EX TERRIS M. S. HERE LYETH BURIED SO MUCH AS COULD DYE OF ANNE, THE WIFE OF WHO WAS A WOMAN OF REMARKABLE PRUDENCE, SHE DYED! (ALAS, THAT SHE IS DEAD!) STUDY TO BE LIKE HER. A draught of this epitaph in Walton's own hand is written in his Prayer-Book before mentioned, which tends to prove that it was composed by himself, but the alterations in the manuscript are rather curious. The words "Ex terris M. S." do not occur; the article "the" between "of" and "primitive piety" is an interlineation, upon which Mr Bowles has remarked that the alteration seemed "designedly to imply that her piety was that primitive piety which the reformed Church of England professed; therefore the correction was important." "Alas, that she is dead!" was originally "Alas! alas! that she dyed;" and though Walton substituted "is dead" for "died," he did not omit the second interjection. It must not escape observation that Dr Morley was Bishop of Worcester at the time when Mrs Walton died in that city; and as neither Walton nor herself appear to have had any relations there, it is reasonable to suppose that they went to Worcester on a visit to him. If this conjecture be correct, it is easy to imagine the happiness which the meeting afforded to all the parties. Every wish of Morley's heart must at that moment have been realised. The cause in which he had suffered was triumphant ; the monarch for whose sake he had undergone poverty and privation filled the throne of his ancestors; the Church of England, which had been threatened with destruction, was again re-established; and he himself had reaped the reward of his virtues and consistency, by being raised to a situation of the highest dignity in her service. Dr Morley was, however, regularly, and almost daily in the House of Lords from December 1661 to the middle of May 1662; but the Waltons probably continued at the palace whilst the bishop attended his parliamentary duties. Dr Morley was translated to the see of Winchester in April 1662, and removed soon afterwards to his new diocese. Up to that period Walton seems to have lived at Clerkenwell; but not long after Morley's translation, he found a permanent asylum for his old age in the episcopal residence. The occupation attendant upon his removal, the change of scene, and his own practical piety, combined to alleviate his grief for the loss of his wife; and the evening of his days was happily passed in literary pursuits, in the society of his family and friends, and in the performance of his religious duties. He was in his sixty-ninth year when he became the guest of Dr Morley, at which time his only surviving son, Isaak, was eleven, and his daughter, Anne, about fourteen years of age. Dr John Donne, the eldest son of the learned divine of that name, died in the winter of 1662.8 Though not destitute of talents, he appears to have been a very eccentric character; and Anthony Wood speaks of him as an "atheistical buffoon, a banterer, and a person of over-free thoughts;' adding, however, that he was valued by Charles the Second. The qualities which called forth the censure of the great biographer of the University of Oxford, probably attracted the favour of that prince; and he seems to have lived on very cordial terms with many noblemen of the time. Dr Donne made his will on the 21st of July 1657, and as it is a very curious document, it was printed in February 1662. A copy of it will be found in the notes to this memoir; and it is here noticed on account of the following bequests to Walton: "To Mr Isaac 7 Lords' Journals, vol. xiv. passim. 8 The following account of Dr Donne's children is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1835: John, eldest son of the Dean, is not so well known but that some account may be here given of him. He was born about the year 1604, and is mentioned in his father's will (dated 13th of December 1630, and is proved in the P. C. C. on the 5th of April in the following year), together with his brother and four sisters. He was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, and afterwards being LL.D. of Padua, was incorporated in the same degree at the former university, June 30, 1638. "He wrote several poetical trifles, some of which are enumerated in the Fasti (edit. Bliss), i. 503., He died in the winter of 1662, and was buried near the standing dial in the yard at the west end of St Paul's, Covent Garden. Whether he was married is not stated by any biographer; but it is not improbable he was the same John Donne who was married to Mary Staples at Camberwell Church, 27th March 1627. George Donne, second son of the Dean, was baptized May 9, 1605, at Camberwell, and is described in his father's funeral certificate (Coll. Arm. I. 23, p. 39) as captain and serjeant-major of all the forces in the Isle of St Christopher. He married and had a daughter, Margaret, baptized at Camberwell, March 22, 1637-8." See also Gentleman's Magazine, Aug. 1835; Dr Southey's Life of Cowper, vol. i. p. 4; and Letters respecting Dr Donne's marriage, in the Loseley Papers, p. 321. Walton, I give all my writings under my father's hand, which may be of some use to his son if he makes him a scholar. To the Reverend [Henry King,] Bishop of Chichester, I return that cabinet that was my father's, now in my dining-room, and all those papers which are of authors analysed by my father; many of which he hath already received with his Common Place-Book, which I desire may pass to Mr Walton's son as being more likely to have use for such a help, when his age shall require it." In December 1662, Walton obtained from his friend Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, a lease of a newly-erected building, adjoining a house called the Cross Keys, in Paternoster Row, for forty years, at the yearly rent of forty shillings, which premises were burnt in the fire of London.9 The first two years of Walton's residence with Bishop Morley were employed in writing the Life of Richard Hooker, the learned author of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The memoir appeared in January 1665, and in the dedication to the Bishop of Winchester, dated on the 28th of November 1664, Walton says, "It was written by me under your roof, for which and more weighty reasons, you might (if it were worthy) justly claim a title to it; but indeed, my Lord, though this be a well-meant sacrifice