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mother having been the daughter of Edmund Cranmer, Archdeacon of Canterbury, and niece of Archbishop Cranmer. Subsequent writers have doubted the accuracy of these statements; and whilst they have indulged in various conjectures on the subject, without arriving at the fact, every edition of "The Complete Angler," except the first, has contained proof of the name of his wife.2

It is not unlikely that Walton's acquaintance with Dr King was the cause of his being introduced to the family of Floud of Canterbury, which was closely connected with that of Cranmer, whom King, many years afterwards, called his "old friends." 3 Susannah, daughter of Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury (son of Edmund Cranmer, Archdeacon of Canterbury, and grand-nephew of Archbishop Cranmer), was born in August 1579, and married a gentleman of the name of Floud, who is presumed to have been Robert, the son of John Floud, fifth son of Sir Thomas Floud, of Milgate, in the parish of Bradsted, in Kent, and the descendant of a family of considerable antiquity in Shropshire.5 He died before his wife, leaving two sons, John and Robert Floud, and a daughter of the name of Rachel.

Of the sons very little is known. Robert, the eldest, was of John's College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1627:6 he was executor to his mother in 1635; and wrote the commendatory verses to his "dear brother-in-law, Mr Is. Walton, on his Complete Angler," 7 which were prefixed to the second edition of that work, in 1655. John Floud, the second son, was under twenty-eight years of age at the death of his mother in 1635; and in 1655, at which time he was Master of Arts, he also addressed verses to his "dear brother-in-law, Mr Iz. Walton, upon his Complete Angler."

Their sister, Rachel Floud, who was probably born about the year 1605, was married to Izaak Walton, in the Church of St Mildred, at Canterbury, on the 27th of December 1626.8 Soon after Walton's marriage, Mrs Floud, his wife's mother, appears to

ii.

2 This fact was first pointed out in the New Series of the Retrospective Review, vol. 341, by the Author of this Memoir.

vide postea.

4 Vide the accompanying pedigree of Cranmer, for which the Editor is indebted to George Frederic Beltz, Esq., Lancaster Herald.

5 Harleian MS. 1548, f. 69b, and Additional MS. 5507, in the British Museum.

6 Additional MS. 5885, fo. 93.

7 To his signature to these verses the letter "C" is added, the meaning of which has not been discovered.

• Extract from the Register of "Maryagyes" in the parish of St Mildred, Canterbury, for the year 1626. "ISAACK WALTON and RACHEL FLOUDD weare maryed the 27th day of December."

have removed to London; and there is reason to believe that she resided with them until her decease. In the following passage in the Life of Hooker, Walton thus speaks of his connection with the Cranmer family; 9 and the two sisters of William Cranmer, with whom he says he had a "happy cohabitation,” were probably his mother-in-law, Mrs Floud, and the widow of Dr Spencer :

"About forty years past (for I am now in the seventieth of my age) I began a happy affinity with William Cranmer (now with God), grandnephew unto the great archbishop of that name, a family of noted prudence and resolution. With him and two of his sisters I had an entire and free friendship: one of them was the wife of Dr Spencer, a bosom friend, and some time com-pupil with Mr Hooker in Corpus Christi College in Oxford, and after president of the same. I name them here, for that I shall have occasion to mention them in this following discourse; as also their brother, of whose useful abilities my reader may have a more authentic testimony than my pen can purchase for him, by that of our learned Camden and others. This William Cranmer and his two forenamed sisters had some affinity and a most familiar friendship with Mr Hooker, and had had some part of their education with him in his house when he was parson of

