Apeil 7. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



257 



LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 7. 1855. 



NEW WORK BY IZAAK WALTON. 



About a year or two before Mr. Pickering's 

 death (the late able and most intelligent book- 

 seller), his attention was drawn to a little book, 

 which had previously escaped the notice of all the 

 collectors of Izaak Walton's works as well as of 

 his biographers, and of which the following is the 

 title : 



" The Heroe of Lorenzo, or, The Way to Eminencie and 

 Perfection. A piece of serious Spanish Wit originally in 

 that Language written, and in English. By Sir John 

 Skeffington, Knt. and Barronet. London: printed for 

 John Martin and James Allestrye, at 'The Bell' in St. 

 Paul's Churchyard, 1652. 12mo." 



Containing pp. 155 exclusive of title; "to the 

 Reader" by J. W., and an epistle by the trans- 

 lator, with a blank leaf before the title, pp. xii. 



Pickering, upon the book being sent for his 

 inspection by the gentleman who had purchased 

 it in a volume of tracts in Oxford, expressed so 

 much interest in the discovery, at once declaring 

 his conviction that it was a genuine publication of 

 Walton's ; that his friend requested his acceptance 

 of the book,"" which he immediately honoured 

 with a morocco coat by Bedford. At his sale it 

 was purchased, very judiciously, by Dr. Bandinel's 

 agent for the Bodleian Library, where I have 

 since referred to it. 



Walton's Preface is so curious, and so charac- 

 teristic, that I am tempted to send a transcript for 

 "N. &Q.:" 



" Let this be told the Reader, 



" That Sir John SkeflSngton (one of his late majesties 

 servants, and a stranger to no language of Christendom) 

 did, about fort}' years now past, bring this Hero out of 

 Spain into England. 



" There they two kept company together 'till about 

 twelve months now past : and then, in a retyrement of 

 that learned knight's (by reason of a sequestration for his 

 master's cause), a friend coming to visit him, they fell 

 accidentally into a discourse of the wit and galantry of 

 the Spanish nation. 



" That discourse occasioned an example or two to be 

 brought out of this Hero : and those examples (with Sir 

 John's choice language and illustration) were so relisht 

 by his friend (a stranger to the Spanish tongue), that he 

 became restles till he got a promise from Sir John to 

 translate the whole, which he did in a few weeks; and" 

 so long as that imployment lasted, it proved an excellent 

 diversion from his many sad thoughts. But he hath now 



* "I am really much obliged to you for j-our kind 

 present of the Heroe of Lorenzo, translated by Sir John 

 SkefRngton, with a notice of Sir John by Izaak Walton. 

 The book is ver}' interesting to me, who have for forty 

 years angled for every scrap that would illustrate Walton's 

 life or writings. But this book I had not the remotest 

 knowledge of, and do value, &c. 



" W. Pickering." 



chang'd that condition, to be possest of that place into 

 which sadnesse is not capable of entrance. 



" And his absence from this world hath occasion'd mee 

 (who was one of those few that he gave leave to know 

 him, for he was a retyr'd man) to tell the reader that I 

 heard him say, he had not made the English so short or 

 few words as the originall, because in that the author had 

 exprest himself so enigmaticallj', that though he indea- 

 vour'd to translate it plainly, yet he thought it was not 

 made comprehensible enough for common readers, there- 

 fore he declar'd to me that he intended to make it so by 

 a comment on the margent; which he had begun, but 

 (be it spoke with sorrow) he and those thoughts are now 

 buried in the silent grave, and myself, with those very 

 many that lov'd him, left to lament that losse. — I. W." 



The Hero of Lorenzo was originally written by 

 Laurence or Balthasar Gracian, a native of Cala- 

 tayud or Bilbilis, an ancient town in Spain, and a 

 learned Jesuit. It was printed at Huesca, in Ar- 

 ragon, in 1637, and at Madrid in 1639, and wag 

 early translated into French. The translation by 

 Skeffington is not noticed by Antonio in his BibL 

 Hispana Nova, 1788, nor is it alluded to in another 

 English translation, with the remarks of Father J. 

 de Courbeville, by a gentleman of Oxford. London, 

 1726, 4to. 



Of the translator, it may not be out of place to 

 say, that John Skeffington, Esq., of Fisherwick, 

 CO. Stafford, married Ursula, sister and co-heir of 

 Sir William Skeffington, by whom he also came 

 into possession of Skeffington, co. Leicester. He 

 was knighted by King James L at Tam worth, 

 Aug. 19, 1624, and became baronet in 1635, on 

 the death of his father. He was a loyal subject 

 to his king, and accordingly fined in 1645 to the 

 extent of 1161/. 85. 8c?. He died in his sixty- 

 seventh year in Nov., 1651, and was buried at 

 Skeffington ; leaving one son. Sir William, who 

 died unmarried. (See Nichols's Hist, of Leices- 

 tershire, vol. iii. pp. 436. 444., and Show' 9 Stafford- 

 shire, vol. i. p. 372.) P. B, 



GENERAL JAMES WOLFE. 



For some months past but little has been added 

 in " N. & Q " to our knowledge of this great man. 

 I trust, however, that the interest shown in his 

 career has not diminished, nor the farther illustra- 

 tion of it forgotten. Considering the many bio- 

 graphies that have of late years appeared, I own 

 my disappointment that not one has yet appeared 

 to the memory of Wolfe. He still is allowed 

 but a page of history. I contend his name is 

 identified with a great undertaking, alike worthy 

 of the country, of the statesman who planned it 

 (and selected those who did it), and of those who 

 conquered. It may be with safety affirmed, I 

 think, that the interest in Wolfe has greatly in- 

 creased. A desire is manifest to be better ac- 

 quainted with the man who preserved North 

 America to the Anglo-Saxon race, not only ia 



