Sir,
I Gave no answer to the Letter I received from you upon Tuesday, both because I had in it no other commandment by it but to deliver your Letter therein, which I did, and because that Letter found me under very much sadnesse, which (according to the proportion of ills that fall upon me) is since also increased, so that I had not written now, if I had been sure to have been better able to write next week, which I have not much appearance of: yet there was committed to my disposition (that is, left at my house in my absence) a Letter from Sir W. Lover, but it was some hours after all possibility of sending it by the carrier, so that Mr W. Stanhope giving me the honour of a visite at that time, and being instantly to depart, for your parts, did me the favour to undertake the delivery of it to you. With me, Sir, it is thus: there is not one person (besides my self) in my house well. I have already lost half a child, and with that mischance of hers, my wife fallen into an indisposition, which would afflict her much, but that the sicknesse of her children stupefies her: of one of which, in good faith, I have not much hope. This meets a fortune so ill provided for physique and such relief, that if God should ease us with burials, I know not well how to performe even that. I flatter my self in this, that I am dying too: nor can I truly dye faster, by any waste, then by losse of children. But Sir, I will mingle no more of my sadness to you, but wil a little recompense it, by telling you that my L. Harrington, of whom a few days since they were doubtfull, is so well recovered that now they know all his disease to be the Pox, and Measels mingled. This I heard yesterday: for I have not been there yet. I came as near importunity as I could, for an answer from Essex house, but this was all, that he should see you shortly himselfe.
Your servant
J. Donne.
I cannot tell you so much, as you tell me, of any thing from my Lord of Som[erset] since the Epithalamion, for I heard nothing.
[li.]
To the Honourable Knight Sir H. Goodere.
Sir,
I Have but one excuse for not sending you the Sermon that you do me the honour to command, and I foresee that before I take my hand from this paper, I shall lose the benefit of that excuse; it is that for more than twenty days, I have been travelled [travailed] with a pain, in my right wrist, so like the Gout, as makes me unable to write. The writing of this Letter will implore a commentary for that, that I cannot write legibly; for that I cannot write much, this Letter will testifie against me. Sir, I beseech you, at first, tell your company, that I decline not the service out of sullennesse nor lazinesse, nor that any fortune damps me so much, as that I am not sensible of the honour of their commanding it, but a meer inexperience whether I be able to write eight hours or no; but I will try next week, and either do it, for their service, or sink in their service. This is Thursday: and upon Tuesday my Lady Bedford came to this town: this afternoon I presented my service to her, by Mris Withrington: and so asked leave to have waited upon them at supper: but my messenger found them ready to go into their Coach: so that a third Letter which I received from Mris Dudley, referring me to Mris Withringtons relation of all that State, I lose it till their return to this town. To clear you in that wherein I see by your Letter that I had not well expressed my self in mine, Sir Ed. Herbert writ to Sir Ed. Sackvil, not to presse the King to fix any certain time of sending him, till he was come over, and had spoken with the King: Sir Ed. Sackvil collects upon that, that Sir Ed. H. means to go again; I think it is only, that he would have his honour so saved, as not to seem to be recalled, by having a successor, before he had emptied the place. We hear nothing from my Lord of Doncaster; nor have we any way to send to him. I have not seen my Lady Doncaster, for she crost to Penhurst, and from thence to Petworth; my Lady Isabella came to this Town, where, before her comming, a Letter attended her from my Lady of Tichfield: and thither she went, with their servants, who staid her comming. Hither came lately Letters with goodspeed from Vienna, in which there is no mention of any such defeat, as in rumour C[ount] Mansfeld hath been said to have given to the D[uke] of Bavyer [Bavaria] but their forces were then within such distance, as may have procured something before this time. Those which watched advantages in the Court of the Emperour, have made that use of C[ount] Mansfelds proceedings, as that my Lord Digby complains, that thereby the forwardnesse in which his negotiation was, is somewhat retarded. He proceeds from thence into Spain. The D. of Bavyer hath presented the Emperour an account of 1200ml [£1,200,000] sterling in that warre, to be reimbursed: and finding the Palatinate to be in treaty, hath required a great part of Austria for his security, and they say, it is so transacted; which is a good signe of a possibility in the restitution of the Palatinate. For any thing I discern, their fears are much greater from Hungary, then from Bohemia; and the losse of Canon, in a great proportion, and other things, at the death of Bucquoy, was much greater, then they suffered to be published. We here Spinola is passed over at Rhenebery [Rheinsberg]; if it be so, they are no longer distracted, whether he would bend upon Juliers, or the Palatinate. I know not what you hear from your noble son in law, who sees those things clearly in himself, and in the near distance; but I hear here, that the King hath much lost the affection of the English in those parts. Whether it proceed from any sowrenesse in him, or that they be otherwise taken off, from applying themselves to him, I know not. My Lord of S. Albons [St. Albans] hath found so much favour as that a pension of 2000 l. will be given him; he desires that he might have it for [——] years, that so he might transferre it upon his creditors, or that in place of it he might have 8000 l. for he hath found a disposition in his creditors (to whom I hear he hath paid 3000 l. since by retyring) to accept 8000 l. for all his debts, which are three times as much. I have been some times with my L. of Canterbury, since by [sic] accident, to give you his own words. I see him retain his former cheerfulnesse here and at Croydon, but I do not hear from Court, that he hath any ground for such a confidence, but that his case may need favour, and not have it. That place, and Bedington, and Chelsey, and Highgate, where that very good man my Lord Hobard is, and Hackney, with the M[aster] of the Rolls, and my familiar Peckham, are my circumferrence. No place so eccentrique to me, as that I lye just at London; and with those fragmentary recreations I must make shift to recompense the missing of that contentment which your favour opens to me, and my desire provokes me to, the kissing of your hands at Polesworth. My daughter Constance is at this time with me, for the emptinesse of the town hath made me, who otherwise live upon the almes of others, a housekeeper, for a moneth; and so she is my servant below stairs, and my companion above: she was at the table with me, when your Letter was brought, and I pay her a piece of her petition in doing her this office, to present her service to my Lady Nethersoles, and her very good sister. But that she is gone to bed two hours before I writ this, she should have signed with such a hand as your daughter Mary did to me, that which I testifie for her, that she is as affectionate a servant to them all, as their goodnesse hath created any where. Sir, I shall recompense my tediousnesse, in closing mine eyes with a prayer for yours, as for mine own happinesse, for I am almost in bed; if it were my last bed, and I upon my last businesse there, I should not omit to joyn you with