charity ought to be imitated for though the spirit of revenge is so pleasing to Mankind that it is never conquered but by a supernatural grace being indeed so deeply rooted in humane Nature that to prevent the excesses of it for men would not know Moderation Almighty God allows not any degree of it to any man but sayes Vengeance is mine And though this be said by God himself yet this revenge is so pleasing that man is hardly perswaded to submit the menage of it to the Time and Justice and Wisdom of his Creator but would hasten to be his own Executioner of it And yet nevertheless if any man ever did wholly decline and leave this pleasing passion to the time and measure of God alone it was this Richard Hooker of whom I write for when his Slanderers were to suffer he laboured to procure their pardon and when that was denied him his Reply was That however he would fast and pray that God would give them repentance and patience to undergo their punishment And his prayers were so far returned into his own bosom that the first was granted if we may believe a penitent behaviour and an open confession And 't is observable that after this time he would often say to Dr. Saravia Oh with what quietness did I enjoy my Soul after I was free from the fears of my Slander and how much more after a conflict and victory over my desires of Revenge About the Year 1600 and of his Age 46 he fell into a long and sharp sickness occasioned by a cold taken in his passage betwixt London and Gravesend from the malignity of which he was never recovered for till his death he was not free from thoughtful Dayes and restless Nights but a submission to his Will that makes the sick mans Bed easie by giving rest to his Soul made his very languishment comfortable and yet all this time he was sollicitous in his Study and said often to Dr. Saravia who saw him daily and was the chief comfort of his life That he did not beg a long life of God for any other reason but to live to finish his three remaining Books of POLITY and then Lord let thy servant depart in peace which was his usual expression And God heard his prayers though he denied the Church the benefit of them as compleated by himself and 't is thought he hastened his own death by hastening to give life to his Books But this is certain that the nearer he was to his death the more he grew in Humility in Holy Thoughts and Resolutions About a month before his death this good man that never knew or at least never consider'd the pleasures of the Palate became first to lose his appetite then to have an aversness to all food insomuch that he seem'd to live some intermitted weeks by the smell of meat only and yet still studied and writ And now his guardian Angel seem'd to foretell him that the day of his dissolution drew near for which his vigorous Soul appear'd to thirst In this time of his Sickness and not many dayes before his Death his House was rob'd of which he having notice his Question was Are my Books and written Papers safe And being answered That they were his Reply was then it matters not for no other loss can trouble me About one day before his Death Dr. Saravia who knew the very secrets of his Soul for they were supposed to be Confessors to each other came to him and after a Conference of the Benefit the Necessity and Safety of the Churches Absolution it was resolved the Doctor should give him both that and the Sacrament the day following To which end the Doctor came and after a short retirement and privacy they return'd to the company and then the Doctor gave him and some of those friends which were with him the blessed Sacrament of the body and blood of our Jesus Which being performed the Doctor thought he saw a reverend gaity and joy in his face but it lasted not long for his bodily Infirmities did return suddenly and became more visible in so much that the Doctor apprehended Death ready to seize him yet after some amendment left him at Night with a promise to return early the day following which he did and then found him in better appearance deep in Contemplation and not inclinable to Discourse which gave the Doctor occasion to require his present Thoughts to which he replied That he was meditating the number and nature of Angels and their blessed obedience and order without which peace could not be in Heaven and oh that it might be so on Earth After which words he said I have lived to see this world is made up of perturbations and I have been long preparing to leave it and gathering comfort for the dreadful hour of making my account with God which I now apprehend to be near and though I have by his grace lov'd him in my youth and fear'd him in mine age and labour'd to have a conscience void of offence to him and to all men yet if thou O Lord be extreme to mark what I have done amiss who can abide it and therefore where I have failed Lord shew mercy to me for I plead not my righteousness but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness for his merits who dyed to purchase pardon for penitent sinners and since I owe thee a death Lord let it not be terrible and then take thine own time I submit to it let not mine O Lord but let thy Will be done with which expression he fell into a dangerous slumber dangerous as to his recovery yet recover he did but it was to speak only these few words Good Doctor God hath heard my daily petitions for I am at peace with all men and he is at peace with me and from that blessed assurance I feel that inward joy which this world can neither give nor take from meâ— More he would have spoken but his spirits failed him and after a short conflict betwixt Nature and Death a quiet Sigh put a period to his last breath and so he fell asleep And here I draw his Curtain till with the most glorious company of the Patriarchs and Apostles the most Noble Army of Martyrs and Confessors this most learned most humble holy man shall also awake to receive an eternal Tranquillity and with it a greater degree of Glory than common Christians shall be made partakers of In the mean time bless O Lord Lord bless his Brethren the Clergy of this Nation with effectual endeavours to attain if not to his great learning yet to his remarkable meekness his godly simplicity and his Christian moderation for these bring peace at the last And Lord let his most excellent Writings be blest with what he design'd when he undertook them which was Glory to Thee O God on High Peace in thy Church and Good Will to Mankind Amen Amen This following Epitaph was long since presented to the World
in memory of Mr. Hooker by Sir William Cooper who also built him a fair Monument in Borne Church and acknowledges him to have been his Spiritual Father THough nothing can be spoke worthy his fame Or the remembrance of that precious name Judicious Hooker though this cost be spent On him that hath a lasting Monument In his own Books yet ought we to express If not his Worth yet our Respectfulness Church-Ceremonies he maintain'd then why Without all Ceremony should be dye Was it because his Life and Death should be Both equal patterns of Humility Or that perhaps this only glorious one Was above all to ask why had he none Yet he that lay so long obscurely low Doth now preferr'd to greater Honours go Ambitious men learn hence to be more wise Humility is the true way to rise And God in me this Lesson did inspire To bid this humble man Friend sit up higher AN APPENDIX To the LIFE of Mr. RICH. HOOKER ANd now having by a long and laborious search satisfied my self and I hope my Reader by imparting to him the true Relation of Mr. Hookers Life I am desirous also to acquaint him with some observations that relate to it and which could not properly fall to be spoken till after his death of which my Reader may expect a brief and true account in the following Appendix And first it is not to be doubted but that he dyed in the Forty-seventh if not in the Forty-sixth year of his Age which I mention because many have believed him to be more aged but I have so examined it as to be confident I mistake not and for the year of his death Mr. Cambden who in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth 1599. mentions him with a high commendation of his life and learning declares him to dye in the year 1599. and yet in that Inscription of his Monument set up at the charge of Sir William Cooper in Borne Church where Mr. Hooker was buried his death is said to be in Anno 1603. but doubtless both mistaken for I have it attested under the hand of William Somner the Archbishops Register for the Province of Canterbury that Richard Hookers Will bears date Octob. 26. in Anno 1600. and that it was prov'd the third of December following And that at his death he left four Daughters Alice Cicily Jane and Margaret that he gave to each of them an hundred pound that he left Jone his Wife his sole Executrix and that by his Inventory his Estate a great part of it being in Books came to 1092 l. 9 s. 2 d. which was much more than he thought himself worth and which was not got by his care much less by the good huswifery of his Wife but saved by his trusty servant Thomas Lane that was wiser than his Master in getting money for him and more frugal than his Mistress in keeping of it of which Will I shall say no more but that his dear friend Thomas the father of George Cranmer of whom I have spoken and shall have occasion to say more was one of the witnesses to it One of his elder Daughters was married to one Chalinor sometime a School-master in Chichester and both dead long since Margaret his youngest Daughter was married unto Ezekiel Chark Batchelor in Divinity and Rector of St. Nicholas in Harble down near Canterbury who dyed about 16 years past and had a son Ezekiel now living and in Sacred Orders being at this time Rector of Waldron in Sussex she left also a Daughter with both whom I have spoken not many months past and find her to be a Widow in a condition that wants not but far from abounding and these two attested unto me that Richard Hooker their Grandfather had a Sister by name Elizabeth Harvey that liv'd to the Age of 121 Years and dyed in the month of September 1663. For his other two Daughters I can learn little certainty but have heard they both dyed before they were marriageable and for his Wife she was so unlike Jeptha's Daughter that she staid not a comely time to bewail her Widdow-hood nor liv'd long enough to repent her second Marriage for which doubtless she would have found cause if there had been but four months betwixt Mr. Hookers and her death But she is dead and let her other infirmities be buried with her Thus much briefly for his Age the Year of his Death his Estate his Wife and his Children I am next to speak of his Books concerning which I shall have a necessity of being longer or shall neither do right to my self or my Reader which is chiefly intended in this Appendix I have declared in his Life that he proposed eight Books and that his first four were printed Anno 1594. and his fifth Book first printed and alone Anno 1597. and that he liv'd to finish the remaining three of the proposed eight but whether we have the last three as finish't by himself is a just and material Question concerning which I do declare that I have been told almost 40 Years past by one that very well knew Mr. Hooker and the affairs of his Family that about a month after the death of Mr. Hooker Bishop Whitgift then Archbishop of Canterbury sent one of his Chaplains to enquire of Mrs. Hooker for the three remaining Books of Polity writ by her Husband of which she would not or could not give any account and that about three months after the Bishop procured her to be sent for to London and then by his procurement she was to be examined by some of Her Majesties Council concerning the disposal of those Books but by way of preparation for the next dayes examination the Bishop invited her to Lambeth and after some friendly questions she confessed to him That one Mr. Charke and another Minister that dwelt near Canterbury came to her and desired that they might go into her Husbands Study and look upon some of his Writings and that there they two burnt and tore many of them assuring her that they were Writings not fit to be seen and that she knew nothing more concerning them Her lodging was then in King-street in Westminster where she was found next morning dead in her Bed and her new Husband suspected and questioned for it but declared innocent of her death And I declare also that Dr. John Spencer mentioned in the life of Mr. Hooker who was of Mr. Hookers Colledge and of his time there and betwixt whom there was so friendly a friendship that they continually advised together in all their Studies and particularly in what concern'd these Books of Polity This Dr. Spencer the three perfect Books being lost had delivered into his hands I think by Bishop Whitgift the imperfect Books or first rough draughts of them to be made as perfect as they might be by him who both knew Mr. Hookers hand writing and was best acquainted with his intentions And a fair Testimony of this may appear by an Epistle first and
