THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE

LATE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH,

LONDON.

BY IZAAK WALTON.

He did wonders in his life, and at his death his works were marvellous-ECCLUS. xlviii. 14.

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY*.

TO MY NOBLE AND HONOURED FRIEND,

SIR ROBERT HOLT,

OF ASTON, IN THE COUNTY OF WARWICK,

BARONET.

SIR,

W

HEN this relation of the life of Doctor Donne was first made publick, it had, besides the approbation of our late learned and eloquent king, a conjunction with the author's most excellent sermons to support it; and thus it lay some time fortified against prejudice, and those passions that are by busy and malicious men too freely vented against the dead.

And yet, now, after almost twenty years, when, though the memory of Dr. Donne himself must not, cannot die, so long as men speak English; yet when I thought time had made this relation of him so like myself, as to become useless to the world, and content to be forgotten, I find that a retreat into a desired privacy will not be afforded; for the printers will again

* Prefixed to the life of Dr. Donne, the second impression. 1658.

b

expose it and me to publick exceptions; and without those supports which we first had and needed; and in an age, too, in which truth and innocence have not been able to defend themselves from worse than

severe censures.

This I foresaw; and Nature teaching me self-preservation, and my long experience of your abilities assuring me that in you it may be found, to you, Sir, do I make mine addresses for an umbrage and protection; and I make it with so much boldness, as to say, it were degenerous in you not to afford it.

For, Sir, Dr. Donne was so much a part of yourself, as to be incorporated into your family by so noble a friendship, that I may say there was a marriage betwixt him and your reverend grandfather (John King, bishop of London), who in his life was an angel of our once glorious church, and now no common star in heaven.

And Dr. Donne's love died not with him, but was doubled upon his heir, your beloved uncle, the bishop of Chichester (Henry King), that lives in this froward generation to be an ornament to his calling. And this affection to him was by Dr. Donne so testified in his life, that he then trusted him with the very secrets of his soul; and at his death, with what was dearest to him, even his fame, estate, and children.

And you have yet a further title to what was Dr. Donne's, by that dear affection and friendship that was betwixt him and your parents, by which he entailed a love upon yourself, even in your infancy; which was increased by the early testimonies of your growing merits, and by them continued till Dr. Donne

put on immortality; and so this mortal was turned into a love that cannot die.

And, Sir, it was pity he was lost to you in your minority, before you had attained a judgment to put a true value upon the living beauties and elegancies of his conversation; and pity too, that so much of them as were capable of such an expression, were not drawn by the pencil of a Titian or a Tintoret, by a pen equal and more lasting than their art; for his life ought to be the example of more than that age in which he died. And yet this copy, though very much, indeed too much short of the original, will present you with some features not unlike your dead friend, and with fewer blemishes and more ornaments than when it was first made publick, which creates a contentment to myself, because it is the more worthy of him, and because I may with more civility entitle you to it.

And in this design of doing so, I have not a thought of what is pretended in most dedications, a commutation for courtesies : no, indeed sir, I put no such value upon this trifle; for your owning it will rather increase my obligations. But my desire is, that into whose hands soever this shall fall, it may to them be a testimony of my gratitude to yourself and family, who descended to such a degree of humility as to admit me into their friendship in the days of my youth, and, notwithstanding my many infirmities, have continued me in it till I am become gray-headed; and as time has added to my years, have still increased and multiplied their favours.

This, Sir, is the intent of this dedication; and