the most popular stories of the time. The death of Queen Elizabeth was lamented by Johnson in a judicious production, entitled Anglorum Lacrymæ, in a sad Passion, compleyning the Death of Queene Elizabeth, yet comforted againe by the vertuous hopes of King James. In 1607 he published The Pleasant Walkes of Moorefields, 4to; in 1612, A Remembrance of the Honours done to the Life of Robert (Cecill) Earle of Salisbury; and in the same year a collection of his ballads, under the title of The Crowne Garlande of Goulden Roses, gathered out of England's Royall Garden. Being the Lives and Strange Fortunes of many Great Personages of this Land, set forth in many pleasant new Songs and Sonnets never before imprinted. The work has been frequently reprinted, each time receiving "new additions," the latest impression being that sent forth by the Percy Society, under the able editorial care of Mr. Chappell. Richard Johnson was the author also of the Historie of Tom à Lincolne, and of Dainty Conceits, a collection printed in the year 1630; soon after which date Johnson is supposed to have died.

DR. JOHN DONNE.
(1572-1631.)

Dr. John Donne, the son of an eminent merchant, was born in London in the year 1572, by his father descended from an ancient and worthy family in Wales, and by his mother from the famous and learned Sir Thomas More.

The first part of his education was under a private tutor in his father's house; from whence, in the tenth year of his age, he was removed to Hart Hall, in Oxford, having already given many proofs of his great parts and abilities. Here he continued for the space of four years, with an unwearied application to the study of the several sciences. In his fourteenth year he was by his friends transplanted to Trinity College, Cambridge; and thence, after three years' stay, to Lincoln's Inn, in which honourable society he soon gained much esteem and reputation.

About this time his studies were interrupted by the death of an indulgent father. Being by this accident in a manner left to himself, and enabled withall by a handsome fortune of three thousand pounds (a sum in those days very considerable) to improve himself in what manner he pleased, he thought he could not do it better than by travel. Accordingly, he attended the Earl of Essex in the expedition to Cadiz; and afterwards taking the tour of Spain and Italy, and making himself a thorough master of their languages, he was, at

his return into England, promoted to be chief secretary to the then Lord Chancellor Ellesmere.

It was here he fell passionately in love with and privately married a niece of the Lady Ellesmere, the daughter of Sir George Moor, Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower; which so enraged Sir George, that he not only procured Mr. Donne's dismissal from his employment under the lord chancellor, but never rested till he had caused him likewise to be imprisoned.

Though it was not long before he was enlarged from his confinement, yet his troubles still increased upon him; for his wife being detained from him, he was constrained to claim her by a troublesome and expensive lawsuit, which, together with travel, books, and a too liberal disposition, contributed to reduce his fortune to a very narrow compass.

Adversity has its peculiar virtues to exercise and work upon, as well as the most flourishing condition of life; and Mr. Donne had now an opportunity of showing his patience and submission, which, together with the general approbation he every where met with of Mr. Donne's good qualities, with an irresistible kind of persuasion, so won upon Sir George, that he began now not wholly to disapprove of his daughter's choice; and was at length so far reconciled as not to deny them his blessing, though he could not yet be prevailed upon to lend them his assisting hand towards their support.

In the midst of these misfortunes he was happily relieved by his generous kinsman Sir Francis Woolley, of Pirford, in Surrey, who entertained both him and his wife at his house for many years with much freedom, and as his family increased (for he had every year a child), proportionably enlarged his bounty. Here they continued till Sir Francis's death; some time before which the good knight had laboured and so far effected a reconciliation with their father Sir George, as to engage him, under a bond, to pay to Mr. Donne eight hundred pounds, or twenty pounds quarterly till it was paid, as a portion with his daughter.

Mr. Donne, notwithstanding the many perplexities he was now involved in, was not hereby diverted from his beloved studies; for during his stay with Sir Francis he made himself perfectly acquainted with the body of civil and canon laws.

Upon the loss of his worthy benefactor, he hired a house at Mitcham for his wife and family, placing them near some friends whose bounty he had often experienced, but took lodgings for himself in London, where his occasions often required him. The reader will be best able to judge the necessitous state Mr. Donne was now in from an extract of one of his letters to a friend, which, whoever can read

without being sensibly affected, must have retained but little of compassion or common humanity :

The reason why I did not send an answer to your last week's letter was because it found me in too great a sadness, and at present it is thus with me: there is not one person but myself well in my family; I have already lost half a child, and with that mischance of hers my wife is fallen into such a discomposure as would afflict her too extremely, but that the sickness of all her children stupifies her, of one of which, in good faith, I have not much hope; and these meet with a fortune so ill provided for 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."

The only alleviation of these sorrows was his having recourse to books, particularly his studying, with much pains and labour, the controversy between the Reformed and Roman Churches (which before he had been no stranger to, having at the age of nineteen carefully examined the works of Bellarmin and other famous writers of that time), especially the two points, then so remarkably controverted, of supremacy and allegiance.

