olyolbion_, is also spoken of by
Walton as 'my old deceased friend.'

On Dec. 27, 1626, Walton married, at Canterbury, Rachel Floud, a niece,
on the maternal side, by several descents, of Cranmer, the famous
Archbishop of Canterbury. The Cranmers were intimate with the family of
the judicious Hooker, and Walton was again connected with kinsfolk of
that celebrated divine. Donne died in 1631, leaving to Walton, and to
other friends, a bloodstone engraved with Christ crucified on an anchor:
the seal is impressed on Walton's will. When Donne's poems were
published in 1633, Walton added commendatory verses:--

'As all lament
(Or should) this general cause of discontent.'

The parenthetic 'or should' is much in Walton's manner. 'Witness my mild
pen, not used to upbraid the world,' is also a pleasant and accurate
piece of self-criticism. 'I am his convert,' Walton exclaims. In a
citation from a manuscript which cannot be found, and perhaps never
existed, Walton is spoken of as 'a very sweet poet in his youth, and more
than all in matters of love.' {1} Donne had been in the same case: he,
or Time, may have converted Walton from amorous ditties. Walton, in an
edition of Donne's poems of 1635, writes of

'This book (dry emblem) which begins
With love; but ends with tears and sighs for sins.'

The preacher and his convert had probably a similar history of the heart:
as we shall see, Walton, like the Cyclops, had known love. Early in
1639, Wotton wrote to Walton about a proposed Life of Donne, to be
written by himself, and hoped 'to enjoy your own ever welcome company in
the approaching time of the _Fly_ and the _Cork_.' Wotton was a
fly-fisher; the cork, or float, or 'trembling quill,' marks Izaak for the
bottom-fisher he was. Wotton died in December 1639; Walton prefixed his
own Life of Donne to that divine's sermons in 1640. He says, in the
Dedication of the reprint of 1658, that 'it had the approbation of our
late learned and eloquent King,' the martyred Charles I. Living in, or
at the corner of Chancery Lane, Walton is known to have held parochial
office: he was even elected 'scavenger.' He had the misfortune to lose
seven children--of whom the last died in 1641--his wife, and his mother-
in-law. In 1644 he left Chancery Lane, and probably retired from trade.
He was, of course, a Royalist. Speaking of the entry of the Scots, who
came, as one of them said, 'for the goods,--and chattels of the En