and Truth." It is certain, however, that a family of Chalkhills existed,
with whom Walton was closely connected by his marriage with the sister of
Bishop Ken. But that an "acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser,"
capable of writing such a poem as _Thealma and Clearchus_, should have
kept his talents so concealed, that in an age of commendatory verses no
slightest contemporary record of him exists--is, to say the least,
extraordinary. There are cogent arguments then on both sides of the
question, and there is very little positive proof on either: so we must
be content to leave the matter in some doubt and obscurity.

The first production to which our author attached the well-known
signature of "Iz. Wa." was an Elegy on the Death of Dr. Donne, the Dean
of St. Paul's, prefixed to a collection of Donne's Poems. Walton was then
forty years of age. From this time forward we find him more or less
engaged, at not very long intervals, on literary labours, till the very
year of his death.

The care which Walton spent on his productions seems to have been very
great. He wrote and re-wrote, corrected, amended, rescinded, and added.
This very poem--the Elegy on Donne--he completely remodelled in his old
age, when he inserted it in the collection of his Lives. But we have
thought it well to give the original version here as a literary curiosity,
and the first work of his that has come down to us. The original Lives
themselves--especially those of Wotton and Donne--were mere sketches of
what they are in their present enlarged form.

Walton had the good fortune to be thrown very early in life into the
society and intimacy of men who were his superiors in rank and education.
But he had enough of culture, joined to his inherent reverence of mind,
to appreciate and understand all that they had and he wanted.