LIFE OF WALTON. 13 



like an imitation of it extant in a tract entitled "Angling 

 improved to Spiritual Uses," part of an 8vo. volume written by 

 the Hon. Kobert Boyle, an angler, as himself confesses, and 

 published in 1665, with this title, " Occasional Keflections upon 

 several Subjects ; whereto is premised a Discourse about such 

 kind of Thoughts." 



Great names are entitled to great respect. The character of 

 Mr. Boyle, as a devout Christian and deep philosopher, is 

 deservedly in high estimation ; and a comparison between his 

 reflections and those of Walton, might seem an invidious labour 

 but see the irresistible impulse of wit ! the book here referred 

 to was written in the very younger years of the author ; and 

 Swift, who had but little learning himself, and was better skilled 

 in party politics than in mathematics or physics, respected no man 

 for his proficiency in either, and accordingly has not spared to 

 turn the whole of it into ridicule. 1 



Walton was now in his eighty-third year, an age which, to 

 use his own words, " might have procured him a writ of ease, 

 and secured him from all further trouble in that kind ; " when 

 he undertook to write the " Life of Doctor Eobert Sanderson, 

 Bishop of Lincoln : " which was published together with several 

 of the Bishop's pieces, and a sermon of Hooker's in 8vo. 1677. 2 



And, since little has been said of the subjects of these several 

 lives, it may not be amiss just to mention what kind of men 

 they were whom Walton, and indeed mankind in general, thought 

 so well worthy to be signalised by him. 



DOCTOR JOHN DONNE was born in London about the year 1573. 

 At the age of eleven he was sent to Oxford ; thence he was 

 transplanted to Cambridge ; where he applied himself very 

 assiduously to the study of divinity. At seventeen he was 

 admitted to Lincoln's-iun ; but not having determined what 



1 See Ms "Meditation on a Broomstick." 



2 The following curious particular, relating to King Charles the First, is 

 mentioned in this " Life of Sanderson ; " which, as none of our historians 

 have taken notice of it, is here given in Walton's own words : "And let 

 me here take occasion to tell the reader this truth, not commonly known, 

 that in one of these conferences this conscientious king told Dr. Sanderson, 

 or one of them that then waited with him, that the remembrance of two 

 errors did much afflict him ; which were, his assent to the Earl of Strafford's 

 death, and the abolishing episcopacy in Scotland : and that, if Gfod ever 

 restored him to be in a peaceable possession of his crown, he would 

 demonstrate his repentance by a publick confession, and a voluntary penance 

 (I think barefoot) from the Tower of London, or Whitehall, to St. Paul's 

 church, and desire the people to intercede with Gfod for his pardon. I am 

 sure one of them told it me, lives still, and will witness it." Life of 

 Sanderson. H. 



