to Dr. Donne, to attend him the next day at dinner:  When his Majesty sat down, he said, “Dr. Donne, I have invited you to dinner, and though you sit not down with me, yet I will carve to you of a dish that 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 do you take your beloved dish home to your study, say grace there to your self, and much good may it do you[6].”  Soon after, another vicarage of St. Dunstan in the West, and another benefice fell to Dr. Donne.  ’Till the 59th year of his age he continued in perfect health, when being with his eldest daughter in Essex, in 1630, he was taken ill of a fever, which brought on a consumption; notwithstanding which he returned to London, and preached in his turn at court as usual, on the first friday in Lent.  He died on the 31st day of March 1631, and was buried in the cathedral church of St. Paul’s, where a monument was erected over him.  Walton says that amongst other preparations for death, he made use of this very remarkable one.  He ordered an urn to be cut in wood, on which was to be placed a board of the exact heighth of his body:  this being done, he caused himself to be tied up in a winding sheet in the same manner that dead bodies are.  Being thus shrouded, and standing with his eyes shut, and with just so much of the sheet put aside, as might discover his thin, pale, and death-like face, he caused a skilful painter to draw his picture.  This piece being finished, was placed near his bed-side, and there remained as his constant remembrance to the hour of his death.

His character as a preacher and a poet are sufficiently seen in his incomparable writings.  His personal qualifications were as eminent as those of his mind; he was by nature exceeding passionate, but was apt to be sorry for the excesses of it, and like most other passionate men, was humane and benevolent.  His monument was composed of white marble, and carved from the picture just now mentioned of him, by order of his executor Dr. King, bishop of Chichester, who wrote the following inscription,

  Johannes Donne, S.T.P.

  Post varia studia, quibus ab annis tenerimus fideliter,
  Neo infeliciter, incubit,
  Instinctu et impulsu spiritus sancti, monitu et horatu,
  Regis Jacobi, ordines sacros amplexus,
  Anno sui Jesu 1614, et fuae aetatis 42,
  Decanatu hujus ecclesiae indutus 27 Novembris 1621,
  Exutus morte ultimo die Martii 1631. 
  Hic, licet in occiduo cinere, aspicit eum,
  Cujus nomen est oriens.

Our author’s poems consist of, 1.  Songs and Sonnets. 2.  Epigrams. 3.  Elegies. 4.  Epithalamiums, or Marriage Songs. 5.  Satires. 6.  Letters to several Personages. 7.  Funeral Elegies. 8.  Holy Sonnets.  They are printed together in one volume 12mo. 1719, with the addition of elegies upon the author by several persons.  Mr. Dryden in his dedication of Juvenal to the earl of Dorset, has given Dr. Donne the character of the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation, and wishes his satires and other works were rendered into modern language.  Part of this wish the world has seen happily executed by the great hand of Mr. Pope.  Besides the Pseudo-Martyr, and volume of poems now mentioned, there are extant the following works of Dr. Donne, viz.