THE LIFE OF IOHN DONNE Dr. in DIVINTY AND Late DEAN of Saint PAULS Church LONDON The second impression corrected and enlarged Ecclus. 48.14 He did wonders in his life and at his death his works were marvelous LONDON Printed by I. G. for R. Marriot and are to be sold at his shop under S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1658. TO MY Noble honoured Friend Sir ROBET HOLT of Aston in the County of Warwick Baronet SIR WHen this relation of the life of Doctor Donne was first made publick it had besides the approbation of our late learned eloquent King a conjunction with the Authors most excellent Sermons to support it and thus it lay some time fortified against prejudice and those passions that are by busie and malicious men too freely vented against the dead And yet now after almost twenty yeares when though the memory of Dr. Donne himself must not cannot die so long as men speak English yet when I thought Time had made this relation of him so like my self as to become useless to the world and content to be forgotten I find that a retreat into a desired privacy will not be afforded for the Printers will again expose it and me to publick exceptions and without those supports which we first had and needed and in an Age too in which Truth Innocence have not beene able to defend themselves from worse then severe censures This I foresaw and Nature teaching me selfe-preservation and my long experience of your abilities assuring me that in you it may be found to you Sir do I make mine addresses for an umbrage and protection and I make it with so much humble boldnesse as to say 't were degenerous in you not to afford it For Sir Dr. Donne was so much a part of your self as to be incorporated into your Family by so noble a friendship that I may say there was a marriage of souls betwixt him and your * reverend Grandfather who in his life was an Angel of our once glorious Church and now no common Star in heaven And Dr. Donne's love died not with him but was doubled upon his Heire your beloved Uncle the Bishop of * Chichester that lives in this froward generation to be an ornament to his Calling And this affection to him was by Dr. D. so testified in his life that he then trusted him with the very secrets of his soul at his death with what was dearest to him even his fame estate children And you have yet a further title to what was Dr. Donne's by that dear affection friendship that was betwixt him and your parents by which he entailed a love upon your self even in your infancy which was encreased by the early testimonies of your growing merits and by them continued till D. Donne put on immortality and so this mortall was turned into a love that cannot die And Sir 't was pity he was lost to you in your minority before you had attained a judgement to put a true value upon the living beauties and elegancies of his conversation and pitty too that so much of them as were capable of such an expression were not drawn by the pensil of a Tytian or a Tentoret by a pen equall and more lasting then their art for his life ought to be the example of more then that age in which he died And yet this copy though very much indeed too much short of the Originall will present you with some features not unlike your dead friend and with fewer blemishes and more ornaments than when 't was first made publique which creates a contentment to my selfe because it is the more worthy of him and because I may with more civility intitle you to it And in this designe of doing so I have not a thought of what is pretended in most Dedications a Commutation for Courtesies no indeed Sir I put no such value upon this trifle for your owning it will rather increase my Obligations But my desire is that into whose hands soever this shall fall it may to them be a testimony of my gratitude to your self and Family who descended to such a degree of humility as to admit me into their friendship in the dayes of my youth and notwithstanding my many infirmities have continued me in it till I am become gray-headed and as Time has added to my yeares have still increased and multiplied their favours This Sir is the intent of this Dedication and having made the declaration of it thus publick I shall conclude it with commending them and you to Gods deare love I remain Sir what your many merits have made me to be The humblest of your Servants Isaac VValton TO THE READER MY desire is to inform and assure you that shall become my Reader that in that part of this following discourse which is onely narration I either speak my own knowledge or from the testimony of such as dare do any thing rather that speak an untruth And for that part of it which is my own observation or opinion if I had a power I would not use it to force any mans assent but leave him a liberty to dis-believe what his own reason inclines him to Next I am to inform you that whereas Dr. Donne's life was formerly printed with his Sermons and then had the same Preface or Introduction to it I have not omitted it now because I have no such confidence in what I have done as to appear without an apology for my undertaking it I have said all when I have wished happinesse to my Reader I. VV. THE Life of Dr. DONNE Late DEANE of Saint PAULS Church Lond. IF the late deceased Provost of Eaton Colledge Sir Henry Wotton that great Master of Language and Art had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written which was a work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it Betwixt whom and the Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youth as nothing but death should force a separation And though their bodies were divided yet their affections were not for that Learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond death and the forgetfull grave And this he testifyed by intreating me whom he acquainted with his intentions to inquire of some particulars that concerned it not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory might make my diligence usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectifyed by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad news heard also that these Sermons were to be printed want the Authors Life wch I thought worthy to be recorded indignation or grief truly I know not wch transported me so far that I reviewed my forsaken collections resolved the world should see the best narration of it that my artlesse pen guided by the hand of truth could present to it I shall
