smile to the smile of Providence, as men of his class will sometimes do when they see the victims of their hardness really escaping from dependence on their aid. Donne's prospects brightened at Drury House. At Drury House, and in his rent-free apartment, he had those home feelings of peace and rest which give so sweet a tone to some of his distinctive pages. The delicious quietness and friendly security of his retreat seem to be immortalized in a few of his best passages; and his fondlycherished recollections of domestic life under Sir Robert's roof now and then find happy expression in sentences which, like plainly-set gems, sparkle here and there in his least excellent sermons. He had peaceful memories in his soul, when he said from the pulpit at Whitehall, perhaps in the hearing of his royal friend, James I.:

Let the whole world be in thy consideration as one house; and then consider in that, in the peaceful harmony of creatures, in the peaceful succession and connexion of causes and effects, the peace of nature. Let this kingdom, where God hath blessed thee with a being, be the gallery, the best room of that house, and consider in the two walls of that gallery, the Church and the State, the peace of a royal and religious wisdom. Let thine own family be a cabinet in this gallery, and find, in all the boxes thereof, in the several duties of wife and children and servants, the peace of virtue, and of the father and mother of all virtues, active discretion, passive obedience; and then, lastly, let thine own bosom be the secret box and reserve in this cabinet; and then the gallery of the best house that can be had, peace with the creature, peace in the Church, peace in the State, peace in thy house, peace in thy heart, is a fair model and a lovely design even of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is visio pacis, where there is no object but peace."

It was while Drury House was the home of Donne and his Anne, that there occurred one of those remarkable incidents which at times give a moment's deep insight into that mysterious oneness between loving spirits, which even apparent separation for a time fails to break. Sir Robert Drury had resolved on a journey to Paris. He pressed Donne to go with him; but the poet's wife was unwilling to part with him. She was in a delicate condition, and "her divining soul boded her some ill in his absence." She gave at last, however, "a faint consent," and the travellers started.

Twelve days afterwards they were safe in Paris. On the second day after their arrival, Sir Robert and his friends had left Donne alone for a while in the dining-room. On returning, there was a change in Donne's appearance, which led his friend to exclaim :— "What is the matter? do tell me what has befallen you."

"I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you," was the reply, after a long struggle for power to speak. "I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms; this I have seen since I saw you."

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Sure, sir," said Sir Robert, "you have slept since I saw you, and this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake."

"Melancholy dream! no, I cannot be surer that I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and I am as sure that at her second appearance she stopped and looked me in the face and vanished."

A night's rest did not shake Donne's conviction; so that a messenger was despatched to England. In twelve days he returned with the news that he found Mrs. Donne confined to her bed; that, after a painful illness, she had been delivered of a dead child; and that the distressing event had occurred at the very hour in which her husband had seen her pass through his room in Paris. Who can explain? He who has most carefully tried to sound the mysteries of his own nature, will, perhaps, love the memory of Donne's biographer, dear old Walton, all the more for his hint at the conclusion of the story, that as "it is most certain that two lutes being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon, the other, that which is not touched, being laid upon a table at a fit distance, will (like an echo to a trumpet) warble a faint audible harmony in answer to the same tune;" so there may be "such a thing as a sympathy of souls."

Anne Donne lived a few years longer, long enough to see her gifted husband consecrate his rare powers and rich learning to the Christian ministry, at the request and under the favour of the king; whose affection for him Donne alludes to in the dedication of his volume of "Devotions," a book which may remind one of the interwoven gold and purple and fine linen and various coloured gems in the garments of Aaron, all perfumed

with the holy anointing oil; so rare a com. bination is it of profound reflections, quaint fancies, acute observation, grave humour, fine imagination, Scriptural wisdom, reverent piety, warm devotion, happy turns of thought, and pure and forceful expression, all blending and harmonizing under the influence of spiritual and heavenly feeling. In accordance with the royal pleasure, Donne took the honour of a Doctor in Divinity at Cambridge, and returned just time enough to rejoice at the birth of his twelfth child, and then to see his wife pass into the skies.

He was left now, as his plaintive friend says, "like a pelican in the wilderness, whose only joy it was to be alone, that he might bemoan himself without witness or restraint, and pour forth his passion like Job in the days of his affliction,

"Oh that I might have the desire of my heart! Oh that God would grant me the thing that I long for! for then, as the grave is become her house, so I would hasten to make it mine also, that we two might then make our beds together in the dark.'"

Was his sorrow unduly bitter? Those who knew him best said, No. All his former afflictions had been bearable and even gracious in companionship with his Anne; but to lose her was the trial of his life; and the darkness of that trial none but his own desolated heart could know, not even such friends as knew of "that abundant affection which once was betwixt him and her, who had long been the delight of his eyes and the companion of his youth; her with whom he had divided so many pleasant sorrows and contented fears, such as common people are not capable of." Every "heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy."

