IZAAK WALTON AT DROXFORD 165 



formation he could learn nothing. The biographers 

 of Izaak Walton, so far as he is aware, pass over 

 this mention of Droxford in almost total silence. 

 Even Mr. Staplcton Martin makes no reference to 

 it. The word " Droxford " does not so much as 

 occur in his index. Sir Harris Nicolas does indeed 

 suggest that perhaps Walton had a house or apart- 

 ments in the village, which from the passage already 

 quoted in the will is abundantly evident. Mr, Dewar, 

 in his Winchester edition of The Coniphat Angler, 

 is the first to hint at the true solution, although he 

 admits that he had " not succeeded in finding out 

 anything about Walton at Droxford." He states, 

 however, that Dr. Hawkins, besides being Prebendary 

 of Winchester, was also Rector of Droxford. The 

 writer had already met with this bare statement in 

 Bowles's Life of Bishop Ken, published about the 

 year 1830, but had entirely failed to substantiate it. 

 Repeated searches in the episcopal register, alike at 

 Winchester and at the Record Office, produced no 

 evidence that William Hawkins was ever Rector of 

 Droxford. The matter, however, was happily set at 

 rest by the writer's discovery in one of the Com- 

 position Books at the Record Office of the entry of 

 the payments made by "William Hawkins, S.T.P., 

 in November 1664," on his institution to the living. 

 He followed, it appears, one Dr. Nicholas Preston, 

 who had been deprived during the time of the 

 Commonwealth, but had been restored to his rights 

 on the accession of Charles H., and died in Sep- 

 tember 1664. The hving of Droxford Dr. Hawkins 

 continued to hold, in conjunction with his canonr}', 

 to which he had been appointed two years previousl}', 

 until the time of his death, which occurred in 1691. 



