IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 89 



by Sir Leslie Stephen in the December number 

 of the National Review of 1899, and Canon 

 Beeching's study of Walton in his Religio 

 Laid (1902), and Dr Jessopp's Life of Donne. 



I do not think it has been made out that 

 Donne was in any way a humbug, as some will 

 have it. I only here refer to two points these 

 recent critics touch on, viz., his so-called "con- 

 version " and his sincerity in preaching. It really 

 seems most amusing for pure literary men to be 

 troubling as to the exact date of Donne's real 

 *' conversion " even in their attempt to prove 

 Walton inaccurate. 



It may be that Donne was transformed "at a 

 bound into a saint," but it is more likely that, as a 

 literary man and one religiously brought up, the 

 change came about through the effect his wife's 

 death had upon him. We know that extreme 

 melancholy marked him for her own after it, yet, 

 as Canon Beeching points out, it is possible that 

 her influence in life, and not his grief at her death, 

 was the cause of his conversion : — 



" Here the admiring her my mind did whet 

 To seek Thee, God ; so streams do show their head ; 

 But tho' I have Thee, and Thou my thirst hast fed, 

 A holy dropsy melts me yet." 



Walton writes : " Dr Donne would often in his 

 private discourses, and often publicly in his sermons, 

 mention the many changes both of his body and 



