of generall Learning natural eloquence and Christian humility that they deserve a Commemoration by a pen equall to their own which none hath exceeded And in this enumeration of his friends though many must be ommitted yet that man of primitive piety Mr. George Herbert may not I mean that George Herbert who was the Author of the Temple or Sacred Poems and Ejaculations A book in which by declaring his own spirituall Conflicts he hath raised many a dejected and discomposed soul and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts A book by the frequent reading whereof and the assistance of that Spirit that seemed to inspire the Author the Reader may attain habits of peace and piety and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and Heaven and by still reading still keep those sacred fires burning upon the Altar of so pure a heart as shall be freed from the anxieties of this world and fixt upon things that are above betwixt him and Dr. Donne there was a long and dear friendship make up by such a' Sympathy of inclinations that they coveted and joyed to be in each others Company and this happy friendship was still maintained by many sacred indearments of which that which followeth may be some Testimony To Mr. George Herbert with one of my Seales of the Anchor and Crest A sheafe of Snakes used heretofore to be my Seal the Crest of our poor Family Qui prius assuetus serpentum falce tabellas Signare haec nostrae Symbola parva domus Adscitus domui domini Adopted in Gods family and so My old Coat lost into new Arms I go The Crosse my seal in Baptism spread below Does by that form into an Anchor grow Crosses grow Anchors bear as thou should'st do Thy Crosse and that Crosse grows an Anchor too But he that makes our Crosses Anchors thus Is Christ who there is crucify'd for us Yet with this I may my first Serpents ho'd God gives new blessings and yet leaves the old The Serpent may as wise my pattern be My poyson as he feeds on dust that 's me And as he rounds the earth to murder sure He is my death but on the Cross my cure Crucifie nature then and then implore All grace froÌ„ him crucify'd there before When all is Crosse and that Crosse Anchor grown This seales a Catechisme not a seal alone Under that little seal great gifts I send Both workes and prayers pawnes and fruits of a friend Oh may that Saint that rides on our great Seal To you that beare his names large bounty deal I Donne In Sacram Anchoram Piscatoris GEO. HERBERT Quod Crux nequibat fixa Clavique additi Tenere ChristuÌ„ scilicet ne ascenderet Tuive Christum Although the Cross could not Christ here detain When nail'd unto 't but he ascends again Nor yet thy eloquence here keep him still But onely whilst thou speak'st this Anchor will Nor canst thou be content unless thou to This certain Anchor add a seal and so The water and the earth both unto thee Do owe the Symbole of their certaintie Let the world reel we all ours stand sure This Holy Cable 's from all storms secure Love neere his death desir'd to end With kind expressions to his friend He writ when 's hand could write no more He gave his soul and so gave o're G. HERBERT I return to tell the Reader that besides these verses to his dear Mr. Herbert and that Hymne that I mentioned to be sung in the Quire of S. Pauls Church he did also shorten and beguile many sad hours by composing other sacred Ditties and he writ an Hymn on his death-bed which beares this title An Hymn to God my God in my sicknsse March 23. 1630. If these fall under the censure of a soul whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high illuminations let him know that many holy devout men have thought the soul of Prudentius to be most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning and evening with a new and spirituall song justified by the example of King David and the good King Hezekâ—as who upon the renovation of his years paid his thankfull vowes to Almighty God in a royall Hymn which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore I will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of my life in the temple of my God The latter part of his life may be said to be a continued study for as he usually preached once a week if not oftner so after his Sermon he never gave his eyes rest till he had chosen out a new Text and that night cast his Sermon into a forme and his Text into divisions and next day betook himself to consult the Fathers and so commit his meditations to his memory which was excellent But upon Saturday he usually gave himself and his mind a rest from the weary burthen of his weeks meditations and spent that day in visitation of friends and other diversions of his thoughts and would say that he gave both his body and mind that refreshment that he might be enabled to do the work of the day following not faintly but with courage and cheerfulness Nor was his age onely so industrious but in the most unsetled days of his youth his bed was not able to detain him beyond the hour of four in a morning and it was no common business that drew him out of his chamber till past ten All which time was employed in study and if it seem strange it may gain a belief by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remain as testimonies of what is here written for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand he left also sixscore of his Sermons all written with his own hand also an exact and laborious Treatise concerning self-murther called Biathanatos wherein all the Lawes violated by that Act are diligently surveyed and judiciously censured a Treatise written in his younger dayes which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many that labour to be thought great Clerks and pretend to know all things Nor were these onely found in his study but all businesses that past of any publick consequence either in this or any of our neighbour-nations he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of that Nation and kept them by him for a memoriall So he did the copies of divers Letters and cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his observations and solutions of them and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himself He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his will when no faculty of his soul was damp'd or made defective by sickness or
