of ways by petition to the King or Counsail or L. Chamberlain or any other The great danger obliquely likely to fall is that when it comes to light how you stand towards M. Mathew you may lose the ease which you have by colour of that extent and he may lose the benefit of having had so much of his estate concealed You will therefore at least pardon my advising you to place those sums which by your retiring I presume you do imploy upon payment of debts in such places as that these particular friends be not forced to leave being so I confesse the going about to pay debts hastens importunity I finde in my self that where I was not asked money before yet when I offered to pay next Terme they seem loth to afford me that time which might justly have been desperate before but that which you told me out of the Countrey with the assistance which I hope to finde here especially if your indevour may advance it at Dorset house I hope will inable me to escape clamor and an ill conscience in that behalf One thing more I must tell you but so softly that I am loath to hear my self and so softly that if that good Lady were in the room with you and this Letter she might not hear It is that I am brought to a necessity of printing my Poems and addressing them to my L. Chamberlain This I mean to do forth with not for much publique view but at mine own cost a few Copies I apprehend some incongruities in the resolution and I know what I shall suffer from many interpretations but I am at an end of much considering that and if I were as startling in that kinde as ever I was yet in this particular I am under an unescapable necessity as I shall let you perceive when I see you By this occasion I am made a Rhapsoder of mine own rags and that cost me more diligence to seek them then it did to make them This made me aske to borrow that old book of you which it will be too late to see for that use when I see you for I must do this as a valediction to the world before I take Orders But this is it I am to aske you whether you ever made any such use of the letter in verse A nostre Countesse chez vous as that I may not put it in amongst the rest to persons of that rank for I desire very very much that something should bear her name in the book and I would be just to my written words to my L. Harrington to write nothing after that I pray tell me as soon as you can if I be at liberty to insert that for if you have by any occasion applied any pieces of it I see not that it will be discerned when it appears in the wholepiece Though this be a little matter I would be sorry not to have an account of it within as little after Newyears tide as you could I have something else to say of M. Villars but because I hope to see you here shortly and because new additions to the truths or rumours which concern him are likely to be made by occasion of this Masque I forbear to send you the edition of this Mart since I know it will be augmented by the next of which if you prevent it not by comming you shall have by letter an account from Your very affectionate friend and servant J. Donne Vigilia S t. Tho. 1614. To the worthy Knight Sir Tho. Lucy SIR YOur Letter comes to me at Grace after supper it is part of the prayer of that Grace that God will blesse you and all yours with his best blessings of both kinde I would write you news but your love to me may make you apt to over-beleeve news for my sake And truly all things that are upon the stage of the world now are full of such uncertanities as may justly make any man loth to passe a conjecture upon them not only because it is hard to see how they wil end but because it is misintertable and dangerous to conjecture otherwise then some men would have the event to be That which is especially in my contemplation which is the issue of my L. of Canterburies businesse for thereupon depends the consecration of my predecessor upon which the Deanery devolves to the King is no farther proceeded in yet then that some of the 10 Commissioners have met once and upon Saterday next there will be a fuller meeting and an entrance into the businesse upon which much very much in consequence depends Of my L. of Donc we are only assured that he is in a good way of convalescence but of any audience nothing yet Slacken not your hold of my L. Treasurer for I have been told that you are in his care I send you a Copy of that Sermon but it is not my copy which I thought my L. of South-hampton would have sent me backe This you must be pleased to let me have again for I borrow it for the other I will pretermit no time to write it though in good faith I have half forgot it If in any letter I leave out the name of the La. Hunt or La. Burdell or your daughters tell them that I named them I take the falshood upon me for I intend it very really and very humbly where I am good for any thing in any of their services Our blessed Saviour continue and enlarge his blessings to you all Amen Your humble servant in Chr. Jes. J. Donne 11 Octob. 1621. Why do you say nothing of my little book of Cases To Sir G.B. SIR IT is one of my blinde Meditations to think what a miserable defeat it would be to all these preparations of braverie if my infirmity should overtake others for I am at least half blinde my windows are all as full of glasses of Waters as any Mountebanks stall This messenger makes haste I thank him for it therefore I onely send you this Letter which was sent to me about three daies past and my promise to distribute your other Letters according to your addresses as fast as my Monsieur can doe it for for any personall service you must be content at this time to pardon Your affectionate servant J. Donne Decemb. 23. To Sir H. Goodere SIR AGreeably to my fortune and thoughts I was crawld this back way from Keyston through my broken casement at Bedford I saw for my best dish at dinner your Coach I studied your gests but when I knew where you were I went out of this Town in a doubt whether I should turn in to Wrest and you know the wisdome of the Parliament is to resolve ever in the Negative Therefore it is likeliest I shall not come in there yet let me give you in passing thus much account of my self I thought to kisse my L. Spencers hands at one house and have passed three If you know nothing to the contrary risen since
falshood nor frowardnesse which words I am glad to observe that the holy Authours often joyne as expressers and relatives to one another because else out of a naturall descent to that unworthy fault of frowardnesse furthered with that incommodity of a little thinne house I should have mistaken it to be a small thing which now I see equalled with the worst If you have laid my papers and books by I pray let this messenger have them I have determined upon them If you have not be content to do it in the next three or four days So Sir I kisse your hands and deliver to you an intire and clear heart which shall ever when I am with you be in my face and tongue and when I am from you in my Letters for I will never draw Curtain between you and it Yours very affectionately J. Donne From your house at Micham friday morning When you are sometimes at M. Sackvills I pray aske if he have this book Baldvinus de officio pii hominis in controversiis it was written at the conference at Poissy where Beza was and he answered it I long for it To Sir H. G. SIR I Hope you are now welcome to London and well and well comforted in your Fathers health and love and well contented that we ask you how you doe and tell you how we are which yet I cannot of my self If I knew that I were ill I were well for we consist of three parts a Soul and Body and Minde which I call those thoughts and affections and passions which neither soul nor body hath alone but have been begotten by their communication as Musique results out of our breath and a Cornet And of all these the diseases are cures if they be known Of our souls sicknesses which are sinnes the knowledge is to acknowledge and that is her Physique in which we are not dieted by drams and scruples for we cannot take too much Of our bodies infirmities though our knowledge be partly ab extrinseco from the opinion of the Physitian and that the subject and matter be flexible and various yet their rules are certain and if the matter be rightly applyed to the rule our knowledge thereof is also certain But of the diseases of the minde there is no Criterium no Canon no rule for our own taste and apprehension and interpretation should be the Judge and that is the disease it self Therefore sometimes when I finde my self transported with jollity and love of company I hang Leads at my heels and reduce to my thoughts my fortunes my years the duties of a man of a friend of a husband of a Father and all the incumbencies of a family when sadnesse dejects me either I countermine it with another sadnesse or I kindle squibs about me again and flie into sportfulnesse and company and I finde ever after all that I am like an exorcist which had long laboured about one which at last appears to have the Mother that I still mistake my disease And I still vex my self with this because if I know it not no body can know it And I comfort my self because I see dispassioned men are subject to the like ignorances For divers mindes out of the same thing often draw contrary conclusions as Augustine thought devout Anthony to be therefore full of the holy Ghost because not being able to read he could say the whole Bible and interpret it and Thyreus the Jesuit for the same reason doth thinke all the Anabaptists to be possessed And as often out of contrary things men draw one conclusion As to the Roman Church magnificence and splendor