rt and he and some other friends had dined
together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an hour; and
as he left so he found Mr. Donne alone, but in such an extasy, and so
altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold him; insomuch
that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had befallen him
in the short time of his absence; to which he was not able to make a
present answer, but after a long and perplexed pause did at last say:
I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you; I have seen my wife
pass twice by me through this room with her hair hanging about her
shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. To which Sir Robert replied,
sure Sir, you have slept since you saw me, and this is the result of
some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now
awake. To which Mr. Donne's reply was, I cannot be surer that I now
live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and am as sure
that at her second appearing she stopt and looked me in the face and
vanished." Rest and sleep had not altered Mr. Donne's opinion next
day, for then he confirmed his vision with so deliberate a confidence,
that he inclined Sir Robert to a faint belief that the vision was
true. It is an observation, that desire and doubt have no rest, for
he immediately sent a servant to Drury-House, with a charge to hasten
back and bring him word "whether Mrs. Donne was dead or alive, and if
alive in what condition she was as to her health." The twelfth day the
messenger returned with this account; "that he found and left Mrs.
Donne very sad and sick in her bed; and that after a long and
dangerous labour she had been delivered of a dead child, and upon
examination the birth proved, to be on the same day, and about
the very hour Mr. Donne affirmed he saw her pass by him in his
chamber."----After Donne's return from France, many of the nobility
pressed the King to confer some secular employment upon him; but his
Majesty, who considered him as better qualified for the service of
the church than the state, rejected their requests, tho' the Earl of
Somerset, then the great favourite, joined in petitioning for his
preferment. About this time the disputes concerning the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy being agitated, Mr. Donne by his Majesty's
special command, wrote a treatise on that subject, entitled, Pseudo
Martyr, printed in 4to, 1610, with which his Majesty was highly
pleased, and being firmly resolved to promote him in