Jacopo Sannazaro's "Eclogae Piscatoriae (1526)" and the "Pastoral Debate" in EighteenthCentury England

Author(s): Nicholas D. Smith

Source: Studies in Philology, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 432-450
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
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Jacopo

Sannazaro's

EclogaePiscatoriae(1526) and
the

Debate"

"Pastoral

in

Eighteenth-Century
England

by NicholasD. Smith
T

HE volume of eighteenth-centurycriticismdevoted to the pisca-

tory eclogue, although of modest proportions and its treatment

characterized by a parenthetical subordination within the context of critical discussions of pastoral in general, is greater than has
previously been recognized.' In this essay I will utilize this extant (and
largely ignored) criticism to argue that the EclogaePiscatoriae(Naples,
1526) of the Neapolitan humanist poet Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530)
were central to the formulation of conflicting eighteenth-century definitions of 'Xpiscatoryeclogue" that focused upon three areas of contention: the (un)suitability of the fisherman as a pastoral protagonist, of
fishing as a pastoral activity, and of the sea as a pastoral domain. Sannazaro's name occurs repeatedly in discussions of piscatorials, and I submit that the eighteenth-century understanding of "piscatory eclogue"
was fashioned on (mis)readings of his attempt at this subgenre. Sannazaro had both his champions and his detractors-indeed his critical
fortunes were intimately bound up with the reception of his piscatorials- and the piscatory debate may be traced through the duration of the
1 Cf. Gary M. Bouchard, "Phineas Fletcher: The Piscatory Link Between Spenserian
and Miltonic Pastoral," Studies in Philology 89 (1992): 232-43: "Alexander Pope was the
first, and as far as I know the only, poet to fault the sea as an inappropriate setting for
pastoral poetry" (234). Individual studies of the piscatory eclogue as a literary species
are few: Antoine Campaux, De ecloga piscatoria (Paris, 1859); Mario Mangani, Origine e
svolgimentodel1'eclogapescatoriaitaliana(Nicastro: F. Bevilacqua, 1901); Giovanni Rosalba,
Le Egloghe Pescatoriedi . Sannazaro(Naples: Fratelli Tornese, 1908); H. M. Hall, Idylls of
Fishermen:A History of the Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1912).

432

2002

The University of North Carolina Press

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NicholasD. Smith

433

eighteenth century.2 My reconstruction of the literary history of "piscatorial" pastoral in this period will reveal that Sannazaro's generic legacy
was compromised by the ascendancy of Izaak Walton's TheCompleat
Angler (1653-76), which initiated a new and popular strain of angling
writing in England, although until the Walton revival in the eighteenth
century (where his initial rehabilitation may be traced to his substitution as a model for the piscatory eclogue), the relationship between
these two strains was not one of antagonism. As a native English version
of piscatorial pastoral, Walton's "prose-poem"3 supplanted Sannazaro's
EclogaePiscatoriae,
which had become beleaguered by the negative critical opinions of the theorists of pastoral.
In his De CarminePastorali(1659), the French critic Rene Rapin argued
for the illegitimacy of the fisherman (among others) as a pastoral character:
Some are of opinion that... the discourseof Fishers,Plow-men,Reapers,Hunters,and the like, belong to this kind of Poetry:which accordingto the RulethatI
have laid down cannotbe true for,as I havebeforehintednothingbut the action
of a Shepherdcan be the Subjectof a Pastoral.4
Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle's discussion of the piscatory eclogue
in his Discours sur la nature d'eglogue(1688) follows a line of argument
similar to that of Rapin, though, crucially, Fontenelle makes it more emphatic by personalizing it: "Sannazariushas introduced none but Fishermen in his Eclogues; and I always perceive, when I read those Piscatory Poems, that the idea which I have of the Fishermen's hard and
toilsome way of living, shocks me."5 Not only does Fontenelle name a
writer of piscatorials, but he also founds and constructs his argument
2 The first English translation of Sannazaro's EclogaePiscatoriaewas made in the seventeenth century and was a collaborative effort between Nahum Tate and W. Bowles. Tate
translated the first three eclogues and Bowles the fourth, and they were published in
Poems by Several Hands, and on Several Occasions, Collectedby N. Tate (London, 1685), 34672. In the eighteenth century, they were translated by John Rooke in his Select Translations
from the Worksof Sannazarius (London, 1726).
3 The Complete Worksof William Hazlitt, ed. P. P. Howe, 21 vols. (London: J. M. Dent,
1930-34), 5:98.
4 ThomasCreech, The Idylliums of Theocritus,with Rapin'sDiscourse of Pastoralsdone into
English (London, 1684), 27-28. See also Guillaume Colletet, Discours du Poeme Bucolique,
Ou4il est traite, de l'7glogue, de L'Idyle,et de la Bergerie(Paris, 1657), ii-i:; Alexander Pope,
Discourse on PastoralPoetry, in Pastoral Poetry and an Essay in Criticism, ed. E. Audra and
Aubrey Williams (London: Methuen, 1961), 29.
5 Monsieur Bossu'sTreatiseof the epick poem. Done into English, with a prefaceby W J. to
which are added, An essay upon satyr, by Monsieur DAcier; and A treatise upon pastorals, by
monsieurFontanelle(English'd by mr. Motteux) (London, 1695), 283.

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The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