hath ever been an argument of Gods favour and poverty affliction to the Greek Out of this variety of mindes it proceeds that though our souls would goe to one end Heaven and all our bodies must go to one end the earth yet our third part the minde which is our naturall guide here chooses to every man a severall way scarce any man likes what another doth nor advisedly that which himself But Sir I am beyond my purpose I mean to write a Letter and I am fallen into a discourse and I do not only take you from some businesse but I make you a new businesse by drawing you into these meditations In which let my opennesse be an argument of such love as I would fain expresse in some worthier fashion To Sir G. F. SIR I Writ to you once this week before yet I write again both because it seems a kinde of resisting of grace to omit any commodity of sending into England and because any Pacquet from me into England should go not only without just fraight but without ballast if it had not a letter to you In Letters that I received from Sir H. Wotton yesterday from Amyens I had one of the 8 of March from you and with it one from M rs Danterey of the 28 of January which is a strange disproportion But Sir if our Letters come not in due order and so make not a certain and concurrent chain yet if they come as Atomes and so meet at last by any crooked and casuall application they make up and they nourish bodies of friendship and in that fashion I mean one way or other first or last I hope all the Letters which have been addressed to us by one another are safely arrived except perchance that pacquet by the Cook be not of which before this time you are cleare for I received as I told you a Letter by M. Nat. Rich and if you sent none by him then it was that Letter which the Cook tells you he delivered to M. Rich which with all my criticismes I cannot reconcile because in your last Letter I find mention of things formerly written which I have not found However I am yet in the same perplexity which I mentioned before which is that I have received no syllable neither from her self nor by any other how my wife hath passed her danger nor do I know whether I be increased by a childe or diminished by the losse of a wife I hear from England of many censures of my book of M ris Drury if any of those censures do but pardon me my descent in Printing any thing in verse which if they do they are more charitable then my self for I do not pardon my self but confesse that I did it against my conscience that is against my own opinion that I should not have done so I doubt not but they will soon give over that other part of that indictment which is that I have said so much for no body can imagine that I who never saw her could have any other purpose in that then that when I had received so very good testimony of her worthinesse and was gone down to print verses it became me to say not what I was sure was just truth but the best that I could conceive for that had been a new weaknesse in me to have praised any body in
no other fault in eating the Apple but that he did it Ne contristaretuâ— delicias suas I am not carefull what I write because the inclosed Letters may dignifie this ill favoured bark and they need not grudge so course a countenance because they are now to accompany themselves my man fetched them and therefore I can say no more of them then themselves say M ris Meauly intreated me by her Letter to hasten hers as I think for by my troth I cannot read it My Lady was dispatching in so much haste for Twicknam as she gave no word to a Letter which I sent with yours of Sir Tho. Bartlet I can say nothing nor of the plague though your Letter bid me but that he diminishes the other increases but in what proportion I am not clear To them at Hammersmith and M ris Herbert I will do your command If I have been good in hope or can promise any little offices in the future probably it is comfortable for I am the worst present man in the world yet the instant though it be nothing joynes times together and therefore this unprofitableness since I have been and will still indevour to be so shall not interrupt me now from being Your servant and lover J. Donne To the best Knight Sir H. Wootton SIR VVHen I saw your good Countesse last she let me think that her message by her foot-man would hasten you up And it furthered that opinion in me when I knew how near M. Mathews day of departing this kingdome was To counterpoyse both these I have a little Letter from you brought to me to Micham yesterday but left at my lodging two days sooner and because that speaks nothing of your return I am content to be perplexed in it and as in all other so in this perplexity to do that which is safest To me it is safest to write because it performes a duty and leaves my conscience well and though it seem not safest for the Letter which may perish yet I remember that in the Crociate for the warres in the Holy Land and so in all Pilgrimages enterprised in devotion he which dies in the way enjoyes all the benefit and indulgences which the end did afford Howsoever all that can encrease the danger of your Letter encrease my merit for as where they immolate men it is a a scanter devotion to sacrifice one of many slaves or of many children or an onely child then to beget and bring up one purposely to sacrifice it so if I ordain this Letter purposely for destruction it is the largest expressing of that kinde of piety and I am easie to beleeve because I wish it your hast hither Not that I can fear any slacknesse in that business which drew you down because your fortune and honour are a paire of good spurs to it but here also you have both true businesse and many Quasi negotia which go two and two to a businesse which are visitations and such as though they be not full businesses yet are so near them that they serve as for excuses in omissions of the other As when abjurations was in use in this land the State and law was satisfied if the abjuror came to the sea side and waded into the sea when windes and tydes resisted so we think our selves justly excusable to our friends and our selves if when we should do businesse we come to the place of businesse as Courts and the houses of great Princes and officers I do not so much intimate your infirmity in this as frankly confesse mine own The master of Latine language says Oculi aures aliorum te speculantur custodiunt So those two words are synonimous only the observation of others upon me is my preservation from extream idlenesse else I professe that I hate businesse so much as I am sometimes glad to remember that the Roman Church reads that verse A negotio perambulante in tenebris which we reade from the pestilence walking by night so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve avoiding but you will neither beleeve that I abhor businesse if I inlarge this Letter nor that I would afford you that ease which I affect Therefore returne to your pleasures Your unprofitablest friend Jo. Donne March 14. 1607. It is my third Letter which I tell you because I found not M r. Rogers but left the Letter which I sent last with a stranger at Cliffords Inne To Sir H. G. SIR THis 14 of November last I received yours of the 9 as I was in the street going to sup with my Lady Bedford I found all that company forepossessed with a wonder why you came not last saturday I perceive that as your intermitting your Letters to me gave me reason to hope for you so some more direct addresse or conscience of your businesse here had imprinted in them an assurance of your comming this Letter shall but talke not discourse it shall but gossip not consider nor consult so it is made halfe with a prejudice of being lost by the way The King is gone this day for Royston and hath left with the Queen a commandment to meditate upon a Masque for Christmas so that they grow serious about that already that will hasten my Lady Bedfords journey who goes within ten days from hence to her Lord but by reason of this can make no long stay there Justinian the Venetian is gone hence and one Carraw come in his place that State hath taken a fresh offence at a Friar who refused to absolve a Gentleman because he would not expresse in confession what books of Father Paul and such he knew to be in the hands of any others the State commanded him out of that territory in three hours warning and he hath now submitted himself and is returned as prisoner for Mantua and so remains as yet Sir H. Wootton who writ hither addes also that upon his knowledge there are 14000 as good Protestants as he in that State The Duke Joyeuse is dead in Primont returning from Rome where M. Mole who went with the L. Rosse is taken into the Inquisition and I see small hope of his recovery for he had in some translations of Plessis books talked of Babylon and Antichrist Except it fall out that one Strange a Jesuit in the Tower may be accepted for him To come a little nearer my self Sir Geffery Fenton one of his Majesties Secretaries in Ireland is dead and I have made some offer for the place in preservation whereof as I have had occasion to imploy all my friends so I have not found in them all except Bedford more hast and words for when those two are together there is much comfort even in the least then in the L. Hay In good faith he promised so roundly so abundantly so profusely as I suspected him but performed what ever he undertook and my requests were the measures of his undertakings so readily and truly that his complements became obligations
