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the acquaintance of perfons of learning and judgment.

All that the editor requests in return for the pains he has taken is, that the reader will do him the justice to believe, that his only motives for the republication of this work, were a defire to perpetuate the memory of a meek, benevolent, pious man, and to contribute fomething to the improvement of an art of which he profeffes himself a lover.

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HE excellent Lord Verulam has noted it, as one of the great deficiencies of biographical history, that it is, for the most part, confined to the actions of kings, princes, and great perfonages, who are neceffarily few; while the memory of lefs confpicuous, though good men, has been no better preferved than by vague reports and barren elogies *.

It is not therefore to be wondered at, if little care has been taken to perpetuate the remembrance of the perfon who is the subject of the prefent enquiry; and, indeed, there are many circumftances that seem to account

* De Augmentis Scientiarum.

for

for fuch an omiffion; for neither was he distinguished by his rank, or eminent for his learning, or remarkable for the performance of any publick fervice; but, as he ever affected a retired life, fo was he noted only for an ingenious humble good man.

However, to fo eminent a degree did he. poffefs the qualities above ascribed to him, as to afford a very juftifiable reafon for endeavouring to imprefs upon the minds of mankind, by a collection of many fcattered paffages concerning him, a due fenfe of their value and importance.

Ifaac, or, as he used to write it, Izaak Walton, was born at Stafford, in the month of August 1593*. The Oxford Antiquary, who has thus fixed the place and of year his nativity, has left us no memorials of his family, nor even hinted where or how he was educated; but has only told us, that before the year 1643, Walton was fettled, and followed the trade of a Sempfer in London +.

From his own writings then it must be, that the circumftances attending his life. muft, in a great meafure come; and, as oc

*He has often been confounded with Dr. Brian Walton, the learned publifher of the Polygot Bible; who was a native of Yorkshire, and born feven years after Ifaac.

† Athen. Oxon. Vol. I. Col. 305.

cafions

1

cafions offer, a proper ufe will be made of them; nevertheless a due regard will be paid to fome traditional memoirs, which, befides that they contain nothing improbable, the authority of thofe to whom we stand indebted for them, will not allow us to queftion.

His first fettlement in London, as a fhopkeeper, was in the Royal Burfe in Cornhill, built by Sir Thomas Gresham, and finished in 1616; and as in the year 1624, as will hereafter appear, he was fixed in a different part of the city, we may reasonably suppose he was one of the first inhabitants of the Burfe; and being then but 23, was perhaps one of thofe induftrious young men, whom, as we are told, the munificent founder himfelf placed in the fhops erected over that edifice.

In this fituation he could fcarcely be faid to have elbow-room; for the fhops over the Burfe were but feven feet long, and five wide; yet here did he carry on his trade till fome time before the year 1624; when "he dwelt on the north fide of Fleet-freet, "in a house two doors weft of the end of Chancery-lane, and abutting on a meffuage known by the fign of the Harrow;"

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*Ward's life of Sir Thomas Gresham, p. 12..

+ Ibid.

Ex vet. Autograph. penes me.

now

now the old timber-houfe at the fouthweft corner of Chancery-lane, in Fleetftreet, till within these few years, was known by that fign: 'tis therefore beyond doubt that Walton lived at the very next door, and in this houfe, he is, in the deed above referred to, which bears date 1624, faid to have followed the trade of a Linen-Draper. It further appears by that deed, that the house was in the joint occupation of Ifaac Walton, and John Mafon, hofier, from whence we may conclude, that half a shop was fufficient for the bufinefs of Walton.

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A citizen of this age would almost as much difdain to admit of a tenant for half his fhop, as a knight would to ride double though the brethren of one of the most ancient orders in the world were fo little above this practice, that their common feal was the device of two riding on one horse *. A more than gradual deviation from that parfimonious character, of which this is a ludicrous inftance, haftened the grandeur and declen- ́ fion of that set of men; and it is to be hoped, the vast increase of the trade of this country, and an almost inevitable averfion from the

The Knights Templars. Afbmole's Inftitut. of the order of the garter, p. 55. See a reprefentation of the feal at the end of Matt. Paris, Hift. Anglicana, edit. 1640.

frugal

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