He lived but a very little time after the publication of this poem ; for, as Wood says, he ended his days on the fifteenth day of December, 1683, in the great frost, at Winchester, in the house of Dr. William Hawkins, a prebendary of the church there, where he lies buried. 1

In the cathedral of Winchester, viz. in a chapel in the south aisle, called Prior Silksteed's chapel, on a large black flat marble-stone, is this inscription to his memory: the poetry whereof has very little to recommend it:

HERE RESTETH THE BODY OF

MR. ISAAC WALTON,

WHO DYED THE FIFTEENTH OF DECEMBER,
1683.

Alas! he's gone before,
Gone to return no more.
Our panting breasts aspire
After their aged sire;

Whose well-spent life did last
Full ninety years and past.
But now he hath begun

That, which will ne'er be done.
Crown'd with eternal bliss,
We wish our souls with his.

VOTIS MODESTIS SIC FLERUNT LIBERI.

The issue of Walton's marriage were,—a son, named Isaac; and a daughter, named, after her mother, Anne. This son was placed in Christ-church college, Oxford; and, having taken his degree of bachelor-of-arts, travelled, together with his uncle, Mr. (afterwards bishop) Ken, in the year 1674, being the year of the jubilee, into France and Italy; and, as Cotton says, visited Rome and Venice. Of this son, mention is made in the remarkable Will of Dr. Donne the younger, (printed on a half-sheet,) in 1662; whereby he bequeathed to the elder Walton all his father's writings, as also his common-place book, which he says, may be of use to him if he makes him a scholar. Upon the return of the younger Walton, he prosecuted his studies; and having finished the same, entered into holy orders; and became chaplain to Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Sarum; by whose favour he attained to the dignity of a canon-residentiary of that cathedral. Upon the decease of Bishop Ward, and the promotion of Dr. Gilbert Burnet to the vacant see, Mr. Walton was taken into the friendship and confidence of that prelate; and being a man of great temper and discretion, and for his candour and sincerity much respected by all the clergy of the diocese, he became very useful to him in conducting the affairs of the Chapter.

Old Isaac Walton having by his will bequeathed a farm and land near Stafford, of about the yearly value of twenty pounds, to this his son and his heirs for ever, upon condition, that if his said son should not marry before he should be of the age of forty-one, or, being married, should die before the said age, and leave no son that should live to the age of twenty-one, then the same should go to the corporation of

(1) Athen. Oxon. Vol. I. col. 305.

(2) Vide Part II. Chap. VI. Athen. Oxon. Vol. II. 989; Biogr. Brit. art. KEN.