22 LIFE OF WALTON. 



Mr. Fulman, who had proposed to himself to continue and finish 

 it, that Walton would furnish him with such information as was 

 to his purpose : Mr. Fulman did not live to complete his design. 

 But a " Life of Mr. Hales," from other materials, was compiled by 

 the late Mr. Des Maizeaux, and published by him in 1719, as a 

 specimen of a new " Biographical Dictionary." 



A letter of Walton, to Marriot, his bookseller, upon this 

 occasion, was sent me by the late Eev. Dr. Birch, containing 

 the above facts ; to which the Doctor added, that after the 

 year 1719, Mr. Fulman's papers, came to the hands of Mr. 

 Des Maizeaux, who intended, in some way or other, to avail 

 himself of them : but he never published a second edition of his 

 " Life of Hales ; " nor, for aught that I can hear, have they ever 

 yet found their way into the world. 



In 1683, when he was ninety years old, Walton published 

 "Thealma and Clearchus ; " a pastoral history, in smooth and 

 easy verse, written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq. ; an 

 acquaintance and friend of Edmund Spenser : to this poem he 

 wrote a preface, containing a very amiable character of the 

 author. 



He lived but a very little time after the publication of this 

 poem ; for, as Wood says, he ended his days on the 15th day of 

 December, 1683, in the great frost, at Winchester, in the house 

 of Dr. William Hawkins, a prebendary of the church there, 

 where he lies buried. 



In the cathedral of Winchester, in a chapel in the south aisle, 

 called Prior Silksteed's chapel, on a large black flat marble stone, 

 is this inscription to his memory ; the poetry has very little to 

 recommend it. 



Here resteth the body of 

 MR. ISAAC WALTON, 



Who dyed the 15th of December, 

 1683. 



Alas ! he's gone before, 

 Gone to return no more. 

 Our panting breasts aspire 



After their aged sire ; 

 Whose well -spent life did last 

 Full ninety years and past. 



But now he hath begun 

 That, which will ne'er be done. 



Crown' d with eternal bliss, 



We wish our souls with his. 



VOTIS MODESTIS SIC FLERTJNT LIBERT. 



