BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

WALTON'S Life of Bonne, though written with an extraordinary grace and spontaneity, is not to be relied upon for accuracy of detail, in spite of the fact that the author declared in his note To the reader in the edition of 1658: ‘My desire is to inform and assure you, that shall become my Reader, that in that part of this following discourse, which is onely narration, I either speak of my own knowledge, or from the testimony of such as dare do anything rather than speak an untruth.’ The Life appeared in its first form in the prefatory matter to LXXX Sermons, 1640, which was edited by the younger Donne. Though considerable additions were made in later issues, this original form of the Life remained, except in detail, unaltered. The first separate issue of the Life was published in 1658 and contained, as Walton says in the dedication, ‘fewer blemishes and more ornaments than when 'twas first made publique’. The dedication was addressed to Sir Robert Holt, grandson of John King, Bishop of London, and nephew of Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, friend and executor of Donne, who warmly commended Walton's Life of Donne in a letter printed as a preface to the Life of Hooker, 1665. The chief additions made to the Life in 1658 are noted under the entry following.

In 1670 Walton included the Life of Donne in the well-known volume of Lives, which passed through two editions in the seventeenth century and has been so many times reprinted since; I have made no attempt to deal with the bibliography of this volume. The actual account of Donne's life underwent very little change in this edition, but the Epistle Dedicatory and the note To the reader were omitted; instead of these there was inserted an Introduction consisting of the first paragraphs of the Life and a passage from To the reader. The letters printed at the end of the edition of 1658 were omitted, but part of one of them and an extract from a new one were incorporated in the text (see no. 61). There were also added ‘An hymn to God, my God, in my sickness. March 23, 1630’, and Walton's ‘Elegy on Dr. Donne. April 7, 1632’.