434

upon his personal response to these poems. It is important to note, however, that Fontenelle is not reacting against Sannazaro's representation
of the fisherman, so much as against his conception of the "fisherman,"
stimulated by the reading of Sannazaro's poems. To Fontenelle's mind,
it is impossible to escape the associations of toil and hard work that
the fisherman embodies; his pastoral discourse cannot accommodate
their intrusive "realism."The psychological agitation that the fisherman
provokes in him makes fishermen incongruous to Fontenelle's idea of
pastoral. Both he and Rapin become willing victims of their desire to
exclude from pastoral anything that threatens to compromise the simplicity (emotional, structural and stylistic) that they see as its essence.
Consequently, as the regulation of pastorals became increasingly popular in the eighteenth-century, so their range and content became more
limited, and the fisherman had to struggle harder than ever to retain his
place amongst pastoral's traditional dramatispersonae.
The provocative comments of Rapin and Fontenelle about the unsuitability of the fisherman to pastoral were imported to England at the end
of the seventeenth century and they continued to hold sway. Almost a
century later, Hugh Blair, in language recalling Peter Motteux's translation of Fontenelle's Discourse,would rehearse the same argument: "For
the life of Fishermen is, obviously, much more hard and toilsome than
that of Shepherds."6 The fisherman, however, did find an apologist in
John Jones, who remarked in his "Account of the Life and Writings of
Oppian" that "Rapinseems to disapprove of them [piscatory eclogues]
in general; but the Reasons he gives are but of little weight. Everyone
knows that no Employment has more intervals of Leisure, and opportunities of Contemplation than that of Fishing."7The debate centered
upon the appropriateness of the fisherman to pastoral; and since the arguments for and against the fisherman were relatively few in number
and had been articulated from early on, much "criticism" tended to be
exercises in contradiction or apologetics, rather than espousals of fresh
ideas. It is clear at this early stage from the polar arrangement of the associations that fishing inspires in the critics -"hard and toilsome" versus "Leisure" and "Contemplation"-that the argument is being constructed upon two different kinds of fishing (sea and river) and involved
the use of two different discourses. The unavoidable impasse that followed may be seen throughout the century.
6
7
1722),

Hugh Blair, Lectureson RhletoricanidBelles Lettres,2 vols. (London, 1783), 2:348.

John Jones, Oppian'sHalienticksof theNatureof FishesanidFishingof theAtncients(Oxford,
10.

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Nicholas D. Smith

435

The opinions set out by Thomas Tickell in his series of five influential Guardianessays had implications not only for pastoral, but also the
piscatory eclogue. In spite of this move away from Fontenelle's tenets,
occasioned by his advocacy of realism in pastoral, Tickell held similar views on the piscatory eclogue to both Rapin and Fontenelle. Essay
28 assumes a particular significance as it devotes a paragraph to castigating Sannazaro for changing the scene of his pastorals from the land
to the sea:
He hath changed the Scene in this kind of Poetry from Woods and Lawns, to
the barrenBeach and boundless Ocean;introduces Sea-Calvesin the room of
Kids and Lambs,Sea-mews for the Larkand the Linnet,and presents his Mistress with Oystersinsteadof Fruitsand Flowers.How good soever his Stile and
Thoughtsmaybe; yet who canpardonhim forhis ArbitraryChangeof the sweet
Mannersand pleasing Objectsof the Country,for what in theirown Natureare
uncomfortableand dreadful?8
The reference to "barren Beach" implies that the seascape is sterile and
descriptively prosaic compared to the countryside, while "boundless
Ocean" posits an attitude towards the sea that found fuller expression in Joseph Addison's 1712 Spectatoressay on the sublime. Furthermore, it is possible to detect that Tickell objects to the surrealism of
the piscatory eclogue, triggered by its engagement with the adynata (the
fact that we find a fish where we would expect a sheep).9 Tickell considers these new substitutes ("Sea-calves," "Sea-mews," and "Oysters")
wholly inappropriate, even grotesque. He resists the capacity of the
adynata to "deautomatize" our response to conventional language and
instead censures the writers of piscatorials for forsaking the safe and
conventional."0 Furthermore, while the adynata contributed towards
differentiating the piscatory from the conventional pastoral eclogue
through its deformation of conventional pastoral diction and topoi (its
surrealism validated the constant claims to originality made by writers
8 Guardian 28 (13 April 1713), in The Guardian, ed. John Calhoun Stephens (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1982), 123. Like Blair, Tickell adopts the phraseology
of Motteux's translation of Fontenelle. James Harris, in Philological Inquiries (1781), expressed his admiration for the style of Sannazaro's piscatorials: "I can by no means omit
their countryman SANNAZARIUS, who flourished in the Century following, and whose
Eclogues in particular, formed on the Plan of Fishing Life instead of Pastoral, cannot be
enough admired both for their Latinity and their Sentiment"(473).
9 For a discussion of the genealogy, critical reception, and functions of this trope, particularly in the eighteenth century, see A. D. Nuttall, "Fishes in the Trees," Essays in Criti-

cism 24 (1974): 20-38.

10Holt N. Parker, "Fish in Trees and Tie-Dyed Sheep: A Function of the Surreal in
Roman Poetry," Arethusa 25 (1992): 293-321, esp. 311.

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436

The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

of piscatorials and revitalized pastoral imagery), it provided critics with

a further excuse to attack it: namely, because of the other use of the adynata as a trope of bad taste. The charge of "ArbitraryChange" implies
that Sannazaro's innovation was merely whimsical, not a consequence
of rational thought or poetic sense. Beaupr6 Bell shared Tickell's displeasure with Sannazaro's introduction of fishermen into pastoral, although he did tentatively ascribe to him a motive for his radical transplantation of the pastoral setting from the countryside to the seashore:
"What might induce Sannazaroto affect this Inelegancy, is not certain;
the Situation of his Country, and particularly the Seat he generally resided at, seems not an improbable Conjecture.""1Bell, however, is not
sympathetic to the piscatory eclogue, and his objections towards it are,
like those of Tickell and Fontenelle, based on poetic and psychological
grounds:
not blameablemeerly for changingthe Scene,but for
we shall find Sannazarius
changing it for such a one as fills us with Ideas incoherentwith that Serenity
and Tranquillity,we are naturallyso desirous of. If the PastoralLife pleases
Us, because it is free from Care, and Trouble,the Laboriousand PainfullLife
of Fishermenmust for the same reason raise Ideas in Us, of a Nature far from
Pleasing.'2

Tickell's most categorical repudiation of the piscatory eclogue comes

at the end of Guardian32. Cast in the form of a pastoral fable, it describes
the appearance and behavior of four swains who make a trial of Menalcas's pipe in order to win the hand of his daughter Amaryllis. These
swains represent different types of pastoral, and their performance and
self-presentation is judged by the criteria established by Menalcas and
his daughter, who exemplify Tickell's idea of the pastoral norm. The
proceedings, however, are interrupted by the arrival of "A person in a
blue Mantle, crown'd with Sedges and Rushes ... an Angling-Rod in
his Hand, a Pannier upon his Back." A brief exchange ensues in which
he declares his intention to take Amaryllis from the plains to the seashore, but such presumption is not to be tolerated, and "The Shepherds
immediately hoisted him up as an Enemy to Arcadia,and plunged him
in the River, where he sunk, and was never heard of since."13
1 Beaupre Bell, The Osiers, a pastoral translatedfrom the Latin of Sanntiazarius,
u7ithsome
accounitof Sannazariuts,and his Piscatory Eclogues (Cambridge, 1724), 3.
12 Ibid., 2.
13 Guardian 32