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The course of my pilgrimage led me from Drury Lane, where I had been dreaming of freshness amidst scenes of moral decay, down to St. Clement Danes, in the Strand. Not that I expected to see the very same church as the Doctor once preached in; but perchance I might light on the place of his feet, or stand over the vault in which his wife's mortal mains are sleeping.

I found the home of the verger-an elderly man, of good looks and agreeable bearing, intelligent and communicative. I am afraid I interrupted his dinner, or his after-dinner nap; nevertheless, he cheerfully responded to my desire for a sight of the church. He was not to have his temper ruffled, or his manners marred, or his ecclesiastical stores of informa tion deranged, by my untimely call; he was too good at heart for that.

The interior of the church, like some others of the same age in London, at once calls up blessing from one's soul on the memory of Wren. Under his hand, in some instances, Pagan forms seem to arrange themselves into beautiful adaptation to the purposes of Christian worship; and with all one's feeling in favour of what is more properly the Christian style, we instinctively rejoice in the freedom, grandeur, and rich harmony of sanctuaries like this. I was pleasantly introduced to the "gold" anchors, which, as the parish arms, seem to tell that the old "sea-kings" once came up the Thames as far as this, but were obliged, it may be, to cut their cables and leave their anchors in the mud, to betoken their failure, or to furnish an ecclesiastical symbol for the church of St. Clement Danes. At all events, my guide could give no other solution of the anchor mystery. He called my attention by turns to Gibbon's carving, to the noble walnut-wood pillars, and to the magnificent slab of porphyritic marble which served as a communion tablethe only relic, perhaps, from the older church.

must have been touching to those who knew him to hear that widower preaching over the newly-covered grave from the prophet's lamentation: "I am the man that hath seen afflic tion by the rod of His wrath." The spot on which the preacher stood will always be sacred to those who revere his memory and enjoy his works.

"But," I inquired, as I arose from the seat which Dr. Johnson used to occupy, "have you none of the monuments from the old church preserved here ?"

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the number of Americans we get here wanting to sit in Dr. Johnson's old seat; as if they were sure of getting the secret of sitting still, or wanted to gather weight to keep their balance for the time to come. But I beg pardon, sir-you were asking about the old monuments. Well, I never saw one. They have all disappeared; how, I cannot tell. The old

church was taken down in Queen Anne's time; but what they did with the monuments, who knows? Perhaps they dealt with them somewhat in the same style as they did with the dead themselves."

"What was that? I hoped to find some lingering memorial of Mrs. Donne, the wife of Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's in the reign of James I. She was buried here, and her monument was in the old church."

"I never knew Mrs. Donne, sir; before my time, you know. Nor did I ever before hear of the Doctor, though, as you say, he was Dean of St. Paul's. But, as to the bodies, I can tell you that when I came into office, some years ago, I had to go down into the vaults, and there I found coffins all tied up in bundles of six or seven together, with a chain around each bundle, fastened with a padlock, and these bundles were piled one upon another on shelves. 'Look here!' says a man to me, as I was looking around, and thinking that those who built the new church had a wholesale way of dealing with human dust-look here!' says he; and when I turned there were two bodies standing side by side; they seemed like mummies asking me to cover them. Ah, sir! I thought of Job's words-'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither.' And that was the style in which the living sometimes dispose of the dead; and so you need not wonder that all the monuments disappeared."

"Have the bodies been left, then, in the condition in which you saw them?"

"No, no; we gathered them tenderly, and laid them side by side in a large space, then built them in, covered them with earth, and roofed their common house with cement; so their resting-place is now sacred."

"And so," thought I, as we stood in solemn silence over that buried multitude, "the body of the lovely and loving Anne Donne must have been chained up in one of those bundles, and is now no longer distinguishable among the mingled remains that await the quickening voice of Him who gives 'to every seed his own body,' and who will as certainly, at the last, fulfil His promise: This is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.' Neither the rude action of church builders at St. Clement's, nor the rage of the great fire at St. Paul's, where Donne's mortal remains were laid, can shake the ground of Christian hope, nor mar the work

6

"Oh, yes;" was the cheerful reply. “Come, and see my pet garden, how fresh the trees look here. Is not that a nice creeper running up the church wall, as if it loved the church? and there are my flower-beds among the graves. My bed of mignonette last year was beautiful. One of our bishops was passing one day, and he stopped and smiled; went as far as Temple Bar, and came back again to have another look and to give another smile. Perhaps he thought it was like a promise of life from the dead. It was early in the morning, and it may be there was dew upon the sweet mignonette. What is that verse in Isaiah ?-you remember it: Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."

