JET. 58.] LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. xliii 



duty performed ; these have had a power to persuade me to undertake it ; 

 which truly I have not done but with some distrust of mine own abilities, 

 and yet so far from despair, that I am modestly confident my humble 

 language shall be accepted, because I present all readers with a commixture 

 of truth, and Sir Henry Wotton's merits." 



The first edition of the " Reliquiae Wottonianae " was dedicated 

 to Mary Baroness Wotton, daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton, 

 and widow of Thomas, second Lord Wotton, of Marley, the 

 nephew of Sir Henry Wotton, and to her three daughters, 

 Katherine, wife of Henry Lord Stanhope (eldest son of Philip, 

 first Earl of Chesterfield), who was afterwards created Countess 

 of Chesterfield for life ; Margaret, wife of Sir John Tufton ; and 

 Ann, the wife of Sir Edward Hales. Walton's dedication has 

 the singular merit of being free from the servility and nauseous 

 flattery by which similar productions were then, and have since 

 been, too often defaced : he says, 



"Since books seem by custom to challenge a dedication, justice would 

 not allow, that what either was, or concerned Sir Henry \Votton, should 

 be appropriated to any other persons ; not only for that nearness of alliance 

 and blood (by which you may challenge a civil right to what was his) ; 

 but, by a title of that entireness of affection, which was in you to each 

 other, when Sir Henry Wotton had a being upon earth. And since yours 

 was a friendship made up of generous principles, as I cannot doubt but 

 these endeavours to preserve his memory will be acceptable to all that 

 loved him ; so especially to you, from whom I have had such encourage- 

 ments as hath emboldened me to this dedication. Which you are most 

 humbly entreated may be accepted from your very real servant, I. W." 



The Life of Wotton was very hastily printed, the cause of which 

 is not mentioned ; and the author deprecates censure for any 

 incongruities by saying that " the printer fetched it so fast by 

 pieces from the relator, that he never saw what he had writ 

 altogether till it was past the press." In the memoir he apolo- 

 gises for some deficiencies in consequence of the State Paper Office 

 " having now suffered a strange alienation ; " 5 and he adds, 

 " indeed I want time too, for the printer's press stays for what is 

 written ; " but as the work ran through several editions, he was 

 enabled to correct the memoir ; and in no department of literature 

 is the opportunity of improving a first edition so necessary as in 

 History or Biography. Nearly every line of works of that nature 

 contains either a date or a fact, accuracy in which must be 

 attained by repeated revision ; and they can only be rendered 

 complete, by the introduction, from time to time, of such informa- 

 tion as subsequent discoveries may bring to light. 



5 Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, I. 239. 



