Introduction xxi 



was left to a lady of the Portsmouth family, " Mrs. 

 Doro. Wallop." 



Walton died, at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. 

 Hawkins, in Winchester, on Dec. 15, 1683: he is 

 buried in the south aisle of the Cathedral. The Ca- 

 thedral library possesses many of Walton's books, 

 with his name written in them. 1 His Eusebius 

 (1636) contains, on the flyleaf, repetitions, in various 

 forms, of one of his studied passages. Simple as he 

 seems, he is a careful artist in language. 



Such are the scanty records, and scantier relics, 

 of a very long life. Circumstances and inclination 

 combined to make Walton choose the fallentis 

 semita vitae. Without ambition, save to be in the 4 

 society of good men, he passed through turmoil, 

 ever companioned by content. For him existence 

 had its trials : he saw all that he held most sacred 

 overthrown ; laws broken up ; his king publicly 

 murdered ; his friends outcasts ; his worship pro- 

 scribed ; he himself suffered in property from the 

 raid of the Kirk into England. He underwent 

 many bereavements : child after child he lost, but 

 content he did not lose, nor sweetness of heart, nor 

 belief. His was one of those happy characters 

 which are never found disassociated from unques- 

 tioning faith. Of old he might have been the 

 ancient religious Athenian in the opening of Plato's 

 Republic, or Virgil's aged gardener. The happiness 

 of such natures would be incomplete without re- 

 ligion, but only by such tranquil and blessed soulsj 

 can religion be accepted with no doubt or scruple, 

 no dread, and no misgiving. In his Preface to 

 Thealma and Clearchus Walton writes, and we may 

 use his own words about his own works : " The 

 Reader will here find such various events and rewards 



1 Nicolas, i. civ. 



