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ANY noble and gifted men have been schooled for the honours and comforts of after-life by the sorrows, struggles, and hard labour of their early days. Their mellow autumn has come after a cold spring and a stormy summer. It is a joy to watch these men as they pass at length from their age of trial to their period of compensative freedom and repose. sight inspires something like a renewal of that fresh enjoyment which the earliest touch of poetic beauty gave one's childhood when Watts' happy lines on "A Summer Evening" first fell on the ear. Who is not familiar with the picture? The sun rising in a mist, the droppings of morning rain, and, at last, the rich calm evening light.

"For now the fair traveller's come to the west, His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best; He paints the skies gay as he sinks to his rest,

And foretells a bright rising again."

This is a "moral song " made for children, it is true; but happy is he who has come to that childlikeness of spirit which finds refreshing pleasure in singing again the songs of infancy.

Among the many distinguished lives whose tranquil sunset might recall the simple melody which Watts thus gave to infant lips, none, to my mind, has richer and more holy "light at eventide" than that of Dr. Donne. His youthful career had opened with promise of clear sunshine. The smile of royalty had glanced upon him while he was in the service of the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards known as the Queen of Bohemia, or otherwise "The Queen of Hearts," and he had been honoured with permission at her wedding, which was on St. Valentine's Day, to offer that remarkable epithalamium, or marriage song, which opens thus, in his distinctive style :

Hail, Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is thy diocis,

And all the chirping choristers,
And other birds, are thy parishioners.
Thou marryest every year

The lyric lark, and the grave whispering dove,
The sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird with the red stomacher."

But clouds ere long gathered round his path; damp mists came over his home; unkindness from without; poverty, anxious care, personal and domestic affliction within; until his life was at its darkest, in the hour when his Anne was taken, and his heart and hearth were left in desolation. But even while the bitterness was full upon his soul, the clouds began to break from around him, and the tokens of a bright evening began to offer consolation to his chastened heart.

The Benchers of Lincoln's Inn were among the first to show their loving estimate of his worth. There was what Walton calls a "lovestrife" between their liberality and his faithful services as their chaplain. Then royal favour opened his way to Germany, in connection with the embassy of Lord Hay; and after a time of pleasant relaxation at the court of his former mistress, he came back to enter into the quietness and ease of his last honourable days.

He was, on one occasion, invited to the royal table. The king was quite himself.

"Dr. Donne," said he, when he had taken his seat, "I have invited you to dinner, and though you sit not down with me, yet I will carve to you 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 yourself, and much good may it do you."

Well said, and well done, James! In this instance, at all events, you proved something like a claim to the courted honour of being called The Solomon of the age."

Ecclesiastical honours and emoluments now followed one another, as if they were hastening to compensate the new Dean for the priva tions and hardships which he had so long endured. He proved himself equal to his position. His character rose above the touch of envy; and his life ministered joy to those who loved him.

"I always rejoice," said the king, "when I think that by my means he became a divine."

Thank you, royal sir! Who is not more and

more thankful, every time he reads a page of those sermons which were once heard at Whitehall and in old St. Paul's from the lips and heart of the saintly Dean?

In old St. Paul's he graced his first stall; and in old St. Paul's he found his last. Old St. Paul's is no more; but "St. Paul's Churchyard" remains. Did anybody ever go around it without meeting a cool breeze at one point or another? The unceremonious puffs that saluted me on my first visit seem to have made an impression on one's skin which has ever since rendered it liable to be touchy by anticipation whenever one gets to the pitch of Ludgate Hill, or catches the shadow of Peel's monument at the top of Paternoster Row. The breezy reputation of St. Paul's, like the distinguishing qualities of many other distinguished things in this world, has been accounted for long ago by those ghostly philosophers who used to take it for granted that whenever they failed to trace any remarkable effect to a visible cause, the cause must be somewhere within the borders of the spirit world; and for some reason best known to themselves, or most akin to their own style of character or thought, our old philosophers always found it most easy to discover causes for remarkable effects within the infernal rather than the celestial district of the spiritual region. Thus it is said that the archfiend, either in malice or in sport, once gave chase to the wind; but that after closely pursuing it all around London, he lost it at length in St. Paul's Churchyard, where, to the certain knowledge of every mortal visitor, it has remained ever since.

There is something curious about this early association of facts in nature with the character and movements of fallen angels. It is a traditional record of the world's primitive belief in Satan's personality, as well as his mysterious two-fold relation to the visible and invisible, the region of spirits and the world of matter-" the powers of the air" and the mortal "children of disobedience." whether or not dark angels sweep along with the cold blast, or gather thickly in the hot thundery air, it is a fact that I met the old wind under the dome of St. Paul's, and was glad enough to reach the cathedral doors, hoping that there would be a warmer atmosphere inside.

