that Sir Robert Drury went with him, and that Donne accompanied Sir Robert. It is strange that Mr. Alford has retained the mistake as to Lord Hay, since Dr. Zouch, whose edition of Walton he appears to have used, corrects it on the authority of the Biographia Britannica. Lord Hay never was ambassador in France until 1616; Henry was assassinated in 1610, and Sir R. Drury died in 1615. It would appear that Donne made two visits to Paris; one during Henry's lifetime, the other in 1612. Many of his letters were written from the Continent during the second of these expeditions; Mr. Alford dates all these as if they had been written on the first visit. There are not in the collection any letters written during that visit, nor have I observed any record of it, except some words in a letter of 1612, which the editor has noticed,* and a doubtful allusion in one of the sermons, which appears to have been hitherto overlooked. It does not appear that Donne and his patron travelled in the train of any ambassador. They remained some time at Amiens; and after leaving Paris proceeded to Frankfort, in order to witness the election of the emperor Matthias. They returned by way of Spa, and the Low Countries. Mr. Alford, from not observing the coherence of the letters written on this tour, has dated most of them in 1609, and one or two in 1619, in the latter of which years Donne accompanied the embassy to the Elector Palatine, and other princes of Germany. p. 332) have endeavoured to show how such a vision might easily have been engendered by circumstances in which he was, working on his peculiar temperament. Mr. Alford suggests, that in ages which believe in ghosts, ghosts will readily be seen. (Vol. i. p. xiv.) The defective nature of the evidence for the story does not seem to have been as yet noticed. Walton did not hear it from Donne, but from "a person of honour, and of such intimacy with him that he knew more of the secrets of his soul than any person then living;" it was told many years before the good man wrote Donne's life, and we may be sure that it lost nothing in his hands. Walton, as has been shown, committed several mistakes with respect to Donne's journey on the Continent; and Letter 29, which, as Mr. Alford observes, must have been written shortly before the date of the vision, proves that he cannot be right in stating that Donne got to Paris in twelve days from the time of leaving London, and saw this sight two days later. I am inclined to think that Donne saw something such as Walton describes, and that about the time when his wife was brought to bed; that this may be accounted for on the principles of Hibbert or Ferriar; and that the circumstances to which the story owes its marvellousness were added to it between 1612 and the time when the life was printed. After what has been said, it is hardly necessary to note that the biographers are mistaken in fixing the date of the "Pseudomartyr," which was published in 1610, after Donne's visit to Paris in company with Sir Robert Drury. It was while at Paris with Sir Robert Drury, that Donne, according to Walton, had a vision of his wife with a dead child in her arms. Writers on Donne's epitaph states that he was Apparitions (Ferriar, p. 63, Hibbert, ordained in 1614. Letter 102, which is "That which was much observed, in the King's more childish age, when I was last here, by those whom his father appointed to judge." Letter 47, cf. vol. i. p. xiii. note. † “I have known the greatest Christian prince (in style and title), even at the au. dience of an ambassador, at the sound of a bell kneel down and pray." Vol. ii. p. 579. This may perhaps mean an emperor of Germany; but if it means a "Most Christian King" of France, Henry would seem to be the person intended, rather than Louis XIII. who, when Donne was last at Paris, was but eleven years old. Nelson, in his Life of Bishop Morton (quoted by Dr. Wordsworth, E. B. III. 635,) states that Donne studied law at Amiens, and wrote from that place to Morton, asking his advice as to the expediency of taking a doctor's degree and practising in the Court of Arches. The residence at Amiens was probably nothing beyond his stay there while with Sir R. Drury; and in Letter 32 he writes, "For my purpose of proceeding in the profession of the law, so far as to a title, be pleased to correct that imagination wherever you find it. I ever thought the study of it my best entertainment and pastime, but I have no ambition, no design upon the style," dated Jan. 27, without mention of any year, contains these words, "There are very few days past since I took orders." In Letter 50, written on St. Thomas's Eve, 1614, he speaks of himself as about to take orders, but evidently not immediately. His ordination, therefore, must have taken place in January 1614-15.