9 The connections of the Cranmer family afford information about some of the persons to whom Walton became known, and elucidate many points in his history. George, the eldest son of Thomas Cranmer, and uncle of Mrs Walton, was born in 1578; he was educated by Richard Hooker, the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity; became a scholar of Christ Church, Oxford; and afterwards entered the service of his relation, William Davison, secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth. Upon the fall of that statesman, Cranmer became secretary to Sir Henry Killigrew in his embassy to France; and, after Killigrew's death, he accompanied Sir Edwyn Sandys in his travels into Germany and Italy, and was at Florence and Vienna about November 1596. [See a letter from Francis Davison, the eldest son of the secretary, to his father, printed in the memoir prefixed to Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, ed. 1826, p. xxxii. Soon after his return he accepted the appointment of secretary to Lord Mountjoy in Ireland, but was slain in an action with the Irish at Carlingford on the 13th of November 1600, and died unmarried [Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, I. 700]. Camden and Lloyd speak in strong terms of his abilities and learning, and he is often mentioned by Walton. The second son, Thomas Cranmer, was living in 1617. William Cranmer, the third son, who was a particular friend of Walton's, was a merchant in London, and left a son, Sir William Cranmer, who was governor of the Merchants Adventurers of England, and died unmarried in his sixty-seventh year, on the 21st of September 1697. [Vide the inscription on the monument erected to his memory in the Church of St Mildred, Canterbury, by his nephew and executor, Mr John Kenrick.] The daughters of Thomas Cranmer were Dorothy, born in 1575, married to an individual of the name of Field (possibly Dr Richard Field, Dean of Gloucester, the friend of Hooker, who is mentioned as "that great schoolman" in Walton's introduction to the collected edition of the Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert), she was living in 1635. Rachel, the second daughter, was born in 1577, married in 1597 John Blowfield, gentleman, and died in August 1600, leaving one son of the name of George [M. I. in Margate Church, printed in Cozens' Tour through the Isle of Thanet, p. 452]. Elizabeth, the third daughter, was born in 1574, married in 1592 Alexander Norwood, gentleman, and was living in 1617; Susannah, the fourth daughter, married Mr Floud; Jane, the fifth daughter, was born in 1580; the sixth daughter, Anne, married in 1581 John Sellar, had issue, and was living in 1617; and Margaret, the youngest daughter, who was born in 1585, was living in 1604. It is supposed that two of the daughters married persons of the names of Boote and Parry; but it is certain that one of them was the wife of Dr John Spencer, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the bosom friend and fellow-pupil of Hooker, and the editor of his works. Dr Spencer died in 1614 [Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, II. 145], and was probably the father of the Dr John Spencer who is described in the will of Mrs Floud in 1635 as "her cousin."

Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, in which city their good father then lived. They had, I say, a great part of their education with him, as myself, since that time, a happy cohabitation with them." 1

The maiden name of the mother of Mrs Walton has not been positively ascertained; but it is nearly certain that she was Anne, the sister of John Carpenter, second son of John Carpenter, of Rye, in Sussex, who married Anne, the sister of Secretary Davison, which alliance would explain the connection that is known to have existed between the families of Davison and Cranmer, and may have induced Walton to insert "The Beggars' Song," which, he says, in the "Complete Angler," was written by Francis Davison, the secretary's eldest son.

On the 31st of March 1631, Walton lost his revered friend, Dr Donne. About three weeks before his death, Donne, to use Walton's words, "sent for many of his most considerable friends, with whom he took a solemn and deliberate farewell, commending to their considerations some sentences useful for the regulation of their lives, and then dismissed them, as good Jacob did his sons, with a spiritual benediction." 3 It would seem that Walton was not one of the friends there alluded to; but with Dr King, Dr Winniff (afterwards Bishop of Lincoln), and Dr Montfort, then a residentiary of St Paul's, he attended Donne in almost his last hours, and received his dying wishes. This fact may be inferred from King's letter to Walton upon his Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, which will be again noticed, wherein he said, "I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable friend, Dr Donne, late Dean of St Paul's Church, who not only trusted me as his executor, but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent sermons of his, now made public; professing before Dr Winniff, Dr Montfort, and, I think, yourself, then present at his bedside, that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the press; together with which (as his best legacy) he gave me all his sermon-notes, and his other papers, containing an extract of near fifteen hundred authors. How these were got out of my hands, you, who were the messenger for them, and how lost both to me and yourself, is not now season

1 Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, 1817. vol. i. pp. 304, 305. In another place (p. 446) Walton says, "Dr Spencer's wife was my aunt, and sister to George Cranmer, of whom I have spoken."

2 A letter is preserved in the State Paper Office from John Carpenter to his brotherin-law, Secretary Davison, dated 7th October 1586, in which he speaks of his "brother Cranmer," to whom he had written respecting his son George, who was the George Cranmer mentioned in the preceding page.

3 Life of Donne, ed. Zouch, I. 155.

able to complain."4 As the younger Donne bequeathed his father's collection of extracts to Bishop King to be given to the son of Izaak Walton, it may be inferred that Dr Donne's eldest son was the person who desired Walton to claim his father's MSS. from King.

