LIFE OF WALTON. 15 



and at his return attended the Earl of Essex. He was employed 

 by King James the First in several foreign negotiations, and went 

 ambassador to Venice. Towards the end of his life, he was made 

 provost of Eton College, a dignity well suited to a mind like his, 

 that had withdrawn itself from the world for the purpose of 

 religious contemplation. He was skilled in painting, sculpture, 

 music, architecture, medals, chemistry, and languages. In the 

 arts of negotiation he had few equals ; l and in the propensities 

 and attainments of a well-bred gentleman, no superior. To which 

 character it may be added, that he possessed a rich vein of 

 poetry ; which he occasionally exercised in compositions of the 

 descriptive and elegiac kind. There is extant, of his writing, the 

 volume of " Remains " heretofore mentioned ; collected and pub- 

 lished, as the dedication tells us, by Walton himself ; containing 

 among other valuable tracts, his " Elements of Architecture." He 

 was a lover of angling, and such a proficient in the art, that, as he 

 once told Walton, he intended to write a discourse on it : but his 

 death, in 1639, prevented him. His reasons for the choice of this 

 recreation were, that " after tedious study, it was a rest to his 

 mind, a chearer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of 

 unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of con- 

 tentedness ; and begat habits of peace and patience." 



HOOKER, one of the greatest of English divines, is sufficiently 

 known and celebrated as a learned, able and judicious writer, 

 and defender of our church, in his "Treatise of the Laws of 

 Ecclesiastical Polity." The occasion of this immortal work 

 was as follows : In or about the year 1570 were published 

 two small tracts, severally entitled, " A First and Second 

 Admonition to the Parliament," containing, under the form of a 

 remonstrance, a most virulent invective against the establishment 

 and discipline of the Church of England. These were answered 

 by Dr. Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and 

 defended by one Thomas Cartwright, the author of the second 

 A dmonition. Whitgift being, it seems, weary of the dispute, com- 

 mitted the future conduct of it to Hooker ; who took it up with 

 an examination of the two Admonitions, and continued it through 

 the subsequent books of Cartwright, referring to the latter (a 

 particular worthy to be known : for, without it, no one can tell 

 who or what he is refuting) by the initials " T. C." and the 

 adjunct "lib." above-mentioned. Here the matter rested, till the 



1 To a person intended for a foreign embassy that came to him for 

 instruction, he gave this shrewd advice : " Ever," said he, " speak truth, 

 for if you do, you shall never be believed, and 'twill put your adversaries, (who 

 will still hunt counter) to a loss in all their disquisitions and undertakings.' 

 See also his advice to Milton, concerning travel, in his "Letter" prefixed to 

 Milton's "Comus." H. 



