Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/59

 importance do his pictures suggest theories and reasoned-out æsthetic preferences on the part of their creator. As a leader, his value lies in the emphasis with which he reasserts that sincerity is the antecedent condition for great art. He affords perhaps the most conspicuous modern instance of an artist reaching beauty and unity through an almost blind obedience to his own instincts and emotions. His art was so new and attractive that it was sure to attract a following; but its value was so personal that the school he founded could scarcely be more than a weakened reflection of the master.

Two of Walker's pictures are in the National Gallery, ‘Vagrants’ and the ‘Harbour of Refuge.’ The best portraits of him are a watercolour drawing, done by himself at the age of twenty-five, which belonged to Mr. J. G. Marks, Walker's biographer, and Armstead's medallion in Cookham church.



WALKER, GEORGE (1581?–1651), divine, born about 1581 at Hawkshead in Furness, Lancashire, was educated at the Hawkshead grammar school, founded by his kinsman, Archbishop [q. v.] He was a near relative of (d. 1588) [q. v.] Fuller states that George Walker 'being visited when a child with the small-pox, and the standers-by expecting his dissolution, he started up out of a trance with this ejaculation, "Lord, take me not away till 1 have showed forth thy praise," which made his parents devote him to the ministry after his recovery.' He went to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1608 and M.A. in 1611. His former tutor, Christopher Foster, who held the rectory of St. John Evangelist, Watling Street, the smallest parish in London, resigned that benefice in favour of Walker, who was inducted on 29 April 1614 on the presentation of the dean and chapter of Canterbury Cathedral (, Nov. Report. Eccl. p. 310). There he continued all his life, refusing higher preferment often proffered him. In 1614 he accused [q. v.] of Socinian heresy and blasphemy. This led to a 'conference before eight learned divines,' which ended in a vindication of Wotton. On 2 March 1618-19 he was appointed chaplain to [q. v.], bishop of Ely. He was already esteemed an excellent logician, hebraist, and divine, and readily engaged in disputes with 'heretics' and 'papists.' On 10 July 1621 he was incorporated B.D. of Oxford.

On 31 May 1623 he had a disputation on the authority of the church with Sylvester Norris, who called himself Smith. An account of this was published in the following year under the title of 'The Summe of a Disputation between Mr. Walker &hellip; and a Popish Priest, calling himselfe Mr. Smith.' About the same time Walker was associated with Dr. [q. v.] in a disputation with Father John Fisher (real name Percy), and afterwards published 'Fisher's Folly Unfolded; or the Vaunting Jesuites Vanity discovered in a Challenge of his &hellip; undertaken and answered by G. W.,' 1624, 4to. On 11 March 1633-4 he undertook to contribute 20s. yearly for five years towards the repair of St. Paul's (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1633-4, p. 498). His puritanism was displeasing to Laud, who in 1636 mentions him in his yearly report to Charles I as one 'who had all his time been but a disorderly and peevish man, and now of late hath very frowardly preached against the Lord Bishop of Ely [White] his book concerning the Lord's Day, set out by authority; but upon a canonical admonition given him to desist he hath recollected himself, and I hope will be advised' (, Troubles and Tryal, 1695, p. 536). In 1638 appeared his 'Doctrine of the Sabbath,' which bears the imprint of Amsterdam, and contains extreme and peculiar views of the sanctity of the Lord's day. A second edition, entitled 'The Holy Weekly Sabbath,' was printed in 1641. His main hypothesis was refuted by H. Witsius in his 'De Oeconomia Foederum,' 1694.

Walker was committed to prison on 11 Nov. 1638 for some 'things tending to faction and disobedience to authority' found in a sermon delivered by him on the 4th of the same month (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1658-9, p. 98). His case was introduced into the House of Commons on 20 May 1641, and his imprisonment declared illegal. He was afterwards restored to his parsonage, and received other compensation for his losses. At the trial of Laud in 1643 the imprisonment of Walker was made one of the charges against the archbishop (, Troubles, p. 237). When he was free again he became very busy as a preacher and author. Four of his works are dated 1641:
 * 1) 'God made visible in His Works, or a Treatise on the Eternal Works of God.'
 * 2) 'A Disputation between Master Walker and a Jesuite