WALTON, Isaac, an early writer of great popularity, was born on the 9th of August 1593, in the parish of St Mary and town of Stafford. The condition of his father is not mentioned, but his mother is described as the daughter of Edmund Cranmer, archdeacon of Canterbury, and the niece of the archbishop. His own occupation was that of a shopkeeper; but his love of literature, as well as his upright and amiable simplicity of character, recommended him to the favour and friendship of many individuals distinguished by their talents and station. In 1624 we find him residing on the north side of Fleet-street, two doors west of Chancery-lane; and in 1632 he had removed to a house in the lane. The tradition of his family represented him as a Hamburg merchant, or wholesale linen-draper; but, according to Anthony Wood, he followed the occupation of a sempster. He married Anne the sister of Thomas Ken, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells. While an inhabitant of St Dunstan’s in the West, he was a regular attendant on the ministrations of Dr Donne, then vicar of the parish; and with this witty poet and divine he contracted a friendship, which was only terminated by death. Walton visited him in his last sickness, and wrote a circumstantial account of his life, which in 1640 accompanied a collection of the dean’s Sermons. Another of his distinguished friends was Sir Henry Wotton, whose life he also undertook to write, and finished it about the year 1644. It was prefixed to the “Reliquiae Wottonianae,” which he edited in 1651. It is to be regretted that he did not execute his design of writing the lives of other two individuals connected with Eton, Sir Henry Savile and John Hales, both very eminent in their generation. About the year 1643, we are informed, he left London, and, with a fortune very far short of what would now be called a competency, seems to have retired altogether from business. While he resided in the metropolis, angling had been his favourite recreation, and in that art he arrived at great skill and proficiency. The result of his experience he embodied in a very pleasing volume, entitled “The complete Angler, or contemplative Man’s Recreation.” Lond. 1653, 8vo. This work was so favourably received, that other four editions were published during the author’s lifetime, namely, in 1655, 1664, 1668, and 1676. To this last impression a second part, containing instructions how to angle for trout or grayling, was added by his friend Charles Cotton. Of both parts there are many subsequent editions, and the popularity of the work continues unimpaired. An elaborate edition, with a life of the author, was published by Sir John Hawkins in the year 1760. Walton having resumed his biographical labours, published the life of Hooker in 1662, that of Herbert in 1670, and that of Sanderson in [7:21:731]1678. His Lives were afterwards collected together, and in this form have repeatedly been printed. An edition, containing an account of the author, together with annotations, was published by Dr Zouch. York, 1796, 4to. The work, thus illustrated, reached a third impression. York, 1817, 2 vols. 8vo. These specimens of circumstantial biography are rendered very interesting by the native kindness of the author’s disposition, and by the garrulous simplicity of his narrative. In 1680 he published, but without his name, “Love and Truth: two modest and peaceable Letters, concerning the Distempers of the present Times: written from a quiet and conformable Citizen of London, to two busie and factious Shopkeepers in Coventry.” Lond. 1680, 4to. This tract was reprinted in Dr Zouch’s edition of the Lives. At the age of ninety, he edited “Thealma and Clearchus; a Pastoral History in smooth and easie verse: written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq r . an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spencer.” Lend. 1683, 8vo. As to the author, he states “that he was in his time a man generally known, and as well beloved; for he was humble, and obliging in his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent; and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.” Of this poem there is a recent edition. Chiswick, 1820, 12mo. The name of Chalkhill is otherwise so entirely unknown, that Mr Singer, who published this edition, is inclined to doubt whether the poem may not have been a youthful production of its first editor. Having attained to a healthful and happy old age, he died on the 15th of December 1683, at Winchester, in the prebendal house of his son-in-law Dr Hawkins, and was interred in the cathedral of that city. His wife died in 1662. Their son Isaac Walton having been educated at Oxford, became rector of Polshot, and canon residentiary of Salisbury. He died unmarried, in the year 1716. His only sister Anne was married to William Hawkins, rector of Droxford, and prebendary of Winchester. Their only son, William Hawkins, was the author of a well-known “Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown.” (x.)

Walton, Bryan, a very eminent biblical scholar, was born in the year 1600, at Seymour in the district of Cleveland in Yorkshire. He is said to have been admitted a sizar of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in the month of July 1616. In 1618 he became a sizar of Peter House. He took the degree of A. B. in 1619, and that of A. Μ. in 1623. He left the university for a curacy and the mastership of a school in Suffolk. He next removed to the metropolis, as an assistant at the church of Allhallows, Bread-street; and in 1626 he was collated to the rectory of St Martin’s Orgar. On the 15th of January 1635-6, he was instituted to the rectories of St Giles-inthe-Fields, and of Sandon in Essex. The former he does not appear to have retained. About this time, he is supposed to have been chaplain to the king, and to have been collated to a prebend of St Paul’s. In 1639 he took the degree of D. D. at Cambridge; and in the public act, he maintained a thesis against the infallibility of the pope. His wife, Anne Claxton, died in the course of the following year.