usually printed before Mr. Hookers five Books but omitted I know not why in the last impression of the eight printed together in Anno 1662. in which the Publishers seem to impose the three doubtful as the undoubted Books of Mr. Hooker with these two Letters J. S. at the end of the said Epistle which was meant for this John spencer in which Epistle the Reader may find these words which may give some Authority to what I have here written And though Mr. Hooker hastened his own death by hastening to give life to his Books yet he held out with his eyes to behold these Benjamins these sons of his right hand though to him they prov'd Benonies sons of pain and sorrow But some evil disposed minds whether of malice or covetousness or wicked blind zeal it is uncertain as soon as they were born and their father dead smother'd them and by conveying the perfect Copies left unto us nothing but the old imperfect mangled draughts dismembred into pieces no favour no grace not the shadow of themselves remaining in them had the father lived to behold them thus defaced he might rightly have named them Benonies the sons of sorrow but being the learned will not suffer them to dye and be buried it is intended the world shall see them as they are the learned will find in them some shadows and resemblances of their fathers face God grant that as they were with their Brethren dedicated to the Church for messengers of peace so in the strength of that little breath of life that remaineth in them they may prosper in their work and by satisfying the doubts of such as are willing to learn they may help to give an end to the calamities of these our Civil Wars J. S. And next the Reader may note that this Epistle of Dr. Spencers was writ and first printed within four years after the death of Mr. Hooker in which time all diligent search had been made for the perfect Copies and then granted not recoverable and therefore endeavoured to be compleated out of Mr. Hookers rough draughts as is exprest by the said Dr. Spencer since whose death it is now 50 Years And I do profess by the faith of a Christian that Dr. Spencers Wife who was my Aunt and Sister to George Cranmer of whom I have spoken told me forty Years since in these or in words to this purpose That her Husband had made up or finish't Mr. Hookers last three Books and that upon her Husbands Death-bed or in his Last Sickness he gave them into her hand with a charge they should not be seen by any man but be by her delivered into the hands of the then Archbishop of Canterbury which was Dr. Abbot or unto Dr. King then Bishop of London and that she did as he injoin'd her I do conceive that from Dr. Spencers and no other Copy there have been divers Transcripts and were to be found in several places as namely Sir Thomas Bodlies Library in that of Dr. Andrews late Bishop of Winton in the late Lord Conwayes in the Archbishop of Canterburies and in the Bishop of Armaghs and in many others and most of these pretended to be the Authors own hand but much disagreeing being indeed altered and diminisht as men have thought fittest to make Mr. Hookers judgement suit with their fancies or give authority to their corrupt designs and for proof of a part of this take these following Testimonies Dr. Barnard sometime Chaplain to Dr. Usher late Lord Archbishop of Armagh hath declar'd in a late Book called Clavi Trebales printed by Richard Hodgkinson Anno 1661. that in his search and examination of the said Bishops Manuscripts he found the three written Books which were supposed the 6 7 and 8 of Mr. Hookers Books of Ecclesiastical Polity and that in the said three Books now printed as Mr. Hookers there are so many omissions that they amount to many Paragraphs and which cause many incoherencies the omissions are by him set down at large in the said printed Book to which I refer the Reader for the whole but think fit in this place to insert this following short part of them First as there could be in Natural Bodies no Motion of any thing unless there were some first which moved all things and continued unmoveable even so in Politick Societies there must be some unpunishable or else no man shall suffer punishment for sith punishments proceed alwayes from Superiors to whom the administration of justice belongeth which administration must have necessarily a fountain that deriveth it to all others and receiveth not from any because otherwise the course of justice should go infinitely in a Circle every Superior having his Superior without end which cannot be therefore a Well-spring it followeth there is a Supreme head of Justice whereunto all are subject but it self in subjection to none Which kind of preheminency if some ought to have in a Kingdom who but the King shall have it Kings therefore or no man can have lawful power to judge If private men offend there is the Magistrate over them which judgeth if Magistrates they have their Prince if Princes there is Heaven a Tribunal before which they shall appear on Earth they are not accomptable to any Here sayes the Doctor it breaks off abruptly And I have these words also attested under the hand of Mr. Fabian Philips a man of Note for his useful Books I will make Oath if I shall be required that Dr. Sanderson the late Bishop of Lincoln did a little before his death affirm to me he had seen a Manuscript affirmed to him to be the hand-writing of Mr. Richard Hooker in which there was no mention made of the King or Supreme Governours being accomptable to the People this I will make Oath that that good man attested to me Fabian Philips So that there appears to be both Omissions and Additions in the said last three printed Books and this may probably be one reason why Dr. Sanderson the said learned Bishop whose Writings are so highly and justly valued gave a strict charge near the time of his Death or in his last Will That nothing of his that was not already printed should be printed after his Death It is well known how high a value our learned King James put upon the Books writ by Mr. Hooker as also that our late King Charles the Martyr for the Church valued them the second of all Books testified by his commending them to the reading of his Son Charles that now is our gracious King and you may suppose that this Charles the First was not a stranger to the pretended three Books because in a Discourse with the Lord Say when the said Lord required the King to grant the truth of his Argument because it was the judgement of Mr. Hooker quoting him in one of the three written Books the King replied They were not allowed to be Mr. Hookers Books but however he would allow them to be Mr. Hookers
l. 24. r. do it 32. l. 2. r. fortune 63. l. 121. r. Dort In Sir H. Wotton 29. l. 10. r. samed 35. l. 9. as well 37. l. 22. dele Mr. Bedell 38. l. 17. dele mis 41. l. 8. r. delivery 45. l. 5. r. mont 47. l. 19. r. Syfiphâ— 53. l. 7. r. against 56. l. 24. r. Elegy 75. l. 19. r. those In Mr. Hoooker 25. l. 4. r. assiduous still 42. l. 7. r. God and so These must be thus corrected or that Paragraph will not be senceâ— 42 l. 11. r. and in wicked 42. l. 15. dele it 56. l. 20. r. answers In George Herbert 14. l. 4. r. his 24. dele of 32. l. 22. â—r Parish Church 33. l. 26. r. she 34. l. 4. dele at 49. l. 10. r. wants it 63. l. 24. dele too 65. l. 24. r. spirits and 72. l. 3. r. for the 80. l. 1. r. to their The Copy of a Letter writ to Mr. Isaac Walton by Doctor King Lord Bishop of Chichester Honest Isaac THough a Familiarity of more then Forty years continuance and the constant experience of your Love even in the worst times be sufficient to indear our Friendship yet I must confess my Affection much improved not onely by Evidences of private Respect to many that know and love you but by your new Demonstration of a publick Spirit testified in a diligent true and useful Collection of so many Material Passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of Venerable Mr. Hooker of which since desired by such a Friend as your self I shall not deny to give the Testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned Books but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you that you have been happy in choosing to write the Lives of three such Persons as Posterity hath just cause to honour which they will do the more for the true Relation of them by your happy Pen of all which I shall give you my unfeigned Censure I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable Friend Dr. Donne late Dean of St. Pauls Church who not onely trusted me as his Executor but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent Sermons of his now made publick professing before Dr. Winniff Dr. Monford and I think your self then present at his bed side that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the Press together with which as his best Legacy he gave me all his Sermon-Notes and his other Papers containing an Extract of near Fifteen hundred Authours How these were got out of my hands you who were the Messenger for them and how lost both to me and your self is not now seasonable to complain but since they did miscarry I am glad that the general Demonstration of his Worth was so fairly preserved and represented to the World by your Pen in the History of his Life indeed so well that beside others the best Critick of our later time Mr. John Hales of Eaton Colledge affirm'd to me He had not seen a Life written with more advantage to the Subject or more reputation to the Writer then that of Dr. Donnes After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne you undertook the like office for our Friend Sir Henry Wotton betwixt which two there was a Friendship begun in Oxford continued in their various Travels and more confirmed in the religious Friendship of Age and doubtless this excellent Person had writ the Life of Dr. Donne if Death had not prevented him by which means his and your Pre-collections for that Work fell to the happy Menage of your Pen a Work which you would have declined if imperious Persuasions had not been stronger then your modest Resolutions against it And I am thus far glad that the first Life was so imposed upon you because it gave an unavoidable Cause of Writing the second if not 't is too probable we had wanted both which had been a prejudice to all Lovers of Honour and ingenious Learning And let me not leave my Friend Sir Henry without this Testimony added to yours That he was a Man of as Florid a Wit and as Elegant a Pen as any former or ours which in that kind is a most excellent Age hath ever produced And now having made this voluntary Observation of our two deceased Friends I proceed to satisfie your desire concerning what I know and believe of the ever-memorable Mr. Hooker who was Schismaticorum Mallcus so great a Champion for the Church of Englands Rights against the Factious Torrent of Separatists that then ran high against Church-Discipline and in his unanswerable Books continues to be so against the unquiet Disciples of their Schism which now under other Names still carry on their Design and who as the proper Heirs of Irrational Zeal would again take into the scarce closed Wounds of a newly bleeding State and Church And first though I dare not say that I knew Mr. Hooker yet as our Ecclesiastical History reports to the honour of S. Ignatius that he lived in the time of St. John and had seen him in his Childhood so I also joy that in my Minority I have often seen Mr. Hooker with my Father who was then Bishop of London from whom and others at that time I have heard most of the material passages which you relate in the History of his Life and from my Father received such a Character of his Learning Humility and other Virtues that like Jewels of unvaluable price they still cast such a lustre as Envy or the Rust of Time shall never darken From my Father I have also heard all the Circumstances of the Plot to defame him and how Sir Edwin Sandys outwitted his Accusers and gained their Confession and I could give an account of each particular of that Plot but that I judge it fitter to be forgotten and rot in the same grave with the malicious Authors I may not omit to declare that my Fathers Knowledge of Mr. Hooker was occasioned by the Learned Dr. John Spencer who after the Death of Mr. Hooker was so careful to preserve his unvaluable Sixth Seventh and Eighth Books of ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY and his other Writings that he procured Henry Jackson then of Corpus Christi Colledge to transcribe for him all Mr. Hookers remaining written Papers many of which were imperfect for his Study had been rifled or worse used by Mr Chark and another of Principles too like his but these Papers were endeavored to be compleated by his dear friend Dr. Spencer who bequeathed them as a precious Legacy to my Father after whose Death they rested in my hand till Dr. Abbot then Archbishop of Canterbury commanded them out of my custody by authorizing Dr. John Barkcham to require and bring them to him to his Palace in Lambeth at which time I have heard they were put into the Bishops Library and that they remained there till the Martyrdom of Archbishop Laud and were then by the Brethren of
