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
he surprized by a sudden apprehension of death but it was made with mature deliberation expressing himself an impartiall Father by making his childrens portions equall and a lover of his friends whom he remembred with Legacies fitly and discreetly chosen and bequeathed I cannot forbear a nomination of some of them for methinks they be persons that seem to challenge a recordation in this place as namely to his brother-in-law Sir Th. Grimes he gave that striking Clock which he had long worn in his pocket To his deare friend and executor Dr. King now Bishop of Chichester that model of Gold of the Synod of Dort with which the States presented him at his last being at the Hague and the two Pictures of Padrie Paulo and Fulgentio men of his acquaintance when he travelled Italy and of great note in that Nation for their remarkable learning To his ancient friend Dr. Brook Master of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge he gave the picture of the blessed Virgin and Ioseph To Dr. Winniff who succeeded him in the Deanry he gave a picture called the Sceleton To the succeeding Dean who was not then known he gave many necessaries of worth and usefull for his house and also severall Pictures and Ornaments for the Chappel with a desire that they might be registred and remain as a Legacy to his Successors To the Earles of Dorset and of Carlile he gave several Pictures and so he did to many other friends Legacies given rather to express his affection then to make any addition to their Estates but unto the poor he was full of Charity and unto many others who by his constant and long continued bounty might intitle themselves to be his almes-people for all these he made provision and so largely as having then six children living might to some appear more then 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 Iohn Donne by the mercy of Christ Iesus 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 cheerfull resolution which the same Spirit hath establisht in me to live die 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 S. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request designed for that purpose c. And this my last 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 superiours 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 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 for small debts he was a continuall giver to poor Scholars both of this and forraign 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 Festivall 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 by a too liberall heart then decayed in his estate and when the receiving of it was denied by saying he wanted not for as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to conceal and endure a sad poverty rather then 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 defire is that you who in the dayes of your plenty have cheered the hearts of so many of your friends would receive this from me and use it as a cordiall 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 dutifull son to his Mother carefull 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 forraign 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 Deanery as he numbred his yeares and at the foot of a private account to which God and his Angells were onely 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 blest each yeares poor remainder with a thankfull prayer which for that they discover a more then common Devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his own words So all is that remaines of these two yeares Deo Opt. Max. benigno Lirgitori à me ab iis Quibus haec à me reseâ—vantur Gloria gratia in aeternum Amen So that this year God hath blessed me land mine with Multiplicatae sunt super Nos misericordi ae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae eximmensû Bonitate tuâ nobis elargiri Dignatus sis in quorumcunque Manus dovenerint in tuam Semper cedant gloriam Amen In sine horum sex Annorum manet Quid habeo quid non accepi à Domino Lirgiatur etiam ut quae largitus est Sua iterum fiant bono corum 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 defuissi Ita liberi quibus quae supersunt Supersunt grato animo eâ— accipiant Et beneficum authorem recognoscant 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 thence And having never for almost twenty yeares omitted his personall Attendance on his Majesty in that moneth 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 Ianuary 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 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 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 happinesse and I doubt not but among his other blessings God will adde 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 knowes an ill-grounded interpretation for I have alwaies been sorrier when I could not preach then 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 speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leisure to write then you to read yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your Son as I wish Your poor friend and servant in Christ Iesus J. Donne Before that moneth ended he was designed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and had in his sicknesse so prepared for that imployment that as he had long thirsted for it so he resolved his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came therefore to London some few dayes before his day appointed At his being there many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that task and therefore disswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his daies but he passionately denyed their requests saying he would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would not now withdraw it in his last employment professing an holy ambition to performe that sacred work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himself not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse 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 glasse will move towards its Centre and measure out an hour of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot yet after some faint pauses in his zealous prayer his strong desires enabled his weake 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 teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text prophetically chosen and that Dr. Donne had preach't his own funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had enabled him to performe this desired duty he hastened to his house out of which he never moved till like St. Stephen he was carryed 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 businesse or to talk A friend that had often been a witnesse of his free and facetious discourse asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed with a countenance so full of cheerfull 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 severall friends that have left me here and are gone to that place from which they shall not returne 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 restlesse to me But at this present time I was in a serious Contemplation of the goodnesse of God to me who am lesse then 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 temporall imployment 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 yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been inabled to requite most of those friends which shewed me kindnesse when my fortune was very low and as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have liv'd to be usefull and comfortable to my good father in Law Sir George Moore whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporall crosses I have maintained my own mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull 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 mercifull God who is not willing to see what I have done amisse 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 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