(17 April 1713), 137. Interestingly, at the end of Milton's Lycidas, the
"uncouth Swain" twitches his "Mantle blue," having proclaimed Lycidas "Genius of the
shore." Moreover, earlier in the poem, "mantle" and "sedge" both feature in Milton's de-

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NicholasD. Smith

437

Tickell's fabular presentation of the demise of the piscatory eclogue

was wishful thinking; however, this position was perpetuated by a
poem by William Jones entitled "Arcadia, A Pastoral Poem." "Arcadia" (1762) is a verse rendition of Tickell's Guardian32 essay, although
there are subtle variations and amplifications. Jones retains the narrative order of events, which he disrupts only once through the introduction of an extra-pastoral competitor, necessitated by the fact that Jones's
Menalcas has not one but two daughters, Daphne and Hyla. This character is Colin, the representative of Spenserian pastoral, whose rustic
appearance ("Green were his buskins, green his simple vest") and "rustic lays" are in perfect accord with Hyla's bucolic garb: "Green were
her buskins, green the vest she wore, / And in her hand a knotty crook
she bore."14Footnotes (perhaps editorially interpolated) make it clear
which style of pastoral each character epitomizes: the note to the piscatory character, for instance, refers the reader to "Sannazaro, Ongaro,
Phineas Fletcher, and other writers of piscatory eclogues."15The piscatory section at the end of the poem is expanded significantly:
While thus, with mirth,they tun'd the nuptial strain,
A youth, too late, was hasteningo'er the plain,
Clad in a flowing vest of azure hue;
Blue were his sandals,and his girdle blue:
A slave, ill-dress'dand mean, behind him bore
scription of the river Cam in 1. 104: "His Mantle hairy, and his Bonnet sedge" (cited from
The CompletePoems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1957]). Tickell is actually endangering his own case by reminding his reader that the revered English pastoral poet did get as far as letting a river in his poem, though Tickell
could reply that Milton does not confuse the sedge with the truly pastoral swain as he
has done for comic effect. Bouchard observes that a reference to blue clothing occurs in
the earlier PiscatorieEclogues of Phineas Fletcher: "The fisher-boyes came driving up the
stream; / Themselves in blue, and twenty sea-nymphs bright / In curious robes, that well
the waves might seem" ("Piscatory Link," 242).
14 William Jones, "Arcadia,"in The Poetical Worksof Sir William Jones, Collated with the
best editions by ThomasParkin two vols (London, 18o8), 27, 17. The connections between the
poem and the essay were discussed by Nathan Drake in Essays, Biographical,Critical,and
Historical, Illustrative of the Tatler,Spectator,and Guardian,3 vols. (London, 1805), 3:134-38.
15 In his "Osservationi sopra LAminta," Gilles Menage credits Antonio Ongaro with
the creation of the piscatory fable: "Quanto alle Fauole Pescatorie, il primo, che ne fece, sul
Antonio Ongaro, il quale nel suo Alceo Fauola Pescatoria, e stato cosi diligente imitatore
del nostro Aminta, che quel suo Alceo communemente fra gl' Italiani Aminta Bagnatosi
domanda" ["As for Piscatory Fables, the first to make these was Antonio Ongaro who, in
his Piscatory Fable of Alceus, was such a zealous imitator of our Aminta, that commonly
among the Italians one asks for his Alceus by asking for 'Aminta Drowned']". See Torquato Tasso, Aminta, favola boscarecciadi TorquatoTasso, ed. Gilles Menage (Parigi, 1655),
100.

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438

The "PastoralDebate"in Eighlteenth-CenturyEngland

An osier basket, fill'd with fishy store,The lobsterwith his sable armourbold;
The tastefulmullet, deck't with scales of gold;
Brightperch, the tyrantsof the finnybreed;
And greylings sweet, thatcrop the fragrantweed:
Among them shells of many a tint appear.
(pp. 29-30)

The reference to the youth's arrival as "too late," while acceptable as a

straight factual detail -the competition has been already won by Tityrus (Amyntas in Tickell) and Colin-possibly also alludes pejoratively
to the comparatively recent ancestry of the piscatory eclogue. In Arcadia's predominately "green" landscape, the "azure" and "blue" appearance of the youth marks him out as a strange figure, while Jones's
piscatory amplification of the gifts that he brings with him evokes an
elaborateness and marine exoticism wholly inappropriate to the pastoral surroundings. Again his imprecation to the maiden to "leave thy
simple sheep" falls on deaf ears, and his exit is even more undignified as
the river into which he plunges in Tickell's fable refuses him sanctuary
on this occasion.
After the publication of Tickell's essays, a hiatus followed during
which Sannazaro's eclogues were permitted something of a respite
from negative critical appraisal, with the single exception of Bell in
1724. On 21 July 1750, however, Samuel Johnson made his contribution
to the debate with the publication of Rambler36. Given Johnson's distaste for the pastoral genre, his discussion of Sannazaro and the piscatory eclogue is surprisingly balanced, although his logical counterarguments to criticisms leveled against Sannazaro by Fontenelle and Tickell
lose their force as a result of a curious and new objection that Johnson himself raises against the genre. After supplying Sannazaro with
a motive for substituting fishermen for shepherds -"The conviction of
the necessity of some new source of pleasure," thereby contradicting
Tickell's charge of "ArbitraryChange" -Johnson attempts to rebuff the
popular censure that "the sea is an object of terrour" by arguing for
the autonomy of the poet in matters of composition. He may select his
images to satisfy the prevailing expectations of pastoral, and is just as
entitled to dissemble in the piscatory eclogue as in the pastoral eclogue.
The French critics would object, but as Johnson makes no indication that
the fisherman holds for him the same anti-pastoral associations as he
does for Rapin and Fontenelle, he has no trouble (theoretically at least)
with the fisherman being allowed the same liberties of poetic representation as the shepherd.