that Faction given with all the Library to Hugh Peâ—ers as a Reward for his remarkable service in those sad times of the Churches Confusion and though they could hardly fall into a fouler hand yet there wanted not other Endeavours to corrupt and make them speak that Language for which the Faction then fought which indeed was To subject the Soveraign Power to the People But I need not strive to vindicate Mr. Hooker in this particular his known Loyalty to his Prince whilest he lived the Sorrow expressed by King James at his Death the Value our late Soveraign of ever-blessed Memory put upon his Works and now the singular Character of his Worth by you given in the passages of his Life especially in your Appendix to it do sufficiently clear him from that Imputation and I am glad you mention how much value Thomas Stapleton Pope Clement the VIII and other Eminent men of the Romish Perswasion have put upon his Books having been told the same in my Youth by Persons of worth that have travelled Italy Lastly I must again congratulate this Undertaking of yours as now more proper to you then any other person by reason of your long Knowledge and Alliance to the worthy Family of the Cranmers my old Friends also who have been men of noted Wisdom especially Mr. George Cranmer whose Prudence added to that of Sir Edwin Sandys proved very useful in the Completing of Mr. Hookers matchless Books one of their Letters I herewith send you to make use of if you think fit And let me say further you merit much from many of Mr. Hookers best Friends then living namely from the ever renowned Archbishop Whitgift of whose incomparable Worth with the Charactâ—â— of â—he Times you have given us a more short and significant Account then I have received from any other Pen. You have done much for Sir Henry Savile his Contemporary and familiar Friend amongst the surviving Monuments of whose Learning give me leave to tell you so two are omitted his Edition of Euclid but especially his Translation of King James his Apology for the Oath of Allegeance into elegant Latine which flying in that dress as far as Rome was by the Pope and Conclave sent to Salamanca unto Francisous Suarez then residing there as President of that Colledge with a Command to answer it When he had perfected the Work which he calls Defensio Fidei Catholicae it was transmitted to Rome for a view of the Inquisitors who according to their custom blotted out what they pleased and as Mr. Hooker hath been used since his Death added whatsoever might advance the Popes Supremacy or carry on their own Interest commonly coupling Deponere Occidere the Deposing and Killing of Princes which cruel and unchristian Language Mr. John Saltkel his Amanuensis when he wrote at Salamanca but since a Convert living long in my Fathers house often professed the good Old man whose Piety and Charity Mr. Saltkel magnified much not onely disavowed but detested Not to trouble you further your Reader if according to your desire my Approbation of your Work carries any weight will here find many just Reasons to thank you for it and for this Circumstance here mentioned not known to many may happily apprehend one to thank him who heartily wishes your happiness and is unfainedly Chichester Novem. 17. 1664. Sir Your ever-faithful and affectionate old Friend Henry Chichester THE LIFE OF D r. JOHN DONNE late Dean of S t Paul's Church LONDON The Introduction IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wotton the late Provost of Eaton Colledge had liv'd to see the Publication of these Sermons he had presented the World with the Authors Life exactly written And 't was pity he did not for it was a work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and the Author there was so mutual a knowledge and such a friendship contracted in their Youth as nothing but death could force a separation And though their bodies were divided their affections were not for that learned Knight's love followed his Friends fame beyond death and the forgetful grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of some particulars that concern'd it not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory might make my diligence useful I did most gladly undertake the employment and continued it with great content 'till I had made my Collection ready to be augmented and compleated by his curious Pen but then Death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad news and heard also that these Sermons were to be printed and want the Authors Life which I thought to be very remarkable Indignation or grief indeed I know not which transperted me so far that I reviewed my forsaken Collections and resolv'd the World should see the best plain Picture of the Authors Life that my artless Pensil guided by the hand of truth could present to it And if I shall now be demanded as once Pompey's poor bondman was The grateful wretch had been left alone on the Sea-shore with the forsaken dead body of his once glorious lord and master and was then gathering the scatter'd pieces of an old broken boat to make a funeral pile to burn it which was the custom of the Romans who art thou that alone hast the honour to bury the body of Pompey the great so who I am that do thus officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question will prove to have in it more of wonder then disdain But wonder indeed the Reader may that I who profess my self artless should presume with my faint light to shew forth his Life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented Certain I am it is to the advantage of the beholder who shall here see the Authors Picture in a natural dress which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And if the Authors glorious spirit which now is in Heaven can have the leasure to look down and see me the poorest the meanest of all his friends in the midst of this officious dutie confident I am that he will not disdain this well-meant sacrifice to his memory for whilst his Conversation made me and many others happy below I know his Humility and Gentleness was then eminent and I have heard Divines say those Vertues that were but sparks upon Earth become great and glorious flames in Heaven Before I proceed further I am to intreat the Reader to take notice that when Doctor Donn's Sermons were first printed this was then my excuse for daring to write his life and I dare not now appear without it The Life MAster John Donne was born in London of good and vertuous Parents and though his own Learning and other multiplyed merits may justly appear sufficient to dignifie both Himself and his Posteritie yet the
think they are not wise unless they be busie about what they understand not and especially about Religion The King received this news with so much discontent and restlesness that he would not suffer the Sun to set and leave him under this doubt but sent for Dr. Donne and required his answer to the Accusation which was so clear and satisfactory that the King said he was right glad he rested no longer under the suspicion When the King had said this Doctor Donne kneeled down and thanked his Majesty and protested his answer was faithful and free from all collusion and therefore desired that he might not rise till as in like cases he always had from God so he might have from his Majesty some assurance that he stood clear and fair in his opinion Then the King raised him from his knees with his own hands and protested he believ'd him and that he knew he was an honest man and doubted not but that he loved him truly And having thus dismissed him he called some Lords of his Council into his Chamber and said with much earnestness My Doctor is an honest man and my Lords I was never better satisfied with an answer then he hath now made me and I always rejoyce when I think that by my means he became a Divine He was made Dean the fiftieth year of his age and in his fifty fourth year a dangerous sickness seized him which inclined him to a Consumption But God as Job thankfuâ—ly acknowledged preserved his spirit and keâ—t his intellectuals as clear and perfect as when that sickness first seized his body but it continued long and threatned him with death which he dreaded not In this distemper of body his dear friend Doctor Henry King then chief Residenciary of that Church and late Bishop of Chichâ—ster a man generally known by the Clergy of this Nation and as generally noted for his oâ—liging nature visited him daily and observing that his sickness rendred his recovery doubtful he chose a seasonable time to speak to him to this purpose Mr. Dean I am by your favour no stranger to your temporal estate and you are no stranger to the offer lately made us for the renewing a Lease of the best Prebends Corps belonging to our Church and you know 't was denied for that our Tenant being very rich offered to fine at so low a rate as held not proportion with his advantages but I will either raise him to an higher summe or procure that the other Residenciaries shall joyn to accept of what was offered one of these I can and will by your favour do without delay and without any trouble either to your body or mind I beseech you to accept of my offer for I know it will be a considerable addition to your present estate which I know needs it To this after a short pause and raising himself upon his bed he made this reply My most dear friend I most humbly thank you for your many favours and this in particular But in my present condition I shall not accept of your proposal for doubtless there is such a Sin as Sacriledge if there were not it could not have a name in Scripture And the Primitive Clergy were watchful against all appearances of that evil and indeed theâ— all Christians lookt upon it with horrour and detestation Judging it to be even an open defiance of the Power and Providence of Almighty God and a sad presage of a declining Religion But in stead of such Christians who had selected times set apart to fast and pray to God for a pious Clergy which they then did obey Our times abound with men that are busie and litigious about trifles and Church-Ceremonies and yet so far from scrupling Sacriledge that they make not so much as a quaere what it is But I thank God I have and dare not now upon my sick-bed when Almighty God hath made me useless to the service of the Church make any advantages out of it But if he shall again restore me to such a degree of health as again to serve at his Altar I shall then gladly take the reward which the bountiful Benefactours of this Church have designed me for God knows my Children and Relations will need it In which number my Mother whose Credulity and Charity has contracted a very plentiful to a very narrow estate must not be forgotten But Doctor King if I recover not that little worldly estate that I shall leave behind me that very little when divided into eight parts must if you deny me not so Charitable a favour fall into your hands as my most faithful friend and Executor of whose Care and Justice I make no more doubt then of Gods blessing on that which I have conscientiously collected for them but it shall not be augmented on my sick-bed and this I declare to be my unalterable resolution The reply to this was only a promise to observe his request Within a few days his distempers abated and as his strength increased so did his thankfulness to Almighty God testified in his most excellent Book of Devotions which he published at his Recovery In which the Reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possest his Soul Paraphrased and made publick a book that may not unfitly be called a a Sacred picture of Spiritual Extasies occasioned and applyable to the emergencies of that sickness which book being a composition of Meditations Disquisitions and Prayers he writ on his sick-bed herein imitating the Holy Patriarchs who were wont to build their Altars in that place where they had received their blessings This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death and he saw the grave so ready to devour him that he would often say his recovery was supernatural But that God that then restored his health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life And then in August 1630. being with his eldest Daughter Mrs. Harvy at Abury hatch in Essex he there fell into a fever which with the help of his constant infirmity vapors from the spleen hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as St Paul of himself Hâ—dies dayly and he might say with Job My welfare passeth away as a cloud the dayes of my affliction have taken hold of me and weary nights are appointed for me Reader This sickness continued long not onely weakning but wearying him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest and that before I speak of his death thou wilt not think it an impertinent digression to look back with me upon some observations of his life which whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits may I hope not unfitly exercise thy consideration His marriage was the remarkable errour of his life an errour which though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain Paradoxes yet he was very far from justifying it and though his wives Competent years and other reasons might be
