The next day after his burial, some unknown friend, some 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,
Donne's body only lies below:

For, could the grave his soul comprise,
Earth would be richer than the skies."

Nor was this all the honor done to his reverend ashes; for as there be some persons that will not receive a reward for that for which God accounts himself a debtor; persons that dare trust God with their charity, and without a witness; so there was by some grateful, unknown friend, that thought Dr. Donne's memory ought to be perpetuated, an hundred marks sent to his two faithful friends and executors (Dr. King and Dr. Monfort) towards the making of his monument. It was not for many years known by whom; but after the death of Dr. Fox it was known that it was he that sent it. And he lived to see as lively a representation of his dead friend, as marble can express; a statue indeed so like Dr. Donne, that (as his friend, Sir Henry Wotton, had expressed himself) "It seems to breathe faintly, and posterity shall look upon it as a kind of artificial miracle."

He was of stature moderately tall, of a straight and equally-proportioned body; to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible addition of comeliness.

The melancholy and pleasant humor were in him so 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 useful by a commanding judgment.

His aspect was cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a clear-knowing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself.

His melting eye showed that he had a soft heart, full of compassion; of too brave a soul to offer injuries, and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others.

He did much contemplate (especially after he entered into his sacred calling) the mercies of Almighty God, the immortality of the soul, and the joys of heaven; and would often say, in a kind of sacred ecstasy, "Blessed be God that he is God, only and divinely like himself."

He was by nature highly passionate, but more apt to reluct at the excesses of it; a great lover of the offices of humanity, and of so merciful a spirit, that he never beheld the miseries of mankind without pity and relief.

He was earnest and unwearied in the search of knowledge; with which his vigorous soul is now satisfied, and employed in a continual praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body; that body, which once was a temple of the Holy Ghost, and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust. But I shall see it reänimated.

FEBRUARY 15, 1639.

J. WALTON.

AN EPITAPH

WRITTEN BY

DR. CORBET, LATE BISHOP OF OXFord,

ON HIS FRIEND, DR. DONNE.

He that would write an epitaph for thee,
And write it well, must first begin to be
Such as thou wert; for none can truly know
Thy life and worth, but he that hath lived so.
He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down,
Enough to keep the gallants of the town.
He must have learning plenty; both the laws,
Civil and common, to judge any cause;
Divinity great store above the rest,
Not of the last edition, but the best.

He must have language, travel, all the arts,
Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts.
He must have friends the highest, able to do,
Such as Mæcenas, and Augustus too.
He must have such a sickness, such a death,
Or else his vain descriptions come beneath.
He that would write an epitaph for thee
Should first be dead; let it alone for me.

TO THE MEMORY OF

MY EVER DESIRED DR. DONNE.

AN ELEGY,

BY H. KING, LATE BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.

To have lived eminent, in a degree

Beyond our loftiest thoughts, that is, like thee;
Or t' have had too much merit, is not safe,
For such excesses find no epitaph.

At common graves we have poetic eyes
Can melt themselves in easy elegies;
Each quill can drop his tributary verse,
And pin it, like the hatchments, to the hearse:
But at thine, poem or inscription

(Rich soul of wit and language) we have none. Indeed a silence does that tomb befit,

Where is no herald left to blazon it.
Widowed Invention justly doth forbear
To come abroad, knowing thou art not there:
Late her great patron, whose prerogative
Maintained and clothed her so, as none alive
Must now presume to keep her at thy rate,
Though he the Indies for her dower estate.
Or else that awful fire, which once did burn
In thy clear brain, now fallen into thy urn,
Lives there to fright rude empirics from thence,
Which might profane thee by their ignorance.