nor Morality can suffer I dare write my opinion of that Book in whose bowels you left me It hath refreshed and given new justice to my ordinary complaint That the Divines of these times are become meer Advocates as though Religion were a temporall inheritance they plead for it with all sophistications and illusions and forgeries And herein are they likest Advocates that though they be feed by the way with Dignities and other recompenses yet that for which they plead is none of theirs They write for Religion without it In the main point in question I think truly there is a perplexity as farre as I see yet and both sides may be in justice and innocence and the wounds which they inflict upon the adverse part are all se defendendo for clearly our State cannot be safe without the Oath since they professe that Clergie-men though Traitors are no Subjects and that all the rest may be none to morrow And as clearly the Supremacy which the Ro. Church pretend were diminished if it were limited and will as ill a bide that or disputation as the Prerogative of temporall Kings who being the onely judges of their prerogative why may not Roman Bishops so enlightned as they are presumed by them be good witnesses of their own supremacie which is now so much impugned But for this particular Author I looked for more prudence and humane wisdome in him in avoiding all miscitings or mis-interpretings because at this time the watch is set and every bodies hammer is upon that anvill and to dare offend in that kinde now is for a theef to leave the covert and meet a strong hue and cry in the teeth and yet truly this man is extremely obnoxious in that kinde for though he have answered many things fully as no book ever gave more advantage then that which he undertook and abound in delicate applications and ornaments from the divine and prophane authors yet being chiefly conversant about two points he prevaricates in both For for the matter which is the first he referres it intirely and namely to that which D. Morton hath said therein before and so leaves it roundly And for the person which is the second upon whom he amasses as many opprobries as any other could deserve he pronounceth that he will account any answer from his adversary slaunder except he do as he hath done draw whatsoever he saith of him from Authors of the same Religion and in print And so he having made use of all the Quodlibetaries imputations against the other cannot be obnoxious himself in that kinde and so hath provided safely It were no service to you to send you my notes upon the Book because they are sandy and incoherent ragges for my memory not for your judgement and to extend them to an easinesse and perspicuity would make them a Pamphlet not a Letter I will therefore deferre them till I see you and in the mean time I will adventure to say to you without inserting one unnecessary word that the Book is full of falsifications in words and in sense and of falshoods in matter of fact and of inconsequent and unscholarlike arguings and of relinquishing the King in many points of defence and of contradiction of himself and of dangerous and suspected Doctrine in Divinitie and of silly ridiculous triflings and of extreme flatteries and of neglecting better and more obvious answers and of letting slip some enormous advantages which the other gave and he spies not I know as I begun I speak to you who cannot be scandalized and that neither measure Religion as it is now called by Unitie nor suspect Unity for these interruptions Sir not onely a Mathematique point which is the most indivisible and unique thing which art can present flowes into every line which is derived from the Center but our soul which is but one hath swallowed up a Negative and feeling soul which was in the body before it came and exercises those faculties yet and God himselfe who only is one seems to have been eternally delighted with a disunion of persons They whose active function it is must endevour this unity in Religion and and we at our lay Altars which are our tables or bedside or stools wheresoever we dare prostrate our selves to God in prayer must beg it of him but we must take heed of making misconclusions upon the want of it for whether the Maior and Aldermen fall out as with us and the Puritans Bishops against Priests or the Commoners voyces differ who is Maior and who Aldermen or what their Jurifdiction as with the Bishop of Rome or whosoever yet it is still one Corporation Your very affectionate servant and lover J. Donne Micham Thursday late Never leave the remembrance of my poor service unmentioned when you see the good Lady Tos T. H. SIR THis evening which is 5 o October I finde your Letter of Michaelmas day and though I see by it that it is a return of a Letter not of the last weeks and thereupon make account that my last weeks Letter hath satisfied you in some things which this Letter commands concerning Pauls yet for other things I would give you a drowsie relation for it is that time of night though I called it evening At the Kings going from hence upon Munday last we made account to have seen Sir John Sutclin Secretary and Sir Rob. Weston Chancellor of the Exchequer but they are not done but both are fixed my L. Cranfield received his staffe with these two suits obtained from the King That all Assignations might be transferred into the Exchequer and so no paiments charged upon the Customes nor Receivers nor the Court of Wards c. And that for a time there might be a damp cast upon Pensions till they might be considered In the Low Countries the Armies stirre not In the Palatinate Sir H. Vere attempting the regaining of Stenie Castle was surprised with the Enemy in so much strength that they write it over for a Master-piece that he was able to make a retreat to Manheme so that now the Enemy is got on that side the River which Heydelberg is on and I know nothing that can stand in his way My L. Digby comes from Vienna before he goes into Spain by Count Mansfield by the Palatinate by Paris and therefore upon his comming I shall be able to say something to you In Sir John Sutclin I presume you see an end of Sir Ro. Naunton and we see an end of M r Tho. Murray too I beleeve he comes no more to the Prince For the triall of my L. of Canterburies irregularity there is a Commission to sixe Bishops London Winchester Rochester and three onely elect Lincoln S. Davids and Exeter two Judges L. Hobard and Dodridge two Civilians Sir H. Martin and D. Steward The consecration of these elect Bishops and consequently my being Dean must attend the issue of this Commission Sir Tho. Roe is gone The Proclamations of putting off the Parliament
Knight S r. Edward Herbert L. of Cherbury sent to him with his Book Biathanatos SIR I Make accompt that this book hath enough performed that which it undertook both by argument and example It shall therefore the lesse need to be it self another example of the Doctrine It shall not therefore kill it self that is not bury it self for if it should do so those reasons by which that act should be defended or excused were also lost with it Since it is content to live it cannot chuse a wholsomeraire then your Library where Authors of all complexions are presented If any of them grudge this book a room and suspect it of new or dangerous doctrine you who know us all can best moderate To those reasons which I know your love to me will make in my favour and discharge you may adde this that though this doctrine hath not been taught nor defended by writers yet they most of any sort of men in the world have practised it Your very true and earnest friend and servant and lover J. Donne To S r Robert Carre now Earle of Ankerum with my Book Biathanatos at my going into Germany SIR I Had need do somewhat towards you above my promises How weak are my performances when even my promises are defective I cannot promise no not in mine own hopes equally to your merit towards me But besides the Poems of which you took a promise I send you another Book to which there belongs this History It was written by me many years since and because it is upon a misinterpretable subject I have always gone so near suppressing it as that it is onely not burnt no hand hath passed upon it to copy it nor many eyes to read it onely to some particular friends in both Universities then when I writ it I did communicate it And I remember I had this answer That certainly there was a false thread in it but not easily found Keep it I pray with the same jealousie let any that your discretion admits to the sight of it know the date of it and that it is a Book written by Jack Donne and not by D. Donne Reserve it for me if I live and if I die I only forbid it the Presse and the Fire publish it not but yet burn it not and between those do what you will with it Love me still thus farre for your own sake that when you withdraw your love from me you will finde so many unworthinesses in me as you grow ashamed of having had so long and so much such a thing as Your poor servant in Chr. Jes. J. Donne To the Countesse of Bedford MADAM AMongst many other dignities which this letter hath by being received and seen by you it is not the least that it was prophesied of before it was born for your brother told you in his letter that I had written he did me much honour both in advancing my truth so farre as to call a promise an act already done and to provide me a means of doing him a service in this act which is but doing right to my self for by this performance of mine own word I have also justified that part of his Letter which concerned me and it had been a double guiltinesse in me to have made him guilty towards you It makes no difference that this came not the same day nor bears the same date as his for though in inheritances and worldly possessions we consider