known that it was he that sent it and he lived to see as lively a representation of his dead Friend as Marble can express a Statue indeed so like Dr. Donne that as his Friend Sir Henry Wotton hath expressed himself it seems to breath faintly and Posterity shall look upon it as a kind of artificial Miracle He was of Stature moderately tall of a strait and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible addition of Comeliness The melancholy and pleasant humor were in him so contempered that each gave advantage to the other and made his Company one of the delights of Mankind His fancy was unimitably high equalled onely by his great wit both being made useful by a commanding judgement His aspect was chearful and such as gave a silent testimony of a clear knowing soul and of a Conscience at peace with it self His melting eye shewed that he had a soft heart full of noble compassion of too brave a soul to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others He did much contemplate especially after he entred into his Sacred Calling the mercies of Almighty God the immortality of the Soul and the joyes of Heaven and would often say Blessed be God that he is God divinely like himself He was by nature highly passionate but more apt to reluct at the excesses of it A great lover of the offices of humanity and of so merciful a spirit that he never beheld the miseries of Mankind without pity and relief He was earnest and unwearied in the search of knowledge with which his vigorous soul is now satisfied and employed in a continual praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body that body which once was a Temple of the Holy Ghost and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust But I shall see it reanimated J. W. An EPITAPH written by Dr. Corbet late Bishop of Oxford on his Friend Dr. Donne HE that wou'd write an Epitaph for thee And write it well must first begin to be Such as thou wert for none can truly know Thy life and worthâ— but he that hath liv'd so He must have wit to spare and to hurle down Enough to keep the Gallants of the Town He must have learning plenty both the Laws Civil and Common to judge any Cause Divinity great store above the rest Noâ— of the last Edition but the best He must have language travel all the Arts Judgement to use or else he wants thy parts He must have friends the highest able to do Such as Mecoenas and Augustus too He must have such a sickness such a death Or else his vain descriptions come beneath He that would write an Epitaph for thee Should first be dead let it alone for me To the Memory of my ever desired Dr. Donne An Elegy by H. King late Bishop of Chicester TO have liv'd eminent in a degree Beyond our loftiest thoughts that is like thee Or t' have had too much merit is not safe For such excesses find no Epitaph At common graves we have poetick eyes Can melt themselves in easie Elegies Each quill can drop his tributary verse And pin it like the hatchments to the herse But at thine Poem or Inscription Rich soul of wit and language we have none Indeed a silence does that Tomb bâ—fit Where is no Herauld left to blazon it Widow'd invention justly doth forbear To come abroad knowing thou art not there Late her great Patron whose prerogative Maintain'd and cloaâ—h'd her so as none alive Must now presume to keep her at thy rate Though he the Indies for her dower estate Or else that awful fire which once did burn In thy clear brain now fallen into thy Urn Lives there to fright rude Empericks from thence Which might profane thee by their Ignorance Whoever writes of thee and in a stile Unworthy such a theme does but revile Thy precious dust and wakes a learned spirit Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit For all a low-pitch't fancy can devise Will prove at best but hallowed injuries Thou like the dying Swan did'st lately sing Thy mournful dirge in audience of the King When pale looks and faint accents of thy breath Presented so to life that piece of death That it was fear'd and prophesi'd by all Thou thither cam'st to preach thy Funerall Oh hadst thou in an Elegiack knell Rung out unto the World thine own farewell And in thy high victorious numbers beat The solemn measures of thy griev'd retreat Thou might'st the Poets service now have mist As well as then thou didst prevent the Priest And never to the World beholden be So much as for an Epitaph for thee I do not like the office nor is 't fit Thou who didst lend our age such sums of wit Should'st now re-borrow from her bankrupt mine That oare to bury thee which first was thine Rather still leave us in thy debt and know Exalted Soul more glory 't is to owe Thy memory what we can never pay Than with embased Coyn those Rites defray Commit we then thee to thy self nor blame Our drooping loves that thus to thine own fame Leave thee Executor since but thine own No pen could do thee Justice nor bayes Crown Thy vast deserts save that we nothing can Depute to be thy ashes guardian So Jewellers no Art or Metal trust To form the Diamond but the Diamonds dust H. K. An ELEGY on Dr. DONNE OUr Donne is dead and we may sighing say We had that man where language chose to stay And shew her utmost power I wou'd not praise That and his great Wit which in our vain dayes Makes others proud but as these serv'd to unlock That Cabinet his mind where such a stock Of knowledge was repos'd that I lament Our just and general cause of discontent And I rejoyce I am not so severe But as I write a Line to weep a tear For his decease such sad Extremities Can make such men as I write Elegies And wonder not for when so great a loss Falls on a Nation and they slight the Cross God hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them From their dull Lethargy witness my Pen Not us'd to upbraid the World though now it must Freely and boldly for the Cause is just Dull age oh I wou'd spare thee but thou' rt worse Thou art not only dull but hast a Curse Of black Ingratitude if not Couldst thou Part with this matchless man and make no vow For thee and thine successively to pay Some sad remembrance to his dying day Did his Youth scatter Poetry wherein Lay Loves Philosophy Was every sin Pictur'd in his sharp Satyrs made so foul That some have fear'd sins shapes kept their soul Safer by reading Verse Did he give dayes Past marble Monuments to those whose praise He wou'd perpetuate Did he I fear Envy will doubt these at his twentieth year But more matur'd did his rich soul conceive And in harmonious
considered the Dream more seriously and then both joyned in praising God for it That God who tyes himself to no Rules either in preventing of evil or in shewing of mercy to those whom of his good pleasure he hath chosen to love And this Dream was the more considerable because many of the Dreams of this Thomas Wotton did most usually prove ture both in foretelling things to come and discovering things past of which I will give the Reader but one particular more namely this This Thomas a little before his death dream'd that the University Treasury was robbed by Townsmen and poor Scholars and that the number was five And being that day to write to his Son Henry at Oxford he thought it worth so much pains as by a Postscript in his Letter to make a slight inquiry of it the Letter which was writ out of Kent and dated three dayes before came to his Sons hands the very morning after the night in which the Robbery was committed and when the City and University were both in a perplext Enquest of the Thieves then did Sir H. Wotton shew his fathers Letter and by it such light was given of this work of darkness that the five guilty persons were presently discovered and apprehended without putting the Univesity to so much trouble as the casting of a Figure And it may yet be more considerable that this Nicholas and Thomas Wotton should both being men of holy lives of even tempers and much given to fasting and prayer foresee and foretell the very dayes of their own death Nicholas did so being then Seventy years of age and in perfect health Thomas did the like in the 65 year of his age who being then in London where he dyed and foreseeing his death there gave direction that his Body should be carried to Bocton and though he thought his Uncle Nicholas worthy of that noble Monument which he built for him in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury yet this humble man gave direction concerning himself to be buried privately and especially without any pomp at his Funeral BUt it may now seem more then time that I return to Sir Henry Wotton at Oxford where after his optick Lecture he was taken into such a bosom friendship with the learned Albericus Gentilis whom I formerly named that if it had been possible Gentilis would have breathed all his excellent knowledge both of the Mathematicks and Law into the breast of his dear Harry for so Gentilis used to call him and though he was not able to do that yet there was in Sir Henry such a propenfity and connaturalness to the Italian Language and those Studies whereof Gentilis was a great Master that this friendship between them did daily increase and proved daily advantagious to Sir Henry for the improvement of him in several Sciences during his stay in the University From which place before I shall invite the Reader to follow him into a forreign Nation though I must omit to mention divers persons that were then in Oxford of memorable note for Learning and Friends to Sir Henry Wotton yet I must not omit the mention of a love that was there begun betwixt him and Dr. Donne sometimes Dean of St. Pauls a man of whose abilities I shall forbear to say any thing because he who is of this Nation that pretends to Learning or Ingenuity and is ignorant of Dr. Donne deserves not to know him The friendship of these two I must not omit to mention being such a friendship as was generously elemented And as it was begun in their Youth and in an University and there maintained by correspondent Inclinations and Studies so it lasted till Age and Death forced a Separation In Oxford he stayed till about two years after his fathers death at which time he was about the two and twentieth year of his Age and having to his great Wit added the ballast of Learning and knowledge of the Arts he then laid aside his Books and betook himself to the useful Library of Travel and a more general Conversation with Mankind employing the remaining part of his Youth his industry and fortune to adorn his mind and to purchase the rich treasure of forreign knowledge of which both for the secrets of Nature the dispositions of many Nations their several Laws and Languages he was the possessor in a very large measure as I shall faithfully make to aâ—pear before I take my Pen from the following Narration of his Life In his Travels which was almost nine years before his return into England he stayed but one year in France and most of that in Geneva where he became acquainted with Theodor Bezâ— then very aged and with Isaac Causabon in whose fathers house if I be rightly informed Sir Henry Wotton was lodged and there contracted a most worthy friendship with him and his most learned Son Three of the remaining eight years were spent in Germany the other five in Italy the Stage on which God appointed he should act a great part of his life where both in Rome Venice and Florence he became acquainted with the most eminent men for Learning and all manner of Arts as Picture Sculpture Chymistry Architecture and divers other manual Arts even Arts of inferiour nature of all which he was a most dear Lover and a most excellent Judge He returned out of Italy into England about the Thirtieth year of his Age being then noted by many both for his person and comportment for indeed he was of a choice shape tall of stature and of a most perswasive behaviour which was so mixed with sweet Discourse and Civilities as gained him much love from all persons with whom he entred into an acquaintance And whereas he was noted in his Youth to have a sharp wit and apt to jest that by Time Travel and Conversation was sâ— polish'd and made so useful that his company seemed to be one of the delights of Mankind insomuch as Robert Earl of Essex then one of the darlings of fortune and in greatest favour with Queen Elizabeth invited him first into a friendship and after a knowledge of his great abilities to be one of his Secretaries the other being Mr. Henry Cuffe sometimes of Merton Colledge in Oxford and there also the acquaintance of Sir Henry Wotton in his Youth Mr. Cuffe being then a man of no common note in the University for his Learning nor after his removal from that place for the great abilities of his mind nor indeed for the fatalness of his end Sir Henry Wotton being now taken into a serviceable friendship with the Earl of Essex did personally attend his Counsels and Employments in two Voyages at Sea against the Spaniard and also in that which was the Earls last into Ireland that Voyage wherein he did so much provoke the Queen to anger then and worse at his return into England upon whose immovable favour he had built such sandy hopes as incouraged him to those undertakings which with the help
Merit and did therefore desire him to accept of that Jewel as a Testimony of his good opinion of him which was a Jewel of Diamonds of more value then a thousand pounds This was received with all Circumstances and terms of Honour by Sir Henry Wotton but the next morning at his departing from Vienna at his taking leave of the Countess of Sabrina an Italian Lady in whose House the Emperour had appointed him to be lodg'd and honourably entertained He acknowledged her Merits and besought her to accept of that Jewel as a testimony of his gratitude for her Civilities presenting her with the same that was given him by the Emperour which being suddenly discovered by the Emperour was by him taken for a high affront and Sir Henry Wotton told so To which he replyed That though he received it with thankfulness yet he found in himself an indisposition to be the better for any gift that came from an Enemy to his Royal Mistress the Queen of Bohemia for so she was pleased he should alwayes call her Many other of his services to his Prince and this Nation might be insisted upon as namely his procuration of Priviledges and courtesies with the German Princes and the Republick of Venice for the English Merchants and what he did by direction of King James with the Venetian State concerning the Bishop of Spalato's return to the Church of Rome But for the particulars of these and many more that I mean to make known I want a view of some papers that might inform me his late Majesties Letter-Office having suffered a strange alienation and indeed I want time too for the Printers Press-stayes so that I must haste to bring Sir Henry Wotton in an instant from Venice to London leaving the Reader to make up what is defective in this place by this small supplement of the inscription under his Armes which he left at all those houses where he rested or lodged when he returned from his last Embassie into England Henricus Wottonius Anglo-Cantianus Thomae optimi viri filius natu minimus a serenissimo Jacobo I. Mag. Britt Rege in equestrem titulum adscitus ejusdemque ter ad Rempublicam Venetam Legatus Ordinarius semel ad confaederatarum Provinciarum Ordines in Juliacensi negotio Bis ad Carolum Emanuel Sabaudiae Ducem semel ad unitos superioris Gâ—rmaniae Principes in Conventu Heilbrunensi postremo