DUPORT'S LINES TO IZAAK WALTON.
Sometime since I met with the following epigrams of the learned scholar, divine, and loyalist James Duport, written on the fly-leaf of a copy of his Musæ Subsecivæ, seu Poetica Stromata, presented by him to Izaak Walton. I presume that they have never been printed, and that they were written in Duport's own hand. If so, they may be thought worthy of a place in the columns of "N. & Q." They will be read with some interest by those who respect Duport, and love the memory of good old Izaak Walton. I may add, that the autograph of I. W. is in the book, thus:
"Izaak Walton,
Given by the Author,
3ᴰ May, 1679."
W. H. G.
Winchester.
"Ad virum optimum mihique amicissimum Isaacum Waltonum, de libris a se editis, mihique dono missis, nec non de vita Hookeri, Herberti, et aliorum:
Munera magna mihi mittis; nec mittis in hamo
Rex Piscatorum sis licet, atque Pater.
Mutus ego ut piscis semper! nunquamne reponam?
Piscibus immo tuis et tibi mitto Sales:
Sed quid pro vitis Sanctorum? mitto Salutem;
Vita etenim non est vita, Salutis inops.
Tuissimus, J. D."
"Ad eundem de suâ Episcopi Sandersoni Vitâ.
Quem Juvenis quondam didici, Tutore magistro,
Nunc Sandersonum, te duce, disco Senex.
Macte nove o Plutarche Biographe; dans aliorum
Qui vitas, vitam das simul ipse tibi:
Nempe eris æternum in Scriptis, Waltone, superstes,
Non etenim nôrunt hæc monumenta mori.
J. Duport."