the dates of Evidences yet in Letters by which we deliver over our affections and assurances of friendship and the best faculties of our souls times and daies cannot have interest nor be considerable because that which passes by them is eternall and out of the measure of time Because therefore it is the office of this Letter to convey my best wishes and all the effects of a noble love unto you which are the best fruits that so poor a soil as my poor soul is can produce you may be pleased to allow the Letter thus much of the souls privilege as to exempt it from straitnesse of hours or any measure of times and so beleeve it came then And for my part I shall make it so like my soul that as that affection of which it is the messenger begun in me without my knowing when any more then I know when my soul began so it shall continue as long as that Your most affectionate friend and servant J. D. To the right honourable the Countess of Montgomery MADAM OF my ability to doe your Ladiship service any thing may be an embleme good enough for as a word vanisheth so doth any power in me to serve you things that are written are fitter testimonies because they remain and are permanent in writing this Sermon which your Ladiship was pleased to hear before I confesse I satisfie an ambition of mine own but it is the ambition of obeying your commandment not onely an ambition of leaving my name in the memory or in the Cabinet and yet since I am going out of the Kingdom and perchance out of the world when God shall have given my soul a place in heaven it shall the lesse diminish your Ladiship if my poor name be found about you I know what dead carkasses things written are in respect of things spoken But in things of this kinde that soul that inanimates them receives debts from them The Spirit of God that dictates them in the speaker or writer and is present in his tongue or hand meets himself again as we meet our selves in a glass in the eies and hearts of the hearers and readers and that Spirit which is ever the same to an equall devotion makes a writing and a speaking equall means to edification In one circumstance my preaching and my writing this Sermon is too equall that that your Ladiship heard in a hoarse voyce then you read in a course hand now but in thankfulnesse I shall lift up my hands as clean as my infirmities can keep them and a voyce as clear as his spirit shall be pleased to tune in my prayers in all places of the world which shall either sustain or bury Your Ladiships humble servant in Christ Iesus J. D. To Sir H. R. IF a whole year be but Annus ab Annulo because it returnes into it self what Annululus shall be diminutive enough to express our weekly revolutions In chaines the least linkes have most curiosity but that can be no emblem of us but they have also the most strength and that may The first sphere onely which is resisted by nothing absolves his course every day and so doth true friendship well placed often iterate in act or purpose the same offices But as the lower spheres subject to the violence of that and yet naturally encouraged to a reluctation against it have therefore many distractions and eccentricities and some trepidations and so return but lamely and lately to the same place and office so that friendship which is not moved
a man from his best happinesse of enjoying himself I give you I think the first knowledge of two millions confiscated to the Crown of England of which I dare assure my self the coffers have yet touched none nor have the Commissioners for suits any thing to oppose against a suit founded upon this confiscation though they hold never so strictly to their instructions After you have served your self with aproportion I pray make a petition in my name for as much as you think may begiven me for my book out of this for but out of this I have no imagination And for a token of my desire to serve him present M. Fowler with 3 or 4000 li. of this since he was so resolved never to leave his place without a suit of that value I wish your cousen in the town better provided but if he be not here is enough for him And since I am ever an affectionate servant to that journey acquaint M. Martin from me how easie it will be to get a good part of this for Virginia Upon the least petition that M. Brook can present he may make himself whole again of all which the Kings servants M. Lepton and master Waterâ—use have endammaged him Give him leave to offer to M. Hakevill enough to please himself for his Aurum Reginae And if M. Gherard have no present hopefull designe upon a worthy Widow let him have so much of this as will provide him that house and coach which he promised to lend me at my return If M. Inago Jones be not satisfied for his last Maske because I hear say it cannot come to much here is enough to be had This is but a copy but if Sir Ro. Cotton have the originall he will not deny it you if he hath it not no body else hath it nor can prevent you husband it well which you may easily doe because I assure my self none of the children nor friends of the party condemned will crosse you or importune the King for any part If I get no more by it yet it hath made me a Letter And Sir to depart from this Mine in what part of my Letters soever you find the remembrance of my humble service to my Lord of Bedford I beseech you ever think them intended for the first and in that ranke present them I have yet received but one Letter from you which was of the 10 of December by M. Pory but you see that as long as there is one egge left in the nest I never leave laying nor should although you had sent none since all at last will not amount to so good a testimony as I would fain give how much I am Your affectionate servant and lover J. Donne Sir I write this Letter in no very great degree of a convalescence from such storms of a stomach colick as kept me in a continuall vomiting so that I know not what I should have been able to doe to dispatch this winde but that an honest fever came and was my physick I tell you of it onely lest some report should make it worse for me thinks that they who love to adde to news should think it a master-piece to be able to say no worse of any ill fortune of mine then it deserves since commonly it deserves worse then they can say but they did not and I am reprieved I finde dying to be like those facts which denying makes felony when a sicknesse examines us and we confess that we are willing to die we cannot but those who are incurre the penalty and I may die yet if talking idly be an ill sign God be with you To the same SIR IT is in our State ever held for a good sign to change Prison and nella Signoria de mi I will think it so that my sicknesse hath given me leave to come to my London-prison I made no doubt but my entrance-pain for it was so rather then a sicknesse but that my sadnesse putrefied and corrupted it to that name affected you also for nearer Contracts then generall Christianity had made us so much towards one that one part cannot escape the distemper of the other I was therefore very carefull as well to slack any sorrow which my danger might occasion in you as to give you the comfort of having been heard in your prayers for me to tell you as soon as my pain remitted what steps I made towards health which I did last week This Tuesday morning your man brought me a Letter which if he had not found me at London I see he had a hasty commandment to have brought to Micham S r though my fortune hath made me such as I am rather a sicknesse and disease of the world then any part of it yet I esteemed my self so far from being so to you as I esteemed you to be far from being so of the world as to measure men by fortune or events I am now gone so far towards health as there is not infirmity enough left in me for an assurance of so much noblenesse and truth as your last Letter is to work upon that might cure a greater indisposition then I am now in And though if I had died I had not gone without testimonies of such a disposition in you towards the reparation of my fortune or preservation of my poor reputation yet I would live and be some such thing as you might not be ashamed to love Your man must send away this hour in which he visits me and I have not yet for I came last night offered to visit my La. Bedford and therefore have nothing to say which should make me grudge this straitnesse of time He tels me he sends again upon Thursday and therefore I will make an end of this Letter and perfect it then I doubt my Letters have not come duly to your hand and that I writing in my dungeon of Michim without dating have made the Chronologie and sequence of my Letters perplexed to you howsoever you shall not be rid of this Ague of my Letters though perchance the fit change daies I have received in a narrow compasse three of yours one with the Catalogue of your Books another I found here left last Saterday by your man and this which he brought me this morning Sir I dare sit no longer in my wastcoat nor have any thing worth the danger of a relapse to write I owe you so much of my health as I would not mingle you in any occasion of repairing it and therefore here ask leave to kisse your hands and bid you good morrow and farewell Your very true friend and servant J Donne To S r H. G. SIR IT should be no interruption to your pleasures to hear me often say that I love you and that you are as much my meditations as my self I often compare not you and me but the sphear in which your resolutions are and my wheel both I hope concentrique to God for me thinks the new Astronomie