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 full of joy and shall die in peace I must here look so far back as to tell the Reader that at his first return out of Essex his old Friend and Physician Dr. Fox a man of great worth came to him to consult his health who after a sight of him and some queries concerning his distempers 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 Neverthelesse Dr. Fox who loved him most intirely wearied him with solicitations 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 morall assurance of having twenty years added to his life for he loved it not and he was so far from fearing death which is the King of terrours 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 become so humble as to banish self-flattery and such weeds as naturally grow there yet they have not been able to kill this desire of glory but that like our radicall heat it will both live and die with us and many think it should do so and we want not sacred examples to justifie the desire of having our memory to out-live our lives which I mention because Dr. Donne by the perswasion of Dr. Fox yielded at this very time to have a Monument made for him but Dr. Fox undertook not to perswade how or what it should be that was left to Dr. Donne himself This being resolved upon Dr. Donne sent for a Carver to make for him in wood the figure of an Urn giving him directions for the compasse and height of it and to bring with it a board of the height of his body These being got and without delay a choice Painter was in a readiness to draw his picture which was taken as followeth Severall Charcole-fires being first made in his large study he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand and having put off all his clothes had his sheet put on him and so tied with knots at his head and feet and his hands so placed as dead bodies are usually fitted for the grave Upon this Urn he thus stood with his eyes shut and so much of the sheet turned aside as might shew his lean pale and death-like face which was purposely turned toward the East from whence he expected the second coming of our Saviour Thus he was drawn at his just height and when the picture was fully finished he caused it to be set by his bed-side where it continued and became his hourly object till his death and was then given to his dearest friend and Executor Dr. King who caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white Marble as it now stands in the Cathedrall Church of S. Pauls and by Dr. Donn's own appointment these words were to be affixed to it as his Epitaph JOHANNES DONNE Sac. Theol. Professor Post varia Studia quibus ab annis tenerrimis fideliter nec infeliciter incubuit Instinctu impulsu Sp. Sancti Monitu Hortatu REGIS JACOBI Ordines Sacros amplexus Anno sui Iesu 1614. suae aetatis 42. Decanatu hujus Ecclesiae indutus 27. Novembris 1621. Exutus morte ultimo Die Martii 1631. Hiclicet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus nomen est Oriens Upon Monday following he took his last leave of his beloved Study and being sensible of his hourly decay retired himself to his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends with whom he took a solemn and deliberate farewell commending to their considerations some sentences usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as good Iacob did his sons with a spirituall Benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any businesse undone that concerned him or themselves it should be prepared against Saturdy next for after that day he would not mix his thoughts with any thing that concerned this world nor ever did But as Iob so he waited for the appointed time of his dissolution And now he had nothing to do but die to do which he stood in need of no longer time for he had studied long and to so happy a perfection that in a former sickness he called God to witness * he was that minute ready to deliver his soul into his hands if that minute God would determine his dissolution In that sickness he begg'd of God the constancy to be preserved in that estate forever and his patient expectation to have his immortall soul disrob'd from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his Prayers were then heard and his Petition granted He lay fifteen dayes earnestly expecting his hourly change and in the last hour of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soul having I verily believe some revelation of the Beatificall Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die and after those words closed many periods of his faint breath by saying often Thy kingdome come thy will be done His speech which had long been his ready and faithfull servant left him not till the last minute and then forsook him not to serve another Master but died before him for that it was become uselesse to him that now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to do in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechless he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Son of God standing at the right hand of his Father and being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soul ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his own eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the Life thus excellent thus exemplary was the Death of this memorable man He was buried in that place of S. Pauls Church which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to pay his publick Devotions to Almighty God who was then served twice a day by a publick form of Prayer and Praises in that place but he was not buried privately though he desired it for beside an unnumbred number