viewing Ierusalem and the Sepulchre of our Saviour But at his being in the furthest parts of Italy the disappointment of company or of a safe Convoy or the uncertainty of returns for money into those remote parts denied him that happiness which he did often occasionally mention with a deploration Not long after his returne into England that exemplary pattern of gravity and wisdom the Lord Elsemore Keeper of the great Seal and Lord cellour of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other abilities and much affecting his person and condition took him to be his chief Secretary supposing and intending it to be an Introduction to some more weighty employment in the State for which his Lordship did often protest he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship in this time of Mr. Donne's attendance upon him account him to be so much his servant as to forget he was his friend and to testifie it did alwayes use him with much courtesie appointing him a place at his own table to which he esteemed his company and discourse a great ornament He continued that employment for the space of five years being daily usefull and not mercenary to his friends During which time he I dare not say unhappily fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman that lived in that Family who was Niece to the Lady Elsemore and Daughter to Sir George Moor then Chancellour of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George had some intimation of it and knowing prevention to be a great part of wisdom did therefore remove her with much haste from that to his own house at Lothesley but too late by reason of some faithfull promises which were so interchangably passed as never to be violated These promises were onely known to themselves and the friends of both parties used much diligence and many arguments to kill or coole their affections to each other but in vain for love is a flattering mischief that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too often prove to be the children of that blind father a passion that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds remove feathers and beget in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire And such an industry did notwithstanding much watchfulness against it bring them together I forbear to tell how and to a marriage too without the allowance of those friends whose approbation always was ever will be necessary to make even a vertuous love become lawful And that the knowledge of their marriage might not fall like an unexpected tempest on those that were unwilling to have it so but that preapprehensions might make it the less enormous it was purposely whispered into the ears of many that it was so yet by none that could attest it But to put a period to the jealousies of Sir George Doubt often begetting more restless thoughts then the certain knowledge of what we fear the news was in favour to Mr. Donne and with his allowance made known to Sir George by his honourable friend and neighbour Henry Earl of Northumberland but it was to Sir George so immeasurably unwelcome and so transported him that as though his passion of anger and inconsideration might exceed theirs of love and errour he presently engaged his sister the Lady Elsemore to joyn with him to procure her Lord to discharge Mr. Donne of the place he held under his Lordship This request was followed with violence and though Sir George were remembred that errors might be over-punished and desired therefore to forbear till second considerations might clear some scruples yet he became restlesse untill his suit was granted and the punishment executed The Lord Chancellour then at Mr. Donnes dismission saying he parted with a Friend and protested he thought him a Secretary fitter for a King then a Subject But this Physick of M. Donne's dismission was not strong enough to purge out all Sir George his choler who was not satisfied till Mr. Donne and his Compupill in Cambridge that married him namely Samuel Brook who was after Doctor in Divinity and Master of Trinity Colledge and his brother Mr. Christopher Brook Mr. Donne's Chamber-fellow in Lincolns Inne who gave Mr. Donne his Wife and witnessed the marriage were all committed and to three severall prisons Mr. Donne was first enlarged who neither gave rest to his body or brain nor any friend in whom he might hope to have an interest untill he had procured an enlargement for his two imprisoned friends He was now at Liberty but his dayes were still cloudy and being past these troubles others did still multiply upon him for his wife was to her extreme sorrow detained fom him and though with Iacob he endured not an hard service for her yet he lost a good one and was forced to make good his title to her and to get possession of her by a long and a restlesse suit in Law which proved troublesome and chargeable to him whose youth and travell and bounty had brought his estate into a narrow compass It is observed and most truly that silence and submission are charming qualities and work most upon passionate men and it proved so with Sir George for these and a generall report of Mr. Donne's merits together with his winning behaviour which when it would intice had a strange kind of elegant irresistible art these and time had so dispassionated Sir George that as the world had approved his daughters choice so he also could not but see a more then ordinary merit in his new son and this melted him into so much remorse for Love and Anger are so like Agues as to have hot and cold fits And love in parents though it may be quenched yet is easily re-kindled and expires not till death denies mankind a naturall heat that he laboured his sons restoration to his place using to that end both his own and his sisters power to her Lord but with no successe for his answer was That though he was unfeignedly sorry for what he had done yet it was inconsistent with his place and credit to discharge and re-admit admit servants at the request of passionate petitioners Sir George's endeavour for Mr. Donne's re-admission was by all meanes to be kept secret for men do more naturally reluct for errours than submit to put on those blemishes that attend their visible acknowledgement However it was not long before Sir George appeared to be so far reconciled as to wish their happinesse and not to deny them his paternall blessing but refused to contribute any meanes that might conduce to their livelihood Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part spent in many and chargable Travels Books and dear-bought Experience he out of all employment that might yield a support for himself and wife who had been curiously and plentifully educated both their natures generous and accustomed to confer but not to receive