ad Archiducem Leopoldum Ducem Wittembergensem Civitates imperiales Argentinam Ulmamque ipsum Romanorum Imperatorem Ferdinandum secundum Legatus Extraordinarius tandem hoc didicit Animas fieri sapientiores quiescendo To London he came that year in which King James dyed who having for the reward of his forreign service promised him the reversion of an Office which was fit to be turned into present money for a supply of his present necessities and also granted him the reversion of the Master of the Rolls place if he out-lived charitable Sir Julius Caesar who then possessed it and then grown so old that he was said to be kept alive beyond Natures Course by the prayers of those many poor which he daily relieved But these were but in hope and his condition required a present support For in the beginning of these imployments he sold to his elder brother the Lord Wotton the Rent-charge left by his good Father and which is worse was now at his return indebted to several persons whom he was not able to satisfie but by the Kings payment of his Arrears due for his forreign Imployments He had brought into England many servants of which some were German and Italian Artists this was part of his condition who had many times hardly sufficient to supply the occasions of the day For it may by no means be said of his providence as himself said of Sir Philip Sidney's wit That it was the very measure of congruity He being alwayes so careless of money as though our Saviours wores Care not for to morrow were to be literally understood But it pleased God that in this juncture of time the Provostship of His Majesties Colledge of Eaton became void by the death ofâ— Murray for which there were as the place deserv'd many earnest and powerful Suiters to the King Sir Henry who had for many years like Siciphus rolled the restless stone of a State imployment and knowing experimentally that the great blessing of sweet content was not to be found in multitudes of men or business and that a Colledge was the fittest place to nourish holy thoughts and to afford rest both to his body and mind which his age being now almost threescore years seemed to require did therefore use his own and the interest of all his friends to procure it By which means and quitting the King of his promised reversionary Offices and a piece of honest policy which I have not time to relate he got a Grant of it from His Majesty And this was a fair settlement for his mind but money was wanting to furnish him with those necessaries which attend removes and a settlement in such a place and to procure that he wrote to his old friend Mr. Nicholas Pey for his assistance of which Nicholas Pey I shall here say a little for the clearing of something that I shall say hereafter He was in his youth a Clerk or in some such way a servant to the Lord Wotton Sir Henry's brother and by him when he was Comptroller of the Kings Houshold was made a great Officer in His Majesties house This and other favours being conferred upon Mr. Pey in whom was a radical honesty were alwayes thankfully acknowledged by him and his gratitude exprest by a willing and unwearied serviceableness to that Family even till his death To him Sir Henry Wotton wrote to use all his inâ—â—â—â— at Court to procure Five hundred pounds of his Arrears for less would not settle him â—â—â— Colledge and the want of it wrinkled â—â—â—â—â— with care 't was his own expression and thâ—r being procured he should the next day after find him in his Colledge and Invidiae remedium writ over his Study door This money being part of his Arrears was by his own and the help of honest Nicholas Pey's interest in Court quickly procured him and he as quickly in the Colledge the place where indeed his happiness then seemed to have its beginning the Colledge being to his mind as a quiet Harbor to a Sea-faring-man after a tempestuous voyage where by the bounty of the pious Founder his very Food and Rayment were plentifully provided for him in kind where he was freed from all corroding cares and seated on such a Rock as the waves of want could not probably shake where he might sit in a Calm and looking down behold the busie multitude turmoyl'd and tossed in a tempestuous Sea of dangers And as Sir William Davenant has happily exprest the like of another person Laugh at the graver business of the State Which speaks men rather wise than
shall leave in this World My Soul I bequeath to the Immortal God my Maker Father of our Lord Jesus Christ my blessed Redeemer and Mediator through his all-sole sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole World and efficient for his Elect in the number of whom I am one by his meer grace and thereof most unremoveably assured by his holy Spirit the true Eternal Comforter My Body I bequeath to the Earth if I shall end my transitory dayes at or near Eaton to be buried in the Chappel of the said Colledge as the Fellows shall dispose thereof with whom I have liv'd my God knows in all loving affection or if I shall dye near Bocton Malherb in the County of Kent then I wish to be laid in that Parish Church as near as may be to the Sepulchre of my good Father expecting a joyful Resurrection with him in the Day of Christ. After this account of his Faith and this Surrender of his Soul to that God that inspir'd it and this direction for the disposal of his body he proceeded to appoint that his Executours should lay over his grave a Marble stone plain not costly And considering that time moulders even Marble to dust for Monuments themselves must die therefore did he â—â—aving the common way think fit rather to preseâ—ve his name to which the Son of Sirac adviseth all men by an useful Apothegm then by a large enumeration of his descent or merits of both which he might justly have boasted but he was content to forget them and did chuse onely this prudent pious Sentence to discover his Disposition and preserve his Memory 'T was directed by him to be thus inscribed Hic jacet hujus Sententiae primus Author DISPUTANDI PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES Nomen alià s quaere Which may be Englished thus Here lies the first Author of this Sentence THE ITCH OF DISPUTATION WILL PROVE THE SCAB OF THE CHURCH Inquire his name elsewhere And if any shall object â—as I think some have That Sir Henry VVotton was not the first Authour of this Sentence but that this or a Sentence like it was long before his time To him I answer that Solomon sayes Nothing can be spoken that hath not been spoken for there is no new thing under the Sun But grant that in his various reading he had met with this or a like Sentence yet reason will perswade all Readers to believe That Sir Henry Wotton's mind was then so fix'd on that part of the Communion of Saints which is above that an holy Lethargy did surprize his Memory For doubtless if he had not believed himself to be the first Authour of what he said he was too prudent first to own and then expose it to the publick view and censure of every Critick with which that Age abounded and this more And questionless 't will be Charity in all Readers to think his mind was then so fix'd on Heaven that a holy zeal did transport him and in this Sacred Extasie his thoughts being onely of the Church Triumphant into which he daily expected his admission Almighty God was pleased to make him a Prophet to tell the Church Militant and particularly that part of it in this Nation where the weeds of controversie grow to be daily both more numerous and more destructive to humble Piety where men have Consciences which boggle at Ceremonies and scruple not to speak and act such sins as the ancient humble Christians believed to be a sin to think where as our Revered Hooker sayes former Simplicity and softness of Spirit is not now to be found because Zeal hath drowned Charity and Skill Meekness These sad changes have proved this Epitaph to be a useful Caution unto us of this Nation and the sad effects thereof in Germany have prov'd it to be a mournful Truth This by way of Observation concerning his Epitaph The rest of his Will followes in his own words Further I the said Henry Wotton do constitute and ordain to be joynt Executors of this my last Will and Testament my two Grand-Nephews Albert Morton second son to Sir Robert Morton Knight late deceased and Thomas Bargrave eldest son to Dr Bargrave Dean of Canterbury Husband to my Right Vertuous and onely Neece And I do pray the foresaid Dr. Bargrave and Mr. Nicholas Pey my most faithful and chosen friends together with Mr. John Harrison one of the Fellowes of Eaton Colledge best acquainted with my Books and Pictures and other Utensils to be Supervisors of this my last Will and Testament And I do pray the foresaid Dr. Bargrave and Mr. Nicholas Pey to be Solicitors for such Arrearages as shall appear due unto me from his Majesties Exchequer at the time of my death and to assist my fore-named Executors in some reasonable and conscientious satisfaction of my Creditours and discharge of my Legacies now specified or that shall be hereafter added unto this my Testament by any Codicil or Schedule or left in the hands or in any Memorial with the aforesaid Mr. John Harison And fiâ—st To my most dear Soveraign and Master of incomparable Goodness in whose gracious opinion I have ever had some portion as far as the interest of a plain honest man I leave four Pictures at large of those Dukes of Venice in whose time I was there imployed with their names written on the back side which hang in my great ordinary Dining-room done after the Life by Edoardo Fialetto Likewise a Table of the Venetian Colledge where Ambassadours had their Audience hanging over the Mantle of the Chimney in the said Room done by the same hand which containeth a draught in little well resembling the famous D. Leonardo Donato in a time which needed a wise and constant man It ' The Picture of a Duke of Venice hanging over against the door done either by Titiano or some other principal hand long before my time Most humbly beseeching his Majesty that the said Pieces may remain in some corner of any of his Houses for a poor Memorial of his most humble vassal It ' I leave his said Majesty all the Papers and Negotiations of Sir Nich. Throgmorton Knight during his famous imployment under Queen Elizabeth in Scotland and in France which contain divers secrets of State that perchance his Majesty will think fit to be preserved in his Paper-Office after they have been perused and sorted by Mr. Secretary Windebanck with whom I have heretofore as I remember conferred about them They were committed to my disposal by Sir Arthur Throgmorton his son to whose worthy memory I cannot better discharge my faith then by assigning them to the highest place of trust It ' I leave to our most Gracious and Vertuous Queen Mary Dioscorides with the Plants naturally colored and the Text translated by Matthiolo in the best Language of Tuscany whence her said Majesty is lineally descended for a poor token of my thankful devotion for the honour she was once pleased to do my private study
to foretell his death for which he seemed to those many friends that observed him to be well prepared and still free from all fear and chearful as several Letters writ in his bed and but a few dayes before his death may testifie And in the beginning of December following he fell again into a Quartan Fever land in the tenth fiâ— his better part that part of Sir Henry Wotton which could not dye put off Mortality with as much content and chearfulness as humane frailty is capable of he being in perfect peace with God and man And thus the Circle of his Life that Circle which began at Bocton and in the Circumference thereof did first touch at Winchester-School then at Oxford and after upon so many remarkable parts and passages in Christendom That Circle of his Life was by Death thus closed up and compleated in the seventy and second year of his Age at Eaton Colledge where according to his Will he now lies buried dying worthy of his Name and Family worthy of the love and favour of so many Princes and Persons of eminent Wisdom and Learning worthy of the trust committed unto him for the Service of his Prince and Country And all Readers are requested to believe that he was worthy of a more worthy Pen to have preserved his Memory and commended his Merits to the imitation of Posterity AN ELEGIE ON Sir HENRY WOTTON WRIT By Mr ABRAM COWLEY WHat shall we say since silent now is he Who when he spoke all things woul'd silent be Who had so many languages in store That only fame shall speak of him in more Whom England now no more return'd must see He 's gone to Heaven on his fourth Embassie On Earth he travail'd often not to say H 'ad been abroad to pass loose time away For in what ever land he chanc'd to come He read the men and manners bringing home Their Wisdom Learning and their Pietie As if he went to Conquer not to see So well he understood the most and best Of Tongues that Babel sent into the West Spoke them so truly that he had you 'd swear Not only liv'd but been born every where Justly each Nations speech to him was known Who for the World was made not us alone Nor ought the Language of that man be less Who in his brest had all things to express We say that Learning 's endless and blame Fate For not alowing life a longer date He did the utmost bounds of Knowledg finde And found them not so large as was his minde But like the brave Pellean youth did mone Because that Art had no more Worlds then one And when he saw that he through all had past He dy'd least he should Idle grow at last A. Cowley FINIS M r RICHARD HOOKER Author of those Learned Bookes of Ecclesiasticall pollitie The LIFE OF Mr. RICH. HOOKER THE AUTHOR of those Learned Books OF THE Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Psal. 145. 