Chancellor, who, knowing him to be the author of that learned book, the Pseudo-Martyr, required no other proof of his abilities, but proposed it to the University, who presently assented, and expressed a gladness, that they had such an occasion to entitle him to be theirs.* chose rather to surrender his mastership, than to undergo an enquiry. But as the purport of these articles is unknown, and the nature of the charge brought against him has never been ascertained, we remain in doubt what degree of censure he deserved." * Elsewhere, Donne's honorary degree is mentioned more particularly, and with circumstances somewhat different; whence it appears that until the king's pleasure was rather commandingly expressed, "the bishop of Chichester, ViceChancellor, carried himself very stiff in the matter." In a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated March 16, 1614, Mr. Chamberlain writes, "I had almost forgotten that almost all the courtiers went forth Masters of Arts at the king's being there; but few or no Doctors, save only Younge, which was done by a mandate, being son of Sir Peter, the king's school-master. The Vice-Chancellor and University were exceeding strict in that point, and refused many importunities of great men ; among whom was Mr. Secretary, that made great means for Mr. Westfield; but it would not be; neither the king's entreaty for John Dun would prevail: yet they are threatened with a mandate, which, if it come, it is like they will obey; but they are resolved to give him such a blow withal, that he were better without it." In a subsequent letter, he writes:-"John Donne, and one Cheke, went out Doctors at Cambridge, with much ado, after our coming away, by the king's express mandate; though the Vice-Chancellor and some of the heads called them openly Filios noctis et tenebriones, that sought thus to come in at the window when there was a fair gate open. But the worst is, that Donne had gotten a reversion of the deanery of Canterbury, if such grants could be lawful; whereby he hath purchased himself a great deal of envy, that a man of his sort should seek per saltum, to intercept such a place from so many more worthy and ancient divines."-Birch's MSS. The latter charge seems to have been mere scandal; and it is probable that Donne shared unjustly in the general obloquy of the indiscriminate demand for academical honors; for Mr. Baker, in his account of St. John's College, mentions that "degrees were vilely prostituted to mean persons, such as apothecaries and barbers, and in so scandalous a manner that some of them were afterwards degraded by a grace of the house; though to soften the matter, it was pretended that some of those degrees were surreptitiously attained."-Bib. Harl. cod. 7028. In this treatment of "his Doctor," the king had been little flattered to have known the author of Pseudo Martyr,—a learned enquiry on a subject of momentous interest at the time, summarily classed with the children of darkness, who sought honors as the mask of quackery and ignorance. The oath of allegiance had been framed by the king himself, after the Gunpowder-treason-plot, in his own words, "to the end, that he might make a separation, not only between all his good subjects in general, and unfaithful traitors, that in His abilities and industry in his professica were so eminent, and he so known and so beloved by persons of quality, that within the first year of his entering into sacred orders, he had fourteen advowsons of several benefices presented to him; but they were in the country, and he could not leave his beloved tended to withdraw themselves from his obedience; but specially, to make a separation between so many of his subjects, who, though they were otherwise popishly affected, yet retained in their hearts the print of their natural duty to their sovereign." In the opinion of a learned writer, not likely to be prejudiced in its favoUT, "nothing could be wiser or more humane, than the motives of James in framing the oath." But as it denied the temporal power of the pope over England's king and English land, (a denial, which the Cardical Bellarmine considered “was not so much an opinion as a heresy," it was not likely to be generally acceptable. Two Briefs of pope Paul V. were promulgated against it; and its defence was undertaken by the king himself, in a work before referred to, entitled “Tripici nodo Triplex cuneus, or an Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance, &e.” The principal writers on the other side, being the Cardinal Bellarmine, and Father Parsons.—See Hist. Mem. of the Eng. Catholics, by Charles Butler, esq., of Line. Inn, pp. 265–316. The command of the king to write on a subject treated of by himself, was no small compliment, and his majesty's approval no slight honor, the opinion he entertained of his own literary powers being considered. Perhaps than Donne, from his legal and divinity studies, and his masterly method of handling a subject, no man was better calculated to digest authorities, and enforce the arguments they supported. Indeed it was the "turn of the tide" in his affairs, and had he been less conscientious, in adopting his majesty's suggestion of taking holy orders, preferment had sooner attended him. If his work is now out of date, and the subject become “flat and unprofitable,” it is only because the truth he advocated has been too long recognized to be seriously questioned It is long since the "Universal Catholic Church," so called, adopted the cele brated declaration of the Gallican clergy, "that the power which Jesus Christ had given to St. Peter, and his successors, related only to spiritual things; and not to things temporal; so that in temporals, kings and princes are not subject to the ecclesiastical power; and cannot, directly or indirectly, be deposed by the power of the pope, or their subjects discharged by it, from the obedience which they owe to their sovereign, or from their oath of allegiance.” * 1617. Mr. Chamberlain writes to Sir Dudley Carleton: "The archbishop of Canterbury, the lord keeper, the lord Privy Seal, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Southampton, and lord Hay, the Comptroller, Secretary Winwood, the new Master of the Rolls, and divers other great men at Paul's Cross, and heard Dr. Donne, who made a dainty sermon on Prov. xxii., 11, and was exceedingly well liked generally, the rather for that he did queen Elizabeth right, and held himself close to the text, without flattering the time too much.”—Birch's MSS. London, to which place he had a natural inclination, having received both his birth and education in it, and there contracted a friendship with many, whose conversation multiplied the joys of his life; but an employment that might affix him to that place would be welcome, for he needed it.