with such sadness and apprehension as he could never have felt for himself alone.*

In this situation they were invited into the house of a generous kinsman (Sir Francis Woolley), who maintained them and their increasing family for several years, "to their mutual content” and undiminished friendship. † Volumes could not say more in praise of both than this singular connection:-to bestow favours, so long continued and of such magnitude, with a grace which made them sit lightly on those who received them, and to preserve, under the weight of such obligation, dignity, independence, and happiness, bespeaks uncommon greatness of spirit and goodness of heart and temper on all sides.

This close and domestic intimacy was dissolved only by the death of Sir Francis, who had previously procured a kind of reconcilement with the father of Mrs. Donne, and an allowance of about eighty pounds a year. They fell again into debt,

* Walton's Lives.

+ Walton's Life of Donne.-Chalmers's Biography.

and into misery; and "doubtless," says old Walton, with a quaint, yet eloquent simplicity, "their marriage had been attended with a heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so mutual and cordial affections, as, in the midst of their sufferings, made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of dull and low-spirited* people." We find in some of Donne's letters, the most heart-rending pictures of family distress, mingled with the tenderest touches of devoted affection for his amiable wife. "I write," he says, "from the fire-side in my parlour, and in the noise of three gamesome children, and by the side of her, whom, because I have transplanted into a wretched fortune, I“ must labour to disguise that from her by all such honest devices, as giving her my company and discourse," &c. &c.

And in another letter he describes himself, with all his family sick, his wife stupified by her own and her children's sufferings, without money to

* i. e. low-minded.

purchase medicine,-" and if God should ease us with burials, I know not how to perform even that; but I flatter myself that I am dying too, for I cannot waste faster than by such griefs. -From my hospital. "JOHN DONNE."

This is the language of despair; but love was stronger than despair, and supported this affectionate couple through all their trials. Add to mutual love the spirit of high honour and conscious desert; for in the midst of this sad, and almost sordid misery and penury, Donne, whose talents his contemporaries acknowledged with admiration, refused to take orders and accept a benefice, from a scruple of conscience, on account of the irregular life he had led in his youthful years.

But in their extremity, Providence raised them up another munificent friend. Sir Robert Drury received the whole family into his house, treated Donne with the most cordial respect and affection, and some time afterwards invited him to accompany him abroad.

Donne had been married to his wife seven years, during which they had suffered every variety of

wretchedness, except the greatest of all,-that being separated. The idea of this first parting was beyond her fortitude; she said, her "divining soul boded her some ill in his absence," and with tears she entreated him not to leave her Her affectionate husband yielded; but Sir Robert Drury was urgent, and would not be refused. Donne represented to his wife all that honour and gratitude required of him; and she, too really tender, and too devoted to be selfish and unreasonable, yielded with "an unwilling willingness;" yet, womanlike, she thought she could not bear a pain she had never tried, and was seized with the romantic idea of following him in the disguise of a page.* In a delicate and amiable woman, and a mother, it could have been but a momentary thought, suggested in the frenzy of anguish. It inspired, however, the following beautiful dissuasion, which her husband addressed to her.

By our first strange and fatal interview;

By all desires which thereof did ensue ;

Chalmers's Biography.

By our long-striving hopes; by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory

Of hurts which spies and rivals threaten'd me,—
I calmly beg: but by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee ;—and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,
I here unswear, and overswear them thus:
Thou shalt not love by means so dangerous.
Temper, O fair Love! Love's impetuous rage;
Be my true mistress, not my feigned page.
'll go, and by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind
Thirst to come back. O! if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar :
Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move

Rage from the seas, not thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness: thou hast read

How roughly he in pieces shivered

Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.

Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved

Dangers unurg'd: feed on this flattery,

That absent lovers one in th' other be.
Dissemble nothing,-not a boy,-nor change

Thy body's habit nor mind: be not strange