for his honour and health and as we then thought for his estate and I thought that had removed much of the envy Besides I have just reasons to think that in the chiefest businesses between the Nations he was a very good patriot But I meant to speake of nothing but the libells of which all which are brought into these parts are so tastelesse and flat that I protest to you I think they were made by his friends It is not the first time that our age hath seen that art practised That when there are witty and sharp libels made which not onely for the liberty of speaking but for the elegancie and composition would take deep root and make durable impressions in the memory no other way hath been thought so fit to suppresse them as to divulge some course and railing one for when the noise is risen that libels are abroad mens curiositie must be served with something and it is better for the honour of the person traduced that some blunt downright railings be vented of which every body is soon weary then other pieces which entertain us long with a delight and love to the things themselves I doubt not but he smoothered some libels against him in his life time But I would all these or better had been made then for they might then have wrought upon him and they might have testified that the Author had meant to mend him but now they can have no honest pretence I dare say to you where I am not easily misinterpreted that there may be cases where one may do his Countrey good service by libelling against a live man For where a man is either too great or his Vices too generall to be brought under a judiciary accusation there is no way but this extraordinary accusing which we call Libelling And I have heard that nothing hath soupled and allayed the D. of Lerma in his violent greatnesse so much as the often libels made upon him But after death it is in all cases unexcusable I know that Lucifer and one or two more of the Fathers who writ libellous books against the Emperours of their times are excused by our writers because they writ not in the lives of those Emperours I am glad for them that they writ not in their lives for that must have occasioned tumult and contempt against so high and Soveraign persons But that doth not enough excuse them to me for writing so after their death for that was ignoble and uselesse though they did a little escape the nature of libels by being subscribed and avowed which excuse would not have served in the Star-chamber where sealed Letters have been judged Libels but these of which we speake at this present are capable of no excuse no amolishment and therefore I cry you mercy and my self too for disliking them with so much diligence for they deserve not that But Sir you see by this and by my Letter of last week from hence the peremptory barrennesse of this place from whence we can write nothing into England but of that which comes from thence Till the Lady Worster came hither I had never heard any thing to make me imagine that Sir Rob. Rich was in England the first hour that I had knowledge of it I kisse his hands by this Letter I make account to be in London transitorily about the end of August You shall do me much favour if I may finde a Letter from you if you shall not then be there at the Lady Bartlets I shall come home in much ignorance nor would I discern home by a better light or any other then you I can glory of nothing in this voyage but that I have afflicted my Lady Bedford with few Letters I protest earnestly to you it troubles me much more to dispatch a pacquet into England without a Letter to her then it would to put in three But I have been heretofore too immodest towards her and I suffer this Purgatory for it We make account to leave this place within 8 or 10 days and hence to make our best haste to the Count Maurice where we think to finde again the young Palatine all this I tell you only because when you know that we shall run too fast to write any more Letters you may easily pardon the importunities and impertinencies of this and cast into no lower place of your love Your very true friend and servant J. Donne Spâ 26 July here 1612. To my Lord G. H. SIR I Am near the execution of that purpose for France though I may have other ends yet if it do but keep me awake it recompenses me well I am now in the afternoon of my life and then it is unwholesome to sleep It is ill to look back or give over in a course but worse never to set out I speake to you at this time of departing as I should do at my last upon my death-bed and I desire to deliver into your hands a heart and affections as innocent towards you as I shall to deliver my soul into Gods hands then I say not this out of diffidence as though you doubted it or that this should look like such an excuse as implyed an accusation but because my fortune hath burdened you so as I could not rectifie it before my going my conscience and interpretation severer I hope then yours towards my self calls that a kinde of demerit but God who hath not only afforded us a way to be delivered from our great many debts contracted by our Executorship to Adam but also another for our particular debts after hath not left poor men unprovided for discharge of morall and civill debts in which acknowledgement and thankfulnesse is the same as repentance and contrition is in spiritual debts and though the value and dignity of all these be not perchance in the things but in the acceptation yet I cannot doubt of it either in God or you But Sir because there is some degree of thankfulnesse in asking more for that confesses all former obligations and a desire to be still in the same dependency I must intreat you to continue that wherein you have most expressed your love to me which is to maintain me in the same room in my Lady Bedfords opinion in the which you placed me I prosesse to you that I am too much bound to her for expressing every way her care of my fortune that I am weary before she is and out of a loathnesse that so good works should be bestowed upon so illstuffe or that somuchill fortune should be mingled with hers as that she should misse any thing that she desired though it were but for me I am willing to depart from farther exercising her indevours in that kinde I shall be bold to deliver my poor Letters to her Ladiships hands through yours whilest I am abroad ' though I shall ever account my self at home whilest I am in your memory Your affectionate servant and lover J. Donne To Sir H.
hope and a subject for every sophister in Religion to work on For the other part of your Letter spent in the praise of the Countesse I am always very apt to beleeve it of her and can never beleeve it so well and so reasonably as now when it is averred by you but for the expressing it to her in that sort as you seem to counsaile I have these two reasons to decline it That that knowledge which she hath of me was in the beginning of a graver course then of a Poet into which that I may also keep my dignity I would not seem to relapse The Spanish proverb informes me that he is a fool which cannot make one Sonnet and he is mad which makes two The other stronger reason is my integrity to the other Countesse of whose worthinesse though I swallowed your opinion at first upon your words yet I have had since an explicit faith and now a knowledge and for her delight since she descends to them I had reserved not only all the verses which I should make but all the thoughts of womens worthinesse But because I hope she will not disdain that I should write well of her Picture I have obeyed you thus far as to write but intreat you by your friendship that by this occasion of versifying I be not traduced nor esteemed light in that Tribe and that house where I have lived If those reasons which moved you to bid me write be not constant in you still or if you meant not that I should write verses or if these verses be too bad or too good over or under her understanding and not fit I pray receive them as a companion and supplement of this Letter to you and as such a token as I use to send which use because I wish rather they should serve except you wish otherwise I send no other but after I have told you that here at a Christning at Peckam you are remembred by divers of ours and I commanded to tell you so I kisse your hands and so seal to you my pure love which I would not refuse to do by any labour or danger Your very true friend and servant J. Donne To S r G.M. IF you were here you would not think me importune if I did you good morrow every day and such a patience will excuse my often ' Letters No other kinde of conveyance is better for knowledge or love What treasures of Morall knowledge are in Senecaes Letters to onely one Lucilius and what of Naturall in Plinies how much of the storie of the time is in Ciceroes Letters And how all of these times in the Jesuites Eastern and Western Epistles where can we finde so perfect a Character of Phalaris as in his own Letters which are almost so many writs of Execution Or of Brutus as in his privie seals for monie The Evangiles and Acts teach us what to beleeve but the Epistles of the Apostles what to do And those who have endevoured to dignifie Seneca above his worth have no way fitter then to imagine Letters between him and S. Paul As they think also that they have expressed an excellent person in that Letter which they obtrude from our B. Saviour to King Agabarus The Italians which are most discursive and think the world owes them all wisdome abound so much in this kinde of expressing that Michel Montaige saies he hath seen as I remember 400 volumes of Italian Letters But it is the other capacity which must make mine acceptable that they are also the best conveyers of love But though all knowledge be in those Authors