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Nicholas D. Smith

439

However, when Johnson addresses what he considers to be the two

defects of the piscatory eclogue, his criticism becomes more idiosyncratic. His summation of what he regards as the typical content of the
piscatory eclogue reads more like a piscatory rendition of the anonymous Receiptfor a PastoralElegy,printed in the LondonMagazine in March
1738:
Whenhe has once shewn the sun risingor setting upon it, curledits waterswith
the vernal breeze, rolled the waves in gentle succession to the shore, and enumerated the fish sporting in the shallows, he has nothing remainingbut what
is common to all other poetry, the complaintof a nymph for a drowned lover,
or the indignation of the fisher that his oysters are refused, and Mycon's accepted.16

If Johnson is offering this as Sannazaro, then he is misrepresenting him

slightly, as few of these topoi are to be found in the EclogaePiscatoriae
(though admittedly, the sun sets at the end of Eclogue 1 and Lycon refers
to his gift of oysters in Eclogue 2). It is more likely that Johnson is supporting his argument that the sea admits of fewer descriptive opportunities with examples of his own fabrication."7Johnson concludes his
excursus on Sannazaro and the piscatory eclogue by observing that
"Another obstacle to the general reception of this kind of poetry, is the
ignorance of maritime pleasures, in which the greater part of mankind
must always live." Sannazaro was hindered from perceiving this defect as his eclogues were written in Latin for "readers generally acquainted with the works of nature." Had he written his eclogues in "any
vulgar tongue, he would soon have discovered how vainly he had endeavoured to make that loved, which was not understood."'8 This is all
very perplexing, especially coming from one from an island race; however, Johnson harbored a natural prejudice towards "maritime pleasures."
My review of the critical texts that deal with the piscatory eclogue
reveals that the legacy of Sannazaro's piscatorials played a significant
role in the survival and development of a form of piscatory criticism,
16 The YaleEdition of the Worksof Samuel Johnson,16 vols. (New Haven: Yale
University
Press, 1958-go), vol. 3, The Rambler,ed. W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (1969), 198, 199.
All references to this edition are cited hereafter as YaleJohnson.Mycon is a fisherman in
Sannazaro's first piscatory eclogue.
17 William Roscoe agreed: "the varied aspects of mountains, vales, and forests, and the
innocuous occupations, and diversified amusements of pastoral life, are ill exchanged for
the uniformity of the watery element, and the miserable and savage employment of dragging from its depths its unfortunate inhabitants" (The Life and Pontificateof Leo the Tenth,
ed. and rev. by T. Roscoe, 3d ed., 2 vols. [London, 1876; ist ed. 18051, 2:184).
18 YaleJohnson,3:199.

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440

The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

although this was usually at his expense, as his eclogues were more
often as not cited as a freakish anomaly in the history of the pastoral
genre, and like all freaks, short-lived and incapable of reproduction."9
All too often Sannazaro was the victim of sweeping generalizations and
misrepresentations that make one question intermittently whether the
critics had even read his eclogues.0 Critics comment occasionally on
the dearth of subsequent imitations. Tickell was of the opinion that "he
[Sannazaro] hath few or no Followers, or if any, such as knew little of
his Beauties, and only copied his Faults, and so are lost and forgotten."
Blair agreed that "the innovation was so unhappy, that he has gained
no followers."21In the light of this fact a curious paradox emerges: both
Tickell and Blair contend that no piscatory eclogues were written after
Sannazaro, or if there were, that remain extant (and Tickell could in part
claim some responsibility for the reluctance of his contemporaries to
exploit this particular aspect of pastoral), yet piscatory criticism, for all
the subgenre's unpopularity, constantly figures in critical expositions of
pastoral. The lack of any independent pro-piscatory manifesto, coupled
with the genre's comparatively recent ancestry (only John Jones,
Thomas Warton, Richard Polwhele, and Nathan Drake linked Sannazaro to Theocritus, whose Idyll 21 featured two fishermen, thereby
giving the genre a degree of classical validation),2 meant that poets
hoping to secure patronage would not want to risk their reputations
19Johnson's famous misjudgment of Sterne's Tristam Shandy-"nothing odd will do
long"-could be applied equally to the history of the piscatory eclogue. Tickell implied
in his fable that the piscatory eclogue was a one-off; however, examples continued to be
produced across Europe, and in England in particular in the eighteenth century.
201 am reminded of Blair's refutation of Addison in his lecture on pastoral poetry.
Addison had censured Tasso's Aminttain Guardian28 (the essay was actually by Tickell,
and Blair erroneously cites essay 38 as the source of the quotation): "Mr. Addison, for
instance, in a Paper of the Guardian, censuring his Aminta, gives this example.... But
Tasso's Sylvia, in truth, makes no such ridiculous figure, and we are obliged to suspect
that Mr. Addison had not read the Aminta" (Blair, Lectures,2:350-51). This misrepresentation of Tasso was addressed earlier in the century in The Grub Street Journal,Thursday,
i9 May 1737.
21 Guardian28, 123; Blair, Lectures,2:348. For a refutation of Blair, see Gentlematn's
Magazine LIII pt. 2 (1783): 932. In book 3 of his LArtPoetique,Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye implies that the piscatory variation of pastoral did not move beyond the confines of Naples:
"Lotngtempsapres enicorrepristcette Musette / Un Bergersur les bordsdu peu connu Sebethe:/
Et ce flageol estoit resteNapolitain"["Along time afterwards a shepherd on the banks of the
little known Sebeto next took up this musette: and this flageolet remained Neapolitan"],
quoted by M. de Saint-Marc in Oeuvres de M. BoileauDespreaux,5 vols. (Paris, 1747), 2:40.
22Jones, Oppians Halieuticks, lo; TheocritiSyracusii quae supersunt, ed. Thomas Warton,
2 vols. (Oxford, 1770), 2:235; Richard Polwhele, TheIdyllia,Epigramsald Fragmets of Theocritus, Bioniaid Moschtuswith the Elegiesof Tyrtaeus(Exeter, 1786), 316; Nathan Drake, Literary
Hours; or, SketchiesCriticaland Narrative(London, 1798), 231.

