A Diplomat's advice to Diplomats
That, to be in safety himself, and serviceable to his Country, he should always, & upon all occasions speak the truth (it seems aState Paradox) for, says Sir Henry Wotton, you shall never be believed; and by this means, your truth will secure yourself, if you shall ever be called to any account; and 'twill also put your Adversaries (who will still hunt counter) to a loss in all their dispositions and undertakings.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683) is best known for his graceful, lucid if not always practical book The Compleat Angler. It has stayed in print since it first appeared in 1653.

More than just a writer of devout pastoral, Walton is one of the fathers of modern literary biography. This selection includes his lively portraits of Donne, Herbert and others, and reminiscences of Jonson written in old age. A devoted churchman, in his writing Walton helps define what it was to be Anglican at a time when the Church was in upheaval. One historian said Walton `invented Anglicanism'. He certainly shaped it in ways which are potent today.

Walton is here set in a context which complicates and then corrects the reductive view of him, encapsulated by Gosse, as `that immortal piscatory linen-draper'.

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Note on the Selection

Further Reading



Prose

Compleat Angler

Life of Dr. John Donne

Life of Sir Henry Wotton

Life of Mr. Richard Hooker

Life of Mr. George Herbert

Life of Dr. Robert Sanderson

Notes for a Life of John Hales

Love and Truth

Notes on Ben Jonson



Poems

Inscription on his Marriage Chest

An Elegie upon Dr. Donne

On a Portrait of Donne

Epitaph on David Hookham

Couplet on Dr. Richard Sibbes

On the Death of my Dear Friend Mr. William Cartwright

To my Reverend Friend the Author of the Synagogue

Epitaph on his Second Wife



Commendatory Verses to Jeremiah Rich

Will

Izaak Walton's Will

Appendix: revisions to the Life of Donne