* Immediately after his return from Cambridge, his wife died,† * A letter at this time, from Donne to his brother-in-law, Sir Robert More, tells too plainly his condition, and his devotion to "her whom he had transplanted into such a wretched fortune," to be omitted : S', Since I had no other thinge in contemplac'on when I purposed thys journey, then my health, me thinks yt ys a kinde of phisick to be so longe about that, and I grow weary of phisick quickly. I have therfore put off that purpose, at least tyll the K. come into these parts. If yor horse (wch I returne by thys carryar of Gilford) have not found as good salads in of Covent Garden, as he should at Lothesley, yet I beleeve he hath had more ease then he should have had there. We are condemned to thys desart of London for all thys sommer, for yt ys company not houses which distinguishes between cityes and desarts, When I began to apprehend, that even to myselfe, who can releive myself upon books, solitarines was a little burdenous, I beleeved yt would be much more so to my wyfe, if she were left alone. So much company, therfore, as I ame, she shall not want; and we had not one another at so cheape a rate, as y' we should ever be wearye of one another. Sr, when these places afford any thinge worthe yo❜ knowledge, I shall be yo' referendary. Now my errand ys onely to deliver my thanks and services, accompanyed wth yor poore sister's, to yo' selfe, and all yo2 good company. Yors ever to be commanded, Sir Robert More, knt., one of the honorable band of Pensioners to king James and king Charles, died at Lothesley, in the lifetime of his father, February 2, 1625, leaving a family of six children surviving. The same year, by the presentation of a benefice in his gift, Dr. Donne, as dean of St. Paul's, had the opportunity of assisting the drooping fortunes of the house of More, by securing the election of one of Sir Robert's sons to the College at Eton, as appears by a letter to Sir Henry Wotton, extant in the same collection. + Not so; she survived yet three years and a half; she lived to bear him company through all the misery of "long starving hope," until his appointment by his early friends to the Lectureship of Lincoln's Inn, and the provision by them of a home; and then-she died, August 15th, 1617, on the seventh day after the birth of her twelfth child; and was buried in the parish church of St. Clement Danes, * leaving him a man of a narrow unsettled estate, and, having buried five, the careful father of seven children then living, to whom he gave a voluntary assurance, never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother; which promise he kept most faithfully, burying with his tears all his earthly joys in his most dear and deserving wife's grave, and betook himself to a most retired and solitary life. In this retiredness, which was often from the sight of his dearest friends, he became crucified to the world, and all those long since decayed, and rebuilt, where a fair monument on the north side of the chancel, thus recorded her many virtues and her husband's irreparable loss :— A copy of this inscription preserved among the muniments at Loseley, transmitted apparently to Sir George More, by Dr. Donne, conveyed to him the final judgment of the survivor of that earthly alliance which had occasioned so much annoyance to his pride, and so much misery to them. Yet, who shall say there existed not the purest elements of happiness, in one so appreciating as himself, and a wife and mother so admirably described, so feelingly lamented. Who shall say, when many are paired, not matched, that the harmony of the echoing lute--the sympathy of soul, does not constitute the only union made up in heaven? An entry in the pocket book of Nicholas Stone, mentions "a tomb of Dr. Donne's wife, in St. Clement Danes, for the which I had fifteen pieces."-Walpole's Anecdotes, v. ii., p. 44. * It seems not improbable that this 'voluntary assurance' had a retrospective origin in the circumstances of his deceased wife. She had been left motherless at the age of six years. Her father, Sir George More, had married a second wife, Constance, daughter of William Michel, esq.; and although a reconciliation took place, and Donne's daughter, Constance, was probably named after her, yet it was to her,--the mother-in-law,--that the reproaches of Donne, in some of his poems, written at the period of his courtship and marriage, had reference. vanities, those imaginary pleasures, that are daily acted on that restless stage; and they were as perfectly crucified to him. Nor is it hard to think, (being passions may be both changed and heightened by accidents,) but that that abundant affection which once was betwixt him and her, who had long been the delight of his eyes, and the companion of his youth; her with whom he had divided so many pleasant sorrows and contented fears as common people are not capable of;-not hard to think but that she being now removed by death, a commeasurable grief took as full possession of him as joy had done; and so indeed it did; for now his very soul was elemented of nothing but sadness; now grief took so full a possession of his heart, as to leave no place for joy. If it did, it was a joy to be alone, where, like a pelican in the wilderness, he might bemoan himself without witness or restraint, and pour forth his passions like Job in the days of his affliction. "Oh that I might have the desire of my heart! Oh that God would grant the thing that I long for!" For then, as the grave is become her house, so I would hasten to make it mine also; that we two might there make our beds together in the dark.* Thus, as the Israelites sat mourning by the rivers of Babylon, when they remembered Sion ;† so he gave some ease to his oppressed heart by thus venting his sorrows: thus he began the day, and ended the night; ended the restless night and began the weary day in lamentations. And thus he continued, till a consideration of his new engagements to God, and St. Paul's "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!"‡ dispersed those sad clouds that had then benighted his hopes, and now forced him to behold the light. His first motion from his house was to preach, where his beloved wife lay buried,-in St. Clement's church, near Temple * Job,vi., 8; xvii., 13. Dr. Zouch here calls to mind "the wretched Romeo's words," in the tomb of the Capulets :- I will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night + Psalms cxxxvii. -Romeo and Juliet, a. v., 8.3. 1 Cor., ix., 16. |