Donne, would find the pulpit of his parish church profaned by some fanatical Puritan, expounding the Westminster Confession in place of the Thirty-nine Articles. The good Walton found consolation in the almost religious pursuit of his hobby. He fortified himself with the authority of such admirable and orthodox anglers as Sir Henry Wotton and Dr. Nowel, dean of St. Paul's. Dr. Nowel had, "like an honest angler, made that good, plain, un perplexed Catechism which is printed with our good old service-book;" for an angler, it seems, is most likely to know that the road to heaven is not through "hard questions." The dean died at the age of ninety-five, in perfect possession | tion. But none of the poets of the time of his faculties; and 'tis said that an- dared to make a passion for the country gling and temperance were great causes the main theme of their more pretentious of those blessings." Evidently Walton song. They thought it necessary to idealhad somehow taken for granted that there ize and transmute; to substitute an inis an inherent harmony between angling definite Arcadia for plain English fields, and true religion, which of course for him and to populate it with piping swains and implies the Anglican religion. He does nymphs, Corydons and Amorets and not trust himself in the evil times to Phyllises. Poor Hodge or Cis were only grumble openly, or to indulge in more allowed to appear when they were minded than an occasional oblique reference to to indulge in a little broad comedy. The the dealers in hard questions and meta- coarse rustics had to be washed and physical dogmatism. He takes his rod, combed before they could present themleaves the populous city behind him, and selves before an aristocratic audience; makes a day's march to the banks of the and plain English hills and rivers to be quiet Lea, where he can meet a like- provided with tutelary gods and goddessminded friend or two; sit in the sanded es, fitted for the gorgeous pageantry of a parlor of the country inn, and listen to country masque. Far be it from me the milkmaid singing that “smooth song with the fear of æsthetic critics before made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty my eyes-to say that very beautiful poyears ago," before English fields had ems might not be produced under these been drenched with the blood of Round- conditions. It is proper, as I am aware, heads and Cavaliers; or lie under a tree, to admire Browne's "Britannia's Pastowatching his float till the shower had rals," and to speak reverently of Fletchpassed, and then calling to mind what er's "Faithful Shepherdess," and Ben holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and Jonson's "Sad Shepherd." I only venflowers as these." "Sweet day, so cool, ture to suggest here that such work is so calm, so bright!"- but everybody has caviare to the multitude; that it requires learned to share Walton's admiration, and a fine literary sense, a happy superiority the quotation would now be superfluous. to dull, realistic suggestion, and a power It is nowhere so effective as with Wal- of accepting the conventional conditions ton's illustrations. We need not, indeed, which the artist has to accept for his remember the background of storm to guidance. Possibly I may go so far as enjoy the quiet sunshine and showers on to hint without offence that the necessity the soft English landscape, which Walton of using this artificial apparatus was not painted so lovingly. The fact that he in itself an advantage. A great master was living in the midst of a turmoil, in of harmony, with a mind overflowing with which the objects of his special idolatry majestic imagery, might achieve such trihad been so ruthlessly crushed and scat- umphs as "Comus and " Lycidas," in tered, may help to explain the intense which even the Arcadian pipe is made to relish for the peaceful, riverside life. His utter the true organ tones. We forgive rod was the magic wand to interpose a any incongruities or artificialities when soft, idyllic mist between his eyes and they are lost in such a blaze of poetry. such scenes as were visible at times from The atmosphere of Arcadia was not as the windows of Whitehall. He loved his yet sickly enough to asphyxiate a Milton; paradise the better because it was an but it was ceasing to be wholesome; and escape from a pandemonium. But what- the weaker singers who imbibed it sufever the cause of his enthusiasm, its sin- fered under distinct attacks of drowsi cerity and intensity is the main cause of ness. his attractiveness. Many poets of Walton's time loved the country as well as he; and showed it in some of the delicate lyrics which find an appropriate setting in his pages. But we have to infer their exquisite appreciation of country sights and sounds from such brief utterances, or from passing allusions in dramatic scenes. Nobody can doubt that Shakespeare loved daffodils, or a bank of wild thyme, or violets, as keenly as Wordsworth. When he happens to mention them, his voice trembles with fine emo Walton's good sense, or his humility, or perhaps the simple ardor of his devotion to his hobby, encouraged him to deal in realities. He gave the genuine sentiment which his contemporaries would only give indirectly, transfigured and bedizened with due ornaments of classic or romantic pattern. There is just a faint touch of unreality-a barely perceptible flavor of the sentimental about his personages; but only enough to give a permissible touch of pastoral idealism. Walton is painting directly from the life. The "honest alehouse," where he finds "a | frog jumping upon