4. One generation shall praise thy works to another Prov. 2. 15. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge rightly LONDON Printed by Tho Newcomb for Rich Marriot sold by most Booksellers M.DC.LXX To his very Worthy Friend Mr. Isaac Walton upon his Writing and Publishing the Life of the Venerable and Judicious Mr. Richard Hooker I. HAyle Sacred Mother British Church all hayle From whose fruitful Loyns have sprung Of Pious Sons so great a throng That Heav'nt oppose their force of strength did fail And let the mighty Conquerors o're Almighty arms prevail How art thou chang'd from what thou wert a late When destitute and quite forlorn And scarce a Child of thousands with thee left to mourn Thy veil all rent and all thy garments torn With tears thou didst bewail thine own and childrens fate Too much alas thou didst resemble then Sion thy pattern Sion in ashes laid Despis'd Forsaken and betray'd Sion thou dost resemble once agen And rais'd like her the glory of the World art made Threnes only to thee could that time belong Bâ—t now thou art the lofty Subject of my Song II. Begin my Verse and where the doleful Mother sate As it in Vision was to Esdras shown Lamenting with the rest her dearest Son Blest CHARLES who his Forefathers has outgon And to the Royal join'd the Martyrs brighter Crown Let a new City rise with beautious state And beautious let its Temple be and beautiful the Gate Lo how the Sacred Fabrick up does rise The Architects so skilful All So grave so humble and so wise The Axes and the Hammers noise Is drown'd in silence or in numbers Musicall 'T is up and at the Altar stand The Reverend Fathers as of Old With Harps and Incense in their hand Nor let the pious service grow or stiff or cold Th' inferiour Priests the while To Praise continually imploy'd or Pray Need not the weary hours beguile Enough 's the single Duty of each day Thou thy self Woodford on thy humbler Pipe must play And tho but lately entred there So gracious those thou honour'st all appear So ready and attent to hear An easie part proportion'd to thy skill may'st bear III. But where alas where wilt thou fix thy choice The Subjects are so noble all So great their beauties and thy art so small They 'll judge I fear themselves disparag'd by thy voyce Yet try and since thou canst not take A nameâ— so despicably low But 't will exceed what thou canst do Tho thy whole Mite thou away at once shouldst throw Thy Poverty a vertue make And that thou may'st Immortal live Since Immortality thou canst not give From one who has enough to spare be ambitious to receive Of Reverend and Judicious Hooker sing Hooker does to th' Church belong The Church and Hooker claim thy Song And inexhausted Riches to thy Verse will bring So far beyond it self will make it grow That life his gift to thee thou shalt again on him bestow IV. How great blest Soul must needs thy Glories be Thy Joyes how perfect and thy Crown how fair Who mad'st the Church thy chiefest care This Church which owes so much to thee That all Her Sons are studious of thy memory 'T was a bold work the Captiv'd to redeem And not so only but th'Oppress'd to raise Our aged Mother to that due Esteem She had and merited in her younger dayes When Primitive Zeal and Piety Were all her Laws and Policy And decent Worship kept the mean It 's too wide stretch't Extreams between The rudely scrupulous and extravagantly vain This was the work of Hookers Pen With Judgement Candor and such Learning writ Matter and Words so exactly fit That were it to be done agen Expected 't would be as its Answer hitherto has been RITORNATA To Chelsea Song there tell Thy Patrons Friend The Church is Hookers Debtor Hooker His And strange 't would be if he should Glory miss For whom two such most powerfully contend Bid him chear up the Day 's his own And he shall never die Who
rest both to my self and my Reader His first four Books and large Epistle have been declared to be printed at his being at Boscum Anno 1594. Next I am to tell that at the end of these four Books there is printed this Advertisement to the Reader I have for some causes thought it at this time more fit to let go these first four Books by themselves than to stay both them and the rest till the whole might together be published Such generalities of the cause in question as are here handled it will be perhaps not amiss to consider apart by way of Introduction unto the Books that are to follow concerning particulars in the mean time the Reader is requested to mend the Printers errours as noted underneath And I am next to declare that his fifth Book which is larger than his first four was first also printed by it self Anno 1597. and dedicated to his Patron for till then he chose none the Archbishop These Books were read with an admiration of their excellency in This and their just fame spread it self into foraign Nations And I have been told more than forty years past that either Cardinal Allen or learned Doctor Stapleton both English men and in Italy about the time when Hookers four Books were first printed meeting with this general fame of them were desirous to read an Authour that both the Reformed and the learned of their own Church did so much magnifie and therefore caused them to be sent for and after reading them boasted to the Pope which then was Clement the eighth that though he had lately said he never met with an English Book whose Writer deserved the name of Author yet there now appear'd a wonder to them and it would be so to his Holiness if it were in Latin for a poor obscure English Priest had writ four such Books of Laws and Church Polity and in a Style that exprest so Grave and such Humble Majesty with clear demonstration of Reason that in all their readings they had not met with any that exceeded him and this begot in the Pope an earnest desire that Doctor Stapleton should bring the said four Books and looking on the English read a part of them to him in Latin which Doctor Stapleton did to the end of the first Book at the conclusion of which the Pope spake to this purpose There is no Learning that this man hath not searcht into nothing too hard for his understanding this man indeed deserves the name of an Authour his books will get reverence by Age for there is in them such seeds of Eternity that if the rest be like this they shall last till the last fire shall consume all Learning Nor was this high the onely testimony and commendations given to his Books for at the first coming of king James into this Kingdom he inquired of the Archbishop Whitgift for his friend Mr. Hooker that writ the Books of Church Polity to which the answer was that he dyed a year before Queen Elizabeth who received the sad news of his Death with very much Sorrow to which the King replyed and I receive it with no less that I shall want the desired happiness of seeing and discoursing with that man from whose Books I have received such satisfaction Indeed my Lord I have received more satisfaction in reading a leaf or paragragh in Mr. Hooker though it were but about the fashion of Churches or Church musick or the like but especially of the Sacraments than I have had in the reading particular large Treatises written but of one of those Subjects by others though very learned men and I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected language but a grave comprehensive clear manifestation of Reason and that back't with the Authority of the Scripture the Fathers and Schoolmen and with all Law both Sacred and Civil And though many others write well yet in the next age they will be forgotten but doubtless there is in every page of Mr. Hookers Book the picture of a Divine Soul such Pictures of Truth and Reason and drawn in so sacred Colours that they shall never fade but give an immortal memory to the Author And it is so truly true that the King thought what he spake that as the most learned of the Nation have and still do mention Mr. Hooker with reverence so he also did never mention him but with the Epithite of Learned or Judicious or Reverend or Venerable Mr. Hooker Nor did his Son our late King Charles the First ever mention him but with the same reverence enjoining his Son our now gracious King to be studious in Mr. Hookers Books And our learned Antiquary Mr. Cambden mentioning the death the modesty and other vertues of Mr. Hooker and magnifying his Books wish't That for the honour of this and benefit of other Nations they were turn'd into the Universal Language Which work though undertaken by many yet they have been weary and forsaken it but the Reader may now expect it having been long since begun and lately finisht by the happy Pen of Dr. Earl late Lord Bishop of Salisbury of whom I may justly say and let it not offend him because it is such a truth as ought not to be conceal'd from Posterity or those that now live and yet know him not that since Mr. Hooker dyed none have liv'd whom God hath blest with more innocent Wisdom more sanctified Learning or a moâ—e piousâ— peaceable primitive temper so that this excellent person seems to be only like himself and our veerbale Rich. Hooker and only fit to make the learned of all Nations happy in knowing what hath been too long confin'd to the language of our little Island There might be many more and just occasions taken to speak of his Books which none ever did or can commend too much but I decline them and hasten to an account of his Christian behaviour and death at Borne in which place he continued his customary Rules of Mortification and Self-denial was much in Fasting frequent in Meditation and Prayers enjoying those blessed returns which only men of strict lives feel and know and of which men of loose and godless lives cannot be made sensible for spiritual things are spiritually discern'd At his entrance into this place his friendship was much sought for by Dr. Hadrian Saravia then or about that time made one of the Prebends of Canterbury a German by Birth and sometimes a Pastor both in Flanders and Holland where he had studied and well considered the controverted points concerning Episcopacy and Sacriledge and in England had a just occasion to declare his judgment concerning both unto his Brethren Ministers of the Low Countreys which was excepted against by Theodor Beza and others against whose exceptions he rejoyned and thereby became the happy Author of many learned Tracts writ in Latin especially of three one of the Degrees of Ministers and of the Bishops superiority above the Presbytery a second against
called Basilicon Doron and their Orator was to acknowledge this great honour and return their gratitude to His Majesty for such a condescention at the close of which Letter he writ Quid Vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes Unicus est nobis Bibliotheca Liber This Letter was writ in such excellent Latin was so full of Conceits and all the expressions so suted to the genius of the King that he inquired the Orators name and then ask'd William Earl of Pembroke if he knew him whose answer was That he knew him very well and that he was his Kinsman but he lov'd him more for his learning and vertue than for that he was of his name and family At which answer the King smil'd and asked the Earl leave that he might love him too for he took him to be the Jewel of that University The next occasion that he had to shew his great Abilities was with them to shew also his great affection to that Church in which he received his Baptism and of which he profest himself a member and the occasion was this There wâ—s one Andrew Melvin a Gentleman of Scotland who was in his own Countrey possest with an aversness if not a hatred of Church-government by Bishops and he seem'd to have a like aversness to our manner of Publick Worship and of Church-prayers and Ceremonies This Gentleman had travail'd France and resided so long in Geneva as to have his opinions the more confirm'd in him by the practice of that place from which he return'd into England some short time before or immediately after Mr. Herbert was made Orator This Mr. Melvin was a man of learning and was the Master of a great wit a wit full of knots and clenches a wit sharp and satyrical exceeded I think by none of that Nation but their Bucanen At Mr. Melvins return hither he writ and scattered in Latin many pieces of his wit against our Altars our Prayers and our Publick Worship of God in which Mr. Herbert took himself to be so much concern'd that as fast as Melvin writ and scatter'd them Mr. Herbert writ and scatter'd answers and reflections of the same sharpness upon him and them I think to the satisfaction of all un-ingaged persons But this Mr. Melvin was not only so busie against the Church but at last so bold with the King and State that he rayl'd and writ himself into the Tower at which time the Lady Arabella was an innocent prisoner there and he pleas'd himself much in sending the next day after his Commitment these two Verses to the good Lady which I will under-write because they may give the Reader a taste of his others which were like these Causa tibi mecum est communis Carceris Ara-Bella tibi causa est Araque sacra mihi I shall not trouble my Reader with an account of his enlargement from that Prison or his Death but tell him Mr. Herberts Verses were thought so worthy to be preserv'd that Dr. Duport the learned Dean of Peterborough hath lately collected and caus'd them to be printed as an honourable memorial of his friend Mr. George Herbert and the Cause he undertook And in order to my third and last observation of his great Abilities it will be needful to declare that about this time King James came very often to hunt at New-market and Royston and was almost as