* Walton states that he received the degree of D.D. at Cambridge in the same month of the summer in which he was ordained. We have seen that he was ordained in winter, and it has been already shown by others that the degree was conferred in March.t “Immediately after his return from Cambridge," Walton continues, "his wife died." She did not die until nearly three years and a half later, August 15, 1617. His first sermon after her death is said to have been preached in the church of St. Clement Danes, on the text, "Lo! I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath." (Lam. iii. 1.) This is the text of Sermon 129, which, however, has no allusion to his domestic sorrows, and was preached at St. Dunstan's church, with which he was not connected until 1624. "Engagements to St. Paul's" are mentioned as having a share in urging him to activity after his loss, but it does not appear that he was connected with the cathedral until the deanery was conferred on him. An error of an opposite kind is committed in the story of his appointment to the preachership of Lincoln's Inn, "in this time of sadness," as he had been appointed "in the 14th of James," (Major's Walton,) i. e. before March 24, 1617. It has been already shown that the biographer is also wrong in supposing that Gataker was his immediate predecessor (Zouch). Walton mentions his old familiarity with the benchers as a reason of his being chosen preacher. Christopher Brooke, his old "chamberfellow," was now a bencher. It is to be remembered, too, as I have shown, that Donne, long before this time, and while a layman, held some office connected with the inn.t The length of Donne's absence when he accompanied Lord § Doncaster (formerly Lord Hay) to Germany, is said to have been "about fourteen months." The Sermons furnish better information. The 148th, his farewell sermon at Lincoln's Inn, was preached April 18, 1619; the 72d, at the Hague, when he was on his way home, on the 19th of the following December. The next of those preached in England is 15, which bears date March 3, 1619 [-20]. "About a year after his return out of Germany he was made Dean of St. Paul's," and immediately after vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West. The former of these appointments took place Nov. 27, 1621; the other, in March or April 1624 (Wordsworth, Zouch). Letter 82 gives the following account of his connexion with St. Dunstan's: "I am not so bound as the world thinks to preach there; for I make not a shilling profit of St. Dunstan's as a churchman, but as my Lord of Dorset gave me the lease of the impropriation for a certain rent, and a higher rent than my predecessor had it at." Walton tells a story of Donne's falling under the displeasure of James I. because " some malicious whisperer " told the King that the Dean had in one of his sermons represented him as inclining to Romanism, and had found fault with the injunctions for catechising. The latter part of the supposed charge seems to have grown out of the fact that Donne, by the King's com. mand, preached at Paul's Cross, Sept. 15, 1622, in explanation and recommendation of these injunctions. (Serm. 155.) The 73d, 74th, and 75th letters show that the King with whom Donne got into trouble was not James, but * Sermon 116 is dated 1611, which must be a mistake. The earliest date next to this is that of Serm. 142, which was preached at Greenwich, April 30, 1615. + He was incorporated M.A. at Oxford, April 18, 1610, having previously taken the same degree at Cambridge. Wood. Serm. 92 was "preached at Lincoln's Inn, preparing them to build their chapel." Mr. Alford has overlooked a sermon of which there is a copy in the Brit. Museum, entitled "Encænia, the Feast of Dedication," preached at the consecration of this chapel, on Ascension-day 1623. The Museum also contains a sermon preached at Whitehall, which is not in the reprint. § Viscount, not Earl, as Walton and Mr. Alford call him. Charles I.; that his sermon was supposed to be somehow connected with one lately preached by Archbishop Abbot; that Laud was the mediator between the King and the Dean; that the King himself heard the sermon ;* that Walton is mistaken in saying that the King sent for Donne; and that the speech which he is said to have made when the doctor's character was cleared, is the worthy biographer's own invention. Walton is also wrong in saying that the King was inclined to believe evil of Donne by the circumstance that "a person of nobility and great note, betwixt whom and Mr. Donne there had been a great friendship, was at that very time discarded the court, and justly committed to prison," if by this description he means Carr, Earl of Somerset ; since that person's fall happened so long before as 1615. After relating the story of the sermon, Walton proceeds, "he was made dean the fiftieth year of his age, and in his fifty-fourth, a dangerous sickness seized him," during which he composed his Devotions. If this statement were correct, Mr. Alford would be right (as Donne was born in 1573) in fixing on 1627 as the date of Letter 68, which was written when the Devotions were printed. But Mr. Alford elsewhere, (i. xvi.) rightly makes 1621 the year of the appointment to the deanery, and says that the illness was "three years later." In fact the Devotions were printed while Charles I. to whom they were dedicated, was yet Prince of Wales, i. e. before March 27th, 1625. (Comp. Letter 68, and vol. iii. p. 494.) Walton says that the anchor seals which Donne gave to his friends were made during his last illness, which is probably correct; but the biographer's words would also lead us to suppose that the device was then first adopted, Mr. Kempe has shown that this was not the case, and that Donne's ordination was more likely the event which led him to substitute the anchor for his old crest. This is confirmed by a comparison of some words in his poem on the seals, "Adscitus domui Domini, patrioque relicto Stemmate, nanciscor stemmata jure nova." with