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Nicholas D. Smith

441

with a subgenre whose pedigree and content had been the object of ridicule. Those poets who did compose piscatory eclogues and dedicate
them to patrons noticeably stress the novelty of their endeavor either in
an attempt to mitigate the negative associations of the genre or simply
because they were unaware of an English piscatorial tradition.-3 In the
"Dedication" to his collection of nine piscatory eclogues, for example,
Moses Browne, who was more conscious of such a tradition than most,
makes a claim to innovation: "Fisher'ssports descriptive, labour new."24
Although the piscatory eclogue often met with opprobrium, it did
have its champions, and again and again it was Tickell's Guardianessays
that they targeted.?5John Jones wrote, "I know there is an ingenious
Gentlemanwho is very angry with the WaterPoets. He in particular ridicules Sannazarius, and other Authors of Piscatory Eclogues; though that
Writer gained more Reputation by those Eclogues than all his other
Works."26One of Jones's arguments has already been quoted above, and
I will cover another of them when I discuss the piscatory eclogue in the
context of eighteenth-century attitudes towards the sea. That Jones is
responding to the Guardianessay can be detected from internal phraseological evidence. Tickell uses the phrase "uncomfortable and dreadful"
in essay 28, and Jones, tackling him head-on, repeats the phrase in order
to contradict the assertion: "If the Waters contain in them nothing but
what is uncomfortable and dreadful, 'tis very strange that Ovid, who
naturally loved what was soft and agreeable, should ever have made an
23 This was not the case in seventeenth-century Italy, where Sannazaro's eclogues continued to be regarded favorably. Sannazaro's Neapolitan imitator Nicolaus Giannettasius
admired the EclogaePiscatoriaeand considered them as a source of strength rather than
as a threat to poetic creativity. In the introduction to his collection of fourteen Piscatoria, Giannettasius invokes the authority of Sannazaro ("Actii nostri auctoritas"), who
first introduced fishermen into the eclogue ("piscatores introduxit in Eclogis"), to lend a
greater strength to his own poetical endeavor ("apud me plus valet"). See Nicolai Parthenii
Giannettasii.. . Piscatoria,et Nautica (Naples, 1685), sig. A3r.
24 Moses Browne, Angling Sports:In Nine Piscatory Eclogues, 3d ed. (London, 1773), ix.
Browne's eclogues were printed first in 1729 and reprinted in 1739. Sir John Hawkins recommended Browne's piscatory eclogues "to all lovers of Poetry and Angling." See Izaak
Walton, The CompleteAngler, ed. Sir John Hawkins (London, 1760), 236.
25 In a letter to TheGrubStreetJournal,Thursday, 19 May 1737, R. S. observed that "many
of our youth take for granted what they find in those books, forming their criticism much
according to the model of the writers of the Tatlers,Spectators,and Guardians,without further inspection." R. S. regrets that the unquestioning acceptance of what is expounded
in such publications as factual errors or critical misjudgments quickly become assimilated into critical discourse, and it was this fate that befell the critical reception of Sannazaro's eclogues in the eighteenth century, as is made clear by the frequent repetition of
Tickell's judgments (and phraseology) in the prefatory discourses and critical essays of
other writers.
26 Jones, Oppian'sHalieuticks, 10.

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The "PastoralDebate"in Eighlteenth-CenturyEngland

Attempt in this Kind."27Tickell's charge of "ArbitraryChange" is also

repeated and repudiated.
Another refutation of the Tickell essay was penned by John Rooke in
the "Preface" to his translation of Sannazaro's EclogaePiscatoriae.Rooke
writes, "Iam not insensible,thata late celebratedAuthor,in some of his Criticisms, has found Fault with SANNAZARIUS for choosing thteSea for the
Sceneof his Eclogues, andfor introducingFishermenand theirNets, insteadof
Shepherdsand theirFlocks."Rooke contends first that Sannazaro's poems
were designed to honor his native Italy, and since Italy is a maritime
country, he could not have selected a more appropriate scene for his
piscatorials. He then makes an appeal on aesthetic and stylistic grounds,
arguing that "antythe OrnamentalParts of Nature" are suitable subjects,
and that "if thle'Incidents be justly laid, the Descriptions compleat,and the
Characterstruly drawn,thePoemmust beperfect."Rooke, like Johnson after
him, concedes that the countryside is capable of furnishing the poet
with a greater diversity of matter for poetic treatment, but the sea has
its own equivalents of the typical furniture of pastoral, sufficient, "tho'
niotaltogetherso copious,for a Workof a differentkind;and Whales, Dolphins,
Tritons, atndSyrens may be introducedthereto as good Purpose,as Goatson
the Mountains, or Oxen in the Vales."28
Attitudes towards the sea, implicit in the designation of Sannazaro's
poems as "sea eclogues" by some critics, inevitably played a central role
in English piscatory criticism. Tickell's contention in the Guardianthat
the sea is a dreadful and threatening object was disputed by both John
Jones and Rooke: according to Jones, "Whoever affirms that there are
no beauteous Images to be drawn from the Waters, and that nothing
is to be found there but Objects of Dread and Horrour, was certainly
never at Sea but in a Storm"; and Rooke says that "A Sea-Skip, therefore, zvelldescrib'd,is far from striking us with that Horrour,whichlthis Author would insinuate."29 Jonathan Raban observes that at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, "blindness to the ocean was a common En27 Ibid. Jones is alluding to Ovid's Halicutica, which exists only as a 134-line fragment.
In his "Life of Sannazarius," John Rooke credits Sannazaro with its Renaissance transmission: "we must not forget to mention, how he brought out of France many antient
Books, which for some Ages had lain unknown; as namely, A Fragment of OVID's Poem
De Piscibus" (Select Translationsfrom the Worksof Sannazarius [London, 17261,xx).
28 Rooke, Select Translations,sig. A2v. In "A Dissertation upon Pastoral Poetry," Joseph
Warton concurred with Rooke with respect to the poetic opportunities that the piscatory
eclogue made available: "The Piscatory Eclogues of Sannazariusdeserve to be mentioned
with Applause. I know not why the Critics have condemned him for chusing Subjects
fruitful of new Imagery and Sentiments" (The Worksof Virgil: translatedinitoEniglishiBlanik
Verse,3d ed., 3 vols. [London, 1763], 1:47).
29 Jones, Oppian'sHalieuticks, io; Rooke, Select Trantslations,
sig. A2"2.

