About four years after he received the deanery of St. Paul's, and when he had arrived at his fifty-fourth year, his constitution, naturally feeble, was attacked by a disorder which had every appearance of being fatal. In this extremity he gave another proof of that tenderness of conscience, so transcendently superior to all modern notions of honour, which had always marked his character. When there was little hope of his life, he was required to renew some prebendal leases, the fines for which were very considerable, and might have enriched his family. But this he peremptorily refused, considering such a measure, in his situation, as a species of sacrilege. "I dare not," he added, "now upon my sick bed, when Almighty God hath made me useless to the service of the church, make any advantages out of it." This illness, however, he survived about five years, when his tendency to a consumption again returned, and terminated his life on the 31st day of March 1631. He was buried in St. Paul's, where a monument was erected to his memory. His figure may yet be seen in the vaults of St. Faith's under St. Paul's. It stands erect in a window, without its niche, and deprived of the urn in which the feet were placed. His picture was drawn sometime before his death, when he dressed himself in his winding sheet, and the figure in St. Faith's was carved from this painting by Nicholas Stone. The fragments of his tomb are on the other side of the church. Walton mentions many other paintings of him executed at different periods of his life, which are not now known. Of his character some judgment may be formed from the preceding sketch, taken principally from Zouch's much improved edition of Walton's Lives. His early years, there is reason to think, although disgraced by no flagrant turpitude, were not exempt from folly and dissipation. In some of his poems we meet with the language and sentiments of men whose morals are not very strict. After his marriage, however, he appears to have become of a serious and thoughtful disposition, his mind alternately exhausted by study, or softened by affliction. His reading was very extensive, and we find allusions to almost every science in his poems, although unfortunately they only contribute to produce distorted images and wild conceits. His prose works are numerous, but, except the Pseudo-Martyr and a small volume of devotions, none of them were published during his life. A list of the whole may be seen in Wood's Athenæ and in Zouch's edition of Walton. His sermons have not a little of the character of his poems. They are not, indeed, so rugged in style, but they abound with quaint allusions, which now appear ludicrous, although they probably produced no such effect in his days. With this exception, they contain much good sense, much acquaintance with human nature, many striking thoughts, and some very just biblical criticism. One of his prose writings requires more particular notice. Every admirer of his character will wish it expunged from the collection. It is entitled Biathanatos, a Declaration of that Paradox, or Thesis, that Self-homicide is not so naturally Sin, that it may never be otherwise. If it be asked what could induce a man of Dr. Donne's piety to write such a treatise, we may answer in his own words, that "it is a book written by Jack Donne and not by Dr. Donne." It was written in his youth, as a trial of skill on a singular topic, in which he thought proper to exercise his talent against the generally received opinion. But if it be asked why, instead of sending one or two copies to friends with an injunction not to print it, he did not put this out of their power by destroying the manuscript, the answer is not so easy. He is even so inconsistent as to desire one of his correspondents neither to burn it, nor publish it. It was at length published by his son in 1644, who certainly did not consult the reputation of his father; and if the reports of his character be just, was not a man likely to give himself much uneasiness about that or any other consequence. Dr. Donne's reputation as a poet was higher in his own time than it has been since. Dryden fixed his character with his usual judgment; as "the greatest wit, though not the best poet, of our nation." He says afterwards', that "he affects the metaphysics, not only in his Satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign, and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love." Dryden has also pronounced that if his Satires were to be translated into numbers, they would yet be wanting in dignity of expression. The reader has now an opportunity of comparing the originals and translations in Pope's works, and will probably think that Pope has made them so much his own as to throw very little light on Donne's powers. He every where elevates the expression, and in very few instances retains a whole line. Pope, in his classification of poets, places Donne at the head of a school, that school from which Dr. Johnson has given so many remarkable specimens of absurdity, in his life of Cowley, and which, following Dryden, he terms the metaphysical school. Gray, in the sketch he sent to Mr. Warton, considers it as a third Italian school, full of conceit, begun in queen Elizabeth's reign, continued under James and Charles I. by Donne, Crashaw, Cleveland, carried to its height by Cowley, and ending perhaps in Sprat. Donne's numbers, if they may be so called, are certainly the most rugged and uncouth of any of our poets. He appears either to have had no ear, or to have been utterly regardless of harmony. Yet Spenser preceded him, and Drummond, the first polished versifier, was his contemporary; but it must be allowed that before Drummond appeared, Donne had relinquished his pursuit of the Muses, nor would it be just to include the whole of his poetry under the general censure which has been usually passed. Dr. Warton seems to think that if he had taken pains he might not have proved so inferior to his contemporaries; but what inducement could he have to take pains, as he published nothing, and seems not desirous of public fame? He was certainly not ignorant or unskilled in the higher attributes of style, for he wrote elegantly in Latin, and displays considerable taste in some of his smaller pieces and epigrams. At what time he wrote his poems has not been ascertained; but of a few the dates may be recovered by the corresponding events of his life. Ben Jonson affirmed that he wrote all his best pieces before he was twenty-five years of age. His Satires, in which there are some strokes levelled at the Reformation, must have been written very early, as he was but a young man when he renounced the errors of popery. His poems were first published in 4to. 1633, and 12mo. 1635, 1651, 1669, and 1719. His son was the editor of the early editions. 3 On the Origin and Progress of Satire. C. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM LORD CRAVEN, BARON OF HAMSTED-MARSHAM. MY LORD, MANY of these poems have, for several impressions, wandered up and down, trusting (as well as they might) upon the author's reputation: neither do they now complain of any injury, but what may proceed either from the kindness of the printer, or the courtesy of the reader; the one, by adding something too much, lest any spark of this sacred fire might perish undiscerned; the other, by putting such an estimation upon the wit and fancy they find here, that they are content to use it as their own; as if a man should dig out the stones of a royal amphitheatre, to build a stage for a country show. Amongst all the monsters this unlucky age has teemed with, I find none so prodigious as the poets of these later times, wherein men, as if they would level understandings too, as well as estates, acknowledging no inequality of parts and judgments, pretend as indifferently to the chair of wit as to the pulpit, and conceive themselves no less inspired with the spirit of poetry, than with that of religion: so it is not only the noise of drums and trumpets which have drowned the Muse's harmony, or the fear that the church's ruin will destroy the priests' likewise, that now frights them from this country, where they have been so ingeniously received; but these rude pretenders to excellencies they unjustly own, who, profanely rushing into Minerva's temple, with noisome airs blast the laurel, which thunder cannot hurt. In this sad condition, these learned sisters are fled over to beg your lordship's protection, who have been so certain a patron both to arts and arms, and who, in this general confusion, have so entirely preserved your honour, that in your lordship we may still read a most perfect character of what England was in all her pomp and greatness. So that although these poems were formerly written upon several occasions to several persons, they now unite themselves, and are become one pyramid to set your lordship's statue upon; where you may stand, like armed Apollo, the defender of the Muses, encouraging the poets now alive to celebrate your great acts, by affording your countenance to his poems, that wanted only so noble a subject. My Lord, your most humble servant, JOHN DONNE. DONNE, the delight of Phoebus, and each Muse, And which no' affection praise enough can give! To it thy language, letters, arts, best life, BEN JONSON. POEMS OF JOHN DONNE, D. D. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, If our two loves be one, both thou and I |