J. Donne Micham the 14 August To Sir I. H. SIR I Would not omit this not Commodity but Advantage of writing to you This emptinesse in London dignifies any Letter from hence as in the seasons earlinesse and latenesse makes the sowrenesse and after the sweetnesse of fruits acceptable and gracious We often excuse and advance mean Authors by the age in which they lived so will your love do this Letter and you will tell your self that if he which writ it knew wherein he might expresse his affection or any thing which might have made his Letter welcommer he would have done it As it is you may accept it so as we do many China manufactures of which when we know no use yet we satisfie our curiosity in considering them because we knew not how nor of what matter they were made Near great woods and quarries it is no wonder to see faire houses but in Holland which wants both it is So were it for me who am as farre removed from Court and knowledge of forein passages as this City is now from the face and furniture of a City to build up a long Letter and to write of my self were but to inclose a poor handfull of straw for a token in a Letter yet I will tell you that I am at London onely to provide for Monday when I shall use that favour which my Lady Bedford hath afforded me of giving her name to my daughter which I mention to you as well to shew that I covet any occasion of a gratefull speaking of her favours as that because I have thought the day is likely to bring you to London I might tell you that my poor house is in your way and you shall there finde such company as I think you will not be loth to accompany to London Your very true friend J. Donne 6 Aug. 1608. To Sir H. Wootton SIR THat which is at first but a visitation and a civill office comes quickly to be a haunting and an uncivill importunity my often writing might be subject to such a misinterpretation if it were not to you who as you know that the affection which suggests and dictates them is ever one and continuall and uninterrupted may be pleased to think my Letters so too and that all the pieces make but one long Letter and so I know you would not grudge to read any intire book of mine at that pace as you do my Letters which is a leafe a week especially such Letters as mine which perchance out of the dulnesse of the place are so empty of any relations as that they oppresse not your meditations nor discourse nor memory You know that for aire we are sure we apprehend and enjoy it but when this aire is rarified into fire we begin to dispute whether it be an element or no so when Letters have a convenient handsome body of news they are Letters but when they are spun out of nothing they are nothing or but apparitions and ghosts with such hollow sounds as he that hears them knows not what they said You I think and I am much of one sect in the Philosophy of love which though it be directed upon the minde doth inhere in the body and find piety entertainment there so have Letters for their principall office to be seals and testimonies of mutuall affection but the materialls and fuell of them should be a confident and mutuall communicating of those things which we know How shall I then who know nothing write Letters Sir I learn knowledge enough out of yours to me I learn that there is truth and sirmnesse and an earnestness of doing good alive in the world and therefore since there is so good company in it I have not so much desire to go out of it as I had if my fortune would afford me any room in it You know I have been no coward nor unindustrious in attempting that nor will I give it over yet If at last I must confesse that I dyed ten years ago yet as the Primitive Church admitted some of the Jews Ceremonies not for perpetuall use but because they would bury the Synagogue honourably though I dyed at a blow then when my courses were diverted yet it wilplease me a little to have had a long funerall and to have kept my self so long above ground without putrefaction But this is melancholique discourse To change therefore from this Metaphoricall death to the true and that with a little more relish of mirth let me tell you the good nature of the executioner of Paris who when Vatan was beheaded who dying in the profession of the Religion had made his peace with God in the prison and so said nothing at the place of execution swore he had rather execute forty Huguenots then one Catholique because the Huguenot used so few words and troubled him so little in respect of the dilatory ceremonies of the others in dying Cotton the great Court Jesuite hath so importuned the Q. to give some modifications to the late interlocutory arrest against the Jesuits that in his presence the C. Soisons who had been present in the Court at the time of the arrest and Servin the Kings Advocate who urged it and the Premier president were sent for They came so well provided with their books out of which they assigned to the Q. so many so evident places of seditious doctrine that the Q. was well satisfied that it was fit by all means to provide against the teaching of the like doctrine in France The D. of Espernon is come to Paris with they say 600 horse in his train all which company came with him into the Court which is an insolency remarkable here They say that scarce any of the Princes appear in the streets but with very great trains No one enemy could wast the treasures of France so much as so many friends do for the Q. dares scarce deny any that so she may have the better leave to make haste to advance her Marquis of Ancre of whose greatnesse for matter of command or danger they have no great fear he being no very capable nor stirring man and then for his drawing of great benefits from the Q. they make that use of it that their suits passe with lesse opposition I beleeve the treasure is scattered because I see the future receipt charged with so very many and great pensions The Q. hath adventured a little to stop this rage of the Princes importunity by denying a late suit of Soissons which though the other Princes grudge not that Soisson should faile for he hath drawn infinite sums already yet they resent it somewhat tenderly that any of them should be denyed when the Marquis obtains That which was much observed in the Kings more childish age when I was last here by those whom his father appointed to judge by an assiduous observation his naturall inclination is more and more confirmed that his inclinations are cruell and tyrannous and when he is any
