In 1678,Walton wrote his Life of Sanderson.''Tis now too late to wish that my life may be like his,for I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age,but I humbly beseech Almighty God that my death may be;and do as earnestly beg of every reader to say Amen!'He wrote,in 1678,a preface to Thealma and Clearchus (1683).The poem is attributed to John Chalkhill,a Fellow of Winchester College,who died,a man of eighty,in 1679.Two of his songs are in The Compleat Angler.Probably the attribution is right:Chalkhill's tomb commemorates a man after Walton's own heart,but some have assigned the volume to Walton himself.Chalkhill is described,on the title-page,as 'an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spencer,'which is impossible.{4}
On August 9,1683,Walton wrote his will,'in the neintyeth year of my age,and in perfect memory,for which praised be God.'He professes the Anglican faith,despite 'a very long and very trew friendship for some of the Roman Church.'His worldly estate he has acquired 'neither by falsehood or flattery or the extreme crewelty of the law of this nation.'
His property was in two houses in London,the lease of Norington farm,a farm near Stafford,besides books,linen,and a hanging cabinet inscribed with his name,now,it seems,in the possession of Mr.Elkin Mathews.A bequest is made of money for coals to the poor of Stafford,'every last weike in Janewary,or in every first weike in Febrewary;I say then,because I take that time to be the hardest and most pinching times with pore people.'To the Bishop of Winchester he bequeathed a ring with the posy,'A Mite for a Million.'
There are other bequests,including ten pounds to 'my old friend,Mr.Richard Marriott,'Walton's bookseller.This good man died in peace with his publisher,leaving him also a ring.
A ring was left to a lady of the Portsmouth family,'Mrs.
Doro.Wallop.'
Walton died,at the house of his son-in-law,Dr.Hawkins,in Winchester,on Dec.15,1683:he is buried in the south aisle of the Cathedral.The Cathedral library possesses many of Walton's books,with his name written in them.{5}His Eusebius (1636)contains,on the flyleaf,repetitions,in various forms,of one of his studied passages.Simple as he seems,he is a careful artist in language.
Such are the scanty records,and scantier relics,of a very long life.Circumstances and inclination combined to make Walpole choose the fallentis semita vitae.Without ambition,save to be in the society of good men,he passed through turmoil,ever companioned by content.For him existence had its trials:he saw all that he held most sacred overthrown;laws broken up;his king publicly murdered;his friends outcasts;his worship proscribed;he himself suffered in property from the raid of the Kirk into England.He underwent many bereavements:child after child he lost,but content he did not lose,nor sweetness of heart,nor belief.His was one of those happy characters which are never found disassociated from unquestioning faith.Of old he might have been the ancient religious Athenian in the opening of Plato's Republic,or Virgil's aged gardener.The happiness of such natures would be incomplete without religion,but only by such tranquil and blessed souls can religion be accepted with no doubt or scruple,no dread,and no misgiving.In his Preface to Thealma and Clearchus Walton writes,and we may use his own words about his own works:'The Reader will here find such various events and rewards of innocent Truth and undissembled Honesty,as is like to leave in him (if he be a good-natured reader)more sympathising and virtuous impressions,than ten times so much time spent in impertinent,critical,and needless disputes about religion.'Walton relied on authority;on 'a plain,unperplexed catechism.'In an age of the strangest and most dissident theological speculations,an age of Quakers,Anabaptists,Antinomians,Fifth Monarchy Men,Covenanters,Independents,Gibbites,Presbyterians,and what not,Walton was true to the authority of the Church of England,with no prejudice against the ancient Catholic faith.
As Gesner was his authority for pickerel weed begetting pike,so the Anglican bishops were security for Walton's creed.
To him,if we may say so,it was easy to be saved,while Bunyan,a greater humorist,could be saved only in following a path that skirted madness,and 'as by fire.'To Bunyan,Walton would have seemed a figure like his own Ignorance;a pilgrim who never stuck in the Slough of Despond,nor met Apollyon in the Valley of the Shadow,nor was captive in Doubting Castle,nor stoned in Vanity Fair.And of Bunyan,Walton would have said that he was among those Nonconformists who 'might be sincere,well-meaning men,whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity,as thereby to cover a multitude of errors.'To Walton there seemed spiritual solace in remembering 'that we have comforted and been helpful to a dejected or distressed family.'Bunyan would have regarded this belief as a heresy,and (theoretically)charitable deeds 'as filthy rags.'Differently constituted,these excellent men accepted religion in different ways.Christian bows beneath a burden of sin;Piscator beneath a basket of trout.
Let us be grateful for the diversities of human nature,and the dissimilar paths which lead Piscator and Christian alike to the City not built with hands.Both were seekers for a City which to have sought through life,in patience,honesty,loyalty,and love,is to have found it.Of Walton's book we may say:-'Laudis amore tumes?Sunt certa piacula quae te Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.'
