and Kenna,* and Morley, which, at least, I hope may be found consonant to their character, and the peculiar circumstances of the times; and which will be strictly appropriate, as Walton's "Contemplative Man's Recreation" is written in dialogue. Above all, I make this attempt, as my friend Mr. Calcott, so eminent in his silent and beautiful art, has favoured me with a design on purpose for this work, representing the cottage of Isaak Walton, as it appeared at the time, taken from the last edition of Walton together with an original portrait of Morley, from a drawing by the younger Walton from life. A few explanatory words may be premised. The Oxford visitation took place in December 1647; Morley was expelled, by Parliamentary Precept, in the March following, it is said, not without personal violence. He had lived a confidential and domestic friend, as chaplain, in the household of Lord Robert Carnarvon. By this nobleman he was recommended to the King, 1640. Notwithstanding his speculative religious creed was the very reverse of Laud's, his affectionate heart took the warmest interest in the fortunes of his Sovereign from the commencement of his troubles. The King appointed him Canon of Christchurch in 1641; and he resided, beloved and respected by * His wife was called "Kenna" from her name Ken. See his own beautiful ballad-" And hear my Kenna sing a song." Complete Angler. + William Browne, author of Britannia's Pastorals, had been Lord Carnarvon's Tutor. all parties, till his ejection, both from that Canonry and from his Living of Mildenhall, near Marlborough. He was now without house and home in the world, but he remembered the delightful days when in youth he had been the associate of Lord Falkland -of Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon-of Ben Jonson-of Chillingworth, now left also bereaved by the storm which scattered the best and wisest of their day-of Charles Cotton, the adopted son of Isaak Walton, as he himself had been, in younger days, the adopted son of Ben Jonson. He remembered those times and those men, and having no refuge-as some were killed, the brave and accomplished Falkland—and some struggling themselves, or pursuing, like Hyde, a studious and laborious profession he thought of the quiet and contented heart of Cotton's adopted father, Walton - of their early acquaintance, when both were hearers of Donne . of Walton's piety and apostolical simplicity-of his warm but unostentatious attachment to the Church, of his cheerful but humble situation, remote from the storms of public life, when he lived retired, with his beloved Kenna and only one infant, in Staffordshire. Perhaps he had been invited to partake there, when the world frowned, his lonely but pious meal, he knew he should find welcome, and therefore hastened, in the day of adversity, to find peace and protection in the cottage of honest Isaac Walton. |