before Christmas to see England and kisse your hand which shall ever if it disdain not that office hold all the keyes of the libertie and affection and all the faculties of Your most affectionate servant J. D. Paris the 14 of Aprill here 1612. To my honoured friend G. G. Esquire SIR I Should not only send you an account by my servant but bring you an account often my self for our Letters are our selves and in them absent friends meet how I do but that two things make me forbear that writing first because it is not for my gravity to write of feathers and strawes and in good faith I am no more considered in my body or fortune And then because whensoever I tell you how I doe by a Letter before that Letter comes to you I shall be otherwise then when it left me At this time I humbly thank God I am only not worse for I should as soon look for Roses at this time of the year as look for increase of strength And if I be no worse all spring then now I am much better for I make account that those Church services which I would be very loth to decline will spend somewhat and if I can gather so much as will bear my charges recover so much strength at London as I shall spend at London I shall not be loth to be left in that state wherein I am now after that 's done But I do but discourse I do not wish life or health or strength I thank God enter not into my prayers for my self for others they do and amongst others for your sick servant for such a servant taken so young and healed so long is half a child to a master and so truly I have observed that you have bred him with the care of a father Our blessed Saviour look graciously upon him and glorifie himself in him by his way of restitution to health And by his way of peace of conscience in Your very true friend and servant in Chr. Jos. J. Donne SIR THis advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent Fevers that I am so much the oftener at the gates of heaven and this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am thereby the oftener at my prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse and I doubt not but amongst his many other blessings God will adde to you some one for my prayers A man would almost be content to dye if there were no other benefit in death to hear of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death Yet I perceive it went not through all for one writ unto me that some and he said of my friends conceived that I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my self to save charges and to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knows an ill grounded interpretation for in these times of necessity and multitudes of poor there is no possibility of saving to him that hath any tendernesse in him and for affecting my ease I have been always more sorry when I could not preach then any could be that they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it me that I might die in the Pulpit if not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is die the sooner by occasion of my former labours I thanke you for keeping our George in in your memory I hope God reserves it for so good a friend as you are to send me the first good newes of him For the Diamond Lady you may safely deliver Roper whatsoever belongs to me and he will give you a discharge for the money For my L. Percy we shall speake of it when we meet at London which as I do not much hope before Christmas so I do not much fear at beginning of Tearm for I have intreated one of my fellowes to preach to my Lord Maior at Pauls upon Christmas day and reserved Candlemas day to my self for that service about which time also will fall my Lent Sermon except my Lord Chamberlaine beleeve me to be dead and leave me out for as long as I live and am not speechlesse I would not decline that service I have better leasure to write then you to read yet I will not oppresse you with too much letter God blesse you and your sonne as Your poor friend and humble servant in Christ Jesus J. Donne To the Lady G. MADAM I Am not come out of England if I remain in the Noblest part of it your minde yet I confesse it is too much diminution to call your minde any part of England or of this world since every part even of your body deserves titles of higher dignity No Prince would be loth to die that were assured of so faire a tombe to preserve his memory but I have a greater vantage then so for since there is a Religion in friendship and a death in absence to make up an intire frame there must be a heaven too and there can be no heaven so proportionall to that Religion and that death as your favour And I am gladder that it is a heaven then that it were a Court or any other high place of this world because I am likelier to have a room there then here and better cheap Madam my best treasure is time and my best imployment of that is to study good wishes for you in which I am by continuall meditation so learned that your own good Angell when it would do you most good might be content to come and take instructions from Your humble and affectionate servant J. Donne To your selfe SIR THe first of this moneth I received a Letter from you no Letter comes so late but that it brings fresh newes hither Though I presume M r Pore and since Sir Rob. Rich came after the writing of that Letter yet it was good newes to me that you thought me worthy of so good a testimony And you were subtile in the disguise for you shut up your Letter thus Lond. 22. in our stile but I am not so good a Cabalist as to finde in what moneth it was written But Sir in the offices of so spirituall a thing as friendship so momentary a thing as time must have no consideration I keep it therefore to read every day as newly written to which vexation it must be subject till you relieve it with an other If I ought you not a great many thankes for every particular part of it I should yet thanke you for the length and love it as my mistresses face every line and feature but best all together All that I can do towards retribution is as other bankrupts do in prison to make means by Commissioners that a great debt may be accepted by small summes weekly And in that proportion