And now, after this gloomy season of affliction, did the dawn of some better fortune begin to appear; for, upon the advice of some of his friends, he removed himself and his family from Mitcham to London; and there, by Sir Robert Drury, was placed rent free in a handsome house next his own in Drury Lane. He had heretofore been well known to and much valued by many of the nobility, by some of whom he was now introduced and recommended to the king. His majesty needed not much solicitation on his behalf, himself soon taking great delight in his company, insomuch that one day having talked with him on the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, he was much pleased with his discourse, and commanded him to draw up into some form the arguments and objections that he had brought upon those points with his answers thereto. This he soon did, and delivered them to the king in the same order they are now printed in his Pseudo-Martyr.

The king, upon reading this book of Mr. Donne's, was so struck with admiration of his learning and abilities, that he immediately denoted him to the ministry, and from that time with much earnestness persuaded him to take holy orders. It is here to be remembered that, some time before this, Dr. Morton, (afterwards Bishop of Dur

ham), upon his being made Dean of Gloucester, had, with the same pious intentions, solicited him to enter upon that sacred function, promising him to deliver up to him a very valuable benefice which he was then possessed of; but through Mr. Donne's excessive modesty (though his circumstances were then at the lowest), he declined this offer. But to his majesty's commands Mr. Donne (though not without some unwillingness) did consent; at the same time requesting he might be allowed to defer it till he had made some further advances in the study of divinity and the learned languages.

This being granted, at the end of three years he was, by his learned friend Dr. King, bishop of London, ordained with all convenient speed both deacon and priest; upon which the king immediately made him one of his chaplains; and not long after this, the king being at Cambridge, the University, in obedience to his majesty's command, conferred upon Mr. Donne the degree of doctor of divinity.

The lectureship of Lincoln's Inn about this time happening to be vacant, the benchers presently made choice of their old fellowstudent, Dr. Donne, to be their preacher, provided him with handsome apartments, and expressed their affection to him by sundry other acts of liberality and kindness.

In this society he continued three years, till the king sending over the Earl of Doncaster into Germany to compose the unhappy business of the Palgrave, was likewise pleased to appoint the Doctor his assistant in that important affair.

Within a year after his return into England, the deanery of St. Paul's becoming vacant by the removal of Dr. Carey to the see of Exeter, the king ordered him to attend him at dinner next day. When his majesty was sat down, he said with his usual pleasantness: 'Dr. Donne, I have invited you to dinner; and though you sit not down with me, I will carve to you of a dish I know you love well; for knowing you love London, I do therefore make you Dean of St. Paul's. And when I have dined, then take your beloved dish home to your study; say grace there to yourself, and much good may it do you." So much did the king esteem Dr. Donne, that when he had been speaking of him, he was heard more than once to say, “I always rejoice when I think that by my means he became a divine."

Not long afterwards he was presented by the Earl of Dorset with the vicarage of St. Dunstan's in the West, and by the Earl of Kent with another benefice; and in the next parliament was chosen prolocutor of the Convocation. In his fifty-fourth year he fell into a lingering consumption, from which for a time rallying, in his thankfulness to God, he sent forth his admirable Book of Devotions. He

relapsed, however, and growing weaker and weaker, sent forth, on the 31st March, 1631, his last breath, with the words, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done!" His poems, chiefly religious, are, many of them, of a very singular character, both in composition and in imagery; but they occasionally display great vigour of thought, and always earnest piety.

FRANCIS DAVISON.

(1575-1618.)

Francis Davison, the eldest son of Secretary Davison, was born in or about the year 1575. In 1593 he became a member of Gray's Inn, and in 1594 produced his first work, The Speech of Gray's Inn Masque, consisting of three parts: the Story of Proteus' Transformations; the Wonders of the Adamantine Rock; and a Speech to her Majesty. The author himself took part in the performance of the masque. In May 1595, he proceeded with his tutor, Mr. Edward Smith, on the grand tour; and several letters to and from him during his absence have been printed by Sir Harris Nicolas, in his valuable edition of the Poetical Rhapsody (Pickering, 1826), as affording some curious information on the period in which our author lived. Upon his return to England, in 1597, he appears to have experienced the favour of the Russell family, his connexion with which doubtless occasioned the defence which, in 1600, he wrote of the marriage of Lady Elizabeth Russell with William Bourchier, third Earl of Bath; the legality of which was contested by Mary, daughter of Sir T. Cornwallis, on the ground of an alleged prior marriage with herself. In this work Davison speaks of the Russell family as one to which myself am specially obliged, and have always vowed my poor duty and service." The extent of the patronage conferred does not appear. In 1602 appeared the first edition of "A Poetical Rhapsody; containing divers Sonnets, Odes, Elegies, Madrigals, Epigrams, Pastorals, Eclogues, with other poems, both in rhyme and measured verse, for variety and pleasure the like never yet published:

66

The bee and spider, by a diverse power,

Suck honey and poison from the selfsame flower.'"

"Being induced," writes Davison in the preface, "by some private reasons, and by the instant entreaty of special friends, to suffer some of my worthless poems to be published, I desired to make some written by my dear friends Anonymoi, and my dearer brother, to bear them company; both without their consent, the latter being in the