LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. 27 



weighed against those of a mind stored, like his, with a great 

 variety of useful knowledge, and a temper that could harbour 

 no malevolent thought or insidious design, nor stoop to the 

 arts of fraud or flattery,* but dispose him to love and virtuous 

 friendship, to the enjoyments of innocent delights and recrea- 

 tions, to the contemplation of the works of Nature and the 

 ways of Providence, and to the still sublimer pleasures of 

 rational piety. 



if, possessing all these benefits and advantages, external 

 and internal, (together with a mental constitution so happily 

 attempered, as to have been to him a " perpetual fountain of 

 cheerfulness, " -j- ) we can entertain a doubt that Walton was 

 one of the happiest of men, we estimate them at a rate too 

 low ; and shew ourselves ignorant of the nature of that felicity 

 to which it is possible, even in this life, for virtuous and good 

 men, with the blessing of God, to arrive. 



COPY OF WALTON'S WILL. 



August the ninth, one thousand six 

 hundred eighty-three. 



IN the Name of God, Amen : I, IZAAK WALTON the elder, of 

 Winchester, being this present day in the ninetyeth year of my 

 age, and in perfect memory, for which praised be God ; but 

 considering how suddenly I may be deprived of both, do there- 

 fore make this my last Will and Testament as followeth : And 

 first, 1 do declare my belief to be, that there is only one God, 

 who hath made the whole world, and me, and all mankind ; to 

 whom I shall give an account of all my actions, which are not 

 to be justified, but I hope pardoned,- for the merits of my 

 Saviour Jesus : And because the profession of Christianity 

 does, at this time, seem to be subdivided into Papist and 

 Protestante, I take it at least to be convenient, to declare my 

 belief to be, in all points of faith, as the Church of England 

 now professeth : and this I do the rather, because of a very 

 long and very true friendship with some of the Roman Church. 

 And for my worldly estate, (which I have neither got by false- 

 hood or flattery, or the extreme cruelty of the Jaw of this 

 nation.^) I do hereby give and bequeath it as followeth : First, 



. * Vide infra, in his Will. 



f See his Preface, wherein he declares that though he can be serious at 

 seasonable times, he is a lover of innocent, harmless mirth, and that his 

 book is a " picture of his own disposition." 



\ Alluding, perhaps, to that fundamental masim of our law, " Summum 

 jus est sumina injuria." 