a passage in a sermon (vol. iv. p. 479.) "This is the first time in all The sermon is the 108th, "preached to the King at Whitehall, April 4, 1627." Donne writes (letter 75.) "The best of my hope is, that some overbold allusions or expressions in the way might divert his Majesty from vouchsafing to observe the frame "The and purpose of the sermon." Such passages as the following may be meant. Apostles, when they came in their peregrination to a new state, to a new court, to Rome itself, did not inquire, how stands the Emperor affected to Christ, and to the preaching of his Gospel? Is there not a sister or a wife that might be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ? Are there not some persons, great in honour and place, that might be content to hold a party together, by admitting the preaching of Christ?" Again-" Very religious Kings may have had wives that may have retained some tincture, some impressions of error, which they may have sucked in their infancy from another church, and yet would be loth those wives should be publicly traduced to be heretics, or passionately proclaimed to be idolaters, for all that." + Walton's "custom of putting long speeches into the mouths" of his characters, which, as Mr. Keble says, (Pref. to Hooker, p. ii. ed. 1.) "deceives no one," is confessed by him in the Preface to his Life of Sanderson. In formerly noticing Mr. Alford's oversights as to this part of Donne's history, I allowed myself to be misled by one of his notes (on letter 16) into identifying the "Sir R. Karre" of Donne's correspondence with Somerset. The fact is, that there were four Sir Robert Kers in those days; (Nichols, "Progresses of James I." vol. ii. p. 412,) and that Donne's friend was he who was in 1633 created Earl of Ancrum. He is styled "now Earl of Ankerum" in the heading of letter 57, which appears to have been furnished by the first editor, as the letters appeared in 1651, and the Earl was then alive. Mr. Alford dates some of the letters to him too early. Sir Robert appears to have been dependent on a nobleman, (letters 19, 106, 109,) probably Somerset, who was his relation, and in 1614 (letter 49) introduced him into the Prince's bedchamber establishment. If "my Lord," then, mean Somerset, the letters in which he is mentioned must have been written after 1612, as that was the year in which he was raised to the peerage. Letter 104 was addressed to him when his title was Viscount Rochester. Donne speaks in a letter (50) written Dec. 20, 1614, of publishing his poems, and dedicating them to Somerset, who was then Lord Chamberlain. my life,-I date my life from my ministry, for I received mercy,' as I received the ministry, as the Apostle speaks," &c. The mention of Donne's will in the Life reminds me that in the British Museum the will of his son John, which Ant. à Wood calls "fantastical and conceited," is bound up with certain broadsides by Baxter, Calamy, and others of the same way, in a volume labelled "Sayings of Pious Men," and that the Catalogue ascribes it to Dean Donne. Walton prints part of a letter written by Donne during his last illness, and gives as its date Jan. 7, 1630. Mr. Alford prints the whole, and tells us in a note that "it was written in January 1630." It is surprising that he has followed Walton's statement, as there is proof in the part of the letter which Walton did not print, that it was written before Christmas. Mr. Alford seems not to be aware that the year was then reckoned to begin on the 25th of March. Thus, although he rightly states that Donne died on March 31, 1631, he dates the letters written in his last illness, as if they were of the winter of 1629-30. The same error has caused him to state (whether from a reckoning of his own, or after some other illus. trator), that Donne's last sermon was preached on Feb. 12. Walton tells us that it was preached on the first Friday in Lent; which was Feb. 12, in 1629-30, but not in 1630-1, which is the year with which we are concerned.* I have now gone through Walton's Life; and, as in doing so I have often had to contradict him, it seems fit that I should here beg that I may not be thought insensible to the many and great merits of his delightful biographies. Dr. Ferriar, after filling a volume with an exposure of Sterne's plagiarisms, concluded it with a sonnet in honour of the author, whom he had been so laboriously pulling to picces. If I were capable of writing sonnets worth the reading, I would willingly bestow a like tribute on the worthy Izaak Walton. As I have no such gift, I must now leave him, and shall proceed to make a few remarks on the notes which Mr. Alford has attached to the letters. Some of these, which relate to dates, have been already rectified, either in a general way or more particularly; of such I shall not say more; and a regard for your space forbids me to mention many of the others. Letter 1 is addressed" to my good friend G. H.," and bears date Dec. 12, 1600. The editor explains G. H. to mean George Herbert; and tells us that the letter was written during Donne's imprison. ment after his marriage. On this it may be remarked, that the date is a year before the real time of the marriage, and three years before that which Mr. Alford elsewhere assigns for it; that Herbert was in 1600 only seven years old, and there is reason for believing that Donne did not know his family so early; and that it