xvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



an imperishable name ; the pictorial allusion, there- 

 fore, at the head of this Introductory Essay, will 

 probably be deemed particularly appropriate : — it 

 contains the Portraits of Dr. John Donne, Mr. 

 George Herbert, Bishop Sanderson, Mr. Richard 

 Hooker, and Sir Henry Wotton, whose lives, at 

 different times, were written by Walton. 



The praise bestowed on the Life of Dr. Donne, 

 by Dr. King, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, in a 

 letter to Walton himself, is equally applicable to the 

 rest : — "I am glad that the general demonstration 

 of his worth was so fairly preserved, and represented 

 to the world by your pen, in the history of his life ; 

 indeed so well, that, beside others, the best critic 

 of our later time, Mr. John Hales of Eaton, affirmed 

 to me he had not seen a life, written with more 

 advantage to the subject, or reputation to the writer 

 than that of Dr. Donne." 



The posthumous fame of these lives so well accords 

 with this contemporary applause, that they are to 

 be found in almost every respectable library : yet it 

 were unpardonable on the occasion of this attempt * 



* The attempt was so successful as to leave me for ever 

 indebted to the whole body of the public press. Dr. Southey, 

 also spoke of this humble Essay in terms too flattering to be 

 here adduced ; but I must crave pardon for the necessary 

 egotism of a few other notes. Twenty one years having now 

 elapsed, and Three Editions become scarce, I have, in the en- 

 deavour yet further to increase the popularity of this work, 

 again the co-operation of a host of talent and a world of kind- 

 ness ! — while the staunchest Waltonians have looked on, free 



