Perhaps it may interest some readers to add, that Donne's famous lines, which have been quoted ad infinitum,—
The pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
Ye might have almost said her body thought!
were not written on his wife, but on Elizabeth Drury, the only daughter of his patron and friend, Sir Robert Drury. She was the richest heiress in England, the wealth of her father being considered almost incalculable; and this, added to her singular beauty, and extraordinary talents and acquirements, rendered her so popularly interesting, that she was considered a fit match for Henry, Prince of Wales. She died in her sixteenth year.
Dr. Donne and his wife were maternal ancestors of the Poet Cowper.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Lady Lucy Percy, afterwards the famous Countess of Carlisle, mentioned in page 33.
[46] Donne's poems.
[47] Walton's Lives.
[48] Walton's Life of Donne.—Chalmers's Biography.
[49] i. e. low-minded.