I have told her birth, her marriage, and the number of her children, and have given somė short account of them; I shall next tell the reader, that her husband died when our George was about the age of four years: I am next to tell that she continued twelve years a widow; that she then married happily to a noble gentleman', the brother and heir of the Lord Danvers, Earl of Danby, who did highly value both her person and the most excellent endowments of her mind.

In this time of her widowhood, she being desirous to give Edward, her eldest son, such advantages of learning and other education as might suit his birth and fortune, and thereby make him the more fit for the service of his country, did at his being of a fit age remove from Montgomery Castle with him, and some of her younger sons, to Oxford; and having entered Edward into Queen's College, and provided him a fit tutor, she commended him to his care; yet she continued there with him, and still kept him in a moderate awe of herself, and so much under her own eye, as to see and converse with him daily: but she managed this power over him without any such rigid sourness, as might make her company a torment to her child, but with such a sweetness and compliance with the recreations and pleasures of youth, as did incline him willingly to spend much of his time in the company of his dear and

Sir JOHN DANVERS.

careful mother; which was to her great content: for she would often say, "That as our bodies take "a nourishment suitable to the meat on which "we feed; so our souls do as insensibly take in "vice by the example or conversation with wicked "company:" and would therefore as often say, "That ignorance of vice was the best preservation "of virtue; and that the very knowledge of "wickedness was as tinder to inflame and kindle "sin, and to keep it burning." For these reasons she endeared him to her own company, and continued with him in Oxford four years; in which time her great and harmless wit, her cheerful gravity, and her obliging behaviour, gained her an acquaintance and friendship with most of any eminent worth or learning that were at that time in or near that University; and particularly with Mr. John Donne, who then came accidentally to that place in this time of her being there. It was that John Donne who was after Dr. Donne, and Dean of St. Paul's, London; and he, at his leaving Oxford, writ and left there, in verse, a character of the beauties of her body and mind: Of the first he says,

No spring nor summer beauty has such grace

As I have seen in an autumnal face.

Of the latter he says,

In all her words to every hearer fit,

You may at revels, or at council sit ".

"Here dwells he [Love], though he sojourns every where
"In progress, yet his standing house is here;

"Here,

The rest of her character may be read in his printed poems, in that elegy which bears the name of "The Autumnal Beauty." For both he and she were then past the meridian of man's life.

This amity, begun at this time and place, was not an amity that polluted their souls; but an amity made up of a chain of suitable inclinations and virtues; an amity like that of St. Chrysostom's to his dear and virtuous Olympias; whom, in his letters, he calls his Saint, or an amity, indeed more like that of St. Hierom to his Paula; whose affection to her was such that he turned poet in his old age, and then made her epitaph'; wishing all his body were turned into tongues, that he might declare her just praises to posterity. And this amity betwixt her and Mr. Donne was begun in a happy time for him, he being then near to the fortieth year of his age (which was some years before he entered into Sacred Orders); a time

"Here, where still evening is, not noon nor night,

"Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight,

"In all her words unto all hearers fit,

"You may at revels, you at councils sit."

(Donne's Poems. The AUTUMNAL, v. 20. J

* Of the character of OLYMPIAS, an accomplished woman, and much esteemed by St. Chrysostom, who delighted in her conversation, and wrote no less than seventeen letters to her in the time of his banishment, see "Cave's Lives of the Fathers," Vol. II. p. 503.

St. JEROM thus begins a long epistle, which he addresses to Eustochium, the daughter of Paula, on whose life and death he

expatiates

when his necessities needed a daily supply for the support of his wife, seven children, and a family : And in this time she proved one of his most bountiful benefactors; and he as grateful an acknowledger of it. You may take one testimony for what I have said of these two worthy persons, from this following letter and sonnet.

66 MADAM,

"YOUR favours to me are every where; I use "them, and have them. I enjoy them at London, "and leave them there; and yet find them at "Micham. Such riddles as these become things inexpressible; and such is your goodness.

66

66

I

"was almost sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was loth to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of "my coming this morning: But my not coming " was excusable, because earnest business detained

expatiates largely: "Si cuncta corporis mei verba verterentur in " linguas et omnes artus humanâ voce resonarent, nihil dignum "sanctæ ac venerabilis Paulæ virtutibus dicerem. Nobilis

genere, sed multò nobilior sanctitate, potens quondam divitiis, " sed nunc Christi paupertate insignior, Gracchorum stirps, "soboles Scipionum, Pauli hæres." Much encomium will scarce be thought due to the epithet on Paula (for which see "Hieronymi Opera," Tom. I. p. 69. and also " Sandys's Travels," p. 139, 140.); and it may be a matter of doubt whether the conduct of that lady dividing her effects among her children, abandoning her family, and, under the pretence of devotion, wandering from place to place, can entitle her to any great share of praise.

"me; and my coming this day is by the example "of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early "upon Sunday, to seek that which she loved "most; and so did I. And, from her and myself, "I return such thanks as are due to one to whom "we owe all the good opinion, that they whom "we need most have of us. By this messenger, "and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and sonnets (which for the matter, "not the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire), "to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think them worthy of it; and I have ap 'pointed this inclosed sonnet to usher them to your happy hand.

66

"Your unworthiest servant,

"Unless your accepting him to be so "Have mended him,

"MICHAM, July 11, 1607.

“ JO. DONNE.”

"TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT; OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN.

"Her of your name, whose fair inheritance

"Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo;

"An active faith so highly did advance,

"That she once knew more than the Church did know,

"The resurrection; so much good there is

"Deliver'd of her, that some fathers be

"Loth to believe one woman could do this;

"But think these Magdalens were two or three.
"Increase their number, Lady, and their fame;

"To their devotion, add your innocence;
"Take so much of th' example as of the name;

"The latter half; and in some recompence
"That they did harbour Christ himself a guest,

"Harbour these hymns, to his dear name addrest. J. D.