GENERAL But some to higher hopes Were destined; some within a finer mould Were wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame: To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds The world's harmonious volume, there to read The transcript of himself CHARLES WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. ΤΟ G5 1838 MAIN JOSEPH HENRY GREEN, F.R.S. PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ETC. ETC. THE HONOURED FAITHFUL AND BELOVED FRIEND OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, These Uolumes ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 166981 PREFACE. THE more frequently we read and contemplate the lives of those eminent men so beautifully traced by the amiable Izaak Walton, the more we are impressed with the sweetness and simplicity of the work. Walton was a man of genius-of simple calling and more simple habits, though best known perhaps by his book on Angling; yet in the scarcely less attractive pages of his biographies, like the flowing of the gentle stream on which he sometimes cast his line, to practise "the all of treachery he ever learnt," he leads the delighted reader imperceptibly on, charmed with the natural beauty of his sentiments, and the unaffected ease and simplicity of his style. In his preface to the |