He did much contemplate (especially after he entered into his sacred calling) the mercies of Almighty God, the immortality of the soul, and the joys of heaven; and would often say, "Blessed be God that "he is God divinely like himself."

He was by nature highly passionate, but more apt to reluct at the excesses of it; a great lover of the offices of humanity, and of so merciful a spirit, that he never beheld the miseries of mankind without pity and relief.

He was earnest and unwearied in the search of knowledge, with which his vigorous soul is now satisfied, and employed in a continual praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body; that body which once was a temple of the Holy Ghost, and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust:

But I shall see it reanimated.

J. W.

!

TO THE RIGHT HON.

WILLIAM LORD CRAVEN,

BARON OF HAMSTED-MARSHAM..

MY LORD,

MANY of these Poems have, for several impressions, wandered up and down, trusting (as well 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 latter 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 frightens 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 lear ed 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 living 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.

1

VERSES TO THE AUTHOR.

HEXASTICHON BIBLIOPOLE.

I SEE in his last preach'd and printed book
His picture in a sheet; in Paul's I look,
And see his statue in a sheet of stone,
And sure his body in the grave hath one:
Those sheets present him dead; these if you buy
You have him living to eternity.

Jo. MAR.

HEXASTICHON AD BIBLIOPOLAM.

INCERTI.

In thy impression of DONNE's Poems rare
For his eternity thou hast ta'en care:
'Twas well and pious; and for ever may
He live: yet I shew thee a better way;
Print but his sermons, and if those we buy,
He, we, and thou, shall live to eternity.

TO JOHN DONNE.

DONNE! the delight of Phoebus and each Muse,

Who to thy one all other brains refuse;
Whose ev'ry work of thy most early wit

Came forth example, and remain so yet;
Longer a-kacwing than most wits do live,
And which no' affection praise enough can give;
To it thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife;
All which I mean to praise, and yet I would,
But leave because I cannot as I should.

10

BEN. JONSON.

TO JOHN DONNE.

WHO shall doubt, Donne! where I a poet be,
When I dare send my Epigrams to thee?
That so alone canst judge, so alone make,
And in thy censures evenly dost take
As free simplicity to disavow,

As thou hast best authority t' allow.
Read all I send; and if I find but one

Mark'd by thy hand, and with the better stone,