love virtue, would not rejoice to know that this good man was as remarkable for the meekness and innocence of his life, as for his great and useful learning; and indeed as remarkable for his fortitude, in his long and patient suffering (under them, that then called themselves the Godly party) for that doctrine, which he had preached and printed, in the happy days of the nation's and the church's peace? And who would not be content to have the like account of Dr. Field, that great schoolman, and others of noted learning ? And though I cannot hope, that my example or reason can persuade to this undertaking, yet I please myself, that I shall conclude my preface, with wishing that it were so. Dr. Woodford also wrote complimentary verses to Walton upon his life of Hooker, which are dated on the 10th of March, 1670, and were intended for the collected edition of the " Lives,” published in that year. A line in those verses, renders it likely that Walton wrote the Life of Hooker, and possibly also that of Herbert, in Bishop Morley's house at Chelsea. After four verses in praise of Hooker, the following “ Ritornata,” in allusion to Walton, occurs ; “To Chelsea, song ; there, tell thy patron's 11 friend Bid him cheer up, the day's his own; Can all th' assaults of age defy; Soon after the publication of that volume, Walton presented a copy of it to Walter Lord Aston, which is preserved in the library at Tixall ; and the following inscriptions prove that he was highly esteemed by that nobleman. Walton wrote on the first leaf, “For my Lord Aston, “ Iz. WA." 11 Variation.] Master's, ed. 1675. Beneath which his lordship added, “ Izake Walton gift to me, June ye 14, 1670, wch I most thankfully for his memmory off mee acknowledge a greate kindnesse. “ WALTER Aston." 12 On the 1st of July, 1670, Walton presented a petition, in which he is described as “ Isaac Walton, gentleman, to the “ Court of Judicature for determination of differences touching houses burnt in London,” stating that the premises in Paternoster Rowl which he held by lease from Gilbert, late Bishop of London, were burnt in the late fire; and that he was willing to rebuild them “so as he may be encouraged thereto by an increase of years to his term in being, and abatement of rent, as to the court shall seem meet ;” and he prayed that the then Bishop of London or his deputy should be summoned to attend the court, to the end that such order and decree might be made concerning the premises as to the court should seem meet. The bishop referred the matter wholly to the court; who decreed that the petitioner should rebuild the premises, having his lease extended to sixty years at the old rent, and paying the arrears then due. 14 For nearly three years from this time nothing is known of Walton; and the next notice of him is in February, 1673, when he dedicated the third edition of the “ Reliquiæ Wottonianæ” to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, son of Henry Lord Stanhope, by Katherine, daughter of Lady Wotton. The letter to that nobleman, like every thing he wrote, is very characteristic of his mind and feelings; and is of additional interest from the allusion which it contains to his friend, Charles Cotton. “MY LORD, “I have conceived many reasons why I ought, in justice, to dedicate these Reliques of your great uncle, Sir Henry Wotton, to your lordship; some of which are, that both your grandmother and mother had a double right to 12 Tixall Letters, or the Correspondence of the Aston Family. 12mo. London, 1815, vol. ii. p. 122. 13 Vide antea. 14 Additional MS. in the British Museum, No. 5088, f. 142. ancestors. them by a dedication when first made public; as also for their assisting me then, and since, with many material informations for the writing his life ; and for giving me many of the letters that have fallen from his curious pen; so that they being now dead, these reliques descend to you, as heir to them, and the inheritor of the memorable Bocton Palace, the place of his birth, where so many of the ancient, and prudent, and valiant family of the Wottons lie now buried; whose remarkable monuments you have lately beautified, and to them added so many of so great worth, as hath made it appear that at the erecting and adorning them you were above the thought of charge, that they might, if possible, (for 'twas no easy und taking), hold some proportion with the merits of your My Lord, these are a part of many more reasons that have inclined me to this dedication; and these, with the example of a liberty that is not given, but now too usually . taken by many scribblers, to make trifling dedications, might have begot a boldness in some men of as mean as my abilities to have undertaken this. But indeed, my lord, though I was ambitious enough of undertaking it'; yet as Sir Henry Wotton hath said in a piece of his own character, that he was condemned by nature to a bashfulness in making requests, so I find myself (pardon the parallel) so like him in this, that if I had not more reasons than I have yet exprest, these alone