caster, his Ambassador to those unsettled Princes; and, by a special 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 always put a great value on him, and taken a great pleasure in his conversation and discourse and his friends at Lincoln's Inn were as glad; for they feared that his immoderate study, and sadness for his wife's death, would, as Jacob said, "make his days few," and, respecting his bodily health, "evil" too; and of this there were many visible signs.

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At his going, he left his friends of Lincoln's Inn,* and they him, with many reluctations; for, though he could not say as St. Paul to his Ephesians, " Behold, you, to whom I have preached 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 all concluding that his troubled mind, with the help of his unintermitted studies, hastened the decays of his weak body. But God, who is the God of all wisdom and goodness, turned it to the best; for this employment-to say nothing of the event of it—did not only divert him from those too serious studies and sad thoughts, but seemed to give him a new life, by a true occasion of joy, to be an eye-witness of the health of his most dear and most honoured mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, in a foreign 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 canonical habit, and more glad to be an ear-witness of his excellent and powerful preaching.

About fourteen months after his departure out of England, he returned to his friends of Lincoln's Inn, with his sorrows moderated, and his health improved; and there betook himself to his constant course of preaching.

About a year after his return out of Germany, Dr. Carey† was

"A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at Lincoln's Inne, April 18, 1619."

In the margin of the first edition of Donne's Life, there is at the preceding sentence reference to Genesis xlvii. 9.

+ Valentine Carey, Master of Christ's College in Cambridge, and Dean of St. Paul's, is said to have been born in Northumberland, and descended of the

made Bishop of Exeter, and by his removal the Deanery of St. Paul's being vacant, the King sent to Dr. Donne, and appointed him to attend him at dinner the next day. When his Majesty was sat 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, knowing you love London, I do therefore make you Dean of St. Paul's; and, when I have dined, then do you take your beloved dish home to your study, say grace there to yourself, and much good may it do you."

Immediately after he came to his Deanery, he employed workmen to repair and beautify the Chapel; suffering as holy David once vowed, "his eyes and temples to take no rest, till he had first beautified the house of God."*

The next quarter following, when his father-in-law, Sir George More,-whom time had made a lover and admirer of him-came to pay to him the conditioned sum of twenty pounds, he refused to receive it; and said-as good Jacob did, when he heard his beloved son Joseph was alive, “It is enough;' You have been kind to me and mine: I know your present condition is such as not to abound, and I hope mine is, or will be such as not to need it: I will therefore receive no more from you upon that contract ;" and in testimony of it freely gave him up his bond.

Immediately after his admission into his Deanery, the Vicarage of St. Dunstan in the West,† London, fell to him by the death of Dr. White, the advowson of it having been given to him long

noble family of Hunsdon. He was consecrated Bishop of Exeter, Nov. 18th, 1621, and he died June 10th, 1626, and was buried in St. Paul's.

* The first edition of this life has a reference here to Psalm cxxxii. 4, 5; and in the next paragraph to Genesis, xl. v. 28.

+ Izaak Walton was an inhabitant of this parish, and thus became intimately acquainted with Dr. Donne.

Dr Thomas White, born in Bristol, and entered a Student, of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, about 1566. He was well known and much esteemed as a preacher, being minister of St. Gregory's, near St. Paul's, in London, and afterward Rector of St. Dunstan's in Fleet-Street. In 1585, he was made a Canon of St. Paul's; in 1590, Treasurer of Salisbury; in 1591, a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford; and in 1593, a Canon of St. George's Windsor. His only publications were Sermons; but his charities to Bristol, and to Sion Col

before by his honourable friend Richard Earl of Dorset,* then the patron, and confirmed by his brother the late deceased Edward, both of them men of much honour.

By these, and another ecclesiastical endowment which fell to him about the same time, given to him formerly by the Earl of Kent,† he was enabled to become charitable to the poor, and kind to his friends, and to make such provision for his children, that they were not left scandalous, as relating to their, or his profession and quality.

The next Parliament, which was within that present year, he was chosen Prolocutor to the Convocation, and about that time was appointed by his Majesty, his most gracious master, to preach very many occasional Sermons, as at St. Paul's Cross, and other places. All which employments he performed to the admiration of the representative body of the whole Clergy of this nation.

He was once, and but once, clouded with the King's displeasure, and it was about this time; which was occasioned by some malicious whisperer, who had told his Majesty that Dr. Donne had put on the general humour of the pulpits, and was become

lege, London, and his foundation of a Lecture on Moral Philosophy at Oxford, have better preserved his memory. He died March 1st, 1623.

* Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset, was born March 28th, 1589, at the Charter-house in London; and Feb. 27th, 1608-9, was married to Anne, daughter and heir of the famous George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, his father having died two days before. He died on Easter Sunday, March 28th, 1624; and his lady, in a manuscript history of her life, has given him the character of an amiable man, a scholar, a soldier, a courtier, and a gentleman. His brother Edward, fourth Earl of Dorset, was born in 1590; and having been accomplished both by study and travel, was early distinguished for his eminent abilities. In 1613, he was involved in a quarrel with the Lord Bruce, which terminated in a duel, when the latter was killed near Antwerp. In 1620, he was made a Knight of the Bath, and in 1625, one of the chief Commanders sent to assist the King of Bohemia, and Knight of the Garter. He adhered to the Royal cause throughout the Civil Wars, and took the King's murder so much to heart, as never after to leave his dwelling, but died July 17th, 1652, at Dorset House, in Fleet Street, London.

+ The Earl of Kent, was Henry Grey, ninth Earl of his family, who married Elizabeth, second daughter, and co-heir of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and who died without issue at his house in White Friars, London, Nov. 21st, 1639.

busy in insinuating a fear of the King's inclining to Popery, and a dislike of his government; and particularly for the King's then turning the evening Lectures into Catechising, and expounding the Prayer of our Lord, and of the Belief, and Commandments. His Majesty was the more inclinable to believe this, for that a person of Nobility and great note, betwixt whom and Dr. Donne there had been a great friendship, was at this very time discarded the Court-I shall forbear his name, unless I had a fairer occasion-and justly committed to prison; which begot many rumours in the common people, who in this nation think they are not wise, unless they be busy about what they understand not, and especially about religion.

The King received this news with so much discontent and restlessness, that he would not suffer the sun to set and leave him under this doubt; but sent for Dr. Donne, and required his answer to the accusation; which was so clear and satisfactory, that the King said, "he was right glad he rested no longer under the suspicion." When the King had said this, Doctor Donne kneeled down, and thanked his Majesty, and protested his answer was faithful, and free from all collusion, and therefore, "desired that he might not rise, till, as in like cases, he always had from God, so he might have from his Majesty, some assurance that he stood clear and fair in his opinion." At which the King raised him from his knees with his own hands, and "protested he believed him; and that he knew he was an honest man, and doubted not but that he loved him truly." And, having thus dismissed him, he called some Lords of his Council into his chamber, and said with much earnestness, "My Doctor is an honest man; and, my Lords, I was never better satisfied with an answer than he hath now made me; and I always rejoice when I think that by my means he became a Divine.”

He was made Dean in the fiftieth year of his age; and in his fifty-fourth year, a dangerous sickness seized him, which inclined him to a consumption: but God, as Job thankfully acknowledged, preserved his spirit, and kept his intellectuals as clear and perfect, as when that sickness first seized his body; but it continued long, and threatened him with death, which he dreaded not.

In this distemper of body, his dear friend, Dr. Henry King,*then chief Residentiary of that Church, and late Bishop of Chichester--a man generally known by the Clergy of this nation, and as generally noted for his obliging nature, visited him daily; and observing that his sickness rendered his recovery doubtful, he chose a seasonable time to speak to him to this purpose.

"Mr. Dean, I am, by your favour, no stranger to your temporal estate, and you are no stranger to the offer lately made us, for the renewing a lease of the best Prebend's corps belonging to our church; and you know 'twas denied, for that our tenant being very rich, offered to find at so low a rate as held not proportion with his advantages: but I will either raise him to an higher sum, or procure that the other Residentiaries shall join to accept of what was offered; one of these, I can and will by your favour do without delay, and without any trouble either to your body or mind: I beseech you to accept of my offer, for I know it will be a considerable addition to your present estate, which I know needs it." To this, after a short pause, and raising himself upon his bed, he made this reply:

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My most dear friend, I most humbly thank you for your many favours, and this in particular; but in my present condition I shall not accept of your proposal; for doubtless there is such a sin as sacrilege; if there were not, it could not have a name in scripture and the primitive clergy were watchful against all appearances of that evil; and indeed then all christians looked upon it with horror and detestation, judging it to be even an open defi. ance of the power and providence of Almighty God, and a sad presage of a declining religion. But instead of such christians, who had selected times set apart to fast and pray to God, for a

* Henry King was born in 1591, at Wornal in Bucks, and educated at Westminster, whence he was elected a student of Christ-Church, Oxford, in 1608. Having taken the degrees in Arts he " became a most florid preacher," says Wood, and successively Chaplain to James I., Arch-Deacon of Colchester, Residentiary of St. Paul's, Canon of Christ-Church, Chaplain to Charles I., Doctor of Divinity, and Dean of Rochester, from which he was advanced to the Bishopric of Chichester in 1641, which he held till the time of his death in 1669. He turned the Psalms into verse (12mo. 1651, and 1654), being disgusted with the old translation, and published in 1657 a small volume of Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets."

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