already yet as some poisons and some medicines hurt not nor profit except the creature in which they reside contribute their lively activitie and vigor so much of the knowledge buried in Books perisheth and becomes ineffectuall if it be not applied and refreshed by a companion or friend Much of their goodnesse hath the same period which some Physicians of Italy have observed to be in the biting of their Tarentola that it affects no longer then the flie lives For with how much desire we read the papers of any living now especially friends which we would scarce allow a boxe in our cabinet or shelf in our Library if they were dead And we do justly in it for the writings and words of men present we may examine controll and expostulate and receive satisfaction from the authors but the other we must beleeve or discredit they present no mean Since then at this time I am upon the stage you may be content to hear me And now that perchance I have brought you to it as Thom. Badger did the King now I have nothing to say And it is well for the Letter is already long enough else let this probleme supply which was occasioned by you of women wearing stones which it seems you were afraid women should read because you avert them at the beginning with a protestation of cleanlinesse Martiall found no way fitter to draw the Romane Matrons to read one of his Books which he thinks most morall and cleanly then to counsell them by the first Epigram to skip the Book because it was obscene But either you write not at all for women or for those of sincerer palates Though their unworthinesse and your own ease be advocates for me with you yet I must adde my entreaty that you let goe no copy of my Problems till I review them If it be too late at least be able to tell me who hath them Yours J. Donne To S r H. G. I Send not my Letters as tribute nor interest not recompense nor for commerce nor as testimonials of my love nor provokers of yours nor to justifie my custome of writing nor for a vent and utterance of my meditations for my Letters are either above or under all such offices yet I write very affectionately and I chide and accuse my self of diminishing that affection which sends them when I ask my self why onely I am sure that I desire that you might have in your hands Letters of mine of all kindes as conveyances and deliverers of me to you whether you accept me as a friend or as a patient or as a penitent or as a beadsman for I decline no jurisdiction or refuse any tenure I would not open any doore upon you but look in when you open it Angels have not nor affect not other knowledge of one another then they list to reveal to one another It is then in this onely that friends are Angels that they are capable and fit for such revelations when they are offered If at any time I seem to studie you more inquisitively it is for no other end but to know how to present you to God in my prayers and what to ask of him for you for even that holy exercise may not be done inopportunely no nor importunely I finde little errour in that Grecians counsell who saies If thou ask any thing of God offer no
way affected his stammering is so extreme as he can utter nothing They cannot draw him to look upon a son of the Marquis whom they have put into his service And he was so extremely affectionate towards the younger son of Beaufort that they have removed him to a charge which he hath as he is made Prieur of Malta but yet there passe such Letters between them by stealth and practise as though it be between children it is become a matter of State and much diligence used to prevent the Letters For the young Marquis of Vervueil the K. speaks often of transplanting him into the Church and once this Christmas delighted himself to see his young brother in a Cardinalls habit Sir it is time to take up for I know that any thing from this place as soon as it is certain is stale I have been a great while more mannerly towards my Lady Bedford then to trouble her with any of mine own verses but having found these French verses accompanied with a great deal of reputation here I could not forbear to aske her leave to send them I writ to you by M r. Pory the 17 of Jan. here and he carried that Letter to Paris to gather news like a snow-ball He told me that Pindar is gone to Constantinople with Commission to remove and succeed Glover I am afraid you have neglected that businesse Continue me in M. Martins good opinion I know I shall never fall from it by any demerit of mine and I know I need not fear it out of any slacknesse or slipperinesse in him but much businesse may strangle me in him When it shall not trouble you to write to me I pray do me the favour to tell me how many you have received from me for I have now much just reason to imagine that some of my Pacquets have had more honour then I wished them which is to be delivered into the hands of greater personages then I addressed them unto Hold me still in your own love and proceed in that noble testimony of it of which your Letter by M. Pory spoke which is the only Letter that I have received since I came away and beleeve me that I shall ever with much affection and much devotion joine both your fortune and your last best happinesse with the desire of mine own in all my civill and divine wishes as the only retribution in the power of Your affectionate servant Jo. Donne To the Honorable Knight Sir H. Goodere SIR IF I would go out of my way for excuses or if I did not go out of my way from them I might avoid writing now because I cannot chuse but know that you have in this town abler servants and better understanding the persons and passages of this Court But my hope is not in the application of other mens merits to me however abundant Besides this town hath since our comming hither afforded enough for all to say That which was done here the 25 of March and which was so long called a publication of the marriages was no otherwise publique then that the Spa. Ambassador having that day an audience delivered to the Queen that his Master was well pleased with all those particulars which had been formerly treated And the French Ambassador in Spain is said to have had instruction to do the same office in that Court the same day Since that that is to say these 4 last days it hath been solemnized with more outward bravery then this Court is remembred to have appeared in The main bravery was the number of horses which were above 800 Caparazond Before the daies the town was full of the 5 Challengers cartells full of Rodomontades but in the execution there were no personall reencounters nor other triall of any ability then running at the Quintain and the Ring Other particulars of this you cannot chuse but hear too much since at this time there cometoyouso many French men But lest you should beleeve too much I presentyou these 2 precautions that for their Gendarmery there was no other trial then I told you for their bravery no true stuffe You must of necessity have heard often of a Book written against the Popes jurisdiction about three moneths since by one Richer a D r and Syndique of the Sorbonists which Book hath now been censured by an assembly of the Clergie of this Archbishoprick promoved with so much diligence by the Cardinall Peroun that for this businesse he hath intermitted his replie to the Kings answer which now he retires to intend seriously I have not yet had the honour to kisse his Graces hand though I have received some half-invitations to do it Richer was first accused to the Parliament but when it was there required of his delators to insist upon some propositions in his Book which were either against Scripture or the Gallican Church they desisted in that pursuit But in the censure which the Clergie hath made though it be full of modifications and reservations of the rights of the King and the Gallican Churches there is this iniquitie that being to be published by commandement of the Assembly in all the Churches of Paris which is within that Diocese and almost all the Curates of the Parishes of Paris being Sorbonists there is by this means a strong party of the Sorbonists themselves raised against Richer yet against this censure and against three or four which have opposed Richer in print he meditates an answer Before it should come forth I desired to speak with him for I had said to some of the Sorbonist of his party that there was no proposition in his Book which I could not shew in Catholique authors of 300 years I had from him an assignation to meet and at the hour he sent me his excuse which was that he had been traduced to have had conference with the Ambassadors of England and the States and with the D. of Bovillon and that he had accepted a pension of the King of England and with all that it had been very well testified to him that day that the Jesuits had offered to corrupt men with rewards to kill him Which I doubt not but he apprehended for true because a messenger whom I sent to fixe another time of meeting with him found him in an extreme trembling and irresolutions so that I had no more but an intreaty to forbear comming to his house or drawing him out of it till it might be without danger or observation They of the Religion held a Synod at this time in this Town in which the principall businesse is to rectifie or at least to mature against their Provinciall Synod which shall be held in May certain opinions of Tilenus a Divine of Sedan with which the Churches of France are scandalized The chief point is Whether our salvation be to be attributed to the passive merit of Christ which is his death or to his active also which is his fulfilling of the Law But I doubt not but
