The Holy State, the Profane State

…most interesting work is probably The Holy State, the Profane State (1642), an entertaining collection of character sketches important to the historian of English literature.

…who included brief sketches in The Holy State (1642; includes The Profane State), and Izaak Walton, the biographer of Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Hooker. Walton’s biographies are entertaining, but he manipulated facts shamelessly; these texts seem lightweight when placed beside Fulke Greville’s tragic and valedictory Life of the Renowned…