pious clergy, which they then did obey, our times abound with men that are busy and litigious about trifles and church-ceremonies, and yet so far from scrupling sacrilege, that they make not so much as a quære what it is: but I thank God I have; and dare not now upon my sick bed, when Almighty God hath made me useless to the service of the church, make any advantages out of it. But if he shall again restore me to such a degree of health, as again to serve at his altar, I shall then gladly take the reward which the bountiful benefactors of this church have designed me; for God knows my children and relations will need it. In which number, my mother,-whose credulity and charity has contracted a very plentiful to a very narrow estate-must not be forgotten. But Dr. King, if I recover not, that little worldly estate that I shall leave behind me that very little, when divided into eight parts-must, if you deny me not so charitable a favour, fall into your hands, as my most faithful friend and executor; of whose care and justice I make no more doubt, than of God's blessing, on that which I have conscientiously collected for them; but it shall not be augmented on my sick-bed; and this I declare to be my unalterable resolution."

*

The reply to this was only a promise to observe his request.' Within a few days his distempers abated; and as his strength increased, so did his thankfulness to Almighty God, testified in his most excellent Book of Devotions, which he published at his recovery; in which the reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possessed his soul, paraphrased and made public: a book, that may not unfitly be called a Sacred Picture of Spiritual Ec. stasies, occasioned and appliable to the emergencies of that sickness; which book, being a composition of Meditations, Disquisitions, and Prayers, he writ on his sick-bed; herein imitating the holy Patriarchs, who were wont to build their altars in that place where they had received their blessings.

This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death, and he

* The account of Bishop King's offer to Dr. Donne, from the words, "In this distemper," to "observe his request," was not inserted until the second edition of this life. In the first edition the following scriptural references appear on the margin: Genesis xii. 7, 8; xxvii. 18; I Corinthians xv. 31; Job xxx. 15; vii. 3.

saw the grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say, his recovery was supernatural: but that God that then restored his health, continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Abury Hatch, in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant infirmity-vapours from the spleen-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 Job, "My welfare passeth away as a cloud, the days of my affliction have taken hold of me, and weary nights are appointed for me."

Reader, this sickness continued long, not only weakening, but wearying him so much, that my desire is, he may now take some rest; and that before I speak of his death, thou wilt not think it an impertinent digression to look back with me upon some observations of his life, which, whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits, may, I hope, not unfitly exercise thy consideration.

His marriage was the remarkable error of his life; an error, which, though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain paradoxes, yet he was very far from justifying it: and though his wife's competent years, and other reasons, might be justly urged to moderate severe censures, yet he would occasionally condemn himself for it and doubtless it had been attended with an heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so mutual and cordial affections, as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly, than 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 only to exercise his sharp wit and high fancy; and in those pieces which were facetiously composed and carelessly 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 joined to assist him with their utmost skill.

It is a truth, that in his penitential years, viewing some of those pieces that had been loosely-God knows, too loosely-scattered in his youth, he wished they had been abortive, or so short-lived that his own eyes had witnessed their funerals: but, though he

was no friend to them, he was not so fallen out with heavenly poetry, as to forsake that; no, not 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 Hymn, expressing the great joy that then possessed his soul, in the assurance of God's favour to him when he composed it:

AN HYMN

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 won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
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 thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, 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 Hymn, for that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the Choristers of St. Paul's 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 Hymn have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul in my sickness, when I composed it. And, O the power of church-music! that harmony added to this Hymn has raised the affections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe that I always return from paying this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness 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. Augustine's life may there find, that towards his dissolution he wept abundantly, that the enemies of Christianity had broke in upon them, and profaned and ruined their Sanctuaries, and because their Public Hymns and Lauds were lost out of their Churches. And after this manner have many devout souls lifted up their hands, and offered acceptable sacrifices unto Almighty God, where Dr. Donne offered his, and now lies buried.

But now, Oh Lord! how is that place become (1656) desolate!†

* St. Augustine died after the Goths and Vandals had with great cruelty and slaughter, over-run the greatest part of his native country of Africa; in which only three cities of any eminence were preserved from their fury, Hippo, his own city being one, though it was besieged by them for fourteen months. According to his prayer he was delivered out of their hands by the mercy of God, who took him to himself during the siege.

+ By the votes of both Houses, passed in the Long Parliament, Sept. 10th, 11th, 1642, for the abolishing of Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, "the very foundation of this famous Cathedral,” says Sir William Dugdale, "was utterly shaken in pieces. In the following year, the famous Cross in the Church-yard, which had been for many ages the most noted and solemn place for the gravest Divines and greatest scholars to preach at, was pulled down to the ground: the stalls in the choir were taken away, as also part of the pavement torn up, and the monuments demolished or defaced. The scaffolds erected for repair of the Church were given to the soldiers, who dug pits in several places in the fabric, for sawing up the timber; even where some reverend Bishops and other persons of quality lay interred: and afterwards the body of the Church was frequently converted into a horse-quarter for soldiers, though a part of the choir was separated by a brick wall as a preaching place, the entrance to which was at the uppermost window on the north side eastwards.

Before I proceed further, I think fit to inform 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 Cross: his varying no otherwise, than to affix him not to a Cross, but to an Anchor-the emblem of Hope ;this he caused to be drawn in little, and then many of those figures thus drawn to be engraven very small in Helitropium* stones, and set in gold; and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends, to be used as seals, or rings, and kept as memorials of him, and of his affection to them.

His dear friends and benefactors, Sir Henry Goodier,† and Sir Robert Drewry, could not be of that number; nor could the Lady Magdalen Herbert, the mother of George Herbert, for

* The gem named Heliotropium by the ancients is supposed to be the modern bloodstone.

The son and heir of Sir William Goodier, of Monkskirby, in Warwickshire, Knight, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King James I. He once enjoyed, in succession, the Manor of Baginton, in the above county; but not being so fortunate in estate, by following the Court, he alienated the Lordship to his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Rainsford, of Clifford, in Gloucestershire. He married his cousin Frances, the daughter of Sir Henry Goodier, a great supporter of, and sufferer for, Mary Queen of Scotland; and he left four daughters, of whom, Lucy, the eldest, was married to Sir Francis Nethersole, and Weever, in his Ancient Funerall Monuments, gives this epitaph to his memory;

"An ill yeare of a Goodyer vs bereft,

Who, gon to God, much lacke of him here left;
Full of good gifts, of body and of minde,

Wise, comely, learned, eloquent, and kinde."

‡ Lady Magdalen Herbert, was the daughter of Sir Richard Newport, and Margaret, youngest daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Bromley, one of the Privy Council, and Executor to Henry VIII. She was married to Richard Herbert, Esq. and was the mother of George Herbert, in whose life Walton dilates on her character, and Edward Lord Herbert, of Cherbury. She survived her husband, who died in 1597, and, says the latter of her sons, " gave rare testimonies of an incomparable piety to God, and love to her children: as being most assiduous and devout in her daily, both public and private, prayers; and so careful to provide for her posterity, that though it were in her power to give her estate, which was very great, to whom she would, yet she continued still unmarried, after she lived most virtuously and lovingly with her husband.