, 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 appointed this inclosed Sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand.

"Your unworthiest servant,
Unless your accepting him to be so have mended him,
Jo. DONNE.

"Mitcham, July 11, 1607."

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
Delivered 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 recompense
That they did harbour Christ himself, a guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest.
J.D.

These Hymns are now lost to us; but doubtless they were such as they
two now sing in Heaven.

[Sidenote: Her Funeral Sermon]

There might be more demonstrations of the friendship, and the many
sacred endearments betwixt these two excellent persons,--for I have
many of their letters in my hand,--and much more might be said of her
great prudence and piety: but my design was not to write her's, but
the life of her son; and therefore I shall only tell my Reader, that
about that very day twenty years that this letter was dated, and sent
her, I saw and heard this Mr. John Donne--who was then Dean of St.
Paul's--weep, and preach her Funeral Sermon, in the Parish Church
of Chelsea, near London, where she now rests in her quiet grave: and
where we must now leave her, and return to her son George, whom we
left in his study in Cambridge. And in Cambridge we may find our
George Herbert's behaviour to be such, that we may conclude he
consecrated the first-fruits of his early age to virtue, and a serious
study of learning. And that he did so, this following Letter and
Sonnet, which were, in the first year of his going to Cambridge,
sent his dear Mother for a New-year's gift, may appear to be some
testimony.

[Sidenote: A Letter]

--"But I fear t