4 LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON". 



In this year, 1 662, he was, by death, deprived of the solace 

 and comfort of a good wife, as appears by the following 

 monumental inscription in the chapel of Our Lady, in the 

 cathedral church of Worcester : 



EXTERRIS 



D. 



M. S. 



HERE LTETH BURIED 



so much as could dye of 



ANNE, THE WIFE OF IZAAK WALTON; 

 who was a Woman of remarkable Prudence, 



and of the Primitive Piety ; 



her great and general knowledge 



being adorned with such true Humility, 



and blessed with so much Christian Meekness, 



as made her worthy of a more memorable Monument. 



She dyed (alas that she is dead !) 



the 17th of April, 1662, Aged 52. 



Study to be like her. 



Living, while in London, in the parish of St Dunstan in the 

 West, whereof Dr John Donne, dean of St Paul's, was vicar, he 

 became, of course, a frequent hearer of that excellent preacher, 

 and, at length, (as he himself expresses it,*) his convert. 

 Upon his decease in 1631, Sir Henry Wotton (of whom men- 

 tion will be made hereafter) requested Walton to collect 

 materials for a Life of the Doctor, which it seems Sir Henry 

 had undertaken to write :f but Sir Henry dying before he had 

 completed the life, Walton undertook it himself ; and, in the year 

 1640, finished and published it, with a Collection of the Doctor's 

 Sermons, in folio. As soon as the book came out, a complete 

 copy was sent as a present to Walton, by Mr John Donne, 

 the Doctor's son, afterwards Doctor of Laws ; and one of the 

 blank leaves contained his letter to Mr Walton : the letter 

 is yet extant, and in print, J and is a handsome and grateful 

 acknowledgment of the honour done to the memory of his 

 father. 



Doctor King, afterward Bishop of Chichester, in a letter to 

 the author, thus expresses himself concerning this Life " I am 

 glad that the general demonstration of his [Doctor Donne's] 

 worth was so fairly preserved, and icpresented to the world by 



* Verses of Walton at the end of Dr Donne's Life. 



f See jReliquicB Wottoniana, octavo, 1683, p. 60. 



| In Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i. lib. vi. p. 24. In the year 

 1714, the very book, with the original manuscript letter, was in the hands 

 of the Rev. Mr Eorradale, rector of Market-Deeping, in the county of 

 Lincoln. 



