Introduction 





^ 



and certain eminent divines for Walton, as Lowell has said, had " a 

 special genius for bishops." 



Was it this episcopal bias that led him on December 27, 1626, to 

 take to wife Rachel Floud, of Canterbury, closely connected by 

 descent with the Cranmers, including the famous Archbishop ? 

 Through his wife's family Walton probably still further widened his 

 episcopal connection. With Rachel Walton lived, apparently in an 

 entirely happy union, for nearly fourteen years, during which, how- 

 ever, he suffered severe domestic affliction in the loss of no less than 

 seven children. His wife's mother had also died during their residence 

 in Chancery Lane, and on the loth July, 1640, his wife was to die 

 too, having survived only six weeks the birth of another daughter. 

 But death seems to have come merely as a solemn incident of life to 

 Walton's serene, unimpassioned, and devoutly religious spirit. A literal, 

 undoubting faith such as his, and a preoccupation in little hobbies, must 

 afford a great shelter from the keenness of life's tragedy and pathos. 



xxxvii 



