i^T. 75-] LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. ixxv 



of the Bill of Comprehension, which, with another letter on the 

 same subject, was printed in 1680 ; but the authenticity of these 

 letters is by no means established, and some remarks on the 

 point will be found in a subsequent page. The fourth edition of 

 "The Complete Angler" appeared in 1668, and is stated in the 

 title-page to have been " much corrected and enlarged." It was, 

 however, merely a reprint of the preceding edition, except that the 

 errata are corrected ; but in the address to the reader, even the 

 statement that " many enlargements had been made in this third 

 impression " is retained. 



Izaak Walton was at that time still the guest of Bishop Morley ; 

 and he appears to have been engaged upon the Life of George 

 Herbert, and in revising the Memoirs of Donne, Wotton, and 

 Hooker, for publication in one volume. The Life of Herbert was 

 published about May 1670, the imprimatur being dated on the 

 2 1 St of April in that year; and in the introduction Walton says 

 that, " in a late retreat from the business of this world, and those 

 many little cares with which I have too often cumbered myself, I 

 fell into a contemplation of some of those historical passages that 

 are recorded in sacred story," more particularly respecting Mary 

 Magdalen : " upon occasion of which fair example, I did lately 

 look back, and not without some content (at least to myself) that I 

 have endeavoured to deserve the love, and preserve the memory of 

 my two deceased friends, Dr Donne and Sir Henry Wotton, by de- 

 claring the several employments and various accidents of their lives : 

 and though Mr George Herbert (whose life I now intend to write) 

 were to me a stranger as to his person, for I have only seen him ; 

 yet since he was, and was worthy to be, their friend, and very 

 many of his have been mine, I judge it may not be unacceptable 

 to those that knew any of them in their lives, or do now know 

 them by mine or their own writings, to see this conjunction of 

 them after their deaths ; without which many things that con- 

 cerned them, and some things that concerned the age in which 

 they lived, would be less perfect and lost to posterity. For these 

 reasons I have undertaken it ; and if I have prevented any abler 

 person, I beg pardon of him and my reader." ^ 



He says, in the Memoir of Herbert, that if his life had been 

 related by a pen like St Chrysostom's, there would then " be no 

 need for this age to look back into times past for the examples 

 of primitive piety ; for they might be all found in the life of George 

 Herbert. But now, alas ! who is fit to undertake it ? I confess I 



9 Life of Herbert, ed. 1670, pp. 10-12. 