often invited to Cambridge where his entertainment was suted to his pleasant humor and where Mr. George Herbert was to welcome him with Gratulations and the Applauses of an Orator which he alwayes perform'd so well that he still grew more into the Kings favour insomuch that he had a particular appointment to attend His Majesty at Royston where after a Discourse with him His Majesty declar'd to his Kinsman the Earl of Pembroke That he found the Orators learning and wisdom much above his age or wit The year following the King appointed to end His progress at Cambridge and to stay there certain dayes at which time he was attended by the great Secretary of Nature and all Learning Sir Francis Bacon Lord Virulam and by the ever memorable and learned Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester both which did at that time begin a desir'd friendship with our Orator Upon whom the first put such a value on his judgement that he usually desir'd his approbation before he would expose any of his Books to be printed and thought him so worthy of his friendship that having translated many of the Prophet Davids Psalms into English Verse he made George Herbert his Patron of them by a publick dedication of them to him as the best Judge of Divine Poetry And for the learned Bishop it is observable that at that time there fell to be a modest debate about Predestination and Sanctity of life of both which the Orator did not long after send the Bishop some safe and useful Aphorisms in a long Letter written in Greek which was so remarkable for the language and matter that after the reading of it the Bishop put it into his bosom and did often shew it to Scholars both of this and forreign Nations but did alwayes return it back to the place where he first lodg'd it and continu'd it so near his heart till the last day of his life To these I might add the long and intire friendship betwixt him and Sir Henry Wotton and Dr. Donne but I have promis'd to contract my self and shall therefore only add one testimony to what is also mentioned in the Life of Dr. Donne namely that a little before his death he caused many Seals to be made and in them to be ingraven the figure of Christ crucified on an Anchor which is the emblem of hope and of which Dr. Donne would often say Crux mihi Anchora These Seals he sent to most of those friends on which he put a value and at Mr. Herberts death these Verses were found wrap't up with that Seal which was by the Doctor given to him When my dear Friend could write no more He gave this Seal and so gave ore When winds and waves rise highest I am sure This Anchor keeps my faith that me secure At this time of being Orator he had learnt to understand the Italian Spanish and French Tongues very perfectly hoping that as his Predecessor so he might in time attain the place of a Secretary of State being then high in the Kings favour and not meanly valued and lov'd by the most eminent and most powerful of the Court Nobility This and the love of a Court-conversation mixt with a laudable ambition to be something more then he then was drew him often from Cambridge to attend the King who then gave him a Sine Cure which fell into His Majesties disposal I think by the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph It was the same that Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to her Favourite Sir Philip Sidney and valued to be worth an hundred and twenty pound per
this years resolutions he therefore did set down his Rules in that order as the World now sees them printed in a little Book call'd The Countrey Parson in which some of his Rules are The Parsons Knowledge The Parson on Sundayes The Parson Praying The Parson Preaching The Parsons Charity The Parson comforting the Sick The Parson Arguing The Parson Condescending The Parson in his Journey The Parson in his Mirth The Parson with his Church-wardens The Parsons Blessing the People And his behavior toward God and man may be said to be a practical Comment on these and the other holy Rules set down in that useful Book A Book so full of plain prudent and useful Rules that that Countrey Parson that can spare 12 d. and yet wants is scarce excusable because it will both direct him what he is to do and convince him for not having done it At the Death of Mr. Herbert this Book fell into the hands of his friend Mr. Woodnot and he commended it into the trusty hands of Mr. Bar. Oly. who publish't it with a most conscientious and excellent Preface from which I have had some of those Truths that are related in this life of Mr. Herbert The Text for his first Sermon was taken out of Solomons Proverbs and the words were Keep thy heart with all diligence In which first Sermon he gave his Parishioners many necessary holy safe Rules for the discharge of a good Conscience both to God and man And deliver'd his Sermon after a most florid manner both with great learning and eloquence And at the close of his Sermon told them That should not be his constant way of Preaching and that he would not fill their heads with unnecessary Notionsâ— but that for their sakes his language and his expressions should be more plain and practical in his future Sermons And he then made it his humble request That they would be constant to the Afternoons Service and Catechising And shewed them convincing reasons why he desir'd it and his obliging example and perswasions brought them to a willing conformity to his desires The Texts for all his Sermons were constantly taken out of the Gospel for the day and he did as constantly declare why the Church did appoint that portion of Scripture to be that day read And in what manner the Collect for every Sunday does refer to the Gospel or to the Epistle then read to them and that they might pray with understanding he did usually take occasion to explain not only the Collect for every particular day but the reasons of all the other Collects and Responses in our Service and made it appear to them that the whole Service of the Church was a reasonable and therefore an acceptable Sacrifice to God as namely that we begin with Confession of our selves to be vile miserable sinners and that we begin so because till we have confessed our selves to be such we are not capable of that mercy which we acknowledge we need and pray for but having in the prayer of our Lord begg'd pardon for those sins which we have confest And hoping that as the Priest hath declar'd our Absolution so by our publick Confession and real Repentance we have obtain'd that pardon Then we dare proceed to beg of the Lord to open our lips that our mouths may shew forth his praise for till then we are neither able nor worthy to praise him But this being suppos'd we are then fit to say Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost and fit to proceed to a further service of our God in the Collects and Psalms and Lands that follow in the Service And as to these Psalms and Lauds he proceeded to inform them why they were so often and some of them daily repeated in our Church-service namely the Psalms every Month because they be an Historical and thankful repetition of mercies past and such a composition of prayers and praises as ought to be repeated often and publickly for with such Sacrifices God is honour'd and well-pleased This for the Psalms And for the Hymns and Lauds appointed to be daily repeated or sung after the first and second Lessons were read to the Congregation he proceeded to inform them that it was most reasonable after they have heard the will and goodness of God declar'd or preach't by the Priest in his reading the two Chapters that it was then a seasonable Duty to rise up and express their gratitude to Almighty God for those his mercies to them and to all Mankind and say with the blessed Virgin That their Souls do magnifie the Lord and that their spirits do also rejoyce in God their Saviour And that it was their Duty also to rejoyce with Simeon in his Song and say with him That their eyes have also seen their salvation for they have seen that salvation which was but prophesied till his time and he then broke out in expressions of joy to see it but they live to see it daily in the History of it and therefore ought daily to rejoyce and daily to offer up their Sacrifices of praise to their God for that and all his mercies A service which is now the constant employment of that blessed Virgin and Simeon and all those blessed Saints that are possest of Heaven and where they are at this time interchangeably and constantly singing Holy Holy Holy Lord God Glory be to God on High and on Earth peace And he taught them that to do this was an acceptable service to God because the Prophet David sayes in his Psalms He that praiseth the Lord honoureth him He made them to understand how happy they be that are freed from the incumbrances of that Law which our Fore-fathers groan'd under namely from the Legal Sacrifices and from the many Ceremonies of the Levitical Law freed from Circumcision and from the strict observation of the Jewish Sabbath and the like And he made them know that having receiv'd so many and so great blessings by being born since the dayes of our Saviour it must be an acceptable Sacrifice to Almighty God for them to acknowledge those blessings and stand up and worship and say as Zacharias did Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath in our dayes visited and redeemed his people and he hath in our dayes remembred and shewed that mercy which by the mouth of the Prophets he promised to our Fore-fathers and this he hath done according to his holy Covenant made with them And we live to see and enjoy the benefit of it in his Birth in his Life his Passion his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven where he now sits sensible of all our temptations and infirmities and where he is at this present time making intercession for us to his and our Father and therefore they ought daily to express their publick gratulations and say daily with Zacharias Blessed be that Lord God of Israel that hath thus visited and thus redeemed his people These
for your memory is a State-cloth and Presence which I reverence though you be away though I need not seek that there which I have about and within me There though I found my accusation yet any thing to which your hand is is a pardon yet I would not burn my first Letter because as in great destiny no small passage can be omitted or frustrated so in my resolution of writing almost daily to you I would have no link of the Chain broke by me both because my Letters interpret one another and because only their number can give them weight If I had your Commission and Instructions to do you the service of a Legier Ambassadour here I could say something of the Countess of Devon of the States and such things But since to you who are not only a World alone but the Monarchy of the World your self nothing can be added especially by me I will sustain my self with the honour of being London July 23. 1607. Your Servant Extraordinary And without place John Donne To the worthiest Lady Mrs. Magdalen Herbert Madam AS we must dye before we can have full glory and happiness so before I can have this degree of it as to see you by a Letter I must almost dye that is come to London to plaguy London a place full of danger and vanity and vice though the Court be gone And such it will be till your return redeem it Not that the greatest vertue in the World which is you can be such a Marshal as to defeat or disperse all the vice of this place but as higher bodies remove or contract themselves when better come so at your return we shall have one door open to innocence Yet Madam you are not such an Ireland as produceth neither ill nor good no Spiders nor Nightingales which is a rare degree of perfection But you have found and practised that experiment That even nature out of her detesting of emptiness if we will make that our work to remove bad will fill us with good things To abstain from it was therefore but the Childhood and Minority of your Soul which hath been long exercised since in your manlier active part of doing good Of which since I have been a witness and subject not to tell you some times that by your influence and example I have attained to such a step of goodness as to be thankful were both to accuse your power and judgement of impotency and infirmity August 2d 1607. Your Ladiships in all Services John Donne FINIS On Mr. George Herbert's Book Intituled The Temple of Sacred Poems sent to a Gentlewoman KNow you Fair on what you look Divinest Love lies in this Book Expecting Fire from your Eyes To kindle this his Sacrifice When your hands untye these strings Think you 've an Angel by the wings One that gladly will be nigh To wait upon each morning sigh To flutter in the balmy Air Of your well perfumed Prayer These white Plumes of his Hee 'll lend you Which every day to Heaven will send you To take acquaintance of the Sphere And all the smooth-fac'd Kindred there And though Herberts Name do owe These Devotions Fairest know That while I lay them on the shrine Of your white Hand they are mine FINIS * In his Preface to Pseudo-Martyr * In his Book of Devâ—tions Ezek. 37. 3. * In his Book of Devotions * Dr. King and Dr. Monfort * La Corona * In his Chronicle * Cambden in his Britannia * Holinshed * Mr. Nic. Oudert and others * St. Austin's confession * Watson in his Quodlibets * Dr. Donne * Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge * 1 Tim. 3. 7. * Javen * In it were Italian locks picklocks screws to force open doors and things of worth and rarity that he had gathered in his foreign Travel * This you may find in the Temple Records William Ermstead was Master of the Temple at the Dissolution of the Priory and dyed 2 Eliz. Richard Alvey Bat. Divinity Pat. 13 Febr. 2 Eliz. Magister five Custos DomuÌ„s Ecolesiae novi Templi dyed 27 Eliz. Richard Hooker succeeded that year by Patent in terminis as Alvey â—ad it and he left it 33 Eliz. That year Dr. Balgey succeeded Richard Hooker * Mr. Dering * Vide Bishop Spotswoods History of the Church of Scotland * In his â—â—nnals â—199 * Sin 〈…〉 this Appendix to the Life of Mr. Hooker Mr. Fulman o 〈…〉 Christi Colledge hath shewed me a good Authority for the very 〈…〉 and hour of Mr. Hookers death in one of his Books of Politiâ—â— which was Archbishop Lauds In which Book beside many considerable Marginal Notes of some passages of his time under the Bishops own hand there is also written in the Title page of that Book which now is Mr. Fulmans this Attestation Richardus Hooker vir summis Doctrinae dutibus ornatus de Ecclesia praecipuè Anglicana optimè meritus obiit Novemb. 2. circiteâ— horam secundam post neridianam Anno 1600. * John Whitgift the Archbishop * Hacket and Coppinger Raphael Urbin the famous painter * Albumizer Igâ—oramus
