24: LIFE OF WALTON. 



" ers might fancy themselves in his History of the 

 <c Church as in a flower garden, or one full of ever- 

 c< greens." c And why not,' said Fuller, the Church 

 * History so decked, as well as the Church itself at a 

 ' most holy season, or the Tabernacle of old at the feast 

 < of boughs. 9 That was but for a season," said Wai- 

 ton ; u in your feast of boughs, they may conceive, we 

 " are so overshadowed throughout, that the parson is 

 cc more seen than his congregation, and this, some- 

 * fi times, invisible to its own acquaintance, who may 

 " wander in the search till they are lost in the laby- 

 " rinth." ' Oh,' said Fuller, 4 the very children of 

 c our Israel may find their way out of this wilderness.'- 

 <e True," replied Walton, " as, indeed, they have 

 < here such a Moses to conduct them *." 



To pursue the subject of the Biographical Writings 

 about two years after the restoration, Walton wrote 

 the Life of Mr. Richard Hooker, author of the Ec~ 

 clesiastical Polity. He was enjoined to undertake this 

 work by his friend Doctor Gilbert Sheldon t, after- 

 wards archbishop of Canterbury ; who, by the way, 

 was an angler. Bishop King, in a letter to the author J, 

 says of this life ; " I have often seen Mr. Hooker 

 <c with my father, who was after Bishop of London ; 

 c * from whom, and others at that time, I have heard 

 " most of the material passages which you relate in 

 " the history of his life." Sir William Dugdale, 

 speaking of the three posthumous books of the Eccle~ 

 siastical Polity, refers the reader 4< to that seasonable 

 " historical discourse, lately, compiled and published, 

 " with great judgment and integrity, by that much- 

 <c deserving person, Mr. Isaac Walton." In this 

 life we are told, that Hooker, while he was at college, 



* From a manuscript Collection of diverting sayings, stories, cbaracterS} 

 &c. in verse and prose, made about the year 1686, by Charles Cotton, esq. 

 some time in the library of the earl of Halifax. Vide Biographia Britan- 

 nica, 2061, note P. in margins. 



The editors of the above work have styled this colloquy a witty confa- 

 &ulation, but it seems remarkable for nothing but its singularity, which 

 consists in the starting of a metaphor, and hunting it down. 



f Walton's Efist. to the reader of the Lives, in 8vo. 1670. 



| Before the Lives. 



Short View of the late Troubles in England, fol. 1.681, pag, 3& 



