JET. 54-] LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. xxxvii 



Herbert (who then attended him in his restraint), to compare 

 them with the original. The last still lives, and has declared it, 

 with some other of that King's excellencies, in a letter under his 

 own hand, which was lately showed me by Sir William Dugdale, 

 king-at-arms. The translation was designed to be put into the 

 King's library at St James's ; but, I doubt, not now to be found 

 there." 6 



There is some difficulty in deciding whether the King made this 

 communication to Dr Sanderson or to Dr Morley ; but it is 

 obvious that Walton heard of it from the latter, because Sander- 

 son was dead when Walton wrote his memoir, and he expressly 

 says that his informant was then living. 



In 1646, Francis Quarles's " Shepherds' Eclogues" were printed 

 by John and Richard Marriott, with an Address to the Reader 

 dated on the 25th of November 1645, an d signed "John Marriott ; " 

 but no one who is acquainted with Walton's style, and especially 

 with " The Complete Angler," can doubt that this Address pro- 

 ceeded from his pen. As Quarles had been secretary to Walton's 

 friend Archbishop Usher, and as he was a zealous Royalist, 7 and 

 apparently an angler, 8 he was perhaps personally known to 

 Walton. It is however certain that Walton was then well 

 acquainted with the Marriotts, and nothing is more probable 

 than that they should have requested him to write the prefatory 

 matter to a posthumous work, 9 which was to appear upon their 

 responsibility. The internal evidence that the Address was 

 written by Walton is so strong that it will be inserted without 

 the slightest fear of its not being attributed to the real author: 



"To THE READER, Though the author had some years before his 

 lamented death, composed, reviewed, and corrected these Eclogues ; yet, 

 he left no epistle to the reader, but only a title, and a blank leaf for that 

 purpose. Whether he meant some allegorical exposition of the Shepherds' 

 names, or their Eclogues, is doubtful : but 'tis certain, that as they are, 

 they appear a perfect pattern of the author : whose person, and mind, 

 were both lovely, and his conversation such as distilled pleasme, know- 

 ledge, and virtue, into his friends and acquaintance. 'Tis confessed these 

 Eclogues are not so wholly divine as many of his published Meditations, 

 which speak 'his affections to be set upon things that are above,' and yet 

 even such men have their intermitted hours, and (as their company gives 



fi Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, II. 214, 217. 



7 Biographia Britannica, edit. 1760, art. Quarles. 



8 See several verses in his Eclogues. 



9 It is said in the Biographia Britannica that Quarles died on the 8th September 1644 ; 

 but according to the following statement in Smith's Obituary, Additional MS. 886, in 

 the British Museum, he died on the igth of that month: "Mr Francis Quancs, a 

 famous poet, died igth September 1644." 



