Ixiv LlfE OF IZAAK WALTON. [1658, 



distinct work. It wag dedicated to Sir Robert Holt, of Aston, in 

 Warwickshire, Baronet, whose mother was the daughter of John 

 King, Bishop of London, and sister of Henry King, afterwards. 

 Bishop of Chichester, the intimate friend of Donne and Walton. 

 There are such characteristic and pleasing passages in this dedica- 

 tion ; it affords so many illustrations of the mind and life of the 

 writer, and contains statements of so much interest, among which 

 is the fact that the memoir of Donne had been honoured with the 

 approbation of King Charles the First, that it is proper to insert 

 it : — 



"to my noble and honoured friend, sir robert holt, of 

 Aston, in the county of Warwick, Bart. 



"Sir, — When this relation of the life of Dr Donne v/as first made 

 public, it had, besides the approbation of our late learned and eloquent 

 King, a conjunction with the author's most excellent sermons to support it ; 

 and thus it lay some time fortified against prejudice, and those passions 

 that are, by busy and malicious men, too freely vented against the dead. 

 And yet, now, after almost twenty years, when though the memory of Dr 

 Donne himself, must not, cannot die, so long as men speak English ; yet 

 when I thought time had made this relation of him so like myself, as to 

 ' become useless to the world, and content to be forgotten, I find that a 

 retreat into a desired privacy will not be afforded ; for the printers will 

 again expose it and me to public exceptions, and without those supports, 

 which we first had and needed, and in an age too in which truth and 

 innocence have not been able to defend themselves from worse than severe 

 censures. This I foresaw, and nature teaching me self-preservation, and 

 my long experience of your abilities assuring me that in you it may be 

 found, to you. Sir, do I make mine addresses for an umbrage and protec- 

 tion ; and I make it with so much humble boldness, as to say 'twere 

 degenerous in you not to afford it. For, Sir, Dr Donne was so much a 

 part of yourself, as to be incorporated into your family, by so noble a 

 friendship, that I may say there was a marriage of souls betwixt him and 

 your reverend grandfather, Qohn King, Bishop of London,] who in his Hfe 

 was an angel of our once glorious Church, and now no common star in 

 heaven. And Dr Donne's love died not with him, but was doubled upon 

 his heir, your beloved uncle, [Henry King,] the Bishop of Chichester, that 

 lives in this froward generation, to be an ornament to his calling. And 

 this affection to him was by Dr Donne so testified in his life, that he then 

 trusted him with the very secrets of his soul ; and at his death, with what 

 was dearest to him, even his fame, estate, and children. And you have yet 

 a further title to what was Dr Donne's, by that dear affection and friend- 

 ship that was betwixt him and your parents, by which he entailed a love 

 upon yourself, even in your infancy, which was increased by the early 

 testimonies of your growing merits, and by them continued till Dr Donne 

 put on immortality ; and so this mortal was turned into a love that cannot 

 die. And, Sir, 'twas pity he w.%s lost to you in your minority, before you 

 had attained a judgment to put a true value upon the living beauties and 

 elegancies of his conversation ; and pity, too, that so much of them as were 



