TO THE RIGHt reverend AND HONOURABLE

GEORGE,

LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,

PRELATE OF THE GARTER, AND ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL.

MY LORD,

IF I should undertake to enumerate the many favours and advantages I have had by my very long acquaintance with your Lordship, I should enter upon an employment that might prove as tedious as the collecting of the materials for this poor monument, which I have erected, and do dedicate to the memory of your beloved friend, Dr. Sanderson: But though I will not venture to do that, yet I do remember with pleasure, and remonstrate with gratitude, that your Lordship made me known to him, Mr. Chillingworth, and

Mr. Isaac Walton was honoured with the friendship of Mr. Chillingworth, the glory of his age and nation. This memorable man, who, with Lord Falkland, was proverbially celebrated at Oxford for his clear and acute reasoning, found himself so bewildered in the mazes of controversy, that he became a convert to Popery. From the errors of "An Infallible Church," the

Dr. Hammond; men whose merits ought never

to be forgotten.

My friendship with the first was begun almost forty years past, when I was as far from a thought, as a desire to out-live him; and farther from an intention to write his Life: But the wise Disposer of all men's lives and actions hath prolonged the first, and now permitted the last; which is here dedicated to your Lordship (and as it ought to be) with all humility, and a desire that it may remain as a public testimony of my gratitude.

My Lord,

Your most affectionate old friend,

And most humble servant,

IZAAK WALTON.

sound argumentation of Dr. Laud, then Bishop of London, happily restored him. Of the effect which the perusal of his immortal work, "The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to "Salvation," wrought upon the mind of Dr. Tillotson, see Birch's Life of that Prelate, p. 5.Of the death of Mr. Chillingworth, see" Kennet's Hist. of England," Vol. III. p. 144.

THE PREFACE.

I DARE neither think, nor assure the Reader,

that I have committed no mistakes in this relation of the Life of Dr. Sanderson; but am sure, there is none that are either wilful or very material. I confess, it was worthy the employment of some person of more learning and greater abilities than I can pretend to; and I have not a little wondered that none have yet been so grateful to him and posterity as to undertake it: For as it may be noted that our Saviour had a care, that for Mary Magdalen's kindness to him, her name should never be forgotten: So I conceive the great satisfaction many scholars have already had, and the unborn world is like to have, by his exact, clear, and useful learning; and might have by a true narrative of his matchless meekness, his calm fortitude, and the innocence of his whole life, doth justly challenge the like from this present age, that posterity may not be ignorant of them : And it is to me a wonder, that it has been already fifteen years neglected. But in saying this, my meaning is not to upbraid others (I am far from