IZAAK WALTON'S ASSOCIATION WITH THE RIVER LEA. 187
house on the north side, two doors west from Chancery Lane, at
least as early as 1618—two years after the death of Shakespeare
(whom, strange to say, he never once mentions or quotes), and in
1626 he married Rachel Floud, of Canterbury, who died in London
in 1640. Six years later he married for his second wife Ann Ken
(the daughter of an attorney), who also predeceased him.
Considering his comparatively humble station in life, and the
number of influential persons he could count amongst his friends
and correspondents, it is evident that he must have been a man of
some attainments and conversational ability, and of singularly affable
character. The respect and esteem in which he was generally held
Fishing House on the River Lea.
(Reproduced by permission of Robert Bagster, Esq., from an etching by Thomas, after
John Linnell.)
may be inferred from his acquaintance with such men as Dr. Donne,
Vicar of St. Dunstan's, whose "Life" he wrote ; Dr. Gilbert
Sheldon, Warden of All Souls, Chaplain to King Charles I. ; and
after the Restoration, Archbishop of Canterbury, through whom in
1662 he obtained a lease of a house in Paternoster Row, adjoining
the "Cross Keys," which he subsequently left by will to his son-in-
law, Dr. John Hawkins, together with the house in Fleet Street;
Bishop Sanderson, who attended Charles I. at Carisbrook, and
of whom we get a peep as he stands "in sad coloured clothes"
talking to Izaak Walton, near a bookseller's shop in Little Britain,
and then taking shelter from the rain in a corner under a pent house,