LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. 21 



own ; and thereupon, leaving the Tower without leave-taking, 

 hasted the presentation of it to the present sovereign's hand."* 



The religious opinions of good men are of little importance 

 to others, any farther than they necessarily conduce to virtuous 

 practice ; since we see, that as well the different persuasions 

 of Papist and Protestant, as the several no less differing 

 parties into which the Reformed Religion is unhappily sub- 

 divided, have produced men equally remarkable for their 

 endowments, sincere in their professions, and exemplary in 

 their lives : -J- but were it necessary, after what has been 

 above remarked of him, to be particular on this head, with 

 respect to our author we should say, that he was a very dutiful 

 son of the Church of England ; nay, farther, that he was a 

 friend to a hierarchy, or, as we should now call such a one, a 

 high churchman ; for which propensity of his, if it needs an 

 apology, it may be said, that he had lived to see hypocrisy 

 and fanaticism triumph in the subversion of both our eccle- 

 siastical and civil constitution ; the important question of 

 toleration had not been discussed ; the extent of regal pre- 

 rogative, and the bounds of civil and religious liberty, had 

 never been ascertained ; and he, like many other good men, 

 might look on the interests of the church, and those of religion, 

 as inseparable. 



Besides the works of Walton above-mentioned, there are 

 extant of his writing, Verses on the Death of Dr Donne, 

 beginning, ' Our Donne is dead ; ' Verses to his reverend friend 

 the Author of the Synagogue, printed together with Herbert's 

 Temple ;$ Verses before Alexander Brome's Poems, octavo, 

 1646 ; and before Shirley's Poems, octavo, 1646, and before 

 Cart wright' s Plays and* Poems, 1651. He wrote also the 

 following Lines under an engraving of Dr Donne, before his 

 Poems, published in 1635. 



This was for youth, strength, mirth, and wit that time 

 Most count their golden age ; but was not thine : 

 Thine was thy later years, so much refined 

 From youth's dross, mirth, and wit, as thy pure mind 



* See also Dr Plott's Staffordshire, 311. 



f If the intelligent reader doubts the truth of this position, let him 

 reflect on, and compare with each other, the characters of Hooker, Father 

 Paul, and Mr Richard Baxter. 



\ Vide infra,-the signature to the second copy of Commendatory Verses, 

 and chap. v. note. 



Alluding to his age, viz. eighteen, when the picture was painted from 

 which the print was taken. 



