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LIVES OF JOHN DONNE, HENRY WOTTON, RICH'D HOOKER, GEORGE HERBERT, &c,
VOLUME TWO
by
This issue of "Walton's Lives" is based upon John Major's editionof 1825, which was printed from a copy of the edition of 1675,"corrected by Walton's own pen," Major's "illustrative notes" havebeen preserved, with some modifications by later hands. Mr. AUSTINDOBSON has read the text, added the marginalia, and contributed thesupplementary notes.
August 9,
Walton's birthday,
1898.
The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker
The Life of Mr. George Herbert, Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral
The Life of Dr. Robert Sanderson, Late Lord Bishop of Lincoln
"Judicious Hooker, though the cost be spent
On him, that hath a lasting monument
In his own books; yet ought we to express
If not the worth, yet our respectfulness."
[Sidenote: Introduction]
I have been persuaded, by a friend whom I reverence, and oughtto obey, to write the Life of RICHARD HOOKER, the happy Authorof Five—if not more—of the eight learned books of "The Laws ofEcclesiastical Polity." And though I have undertaken it, yet it hathbeen with some unwillingness: because I foresee that it must prove tome, and especially at this time of my age, a work of much labour toenquire, consider, research, and determine what is needful to be knownconcerning him. For I knew him not in his life, and must therefore notonly look back to his death,—now sixty-four years past,—but almostfifty years beyond, that, even to his childhood and youth; and gatherthence such observations and prognostics as may at least adorn, if notprove necessary for the completing of what I have undertaken.
[Sidenote: Reasons for this Life]
This trouble I foresee, and foresee also that it is impossible toescape censures; against which I will not hope my well-meaning anddiligence can protect me,—for I consider the age in which I live—andshall therefore but intreat of my Reader a suspension of his censures,till I have made known unto him some reasons, which I myself would nowgladly believe do make me in some measure fit for this undertaking;and if these reasons shall not acquit me from all censures, they mayat least abate of their severity, and this is all I can probably hopefor. My reasons follow.
About forty years past—for I am now past the seventy of myage—I began a happy affinity with William Cranmer,—now withGod,—grand-nephew unto the great Archbishop of that name;—a familyof noted prudence and resolution; with him and two of his sisters Ihad an entire and free friendship: one of them was the wife of Dr.Spencer,[1] a bosom friend and sometime com-pupil with Mr. Hooker inCorpus Christi College in Oxford, and after President of the same. Iname them here, for that I shall have occasion to mention them in thefollowing discourse, as also George Cranmer, their brother, of whoseuseful abilities my Reader may have a more authent