The rapid Garonne, and the winding Seine, Are both too mean, Beloved Dove, with thee To vie priority; Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoin'd, submit, VIII Oh my beloved rocks! that rise To awe the earth, and brave the skies, Giddy with pleasure, to look down; And, from the vales to view the noble heights above! [IX] Oh my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat And all anxieties, my safe retreat: What safety, privacy, what true delight, In th' artificial night, Your gloomy entrails make, Have I taken, do I take! How oft when grief has made me fly, To hide me from society Even of my dearest friends, have I, In your recesses' friendly shade, All my sorrows open laid, And my most secret woes, entrusted to your privacy! X Lord! would men let me alone, What an over-happy one Should I think myself to be; Might I in this desert place, Would I, maugre winter's cold, Try to live out to sixty full years old! Without an envious eye On any thriving under fortune's smile, FINIS. C. C. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, NOTES PAGE 3. 2. John Offley (d. 1658). Little is known of him except that he was the grandson or great-grandson of Sir Thomas Offley, Lord Mayor of London in 1557. Walton himself was born at Stafford, but moved to London some time before 1610; about 1646, 'finding it dangerous for honest men to be there,' he left that city and lived sometimes at Stafford and elsewhere. PAGE 4. 3. curiosity. In the obsolete sense of 'A pursuit in which any one takes an interest: a hobby' (N.E.D.). 8. Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639). Ambassador at Venice, and Provost of Eton, where he was frequently visited by Walton. His fame rests chiefly on Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651), to which Walton prefixed a memoir, and more especially on the two poems "The Character of a Happy Life' and 'On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia'. PAGE 5. 5. own: i. e. put his name to the book. 27. sour-complexioned. Complexion has here its earlier sense of 'disposition', which was thought to depend upon the proportion in which the four humours of the body (blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy) were combined (Lat. complectere, twine together '). PAGE 6. 5. Nat. and R. Roe. Presumably relatives of Walton. Hawkins states that there was a copy of Walton's Lives with the inscription in the author's handwriting, 'For my cousin Roe.' 10. the excellent picture. The pictures appeared in the first edition. It is not known by whom they were drawn or engraved. 25. Camden. See Britannia, Monmouthshire, fol. 633. William Camden (1551-1623), head master of Westminster, published his Britannia, sive Florentissimorum Regnorum Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et Insularum adjacentium ex intima antiquitate Chorographica Descriptio in Latin in 1586. The first English translation, by Philemon Holland, appeared in 1610. The reference in Gough's edition (1789) is vol. ii, p. 478. 26. Salmon are in season. The close time for salmon-fishing by nets throughout England and Wales now begins between. August 14 and September 30 in different localities, and ends between February 2 and April 1; the time for rods begins and ends a month later. PAGE 7. 1. Mr. Hales. I cannot trace Mr. Hales nor his book. The author cannot have been Walton's friend, the ever-memorable' John Hales, whose writings are all political or religious. 28. conference. Collection;' Lat. con, 'together,' and ferre, to bring.' 29. censure. 'Judgement.' PAGE 8. 2. twelve several flies. See Ch. V. 5. Almanac. The prophetic almanac (cf. 'Old Moore's') was the most popular literature of the seventeenth century. 'Poor Robin' is perhaps the best known. 25. this fifth impression. The Compleat Angler was first published in 1653, and the fifth edition (here reprinted) in 1676; being the last during the author's lifetime. Walton was continually revising his work, and this edition contains eight chapters more than the first and twenty pages more than the fourth. PAGE 19. 10. Piscator, Venator, Auceps. Lat. for Angler, Hunter, and Falconer. 6 14. Ware. On the River Lea in Hertfordshire, twenty-one miles by road north of London. Tottenham, now a suburb, is about six miles on the way, and the Thatched House in Hodsden is said to have been seventeen miles, but no traces of it remain. Hoddesdon, then a small hamlet, is now a markettown. PAGE 20. 2. Theobalds. Near Waltham, west of the London road to Ware. Lord Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's minister, built a magnificent palace there, which his son, the first Earl of Salisbury, exchanged for Hatfield House with James I. James died at Theobalds in 1623. The palace was demolished by order of Parliament during the Commonwealth, and its materials sold for the benefit of the army. Temple Bar, which was removed from the western limit of the City in 1878, was re-erected as one of the entrances to Theobald's Park in 1888. 3. mews. To mew' is to take care of a bird during the moulting season. The King's Mews, where the royal hawks were kept, were changed into stables in 1537, and hence the word changed its meaning. 10. as the Italians say. Sir Harris Nicolas gives 'Compagno allegro per camino ti serve per ronzino', 'A gay companion on the road is as good as a pony'. This is taken from the Sententiae of Publ. Syrus (fl. 45 B. C.), 'Comes facundus in via pro vehiculo.' PAGE 21. 1. Mr. Sadler's. Mr. Ralph Sadler (d. 1660) lived at Standon, a village five miles north-east of Ware. His grandfather was Sir Ralph Sadler, Henry VIII's Secretary of State, and Lord Burleigh's chief agent in the matter of Mary, Queen of Scots. 3. prevent. 'Anticipate.' Lat. prae, 'before,' venire, 'to come.' So also p. 120, 1. 10. PAGE 22. 9. Lucian (c. a. d. 120-200). His satirical dialogues, written in Greek and directed chiefly against the current religions and philosophies of the Roman Empire, are wittily profane. The original epigram is as follows: Lucian well skill'd in old toyes this hath writ: For all's but folly those men thinke is witt: But thou admirest that which others jeere. These lines, together with a Greek translation, appear over the initials T. H. (Thomas Hickes) among the prefatory matter in a volume, 'Certaine Select Dialogues of Lucian. . Francis Hickes Oxford, 1634.' 15. what Solomon says of Scoffers. abomination to men.' Proverbs xxiv. 9. By Mr. The scorner is an PAGE 23. 2. Montaigne. See The Essayes, or Morall, Politike and Militarie discourses of Lord Michael De Montaigne, Bk. II, ch. xii, 'An Apologie of Raymond Sebond' (Florio's translation, 3rd edition, 1632, p. 250). Walton has freely paraphrased either the original French or Florio's translation. Montaigne (1533-92) published two books of his Essayes in 1580 and a third in 1588; they are the first and perhaps the greatest compositions of this kind. PAGE 25. 6. use. 'Am accustomed.' this sense, is now obsolete. The present tense, in 20. Jove's servant in ordinary. The Eagle, in Greek and Roman mythology, was the armour-bearer of Zeus. In ordinary' added to official designations (cf. physician-in-ordinary to His Majesty) is apparently an expansion of ordinary (adj.): 'belonging to the regular staff.' Cf. 'an ordinary Preacher at Alcmar': Burton, Anat. Mel. N.E.D. 23. the son of Daedalus. Icarus, who flew with his father from Crete, but the sun melted the wax with which his wings were fastened, and he fell into the sea and was drowned. PAGE 26. 13. witness the not breaking of ice. A remarkably concise way of saying 'as is seen if ice is not broken for them'. 19. wants. Is without.' (Obs.) 32. excrements. 'Outgrowths,' especially of hair, nails, or, as here, feathers. (Lat. ex, 'out'; crescere, to grow'.) Contr. excrement: refuse (Lat. ex, 'out'; cernere, 'to sift'). PAGE 27. 2. curious. 'Skilful,' clever.' (Obs.) 12. Thrassel. More commonly 'throssel', thrush.' 'the song 17. Laverock. Same word as 'lark'. The lark mentioned above is the skylark, and here some other member of the genus Alaudidae must be intended. |