receiving my Letters is a new benefit And since good Divines have made this argument against deniers of the Resurrection that it is easier for God to recollect the Principles and Elements of our bodies howsoever they be scattered then it was at first to create them of nothing I cannot doubt but that any distractions or diversions in the ways of my hopes will be easier to your Lordship to reunite then it was to create them Especially since you are already so near perfecting them that if it agreed with your Lordships purposes I should never wish other station then such as might make me still and onely Your Lordships Most humble and devoted servant J. Donne To the Hononrable Knight Sir Robert Karre SIR LEst you should think your selfe too much beholding to your fortune and so relie too much upon her hereafter I am bold to tell you that it is not onely your good fortune that hath preserved you from the importunity of my visits all this time For my ill fortune which is stronger then any mans good fortune hath concurred in the plot to keep us asunder by infecting one in my house with the Measels But all that is so safely overworne that I dare not onely desire to put my selfe into your presence but by your mediation a little farther For esteeming my selfe by so good a title as my Lords own words to be under his providence and care of my fortune I make it the best part of my studies how I might ease his Lordship by finding out something for my selfe Which because I thinke I have done as though I had done him a service therein I adventure to desire to speake with him which I beseech you to advance in addition to your many favours and benefits to me And if you have occasion to send any of your servants to this town to give me notice what times are fittest for me to waite to injoy your favour herein My businesse is of that nature that losse of time may make it much more difficult and may give courage to the ill fortune of Your humble servant J. Donne To your selfe SIR I Make shift to think that I promised you this book of French Satyrs If I did not yet it may have the grace of acceptation both as it is a very forward and early fruit since it comes before it was looked for and as it comes from a good root which is an importune desire to serve you Which since I saw from the beginning that I should never do in any great thing it is time to begin to try now whether by often doing little services I can come towards any equivalence For except I can make a rule of naturall philosophy serve also in morall offices that as the strongest bodies are made of the smallest particles so the strongest friendships may be made of often interating small officiousnesses I see I can be good for nothing Except you know reason to the contrary I pray deliver this Letter according to the addresse It hath no businesse nor importunity but as by our Law a man may be Felo de se if he kill himself so I think a man may be Fur de se if he steale himselfe out of the memory of them which are content to harbour him And now I begin to be loath to be lost since I have afforded my selfe some valuation and price ever since I received the stampe and impression of being Your very humble and affectionate servant J. Donne To the Honourable Knight Sir Robert Karre Gentleman of his Highnesses Bed chamber SIR I Have always your leave to use my liberty but now I must use my bondage Which is my necessity of obeying a precontract laid upon me I go to morrow to Camberwell a mile beyond Southwark But from this town goes with me my brother Sir Tho. Grimes and his Lady and I with them There we dine well enough I warrant you with his father-in-law Sir Tho. Hunt If I keep my whole promise I shall Preach both forenoon and afternoon But I will obey your commandments for my return If you cannot be there by 10 do not put your selfe upon the way for Sir you have done me more honour then I can be worthy of in missing me so diligently I can hope to hear M. Moulin again or ruminate what I have heretofore heard The onely misse that I shall have is of the honour of waiting upon you which is somewhat recompensed if thereby you take occasion of not putting not your self to that pain to be more assured of the inabilities of Your unworthy servant J. Donne To the Honourable Knight Sir Robert Karre SIR I Sought you yesterday with a purpose of accomplishing my health by the honour of kissing your hands But I finde by my going abroad that as the first Christians were forced to admit some Jewish Ceremonies onely to burie the Synagogue with honour so my Feaver will have so much reverence and respect as that I must keep sometimes at home I must therefore be bold to put you to the pain of considering me If therefore my Lord upon your deliverie of my last Letter said nothing to you of the purpose thereof let me tell you now that it was that in obedience of his commandment to acquaint him with any thing which might advantage me I was bold to present that which I heard which was that Sir D. Carlton was likely to bee removed from Venice to the States of which if my Lord said nothing to you I beseech you adde thus much to your many other Favours to intreate my Lord at his best commodity to afford mee the favour of speaking with him But if hee have already opened himselfe so farre to you as that you may take knowledge thereof to him then you may ease him of that trouble of giving mee an Audience by troubling your selfe thus much more as to tell him in my behalfe and from mee that though Sir D. Carlton bee not removed yet that place with the States lying open there is a faire field of exercising his favour towards mee and of constituting a Fortune to mee and that which is more of a meanes for mee to doe him particular services And Sir as I doe throughly submit the end and effect of all Projects to his Lordships will so doe I this beginning thereof to your Advice and Counsell if you thinke mee capable of it as for your owne sake I beseech you to doe since you have admitted mee for Your humble servant J. Donne To the Honoured Knight Sir Robert Karre SIR I Amend to no purpose nor have any use of this inchoation of health which I finde except I preserve my roome and station in you I beginne to bee past hope of dying And I feele that a little ragge of Monte Magor which I read last time I was in your Chamber hath wrought prophetically upon mee which is that Death came so fast towards mee that the over-joy of that recovered mee Sir I measure