to be thus carved in one entire piece of white marble, as it now ftands in that church; and by Dr. Donne's own appointment, these words were to be affixed to it as his epitaph : JOHANNES DONNE, SAC. THEOL. PROFESS. POST VARIA STUDIA QUIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT; INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SP. SANCTI, MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS ANNO SUI JESU MDCXIV. ET SUÆ ÆTATIS XLII. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIÆ INDUTUS XXVII. NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI. HIC LICET IN OCCIDUO CINERE ASPICIT EUM CUJUS NOMEN EST ORIENS. And now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities of a various life, even to the gates of death and the grave, my defire is, he may reft, till I have told my reader that I have feen many pictures of him, in feveral habits, and at feveral ages, and in feveral poftures; and I now mention this, because I have seen one picture of him, drawn by a curious hand, at his age of eighteen, with his fword and what other adornments might then fuit with the prefent fashions of youth, and the giddy gaieties of that age; and his motto then was "How much fhall I be chang'd, And if that young, and his now dying picture were at this time fet together, every beholder might fay, "Lord! how "much is Dr. Donne already changed, "before he is changed!" And the view of them might give my reader occafion to afk himself with fome amazement, "Lord! "how much may I also, that am now in "health, be changed before I am chang"ed; before this vile, this changeable "body shall put off mortality!" and therefore to prepare for it.But this is not writ fo much for my reader's memento, as to tell him, that Dr. Donne would often in his private difcourfes, and often publicly in his fermons, mention the many changes both of his body and mind; efpecially of his mind, from a vertiginous giddiness; and would as often fay, "His great and "most bleffed change was from a tem 66 poral to a fpiritual employment;" in which he was fo happy, that he accounted the former part of his life to be loft; and the beginning of it to be, from his first entering into facred orders, and ferving his moft merciful God at his altar. Upon Monday after the drawing this picture, he took his laft leave of his beloved ftudy; and, being fenfible of his hourly decay, retired himfelf to his bedchamber, and that week fent at feveral times for many of his moft confiderable friends, with whom he took a folemn and deliberate farewell, commending to their confiderations fome fentences ufeful for the regulation of their lives; and then difmiffed them, as good Jacob did his fons, with a spiritual benediction. The Sunday following, he appointed his fervants, that if there were any bufinefs yet undone, that concerned him or themfelves, it fhould be prepared against Saturday next; for after that day he would not mix his thoughts with any thing that concerned this world; nor ever did; but, as Job, fo he "waited "for the appointed day of his diffolu❝tion." And now he was so happy as to have nothing to do but to die; to do which, he stood in need of no longer time; for he had ftudied it long, and to fo happy a perfection, that in a former fickness he called God to witnefs (in his Book of Devotions written then) "He was that minute ready "to deliver his foul into his hands, if that "minute God would determine his diffo"lution." In that fickness he begged of God the conftancy to be preserved in that eftate for ever; and his patient expectation to have his immortal foul difrobed from her garment of mortality, makes me confident that he now had a modeft affurance that his prayers were then heard, and his petition granted. He lay fifteen days earnestly expecting his hourly change; and in the laft hour of his laft day, as his body melted away, and vapoured into spirit, his foul having, I verily believe, fome revelation of the beatifical vifion, vifion, he faid, "I were miferable if I "might not die ;" and after those words, closed many periods of his faint breath by faying often, "Thy kingdom come, "thy will be done." His fpeech, which had long been his ready and faithful servant, left him not till the laft minute of his life, and then forfook him, not to serve another mafter (for who fpeaks like him), but died before him; for that it was then become useless to him, that now converfed with God on earth, as angels are faid to do in heaven, only by thoughts and looks. Being fpeechlefs, and feeing heaven by that illumination by which he faw it, he did, as St. Stephen, "look ftead 66 faftly into it, till he faw the Son of "Man standing at the right hand of God "his Father;" and, being fatisfied with this bleffed fight, as his foul afcended, and his last breath departed from him, he clofed his own eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into fuch a posture, as required not the leaft alteration by those that came to shroud him. Thus variable, thus virtuous was the |