INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



IF there were a single circumstance by which the fame of 

 those " honorable men," the effigies of whom now face the 

 reader, could possibly be enhanced, it was that of having for 

 their biographer one who, with the soundest judgment, pos- 

 sessed a sweetness of disposition ever inclining to the bright 

 side of things, a veracity not to be questioned, and a felicity 

 of expression peculiarly his own : thus gifted, like the skilful 

 artist, at once both flattering and faithful, he brought to the 

 task of delineation that delicacy due to 'family feeling, com- 

 bined with the justice demanded by strict impartiality : the 

 existence and the application, therefore, of such rare qualities 

 are equally the subject of exultation. 



On the other hand, that IZAAK WALTON should have been 

 deemed by his contemporaries the fittest of all persons to per- 

 form so important a task, were sufficient, by reflection alone, 

 to insure to himself an imperishable name ; the pictorial allu- 

 sion, therefore, at the head of this Introductory Essay will 

 probably be deemed particularly appropriate : it contains the 

 portraits of Dr. John Donne, Mr. George Herbert, Bishop 

 Sanderson, Mr. Richard Hooker, and Sir Henry Wotton, 

 whose lives, at different times, were written by Walton. 



The praise bestowed on the Life of Dr. Donne by Dr. King, 

 afterwards Bishop of Winchester, in a letter to Walton himself, 



