MT.62.] LIFE OF I2:aAK WALTON. Ixiii 



into a cleanly house, where we had bread, cheese, ale, and a fire for our 

 ready money. The rain and wind were so obliging to me, as to force our 

 stay there for at least an hour, to my great content and advantage ; for in 

 that time he made to me many useful observations of the present times 

 with much clearness and conscientious freedom. I shall relate a part ot 

 them, in hope they may also turn to the advantage of my reader." ^ 



The remainder of the narrative contains Sanderson's remarks 

 upon various religious topics ; and Walton observes, " This was a 

 part of the benefit I then had by that hour's conversation ; and I 

 gladly remember and mention it as an argument of my happiness, " 

 and his great humility and condescension. I had also a like 

 advantage by another happy conference with him ; " which was on 

 similar subjects, and which he also relates.' 



Between 1655 and 1658 not a single trace of Walton has been 

 found; but it was. about that period that the following conversa- 

 tion occurred between Dr Fuller and himself. Not long after the 

 publication of the " Church History" in 1655, Walton was asked 

 by Fuller, who was aware of his being intimate with several 

 bishops and other eminent clergymen, what he thought of that 

 work himself, and wha.t opinions Jje had heard his friends express 

 of it ? Walton replied " he thought it should be acceptable to all 

 tempers, because there were shades in it for the warm, and sun- 

 shine for those of a cold constitution, that with youthful readers, 

 the facetious parts would he profitable to make the serious more 

 palatable ; while som£ reverend old readers might fancy them- 

 selves in his History of the Church, as in a flower-garden or one 

 full of evergreens." " And why not," said Fuller, " the Church 

 History so decked, as well as the Church itself at a most Holy 

 season, or the Tabernacle of old at the feast of boughs 1 " " That 

 was but for a season," said Walton ; " in your feast of boughs, 

 they may conceive we are so overshadowed throughout, that the 

 parson is more seen than his congregation, and this, sometimes 

 invisible to its own acquaintance, who may wander in the search, 

 till they are lost in the labyrinth." " Oh," said Fuller, " the very 

 children of our Israel may find their way out of this wilderness." 

 "True," replied Walton, "as, indeed, they have here such a Moses 

 to conduct them." * 



The next circumstance which is known of Walton is that, in 

 1658, he published a second and improved edition of his Life of 

 Dr Donne, which was the first time the memoir was printed as a 



^ WlJton's Lives, ed. Zouch, ii. 231, 253. * Ibid. p. 258. 



* Biographia Britannica, edit. 1730, art. Fuller. 



