LXXXVIII
This letter, addressed, I suppose, to Donne’s sister Jane, the wife of Sir Thomas Grymes, is printed in the 1719 edition of the Poems, and is there dated “Amyens, the 7th of Febr. here, 1611,” i.e., January 28th, 1612.
LXXXIX
To George Gerrard, and written from Paris not long after the date of the preceding letter.
XC
Written in 1624, during Donne’s recovery from a dangerous illness. Here, as elsewhere, Walton is our best commentator:
“Within a few dayes his distempers abated; and as his strength increased, so did his thankfulnesse to Almighty God, testified in his book of Devotions, which he published at his recovery. In which the reader may see, the most secret thoughts that then possest his soul, Paraphrased and made publick; a book that may not unfitly be called a Sacred picture of spiritual extasies, occasioned and applyable to the emergencies of that sicknesse, which being a composition of Meditations, disquisitions and prayers, he writ on his sick-bed; herein imitating the holy Patriarchs, who were wont to build their Altars in that place, where they had received their blessings.”
Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions and Several Steps in my Sickness was published in 1624, and dedicated “To the most excellent prince, Prince Charles.”
XCI