it had been her La ps pleasure to have any thing said or done in her service at Heydelberg I should have been glad to have received Sir God blesse you spiritu principali confirmet te and Your very true and affectionate servant in Chr. fes J. Donne 4. Apr. 1619. To the honourable Knight S r Henry Goodere SIR AS you are a great part of my businesse when I come to London so are you when I send More then the office of a visitation brings this Letter to you now for I remember that about this time you purposed a journey to fetch or meet the Lad. Huntington If you justly doubt any long absence I pray send to my lodging my written Books and if you may stay very long I pray send that Letter in which I sent you certain heads which I purposed to enlarge for I have them not in any other paper and I may finde time in your absence to do it because I know no stronger argument to move you to love me but because you have done so doe so still to make my reason better and I shall at last prescribe in you Yours J. Donne Micham Wednesday To Sir H. G. at Polesworth SIR THis 25 I have your letter of 21 which I tell you so punctually because by it nor by any other I doe not discern that you received my pacquet of Books not that I looked for so quick a return of the Sermon nor of my Cases of conscience but that I forget so absolutely what I write and am so sure that I write confidently to you that it is some pain to remain in any jealousie that any Letter is miscarried That which I writ to you of my L. Treasur disposition to you I had from M r Har and I understood it to be his desire to convey it through me The last account which we have of my L. Douc is by Letters of the 2 o of this by which also we saw that the first Letters of his convalescence were but propheticall for he was let blood a second time and is not strong enough yet to receive audience Though I be not Dean of Pauls yet my L. of Warwick hath gone so low as to command of me the office of being Master of my game in our wood about him in Essex I pray be you content to be my officer too the Steward of my services to all to whom you know them to be due in your walk and continue your own assurance that I am Your affectionate servant in Chr. fes J. Donne To my worthy friend F. H. SIR I Can scarce doe any more this week then send you word why I writ not last I had then seposed a few daies for my preparation to the Communion of our B. Saviours body and in that solitarinesse and arraignment of my self digested some meditations of mine and apparelled them as I use in the form of a Sermon for since I have not yet utterly delivered my self from this intemperance of scribling though I thank God my accesses are lesse and lesse vehement I make account that to spend all my little stock of knowledge upon matter of delight were the same error as to spend a fortune upon Masks and Banqueâ—ing houses I chose rather to build in this poor fashion some Spittles and Hospitals where the poor and impotent sinner may finde some relief or at least understanding of his infirmity And if they be too weak to serve posterity yet for the present by contemplation of them c. To Sir H. G. SIR I Have the honour of your Letter which I am almost sorry to have received some few daies before the receit thereof D. Turner who accompanied my L Carow to Sion to dinner shewed me a Letter from you from which I conceived good hopes that your businesses being devolved into the hands of the Treasurer had been in much more forwardnesse then by your Letter to me they appear to be I beseech God establish them and hasten them and with them or without them as he sees most conducible to his purpose upon you continue in you a relying upon him and a satisfaction in his waies I know not whether any Letter from your son or any other report may have given you any mention of me he writ to me from the Compter that he was under a trifling arrest and that 3 l and some little more would discharge him I sent my man with that money but bid him see it emploied for his discharge he found more actions and returned Next day he writ to me that 8 l would discharge him and that M r Selden would lay down half But M r Selden and I speaking together thought it the fittest way to respite all till in a few daies by his writing to you we might be directed therein and in the mean time took order with the Keeper to accommodate him and I bade my man Martin as from himself to serve his present want with somethings Since we told him that we would attend a return of his Letter to you I heard no more of him but I hear he is out Whosoever serves you with relations from this Town I am sure prevents me of all I can say The Palatinate is absolutely lost for before this Letter come to you we make account that Heydelberg and Frankindale is lost and Manheme distressed Mansfield came to Breda and Gonzales to Brussels with great losses on both sides but equall The P. of Orange is but now come to Breda and with him all that he is able to make even out of the Garrisons of their Towns The ways of victuall to Spinolaes Army are almost all precluded by him and he likely to put upon the raising of Spinola between whom and the Town there are hotter disputes then ever our times saw The Secretary of the States here shewed me a Letter yesternight that the Town spends 6000 pound of powder a day and hath spent since the siege 250 m pounds Argits Regiment and my L. Vaux are so diminished by commings a way as that both I think make not now in Muster above 600. M r Gage is returning to Rome but of his Negotiation I dare say nothing by a Letter of adventure The direction which his Ma ty gave for Preachers had scandalized many therefore he descended to pursue them with certain reasons of his proceedings therein and I had commandment to publish them in a Sermon at the Crosse to as great a Congregation as ever I saw together where they received comfortable assurance of his Ma ties constancy in Religion and of his desire that all men should be bred in the knowledge of such things as might preserve them from the superstition of Rome I presume it is but a little while before we shall see you here but that little time is likely to produce many things greatly considerable Present I pray my thankfull services to your good daughters I can give them no better a room in my prayers and
praise any bodie in rime except I tooke such a Person as might be capable of all that I could say If any of those Ladies think that Mistris Drury was not so let that Ladie make her selfe fit for all those praises in the Booke and it shall be hers Nothing is farther from colour or ground of Truth then that which you write of Sir Robert Druries going to Masse No man of our Nation hath been more forward to apply himselfe to the Church of the Religion where he hath come nor to relieve their wants where that Demonstration hath beene needfull I know not yet whether Sir John Brookes purpose of being very shortly here be not a just reason to make me forbear writing to him I am sure that I would fainest do that in writing or abstaining which should be most acceptable to him It were in vain to put into this letter any relation of the Magnificence which have been here at publication of these marriages for at this time there come into England so many Frenchmen as I am sure you shall heare all at least If they speak not of above eight hundred horse well caparosond you may believe it and you may believe that no Court in Christendome had beene able to have appeared so brave in that kinde But if they tell you of any other stuffe then Copper or any other exercise of armes then running at the Quintain and the Ring you may be bold to say Pardone moy Sir this messenger makes so much haste that I cry you mercy for spending any time of this Letter in other imployment then thanking you for yours and promising you more before my remove from hence I pray venture no Letter to me by any other way then M. John Bruer at the Queens Armes a Mercer in Cheapside who is always like to know where we are And make me by loving me still worthy to be Your friend and servant J. Donne To my Honoured friend M r George Gerrard SIR I Cannot chuse but make it a presage that I shall have no good fortune in England that I mist the honour of enjoying that company which you brought to town But I beseech you let my ill luck determine in that ominousnesse for if my not comming should be by her or you interpreted for a negligence or coldnesse in me I were already in actuall and present affliction For that Ecclesiasticall Lady of whom you write since I presume it is a work of darknesse that you go about we will deferre it for winter Perchance the cold weather may be as good physique to you as she for quenching you I have changed my purpose of going to Windsor and will go directly into the Wight which I tell you not as a concerning thing but in obedience to your commandement as one poor testimony that I am Your affectionate servant J. Donne To my very worthy friend M r George Gerrard SIR THis is the fourth of this moneth and I receive your Pacquet so late that I have scarce waking time enough to tell you so or to write any thing but dreams I have both your Letters mother and daughter and am gladder of them then if I had the mother and daughter here in our neighbourhood you know I mean Sir H. Gooderes parties Sir you do me double honour when my name passes through you to that Noble Lady in whose presence you are It is a better end and a better way to that then I am worth I can give you nothing in recompense of that favor but good counsell which is to speake sparingly of any ability in me lest you in danger your own reputation by overvaluing