Before his retirement into the country, he published "The Life of Dr. Donne." It was originally It was originally appended to "LXXX Sermons, preached by that learned and reverend divine, John Donne, Dr. in Divinity, late Dean of the Cathedrall Church of St. Paul's, London, 1640." He had been folicited by Sir Henry Wotton, to fupply him with materials for writing that Life. Sir Henry dying in 1639, before he had made any progrefs in the work, Ifaac Walton engaged in it. This, his first effay in biography, was by more accurate revifals corrected, and confiderably enlarged in fubfequent editions. Donne has been principally commended as a poet;Walton, who, as it has been already remarked, was a conftant hearer of his fermons, makes him known to us as a preacher, eloquent, animated, affecting. His poems, like the fky befpangled with small stars, are occafionally interspersed with the ornaments of fine imagery. They must however be pronounced generally devoid of harmony of numbers, or beauty of verfification. Involved in the language of metaphyfical obfcurity", they cannot be read but with faftidioufnefs: They abound in false thoughts, affected phrases, and unnatural conceits'. His fermons, though not without that pedantry which debases the writings of almost all the divines of those times, are often written with energy, elegance, and copioufnefs of ftyle. Yet it must be confeffed, that all the wit and eloquence of the author have been unable to fecure them from neglect.

An

1 Dr. Donne affects the metaphyfics, not only in his fatires, but in his amorous verfes, where nature only should reign, and perplexes the minds of the fair fex with nice fpeculations of philofophy, when he fhould engage their hearts and entertain them with the foftneffes of love. In this, if I may be pardoned for fo bold a truth, Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault, fo great a one in my opinion, that it throws his "Miftrefs" infinitely below his Pindariques and his latter compofitions, 'which are undoubtedly the best of his poems, and the most correct.(Mr. Dryden's Dedication, prefixed to the Tranflation of Juvenal and Perfius.)

Mr. Pope has claffed the English Poets by their fchool. Firft, School of Provence. Second, School of Chaucer., Third, School of Petrarch. Fourth, School of Dante. Fifth, School of Spenfer. Sixth, School of Donne. In the latter fchool he has very injudiciously placed Michael Drayton, who wrote before Donne, and not in the leaft in his manner."Dr Donne's (poetical) writings are like a voluntary or prelude, in which a man is not tied to any particular defign of air, but may change his key or mood at pleasure; fo his compofitions feem to have been written without any particular fcope." (Butler's Remains, Vol. II. p. 498.)

An inftance of filial gratitude and affection occurs in a letter from Mr. John Donne, junior, to Mr. Ifaac Walton, thanking him for writing his father the Dean's Life.

"I fend this book rather to witnefs my debt, than to make any payment. "For it would be incivil in me to offer any fatisfaction for that that all my father's friends, and indeed all good men, are fo equally engaged. "Courtefies that are done to the dead being examples of fo much piety, "that they cannot have their reward in this life, because lafting as long, "and ftill (by awaking the like charity in others) propagating the debt "they must expect a retribution from him, who gave the firft inclination. "2. And by this circle, Sir, I have fet you in my place, and instead of "making you a payment, I have made you a debtor; but 'tis to Almighty "God, to whom I know you will be fo willingly committed, that I may "fafely take leave to write myself,

"Your thankful fervant,

From my house in Covent-Garden,

24°. June, 1640.

"}

JO. DONNE."

It is difficult to discover what correfpondence fubfifted between our biographer and the writer of the preceding letter, who, having been admitted to the degree of Doctor of Laws in the University of Padua, was incorporated in that degree at Oxford, in 1638*. In a will which was printed in 1662, Dr. John Donne, junior, bequeathed all his father's writings, with his "Common Place Book," to Ifaac Walton, for the ufe of his fon, if he fhould be brought up a fcholar. That he was a clergyman, and had fome preferment in the diocefe of Peterborough, we learn from a letter written. to him by Dr. John Towers, Bishop of Peterborough, his diocefan; wherein his Lordship thanks him for the first volume of his father's fermons, telling him, that his parishioners may pardon his filence to them for a while, fince by it he hath preached to them and to their children's children, and to all our English parishes, for ever. Anthony Wood, although he describes him as a man of fenfe and parts, is unfavourable.