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In this, however, I was mistaken. At first there was a deep thrill, a feeling of awe, under the grand shadows of that roof. Then the

massive memorials of the dead, in gigantic forms of marble, all impressed me with ideas of vastness and beauty. Still, on looking through the extended space and gazing upward into the sublime vault, the grandeur gave a chilly feeling rather than a glow. There was the felt presence of massy proportions, harmony, and grace; but the feeling was cold, as if death were much nearer than life. I remember how different it was in Westminster Abbey. There, everything seemed to awaken a warm sense of association with past life. The forms of architecture, the shadows, the lights; all hushed and yet elevated and kindled the soul. In fact everything within us testifies in favour of what may be called the Christian style of architecture. The Grecian form of modern St. Paul's must be admired, as much as anything Grecian can be; nevertheless, it always disposes one to shiver. Some people have never yet found either their outer or inner man warm enough for any act of devotion within St. Paul's. My first reception was cold enough at all events. The cold, however, had a sort of witchery about it which enticed me into still deeper chillness, as if I were under an instinctive persuasion that what proved uncomfortable in a lower degree of its influence would become really pleasurable as its action upon me grew more intense. I must needs go down into the crypt. It seemed to be my doom to snuff the dank air of sepulchral retreats; or my calling, just then, to respond to the thrilling touch of those viewless forms which glide about in expressive silence among the sarcophagi of the mighty dead.

"Yes, indeed," I thought, while looking upon the unmistakeable form and features, "and it does appear fitting that the most perfect monument left' should be the monument of one of the most perfect men who ever graced the old cathedral with their presence, or hallowed its walls by their clerical ministrations or their saintly example." It was the effigy of Dr. Donne.

Alas! It was not cared for as it ought to have been; but cast aside seemingly, amidst the valueless memorials of forgotten times and nameless generations. Who would not beg to

be left alone to muse in silence over the upturned face, with whose lines of sorrow and love, deep thought and reverent feeling, so many have become tenderly familiar during years of communion with the spirit of the sainted Dean; a spirit, which, though departed from the outside world, still breathes and speaks in the pages that he bequeathed to us? The marble, dusty as it was, and shamefully neglected, was still eloquent in the rehearsal of its own history; or in witnessing to the faithfulness of the records in which the materials of its history are preserved.

During the year 1631 there was somewhere in London a citizen of some note, whose daily business transactions were important enough, as he thought, to be noted, and whose literary attainments were equal to the work of jotting what was most interesting to him in a pocketbook. His name was Nicholas Stone; not an inappropriate name, as it happens that the work which has really immortalized him was a piece of stone-work. He was a worker in stone -a master sculptor. Happily for us, his pocketbook outlived him, and in it was just this insertion :

In 1631 I made a tomb for Dr. Donne, and sette it up in St. Paul's, London; for which I was paid by Dr. Mountford the sum of £120. I took £60 in plate in part payment."

Thank you, Mr. Stone, for your little account! You were not overpaid, certainly, as far as we can judge, even taking into account the variation between our times and yours as to the value of money; but your profits were tolerably good after all, as you have kindly shown by another entry in your pocket-book :

"1631, Humphrey Mayor, a workman employed under Stone, finisht the statue for Dr. Donne's monument, £8."

Who was Humphrey Mayor? He ought to have had a monument over his own dust, for indeed he is the artist to whose skill we are most deeply indebted. All honour to his memory as an accomplished workman! How many a native genius and hard-working master of fine art has gone to his early grave in sorrow, without even a little memorial in the pocketbook of his better-fed paymaster or patron! Our stone worker, Humphrey Mayor, was aided by another artist whose name is lost, though his character is given in the title of a choice painter."

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Dr. Donne, in his last sickness, was persuaded by his physician, Dr. Fox, to submit to some measures for securing a faithful monumental

likeness of himself. The dying saint adopted his own mode of meeting the wishes of his friends, and the process has been described by that charming old biographer, Isaac Walton:

"A monument being resolved upon, Dr. Donne sent for a carver to make for him in wood the figure of an urn, giving him direc tions for the compass and height of it; and to bring with it a board of the just height of his body. That being got; then, without delay, a choice painter was got to be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken as followeth: Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study, he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand; and having put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tied with knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed, as dead bodies are usually fitted to be shrouded and put into their coffin or grave. Upon this urn he thus stood with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might show his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus. In this posture he was drawn at his just height; and when the picture was fully finished, he caused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued, and became his hourly object till his death, and was then given to his dearest friend and executor, Doctor Henry King, the chief Residentiary of St. Paul's, who caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white marble, as it now stands in that church."

