Introduction 



after its publication that we get another similar glimpse of Walton 

 in conversation with its author : 



Walton being asked by Fuller, who was aware of his being intimate 

 with several bishops and other eminent clergymen, what he thought of 

 that work himself, and what opinions he had heard his friends express of 

 it, Walton replied " he thought it should be acceptable to all tempers, 

 because there were shades in it for the warm, and sunshine for those of 

 a cold constitution, that with youthful readers, the facetious parts would 

 be profitable to make the serious more palatable ; while some reverend 

 old readers might fancy themselves in his History of the Church, as in a 

 flower-garden or one full of evergreens." " And why not," said Fuller, 

 " the Church History so decked as well as the Church itself at a most 

 holy season, on the Tabernacle of old at the feast of boughs." " That 

 was but for a season," said Walton ; " in your feast of boughs they may 

 conceive vVe are so overshowed throughout, that the parson is more seen 

 than the congregation, and this, sometimes invisible to his own acquaint- 

 ance, who may wander in the search, till they are lost in the labyrinth." 

 " Oh," said Fuller, " the very children of our Israel may find their way 

 out of this wilderness." "True," replied Walton, "as, indeed, they 

 have here such a Moses to conduct them." 



In the December of 1662, the year in which his wife died, Walton 

 obtained from Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London (still another 

 episcopal friend), a forty years' lease of a new building, adjoining a 

 house called the " Cross Keys," in Paternoster Row. This building 

 was burnt down in the Great Fire, and on July i, 1670, Walton 

 presented a petition to the Court of Judicature, asking for extension 

 of lease on condition of his rebuilding it ; which petition was granted. 

 On this occasion Walton was described as " Isaac Walton, gentle- 

 man." 



Of one of Walton's closest friends mention has yet to be made. 

 This was Dr. George Morley, whom Walton first knew as a canon 

 of Christchurch, Oxford. He was, however, expelled from his 

 canonry somewhere about 1648, for refusing to take the covenant. 

 There was a story that he took shelter with Walton at his Stafford- 

 shire cottage from April 1648 to May 1649 > but for this there 

 is no authority. He was one of Ben Jonson's twelve adopted "sons," 

 and wrote some commendatory verses prefixed to the The Compleat 

 Angler. His friendship with Walton was destined to be life-long. 



xl 