*He died in 1682, and was buried in the Churchyard of St. Paul, in Covent-Garden..

able to his memory. He reprefents him as no better than "an atheistical buffoon, a banterer, and a perfon of over-free thoughts, yet valued by Charles II." With a farcafm not unufual to him, he informs his reader, that Dr. Walter Pope "leads an epicurean and heathenish life, much like to that of Dr. Donne, the fon." Bishop Kennet, in his "Register," p. 318, calling him, by mistake, Dr. John Downe, names him as the editor of "A Collection of Letters made by Sir Toby Matthews, Knight," with a character of the most excellent Lady, Lucy Countess of Carlisle, by the fame author; to which are added feveral letters of his own to several perfons of honour, who were contemporary with him, London, 1660, 800. I cannot but observe, that he neither confulted the reputation of his father, nor the public good, when he caused the "Biathanatos" to be printed. If he was determined, at all events, to disregard the injunctions of parental authority, would it not have been more expedient to have committed the manuscript to the flames, rather than to have encountered the hazard of diffusing certain novel opinions, from which no good confequences could poffibly arife? For though those effects did not actually follow, which are mentioned by an induftrious foreign writer', who tells us, that on the first publication of this work, many perfons laid violent hands on themselves;

yet

The following account of Dr. Donne is given in "Morhoff's Polyhiftor," L. VI. C. IV. xviii. "Inter quos numerandum puto JOHANNEM DONNE, Ecclefiæ S. Pauli apud Londinenfes Decanum. Ingeniofiflimum fuifle Poemata ejus juvenilia oftendunt Londini A. 1633 in 4 edita, quæ anno ætatis 18 fcripfit, plena argutiffimorum conceptuum: Quorum aliquot in Linguam Belgicam vertit Conftantius Hugonius a Carolo fecundo Rege follicitatus, qui inimitabilem Germanis et Belgis hujus viri ftylum putabat. Sermones vero facros elegantiffimos et multos, et in varios S. Scripturæ textus emifit Londini, diverfis annis. Scripfit et Meditationes fuper morbo fuo facras, quæ in Linguam Belgicam converfæ et Amftelodami 1655, in 12 editæ. funt. Scripfit et Librum, quem a tali Viro scribi potuiffe plane mirere, quippe qui auregian, certis in cafibus, licitam quoque effe affirmaret: Titulus, Balavatos: That felf-murder is not fo naturally a fin, that it may never be otherwife: Editus vero liber demum poft mortem Auctoris eft: Atque, ut aiunt, ipfo etiam, dum viveret, ejus editionem ferio deprecante prohibenteque, Londini 1648, in 4to. At mox, cum prodiiffet, àdeo fe multis hominibus probavit, ut haud pauci ejus Lectione ad mortem voluntariam adacti memorentur: Recufus certe iterum Londini eft, 1644. Et haud dubie dedit occafionem fcribendo alii Libro, nefcio cujus Anonymi, qui perniciofiffimam opinionem ex animis hominum evellere haud abs Re tentabat." (Pellicanicidium, or the Chriflian Adviser against Self-murder: Together with a Guide, and the Pilgrim's Pafs to the Land of the Living, Lond. 1653, in 8vo.)

yet the most remote probability of danger accruing from it should have induced him entirely to have fuppreffed it. But to return from this digreffion.

