X LIFE OF WALTON. 



attending his life must, in a great measure, come; and, as occasions 

 offer, a proper use will be made of them ; nevertheless a due regard 

 will be paid to some traditional memoirs, which (besides that they 

 contain nothing improbable) the authority of those to whom we stand 

 indebted for them, will not allow us to question. 



His first settlement in London, as a shop-keeper, was in the Royal 

 Burse in Cornhill, built by Sir Thomas Gresham, and finished in 

 1 567. ' In this situation he could scarcely be said to have had elbow- 

 room ; for the shops over the Burse were but seven feet and a half 

 long, and five wide;* yet here did he carry on his trade, till some 

 time before the year 1624; when he dwelt on the north side of 

 Fleet-street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, 

 and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow." 3 

 Now the old timber-house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane, 

 in Fleet-street, till within these few years, was known by that sign : it 

 is therefore beyond doubt that Walton lived at the very next door. 

 And in this house, he is in the deed above referred to, which bears 

 date 1624 said to have followed the trade of a Linen draper. It 

 further appears by that deed, that the house was in thejotnf occupa> 

 tion of Isaac Walton, and John Mason, hosier; whence we may 

 conclude, that half a shop was sufficient for the business of Walton. 



A citizen of this age would almost as much disdain to admit of a 

 tenant for half his shop, as a knight would to ride double ; though 

 the brethren of one of the most ancient orders in the world were so 

 little above this practice, that their common seal was the device of 

 two riding on one horse. 4 A more than gradual deviation from 

 that parsimonious character, of which this is a ludicrous instance, 

 hastened the grandeur, and declension, of that fraternity ; and it is 

 rather to be wished than hoped, that the vast increase of trade of 

 this country, and an aversion from the frugal manners of our fore- 

 fathers, may not be productive of similar consequences to this nation 

 in general 



I conjecture, that about 1632 he married ; for in that year 1 find 

 him "living in a house in Chancery-lane, a few doors higher up, on 

 the left hand, than the former, and described by the occupation of a 

 trmpsler or milliner. The former of these might be his own proper 

 trade ; and the latter, as being a feminine occupation, might probably 

 he carried on by his wife : she, it appears, was Anne the daughter of 

 Thomas Ken, df FurnivaTs Inn, and sister of Thomas, afterwards 

 Dr. Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, one of the seven that were sent 

 to the Tower, and who at the Revolution was deprived, and died in 

 retirement. Walton seems to have been as happy in the married 

 state, as the society and friendship of a prudent and pious woman of 

 great endowments could make him ; and that Mrs. Walton was such 

 a one, we may conclude from what will be said of her hereafter. 

 About 1643 he left London, and, with a fortune very far short of 



(1) Ward's Life of Sir Thoauu Gresham, p. It. 



* (3) Ex vet. ckartii penes me. 



(4) The Knights Templars. Ashmole's Inttit. of the Order of tlie Garter, 

 p. 55. See the seal at the end of Matt. Paris Hist. Anglicana, edit. 1640. 



