die with us, and many think it should do fo; and we want not facred examples to justify the defire of having our memory to out-live our lives, which I mention because Dr. Donne, by the perfuafion of Dr. Fox, easily yielded at this very time to have a monument made for him; but Dr. Fox undertook not to perfuade him how or what monument it should be; that was left to Dr. Donne himself. A monument being refolved upon, Dr. Donne fent for a carver to make for him in wood the figure of an urn, giving him directions for the compass and height of it; and to bring with it a board of the juft height of his body. These being got; then, without delay, a choice painter was got to be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken as followeth.Several charcoal-fires being firft made in his large ftudy, he brought with him into that place his winding-fheet in his hand; and having put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tied with knots at his head and feet, and his hands fo placed as dead bodies are ufually fitted to be shrowded and put into their coffin or grave. Upon this urn he thus stood,, with his eyes fhut, and with fo much of the sheet turned afide, as might fhew his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was purpofcly turned toward the east, from whence he expected the fecond coming of his and our Saviour Jefus. In this pofture he was drawn at his juft height; and when the picture was fully finished, he caufed it to be fet by his bed-fide, where it continued, and became his hourly object till his death, and was then given to his dearest friend and executor, Doctor Henry King, then chief Refidentiary of St. Paul's, who caufed him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white marble", as it now ftands in that church; and by Doctor Donne's, S "In 1631 I made a tombe for Dr. Donne, and fette it up in St. Paul's, London, for "which I was paid by Dr. Mountford the fum of £120. I took £60 in plate, in part of "payment. (From a Copy of the Pocket-Book of Nicholas Stone.)" 1631, Humphrey "Mayor, a workman employed under Stone, finifht the ftatue for Dr. Donne's monument, "£8:0:0." (Ibid.) On the fouth-fide of the Choir in St. Paul's Cathedral, ftood a white marble monument, with the figure of Dr. Donne, in his fhrowd, ftanding erect, his fect in an urn, and placed in a nich. Speed calls it "A White Marble Statue on an Urn." Above are the arms of the deanery, impaled with his own, viz. a WOLF faliant. The concluding lines of the in fcription. Donne's own appointment, these words were to be affixed to it as his epitaph: JOHANNES DONNE, SAC. THEOL. PROFESS. POST VARIA STUDIA QUIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS XXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI. And now having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities of a various life, even to the gates of death and the grave, my defire is, he may reft till I have told my reader, that I have seen many pictures of him, in several habits, and at feveral ages, and in feveral poftures: And I now mention this, because I have feen one picture of him, drawn by a curious hand at his age of eighteen, with his fword and what scription evidently allude to his posture. "He was looking toward the caft, from whence "he expected his Saviour." The critical reader will remember, that in Zech. vi. 12. the paffage alluded to, fhould be rendered "Behold the Man, whofe name is the BRANCH," which the Seventy-Two tranflate 'Avarohn doua aure, and the Vulgate "Oriens nomen ejus." what other adornments might then fuit with the present fashions of youth, and the giddy gayeties of that age; and his motto then was "How much fhall I be chang'd, And if that young, and his now dying picture, were at this time set together, every beholder might fay, "Lord! how much is Dr. Donne "already changed, before he is changed?" And the view of them might give my reader occafion to afk himself with some amazement, "Lord! "how much may I also that am now in health be changed, before I am changed; before this vile, this changeable body fhall put off mortality ?" and therefore to prepare for it. But this is not writ fo much for my reader's memento, as to tell him, that Dr. Donne would often in his private difcourfes, and often publicly in his fermons, mention the many changes both of his body and mind; especially of his mind from a vertiginous giddiness; and would as often fay, "His great and most bleffed change was from a temporal to a spiritual employment;" in which he was fo happy, that he accounted the former part of his life to be loft, and the beginning of it to be from his firft entering into facred orders, and ferving his moft merciful God at his altar. Upon Monday, after the drawing this picture, he took his laft leave of his beloved study; and being fenfible of his hourly decay, retired himself to his bed-chamber, and that week fent at feveral times for many of his. S 2. moft "Antes muerta que mudada." The words antes muerta que mudada are fuppofed by a Spanish author to have been originally written on the fand by a lady promifing fidelity to her. lover. The following lines were compofed by Mr. Ifaac Walton, and inscribed under the print taken from this picture, and prefixed to an edition of Dr. Donne's Poems in 1639. "This was for youth, ftrength, mirth, and wit, that time "Moft count their golden age, but was not thine. "Thine was thy later years, so much refin'd "From youth's drofs, mirth and wit, as thy pure mind "Thought (like the angels) nothing but the praise "Of thy Creator, in those last best days. "With love, but ends with fighs and tears for fins." |