Here Walton has bestowed and received fame: the simple but exquisite portraitures of these holy and worthy men have made them familiar to posterity; and they, in turn, by the virtues which Walton's pen has made manifest, have given distinction to the hand which portrayed them. Walton's good life was lengthened out to fourscore and ten. He died at the residence of his son-in-law, the Reverend William Hawkins, prebendary of Winchester Cathedral, in 1683. Bishop Jebb has judiciously said of his Lives: "They not only do ample justice to individual piety and learning, but throw a mild and cheerful light upon the manners of an interesting age, as well as upon the venerable features of our mother Church." Less, however, than any of his contemporaries can Walton be appreciated by a sketch of the man: his works must be read, and their spirit imbibed, in order to know his worth.
Other Writers of the Age.
George Wither, born in Hampshire, June 11, 1588, died May 2, 1667: he was a voluminous and versatile writer. His chief work is The Shepherd's Hunting, which, with beautiful descriptions of rural life, abounds in those strained efforts at wit and curious conceits, which were acceptable to the age, but which have lost their charm in a more sensible and philosophic age. Wither was a Parliament man, and was imprisoned and ill-treated after the Restoration. He, and most of those who follow, were classed by Dr. Johnson as metaphysical poets.
Francis Quarles, 1592-1644: he was a Royalist, but belongs to the literary school of Withers. He is best known by his collection of moral and religious poems, called Divine Emblems, which were accompanied with quaint engraved illustrations. These allegories are full of unnatural conceits, and are many of them borrowed from an older source. He was immensely popular as a poet in his own day, and there was truth in the statement of Horace Walpole, that "Milton was forced to wait till the world had done admiring Quarles."
George Herbert, 1593-1632: a man of birth and station, Herbert entered the Church, and as the incumbent of the living at Bemerton, he illustrated in his own piety and devotion "the beauty of holiness." Conscientious and self-denying in his parish work, he found time to give forth those devout breathings which in harmony of expression, fervor of piety, and simplicity of thought, have been a goodly heritage to the Church ever since, while they still retain some of those "poetical surprises" which mark the literary taste of the age. His principal work is The Temple, or, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. The short lyrics which form the stones of this temple are upon the rites and ceremonies of the Church and other sacred subjects: many of them are still in great favor, and will always be. In his portraiture of the Good Parson, he paints himself. He magnifies the office, and he fulfilled all the requirements he has laid down.
Robert Herrick, 1591-1674: like Herbert, Herrick was a clergyman, but, unlike Herbert, he was not a holy man. He wrote Anacreontic poems, full of wine and love, and appears to us like a reveller masking in a surplice. Being a cavalier in sentiment, he was ejected from his vicarage in 1648, and went to London, where he assumed the lay habit. In 1647 he published Hesperides, a collection of small poems of great lyric beauty, Anacreontic, pastoral, and amatory, but containing much that is coarse and indelicate. In 1648 he in part atoned for these by publishing his Noble Numbers, a collection of pious pieces, in the beginning of which he asks God's forgiveness for his "unbaptized rhymes," "writ in my wild, unhallowed times." The best comment upon his works may be found in the words of a reviewer: "Herrick trifled in this way solely in compliment to the age; whenever he wrote to please himself, he wrote from the heart to the heart." His Litanie is a noble and beautiful penitential petition.
Sir John Suckling, 1609-1641: a writer of love songs. That by which he is most favorably known is his exquisite Ballad upon a Wedding. He was a man of versatile talents; an officer in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and a captain of horse in the army of Charles I. He wrote several plays, of which the best are Aglaura and The Discontented Colonel. While evidently tinctured by the spirit of the age, he exceeded his contemporaries in the purity of his style and manliness of his expression. His wit is not so forced as theirs.
Edmund Waller, 1605-1687: he was a cousin of John Hampden. By great care and adroitness he seems to have trimmed between the two parties in the civil war, but was suspected by both. His poetry was like himself, artificial and designed to please, but has little depth of sentiment. Like other poets, he praised Cromwell in 1654 in A Panegyric, and welcomed Charles II. in 1660, upon His Majesty's Happy Return. His greatest benefaction to English poetry was in refining its language and harmonizing its versification. He has all the conceits and strained wit of the metaphysical school.
Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668: he was the son of a vintner, but sometimes claimed to be the natural son of Shakspeare, who was intimate with his father and mother. An ardent Loyalist, he was imprisoned at the beginning of the civil war, but escaped to France. He is best known by his heroic poem Gondibert, founded upon the reign of King Aribert of Lombardy, in the seventh century. The French taste which he brought back from his exile, is shown in his own dramas, and in his efforts to restore the theatre at the Restoration. His best plays are the Cruel Brother and The Law against Lovers. He was knighted by Charles I., and succeeded Ben Jonson as poet laureate. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are these words: "O rare Sir William Davenant."
Charles Cotton, 1630-1687: he was a wit and a poet, and is best known as the friend of Izaak Walton. He made an addition to Walton's Complete Angler, which is found in all the later editions. The companion of Walton in his fishing excursions on the river Dove, Cotton addressed many of his poems to his "Adopted Father." He made travesties upon Virgil and Lucian, which are characterized by great licentiousness; and wrote a gossiping and humorous Voyage to Ireland.