This quotation was happy, and it reminded me of Donne himself, and how he used to interweave the beauties of inspired truth with his own interpretations of nature. And as I parted with my interesting guide, and turned my steps from St. Clement's with its under-world of sleeping generations, one's hope became more comfortable, and one's spirits were refreshed by the recollection of a passage from the favourite Doctor's sermon at the funeral of Sir William Cockayne:

"The Gentiles and their poets describe the sad state of death as 'one everlasting night;' to them, a night; but to a Christian it is the day of death and the day of resurrection; we die in the light, in the sight of God's presence; and we rise in the light, in the sight of His very essence. Nay, God's corrections and judgments upon us in this life are still expressed so-dies visitationis; still it is a day, though a day of visitation; and still we may discern God to be in the action. The Lord of life was the first that named death; morte morieris, says Godthou shalt die the death. I do the less fear, or abhor death, because I find it in His mouth; even a malediction hath a sweetness in His mouth, for there is a blessing wrapped up in it; a mercy in every correction; a resurrection in every death."

above all do I wish that they should be welleducated men, and of high character, who shall have already distinguished themselves in their several positions, whether it be in the army or navy, or in the scientific world. I know you will agree in my views."

On the whole, his household was formed to his satisfaction.

Nothing could be more admirable than the wisdom with which the Prince guided his relations towards general society. From the first he laid down strict, not to say severe rules, for his own guidance. The principle on which he resolved to act (to use his own noble words) was this: "To sink his own individual existence in that of his wife; to aim at no power by himself orfor himself; to shun all ostentation; to assume no separate responsibility before the public," but, making his position entirely a part of the Queen's, "continually and anxiously to watch every part of the public business in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment in any of the multifarious and difficult questions brought before her-sometimes political, or social, or personal, as the natural head of her family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs; her sole confidential adviser in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers of the Government."*

'He imposed a degree of restraint and selfdenial upon his own movements, which could not but have been irksome, had he not been sustained by a sense of the advantage which the throne would derive from it. He denied himself the pleasure-which to one so fond as he was of personally watching and inspecting every improvement that was in progress would have been very great-of walking at will about the town. Wherever he went, whether in a carriage or on horseback, he was accompanied by his equerry. He paid no visits in general society. His visits were to the studio of the artist, to museums of art or science, to institutions for good and benevolent purposes. Wherever a visit from him, or his presence, could tend to advance the real good of the people, there his horses might be seen waiting; never at the door of mere fashion. Scandal itself could take no liberty with his name. He loved to ride through all the districts of London where building and improvements were in progress, more especially when they were such

*Letter to the Duke of Wellington, in answer to offer of command of the Army.-Speeches, &c., of the Prince Consort, p. 76.

as would conduce to the health or recreation of the working classes; and few, if any, knew so well, or took such interest as he did, in all that was being done, at any distance east, west, north, or south of the great city-from Victoria Park to Battersea-from the Regent's Park to the Crystal Palace, and far beyond. 'He would frequently return,' the Queen says, 'to luncheon at a great pace, and would always come through the Queen's dressing-room, where she generally was at that time, with that bright, loving smile with which he ever greeted her, telling her where he had been, what new buildings he had seen, what studios, &c., he had visited. Riding for mere riding sake he disliked, and said, “ Es ennuyirt mich so" (It bores me so).""

"There were some, undoubtedly, who would gladly have seen his conduct the reverse of all this, with whom he would have been more popular had he shared habitually and indiscriminately in the gaieties of the fashionable world-had he been a regular attendant at the racecourse; had he, in short, imitated the free lives, and even, it must be said, the vices, of former generations of the royal family. But the country generally knew how to estimate and admire the beauty of domestic life, beyond reproach, or the possibility of reproach, of which the Queen and he set so noble an example.

"It is this which has been the glory and the strength of the throne in our day, and which has won for the English Court the love and veneration of the British people, and the respect of the world. Above all, he has set an example for his children, from which they may be sure they can never deviate without falling in public estimation, and running the risk of undoing the work which he has been so instrumental in accomplishing."

His own personal position in the Queen's household presented not the least of the diffi

culties which he had to surmount. In a letter to Prince Loewenstein he says:

"In my home life I am very happy and contented, but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is, that I am only the husband, not the master in the house."

But the following interesting passage tells us how this delicate point was settled:

"Thanks to the firmness, but at the same time gentleness, with which the Prince insisted on filling his proper position as head of the family thanks also to the clear judgment and right feeling of the Queen as well as to her singularly honest and straightforward nature