a pike's head and tear. cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and ing out his eyes, after "expressing malice twenty ballads stuck about the wall," was or anger by swollen cheeks and staring standing then on the banks of the Lea, as eyes.' Even Walton cannot forbear a in quiet country nooks, here and there, quiet smile at this quaint narrative. But occasional representatives of the true an- he is ready to believe, in all seriousness, gler's rest are still to be found, not en- that eels, "like some kinds of bees and tirely corrupted by the modern tourist. wasps," are bred out of dew, and to conThe good man is far too much in earnest firm it by the parallel case of young gosto be aiming at literary ornament; he is a lings bred by the sun "from the rotten genuine, simple-minded enthusiast, reveal planks of an old ship and hatched up ing his kindly nature by a thousand uncon- trees." Science was not a dry museum of scious touches. The common objection hard facts, but a quaint storehouse of is a misunderstanding. Everybody quotes semi-mythical curiosities; and therefore the phrase about using the frog "as excellently fitted to fill spare hours, when though you loved him; "and it is the he could not meditatively indulge in "the more piquant as following one of his char contemplative man's recreation." Walacteristically pious remarks. The frog's ton found some queer texts for his pious mouth, he tells, grows up for six months, meditations, and his pursuit is not withand he lives for six months without eating, out its drawbacks. But his quaintness "sustained, none but He whose name is only adds a zest to our enjoyment of his Wonderful knows how." He reverently book; and we are content to fall in with admires the care taken of the frog by his humor, and to believe for the nonce Providence, without drawing any more that the love of a sport which so fasciinference for his own conduct than if he nates this simple, kindly, reverent nature were a modern physiologist. It is just must be, as he takes for granted, the very this absolute unconsciousness which crowning grace of a character moulded makes his love of the sport attractive. on the principles of sound Christian phiHe has never looked at it from the frog's losophy. Angling becomes synonymous point of view. Your modern angler has with purity of mind and simplicity of charto excuse himself by some scientific hy-acter. pothesis as to feeling in the lower animals, Mr. Lowell, in one of the most charmand thereby betrays certain qualms of ing essays ever written about a garden, conscience which had not yet come to takes his text from White of Selborne, light in Walton's day. He is no more and admirably explains the charm of that cruel than a schoolboy, "ere he grows to worthy representative of the Waltonian pity." He is simply discharging his spirit. "It is good for us now and then," functions as a part of nature, like the pike says Mr. Lowell, "to converse in a world or the frog; and convinced, at the very like Mr. White's, where man is the least bottom of his heart, that the angler repre- important of animals; to find one's sents the most eminent type of enjoyment, whole world in a garden, beyond the reach and should be the humble inheritor of the of wars and rumors of wars. White does virtues of the fishers of Galilee. The not give a thought to the little troubles gentlest and most pious thoughts come which were disturbing the souls of Burke naturally into his mind whilst his worm is and George III. The "natural term of wriggling on his hook to entice the luck- a hog's life has more interest for him less trout. It is particularly pleasant to than that of an empire; he does not notice the quotations, which give a certain trouble his head about diplomatic compliair of learning to his book. We see that cations whilst he is discovering that the the love of angling had become so in odd tumbling of rooks in the air is caused grained in his mind as to direct his read- by their turning over to scratch theming as well as to provide him with amuse-selves with one claw. The great events ment. We fancy him poring on winter of his life are his making acquaintance evenings over the pages of Aldrovandus with a stilted plover, or his long. and Gesner and Pliny and Topsell's his- was protracted over ten years and tories of serpents and four-footed beasts, finally triumphant passion for "an old and humbly accepting the teaching of more family tortoise." White of Selborne is learned men, who had recorded so many clearly not the ideal parson of George strange facts unobserved by the simple Herbert's time; nor the parson of our own angler. He produces a couple of bishops, day- a poor atom whirled about in the Dubravius and Thurso, as eye-witnesses, distracting eddies of two or three conflictto testify to a marvellous anecdote of a ling movements. He is merely a good, for it kindly, domestic gentleman, on friendly | breaking stones by the roadside, and in- In rambling through the lanes sacred to the memory of White, you may (in fancy, at least) meet another figure not at first sight quite in harmony with the clerical Mr. White. He is a stalwart, broadchested man in the farmer's dress, even ostentatiously representing the old British yeoman brought up on beer and beef, and with a certain touch of pugnacity suggestive of the retired prize-fighter. He stops his horse to chat with a laborer VOL. XXXIII. 1671 LIVING AGE. He looks at things, it is true, from the point of view of a farmer, not of a landscape-painter or a lover of the picturesque. He raves against that "accursed hill' |