Introduction xxix 



rooted in the past, like the yew-tree. He is what 

 he calls " the passive peaceable Protestant ". " The 

 common people in this nation," he writes, "think 

 they are not wise unless they be busy about what 

 they understand not, and especially about religion " ; 

 as Bunyan was busy at that very moment. In 

 Walton's opinion, the plain facts of religion, and of 

 consequent morality, are visible as the sun at noon- 

 day. The vexed questions are for the learned, and 

 are solved variously by them. A man must follow 

 authority, as he finds it established in his own 

 country, unless he has the learning and genius of 

 a Donne. To these, or equivalents for these in 

 a special privy inspiration, " the common people" 

 of his day, and ever since Elizabeth's day, were 

 pretending. This was the inevitable result of the 

 translation of the Bible into English. Walton 

 quotes with approval a remark of a witty Italian on 

 a populace which was universally occupied with 

 Free-will and Predestination. The fruits Walton 

 saw, in preaching Corporals, Antinomian Trusty 

 Tompkinses, Quakers who ran about naked, barking, 

 Presbyterians who cut down old yew-trees, and a 

 Parliament of Saints. Walton took no kind of joy 

 in the general emancipation of the human spirit. 

 The clergy, he confessed, were not what he wished 

 them to be, but they were better than Quakers, 

 naked and ululant. ^To love God and his neighbour, 

 and to honour the king, was Walton's unperplexed 

 religion. Happily he was saved from the view of 

 the errors and the fall of James II., a king whom it 

 was not easy to honour. His social philosophy was 

 one of established rank, tempered by equity and j 

 Christian chanty. If anything moves his tranquil 

 spirit, it is the remorseless greed of him who takes 

 his fellow-servant by the throat and exacts the 

 uttermost penny. How Sanderson saved a poor 



