his father-in-law consented to forgive him. At last, however, his winning behaviour (which, when it would entice, had a strange kind of elegant irresistible art) melted Sir George, and he laboured for his son's restoration to his place; using to that end both his own and his sister's power over her lord, but without success, Lord Ellesmere considering it "inconsistent with his place and credit to discharge and re-admit servants at the request of passionate petitioners." Sir George refusing to contribute to the maintenance of his daughter, Donne was surrounded with many sad thoughts. But his sorrows were lessened, and his wants prevented, by the seasonable courtesy of their noble kinsman, Sir Francis Wolly, of Pirford, in Surrey, who entreated them to a cohabitation with him; where they remained with much freedom to themselves, and equal content to him for some years; and as their charge increased (she had yearly a child) so did his love and bounty. They continued with Sir Francis until his death, when Donne, removed to a house in Mitcham. Sir George had previously agreed to pay him eight hundred pounds, as his wife's portion, or, failing in that, to allow him twenty pounds quarterly, as interest upon it, until it should be paid. He seems not to have done either, however, for about this time we find Donne in sad straits. Witness this extract from his letters:

"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 has 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 with 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.

"From my hospital at Mitcham.

"JOHN DONNE."

They remained at Mitcham about two years, and then removed to London, where one of Donne's friends, Sir Robert Drury, a gentleman of a very noble estate, and a more liberal mind, assigned him and his wife apartments in his own house in Drury Lane. While they were residing with Sir Robert, the latter joined Lord Hay in an embassy to Paris, and pressed Donne to accompany him. Mrs. Donne objected to her husband's leaving her, for she was with child, and "her divining soul boded her some ill in his absence;" but Sir Robert insisting, she gave a faint consent, and the party started for Paris. Two days after their arrival there, Donne was left alone in the room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an hour; and as he left, so he found, Donne alone; but in such an ecstasy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold him; insomuch that he earnestly desired Donne to declare what had befallen him in the short time of his absence. To which Donne was not able to make a present answer, but after a long and perplexed pause, did at last say, "I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this I have seen since I saw you." To which Sir Robert replied, "Sure, sir, you have slept since I saw you, and this is the result of

some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake." To which Donne's reply was, "I cannot be surer that I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and I am sure, that at her second appearing she stopped, and looked me in the face, and vanished." Rest and sleep had not altered his opinion the next day, for then he affirmed this vision with a more deliberate, and so confirmed a confidence, that he inclined Sir Robert to a faint belief that the vision was true. He immediately sent a servant to Drury-house, with a charge to hasten back, and bring him word, whether Mrs. Donne were alive; and if alive, in what condition she was as to her health. The twelfth day the messenger returned with this account: That he found and left Mrs. Donne very sad and sick in her bed; and that after a very long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child: and upon examination the abortion proved to be the same day, and about the very hour, that Donne affirmed he saw her pass by him in his chamber.

The year in which this strange occurrence took place, is not given by Walton, but it was probably in 1608 or '9, certainly before 1610, when Donne published his "PSEUDOMARTYR." This work, which was written at the command of King James, was the turning point of the poet's fortunes, for it was in consequence of reading it, that his majesty pressed him to enter into the ministry. He hesitated for a long time, thinking it, in his mistaken modesty, to be too weighty for his abilities; but the wishes of the king, joined to the solicitations of his friends, at last decided him, and after several years' incessant study of divinity, he was ordained deacon and priest, by his friend Dr. King, Bishop of London, and shortly after made chaplain in ordinary to the king. This was in the summer of 1617, as far as I can gather from Donne's biographers, all of whom seem to have a great horror of dates. The month that he was ordained and made chaplain, Donne accompanied his majesty to the university of Cambridge, where he was chosen Doctor in Divinity. Immediately after his return from Cambridge, his wife died, 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 stepmother: 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. His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife lay buried, (in St. Clement's Church, near Temple-bar, London,) and his text was a part of the prophet Jeremy's lamentation: "Lo, I am the man that have seen affliction."

Donne's poems were first published in 1633, two years after his death. The majority of them-probably all the love-poems-were written between 1597 and 1617.

SONG.

Sweetest Love, I do not go,

For weariness of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;

But since that I

At the last must part, 'tis best
Thus to use myself in jest

By feignéd deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to day,

He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:

Then fear not me,

But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take

More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,
That, if good fortune fall,

Cannot add another hour,

Nor a lost hour recal!

But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st no wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,

My life's blood doth decay.

It cannot be

That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the life of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill,

Destiny may take thy part,

And may thy fears fulfil;

But think that we

Are but turned aside to sleep:

They, who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.

THE SUN-RISING.

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,

Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys, and sour 'prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend and strong,

Dost thou not think

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long?
If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and to-morrow late tell me
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left them, or lie here with me: Ask for those kings, whom thou saw'st yesterday; And thou shalt hear all here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy;
Thou sun art half as happy as we,

In that the world's contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

THE RELIC.

When my grave is broke up again,
Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learned that woman-head,
To be to more than one a bed,)

And he that digs it spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,
Where mis-devotion doth command,
Then he, that digs us up, will bring
Us to the Bishop or the King,
To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;
And since at such times miracles are sought,
I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First we loved well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we loved, nor why;
Difference of sex we never knew,
No more than guardian angels do;

Coming and going we

Perchance might kiss, but yet between those meals
Our hands ne'er touched the seals,

Which Nature, injured by late law, set free:
These miracles we did; but now, alas!
All measure and all language I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.