Note 1. “This piece,” says Dr. Hannah, in his edition of the Poems of Sir Henry Wotton, “is inserted in Walton’s Angler (pp. 60, 61, ed. 1655), with some introductory remarks which I shall quote at some length. ‘My next and last example shall be that under-valuer of money, the late Provost of Eton Colledg, Sir Henry Wotton, (a man with whom I have often fished and convers’d), a man whose forraign Imployments in the service of this Nation, and whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulnesse made his company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind; this man,—whose very approbation of Angling were sufficient to convince any modest Censurer of it,—this man was also a most dear lover, and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, ’Twas an Imployment for his idle time, which was (then) not idly spent; for angling was, after tedious Study, A rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a devotion of sadnesse, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentednesse; and, that it begot habits of peace and patience in those that profest and practis’d it.—Sir, this was the saying of that Learned man; and I do easily believe that peace and patience, and a calme content did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry Wotton, because I know, that when hee was beyond seventy yeares of age, hee made this discription of a part of the present pleasure that possest him, as he sate quietly in a summer’s evening on a bank a-fishing; it is a description of the Spring, which, because it glides as soft and sweetly from his pen, as that River does now by which it was then made, I shall repeat unto you.’” There are three extant texts of the poem: i., as in the Complete Angler; ii., MS. Rawl. poet. 147, p. 47; iii., Archbishop Sancroft’s MS. Tam. 465, fol. 61 vâ. The title given is “On the Spring,” in both MSS., and signed SR. H. Wotton. The text here followed is collated from the various readings. [back]
Note 2. There stood my friend: Dr. Hannah says, “the biographers of Izaak are doubtless right in treating this as a reference to him. Zouch, p. xiii, ed. 1796. Nicholas, pp. xxxv, 79.” [back]
