THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 457
Izaak Walton, who had married his sister Ann. He became Rector of Little Easton, 1663 ; Prebendary of Winchester, 1669. He was chaplain to Princess Mary at the Hague, 1679- 80, and remonstrated with William for his unkindness to her. Then he became chaplain to Charles II, who once said on his way to the royal closet, I must go to hear little Ken tell me of my faults. His famous refusal of his house at Winchester for the lodging of Nell Gwynne won the respect of Charles II. Not for his kingdom would Ken allow such an insult to be put on the house of a royal chaplain. Charles appointed him Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1684. Odds fish ! Who shall have Bath and Wells but the little black fellow who would not give poor Nelly a lodging ? Next year he attended the king s death-bed, where he applied himself much to the awaking of the king s conscience. He spoke with great elevation of thought and expression, Burnet says, like a man inspired, as those who were present told me. He was with Monmouth when he was beheaded. He was one of the seven bishops who were sent to the Tower for refusing to read the Declaration of Indulgence, but was deprived of his see as a Nonjuror in 1691. His friend Lord Weymouth gave him a home at Longleat, where he died in 1711. He was buried in Frome Churchyard. Ken gave his property, valued at 700, to Lord Weymouth, who allowed him ^80 a year. He kept his lute, a sorry horse, which was a favourite with him, and his Greek Testament, which used to open of its own accord at the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians.
Macaulay says his character approached as near as human infirmity permits to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue. When he was Lord Dartmouth s chaplain at Tangier, he brought down on himself the wrath of Colonel Kirke by a sermon in which he denounced the excessive liberty of swearing which we observe here.
Dryden pays high tribute to him
Letting down the golden chain from high, He drew his audience upward to the sky ; And oft with holy hymns he charmed the ears, A music more melodious than the spheres ; For David left him, when he went to rest, His lyre and after him he sang the best.
In 1674 he published A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College. It is a little book of
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