COPY

OF A LETTER WAIT TO

Mr. IZAAK WALTON,

BY DOCTOR KING, LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.

HONEST IZAAK,

THOUGH

HOUGH a familiarity of more than forty years continuance, and the constant experience of your love, even in the worst of the late sad times, be sufficient to endear our friendship; yet, I must

* Dr HENRY KING, Bishop of Chichester, son of Dr. John K: Bishop of London, and great nephew of Robert King the frit B shop of Oxford, and the last Abbot of O-ney, was the author of a new metrical translation of the Psalms, of which he Las given a modest account in a letter to Archbishop Usher, dated Oct. 30, 1651,—U skers Letos p/67 —an i al o of prema, eleges, paradies sonnets, divers 1 ite sermons and religious track fee is with sore Dean of Rochester, he was suspecte Fof favour to▾

The king, desirous of gra ily - that party, mi 1 Ten Bop € Chichester. Bat dining the time of Cro swell's neɗp ten.

confess my affection affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to many that know and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public spirit, testified in a diligent, true, and useful collection of so many material passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker; of which, since desired by such a friend as yourself, I shall not deny to give the testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned books; but shall first here take a fir occasion to tell you, that you have been happy in choosing to write the Lives of three such persons, as posterity hath just cause to honour; which they will do the more for the true relation of them by your happy pen : of all which I shall give you my unfeigned censure.

I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable friend Dr. Donne, late Dean of St. Paul'schurch, who not only trusted me as his executor, but three days before his death, delivered into my hands those excellent Sermons of his, now made

he suffered with lus brethren, and was compelled to go abroad. He returned at the Restoration, an 1 surviving that event mu-e years, died Oct. 1, 165) He was advanced to a bishoptar, when Episcopacy was in a smoking state; "It being cot.ce...ces," says Jacob, “the most effectual meti od for the restitut on of "that order, to prefer persons not only of u.' 'amable lives, na 1 “eminent for their learning, but such as were generally beined "by all d'interested pp'e. The king's eloce amongst t'iese "was very happy in this great divme, who 1 vel a most rei, s "life, and did not che til after his order was restored."

public; professing before Dr. Winniff ", Dr. Monford, and, I think, yourself then present at his bed-side, that it was by my restless importunity, that he had prepared them for the press; together with which (as his best legacy) he gave me all his

* Dr. Thomas WINNIFE, successively Dean of Gloucester and of St. Paul's, was promoted to the bishopric of Lincoln ia 1641, en the translation of Dr. Williams to York. His mildaess, Leekness, and humility, were equalled only by his learning, integrity, and eloquence. He experienced vexation and trouble in his promotion, and was under the necessity of retiring to a can try parish, Lambourn in Essex, where he died in 1671. A monument was there erected to his memory, on which he is described as one, "Ex eorum numero Episcoporum, quibus • incumbebat nutantis Episcopatus molem pietatis ac probitatis * Fulcimine sustentare." He has been censured, along with Usher, Prideaux, and others, for the moderation which he always displayed towards the Puritans, and indeed towards all those who were not well affected to the church of England. But surely such a moderation is more commend.ble than the harshtess and acrimony of intemper te zeil. Lord Clarendon naming for other divines, who were appointed bishops at the sun e the with D.. Wannaff, char cterises them as, of great cri tay in the church, frequent preachers, a d not a man to whom the faults of the then governing clergy were i spated, or against whom the leat of jixton could be made."

• Dr THOMAS MONTEDET a Resid ntary of St. Paul's, d'ol Feb 27, 16-2. It appears fre a Strypes I f's of° Whi°gift, t' t 1o a person was vispe life having cink strely married 1! ward 1 r' of Hotford, al I ces Prapel, w low of Henr Pratel, Esq (without bars or COINC Upends aliis roh, ni earnest desire to be absolvel, he obt inel absolution freza Arb.-hop Whitt hinseit

sermon-notes, and his other papers, containing ait extract of near fifteen hundred authors. How these were got out of my hands, you, who were the messenger for them, and how lost both to me and yourself, is not now seasonable to complain : But, since they did miscarry, I am glad that the general demonstration of his worth was so fairly preserved, and represented to the world by your pen in the history of his life; indeed so well, that beside others, the best critic of our later time (Mr. John Hales of Eton College) affirmed to me, he had not seen a life written with more advantage to the subject, or more reputation to the writer, than that of Dr. Donne's ".

After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne, you undertook the like office for your

• The ever memorable Joux HALES, Greek Professor in the University of Oxford, and afterward Fellow of Eton College, from his vast erudition, called " The Walking Library," was e termed to be one of the greatest scholars in Europe. Having attended the Ambassador of James I. to the Synod of Dort, he composed in a series of letters, a regular and not faithful narrative of the proceedings of that assembly. His adherence to the royal cause, involved ¦ in in distress, Obliged to scil his most valuable collection of books at a low price, he died in extrine poverty, May 19, 1993, aged 72 years. It is justly remarked, “it was no ie of the least in juries ol d'ose ties, that so eminent "a tim as liales should live and die under such news ities as *he did, by wich has life was shorteaed.”

↑ This was spoken of the first edition of Isaac Walton's Life of Dr. Doune, which was printed in 1610; and not, as Wood affirins, in 1675,

friend Sir Henry Wotton; betwixt which two there was a friendship begun in Oxford, continued in their various travels, and more confirmed in the religious friendship of age: and doubtless this excellent person had writ the life of Dr. Doune, it' death had not prevented him; by which means his and your pre-collections for that work fell to the happy manage of your pen; a work which you would have declined, if imperious persuasions had not been stronger than your modest resolutions against it. And I am thus far glad, that the first life was so imposed upon you, because it gave an unavoidable cause of writing the second: if not, it is too probable, we had wanted both; which had been a prejudice to all lovers of honour and ingenious learning. And let me not leave my friend Sir Henry, without this testimony added to yours; that he was a man of as florid a wit, and as elegant a pen, as any former (or ours, which in that kind is a most excellent) age hath ever produced.

And now having made this voluntary observation of our two deceased friends, I proceed to satisfy your desire concerning what I know and believe of the ever-memorable Mr. Hooker, who was Selasa sticoren Milleas, so great a champion for the Church of England's right...,«,inst the fictous torrent of Separatists, that than high against ch. arch-discipline; and in his an answer dile Locks continues to be so aguest the unqu'a di cipl their schism, which now under the ta