is very evident from the letter itself, that not Donne but G. H. was the prisoner. Donne was then secretary to the chancellor, and had been managing some business for his friend. Mr. Alford too had forgotten this letter when he wrote (I. xi.) that we have no record of Donne's having been in England between 1597 and 1603. Letter 32 is said to be "probably to Sir H. Goodyere, and written about 1609." This is one of those which, as has been said, belong to the year 1612. It has so much in common with 48, which was addressed to Sir H. G., that it can hardly have been meant for the same person. Letter 36. "Before 1610." Certainly a good deal later, although I have not the means by me of ascertaining the true date. Letter 38. "Probably written about 1610." The mention of Mr. Pory * See Sir H. Nicolas' "Chronology of History." † By the way, Walton's account of an atheistical party, in his Life of Hooker, is in a great measure taken from a passage in one of Donne's Sermons, (vol. ii. pp. 354-5.) This circumstance may probably be noticed in Mr. Keble's second edition, which has not fallen in my way. The image of "preaching like an angel from a cloud," which occurs in the description of Donne's pulpit eloquence, is from one of Donne's poems (vol. vi. p. 565). shows that it was written abroad in 1612; probably from Spa. (Compare Letter 45.) Letter 40. "August 30, 1611." This date is not of Mr. Alford's conjecturing; but the allusion to a sermon might have led him to suspect it, as Donne was not ordained until 1615. The various circumstances which are mentioned in it-such as Sir Edward Herbert's embassy in France, the state of affairs in Germany, Boucquois' death, which, according to the Biographie Universelle, took place at Neuhaeusel, July 10, 1621, and my Lord of Canterbury's "accident," (i. e. Archbishop Abbot's having shot a keeper,)* all show that 1621 is the year in which the letter was written. Letter 47. It seems questionable whether this was written "from Paris." Letter 60. "Probably in 1620." Rather about the same time with Letter 64, which is dated Oct. 11, 1621. Letter 61. "Written about 1620." While the Prince was abroad, in 1623. Letter 68 is dated "August 16th; here, 1622." There is abundant reason for concluding that 1622 must be a mistake for 1612. "Here" alludes to the difference of the New Style, used where the letter was written, from the Old Style, used in England. The editor's note on it is "most probably Frankfort." If so, Frankfort must be in the way from Spa, by Louvain, to England. Letter 70. "To the Honourable Knight Sir G. P." This letter would seem, by what is said about the son of the person to whom it is addressed, to have been written, like Letter 72, to Sir H. Goodreve. "Your son Sir Francis" would thus mean Sir Francis Nethersole, who married one of Sir Henry's daughters. Letters 71 and 72. The former of these was sent along with another, which had been written before it. The mention of the same public events in both, shews that the 72nd is the letter which accompanied the 71st. The last-written bears date 24th Sept. without mention of the year; the other alludes to Donne's sermon at St. Paul's Cross, on the injunctions for catechizing, which was preached Sept. 15, 1622. Mr. Alford dates both "probably 1623." Letter 80. Probably in January 1630." The reason of this conjecture would seem to have been, that the letter mentions a report of Donne's death, and it appears from the next in the collection, that there was such a report during his last illness. But this was written during the lifetime of "the duke" (Buckingham), and therefore before August 1628. Again, it was written from Chelsea, where Sir John Danvers lived, and where George Herbert then was, and therefore probably before the death of Herbert's mother, Lady Danvers, in June 1627. Although it had been rumoured that Donne was dead, it does not appear that he had been ill. A pestilence was then raging, which gave rise to the story. The letter was written on the 21st of December, which Mr. Alford has overlooked. On Jan. 15, St. 1625-6, Donne preached at Dunstan's "the first sermon after our dispersion by the sickness." (150.) It would seem, therefore, that Dec. 21, 1625, is the true date of the letter. funeral sermon on Lady In his Danvers, Donne says that he had been an inmate of her house during a time of general sickness not long before. In 1619 The only other observation which I shall now make on the late edition, relates to the portrait prefixed to it, the original of which, according to the editor, is the work of Vandyck. That painter was born in 1599. he left the school of Rubens, and in the same year Donne visited Germany. But as Vandyck proceeded southwards from Antwerp, on his way to Italy, and Donne both went and returned by Holland, (Comp. Brewer's Goodman, ii. 195, and Donne's Sermons, 148, 149, 72.) it seems impossible * Donne is made to write "I have been sometimes with My Lord of Canterbury since by accident, to give you his own words." For by we ought to read the. Mr. Alford must have been misinformed when he said that Leicestershire was the scene of the homicide (note on Letter 63), as the dispensation issued to the Archbishop, (Cardwell, Doc. Ann. ii. p. 137), describes it as having taken place "in parco quodam vocato Bramzil-park, apud Bramzil, in comitatu nostro Southampton." It was at Bramshill, the seat of Lord Zouch. |