was once proverbial for mendacity, see Congreve, Love for Love, 'Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude;' but it is now known for a careful and truthful narrative. PAGE 54. 1. used Angling as a principal recreation. Plutarch's Antony in the Parallel Lives. Antony went fishing with Cleopatra and, ashamed of catching nothing, secretly ordered fishermen to dive and put fresh-taken fishes on his hook. Cleopatra, detecting the deceit, invited a large company to the next day's fishing and instructed a servant to fix a salted fish upon the hook. Per 3. taken in the best sense. In the seventeenth century 'to angle' had already the meaning to use artful or wily means to catch'. Cf. Shakespeare, All's Well (1601), v. iii. 212: She...did angle for mee, madding my eagernesse with her restraint.' haps Walton is referring to this bad sense of the word, or merely means that angling is never mentioned as other than a laudable pursuit. 7. Ecclesiastical Canons. The laws of the Church, especially the decrees of Popes and statutes of Councils. (The Canons of the Church of England are 'The Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical', agreed upon by Convocation and ratified by James I.) The Canon referred to is found in the Corpus Iuris Canonici of Gregory XIII (1682), Dist. lxxxvi, ch. 11 (American Editor). 14. Perkins. William Perkins (1558-1602), 'the learned, pious and painful Preacher of God's word at St. Andrewe's in Cambridge, an eminent Puritan theologian. I cannot find among his works his commendation of angling. 16. Dr. Whitaker. William Whitaker (1548-95), Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. See Fuller's Holy State, iii. 13: 'Fishing with an angle is to some rather a torture than a pleasure, to stand an hour as mute as the fish they mean to take: yet herewithal Dr. Whitaker was much delighted.' 21. Dr. Nowel. Alexander Nowell, D.D. (1507-1602), became a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1526, Principal in 1595, and Dean of St. Paul's in 1560. His monument was destroyed in the burning of old St. Paul's in the Great Fire of London (1666), but the picture of which Walton speaks is still at Brasenose, and a replica is at Westminster School, of which he was a master in 1543. 28. a Catechism. Nowell published A Catechism, A Middle Catechism, and a Small Catechism. It seems clear that Nowell was the author of the first part of the Church Catechism now in use, which was first published in the Prayer Book of 1549, the later portion on the Sacraments afterwards (1604) added, as is generally held, by Bishop Overall, having been reduced and altered from Nowell's' (Dict. Nat. Biog.). PAGE 56. 10. Sir Henry Wotton. See note to p. 4, 1. 8. 17. censurer. See note to p. 7, 1. 29. PAGE 57. 9. This day dame Nature, &c. Slightly adapted from a poem which appears in the Reliquiae Wottonianae (see note to p. 4, 1. 8) under the title, 'On a Banck as I sate a fishing, A description of the spring.' 12. valentines. Sweethearts chosen on February 14 (St. Valentine's Day). Cf. Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls, 310: For this was on Seynt Valentines day, Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make. Drawn' is a metaphor from the human custom. Butler's Lives of the Saints says that on the feast of Februata Juno (February 13) the Roman boys drew the names of girls in order to find out who would be their mistresses. This custom survived into the nineteenth century in England. For much interesting information see Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, art. Valentine'. 16. his trembling quill: i. e. the float of his fishing line, generally made of a quill. 18. the swift pilgrim. swallow tribe. The house-martin, a member of the 20. Philomel. Lat. Philomela, 'nightingale.' 25. foot-ball swain. Football, especially on Shrove Tuesday, has been a popular English game for five centuries. In the seventeenth century prestige seems already to have attached to the players. 26. strokes a syllabub. A dish made by mixing wine or cider with cream or milk and thus forming a soft curd. Strokes presumably means that she whips the mixture with her own hand. 37. Jo. Davors, Esq. See note to p. 39, 1. 31. Walton has made considerable alterations in the poem. PAGE 58. 16. gander-grass. A corruption of 'gandergoose': the ragwort or Cynosorchis. culver-keys. Culver = dove in the seventeenth century the bluebell, now generally the cowslip or oxlip. 23-4. Aurora Tithonus. Aurora, the Dawn-Goddess, was the wife of Tithonus. Every morning she rose from his couch and drove her chariot to heaven to announce the coming of the light. 6 28. veins. Watersheds.' The whole earth can be considered as a system of watersheds draining off into rivers, and the watersheds are bounded by the rivers, except where they drain straight into the sea. 36. quire. 'Choir', from Lat. chorus, to which the modern spelling, appearing in the eighteenth century, is a partial assimilation, though the pronunciation still remains quire'. The spelling 'quire' is retained in the English Prayer Book. 37. Flora. Goddess of flowers' in Latin mythology. 24. compliment. Exchange compliments.' The verb is now only used transitively. PAGE 61. 16. a beast or a fish. Topsell decides that the otter is all flesh, while the beaver is flesh except its tail, which is fish. See p. 572 of his Historie of Foure-footed Beastes... collected out of all the volumes of Conradus Gesner, and all other writers to this present day, By Edward Topsell. London, 1607. 