TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, GEORGE, LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, AND PRELATE OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER2. MY LORD, I DID fome years paft, prefent you with a plain rela tion of the life of Mr. Richard Hooker, that humble man, to whofe memory princes, and the most learned of this nation, have paid a reverence at the mention of his name. And now, with Mr. Hooker's, I prefent you also the life of that pattern of primitive piety, Mr. George Herbert; and, with his, the life of Dr. Donne, and your friend Sir Henry Wotton, all reprinted. The two firft were written under your roof; for which reason, if they were worth it, you might juftly challenge a Dedication: And indeed, fo you might of Dr. Donne's and Sir Henry Wotton's; because, if I had been fit for this undertaking, it would not have been by acquired learning or ftudy, but by the advantage of forty years friendship, and thereby a Dr. GEORGE MORLEY, distinguished by his unfhaken loyalty and attachment to Charles I. was, at the Reftoration, first made Dean of Christ-church, and then Bishop of Worcester. In 1662 he was tranflated to the fee of Winchefter. Though nominated one of the Affembly of Divines, he never did them the honour, nor himself the injury, to fit among them. During his abfence from his native country, he endeared himfelf to feveral learned foreigners, particularly to Andrew Rivettus, Heinfius, Salmafius, and Bochart. He conftantly attended the young exiled King; but not being permitted to follow him into Scotland, he retired to Antwerp, where for about three or four years he read the fervice of the Church of England twice every day, catechized once a week, and administered the communion once a month to all the English in the town who could come to it; regularly and firictly obferving all the parochial duties of a clergyman, as he did afterwards at Breda for four years together. Walker, in his Hiftory of the Sufferings of the Clergy, having quoted Anthony Wood's character of this prelate, concludes with this exclamation: "O that but a fingle portion of his fpirit might always reft on the established clergy!" He died in 1684. (Le Neve, Fuller, and I with hearing and difcourfing with your Lordship, that hath enabled me to make the relation of thefe lives passable (if they prove fo) in an eloquent and captious age. And indeed, my Lord, though these relations be well-meant facrifices to the memory of these worthy men, yet I have fo little confidence in my performance, that I beg pardon for fuperfcribing your name to them, and defire all that know your Lordship, to apprehend this not as a Dedication (at least by which you receive any addition of honour), but rather as an humble, and a more public acknowledgment of your long-continued, and your now daily favours to, My Lord, Your most affectionate And most humble fervant, IZAAK WALTON. |