Mi: 75.] Z/FE OF IZAAK WALTON. Ixxvii 



still living with Morley. In the address to the reader Walton gives 

 the following modest account of his biographical labours : — 



"Though the several introductions to these several Lives, have partly 

 declared the reasons how and why I undertook them ( yet, since they are 

 come to be reviewed, and augmented, and reprinted, and the four are be- 

 come one book, I desire leave to inform you that shall become my reader, 

 that when I look back upon my mean abilities, it is not without some little 

 wonder at myself, that I am come to be publicly in print. And though I 

 have in those introductions declared some of the accidental reasons ; yet, 

 let me add this to what is there said : that, by my undertaking to collect 

 some notes for Sir Henry Wotton's writing the Life of Dr Donne, and Sir 

 Henry's dying before he performed it, I became like those that enter easily 

 into a law-suit, or a quarrel, and having begun, cannot make a fair retreat 

 and be quiet when they desire it. And really after such a manner I became 

 engaged into a necessity of writing the Life of Dr Donne, contrary to my 

 first intentions. And that begot a like necessity of writing the Life of his 

 and my honoured friend, Sir Henry Wotton. And having writ these two 

 lives, I lay quiet twenty years, without a thought of either troubling myself 

 or others, by any new engagement in this kind. But about that time, Doct. 

 Ga. [uden] (then Lord Bishop of Exeter) published the Life of Mr Richard 

 Hooker (so he called it), with so many dangerous mistakes, both of him 

 and his books, that discoursing of them with his grace, Gilbert, that now is 

 Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, he enjoined me to examine some circum- 

 stances, and then rectify the bishop's mistakes, by giving the world a truer 

 account of Mr Hooker and his books ; and I know I have done so. And, 

 indeed, till his grace hath laid this injunction upon me, I could not admit a 

 thought of any fitness in me to undertake it ; but when he twice enjoined 

 me to it, I then trusted his judgment, and submitted to his commands ; 

 considering that if I did not, I could not forbear accusing myself of dis- 

 obedience, and indeed of ingratitude for his many favours. Thus I became 

 engaged into the third life. 



" For the Life of Mr'George Herbert, I profess it to be a free-will offering, 

 and writ chiefly to please myself ; but not without some respect to posterity, 

 for though he was not a man that the next age can forget, yet many of his 

 particular acts and virtues might have been neglected, or lost, if I had not 

 collected and presented them to the imitation of those that shall succeed 

 us : for I conceive writing to be both a safer and truer preserver of men's 

 various actions than tradition. I am to tell the reader that though this Life 

 of Mr Herbert was not by m.e writ in haste, yet I intended it a review before 

 it should be made public : but that was not allowed me, by reason of my 

 absence from London when it was printing ; so that the reader may find in 

 it some double expressions, and some not very proper, and some that might 

 have been contracted, and some faults that are not justly chargeable upon 

 me but the printer : and yet I hope none so gieat, as may not, by this 

 confession, purchase pardon from a good-natured reader. And now I 

 wish, that as that learned Jew, Josephus, and others, so these men had also 

 writ their own lives : but since it is not the fashion of these times, I wish 

 their relations or friends would do it for them, before delays make it too 

 difficult. And I desire this the more because it is an honour due to the 

 dead, and a generous debt due to those that shall live and succeed us, and 

 would to them prove both a content and satisfaction. For when the next 