acted on that restlesse stage and they crucified to him Nor s it hard to thinke being passions may be both changed and heightned by accidents but that that abundant affection which once was betwixt him and her who had long been the delight of his eyes the Companion of his youth her with whom he had devided so many pleasant sorrows and contented feares as the Common-people are not capable of She being now removed by death a commeasurable grief took as full a possession of him as joy had done and so indeed it did for now his very soul was elemented of nothing but sadness now grief took so full a possession of his heart as to leave no place for joy If it did It was a joy to be alone where like a Pelican in the wilderness he might bemoane himself without witnesse or restraint and poure forth his passions like Iob in the dayes of his affliction Oh that I might have the desire of my heart Oh that God would grant the thing that I long for For then as the Grave is become her house so I would hasten to make it mine also that we two might there make our beds together in the darke Thus as the Israelites sate mourning by the rivers of Babylon when they remembred Sion so he gave some ease to his oppressed heart by thus venting his sorrowes Thus he began the day and ended the night ended the restless night and began the weary day in lamentations And thus he continued till a consideration of his new ingagements to God and St. Pauls Wo is me if I preach not the Gospel disper'st those sad clouds that had now benighted his hopes and forc'd him to behold the light His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife lay buryed in St. Clements Church neer Temple-Barre London and his text was a part of the Prophet Ieremy's Lamentations Lo I am the man that have seen affliction And indeed his very words and looks testified him to be truly such a man and they with the addition of his sighs and teares did so work upon the affections of his hearers as melted and moulded them into a companionable sadnesse and so they left the Congregation but their houses presented them with objects of diversion and his presented him with no diversions but with fresh objects of sorrow in beholding many helplesse children and a consideration of the many cares and casualties that attended their education In this time of sadnesse he was importuned by the grave Benchers of Lincolns Inne once the friends of his youth to accept of their Lecture which by reason of Dr. Gatakers removall from thence was then void of which he accepted being most glad to renew his intermitted friendship with those whom he so much loved and where he had been a Saul though not to persecute Christianity yet in his irregular youth to neglect the visible practise of it there to become a Paul and preach salvation to his brethren And now his life was as a Shining light amongst his old friends now he gave an ocular testimony of the strictnesse and regularity of it now he might say as S. Paul advised his Corinthians Be ye followers of me as I follow Christ and walk as ye have me for an example not the example of a busie-body but of a contemplative an harmlesse and an holy life and conversation The love of that noble society was expressed to him many wayes for besides fair lodgings that were set apart and newly furnished for him with all necessaries other courtesies were daily added so many and so freely as if they meant their gratitude should exceed his merits and in this love-strife of desert and liberality they continued for the space of three years he preaching faithfully and constantly to them and they liberally requiting him About which time the Emperour of Germany died and the Palsgrave who had lately married the Lady Elizabeth the Kings onely daugther was elected and crowned King of Bohemia the unhappy beginning of many miseries in that Nation King Iames whose Motto Beati Pacifici did truly speak the very thoughts of his heart endeavoured first to prevent and after to compose the discords of that discomposed State and amongst other his endeavours did then send the Lord Hay Earl of Doncaster his Ambassadour to those unsetled Princes and by a speciall command from his Majesty Dr. Donne was appointed to assist and attend that employment to the Princes of the Union for which the Earl was most glad who had alwayes put a great value on him and taken a complacency in his coversation and those of Lincolnes Inne that were his most intire friends were glad also for they feared that his immoderate study and sadness for his wives death would as Iacob said make his days few and respecting his bodily health evil too and of this there were some visible signes At his going he left his friends of Lincolns Inne and they him with many reluctations for though he could not say as S. Paul to his Ephesians Behold you to whom I have peached the kingdom of God shall from henceforth see my face no more yet he believing himself to be in a Consumption questioned and they feared it knowing that his troubled mind with the help of his unintermitted studies hastened the decayes of his weak body But God turned it to the best for this employment to say nothing of the event of it did not onely divert him from those serious studies and sad thoughts but seemed to give him a new life by a true occasion of joy to be an eye-witnesse of the health of his most dear and most honoured Mistresse the Qu of Bohemia in a forraign Nation and to be a witness of that gladness which she expressed to see him Who having formerly known him a Courtier was much joyed to see him in a Canonicall habit and more glad to be an ear-witness of his excellent and powerfull preaching About fourteen moneths after his departure out of England he returned to his friends of Lincolns-Inne with his sorrows moderated and his health improved and there be took himself to his constant course of preaching About a year after his return out of Germany Dr. Cary was made Bishop of Exeter and by his removall the Deanry of St. Pauls being vacant the King sent to Dr. Donne and appointed him to attend him at dinner the next day When his Majesty was sate down before he had eat any meat he said after his pleasant manner Dr. Donne I have invited you to dinner and though you sit not down with me yet I will carve to you of a dish that I know you love well for I know you love London and I do therefore make you Dean of Pauls and when I have dined then doe you take your beloved dish home to your study say grace there to your self and much good may it do you Immediately after he came to his Deanry he employed workmen to repair and
