THE INTRODUCTION. If that great mafter of language and art, Sir Henry Wotton, F the late Provost of Eton College had lived to fee the publication of these fermons, he had presented the world with the Author's life exactly written; and it was pity he did not; for it was a work worthy his undertaking, and he fit to undertake it: betwixt whom, and the Author, there was fo mutual a knowledge, and fuch a friendship contracted in their youth, as nothing but death could force a feparation. And though their bodies were divided, their affections were not : for that learned knight's love followed his friend's fame beyond death and the forgetful grave; which he teftified by entreating me, whom he acquainted with his defign, to inquire of fome particulars that concerned it, not doubting but my knowledge of the Author, and love to his memory, might make my diligence useful: I did moft gladly undertake the employment, and continued it with great content, till I had made my collection ready to be augmented and completed by his matchlefs pen: but then, death prevented his intentions. When I heard that fad news, and heard also that these fermons were to be printed, and want the Author's life, which I thought to be very remarkable; indignation or grief (indeed I know not which), tranfported me fo far, that I reviewed my forfaken collections, and refolved the world should see the best plain picture of the Author's life that my artless pencil, guided by the hand of truth, could prefent to it. And if I fhall now be demanded, as once Pompey's poor bondman was;-(the grateful wretch had been left alone on It must be remembered that the life of Dr. Donne was originally prefixed to the first volume of his fermons, printed in 1640. The grave which caufes forgetfulness. In this fenfe the epithet is ufed in Milton "If the fleepy drench "Of that forgetful lake benumb not fill. PAR. LOST, B. II. ver. 73. "Obliviofo lævia Maffico "Ciboria exple. HOR. L. II. Od. VII. ver. 21. Ουτι πα εις Αίδαν γε τον ἐκλελαθοντα φυλάξεις. THEOCR. Ειδυλλ. α. 63. e Philip, the freed-man of Pompey, watched the dead body of his mafter, till the multitude had fatisfied their curiofity; and then washing the fea-fhore, with the forfaken dead body of his once glorious lord and master: and, was then gathering the scattered pieces of an old broken boat to make a funeral pile to burn it, which was the custom of the Romans)" Who art thou that alone "haft the honour to bury the body of Pompey the great?” fo, who am I that do this officiously fet the Author's memory on fire? I hope the queftion will prove to have in it more of wonder than difdain. But wonder indeed the reader may, that I, who profefs myfelf artlefs, fhould prefume with my faint light to fhow forth his life, whofe very name makes it illuftrious! but be this to the difadvantage of the perfon reprefented: certain I am, it is to the advantage of the beholder; who fhall here fee the Author's picture in a natural drefs which ought to be. get faith in what is fpoken: for he that wants fkill to deceive, may fafely be trusted. And if the Author's glorious fpirit, which now is in heaven, can have the leifure to look down and fee me, the poorest, the meanest of all his friends, in the midft of his officious duty, confident I am, that he will not difdain this well-meant facrifice to his memory: for, whilft his converfation made me and many others happy below, I know his humility and gentleness were then eminent; and I have heard divines fay, thofe virtues that were but sparks upon earth, become great and glorious flames in heaven. Before I proceed further, I am to entreat the reader to take notice, that when Dr. Donne's Sermons were first printed, this was then my excufe for daring to write his life; and I dare not now appear without it. it with fea-water, he wrapt it up in a garment of his own, and finding fome rotten planks of a little fisherman's boat, he gathered them together for a funeral pile. Lucan has given a long defcription of Pompey's unhappy deftiny. According to his account, the body was thrown into the fea, and Servius Codrus, once his quæfior and his friend, brought it to shore, and paid the last honours to it. E latebris pavidus 'decurrit ad æquora Codrus, *Plutarch's Lives. LUCAN. L. VIII. ver. 715. THE LIFE OF JOHN DONNE, MASTER JOHN DONNE was born in London, in the year 1573, of good and virtuous parents: and though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly appear fufficient to dignify both himself and his pofterity, yet the reader may be pleafed to know, that his father was mafculinely and lineally defcended from a very ancient family in Wales, where many of his name now live, that deferve and have great reputation in that country. By his mother he was defcended of the family of the famous and learned Sir Thomas Moorf, fometime Lord Chancellor of England; as alfo from that worthy and laborious Judge Raftall, who left pofterity the vast statutes of the law of this nation most exactly abridged. He had his firft breeding in his father's houfe, where a private tutor had the care of him, until the tenth year of his age; and in his eleventh year was fent to the University of Oxford; having at that time a good command both of the French and Latin Tongue. This, and fome other of his remarkable abilities, made one then give this cenfure of him; That this age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula"; of whom ftory fays, that he was rather born, than made wife by study. f Fuller's Church Hiftory, B. x. p. 112. JOHN RASTALL, a celebrated printer, married Elizabeth the fifter of Sir Thomas Moor. William, their fon, was brought up to the bar, and was appointed one of the Justices of the King's Bench in 1558. Upon the demife of Queen Mary, he fteadily adhered to his religion, left England, and spent the remainder of his days at Louvain. He published the works of his uncle Sir Thomas Moor in one volume. He allo formed a collection of and wrote a comment on the ftatutes, and a very ufeful book entituled "Les Termes de la Loy," or "An Explication of certain difficult and obfcure Words and Terms of the common Laws and Statutes of this realm now in ufe." The author of feveral tracts againft Bishop Jewell was John Rafiall, who left the Church of England, in which he had been ordained prieft, went to Rome, and with this his kinfman was admitted into the fociety of Jesus. PICUS Prince of Mirandula, a duchy in Italy, was born in 1463, and having refigned his fovereignty in favour of his nephew, he died in 1494. He is faid to have made