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And if that young, and his now dying picture, were at this time fet 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 ask himself with fome 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 so 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; efpecially of his mind from a vertiginous giddinefs and would as often fay, "His great and most blessed change was from a "temporal to a fpiritual 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 Jaft leave of his beloved ftudy; and being fenfible of his hourly decay, retired himself to his bed-chamber, and that week fent at feveral times for many of his moft confiderable friends, with whom he took a folemn and deliberate farewell, commending to their confiderations fome fentences ufeful for the regulation of their lives, and then dismissed them, as good Jacob did his fons, with a spiritual benediction. The Sunday following, he appointed his fervants, that if there were any bufinefs yet undone that concerned him or themselves, it fhould 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 difsolution."

And now he was so 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 determine "his difsolution." In that ficknefs he begged of God the conflancy to be preserved in that eftate for ever: And his patient expectation to have his immortal foul difrobed from her garment of mortality, makes me confident, that he now had à modeft afsurance that his prayers were then heard, and his petition granted. He lay fifteen days earnestly expecting his hourly change, and in the last 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 clofed 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

laft minute of his life, and then forfook him, not to ferve another mafter (for who fpeaks like him ?), but died before him, for that it was then become useless 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 "steadfastly into it, till he faw the Son of Man, ftanding at the right-hand of God his father;" and being fatisfied with this blefsed fight, as his foul afcended, and his laft breath departed from him, he closed his own eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into fuch a pofture as required not the leaft alteration by thofe that came to shroud him.

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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 ufe fome years before his death, and by which he passed 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 persons 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 for

row.

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 strewed his with an abundance of curious and coftly flowers h; which courfe they (who were never yet known) continued morning and evening for many days, not ceafing till the ftones that were taken up in that church to give his body admission into the cold earth (now his bed of reft) were again by the mafons art fo levelled and firmed, as they had been formerly, and his place of burial undistinguishable to common view.

When Alexander crossed the Hellefpont, to vifit the ruins of Hium, 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. Hist. Vol. VIII. p. 507.) "With fairelt flowers

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"Whilft fummer lafts, and I live here, Fidele,

"Pil fweeten thy fad grave. Thou shalt not lack
"The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
"The azur'd hare-bell."

SHAKESP. Cymbeline, A. IV. Sc. 5.
F4

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 comprise,
"Earth would be richer than the fkies."

Nor was this all the honour done to his reverend ashes; for as there be fome perfons that will not receive a reward for that for which God accounts 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 representation of his dead friend, as marble can exprefs; a ftatue indeed fo like Dr. Donne, that (as his friend, Sir Henry Wotton, had expressed himself) "It seems "to breathe faintly, and pofterity fhall look upon it as a kind "of artificial miracle."

He was of a ftature moderately tall, of a straight and equallyproportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave an unexprefsible addition of comeliness.

The melancholy and pleasant humour were in him so contempered, that each gave advantage to the other, and made his company one of the delights of mankind.

His fancy was inimitably high, equalled only by his great wit; both being made ufeful 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 itsel

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

He did much contemplate (efpecially 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 fay, in a kind of facred ecftacy, "Blessed be God that he is God, "only and divinely like himself."

He was by nature pafsionate, but more apt to reluct at the excesses of it. A great lover of the offices of humanity, and of fo merciful a fpirit, that he never beheld the miseries of mankind without pity and relief.

He was earnest and unwearied in the fearch of knowledge; with which his vigorous foul is now fatisfied, and employed in a continual praife 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 small quantity of Christian dust: -But I fhall fee it reanimated.

FEBRUARY 15, 1639.

I. WALTON.

VERSES

TO THE MEMORY OF

DR. J. DONNE.

ΑΝ ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ

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WRITTEN BY

DOCTOR CORBET, LATE BISHOP OF OXFORD,

ON HIS FRIEND, DOCTOR DONNE.

HE that wou'd write an epitaph for thee,

And write it well, muft firft begin to be
Such as thou wert; for none can truly know
Thy life and worth, but he that hath liv'd fo.
He must have wit to fpare, and to hurl down;
Enough to keep the gallants of the town.
He must have learning plenty; both the laws,
Civil and common, to judge any cause;

Dr. RICHARD CORBET, in 1632, tranflated from the See of Oxford, to that of Norwich, died in 1635. He was in his younger years one of the most celebrated wits in the University of Oxford, afterward admired for his quaint and eloquent preaching, and much commended for his great liberality and munificence, and particularly in promoting the repair of St. Paul's Cathedral. The volume of his Poems, which have great merit, is not common; and therefore feveral extracts from it are published in the Biographia Britannica.

"If flowing wit, if verses writ with ease,
"If learning, void of pedantry, can pleafe;
"If much good humour, join'd to folid fenfe,
"And mirth, accompanied with innocence,
"Can give a poet a just right to fame,

"Then CORBET may iminortal honour claim:
"For he thefe virtues had, and in his lines

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Poetic and heroic fpirit thiues;

"Tho' bright, yet folid, pleasant but not rude,

"With wit and wifdom equally endu'd.

"Be filent, Mufe, thy praifes are too faint,

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Thon want'ft a power this prodigy to paint,

At once a poet, prelate, and a faint.

J. C.

(Biog. Brit, in the Article CORBET.)

Divinity great ftore above the rest,
Not of the laft edition, but the best.
He must have language, travel, all the arts,
Judgment to ufe, or elfe he wants thy parts.
He must have friends the higheft, able to do,
Such as Mecœnas, and Auguftus too.
He must have fuch a fickness, fuch a death,
Or else his vain defcriptions come beneath.
He that would write an epitaph for thee
Should first be dead; let it alone for me.

TO THE MEMORY OF

MY EVER DESIRED DOCTOR DONNE.

AN ELEGY,

BY H. KING, LATE BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.

TO have liv'd eminent, in a degree

Beyond our loftieft thoughts, that is like thee;
Or t'have had too much merit is not fafe,
For fuch excefses find no epitaph.

At common graves we have poetic eyes,
Can melt themselves in eafy elegies;
Each quill can drop his tributary verse,
And pin it, like the hatchments, to the hearse:
But at thine, poem or infcription

(Rich foul of wit and language) we have none.
Indeed a filence does that tomb befit,
Where is no herald left to blazon it.
Widow'd Invention justly doth forbear
To come abroad, knowing thou art not there:
Late her great patron, whofe prerogative
Maintain'd and cloth'd her fo, as none alive
Muft now prefume to keep her at thy rate,
Though he the Indies for her dower eftate.
Or elfe that awful fire which once did burn
In thy clear brain, now fallen into thy urn,
Lives there to fright rude empirics from thence,
Which might profane thee by their ignorance.
Whoever writes of thee, and in a ftyle
Unworthy fuch a theme, does but revile
Thy precious duft, and wakes a learned fpirit,
Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit.
For all a low-pitch'd fancy can devise
Will prove at best but hallowed injuries,

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