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moft confiderable friends, with whom he took a folemn and deliberate farewel, commending to their confiderations fome fentences useful for the regulation of their lives, and then difmiffed them, as good Jacob did his fons, with a fpiritual benediction. The Sunday following, he appointed his fervants, that if there were any business yet undone that concerned him of themselves, it should be prepared against Saturday next: for after that day he would not mix his thoughts with any thing that concerned this world; nor ever did;-but, as Job, fo he "waited for the appointed day "of his diffolution."

And now he was fo happy as to have nothing to do but to die; to do which, he ftood in need of no longer time; for he had ftudied it long, and to fo happy a perfection, that in a former fickness he called God to witnefs (in his Book of Devotions written then) "He was that minute "ready to deliver his foul into his hands, if that minute God would de"termine his diffolution." In that ficknefs he begged of God the conftancy to be preferved in that estate for ever: And his patient expectation to have his immortal foul difrobed from her garment of mortality, makes me confident, that he now had a modest affurance that his prayers were then heard, and his petition granted. He lay fifteen days earnestly expecting his hourly change, and in the laft hour of his last day, as his body melted away and vapoured into fpirit, his foul having, I verily believe, fome revelation of the Beatifical Vifion, he faid, "I were miferable if I "might not die," and after thofe words closed many periods of his faint breath by faying often, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done." His fpeech, which had long been his ready and faithful fervant, left him not till the last minute of his life, and then forfook him, not to serve another mafter (for who fpeaks like him.), but died before him, for that it was then become ufelefs to him that now converfed with God on earth, as angels are faid to do in heaven, only by thoughts and looks. Being speechlefs, and feeing heaven by that illumination by which he faw it, he did, as St. Stephen, "Look fteadfastly into it, till he faw the Son of Man, standing at the right-hand of God his father;" and, being fatisfied with this bleffed fight, as his foul afcended, and his laft breath departed from him, he clofed his own eyes, and then difpofed his hands and body into fuch a pofture

posture as required not the leaft alteration by thofe that came to fhrowd

him.

Thus VARIABLE, thus VIRTUOUS was the life; thus EXCELLENT, thus EXEMPLARY was the death of this memorable man.

He was buried in that place of St. Paul's Church, which he had appointed for that use some years before his death, and by which he paffed daily to pay his public devotions to Almighty God (who was then ferved twice a day by a public form of prayer and praises in that place); but he was not buried privately, though he defired it; for, befide an unnumbered number of others, many perfons of nobility, and of eminency for learning, who did love and honour him in his life, did fhew it at his death, by a voluntary and fad attendance of his body to the grave, where nothing was fo remarkable as a public forrow.

To which place of his burial fome mournful friend repaired, and, as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles, fo they ftrewed his with an abundance of curious and coftly flowers"; which course they (who were never yet known) continued morning and evening for many days, not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that church to give his body admiffion into the cold earth (now his bed of reft) were again

f When Alexander croffed the Hellefpont, to vifit the ruins of Ilium, he facrificed to the heroes buried in the neighbourhood, efpecially to Achilles. Hepheftion, as a mark of his friendship to Alexander, crowned the tomb of Patroclus with flowers. (Ant. Un. Hift. Vol. VIII. p. 507.).

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again by the mafons' art fo levelled and firmed, as they had been formerly, and his place of burial undistinguishable to common view.

The next day after his burial, fome unknown friend, fome one of the many lovers and admirers of his virtue and learning, writ this epitaph with a coal on the wall over his grave:-

"Reader! I am to let thee know,
"Donne's body only lies below:

"For, could the grave his foul comprife,

"Earth would be richer than the skies."

Nor was this all the honour done to his reverend afhes; for as there be fome perfons that will not receive a reward for that for which God ac-. counts himself a debtor; perfons that dare truft God with their charity, and without a witnefs; fo there was by fome grateful unknown friend, that thought Dr. Donne's memory ought to be perpetuated, an hundred marks fent to his two faithful friends and executors (Dr. King and Dr. Monfort) 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 it was he that fent it: And he lived to fee as lively a reprefentation of his dead friend, as marble can express; a statue indeed fo like Dr. Donne, that (as his friend, Sir Henry Wotton, had expreffed himfelf) "It feems to breathe faintly, and pofterity fhall look upon it as a kind of artificial miracle."

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He was of ftature moderately tall, of a straight and equally-proportioned body; to which all his words and actions gave an unexpreffible addition of comeliness.

The melancholy and pleasant humour were in him fo contemred, that each gave advantage to the other, and made his company e of the delights of mankind.

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His fancy was inimitably high, equalled only by his great wit; both being made useful by a commanding judgment.

His afpect was cheerful, and fuch as gave a filent teftimony of a clear knowing foul, and of a confcience at peace with itself.

His

His melting eye fhewed that he had a soft heart, full of compaffion; of too brave a foul to offer injuries, and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others.

He did much contemplate (especially after he entered into his facred calling) the mercies of Almighty God, the immortality of the foul, and the. joys of heaven; and would often say, in a kind of facred ecftacy, "Bleffed "be God that he is God, only and divinely like himself.”

He was by nature paffionate, but more apt to reluct at the exceffes of it. A great lover of the offices of humanity, and of so merciful 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 foul is now fatisfied, and employed in a continual praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body; that body which once was a temple of the Holy Ghoft, and is now become a fmall quantity of Christian duft:-But I fhall fee it reanimated.

J. WALTON.

FEBRUARY 15, 1639.

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