had not been powerful enough to have created a confidence in me to have attempted it. Two of my unexprest reasons are (give me leave to tell them to your lordship and the world) that Sir Henry Wotton, whose many merits made him an ornament to your family, was yet so humble, as to acknowledge me to be his friend ; and died in a belief that I was so : since which time, I have made him the best return of my gratitude for his condescension, that I have been able to express, or he capable of receiving: and am pleased with myself for so doing. “ My other reason of this boldness, is an encouragement (very like a command) from your worthy cousin, and my friend, Mr. Charles Cotton, who hath assured me, that you are such a lover of the memory of your generous uncle, Sir Henry Wotton, that if there were no other reason than my endeavours to preserve it, yet, that, that alone would secure this dedication from being unacceptable. “ I wish that not he nor I be mistaken ; and that I were able to make you a more worthy present. “My Lord, I am and will be “ Your humble and most affectionate Servant, “ IZAAK WALTON." Feb. 27, 1672. Walton says, in the advertisement to the reader of that , edition, “ You may be pleased to take notice that in this last relation of Sir Henry Wotton's life, 'tis both enlarged, and some small errors rectified, so that I may now be confident, there is no material mistakes in it;" and adds that “there is in this impression an addition of many letters ; in which the spirit with which they were writ will assure them to be Sir Henry Wotton's.” A very interesting letter from Walton to his publisher, Marriott, dated at Winchester on the 24th August, 1673, which is now for the first time printed, proves that the weight of eighty years had had slight effect upon his mental or bodily powers. He was then, it appears, employed in collecting particulars of the life of the celebrated John Hales of Eton; and purposed visiting London in the ensuing October. The information about Hales was intended for William Fulman, the author of the “ Notitia Oxoniensis Academiæ," who was one of Gale's assistants in the “ Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores.” MR. MARRIOTT, “I HAVE received Bentevolio, and in it Mr. Her life; I thank you for both. I have since I saw you received from Mr. Milington so much of Mr. Hales his life as Mr. Faringdon had writ; and have made many inquiries concerning him of many that knew him, namely of Mrs. Powny, of Windsor, (at whose house he died), and as I have heard, so have set them down, that my memory might not lose them. Mr. Mountague did at my being in Windsor promise me to summon his memory, and set down what he knew of him. This I desired him to do at his best leisure, and write it down, and he that knew him and all his affairs best of any man is like to do it very well, because I think he will do it affectionately, 66 "15 so that if Mr. Fulman make his queries concerning that part of his life spent in Oxford, he will have many, and good, I mean true informations from Mr. Faringdon, till he came thither, and by me and my means since he came to Eton. “ This I write that you may inform Mr. Fulman of , it, and I pray let him know I will not yet give over my queries; and let him know that I hope to meet him and the Parliament in health and in London in October, and then and there deliver up my collections to him. In the mean time I wish him and you health ; and pray let him know it either by your writing to him, or sending him this of mine. “God keep us all in his favour, ( IZAAK WALTON.” Walton's memoranda respecting Hales, which will be found in the notes, are dated on the 28th of October following, when, it may be inferred from his letter, he was in London. Some of the facts there stated are new and curious, especially the account of the portrait of Hales, painted after his death by Anne Lady Howe, who was the sister of Henry King, bishop of Chichester, and married, first, John Dutton, of Sherborne, Esq., and secondly, Sir Richard Howe, Bart. Walton describes her as “a most generous and ingenious lady;" he mentions her in his will; and she was probably one of his oldest friends. The tenth edition of Herbert's poem entitled “The Temple," of which Walton stated in 1670 that more than twenty thousand copies had been sold, was published in 1674, and his “Life of Herbert” was then, for the first time, prefixed to it. In the following year, the lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, were reprinted, upon which occasion Charles Cotton wrote a poem dated on the 17th of January, 1672-3, addressed « To my old 16 17 15 Fulman's MSS. Vol. XII. in Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 16 Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, ii, 119. 17 The edition of 1675 is called, in the title-page, “the Fourth ;” but it was only the second collected edition of the Lives ; the intermediate editions being respectively prefixed to Donne's Sermons, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, and Herbert's Temple. |