diligence made such additions to them, as I hope will prove useful to the completing of what I intend.” 7 In a candid address to his readers, Walton deprecated censure, and solicited the correction of any errors in his work. He investigated at some length the authenticity of the last three Books of the "Ecclesiastical Polity;" and though the garrulity of age may be detected in the digressions into which he has fallen, as well as in other parts of his work, it is nevertheless a very interesting piece of biography; and no one can read the concluding paragraph without being forcibly impressed with the religious spirit of the writer: "More he would have spoken, but his spirits failed him, and after a short conflict betwixt nature and death, a quiet sigh put a period to his last breath, and so he fell asleep. And here, I draw his curtain, till with the most blessed Martyrs and Confessors, this most learned, most humble, holy man, shall also awake to receive an eternal tranquillity, and with it a greater degree of glory than common Christians shall be made partakers of; till which blessed time, let glory be to God on high, let peace be upon earth, and good-will to mankind. Amen, Amen." 8 This passage was however altered when the Memoir was reprinted in 1670; and in the edition of 1675 it stands thus : "More he would have spoken, but his spirits failed him, and after a short conflict betwixt nature and death, a quiet sigh put a period to his last breath, and so he fell asleep. And here I draw his curtain, till with the most glorious company of the Patriarchs and Apostles, the most noble army of Martyrs and Confessors, this most learned, most humble, holy man shall also awake to receive an eternal tranquillity, and with it a greater degree of glory than common Christians shall be made partakers of. In the meantime, bless, O Lord! Lord, bless his brethren, the clergy of this nation, with ardent desires, and effectual endeavours to attain, if not to his great learning, yet to his remarkable meekness, his godly simplicity, and his Christian moderation, for these are praiseworthy; these bring peace at the last! and let the labours of his life, his most excellent writings, be blessed with what he designed when he undertook them, which was, glory to thee, O God on high, peace in thy church, and goodwill to mankind. Amen, Amen." The Life of Hooker was reprinted and attached to the "Ecclesiastical Polity" in 1666; and material alterations have been made in the different editions of the Memoir. In 1668 Walton is said to have written a letter to a kinsman at Coventry on the rejection 8 Ibid. pp. 151, 152. 7 Life of Hooker, ed. 1665, p. 5. of the Bill of Comprehension, which, with another letter on the same subject, was printed in 1680; but the authenticity of these letters is by no means established, and some remarks on the point will be found in a subsequent page. The fourth edition of "The Complete Angler" appeared in 1668, and is stated in the title-page to have been "much corrected and enlarged." It was, however, merely a reprint of the preceding edition, except that the errata are corrected; but in the address to the reader, even the statement that "many enlargements had been made in this third impression" is retained. 66 Izaak Walton was at that time still the guest of Bishop Morley; and he appears to have been engaged upon the Life of George Herbert, and in revising the Memoirs of Donne, Wotton, and Hooker, for publication in one volume. The Life of Herbert was published about May 1670, the imprimatur being dated on the 21st of April in that year; and in the introduction Walton says that, “in a late retreat from the business of this world, and those many little cares with which I have too often cumbered myself, I fell into a contemplation of some of those historical passages that are recorded in sacred story," more particularly respecting Mary Magdalen: upon occasion of which fair example, I did lately look back, and not without some content (at least to myself) that I have endeavoured to deserve the love, and preserve the memory of my two deceased friends, Dr Donne and Sir Henry Wotton, by declaring the several employments and various accidents of their lives: and though Mr George Herbert (whose life I now intend to write) were to me a stranger as to his person, for I have only seen him; yet since he was, and was worthy to be, their friend, and very many of his have been mine, I judge it may not be unacceptable to those that knew any of them in their lives, or do now know them by mine or their own writings, to see this conjunction of them after their deaths; without which many things that concerned them, and some things that concerned the age in which they lived, would be less perfect and lost to posterity. For these reasons I have undertaken it; and if I have prevented any abler person, I beg pardon of him and my reader." 9 He says, in the Memoir of Herbert, that if his life had been related by a pen like St Chrysostom's, there would then "be no need for this age to look back into times past for the examples of primitive piety; for they might be all found in the life of George Herbert. But now, alas! who is fit to undertake it? I confess I 9 Life of Herbert, ed. 1670, pp. 10-12. am not; and am not pleased with myself that I must; and profess myself amazed when I consider how few of the clergy lived like him then, and how many live so unlike him now: but it becomes not me to censure: my design is rather to assure the reader, that I have used very great diligence to inform myself, that I might inform him of the truth of what follows; and though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, yet I will do it with sincerity.” 