faithfull friend and Executor of whose Care and Justice I make no more doubt then of Gods blessing on that which I have conscienciously collected for them and this I declare as my unalterable resolution The reply to this was onely a promise to observe his request Within a few dayes his distempers abated and as his strength increased so did his thankfulnesse to Almighty God testified in his 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 make publick a book that may not unfitly be called a Sacred picture of spirituall extasies occasioned and applyable to the emergencies of that sicknesse which 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 sicknesse brought him so neer to the gates of death and he saw the grave so ready to devour him that he would often say his recovery was supernaturall But God that restor'd 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. Harvie at Abury hatch in Essex he there fell into a fever which with the help of his constant infirmity vapors from the spleene hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as St Paul of himself He dies daily and he might say with Iob 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 sicknesse continued long not onely weakening but wearying him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest and that before I speake 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 very apt to maintain Paradoxes yet he was very farre from justifying though his wives Competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate severe Censures yet he would occasionally condemn himself for it and doubtlesse it had been attended with an heavy Repentance if God had not blest them with so mutuall and Cordiall affections as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then the banquets of dull and low-spirited people The recreations of his youth were Poetry in which he was so happy as if nature and all her varieties had been made onely to exercise his sharpe wit and high fancy and in those pieces which were facetiously Composed and carelesly scattered most of them being written before the twentieth year of his age it may appear by his choice Metaphors that both Nature and all the Arts joyn'd to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wish't they had been abortive or so short liv'd that his own eyes had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so fallen out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake that no not in that in his declining age witnessed then by many Divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious Composures Yea even on his former sick-bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy that then possest his soul in the Assurance of Gods favour to him An Hymne to God the Father Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And do run still though still I do deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have wonne Others to sin and made my sin their doone Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two but wallowed in a score When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more I have a sin of fear that when I 've spun My last thred I shall perish on the shore But swear by thy self that at my death thy Son Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I fear no more I have the rather mentioned this Hymne for that he caus'd it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune and to be often sung to the Organ by the Choristers of that Church in his own hearing especially at the Evening Service and at his return from his Customary Devotions in that place did occasionally say to a friend The words of this Hymne have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possest my soul in my sicknesse when I composed it And Oh the power of Church-musick that Harmony added to it has raised the affections of my heart and quickned my graces of zeal and gratitude and I observe that I alwaies return from paying this publick duty of Prayer and Praise to God with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind and a willingnesse to leave the world After this manner did the Disciples of our Saviour and the best of Christians in those Ages of the Church nearest to his time offer their praises to Almighty God And the reader of St. Augustines life may there find that towards his dissolution he wept abundantly that the enemies of Christianity had broke in upon them and prophaned and ruin'd their Sanctuaries and because their Publick Hymns and Lauds were lost out of their Churches And after this manner have many devout soules lifted up their hands and offered acceptable Sacrifices unto Almighty God in that place where Dr. Donne offered his But now oh Lord Before I proceed further I think fit to informe the reader that not long before his death he caused to be drawn a figure of the body of Christ extended upon an Anchor like those which painters draw when they would present us with the picture of Christ Crucified on the Crosse his varying no otherwise then to affixe him to an Anchor the Embleme of hope this he caused to be drawn in little and then many of these figures thus drawn to be ingraven very small in Hâ—litropian Stones and set in gold and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends to be used as Seales or Rings and kept as memorialls of him and his affection His dear friends Sir Henry Goodier and Sir Robert Drewry could not be of that number for they had put off mortality and taken possession of the grave before him But Sir Henry Wootton and Dr. Hall the late deceased Bishop of Norwich were and so were Dr. Duppa Bishop of Salisbury and Dr. Henry King Bishop of Chicester both now living-men in whom there was and is such a Commixture