19. the college of Carthusians. According to Gesner, Hist. An. I. 777 (quoted by Topsell), they eat otter, although forbidden to eat all manner of flesh. The Carthusians are an order of monks founded in 1084 by St. Bruno at Chartreuse, near Grenoble in France. They never eat meat, even in sickness, and on many days have only one meal. The Charterhouse in London, a corruption of Chartreuse, was originally a Carthusian monastery. 31. dog-fisher. The Latin names are Lutra and Fluviatilis Canicula, Dog of the Waters' (Topsell, p. 572). PAGE 62. 1. Gesner. See note to p. 46, 1. 28. This is not in Gesner's account of the otter (Bk. i, pp. 775–7), though Topsell (l. c., p. 574) gives him as his authority for saying that an otter can smell a fish a mile or two off'. 2. stones. Testicles.' 3. falling sickness. Epilepsy: Lat. morbus caducus. Benione. Benzoin (popularly, Benjamin), a resinous substance, with a fragrant odour and slightly aromatic taste, obtained from the Styrax Benzoin, a tree of Sumatra, Java, &c. 10. Ottersey. The Ottery, in Devonshire, on which Ottery St. Mary stands. Otterey, that is, The River of Otters or River-Dogs.' Britannia (Holland, tr. 1610, p. 206). The reference in Gough's edition is vol. i, p. 29. 14. at vent. Risen to the surface to take air. (Lat. ventus, 'wind.') PAGE 63. 12. Mr. Nich. Seagrave. Nothing is known of him. He is supposed to have been the son of Charles Seagrave, Esq., of Scalford in Leicestershire, who was living in 1606 and left a son Nicholas. 18. barley wine. Beer. 19. 'Old Rose.' 'The song alluded to was the following. It was inserted in Dr. Harington's Collection from a publication temp. Charles I: Now we're met like jovial fellows, When the jowl with claret glows, Sing, &c. The bellows, and burn, burn, the bellows, the bellows.' I cannot find it in any of Harington's Collections, but the Third Collection (1790 ?) purports to contain songs, &c., selected from the authentic manuscripts of the author of Sing Old Rose'. PAGE 64. 14. the fence-months. Months in which rivers are in fence (Lat. in defenso, under a prohibition': cf. mod. Fr. défense). See below, 11. 21 sqq. 17. make conscience of, &c. Make it a matter of conscience to keep. See note to p. 35, 1. 16. 32. 13th of Edward the First. That the waters of Humber, Owse, Trent, Done, Arre, Derwent, Wherfe, Nid, Yore, Swale, Tese, Tine, Eden, and other waters (wherein Salmons be taken within the kingdom) shall be in defence for taking Salmons from the Nativity of Our Lady unto St. Martin's Day; and that likewise young Salmons shall not be taken nor destroyed by nets, nor by other engines, at mill-pools, from the midst of April unto the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.' 13th Edw. I, stat. 1, cap. 47. PAGE 65. 1. Richard the Second. 13 Rich. II, stat. 1, cap. 19, rehearses and confirms the earlier statute. 10. conservators. Persons having charge of a river, its embankments, weirs, creeks, &c., and supervision of its fisheries, navigation, water-mills, &c. The best known are the Conservators of the Thames, called as a body the Thames Conservancy. 16. in the Levitical law. Deuteronomy xxii. 6. 20. the Gorrara. Unknown to the N.E.D. 21. the Puet. The Pewit or Peewit: the Lapwing. the Craber. 'Water-rat.' The word is only found in this passage. PAGE 66. 6. Trout Hall. They did not sleep at Trout Hall, but returned to the ale-house where they dined, which we are told later was Bleak Hall (p. 85,1. 18). Trout Hall cannot be identified. 22. Many a one, &c. I cannot trace this quotation. PAGE 67. 17. hold. 'Wager,' 'lay.' PAGE 69. 18. eat. Intrans. : now a conscious archaism. 23. short. 'Crumbling': inclined to flake off: cf. 'shortbread'. 24. Un Villain. So Rondeletius, Univ. Aquat. Hist. pars alt. (1555), p. 190. PAGE 70. 8. verjuice. An acid liquor pressed out of crabapples, unripe grapes, &c. PAGE 71. 8. except against. See note to p. 38, 1. 7. To initiate you.' PAGE 72. 14. leather-mouthed. Explained at p. 73, ll. 24-5 (text). 27. towardly. Adj. from 'toward' =‘on the way to' (some goal): hence 'apt'. PAGE 73. 6. bob. The grub or larva of a beetle. 9. a gentle. A maggot, the larva of the blue-bottle. cod-worm = case-worm. Both Caddis-worm', the larva of the May-fly, which lives in water and forms for itself a curious case of hollow stems, small stones, &c. PAGE 74. 4. gorged. Taken into the gorge or throat; swallowed. PAGE 75. 1. penk. Now survives as 'pink' in the dialects of Shropshire, Yorkshire, and other counties. 10. his spawn. The soft roe of the male. 18. Seneca. The passage is in Natural Questions, iii. 17, which Walton found in Hakewill's Apologie of the power and providence of God in the Government of the World (3rd ed., 1635), Bk. iv, p. 433. Seneca (2 B. C. ?-A. D. 65) was a Stoic philosopher and moralist: he was put to death by order of his pupil, Nero. PAGE 76. 7. generous. Of good stock;' Lat. generosus. (Obs.). 10. Gesner. Hist. Anim. iv, 'De piscium et Aquatilium natura' (1558), p. 1203, 1. 62. 11. offspring. Descent.' (Obs.) 29. three cubits. Gesner (ubi supra, p. 1201) says 'two cubits'. A cubit is eighteen inches. PAGE 77. 2. Mercator (1512-94). The Dutch geographer who first constructed marine charts on the system known as Mercator's Projection. 7. a little brook in Kent. Perhaps the Cray, which is famous for small trout.-Rennie. 10. about the size of a Gudgeon. The gudgeon is rarely more than eight inches long. 11. relate to. To be united to (larger rivers or the sea): only in Walton. 12. as Winchester: i, e. as the Itchen at Winchester. |