Some time before his death, Dr Donne caused several seals to be made of helitropium, or blood-stone, and engraved with a representation of the Saviour extended on an anchor, instead of the cross-a beautiful emblem of the Christian faith-which he presented to his most intimate friends, among whom were Sir Henry Wotton, Dr Hall, then Bishop of Exeter, Dr Duppa, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, Dr King, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, George Herbert, the author of "The Temple,” 6 and Walton. Donne adopted this device instead of the crest of his family, a sheaf of snakes; and the seal sent by him to Herbert was accompanied by some verses on the subject, which, with Herbert's reply, were printed by Walton in his Life of Donne. They are full of the quaint conceits with which the poetry of the time abounded, and however agreeable to the taste of that age, they have few charms for the present. Walton always used the seal that was given to him by Donne, of which an accurate engraving will be found in a subsequent page.

Walton wrote the following Elegy upon Donne, and, with similar tributes to his worth by Dr King, Sir Lucius Carey, Endymion Porter, and several other persons, it was printed at the end of an edition of Donne's Poems, in 1633, of which work it is not improbable that Walton was the editor.8 The Elegy is more remarkable for fervour than elegance; but it contains a few passages illustrative of the writer's own feelings and situation, which render it of interest:

"IS DONNE, great DONNE, deceased? then, England, say
Thou hast lost a man where language chose to stay,9

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7 It is impressed on his will, and also on that of his son.

5 Vide postea, p. 1xx.

8 The work was printed for John Marriott, and contained an address "from the Printer to the Understanders," which does not bear sufficient resemblance to Walton's style to justify its being positively attributed to his pen; but it is not unlikely that the following "Hexastichon Bibliopola" was written by Walton, notwithstanding that the name of the publisher is affixed to it:

9 The following

printed in 1635:

"I see in his last preach'd and printed book,

His picture in a sheet; in 'Paul's I look,

And see his statue in a sheet of stone;

And sure his body in the grave hath one:

Those sheets present him dead-these, if you buy,

You have him living to eternity.

JO. MAR."

variations occur in the next edition of Donne's Poems, which was

"Our Donne is dead; England should mourn, may say
We had a man whose language chose to stay."

1 Her.

And show its graceful power. I would not praise
That, and his vast wit (which in these vain days
Make many proud), but as they serv'd to unlock
That cabinet, his mind: where such a stock
Of knowledge was reposed, as all lament
(Or should) this general cause of discontent.
And I rejoice I am not so severe,
But (as I write a line) to weep a tear
For his decease; such sad extremities
May make such men as I write Elegies.

And wonder not; for when a general loss
Falls on a nation, and they slight the Cross,
God hath rais'd prophets to awaken them
From stupefaction; witness my mild pen,

Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must
Freely and boldly, for the cause is just.

Dull age! Oh I would spare thee; but th'art worse;
Thou art not only dull, but hast a curse

Of black ingratitude; if not, couldst thou

Part with miraculous DONNE, and make no vow
For thee and thine, successively to pay

A sad remembrance to his dying day?
Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein
Was all philosophy? Was every sin
Character'd in his Satires? made so foul

That some have fear'd their shapes, and kept their soul
Freer2 by reading verse? Did he give days

Past marble monuments to those whose praise

He would perpetuate? Did he (I fear

The dull will doubt) these at his twentieth year?
But, more matur'd, did his full soul conceive,
And in harmonious, holy numbers weave

A Crown of sacred sonnets,3 fit to adorn

A dying martyr's brow; or to be worn
On that blest head of Mary Magdalen,

After she wip'd Christ's feet, but not till then?
Did he (fit for such penitents as she
And he to use) leave us a Litany,
Which all devout men love, and sure it shall,
As times grow better, grow more classical?
Did he write Hymns, for piety and wit 4
Equal to those great grave Prudentius writ?
Spake he all languages? knew he all laws?
The grounds and use of physic, but, because
'Twas mercenary, waiv'd it? Went to see
That blessed place of Christ's nativity?
Did he return and preach him? preach him so
As none but he did, or could do? They know 5
(Such as were blest to hear him know) 'tis truth.
Did he confirm thy aged? convert thy youth?
Did he these wonders? and is this dear loss
Mourn'd by so few? (few for so great a cross.)
But sure the silent are ambitious all

To be close mourners at his funeral;
If not, in common pity they forbear

By repetitions to renew our care;

Or, knowing, grief conceiv'd, conceal'd, consumes
Man irreparably (as poison'd fumes

2 Safer.

3 "La Corona," a Holy Sonnet on the Crown of Thorns, printed in Donne's Poems, ed. 1633. p. 28, and commencing thus:

"Deign at my hands this Crown of prayer and praise."

For piety, for wit.

5 As since St Paul none did, none could! those know
(Such as were blest to hear him) this is truth.

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