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443

glish affliction."3 Johnson regarded inlanders' ignorance of the sea as

one of the shortcomings of the piscatory eclogue, thereby articulating a
somewhat dated perception of the sea: "To all the inland inhabitants of
every region, the sea is only known as an immense diffusion of waters,
over which men pass from one country to another, and in which life
is frequently lost.""3His confident generalization is inescapably reductive, especially as he goes on to suggest that such a reader's imagination
would be prevented from responding to the description of the coast in
an eclogue and from forming the words into an image. The poem, he
asserts, would seem as unintelligible and perplexing as a sea-chart; but
there is no sophisticated reason why Johnson's urban reader should be
any more likely to respond imaginatively to an idealized description of
the countryside than of the seashore. Johnson seems to have been prejudiced against the inclusion of anything maritime in poetry, and the attitude he attributes to everyone in the Rambleressay is really his own.32
The compilation, moreover, of the first sea-dictionary by William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769), marks a shift away
from Johnson's "ignorance of maritime pleasures" to a genuine interest
(scientific and technical) in the sea and the way of life that was dependent upon it.
It is apparent from the quotations of Jones and Rooke above that by
the 1720S, the ocean was the subject of close scrutiny and conflicting responses. The appearance of Joseph Addison's essay in the Spectatorin
1712, one year before Tickell would refer to the dreadfulness of the sea
in the Guardian,provoked a radical change in the mental and thence the
literary perception of the sea:
of all Objectsthat I have ever seen, there is none which affectsmy Imagination
so much as the Sea or Ocean.I cannotsee the Heavings of this prodigious Bulk
of Waters,even in a Calm,without a very pleasingAstonishment;but when it is
30Jonathan Raban, TheOxfordBookof the Sea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 7.

31 YaleJohnson,3:199.
32 See Johnson's questioning

of Dryden's use of nautical terminology in Annus Mirabilis

in his "Life of Dryden," in Livesof the EnglishPoets, ed. G. B. Hill, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1905), 1:433-34. Boswell, in his Journalof a Tourto the Hebrides,records Johnson's reluctant, yet stoic, attitude to sea travel-and his seasickness (see Raban, OxfordBookof the
Sea, 137). In Rasselas,Imlac recounts his first sea voyage as follows: "When I first entered
upon the world of waters, and lost sight of land, I looked about me with pleasing terrour,
and thinking my soul enlarged by the boundless prospect, imagined that I could gaze
round for ever without satiety; but, in a short time, I grew weary of looking on barren
uniformity, where I could only see again what I had already seen" (YaleJohnson,vol. 16,
Rasselasand OtherTales,ed. Gwin J. Kolb [19901,35). The pleasures of the ocean are temporary, and the phrase "barren uniformity" recalls Tickell's "barren Beach and boundless
Ocean."

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The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

worked up in a Tempest,so thatthe Horisonon every side is nothingbut foaming Billows and floating Mountains,it is impossible to describe the agreeable
Horrourthat rises from such a Prospect.33
Addison's identification of the sea as an archetype of the sublime brings
with it associations that are inadmissible to pastoral. The idea of the sea
as a brooding mass with latent malevolent potential, but which commands an oxymoronic response, whether it is in calm or tempest, had
significant ramifications for the piscatory eclogue: namely, a new argument against the legitimacy of the subgenre. Formerly, Rapin and Fontenelle's objection had centered upon the character of the fisherman because of the laborious nature of his employment. A renewed awareness
of the sea and its destructive yet impressive power meant now that the
problem was not so much the fisherman as his domain.The fact that Sannazaro's fishermen never leave the shore is irrelevant to Tickell. Jones
may remark that the man who is afraid of the sea has only ever seen it in
a storm, but Addison's contention is that the sea, whatever state it is in,
arouses a sensation that is far above the permissible level of emotional
response to pastoral as eighteenth-century critics would have it.' Yet in
one respect, the argument about the sea and the piscatory eclogue is a
red herring. The eclogues of the eighteenth century are set by the river
rather than the sea, not so much because of shifting attitudes towards
the sea as the assimilation of a new and more acceptable influence into
the English piscatorial: Izaak Walton's The CompleatAngler.
A third attack on the Guardian essay can be found in Alexander
Tytler's "Introduction" to his edition of Phineas Fletcher's Piscatory
Eclogues.Tytler attributes the essay to Joseph Addison and rebukes him
for his unfair criticism of the piscatory eclogue, assigning the cause of
its unpopularity directly to him: "The name of PISCATORYECLOGUE
is perhaps unfavourable, from the severe treatment which Mr. Addison has been pleased to bestow on what was the first attempt in this
particular species of composition, viz. the Eclogues of Sannazarius."35
Tytler goes on to justify the merits of the piscatory eclogue, arguing
33Joseph Addison, Spectatorfor 20 September 1712, in TheSpectator,ed. Donald F. Bond,
5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 4:233-34.
34 John Dennis is an exception. The sublime as stimulated by climatic and religious
reflection is central to his discussion of poetry and is capable of exalting the "Low and
Humble" genre of pastoral. See The Critical Worksof JohnDennis, ed. E. N. Hooker, 2 VOlS.
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939), 1 :233.
35 Piscatory Eclogues, with other Poetical Miscellanies. By PhitneasFletcher.Illustrated with
notes, critical and explanatory.. . , ed. Alexander Fraser Tytler (Edinburgh, 1771), i-ii. The
edition received brief notice in MonithlyReview 47 (1772): 70-71.

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Nicholas D. Smith

445

reasonably that the "life of a fisherman admits often of scenes as delightful as those which the shepherd enjoys" and that since a "subject often
handled must become trite, the Piscatory Eclogue has the advantage
over Pastoral in displaying a field less beaten and less frequented." 6
While Tytler's choice of metaphor is questionable, his point that conventional pastoral has become formulaic through overuse is a valid one. As
with other classically inherited genres in the eighteenth century, once
pastoral began to betray signs of being outmoded or stale, poets writing
such poems were left with two alternatives to prolong its survival: they
could either treat it parodically, as is the case with John Gay's The Shepherd'sWeek(1714), or they could transform its conventions and revitalize
it through the introduction of new characters and a new locale.37 It is
for doing the latter that Tytler commends Fletcher's Piscatory Eclogues
to the reader.
In view of the prevailing negative critical appraisal of Sannazaro's
eclogues and the adoption of a distinctly new setting for the piscatory
eclogue (not a remote Sicily or Arcadia, but native English streams), it
is not surprising to find Moses Browne, one of the foremost writers of
piscatory eclogues in the eighteenth century, endeavoring to dissociate his poems from the legacy of Sannazaro. In "An Essay in Defence of
Piscatory Eclogues," he writes,
Perhapsit had been of advantage,and this subject had come with better appearance,if SANNAZARIUShad never wrote his SeaEclogues;the exercise of
fishing appears so contemptibleto him, that any that writes on a subject that
seems to be of a similaraspect, must suffer disadvantage.?
Browne attempts to make an important generic distinction between his
poems and those of Sannazaro -river fishing is a pastoral pursuit while
Mediterranean sea fishing is laborious and unpastoral-and he accentuates this distinction by pushing the setting of Sannazaro's eclogues
further out to sea than it really is. Browne assigns the Italian's eclogues
to the sub-order of the sea eclogue in an attempt to safeguard the repu36 Piscatory Eclogues,ed.

