John Donne (1572–1631)

SIR—At some later reading, I was more affected with that part of your letter, which is of the book, and the nameless letters, than at first. I am not sorry, for that affection were for a jealousy or suspicion of a flexibility in you. But I am angry, that any should think you had in your religion peccant humours, defective, or abundant, or that such a book (if I mistake it not) should be able to work upon you; my comfort is, that their judgment is too weak to endanger you, since by this it confesses, that it mistakes you in thinking you irresolved or various; yet let me be bold to fear that that sound true opinion, that in all Christian professions there is way to salvation (which I think you think) may have been so incommodiously or intempestively sometimes uttered by you; or else your having friends equally near you of all the impressions of religion, may have testified such an indifference, as hath occasioned some to further such inclinations, as they have mistaken to be in you. This I have feared, because heretofore the inobedient puritans, and now the over-obedient papists, attempt you. It hath hurt very many, not in their conscience, nor ends, but in their reputation, and ways, that others have thought them fit to be wrought upon. As some bodies are as wholesomely nourished as ours, with acorns, and endure nakedness, both which would be dangerous to us, if we for them should leave our former habits, though theirs were the primitive diet and custom; so are many souls well fed with such forms, and dressings of religion, as would distemper and misbecome us, and make us corrupt towards God, if any human circumstance moved it and in the opinion of men, though none. You shall seldom see a coin, upon which the stamp were removed, though to imprint it better, but it looks awry and squint. And so, for the most part, do minds which have received divers impressions. I will not, nor need to you, compare the religions. The channels of God’s mercies run through both fields; and they are sister teats of His graces, yet both diseased and infected, but not both alike. And I think, that as Copernicism in the mathematics hath carried earth farther up, from the stupid centre; and yet not honoured it, nor advantaged it, because for the necessity of appearances, it hath carried heaven so much higher from it: so the Roman profession seems to exhale, and refine our wills from earthly drugs, and lees, more than the reformed, and so seems to bring us nearer heaven; but then that carries heaven farther from us, by making us pass so many courts, and offices of saints in this life, in all our petitions, and lying in a painful prison in the next, during the pleasure, not of Him to whom we go, and who must be our Judge, but of them from whom we come, who know not our case.

Sir, as I said last time, labour to keep your alacrity and dignity in an even temper; for in a dark sadness, indifferent things seem abominable, or necessary, being neither; as trees, and sheep, to melancholy night-walkers, have unproper shapes. And when you descend to satisfy all men in your own religion, or to excuse others to all: you prostitute yourself and your understanding, though not a prey, yet a mark, and a hope, and a subject, for every sophister in religion to work on. For the other part of your letter, spent in the praise of the countess, I am always very apt to believe it of her, and can never believe it so well, and so reasonably, as now, when it is averred by you; but for the expressing it to her, in that sort as you seem to counsel, I have these two reasons to decline it. That that knowledge which she hath of me, was in the beginning of a graver course, than of a poet, into which (that I may also keep my dignity) I would not seem to relapse. The Spanish proverb informs me that he is a fool which cannot make one sonnet, and he is mad which makes two. The other stronger reason is my integrity to the other countess, of whose worthiness, though I swallowed your opinion at first upon your words, yet I have had since an explicit faith, and now a knowledge: and for her delight (since she descends to them) I had reserved not only all the verses, which I should make, but all the thoughts of women’s worthiness. But because I hope she will not disdain, that I should write well of her picture, I have obeyed you thus far, as to write: but entreat you by your friendship that by this occasion of versifying, I be not traduced, nor esteemed light in that tribe, and that house where I have lived. If those reasons which moved you to bid me write be not constant in you still, or if you meant not that I should write verses: or if these verses be too bad, or too good, over or under her understanding, and not fit; I pray receive them, as a companion and supplement of this letter to you; and as such a token as I use to send, which use, because I wish rather they should serve (except you wish otherwise) I send no other: but after I have told you, that here at a christening at Peckham, you are remembered by divers of ours, and I commanded to tell you so, I kiss your hands, and so seal to you my pure love, which I would not refuse to do by any labour or danger.—Your very true friend and servant,

J. DONNE.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD