JET. 77.] LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. Ixxix 



." Court of Judicature for determination of differences touching 

 houses burnt in London," stating that the premises in Paternoster 

 Row 6 which he held by lease from Gilbert, late Bishop of London, 

 were burnt in the late fire ; and that he was willing to rebuild 

 them, " so as he may be encouraged thereto by an increase of 

 years to his term in being, and abatement of rent, as to the court 

 shall seem meet;" and he prayed that the then Bishop of London 

 or his deputy should be summoned to attend the court, to the end 

 that such order and decree might be made concerning the premises, 

 as to the court should seem meet. The bishop referred the 

 matter wholly to the court ; who decreed that the petitioner should 

 rebuild the premises, having his lease extended to sixty years at 

 the old rent, and paying the arrears then due. 7 



For nearly three years from this time nothing is known of 

 Walton ; and the next notice of him is in February 1673, when 

 he dedicated the third edition of the " Reliquiae Wottonianae " to 

 Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, son of Henry Lord Stanhope, by 

 Katherine, daughter of Lady Wotton. The letter to that noble- 

 man, like everything he wrote, is very characteristic of his mind 

 and feelings ; and is of additional interest from the allusion which 

 it contains to his friend, Charles Cotton. 



" MY LORD, I have conceived many reasons why I ought, in justice, to 

 dedicate these Reliques of your great uncle, Sir Henry Wotton, to your 

 lordship ; some of which are, that both your grandmother and mother had 

 a double right to them by a dedication when first made public ; as also for 

 their assisting me then, and since, with many material informations for the 

 writing his life ; and for giving me many of the letters that have fallen 

 from his curious pen ; so that they being now dead, these reliques descend 

 to you, as heir to them, and the inheritor of the memorable Bocton Palace, 

 the place of his birth, where so many of the ancient, and prudent, and 

 valiant family of the Wottons lie now buried ; whose remarkable monu- 

 ments you have lately beautified, and to them added so many of so great 

 worth, as hath made it appear that at the erecting and adorning them you 

 were above the thought of charge, that they might, if possible (for 'twas 

 no easy undertaking), hold some proportion with the merits of your 

 ancestors. 



" My Lord, these are a part of many more reasons that have inclined 

 me to this dedication ; and these, with the example of a liberty that is not 

 given, but now too usually taken by many scribblers, to make trifling 

 dedications, might have begot a boldness in some men of as mean as my 

 abilities to have undertaken this. But indeed, my lord, though I was 

 ambitious enough of undertaking it ; yet as Sir Henry Wotton hath said ia 

 a piece of his own character, that he was condemned by nature to a bash- 



6 Vide antea. ^ Additional MS. in the British Museum, No. 5088, f. 142. 