Tytler, vii.
For other examples of pastoral innovations see R. F. Jones, "Eclogue Types in English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century," Journalof Englishand GermanicPhilology 24 (1925):
33-60.
38Browne, Angling Sports, xxxvi. In 1647, Vossius remarked, "Quod de nautis, & piscatoribus, minus possumus dicere. Actius tamen Sannazarius, hos etiam inducens Eclogis
suis, satis feliciter id tractat argumentum" ["We can say less about sailors and fisherman.
Actius Sannazaro, however, introducing these also in his Eclogues, handles that subject
happily enough"] (GerardiJoannis Vossi Poeticarum institutionum, libri tres [Amsterdam,
1647], 3:31).
37

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446

The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

tation of his own poems from the negative connotations that he discerns in the eclogues of his predecessor; but his expedient runs into
difficulties if we look at the "Preface" to William Diaper's Nereides;or
Sea-Eclogues,which appeared in 1712. In his "Preface," Diaper claims
originality: "those who have made some Attempts that way, have only
given us a few Piscatory Eclogues, like the first Coasters, they always
keep within sight of Shore, and never venture into the Ocean."39Following Diaper's definition, the sea eclogue is set out in the midst of the
ocean, while the piscatory eclogue restricts its locale to the seashore.
Browne, therefore, is evidently contriving a spurious distinction on a
generic level, though as I shall show, his understanding of the piscatory eclogue is influenced by his appreciation of Walton's TheCompleat
Angler.
We can see this influence coloring Browne's opinion of Sannazaro, although meanwhile the presence of the real Sannazaro in these eclogues
may be strongly felt (Eclogue 4 is entitled "The Sea Swains").Y When
Browne refers to the "exercise of fishing," he is offering this as the proper
subject for the piscatory eclogue in place of love, which he complains
has become the only subject of pastoral: "We are obliged to the Italians and French for this eternal Phtyllissing."41This distinction between
the strictly literary treatment of fishing in the eclogues of Sannazaro,
where the pursuit is used simply as a pretext to extend the boundaries
of pastoral for personal artistic ends, and the practically orientated fishing eclogues of the eighteenth century is exploited to comic effect by
Richard Cumberland in TheNatural Son:
[Phoebe]:. .. Cou'd you not pass an hour with a book?the library
is open?
Jack:With a book! yes, Madam,I can take up a book, when
I've nothing else to do.
Phoebe,:
And what books do you chiefly read, pray?-poetry,
history,philosophy?
Jack: All's one for that; the Racing Calendar, Cock-fighter's
39 The Complete Worksof William Diaper, ed. Dorothy Broughton (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1952), 16.
40 Browne was responsible for the eighteenth-century revival of Walton. He issued his
first edition of Walton's AnIglerin 1750 and two further editions appeared in 1759 and 1772.
Browne, however, was not the first poet to exhibit a Waltonian influence. See John Whitney's The Genteel Recreation:Or, The Pleasure of Angling. A Poem. With a Dialogue betweenl
Piscatorand Corydon(London, 1700).
41 Browne, AnyglingSports, xxviii. Phyllis is apostrophized by Lycidas in Sannazaro's
Eclogue 1.

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Nicholas D. Smith

447

Guide, Complete Angler, and the rest of the classics;

nothing comes amiss.-Are you fond of fishing, Mrs.
Phoebe?
Phoebe:In theory extremely so; I can fish with Sannazariusall
the day long.
Jack:He's a happy man truly; but I cannot say I know the
gentleman;does he troll, pray now, or fish with a fly?
Phoebe:I ratherbelieve with a quill; Sannazariuswas a poet of
the fifteenthcentury.
Jack:And that's a wonderfulold age for a poet; but fishing's
a long-liv'd amusement.
Phoebe:'Tis a solitary one.42
Cumberland identifies the fundamental shift that took place in the literary presentation of fishing between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Sannazaro fishes with a quill rather than a rod and fly; the practicalities of angling are of no concern to him. References to fish or the
angler's tackle (and there are few of them) are intended to establish
the piscatorial setting. By contrast, the "exercise of fishing" is central to
Browne's eclogues.
Moreover, in his "Defence" Browne makes the distinction between
the types of fishing suitable for treatment in the piscatory eclogue:
"the most partial admirers of Pastoral can have no offence to find their
Swains angling by a clear stream . . . Fishers, indeed, following their
laborious employments on the main, are not to be properly reduced to
their taste, nor are these the most eligible subjects."43Nathan Drake was
of a similar opinion with respect to the pastoralism of river angling:
Whatevermay be thoughtof the employment [sea fishing].. . it will readily be
allowed thatour riversat least, fertilisethe most rich and romanticparts of our
island, and that they display to the fisher lingering upon their banks the most
lovely scenery,such as minglingwith the circumstancesof his amusement,and
the detail of the appropriateincident, would furnish very delightful pictures,
and in the genuine style of Bucolicpoetry."
On the unsuitability of sea fishing, Drake is less assertive than Browne,
who concurs with the view expressed by Rapin and Fontenelle that the
activity is a subject inappropriate to pastoral; yet both men agree that
angling by a purling brook is quite a different matter. It is this same ar42

Richard Cumberland, The Natural Son: A Comedy,2d ed. (London, 1785), 28-29.