The narrative of the vision in this Life of Dr. Donne hath fubjected the author to fome fevere animadverfions. Let it however be remembered, that he probably related the matter with cautious and difcreet fidelity, as it was really reprefented to him. The account is not inferted in the earlier editions of Dr. Donne's Life. Hence we may prefume that the ftrictest and most severe inquiry was made before its introduction. Plutarch is not esteemed a credulous writer: Yet he has given a full and circumftantial history of the appearances that prefented themselves to Dion and to Brutus. And in modern times Dr. Doddridge, a moft fedulous examiner of facts, and of all men the leaft liable to credulity and weakness of understanding, published a relation of an extraordinary vifion. Let it be remarked that, according to the opinion of a medical writer of great eminence, a difcriminating fymptom of human infanity is "the rifing up in the mind of images not distinguishable by the patient from impreffions upon the fenfes. To a momentary delufion originating from fome bodily diforder we may fafely attribute the vifions or falfe perceptions, of which many authentic descriptions have been tranfmitted to us; and we may easily suppose that Dr. Donne, separated from his beloved wife and family, whom he had left in a very diftrefsful fituation, muft have fuffered the moft poignant anxiety of mind, and of courfe much indifpolition of body".

When the first years of man have been devoted to "the diligence of trades and noiseful gain," we have no reason to hope that his mind will be replenished by ftudy, or enriched with literature. In the lucrative, as well as in the political life, men are tempted to affume fome of thofe habits or difpofitions, which are not entirely confiftent with the principles of juftice or honour. An eagerness to amafs wealth, not feldom extinguishes every other affection. But it was not thus with Ifaac Walton. Firm and uncorrupted in his integrity, he no fooner bade farewel to his commercial con

See "Plin. Epift." L. VII. Epist. 27. "Biographia Britannica," in the articles BEN JONSON, ANDREW MARVEL. See alfo "Lord Clarendon's Hift. of the Rebellion," Vol. I.

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cerns, than he gave the moft convincing proofs of his attention to the most laudable purfuits. He had already written the life of one friend. He now undertook to exhibit a teftimony of refpect to the memory of another. In 1651, he was the editor of "Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, or a Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems, with Characters of fundry Perfonages, and other incomparable Pieces of Language and Art, by the curious Pencil of the ever-memorable Sir Henry Wotton, Knt. late Provoft of Eaton College." This collection is dedicated " to Lady Mary Wotton, relict of the laft Lord Wotton, and to her three noble daughters." Thefe ladies communicated to him many original letters, written by their illuftrious relation. After the Dedication follows "The Life of Sir Henry Wotton." In the fucceeding editions, the volume is infcribed to the Right Honourable Philip Earl of Chefterfield, Lord Stanhope of Shelford, and great nephew to Sir Henry Wotton". This nobleman accompanying his mother, the Lady Catharine Stanhope, into Holland, where he attended the Princess of Orange, daughter to Charles I. had his education along with William, Prince of Orange, afterward advanced to the throne of England, and became very ferviceable in promoting the restoration of the Royal Family. He loved the memory, and imitated the virtues of his generous uncle. By a life of ftrict temperance he attained to a great age. He died, January 28, 1713°. It is proper

to

The mother of this Lord Chesterfield was Catharine the eldest daughter of Thomas Lord Wotton, and relict of Henry Lord Stanhope, who died before his father the Earl of Chefterfield. She had been governess to Mary Princefs of Orange, and after the Restoration was made Countess of Chesterfield. See "Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting," Vol. II. p. 113.

• A contemporary writer has thus delineated the characters of Dr. Donne and Sir Henry Wetton-"To speak it in a word, the Trojan Horse was not fuller of heroic Grecians, than King James's reign was full of men excellent in all kinds of learning. And here I defire the reader's leave to remember two of my own old acquaintance: the one was Mr. John Donne, who, leaving Oxford, lived at the Inns of Court, not diffolute, but very neat; a great vifitor of ladies, a great writer of conceited verses, until fuch time as King James, taking notice of the pregnancy of his wit, was a means that he took him to the ftudy of divinity, and thereupon proceeding Doctor was made Dean of St. Paul's, and became fo rare a preacher, that he was not only commended, but even admired by all that heard him. The other was Henry Wotton (mine old acquaintance alfo, as having been fellow pupils and

chamber