Dr Walton was involved in the troubles which ensued; and in 1641 he is supposed to have been dispossessed of both his rectories. Towards the close of the year 1642 he was ordered into custody as a delinquent. Like many other members of his order, he afterwards sought a place of refuge at Oxford; and on the 12th of August 1645 he was incorporated doctor of divinity. Here, among the learned fugitives, he met with Dr Fuller, dean of Ely, whose daughter Jane became his second wife. On his return to London, he resided in the house of his father-in-law. Undismayed by the change of his circumstances, he planned and executed one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, literary enterprise of which his country can boast. This was the famous Polyglott Bible, of which the plan appears to have been brought to considerable maturity in the year' 1652. The design was approved by the Council of State, who exempted from duty all the paper to be employed in the edition; and to the credit of the age it must be recorded, that in the month of May 1653 subscriptions bad been obtained to the amount of L.9000. Dr Walton had various coadjutors, but the very laborious task of editorship devolved upon himself. As a precursor, he published “Introductio ad Lectionem Linguarum Orientalium." Lond.

1654, 8vo. This introduction was reprinted at London in

1655. The great work itself was completed in the space of about four years, and made its appearance under the title of Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, &c. Lond. 1657, 6 tom. fol. In this edition, nine languages are employed, but not a single book is printed in so many. The four evangelists are in six, the other books of the New Testament only in five, and those of Judith and the Maccabees only in three. The Prolegomena have been repeatedly printed in a separate form, and are allowed by the most competent judges to be a work of great erudition, as well as of great value. The last edition is that of Wrangham, published at Cambridge in 1825, in 2 vols. 8vo.

Among those who assisted Walton in his very arduous undertaking, we must first of all mention the venerable Archbishop Usher, who not only aided and directed him by his counsel, but likewise furnished him with a collation of sixteen manuscripts. His learning was so variegated and so profound, that it was of no small importance for the editor to have access to him on all occasions of doubt and difficulty. Another able coadjutor was Dr Lightfoot, and a third was Dr Pocock. The services of Abraham Wheelock, Patrick Young, Dudley Loftus, Herbert Thorndike, Thomas Hyde, Thomas Greaves, and several other individuals, are likewise commemorated. Selden, who possessed a great fund of oriental learning, was a zealous promoter of the design; and he joined with Usher in signing a recommendation, which was printed with the prospectus. He was one of those to be consulted in the progress of the work, and his valuable library was open to the editor.

One fellow-labourer, Edmund Castell, demands a more particular notice. He not only rendered important assistance to Walton, but likewise compiled a most learned and elaborate work, which is always regarded as a necessary accompaniment of the Polyglott. It was published under the title of “Lexico Heptaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Samaritanum, Aethiopicum, Arabicum, conjunction; et Persicum separation,” &c. Lond. 1669, 2 tom. fol. This Lexico is a work of stupendous labour; and, according to Dr Clarke, it “is probably the greatest and most perfect work of the kind ever performed by human industry and learning.” He was aided by Dr Lightfoot, and by some other orientalists, one of whom was Beveridge, and another Golius. In the preparation of this work, and in labouring at the Polyglott, Dr Castell spent seventeen years, and generally sixteen or eighteen hours a day. In the progress of his work, he maintained in his own house seven Englishmen, and seven foreigners, in the capacity of copyists. He spent the large sum of L.12,000, and contracted debt to the amount of L.1800; and the recommendations of the king and the archbishop of Canterbury only procured him contributions to the amount of L.700. “Though I perish,” said this learned and excellent person, “it comforts me not a little to see how holy writ flourishes.” He was not however left to perish. At the time of his death, which occurred in 1685, he was professor of Arabic in the university of Cambridge, prebendary of Canterbury, rector of Higham Gobion in Bedfordshire, and chaplain in ordinary to his majesty.

Dr Walton’s next publication bears the title of“Dissertatio, in qua de Linguis Orientalibus, Hebraica, Chaldaica, [7:21:732]Samaritana, &c. et de Textuum et Versionum quae in Complutensibus, Regiis, Parisiensibus et Anglicanis Polyglottis Bibliis habentur, Antiquitate, Authoritate et Usu, breviter disseritur.” Daventriae, 1658, 12mo. This is followed by Wower’s “Syntagma de Graeca et Latina Bibliorum Interpretatione.” His meritorious labours were not duly appreciated by some of his contemporaries; and he was very unadvisedly attacked by Dr Owen, in “Certain Considerations on the Prolegomena and Appendix to the late Biblia Polyglotta " The writer was himself a man of learning; but the dangers which he contemplated were imaginary, and he ventured upon ground which he could not maintain against such an antagonist. His work was very ably refuted by Dr Walton, in “The Considerator considered.” Lond. 1659, 8vo.^[1. This work forms the second volume of Todd’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Brian Walton, D. D. Lord Bishop of Chester. Lond. 1821, 2 vols. 8vo. ]

At the period of the Restoration, his great and conspicuous merits could not be disregarded. He was speedily restored to his former preferments, and was nominated to the bishopric of Chester. On the 2d of December 1660, he was consecrated in Westminster Abbey. In March following he was one of the commissioners at the Savoy conference; a conference which so strikingly displayed the unmitigated bigotry of the triumphant churchmen. The bishop of Chester however appears to have acted with sufficient moderation. His new honours were very short and fleeting. He reached his episcopal seat on the 11th of September 1661; and having soon afterwards returned to London, he died there on the 29th of the ensuing November, in the sixty-second year of his age. (x.)

Walton-on-Thames, a town of the county of Surrey, in the hundred of Elmbridge, eighteen miles from London. Its name denotes its situation; and there is a bridge over the river, near to which are the remains of an ancient bridge, said to have been erected by Julius Caesar, who is reported to have passed the stream by it. There are many fine seats in the parish and vicinity, especially Oatlands, the residence of the late duke of York. The population amounted in 1821 to 1891, and in 1831 to 2035.