43 Browne, Angling Sports, xxxv-vi.

44 Drake, LiteraryHours, 231.

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The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

gument that leads Sir John Hawkins also to classify Sannazaro's piscatorials as "sea eclogues":
The innocenceof Angling,the delightfulscenes with which it is conversant,and
its associatedpleasuresof ease, retirement,and meditation,have been a motive
to the introductionof a new species of Eclogue;wherein Fishersare actors,as
Shlepherds
are in the Pastoral.Mr.Addison,it is true, has censured Sannazarius
for such an attempt;but it is to be remembered,that his are Sea eclogues; the
very idea of which is surely inconsistentwith the calmness and tranquilityof
the pastorallife.45
The riverside is considered a congenial location for pastoral. By contrast, the Neapolitan shore is incommodious. William Beckford's
dreamy evocation of fishing-life on the Bay of Naples is not the kind of
image that Browne and Hawkins are concerned to propagate: "Ilay half
an hour gazing on the smooth level waters, and listening to the confused
voices of the fishermen, passing and repassing in light skiffs, which
came and disappeared in an instant."' The classification of Sannazaro's
piscatorials as "sea eclogues" serves to displace the negative critical associations of his legacy onto another order of pastoral while at the same
time revising the understanding of "piscatory eclogue" to make it accord with the English tradition of river angling. Consequently, to the
importance of the setting to the definition of "piscatory eclogue" we
may add also its content. Throughout the eighteenth century, the piscatory eclogue is concerned with fishing as recreation, not fishing as livelihood, and the fisher in English piscatorials is necessarily relocated away
from the seashore to the river inland.
Sannazaro's EclogaePiscatoriaewere integral to critical discussions of
"piscatory eclogue" in the eighteenth century. However, Sannazaro was
largely ignored by English piscatorial poets, who took Izaak Walton as
their model. Thomas Scott wrote approvingly of Walton's generic mixture, his synthesis of georgic with the piscatory strain:
Waltoncould teach, his meek enchantingvein
The shepherd'smingles with the Fisher'sstrain:
45 Hawkins, ed., Complete Angler, 234-35. In his 1784 edition of The CompleteAngler,
Hawkins included "on accountof its excellence"an EclogaPiscatoriaattributed to Metastasio, which he nonetheless acknowledges does not occur in any editions of Metastasio's
works (109-11).
of Fonthill,ed. Guy Chapman, 2 vols. (Cambridge:
46 TheTravelDiaries of WilliamBeckford
Cambridge University Press, 1928), 1:199. Beckford's description postdates the writings
of these men.

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449

Nature and Genius animateshis lines,

And our whole science in his precepts shines.47
For Moses Browne, who aligned his piscatory eclogues generically ("of
somewhat the same Kind") with Walton's Angler, the moral character of
Walton's "Piscator" and the integrity of his discourse were in perfect
accord with his expectations of pastoral: "I found, by the Dialogues of
his Anglers, how properly they would suit with the innocent, humble,
nature of Eclogue."4 Furthermore, he argued that the river angler was
the most appropriate character for pastoral by equating solitary contemplation with classical "otium" and making it a central feature of his
pastoral vision: "Who can have greater leisure, or be lead into more
agreeable contemplation, than an angler, peacefully seated on the banks
of a lonely river at his quiet recreation, attentively considering the gliding stream, mingled groves, hills, and open plains; the various landskip
around him."49
Browne's "Essay in Defence of Piscatory Eclogues" and "Editor's
Preface" to his 1750 edition of Walton's Angler combine to make a comprehensive statement with respect to his appreciation of Walton, and
Walton's influence on eighteenth-century piscatory pastoral. Consequently, a curious disparity may be observed between Sannazaro's omnipresence in the piscatory debate and his comparative absence as a
model for eighteenth-century piscatory eclogues. In spite of the damaging pronouncements of eighteenth-century critics and theorists of
pastoral, it was essentially the ascendance of Walton's The Compleat
Angler that precipitated the decline of the Sannazarian legacy in the
piscatory eclogue. Although the piscatory eclogue in the Sannazarian
mold became subordinate to Walton's influence, Walton himself evidently had no objection to piscatorials, praising as he does the compositions of Phineas Fletcher, whose Piscatorie Eclogues (published 1633)
were modeled closely on those of Sannazaro.5 William Hazlitt certainly
47 Thomas Scott, The Anglers: Eight Dialogues in Verse(London, 1758), 7. The Monthly Review observed that "These Dialogues are the prettiest things of the kind we have seen,
since the Piscatory Eclogues of Mr. Moses Browne" (Monthly Review 18 [17581:629).
48 Browne, Angling Sports, xxxiii. Thomas Pike Lathy praised Browne for his revival of
Walton's Angler and his poetic contribution to angling literature in general in canto 8 of
The Angler;A Poem in Ten Cantos (London, 1819), 148.
49 Browne, Angling Sports, xxii.
50 Izaak Walton, TheCompleatAngler, 1653-1676, ed. Jonquil Bevan (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1983), 334-35: "There came also into my mind at that time, certain Verses in praise
of a mean estate, and an humble mind, they were written by Phineas Fletcher:an excel-

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The "PastoralDebate"in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland

noticed that the influence of Walton was in the ascendant: "It is to

be doubted whether Sannazarius's Piscatory Eclogues are equal to the
scenes described by Walton on the banks of the river Lea."'"Samuel
Johnson, who did not wholly approve of Sannazaro, counted Walton
among his favorite authors and used the Angler as a work of reference
for the piscatory entries in his Dictionary.52In fact, it was owing to Johnson's instigation that Walton's Angler was revived in the eighteenth century, and it has not been out of print since.53
LadyMargaretHall, Oxford
lent Divine, anid an excellent Angler, and the Author of excellent piscatory Eclogues, in
which you shall see the picture of this good mans mind, and I wish mine to be like it."
For the connection between Sannazaro and Fletcher see Lee Piepho, "The Latin and English Eclogues of Phineas Fletcher: Sannazaro's Piscatoriaamong the Britons," Studies in
Philology8i (1984): 461-72.
51 Hazlitt, CompleteWorks,5:98.
52 See Edward Bensly, "Dr Johnson and Isaak Walton," Notes anidQueries, 13th ser., 149
(1925): 170.
53 For reference to Johnson's part in the rehabilitation of Walton's Angler see Izaak
Walton, The CompleatAntgler,ed. Moses Browne, 2d ed. (London, 1759), viii.

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