Ixxx LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. [1673, 



fulness in making requests, so I find myself (pardon the parallel) so like 

 him in this, that if I had not more reasons than I have yet exprest, these 

 alone had not been powerful enough to have created a confidence in me to 

 have attempted it. Two of my unexprest reasons are (give me leave to tell 

 them to your lordship and tlie world) that Sir Henry Wotton, whose 

 many merits made him an ornament to your family, was yet so humble, as 

 to acknowledge me to be his friend ; and died in a belief that I was so : 

 since which time, I have made him the best return of my gratitude for his 

 condescension, that I have been able to express, or he capable of receiving : 

 and am pleased with myself for so doing. 



" My other reason of this boldness, is an encouragement (very like a 

 command) from your worthy cousin, and my friend, Mr Charles Cotton, 

 who hath assured me, that you are such a lover of the memory of your 

 generous uncle, Sir Henry Wotton, that if there were no other reason than 

 my endeavours to preserve it, yet, that that alone would secure this dedica- 

 tion from being unacceptable. 



"I wish that not he nor I be mistaken ; and that I were able to make 

 you a more worthy present. — My Lord, I am and will be your humble 

 and most affectionate servant, Izaak Walton. 



"Feb. 27, 1672." 



Walton says, in the advertisement to the reader of that edition, 

 " You may be pleased to take notice that in this last relation of 

 Sir Henry Wotton's Life, 'tis both enlarged, and some small errors 

 rectified, so that I may now be confident, there is no material 

 mistakes in it ; and adds that " there is in this impression an 

 addition of many letters ; in which the spirit with which they 

 were writ will assure them to be Sir Henry Wotton's." 



A very interesting letter from Walton to his publisher, Marriott, 

 dated at Winchester on the 24th August 1673, which is now for 

 the first time printed, proves that the weight of eighty years had 

 had slight effect upon his mental or bodily powers. He was then, 

 it appears, employed in collecting particulars of the Life of the 

 celebrated John Hales of Eton ; and purposed visiting London 

 in the ensuing October. The information about Hales was inten- 

 ded for William Fulman, the author of the " Notitia Oxoniensis 

 Academiae," who was one of Gale's assistants in the " Rerum 

 Anglicarum Scriptores." 



" Mr Marriott,— I have received Bentevolio, and in it Mr Her^ life ; 

 I thank you for both. I have since I saw you received from Mr Milington 

 so much of Mr Hales his life as Mr Faringdon had writ ; and have made 

 many inquiries concerning him of many that knew him, namely of Mrs 

 Powny, of Windsor (at whose house he died), and as I have heard, so 

 have set them down, that my memory might not lose them. Mr Montague 

 did at my being in Windsor promise me to summon his memory, and set 

 down what he knew of him. This I desired him to do at his best leisure, 

 and write it down, and he that knew him and all his affairs best of any 



