life; thus excellent, thus exemplary was the death of this memorable man. He was buried in that place of St. Paul's Church which he had appointed for that ufe fome years before his death, and by which he paffed daily to pay his public devotions to Almighty God (who was then ferved twice a day by a public form of prayer and praifes in that place): but he was not buried privately, though he defired it; for, befide an unnumbered number of others, many perfons of nobility, and of eminency for learning, who did love and honour him in his life, did fhew it at his death, by a voluntary and fad attendance of his body to the grave, where nothing was fo remarkable as a public forrow. To which place of his burial fome mournful friend repaired; and, as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles, fo they ftrewed his with an abundance of curious and coftly flowers; which courfe they (who were never yet known) continued morning and evening for many days, not ceafing, till the ftones, ftones, that were taken up in that church, to give his body admiffion into the cold earth (now his bed of rest), were again by the mafon's art fo levelled and firmed as they had been formerly, and his place of burial undiftinguishable to common view. The next day after his burial, fome unknown friend, fome one of the many lovers and admirers of his virtue and learning, writ this epitaph with a coal on the wall over his grave: "Reader! I am to let thee know, "For, could the grave his foul comprife, Nor was this all the honour done to his reverend afhes; for as there be fome perfons that will not receive a reward for that for which God accounts himself a debtor; perfons that dare truft God with their charity, and without a witnefs; fo there was by fome grateful unknown friend, that thought Dr. Donne's memory ought to be perpetuated, an hundred marks fent to his two faithful friends and exe cutors It cutors (Dr. King and Dr. Montfort), towards the making of his monument. was not for many years known by whom; but, after the death of Dr. Fox, it was known that it was he that fent it; and he lived to fee as lively a reprefentation of his dead friend, as marble can exprefs; a ftatue indeed fo like Dr. Donne, that (as his friend Sir Henry Wotton hath expreffed himself) "It seems to breathe faintly, and pofterity fhall look upon it as a kind of artificial miracle." 66 He was of stature moderately tall; of a ftraight and equally proportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave an unexpreffible addition of comelinefs. The melancholy and pleafant humour were in him fo contempered, that each gave advantage to the other, and made his company one of the delights of mankind. His fancy was inimitably high, equalled only by his great wit; both being made ufeful by a commanding judgment. His His aspect was cheerful, and fuch as gave a filent teftimony of a clear knowing foul, and of a confcience at peace with itself. His melting eye fhewed that he had a foft heart, full of noble compaffion; of too brave a foul to offer injuries, and too much a Chriftian not to pardon them in others. He did much contemplate (especially after he entered into his facred calling) the mercies of Almighty God, the immortality of the foul, and the joys of heaven; and would often fay in a kind. of facred ecftafy, "Bleffed be God that "he is God, only and divinely like him"felf." He was by nature highly paffionate, but more apt to reluct at the exceffes of it. A great lover of the offices of humanity, and of fo merciful a fpirit, that he never beheld the miferies of mankind without pity and relief. He was earnest and unwearied in the fearch of knowledge, with which his vigorous foul is now fatisfied, and employed in a continual praise of that God that first breathed |