of others many persons of Nobility and of eminency for Learning who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his death by a voluntary and sad attendance of his body to the grave where nothing was so remarkable as a publick sorrow To which place of his Buriall some mournful Friend repaired and as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles so they strewed his with an abundance of curious and costly Flowers which course they who were never yet known continued morning and evening for many dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were again by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this all the Honour done to his reverend Ashes for as there be some persons that will not receive a reward for that for which God accounts himself a debter persons that dare trust God with their Charity and without a witness so there was by some gratefull unknowne friend that thought Dr. Donne's memory ought to be perpetuated an hundred Marks sent to his two faithfull Friends * and Executors towards the making of his Monument It was not for many years known by whom but after the death of Dr. Fox it was known that he 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 artificiall Miracle He was of Stature moderately tall of a straight and equally-proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible addition of Comelinesse 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 usefull by a commanding judgement His aspect was cheerfull 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 mercifull 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 imployed in a continued praise of that God that first breathed it into his active 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 reinanimated J. W. To all my friends Sir H. Goodere SIR I Am not weary of writing it is the course but durable garment of my love but I am weary of wanting you I have a mind like those bodies which have hot Livers and cold stomachs or such a distemper as travelled me at Paris a Fever and dysentery in which that which is physick to one infirmity nourishes the other So I abhor nothing more then sadnesse except the ordinary remedy change of company I can allow my self to be Animal sociale appliable to my company but not gregale to herd my self in every troup It is not perfectly true which a very subtil yet very deep wit Averroes says that all mankind hath but one soul which informs and rules us all as one Intelligence doth the firmament and all the Stars in it as though a particular body were too little an organ for a soul to play upon And it is as imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate to sense I dare not say to reason though it have appearance of that too because none may doubt but that that religion is certainly best which is reasonablest That all mankind hath one protecting Angel all Christians one other all English one other all of one Corporation and every civill coagulation or society one other and every man one other Though both these opinions expresse a truth which is that mankind hath very strong bounds to cohabit and concurre in other then mountains and hills during his life First common and mutuall necessity of one another and therefore naturally in our defence and subventions we first fly to our selves next to that which is likest other men Then naturall and inborn charity beginning at home which perswades us to give that we may receive and legall charity which makes us also forgive Then an ingraffing in one another and growing together by a custome of society and last of all strict friendship in which band men were so presumed to be coupled that our Confessor King had a law that if a man be killed the murderer shall pay a summe felago suo which the interpreters call fide ligato comiti vitae All these bands I willingly receive for no man is less of himself then I nor any man enough of himself To be so is all one with omnipotence And it is well marked that in the holy Book wheresoever they have rendred Almighty the word is Self-sufficient I think sometimes that the having a family should remove me far from the curse of Vaesoli But in so strict obligation of Parent or Husband or Master and perchance it is so in the last degree of friendship where all are made one I am not the lesse alone for being in the midst of them Therefore this oleum laetitiae this balme of our lives this alacrity which dignifies even our service to God this gallant enemy of dejection and sadnesse for which and wickednesse the Italian allows but one word Triste And in full condemnation whereof it was prophesied of our blessed Saviour Non erit tristis in his conversation must be sought and preserved diligently And since it grows without us we must be sure to gather it from the right tree They which place this alacrity onely in a good conscience deal somewhat too roundly with us for when we ask the way they shew us the town afar off Will a Physician consulted for health and strength bid you have good sinews and equal temper It is true that this conscience is the resultance of all other particular actions it is our triumph and banquet in the haven but I would come towards that also as Mariners say with a merry wind Our nature is Meteorique we respect because