who am I that thou art so mindfull of me So mindfull of me as to lead me for more then forty yeares through this wildernesse of the many temptations and various turnings of a dangerous life so mercifull to me as to move the learned'st of Kings to descend to move me to serve at thy Altar so mercifull to me as to move my heart to imbrace this holy motion thy motions I will imbrace And I now say with the blessed Virgin Be it with thy servant as seemeth best in thy sight and so I do take the cup of salvation and will call upon thy Name and preach thy Gospel Such strifes as these St. Austine had when St. Ambrose indeavoured his conversion to Christianity with which he confesseth he acquainted his friend Alipius Our learned Author a man fit to write after no mean Copy did the like And declaring his intentions to his dear friend Dr. King then Bishop of London a man famous in his generation and no stranger to Mr. Donnes abilities For he had been Chaplain to the Lord Chancellour at the time of Mr. Donnes being his Lordships Secretary That Reverend man did receive the news with much gladnesse and after some expressions of joy and a perswasion to be constant in his pious purpose he proceeded with all convenient speed to ordain him both Deacon and Priest Now the English Church had gain'd a second St. Austine for I thinke none was so like him before his conversion none so like St. Ambrose after it and if his youth had the infirmities of the one his age had the excellencies of the other the learning and holinesse of both And now all his studies which had been occasionally diffused were all concentred in Divinity Now he had a new calling new thoughts and a new imployment for his wit and eloquence Now all his earthly affections were changed into divine love and all the faculties of his own soul were ingaged in the conversion of others In preaching the glad tidings of remission to repenting sinners and peace to each troubled soul To these he applyed himself with all care diligence and now such a change was wrought in him that he could say with David Oh how amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord God of Hosts Now he declared openly that when he required a temporal God gave him a spiritual-blessing And that he was now gladder to be a door-keeper in the house of God then he could to be injoy the noblest of all temporall imployments Presently after he entred into his holy profession the King sent for him and made him his Chaplain in ordinary and promised to take a particular care for his preferment And though his long familiarity with Scholars and persons of greatest quality was such as might have given some men boldnesse enough to have preached to any eminent Auditory yet his modesty in this imployment was such that he could not be perswaded to it but went usually accompanied with some one friend to preach privately in some villages not far from London This he did till his Majesty sent and appointed him a day to preach to him and though much were expected from him both by his Majesty and others yet he was so happy which few are as to satisfie and exceed their expectations preaching the Word so as shewed his own heart was possest with those very thoughts and joyes that he laboured to distill into others A Preacher in earnest weeping sometimes for his Auditory sometimes with them alwaies preaching to himself like an Angell from a cloud but in none carrying some as St. Paul was to Heaven in holy raptures and inticing others by a sacred art and Courtship to amend their lives here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that practised it and a vertue so as to make it be loved even by those that lov'd it not and all this with a most particular grace and an unexpressable addition of comelinesse There may be some that may incline to think such indeed as have not heard him that my affection to my friend hath transported me to an immoderate commendation of his preaching If this meets with any such Let me intreat though I will omit many yet that he will receive at least a double witnesse for what I say being attested by a Gentleman of worth Mr. Chidley and a frequent hearer of his Sermons It is part of a funerall elogy writ on him and a known truth though it be in verse Each Altar had his fire He kept his love but not his object wit He did not banish but transplanted it Taught it both time place brought it home To piety which it doth best become For say had ever pleasure such a dresse Have you seen crimes so shap'r or lovelyness Such as his lips did clothe Religion in Had not reproof a beauty-passing sin Corrupted nature sorrowed that she stood So neer the danger of becomming good And when he preach't she wish't her eares exempt From piety that had such power to tempt More of this and more witnesses might be brought but I forbear and returne That summer in the very same moneth in which he entred into sacred Orders and was made the Kings Chaplain His Majesty then going his Progresse was intreated to receive an entertainment in the University of Cambridge And Mr. Donne attending his Majesty at that time his Majesty was pleased to recommend him to the University to be made Doctor in Divinity Doctor Harsnet after Arch-Bishop of York was then Vice-Chancellour who knowing him to be the Author of the Pseudo-Martyr required no other proof of his abilities but proposed it to the University who presently assented and exprest a gladnesse that they had such an occasion to intitle him to be theirs His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent and he so known and beloved by persons of quality that within the first year of his entring into sacred Orders he had fourteen Advowsons of several Benifices presented to him But they were in the Country and he could not leave his beloved London to which place he had a naturall inclination having received both his birth and education in it and contracted a friendship there with many whose conversation multiplyed the joyes of his life But an imployment that might affixe him to that place would be welcome for he needed it Immediately after his return from Cambridge his wife dyed leaving him a man of an unsetled estate and having buryed five the carefull father of seven children then living to whom he gave a voluntary assurance never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother which promise he kept most faithfully burying with his teares all his earthly joyes in his most dear and deserving wives grave and betake himself to a most retired and solitary life In this retirednesse which was often from the sight of his dearest friends he became crucified to the world and all those vanities those imaginary pleasures that are dayly
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