we partake so both earth and heaven for as our bodies glorified shall be capable of spirituall joy so our souls demerged into those bodies are allowed to partake earthly pleasure Our soul is not sent hither onely to go back again we have some errand to do here nor is it sent into prison because it comes innocent and he which sent it is just As we may not kill our selves so we may not bury our selves which is done or indangered in a dull Monastick sadness which is so much worse then jollity for upon that word I durst And certainly despair is infinitely worse then presumption both because this is an excesse of love that of fear and because this is up that down the hill easier and more stumbling Heaven is expressed by singing hell by weeping And though our blessed Saviour be never noted to have laughed yet his countenance is said ever to be smiling And that even moderate mirth of heart and face and all I wish to my self and perswade you to keep This alacrity is not had by a generall charity and equanimity to all mankind for that is to seek fruit in a wildernesse nor from a singular friend for that is to fetch it out of your own pocket but the various and abundant grace of it is good company in which no rank no number no quality but ill and such a degree of that as may corrupt and poyson the good is exempt For in nearer then them your friend and somewhat nearer then he in your self you must allow some inordinatenesse of affections and passions For it is not true that they are not naturall but stormes and tempests of our bloud and humours for they are naturall but sickly And as the Indian priests expressed an excellent charity by building Hospitalls and providing chirurgery for birds and beasts lamed by mischance or age or labour so must we not cut off but cure these affections which are the bestiall part To Sir H. Goodere SIR EVery Tuesday I make account that I turn a great hour-glass and consider that a weeks life is run out since I writ But if I ask my self what I have done in the last watch or would do in the next I can say nothing if I say that I have passed it without hurting any so may the Spider in my window The primitive Monkes were excusable in their retirings and enclosures of themselves for even of them every one cultivated his own garden and orchard that is his soul and body by meditation and manufactures and they ought the world no more since they consumed none of her sweetnesse nor begot others to burden her But for me if I were able to husband all my time so thriftily as not onely not to wound my soul in any minute by actuall sin but not to rob and couzen her by giving any part to pleasure or businesse but bestow it all upon her in meditation yet even in that I should wound her more and contract another guiltinesse As the Eagle were very unnaturall if because she is able to do it she should pearch a whole day upon a tree staring in contemplation of the majesty and glory of the Sun and let her young Eglets starve in the nest Two of the most precious things which God hath afforded us here for the agony and exercise of our sense and spirit which are a thirst and inhiation after the next life and a frequency of prayer and meditation in this are often envenomed and putrefied and stray into a corrupt disease for as God doth thus occasion and positively concurre to evil that when a man is purposed to do a great sin God infuses some good thoughts which make him choose a lesse sin or leave out some circumstance which aggravated that so the devil doth not onely suffer but provoke us to some things naturally good upon condition that we shall omit some other more necessary and more obligatory And this is his greatest subtilty because herein we have the deceitfull comfort of having done well and can very hardly spie our errour because it is but an insensible omission and no accusing act With the first of these I have often suspected my self to be overtaken which is with a desire of the next life which though I know it is not meerly out of a wearinesse of this because I had the same desires when I went with the tyde and enjoyed fairer hopes then now yet I doubt worldly encumbrances have increased it I would not that death should take me asleep I would not have him meerly seise me and onely declare me to be dead but win me and overcome me When I must shipwrack I would do it in a Sea where mine impotency might have some excuse not in a sullen weedy lake where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming Therefore I would fain do something but that I cannot tell what is no wonder For to choose is to do but to be no part of any body is to be nothing At most the greatest persons are but greatwens and excrescences men of wit and delighfull conversation but as moles for ornament except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole This I made account that I begun early when I understood the study of our laws but was diverted by the worst voluptuousnesse which is an Hydroptique immoderate desire of humane learning and languages beautifull ornaments to great fortunes but mine needed an occupation and a course which I thought I entred well into when I submitted my self into such a service as I thought might imploy those poor advantages which I had And there I stumbled too yet I would try again for to this hour I am nothing or so little that I am scarce subject and argument good enough for one of mine own letters yet I fear that doth not ever proceed from a good root that I am so well content to be lesse that is dead You Sir are far enough from these descents your vertue keeps you secure and your naturall disposition to mirth will preserve you but lose none of these holds a slip is often as dangerous as a bruise and though you cannot fall to my lowness yet in a much lesse distraction you may meet my sadness for he is no safer which falls from an high Tower into the leads then he which falls from thence to the ground make therefore to your self some mark and go towards it alegrement Though I be in such a planetary and erratick fortune that I can doe nothing constantly yet you may finde some constancy in my constant advising you to it Your hearty true friend J. Donne I came this evening from M. Jones his house in Essex where M. Martin hath been and left a relation of Captain Whitcocks death perchance it is no news to you but it was to me without doubt want broke him for when M. Hollands Company by reason of the plague