iET. 47-] LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. xxxi 



2Sth of August following.^ That child was the only one which 

 survived its mother : she received the name of Anne, and died in 

 her second year on the i ith of May 1642.* 



Walton has described an affectionate and dutiful wife, and the 

 happiness of the married state, with so much effect, that it is pro- 

 bable his own home presented him with the originals. Speaking 

 of Herbert and his wife, he observes : " The eternal lover of man- 

 kind made them happy in each other's mutual and equal affections 

 and compliance ; indeed so happy, that there never was any 

 opposition betwixt them, unless it were a contest which should 

 most incline to a compliance with the other's desires. And 

 though this begot, and continued in them, such a mutual love, 

 and joy, and content, as was no way defective ; yet this mutual 

 content, and love, and joy, did receive a daily augmentation, by 

 such daily obligingness to each other, as still added such new 

 affluences to the former fulness of these divine souls, as was only 

 improvable in heaven, where they now enjoy it." * His most pleas- 

 ing picture of wedded happiness is, however, in the Life of Bishop 

 Sanderson : " The Giver of all good things was so good to him, 

 as to give him such a wife as was suitable to his own desires ; a 

 wife that made his life happy, by being always content when he 

 was cheerful ; that was always cheerful when he was content ; 

 that divided her joys with him, and abated of his sorrow, by bear- 

 ing a part of that burden ; a wife that demonstrated her affection 

 by a cheerful obedience to all his desires, during the whole course 

 of his life ; and at his death too, for she outlived him." ^ 



Only one allusion to his first wife, and even that may be merely 

 imaginary, can be traced in Walton's works ; and however sincere 

 might be the compliment which is supposed to be there paid to 

 her, it unfortunately brings to recollection the story of the man 

 who had a picture painted of his first wife, and marrying again 

 after her decease, desired the artist to erase the face from the canvas 

 and to introduce the features of his new partner. In the stanzas 

 called " The Angler's Wish," which were first printed in the third 

 edition of the Complete Angler in 1 664, and which were undoubt- 

 edly written by Walton, he speaks of the happiness it affords 

 him to 



" Hear my Chlora sing a song," 



3 Vide Notes B and H in the Appendix. 



* The following entry occurs, in Walton's own hand, in his Prayer Book, which is 

 noticed in the Appendix, Note B ; " Our Doghter Anne, born the loth of July 1640, died 

 the I Ith of May .1642.*' 



S Walton's Lives, ed. Zouch, II. 67, 68. 6 ibid. II. 183, 184. 



