^T. 38.] LIFE OF IZAAK WALTOtf. sjxiii 



Bisliopsbourne, near Canterbury, in which city their good father then 

 lived. Tliey had, I say, a great part of their education with him, as myself, 

 since that time, a happy cohabitation witli them. " ^ 



The maiden name of the mother of Mrs Walton has not been 

 positively ascertained ; but it is nearly certain that she was Anne, 

 the sister of John Carpenter, second son of John Carpenter, of 

 Rye, in Sussex, who married Anne, the sisterof Secretary Davison, 

 which alliance would explain the connection that is known to have 

 existed between the families of Davison and Cranmer,^ and may 

 have induced Walton to insert " The Beggars' Song," which, he 

 says, in the " Complete Angler," was written by Francis Davison, 

 the secretary's eldest son. 



On the 31st of March 1 63 1, Walton lost his revered friend, 

 Dr Donne. About three weeks before his death, Donne, to use 

 Walton's words, " sent for many of his most considerable friends, 

 with whom he took a solemn and deliberate farewell, commending 

 to their considerations some sentences useful for the regulation of 

 their lives, and then dismissed them, as good Jacob did his sons, 

 with a spiritual benediction." ' It would seem that Walton was 

 not one of the friends there alluded to ; but with Dr King, Dr 

 Winniff (afterwards Bishop of Lincoln), and Dr Montfort, then a 

 residentiary of St Paul's, he attended Donne in almost his last 

 hours, and received his dying wishes. This fact may be inferred 

 from King's letter to Walton upon his Lives of Donne, Wotton, 

 Hooker, and Herbert, which will be again noticed, wherein he 

 said, " I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable friend, 

 Dr Donne, late Dean of St Paul's Church, who not only trusted 

 me as his executor, but three days before his death delivered into 

 my hands those excellent sermons of his, now made public ; 

 professing before Dr Winniff, Dr Montfort, and, I think, yourself, 

 then present at his bedside, that it was by my restless importunity 

 that he had prepared them for the press ; together with which (as 

 his best legacy) he gave me all his sermon-notes, and his other 

 papers, containing an extract of near fifteen hundred authors. 

 How these were got out of my hands, you, who were the messenger 

 for them, and how lost both to me and yourself, is not now season- 



1 Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, 1817, vol. i. pp. 304, 305. In another place (p. 446) 

 Walton says, " Dr Spencer's wife was my aunt, and sister to George Cranmer, of whom 

 I have spoken." 



2 A letter is preserved in the State Paper Office from John Carpenter to his brother- 

 in-law, Secretary Davison, dated 7th October 1586, in which he speaks of his ^^ brother 

 Cranmer" to whom he had written respecting his son George^ who was the George 

 Cranmer mentioned in the preceding page. 



3 Life of Donne, ed. Zouch, L 155. 



