XVI
Probably written from Amiens, to which place Donne accompanied Sir Robert Drury in 1611, on that journey during which he had the vision described by Walton:
“Two days after their arrival there [in Paris], Mr. Donne was left alone in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends had din’d together. To this place Sir Robert return’d within half an hour, and, as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone; but in such an Extasie, and, so alter’d as to his looks, as amaz’d Sir Robert to behold him: insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had befaln him in the short time of his absence? to which, Mr. Donne was not able to make a present answer: but, after a long and perplext pause, did at last say, I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you; I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: This I have seen since I saw you. To which Sir Robert reply’d; ‘Sure Sir, you have slept since I saw you; 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, then, that I have not slept since I saw you: and I am as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopt, and look’d me in the face, and vanisht.’ Rest and sleep, had not alter’d Mr. Donne’s opinion the next day: for he then affirm’d this vision with a more deliberate, and so confirm’d a confidence, that he inclin’d Sir Robert to a faint belief that the Vision was true.—It is truly said, that desire, and doubt, have no rest: and it prov’d so with Sir Robert, for he immediately sent a servant to Drewry house, with a charge to hasten back, and bring him word, whether Mrs. Donne were 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 deliver’d of a dead child. And upon examination, the abortion prov’d to be the same day, and about the very hour that Mr. Donne affirm’d he saw her pass by him in his Chamber.”
XVII
This letter seems to belong to the same period as the last, and to have been intended by Donne as a sort of circular letter “to all my friends” at home.
XVIII
Written in 1608, as the reference to the sudden death of Captain Edmund Whitelocke indicates. Walton, who quotes a part of this letter, gives the date as September 7th.
Mr. Jones may have been the friend to whose custody Tobie Matthew was committed between his sentence of banishment and his departure from England. (See Note on XLV, below.) Mr. Holland was Henry Holland, the son of Philemon Holland, the translator of Suetonius and much else. The Lord of Sussex was Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex.
XIX
The postscript to this letter, written, like that which follows it, from Mitcham in the closing years of Donne’s residence there, is serious enough, but the letter itself must be understood as extravagant banter, not without a touch of bitterness. “When sadness dejects me,” says Donne in a letter (XXV) written about this time, “either I countermine it with another sadnesse, or I kindle squibs about me again, and flie into sportfulnesse.” The present letter is the fruit of such a mood.