Author: [WALTON (Isaac)]:
Title: The Life of Mr. Rich. Hooker, The Author of those Learned Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.
Description: London, Printed by Tho: Newcomb, for Tich: Marriot, sold by most Booksellers. M.DC.LXX 1670. 8vo, 161 x 101 mms., pp. 140, 19th century quarter calf, marbled boards; lacks portrait, title-page soiled, gutter and fore-margin crudely repaired, last page soiled and darkened almost beyond readability; a very poor copy. Walton's life of Hooker was first published in 1665. A. S. McGrade's entry in the Oxford DNB is definitely revisionist: "The few known remarks made by contemporaries on Hooker's personal characteristics and the many offered in Walton's Life (first published in 1665), must be assessed in the light of his writings and the course of his life. Allowances must also be made for bias in Walton's sources—family connections no doubt resented a suit brought against Sandys for Hooker's daughters, and hence entertained a low opinion of his wife and in-laws—and for Walton's readiness to model Hooker as the proleptic defender of an English church very different from the one to which he was actually devoted. When these filters are applied, parts of Walton's account must be rejected outright, such as Mrs John Churchman's entrapment of a naïve and rain-soaked Hooker as a husband for her ill-favoured daughter Joan, and the visit of Cranmer and Sandys to a henpecked Hooker at Drayton Beauchamp. Other features in Walton's portrait must be redrawn." This title is usually part of The lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert, and this item is probably extracted from that publication. The only copy that I found was in the Spencer Library at Kansas.

Keywords: Biography law prose


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