pity me if you saw me write and therefore will pardon me if I write no more my pain hath drawn my head so awry and holds it so that mine eye cannot follow mine hand I receive you therefore into my prayers with mine own weary soul and commend my self to yours I doubt not but next week I shall be good news to you for I have mending or dying on my side which is two to one If I continue thus I shall have comfort in this that my Blessed Saviour exercising his Justice upon my two worldly parts my fortune and body reserves all his mercy for that which best tasts it and most needs it my soul I professe to you truly that my lothnesse to give over now seems to my self an ill sign that I shall write no more Your poor friend and Gods poor patient J. Donne To the Humble Lady the Lady Kingsmel upon the death of her Husband MADAME THose things which God dissolves at once as he shall doe the Sun and Moon and those bodies at the last conflagration he never intends to re-unite again but in those things which he takes in pieces as he doth man and wife in these divorces by death and in single persons by the divorce of body and soul God hath another purpose to make them up again That peice which he takes to himself is presently cast in a mould and in an instant made fit for his use for heaven is not a place of a proficiency but of present perfection That piece which he leaves behind in this world by the death of a part thereof grows fitter and fitter for him by the good use of his corrections and the intire conformity to his will Nothing disproportions us nor makes us so uncapable of being reunited to those whom we loved here as murmuring or not advancing the goodness of him who hath removed them from hence We would wonder to see a man who in a wood were left to his liberty to fel what trees he would take onely the crooked and leave the straightest trees but that man hath perchance a ship to build and not a house and so hath use of that kind of timber let not us who know that in Gods house there are many mansions but yet have no modell no designe of the form of that building wonder at his taking in of his materialls why he takes the young and leaves the old or why the sickly over-live those that had better health We are not bound to think that soules departed have devested all affections towards them whom they left here but we are bound to thinke that for all their loves they would not be here again then is the will of God done in earth as it is in heaven when we neither pretermit his actions nor resist them neither pass them over in an inconsideration as though God had no hand in them nor go about to take them out of his hands as though we could direct him to do them better As Gods Scriptures are his will so his actions are his will both are testaments because they testifie his mind to us It is not lawful to adde a Schedule to either of his wills as they do ill who adde to his written will the Scriptures a schedule of Apocryphall books so do they also who to his other will his manifested actions adde Apocryphall conditions and a schedule of such limitations as these If God would have staid thus long or if God would have proceeded in this or this manner I could have borne it To say that our afflictions are greater then we can bear is so neer to despairing as that the same words express both for when we consider Cains words in that originall Tongue in which God spake we cannot tell whether the words be My punishment is greater then can be borne or My sin is greater then can be forgiven But Madam you who willingly sacrificed your self to God in your obedience to him in your own sickness cannot be doubted to dispute with him about any part of you which he shall be pleased to require at your hands The difference is great in the losse of an arme or a head of a child or a husband but to them who are incorporated into Christ their head there can be no beheading upon you who are a member of the Spouse of Christ the Church there can fal no widow-head nor orphanage upon those childeren to whom God is father I have not another office by your husbands death for I was your Chaplain before in my dayly prayers but I shall inlarge that office with other Collects than before that God will continue to you that peace which you have ever had in him and send you quiet and peaceable dispositions in all them with whom you shall have any thing to do in your temporall estate and matters of this world Amen At my poor house at S. Pauls 26. Octob. 1624. Your Ladyships very humble and thankfull Servant in Chr. Iesus J. Donne An Epitaph written by Dr. Corbet Bishop of Oxford on his friend Dr. Donne HE that wood 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 worth 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 Lawes Civil and Common to Judge any Cause Divinity great store above the rest Not of the last Edition but the best He must have language travell all the Arts Judgement to use or else he wants thy parts He must have friends the highest able to do Such as Mecaenas and Augustus too He must have such a sicknesse 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 B. C. 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 hearse But at thine poem or inscription Rich soul of wit and language we have none Indeed a silence does that tomb be fit Where is no Herald 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 cloth'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 awfull fire which once did burn In thy clear brain now fallen into thy urn Lives thereto fright rude Empericks from thence Which might profane thee by their Ignorance Who ever writes of thee and in a style Unworthy such a theme does but revile Thy precious dust and wake 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 mournfull dirge in audience of the King When pale lookes and faint accents of thy breath Presented so to life that piece of death That it was fear'd and propheci'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 mightst 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 i' st fit Thou who didst lend our age such summs of wit Should'st now re-borrow from her bankrupt mine That ore 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 Then with embased Coine those rites defray Commit we then thee to thy self nor blame Our drooping loves that thus to thine own fame Leave thee executors 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 metall trust To form the Diamond but the Diamonds dust FINIS * Iohn King B. of Lond. * Hen King now B.C. * In his Preface to Pseudo-Mar * In his book of Devotions Ezek. 37.3 * In his book of Devotions * Dr. King and Dr. Monfort