Our drooping loves, which thus to thine own fame
Leave thee executor; since, but thy own,
No pen could do thee justice, nor bays crown
Thy vast desert; save that, we nothing can
Depute to be thy ashes' guardian.
So jewellers no art or metal trust
To form the diamond, but the diamond's dust.
Dr. Donne.] This is also found in some editions of Donne's Poems and in Walton's Life, and Hannah took repeated pains to record the variants. I have borrowed those which seemed of importance. King's friendship with Donne (whose executor he was) was peculiarly intimate, as Walton, a friend of both, elaborately testifies. But the greatest of the many great Deans of St. Paul's was certainly 'beyond' King's 'loftiest flights' (or, as Walton read, 'thoughts'), and the Bishop is here below even these.
8 pin it] This was literally done.
30 Refers to Donne's last sermon at Court, to his long illness, and to the ghastly pallor perpetuated by the famous picture of him in his shroud.