There is a kind of plaintive or melancholy quaintness in all this, but it was quite natural as marking a leading genius of that age; one who in spirit and manner was akin to such men as George Herbert, his correspondent and friend; one whose poetic powers gave their deep-seated life and their fantastic rhythm tɔ his own laboriously condensed satires and other heavily gemmed poems, and from whose lips and eyes and heart there used to come those flashes of subtle yet mighty thought, and those rich and sometimes grand exhibitions of Divine truth which so deeply moved the souls who gathered beneath his pulpit in St. Paul's. He would not be a popular town preacher now. His thoughts are too deep, too refined, too numerous, too weighty; weak tomachs must have light food and but little at a time. Nevertheless, there are some yet living who would like to hear his living voice in modern St. Paul's, or anywhere else could

it be recalled. I remember how, in that cold crypt, I hung over the sculptured face of his monument, which is now treated as, perhaps, the preacher of these times would be who took him for his model; and how I tried to realize the opening of those closed eyelids, and the looking forth cnce more of the rapt preacher's soul through those melting eyes, whose mellow but searching light so often found its way into the very hearts of those who sat before him.

There I stood, inwardly calling up from the past the testimonies of those who had seen and heard him as 66 a preacher in earnest; weeping sometimes for his audience, sometimes with them." The graceful, comely form, and manly, gentle, and intellectual countenance seemed, at length, to live before me. One felt as if face to face with a rare impersonation of refined logic, winning address, majestic conception, seraphic feeling, comprehensive learning, and masterly diction; all in fine proportion and consistent unity.

Then there arose before the mind his massive stores of theological wealth, unworthily tinselled, here and there, with artificial fancies after the style of some of his favourite Fathers. Then his dignified manner of giving supreme importance to the great essential and most prominent doctrines of inspired truth; his peculiar mode of unexpectedly bringing out arguments against mischievous errors, so as to cast them down by a kind of resistless side-blow; and his way of occasionally startling his hearers by a sudden practical turn in the midst of a quiet exposition. One felt anew the charm of his wise counsels as they seemed to ooze from his massive sentences, or as they fell from his lips in a succession of pithy lines and strings of apophthegms, sparkling like gems in gold settings. Then his clusters of symbols, similitudes, and illuminations, still disclosing depths of thought beyond, like those forms of nebula which to the eye of deeper research are ever showing richer glories behind the constellations to which they appear somewhat akin.

How happily, sometimes, by an unlooked-for turn, he brings us close upon some heavenly prospect, or into the brighter presence of our loving Redeemer, so as to raise us to a clear and vivid realization of the nearness of celestial life. Who could fail to glorify God for his voice, while catching a little of the joy which filled his heart on Easter Sunday, 1627, as he preached about the "better resurrection," on some spot just above the cold, dark crypt

in which his neglected effigy lies? Who could forget the closing utterances of his memorable sermon ?

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"Beloved, there is nothing so little in Heaven as that we can express it; but if we could tell you the fulness of a soul, what that fulness is; the infiniteness of that glory there, how far that infiniteness goes; the eternity of that happiness there, how long that happiness lasts: if we could make you know all this, yet this 'better resurrection' is a heaping even of that fulness, and an enlarging even of that infiniteness, and an extension even of that eternity of happiness; for all these, this fulness, this infiniteness, this eternity, are in all the resurrections of the righteous, and this is a better resurrection.' We may almost say it is something more than Heaven; for all that have any resurrection to life, have all Heaven: and something more than God; for all that have any resurrection to life have all God: and yet these shall have a better resurrection. Amorous soul, ambitious soul, covetous soul, voluptuous soul, what wouldst thou have in Heaven? What doth thy holy amorousness, thy holy covetousness, thy holy ambition and voluptuousness most carry thy desire upon? Call it what thou wilt; think it what thou canst; think it something that thou canst not think; and all this thou shalt have if thou have any resurrection into life; and yet there is a better resurrection . . a better resurrection reserved for them, and appropriated to them that fulfil the sufferings of Christ in their flesh, by martyrdom, and so become witnesses to that conveyance which He hath sealed with His blood, by shedding their blood; and glorify Him upon earth (as far as it is possible for man) by the same way that He hath glorified them in Heaven; and are admitted to such a conformity with Christ, as that (if we may have leave to express it so) they have died for one another. Neither is this martyrdom, and so this better resurrection, appropriated to a real, actual, and absolute dying for Christ; but by every suffering of ours, by which suffering He may be glorified, is a degree of martyrdom, and so a degree of improving and bettering our resurrection. In a word, to do good for God's glory brings us to a good, but to suffer for His glory brings us to a better resurrection; and to suffer patiently, brings to a good, but to suffer cheerfully, and, more than that, thankfully, brings us to a better resurrection. If all the