Mr. Donne and his wife continued with Sir Francis Wolly till his death; a little before which time, Sir Francis was so happy as to make a perfect reconciliation betwixt Sir George and his forsaken son and daughter; Sir George conditioning by bond to pay to Mr. Donne eight hundred pounds at a certain day, as a portion with his wife, or twenty pounds quarterly for their maintenance, as the interest for it till the said portion was paid. Most of those years that he lived with Sir Francis he studied the civil and canon laws, in which he acquired such a perfection, as was judged to hold proportion with many who had made that study the employment of their whole life. Sir Francis being dead, and that happy family dissolved, Mr. Donne took for himself a house in Micham (near to Croydon in Surry), a place noted for good air and choice company. There his wife and children remained; and for himself he took lodgings in London, near to White-hall, whither his friends and occasions drew him very often, and where he was as often visited by many of the nobility and others of this nation, who used him in their councils of greatest consideration, and with some rewards for his better subsistence. Nor did our own nobility only value and favor him, but his acquaintance and friendship was sought for by most ambassadors of foreign nations, and by many other strangers, whose learning or business occasioned their stay in this nation. He was much importuned by many friends to make his constant residence in London; but he still denied it, having settled his dear wife and children at Micham, and near some friends that were bountiful to them and him; for they, God knows, needed it. And that you may the better now judge of the then present condition of his mind and fortune, I shall present you with an extract collected out of some few of his many letters. "And the reason why I did not send an answer to your last week's letter was, because it then found me under too great a sadness, and at present it is thus with me. There is not one person but myself well of my family. I have already lost half a child; and with that mischance of hers, my wife is fallen into such a discomposure, as would afflict her too extremely, but that the sickness of all her other children stupefies her; of one of which, in good faith, I have not much hope; and these meet with a fortune so ill provided for physic and such relief, that if God should ease us with burials, I know not how to perform even that. But I flatter myself with this hope, that I am dying too, for I cannot waste faster than by such griefs. As for "AUG. 10. From my hospital at Micham, JOHN DONNE," Thus did he bemoan himself; and thus in other letters. "For we hardly discover a sin, when it is but an omission of some good, and no accusing act. With this or the former, I have often suspected myself to be overtaken, which is, with an over-earnest desire of the next life. And though I know it is not merely a weariness of this, because I had the same desire when I went with the tide, and enjoyed fairer hopes than I now do; yet I doubt worldly troubles have increased it. It is now spring, and all the pleasures of it displease me; every other tree blossoms, and I wither. I grow older and not better; my strength diminisheth and my load grows heavier; and yet I would fain be or do something; but that I cannot tell what, is no wonder in this time of my sadness. For to choose is to do, but to be no part of any body is as to be nothing; and so I am, and shall so judge myself, unless I could be so incorporated into a part of the world, as by business to contribute some sustentation to the whole. This I made account; I began early, when I understood the study of our laws; but was diverted by leaving that and embracing the worst voluptuousness, an hydroptic, immoderate desire of human learning and languages: beautiful ornaments indeed to men of great fortunes; but mine was grown so low as to need an occupation, which I thought I entered well into, when I subjected myself to such a service as I thought might exercise my poor abilities; and there I stumbled and fell too. And now I am become so little, or such a nothing, that I am not a subject good enough for one of my own letters. Sir, I fear my present discontent does not proceed from a good root, that I am so well content to be nothing, that is, dead. But, Sir, though my fortune hath made me such, as that I am rather a sickness or a disease of the world, than any part of it, and therefore neither love it nor life; yet I would gladly live to become some such thing as you should not repent loving me. Sir, your own soul cannot be more zealous for your good than I am; and God, who loves that zeal in me, will not suffer you to doubt it. You would pity me now, if you saw me write, for my pain hath drawn my head so much awry, and holds it so, that my eye cannot follow my pen. I therefore receive you into my prayers with mine own weary soul, and commend myself to yours. I doubt not but next week will bring you good news; for I have either mending or dying on my side. But if I do continue longer thus, I shall have comfort in this, that my blessed Saviour, in exercising his justice upon my two worldly parts, my fortune and my body, reserves all his mercy for that which most needs it, my soul; which is, I doubt, too like a porter that is very often near the gate, and yet goes not out. Sir, I profess to you truly, that my loathness to give over writing now, seems to myself a sign that I shall write no more. Your poor friend, and God's poor patient, "SEPT. 7. By this you have seen a part of the picture of his narrow fortune, and the perplexities of his generous mind; and thus it continued with him for about two years, all which time his family remained constantly at Micham, and to which place he often retired himself, and destined some days to a constant study of some points of controversy betwixt the English and Roman church, and especially those of supremacy and allegiance. And to that place and such studies he could willingly have wedded himself during his life. But the earnest persuasion of friends became at last to be so powerful, as to cause the removal of himself and family to London, where Sir Robert Drewry, a gentleman of a very noble estate, and a more liberal mind, assigned him and his wife a useful apartment in his own large house in Drewry-lane, and not only rent-free, but was also a cherisher of his studies, and such a friend as sympathized with him and his in all their joy and sorrows. |