me If I shall at any time take courage by your Letter to expresse my meditations of that Lady in writing I shall scarce think lesse time to be due to that employment then to be all my life in making those verses and so take them with me and sing them amongst her fellow Angels in Heaven I should be loath that in any thing of mine composed of her she should not appear much better then some of those of whom I have written And yet I cannot hope for better expressings then I have given of them So you see how much I should wrong her by making her but equall to others I would I could be beleeved when I say that all that is written of them is but prophecy of her I must use your favour in getting her pardon for having brought her into so narrow and low-rooft a room as my consideration or for adventuring to give any estimation of her and when I see how much she can pardon I shall the better discern how far farther I may dare to offend in that kinde My noble neighbour is well and makes me the steward of his service to you Before this Letter reaches you I presume you will bee gathering towards these parts and then all newes will meet you so fast as that out of your abundance you will impart some to Your affectionate friend to serve you J. Donne To your selfe SIR ALl your other Letters which came to me by more hazardous waies had therefore much merit in them but for your Letter by M. Pory it was but a little degree of favour because the messenger was so obvious and so certain that you could not chuse but write by him But since he brought me as much Letter as all the rest I must accept that as well as the rest By this time M. Garret when you know in your conscience that you have sent no Letter you beginne to look upon the superscription and doubt that you have broken up some other bodies Letter but whos 's so ever it were it must speak the same language for I have heard from no body Sir if there be a Proclamation in England against writing to me yet since it is thereby become a matter of State you might have told M. Pory so And you might have told him what became of Sir Tho. Lucies Letter in my first pacquet for any Letter to him makes any paper a pacquet and any peece of single money a Medall and what became of my Lady Kingsmels in my second and of hers in my third whom I will not name to you in hope that it is perished and you lost the honour of giving it Sir mine own desire of being your servant hath sealed me a Patent of that place during my life and therefore it shall not be in the power of your for bidding to which your stiffe silence amounts to make me leave being Your very affectionate servant J. Donne To my Honoured friend M. George Garrat SIR I Would I were so good an Alchimist to perswade you that all the vertue of the best affections that one could expresse in a sheet were in this ragge of paper It becomes my fortune to deale thus in single money and I may hit better with this hail-shot of little Letters because they may come thick then with great bullets and trouble my
for positive and dogmaticall truths which are not worthy of that dignity And so many doctrines have grown to be the ordinary diet and food of our spirits and have place in the pap of Catechismes which were admitted but as Physick in that present distemper or accepted in a lazie weariness when men so they might have something to relie upon and to excuse themselves from more painfull inquisition never examined what that was To which indisposition of ours the Casuists are so indulgent as that they allow a conscience to adhere to any probable opinion against a more probable and do never binde him to seek out which is the more probable but give him leave to dissemble it and to depart from it if by mischance he come to know it This as it appears in all sciences so most manifestly in Physick which for a long time considering nothing but plain curing and that but by example and precedent the world at last longed for some certain Canons and Rules how these cures might be accomplished And when men are inflamed with this desire and that such a fire breaks out that rages and consumes infinitly by heat of argument except some of authority interpose This produced Hippocrates his Aphorismes and the world slumbred or took breath in his resolution divers hundreds of years And then in Galens time which was not satisfied with the effect of curing nor with the knowledge how to cure broke out another desire of finding out the causes why those simples wrought those effects Then Galeu rather to stay their stomachs then that he gave them enough taught them the qualities of the four Elements and arrested them upon this that all differences of qualities proceeded from them And after not much before our time men perceiving that all effects in Physick could not be derived form these beggerly and impotent properties of the Elements and that therefore they were driven often to that miserable refuge of specifique form and of antipathy and sympathy we see the world hath turned upon new principles which are attributed to Paracelsus but indeed too much to his honour Certainly it is also so in the Physick of our soul Divinity for in the Primitive Church when amongst the Fathers there were so divers opinions of the state of the soul presently after this life they easily inclined to be content to do as much for them dead as when they were alive and so concurred in a charitable disposition to pray for them which manner of prayer then in use no Christian Church at this day having received better light will allow of So also when in the beginning of S. Augustines time Grace had been so much advanced that mans Nature was scarce admitted to be so much as any means or instrument not onely no kinde of cause of his own good works And soon after in S. Augustines time also mans free will by fierce opposition and arguing against the former error was too much overvalued and admitted into too near degrees of fellowship with Grace those times admitted a doctrine and form of reconciliation which though for reverence to the time both the Dominicans and Jesuits at this day in their great quarrell about Grace and Free will would yet seem to maintaine yet indifferent and dispasioned men of that Church see there is no possibility in it and therefore accuse it of absurdity and almost of heresie I think it falls out thus also in the matter of the soul for Christian Religion presuming a soul and intending principally her happiness in the life to come hath been content to accept any way which hath been obtruded how this soul is begun in us Hence it is that whole Christian Churches aresthemselves upon propagation from parents and other whole Christian Churches allow onely infusion from God In both which opinions there appear such infirmities as it is time to look for a better for whosoever will adhere to the way of propagation can never evict necessarily and certainly a naturall immortality in the soul if the soul result out of matter nor shall he ever prove that all mankind hath any more then one soul as certainly of all beasts if they receive such souls as they have from their parents every species can have but one soul. And they which follow the opinion of infusion from God and of a new creation which is now the more common opinion as they can very hardly defend the doctrin of original sin the soul is forced to take this infection and comes not into the body of her own disposition so shall they never be able to prove that all those whom we see in the shape of men have an immortall and reasonable soul because our parents are as able as any other species is to give us a soul of growth and of sense and to perform all vitall and animall functions And so without infusion of such a soul may produce a creature as wise and well disposed as any horse or Elephant of which degree many whom we see come far short nor hath God bound or declared himself that he will always create a soul for every embryon there is yet therefore no opinion in Philosophy nor Divinity so well established as constrains us to beleeve both that the soul is immortall and that every particular man hath such a soul which since out of the great mercy of our God we do constantly beleeve I am ashamed that we do not also know it by searching farther But as sometimes we had rather beleeve a Travellers lie then go to disprove him so men rather cleave to these ways then seek new yet because I have meditated therein I will shortly aquaint you with what I think for I would not be in danger of that law of Moses That if a man dig a pit and cover it not he must recompense those which are damnified by it which is often interpreted of such as shake old opinions and do not establish new as certain but leave consciences in a worse danger then they found them in I beleeve that law of Moses hath in it some mysterie and appliablenesse for by that law men are onely then bound to that indemnity and compensation if an Oxe or an Asse that is such as are of a strong constitution and accustomed to labour fall therein but it is not said so if a Sheep or a Goat fall no more are we if men in a sillinesse or wantonnesse will stumble or take a scandall bound to rectifie them at all times And therefore because I justly presume you strong and watchfull enough I make account that I am not obnoxious to that law since my meditations are neither too wide nor too deep for you except onely that my way of expressing them may be extended beyond your patience and pardon which I will therefore tempt no longer at this time Your very affectionate friend and servant and lover I. Donne From Micham my close prison ever since I saw you 9 Octob. To the Noblest