continued bounty might intitle themselves to be his Alms-people for all these he made provision and so largely as having then six children living might to some appear more than proportionable to his Estate I forbear to mention any more lest the Reader may think I trespass upon his patience but I will beg his favour to present him with the beginning and end of his Will In the Name of the blessed and glorious Trinity Amen I John Donne by the mercy of Christ Jesus and by the calling of the Church of England Priest being at this time in good health and perfect understanding praised be God therefore do hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and form following First I give my gracious God an intire sacrifice of body and soul with my most humble thanks for that assurance which his blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the salvation of the one and the Resurrection of the other and for that constant and chearful resolution which the same Spirit hath establisht in me to live and dye in the Religion now professed in the Church of England In expectation of that Resurrection I desire my body may be buried in the most private manner that may be in that place of St. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request designed for that purpose c. And this my lâ—st Will and Testament made in the fear of God whose mercy I humbly beg and constantly relie upon in Jesus Christ and in perfect love and charity with all the world whose pardon I ask from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my Superiors written all with my own hand and my name subscribed to every page of which there are five in number Sealed Decem. 13. 1630. Nor was this blessed sacrifice of Charity expressed onely at his death but in his life also by a cheerful and frequent visitation of any friend whose mind was dejected or his fortune necessitous he was inquisitive after the wants of Prisoners and redeemed many from thence that lay for their Fees or small Debts he was a continual Giver to poor Scholars both of this and foreign Nations Besides what he gave with his own hand he usually sent a Servant or a discreet and trusty Friend to distribute his Charity to all the Prisons in London at all the Festival times of the year especially at the Birth and Resurrection of our Saviour He gave an hundred pounds at one time to an old Friend whom he had known live plentifully and by a too liberal heart and carelesness became decayed in his Estate and when the receiving of it was denied by the Gentlemans saying He wanted not for as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to conceal and endure a sad poverty rather than those blushes that attend the confession of it so there be others to whom Nature and Grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls as to pity and prevent the Distresses of Mankind which I have mentioned because of Dr. Donne's Reply whose Answer was I know you want not what will sustain nature for a little will do that but my desire is that you who in the dayes of your plenty have cheered and raised the hearts of so many of your dejected friends would now receive this from me and use it as a cordial for the cheering of your own and so it was received He was an happy reconciler of many differences in the Families of his Friends and Kindred which he never undertook faintly for such undertakings have usually faint effects and they had such a faith in his judgement and impartiality that he never advised them to any thing in vain He was even to her death a most dutiful Son to his Mother careful to provide for her supportation of which she had been destitute but that God raised him up to prevent her necessities who having sucked in the Religion of the Roman Church with her Mothers Milk spent her Estate in foreign Countreys to enjoy a liberty in it and died in his house but three Moneths before him And to the end it may appear how just a Steward he was of his Lord and Masters Revenue I have thought fit to let the Reader know that after his entrance into his Deaneâ—y as he numbred his years he at the foot of a private account to which God and his Angels were only witnesses with him computed first his Revenue then what was given to the Poor and other Pious Uses and lastly what rested for him and his he then blest each years poor remainder with a thankful Prayer which for that they discover a more than common Devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his own words So all is that remains this year Deo Opt. Max benigno Largitori à meâ— ab iis Quibus haec à me reservantur Gloria gratia in aeternum Amen So that this year God hath blessed me and mine with Multiplicatae a sunt super Nos misericordiae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae ex immensâ Bonitate tuâ— nobis elargiri Dignatus sis in quorumcunque Manus devenerint in tuam Semper cedant gloriam Amen In fine horum sex Annorum manet Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino Largitur etiam ut quae largitus est Sua iterum fiant bono eorum usu ut Quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi Nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec Servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni Curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse Ita liberi quibus quae supersunt Supersunt grato animo ea accipiant Et beneficum authorem recognescant Amen But I return from my long Digression We left the Author sick in Essex where he was forced to spend much of that Winter by reason of his disability to remove from that place And having never for almost twenty years omitted his personal attendance on His Majesty in that month in which he was to attend and preach to him nor having ever been left out of the Roll and number of Lent-Preachers and there being then in January 1630. a report brought to London or raised there that Dr. Donne was dead That report gave him occasion to write this following Letter to a dear friend Sir This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent fevers that I am so much the oftner at the gates of Heaven and this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my prayers in which I shall never leave out your happiness and I doubt not among his other blessings God will add some one to you for my prayers A man would almost be content to dye if there were no other benefit in death to hear of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death yet I
perceive it went not through all for one writ to me that some and he said of my friends conceived I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my self to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knows an ill-grounded interpretation for I have alwayes been sorrier when I could not preach than any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might dye in the Pulpit if not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is dye the sooner by occasion of those labours Sir I hope to see you presently after Candlemas about which time will fall my Lent-Sermon at Court except my Lord Chamberlain believe me to be dead and so leave me out of the Roll but as long as I live and am not speechless I would not willingly decline that service I have better leisure to write than you to read yet I would not willingly oppress you with too much Letter God bless you and your Son as I wish Your poor friend and servant in Christ Jesus J. Donne Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and had in his sickness so prepared for that imployment that as he had long thirsted for it so he resolved his weakness should not hinder his journey he came therefore to London some few dayes before his appointed day of preaching At his coming thither many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sickness had left him onely so much flesh as did onely cover his bones doubted his strength to perform that task and did therefore disswade him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his life but he passionately denied their requests saying he would not doubt that that God who in so many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would now withdraw it in his last employment professing an holy ambition to perform that sacred work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many of them thought he presented himself not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtless many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Do these bones live or can that soul organize that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glass will move towards its centre and measure out an hour of this dying mans unspent life Doubtless it cannot and yet after some faint pauses in his zealous prayer his strong desires enabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his preconceived meditations which were of dying the Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that then saw his tears and heard his faint and hollow voice professing they thought the Text prophetically chosen and that Dr. Donne had preach't his own funeral Sermon Being full of joy that God had enabled him to perform this desired duty he hastened to his house out of which he never moved till like St. Stephen he was carried by devout men to his Grave The next day after his Sermon his strength being much wasted and his spirits so spent as indisposed him to business or to talk A friend that had often been a witness of his free and facetious discourse asked him Why are you sad To whom he replied with a countenance so full of cheerful gravity as gave testimony of an inward tranquillity of mind and of a soul willing to take a farewell of this world And said I am not sad but most of the night past I have entertained my self with many thoughts of several friends that have left me here and are gone to that place from which they shall not return And that within a few dayes I also shall go hence and be no more seen And my preparation for this change is become my nightly meditation upon my bed which my infirmities have now made restless to me But at this present time I was in a serious contemplation of the providence and goodness of God to me who am less than the least of his mercies and looking back upon my life past I now plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporal employment and it was his Will that I should never settle nor thrive till I entred into the Ministry in which I have now liv'd almost twenty years I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to require most of those friends which shewed me kindness when my fortune was very low as God knows it was and as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requital I have liv'd to be useful and comfortable to my good Father-in-law Sir George Moore whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal Crosses I have maintained my own Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentiful fortune in her younger dayes to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the Consciences of many that have groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose prayers I hope are available for me I cannot plead innocency of life especially of my youth But I am to be judged by a merciful God who is not willing to see what I have done amiss And though of my self I have nothing to present to him but sins and misery yet I know he looks not upon me now as I am of my self but as I am in my Saviour and hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his Holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect I am therefore full of joy and shall dye in peace I must here look so far back as to tell the Reader that at his first return out of Essex to preach his last Sermon his old Friend and Physitian Dr. Fox a man of great worth came to him to consult his health and that after a sight of him and some queries concerning his distempers he told him That by Cordials and drinking milk twenty dayes together there was a probability of his restauration to health but he passionately denied to drink it Nevertheless Dr. Fox who loved him most intirely wearied him with sollicitations till he yielded to take it for ten dayes at the end of which time he told Dr. Fox he had drunk it more to satisfie him than to recover his health and that he would not drink it ten dayes longer upon the best moral assurance of having twenty years added to his life for he loved it not and that he was so far from fearing death which is the King of terrors that he longed for the day of his dissolution It is observed that a desire of glory or commendation is rooted in the very nature of man and that those of the severest and most mortified lives though they may