CHAPTER II 



(1) WALTON AS A ROYALIST 



" And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall 

 be a scorn unto them." — Hab. i. 10. 



" The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." 



Isaiah i. 5. 



It is necessary that the reader should regard 

 the state the country was in when Walton lived, 

 if he would estimate rightly the man. 



S. T. Coleridge wrote : — 



"I know no portion of history which a man 

 might write with so much pleasure as that of 

 the great struggle in the time of Charles I., 

 because he may feel the profoundest respect for 

 both parties. The side taken by any particular 

 person was determined by the point of view 

 which such person happened to command at 

 the commencement of the inevitable collision, 

 one line seeming straight to this man, another 

 line to another. No man of that age saw the 

 truth, the whole truth ; there was not light enough 

 for that. The consequence, of course, was a 

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