1 For some of the facts respecting Herbert, Walton says he was indebted to Dr Henchman, then Bishop of London, and to Mr Oley's preface to Herbert's "Country Parson," which is "a book so full of plain, prudent, and useful rules, that that country parson that can spare 12d, and yet wants it, is scarce excusable: because it will both direct him what he ought to do, and convince him for not having done it." 2 The concluding lines of the Memoir of Herbert show Walton's admiration of his piety in a more forcible manner than pages of laboured panegyric could have done, for he observes, "I wish (if God shall be so pleased) that I may be so happy as to die like him.” 3 Some complimentary verses, dated at Bensted in Hampshire, on the 3rd of April 1670, were prefixed to it by Samuel Woodford, who had been ordained in the preceding year by Bishop Morley, and afterwards became a doctor of divinity and a prebendary of Winchester. They were addressed "To his very worthy and much honoured friend Mr Izaak Walton, upon his excellent Life of Mr George Herbert," but they merit little praise; the only point in them being that the lives of Donne and Herbert occur in the same volume : "Herbert and Donne again are joined, Now here below as they're above; These friends are in their old embraces twined, And since by you the interview's designed, Too weak to part them Death does prove; For in this book they meet again, as in one heaven they love." About the time when the Life of Herbert was published, that Memoir, together with the Lives of Dr Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, and Richard Hooker, were collected and printed in one volume. The work was dedicated to the Bishop of Winchester in very nearly the same words, mutatis mutandis, as occur in the dedication.of the Life of Hooker in 1664. The only material variation is, that Walton states that the Life of Herbert, as well as that of Hooker, was written under the bishop's roof; and as the words "your now daily favours" are retained, it seems that he was then 1 Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, ii. 73. 2 Ibid. p. 82. 3 Ibid. p. 126. still living with Morley. In the address to the reader Walton gives the following modest account of his biographical labours :— "Though the several introductions to these several Lives, have partly declared the reasons how and why I undertook them; yet, since they are come to be reviewed, and augmented, and reprinted, and the four are become one book, I desire leave to inform you that shall become my reader, that when I look back upon my mean abilities, it is not without some little wonder at myself, that I am come to be publicly in print. And though I have in those introductions declared some of the accidental reasons: yet, let me add this to what is there said: that, by my undertaking to collect some notes for Sir Henry Wotton's writing the Life of Dr Donne, and Sir Henry's dying before he performed it, I became like those that enter easily into a law-suit, or a quarrel, and having begun, cannot make a fair retreat and be quiet when they desire it. And really after such a manner I became engaged into a necessity of writing the Life of Dr Donne, contrary to my first intentions. And that begot a like necessity of writing the Life of his and my honoured friend, Sir Henry Wotton. And having writ these two lives, I lay quiet twenty years, without a thought of either troubling myself or others, by any new engagement in this kind. But about that time, Doct. Ga. [uden] (then Lord Bishop of Exeter) published the Life of Mr Richard Hooker (so he called it), with so many dangerous mistakes, both of him and his books, that discoursing of them with his grace, Gilbert, that now is Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, he enjoined me to examine some circumstances, and then rectify the bishop's mistakes, by giving the world a truer account of Mr Hooker and his books; and I know I have done so. And, indeed, till his grace hath laid this injunction upon me, I could not admit a thought of any fitness in me to undertake it; but when he twice enjoined me to it, I then trusted his judgment, and submitted to his commands; considering that if I did not, I could not forbear accusing myself of disobedience, and indeed of ingratitude for his many favours. Thus I became engaged into the third life. "For the Life of Mr George Herbert, I profess it to be a free-will offering, and writ chiefly to please myself; but not without some respect to posterity, for though he was not a man that the next age can forget, yet many of his particular acts and virtues might have been neglected, or lost, if I had not collected and presented them to the imitation of those that shall succeed us: for I conceive writing to be both a safer and truer preserver of men's various actions than tradition. I am to tell the reader that though this Life of Mr Herbert was not by me writ in haste, yet I intended it a review before it should be made public: but that was not allowed me, by reason of my absence from London when it was printing; so that the reader may find in it some double expressions, and some not very proper, and some that might have been contracted, and some faults that are not justly chargeable upon me but the printer and yet I hope none so great, as may not, by this confession, purchase pardon from a good-natured reader. And now I wish, that as that learned Jew, Josephus, and others, so these men had also writ their own lives: but since it is not the fashion of these times, I wish their relations or friends would do it for them, before delays make it too difficult. And I desire this the more because it is an honour due to the dead, and a generous debt due to those that shall live and succeed us, and would to them prove both a content and satisfaction. For when the next age shall (as this does) admire the learning and clear reason which that excellent casuist Dr Sanderson (the late Bishop of Lincoln) hath demonstrated in his sermons and other writings; who, if they 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 4 friend And he shall never die, Who, after seventy's past and gone, Is master still of so much youthful heat, A child so perfect and so sprightly to beget." 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." 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." 5 On the 1st of July 1670, Walton presented a petition, in which he is described as "Isaac Walton, gentleman," to the [VARIATION.] Master's, ed. 1675. 5 Tixall Letters, or the Correspondence of the Aston Family. 12mo. London, 1815, vol. ii. p. 122. |