

xciv LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. [1678, 



elaborate pedigree, which has been recently compiled, proves not 

 only the existence of numerous persons of that name, but shows 

 that Thomas Ken, the father of Mrs Walton, chose his second 

 wife from the Chalkhill family. This connection may have been 

 the cause of the manuscript of the poem having fallen into Walton's 

 hands, and it is very probable that he knew the author, as he has 

 described him with some care, and introduced two of his songs into 

 the " Complete Angler." There is, however, much difficulty in 

 deciding which of the John or Jon Chalkhills mentioned in the 

 pedigree was the poet. He may have been the father of Mrs Ken, 

 or more probably was the John Chalkhill, a M.A., whose filiation 

 has not been ascertained, but who was for forty-six years fellow of 

 Winchester College, and died on the 2oth of May 1679, at the a S e 

 of eighty. 1 The following is Walton's preface to Thealma and 

 Clearchus : 



"The reader will find in this book what the title declares, a Pastoral 

 History in smooth and easy verse ; and will in it find many hopes and 

 fears finely painted and feelingly expressed. And he will find the first so 

 often disappointed, when fullest of desire and expectation ; and the latter 

 so often, so strangely, and so unexpectedly relieved by an unforeseen Provi- 

 dence, as may beget in him wonder and amazement. And the reader will 

 here also meet with passions heightened by easy and fit descriptions of joy 

 and sorrow ; and find also such various events and rewards of innocent 

 truth and undissembled honesty, as is like to leave in him (if he be a good- 

 natured reader) more sympathising and virtuous impressions, than ten 

 times so much time spent in impertinent, critical, and needless disputes 

 about religion : and I heartily wish it may do so. 



' ' And I have also this truth to say of the author, that he was in his 



Chalkhill, the fellow of Winchester College, mentioned above, but he was not aware of 

 the connection between the families of Chalkhill and Ken. Of that person Mr Nares 

 observed : 



" In the south cloister of Winchester Cathedral is, or was very lately, a monument to 

 a John Chalkhill of that very period, a fellow of Winchester College, whose character, 

 as given in the inscription, singularly accords with part of that given by Walton. 



H. S. E. 



Joan. Chalkhill, A.M. hujus Coll'ii Annos 46 Socius, Vir, quoad vixit, Solitudine et 

 Siientio, Temperantia et Castitate, Orationibus et Eleemosynis, Contemplatione et 

 Sanctimonia, Ascetis vel primitivis par : qui cum a Parvulo in Regnum Ccelorum Viam. 

 fecit, Octogenarius rapuit, 20 die Maij, 1679. 



" Now as Walton died at Winchester in the prebendal house of his son-in-law Dr 

 Hawkins, which probably he had always been accustomed to visit, so attached was he 

 to his daughter and her husband, he doubtless personally knew and much esteemed this 

 Mr Chalkhill ; and knew of him all that he expressed in his eulogy. 



"The only objection that I perceive, arises from the date (1678) subjoined to Walton's 

 preface : that being the year previous to the death of Chalkhill, according to the monu- 

 ment. The probability is that this date has no reference to the preface, which was most 

 likely to be written near the time of the publication in 1683. It might, therefore, only 

 mark the time when the poem was put into Walton's hands by its author, being exactly 

 a year before his death. Be this as it may, I think we have here a memorial of the real 

 John Chalkhill." Vide Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xciii. Part II. p. 419. 



1 Ibid. 