fo wonderful a progrefs in ftudy, as to understand twenty-two languages at the age of eighteen years, and at the age of twenty-four years to difpute with great fuccefs, de omni scibili. "Picus Mirandula 32 ætatis anno quo obiit omni disciplinarum genere non modò tinctus, fed planè imbutus erat, ut Encyclopædiam 3 Scientiarum There he remained fome years in Hart-Hall', having, for the advancement of his ftudies, tutors of several sciences to attend and inftruct him, till time made him capable, and his learning, exprefsed in public exercifes, declared him worthy to receive his first degree in the fchools, which he forbore by advice from his friends, who being for their religion of the Romish perfuafion, were confcionably averfe to fome parts of the oath that is always tendered at those times, and not to be refused by those that expect the titulary honour of their ftudies. About the fourteenth year of his age, he was tranfplanted from Oxford to Cambridge; where, that he might receive nourishment from both foils, he ftayed till his feventeenth year; all which time he was a most laborious ftudent, often changing his ftudies, but endeavouring to take no degree, for the reasons formerly mentioned. About the feventeenth year of his age, he was removed to London, and then admitted into Lincoln's Inn, with an intent to study the law; where he gave great teftimonies of his wit, his learning, and of his improvement in that profeffion which never ferved him for other ufe than an ornament and felffatisfaction. : His father died before his admiffion into the fociety; and being a merchant, left him his portion in money. (It was 30001.) His mother and thofe to whofe care he was commited, were watchful to improve his knowledge, and to that end appointed him tutors both in the mathematics, and in all the other liberal fciences, to attend him. But with Scientiarum jure fibi vindicare potuerit, longiore vitâ planè digniffimus princeps." (Scaligeriana.)—He was honoured with this pompous Epitaph, "Hic fitus eft Picus Mirandula: cætera norunt "Et Tagus et Ganges, forfan et Antipodes,' On which it has been juftly remarked, that "his name, then celebrated "in the remoteft corners of the earth, is now almoti forgotten, and his "works then ftudied, admired, and applauded, are now mouldering in "obfcurity." (Dr. Johnson's Works, vol. 2. p. 273.)—The life of this prodigy of learning, written with great elegance of language by John Francis Prince of Mirandula, is inferted in Bates's Vita selectorum, &c. p. 90. iHe continued for three years at Hart-Hall, which was fo called "from Elias de Hertford, who lived in the tenth year of Edward the "Firt, An. Dom. 1282. In 1312 it changed its name to Stapledon Hall, but upon the fettlement of Exeter College it returned to its "former appellation." (Le Neve.)-In 1740 it was by a royal charter erected into a college by the name of "Hertford College in the University of Oxford," to confift of a Principal, four fenior, and eight junior Fellows k To Trinity College in Cambridge, where he was fellow pupil with Mr. Samuel Brook, who succeeded Dr. Leonard Maw in the mastership of that college." And now, like a laborious bee, defirous to gather "from more flowers than one, he was tranflated from Oxford to Cambridge, our other renowned nursery of learning, where he much im proved his ftudies." (Winstanley's English Worthies, p. 398) 66 thefe arts they were advised to inftil into him particular principles of the Romish Church; of which thofe tutors profest (though fecretly) themselves to be members. They had almoft obliged him to their faith; having for their advantage, besides many opportunities, the example of his dear and pious parents, which was a moft powerful perfuafion, and did work much upon him, as he professeth in his preface to his Pfeudo-Martyr'; a book of which the reader fhall have fome account in what follows. He was now entered into the eighteenth year of his age; and at that time had betrothed himself to no religion that might give him any other denomination than a Chriftian. And reafon, and piety had both perfuaded him, that there could be no fuch fin as Schifm, if an adherence to fome visible church were not necessary. About the nineteenth year of his age; he being then unrefolved what religion to adhere to, and confidering how much it concerned his foul to choose the most orthodox, did therefore (though his youth and health, promifed him a long life), to rectify all fcruples that might concern that, presently lay afide all ítudy of the law, and of all other sciences that might give him a denomination; and begun feriously to furvey and confider the body of divinity ", as it was then controverted betwixt the reformed and the Roman Church. And as God's blefsed fpirit did then awaken him to the fearch, and in that industry did never forfake him (they be his own words in his preface to Pfeudo-Martyr), fo he calls the fame holy fpirit to " "I had a longer work to do than many other men: for I was firft "to blot out certaine impressions of the Romane religion and to wrestle "both against the examples and againfi the reafons, by which fome hold was taken, and fome anticipations early layde upon my confcience, both by perfons who by nature had a power and fuperiority over my will, and "others who by their learning and good life feemed to me jufily to claime an intereft for the guiding and rectifying of mine understanding in these "matters." (Preface to the Pseudo-Martyr; which is pronounced by Mr Granger in his Biographical Hiftory, vol. I. p. 357, to be the moft valuable of Donne's profe writings.) m The principal heads of this cont overfy have been discussed with great ability and candour by the most eminent divines of our church, and particularly by those of them, who lived in the reign of James II. Mr. Pope, in a letter to Bishop Atterbury, tells his Lordship, that when he was fourteen years old, he read the controverfies between the two churches. He adds, " and the confequence was I found myself a "Papift and a Proteftant by turns, according to the last book I read." This, as the waiter of his life obferves, is an admirable defcription of every reader bufied in religious controverfy, without pofsefsing the principles on which a right judgment of the points in queftion is to be regulated. If Mr. Pope had purfued this inquiry with the fame preparatory knowledge, with the same humble diffidence that attended Dr. Donne, it is reafonable to think that the refult of his researches would have been different from what he has reprefented it. |