to the memory of that venerable man, yet I have so little confidence in my performance, that I beg your pardon for subscribing your name to it; and desire all that know your Lordship to receive it, not as a dedication by which you receive any access of honour, but rather as a more humble and more public acknowledgment of your long-continued, and your now daily favours to your most affectionate and most humble servant, "IZAAK WALTON." A very interesting letter from Dr King, Bishop of Chichester, to Walton, commencing with the homely but emphatic address of "Honest Isaak," "1 was prefixed to the memoir; and as that letter contains many illustrations of Walton's life, such parts of it as have not been already introduced will be inserted. Bishop King commences with this flattering testimony to Walton's worth: “Though a familiarity of more than forty years' continuance, and the constant experience of your love, even in the worst of the * Vide postea. 1 This address is omitted in the first edition of the Life of Hooker, but occurs in the second, and all subsequent editions. late sad times, be sufficient to endear our friendship, yet, I must confess my affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to many that know and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public spirit, testified in a diligent, true, and useful collection of so many material passages as you have now afforded me in the life of venerable Mr Hooker; of which, since desired by such a friend as yourself, I shall not deny to give the testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned books; but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you, that you have been happy in choosing to write the lives of three such persons as posterity hath just cause to honour; which they will do the more for the true relation of them by your happy pen of all which I shall give you my unfeigned censure." 2 Bishop King then notices the Lives of Donne and Wotton, the want of which would, he says, "have been a prejudice to all lovers of honour and ingenious learning," and proceeds to relate what he had heard respecting Hooker and his works. He congratulated Walton on this undertaking, as being more proper to you than any other person, by reason of your long knowledge and alliance to the worthy family of the Cranmers (my old friends also), who have been men of noted wisdom, especially Mr George Cranmer, whose prudence added to that of Sir Edwin Sandys, proved very useful in the completing of Mr Hooker's matchless books one of their letters I herewith send you, to make use of, if you think fit. And let me say further; you merit much from many of Mr Hooker's best friends then living; namely, from the ever-renowned Archbishop Whitgift, of whose incomparable worth, with the character of the times, you have given us a more short and significant account than I have received from any other pen. You have done much for the learned Sir Henry Savile, his contemporary and familiar friend." 3 But he reminded Walton of two omissions in his account of Savile's works; and thus concludes, "Not to trouble you further; your reader (if according to your desire, my approbation of your work carries any weight) will here find many just reasons to thank you for it; and possibly for this circumstance here mentioned (not known to many), may happily apprehend one to thank him, who heartily wishes your happiness, and is unfeignedly, Sir, your ever-faithful, and affectionate old friend, HENRY CHICHESTER." CHICHESTER, November 17, 1664. 2 Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, i. 21, 22. 3 Ibid. p. 31. It has been inferred from Bishop King's allusion to Sir Henry Savile, that Walton intended to write the life of that learned person; but King evidently alluded only to what Walton says of Savile in the Life of Hooker; and as there is nothing else to justify the opinion that he ever intended to be the biographer of Savile, it is most probably without foundation.5 Several passages in the introduction to the Memoir of Hooker, present information respecting many of Walton's early friends, and explain his motives for writing it: "I have," he says, "been persuaded by a friend, that I ought to obey, to write the Life of Richard Hooker, the happy author of five (if not more) of the eight learned Books of 'The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.' And though I have undertaken it, yet it hath been with some unwillingness; foreseeing that it must prove to me, and especially at this time of my age, a work of much labour to inquire, consider, research, and determine what is needful to be known concerning him. For I knew him not in his life, and must therefore not only look back to his death (now sixty-four years past), but almost fifty years beyond that, even to his childhood and youth, and gather thence such observations and prognostics, as may at least adorn, if not prove necessary for the completing of what I have undertaken." 6 The friend there mentioned was, it is most likely, Bishop Morley. Walton then alludes to his connection with the Cranmers, which has been before noticed, and proceeds to say. "I had also a friendship with the Reverend Dr Usher, the late learned Archbishop of Armagh; and with Dr Morton, the late learned and charitable Bishop of Durham; as also with the learned John Hales of Eton College and with them also (who loved the very name of Mr Hooker) I have had many discourses concerning him; and from them and many others that have now put off mortality, I might have had more informations, if I could then have admitted a thought of any fitness for what by persuasion I have now undertaken. But though that full harvest be irrecoverably lost, yet my memory hath preserved some gleanings, and my Athen. Oxon. by Bliss. : Hawkins says that the supposition that Walton intended to write the Life of Savile, "does very well connect with what the late Mr Des Maizeaux some years since related to a gentleman now deceased (William Oldys, Norroy King of Arms), from whom myself had it; viz., that there were then several Letters of Walton extant, in the Ashmolean Museum, relating to a Life of Sir Henry Savile, which Walton had entertained thoughts of writing." Upon inquiry it has, however, been found that there are no Letters of the kind in the Ashmolean Museum. 6 Life of Hooker, ed. 1665. |