John Donne |
Izaak Walton
(1593–1683). The Lives of John Donne and George Herbert.
Vol. 15, pp. 364-369 of
The Harvard Classics
Monuments are
usually made from death masks, but John Donne took pleasure in posing
for his, wrapped from head to foot in a shroud. Isaak Walton tells of
this in his fascinating biography of the eccentric poet.
(John Donne died
March 31, 1631.)
The
Life of Dr. Donne
I must here look so far back, as to
tell the reader that at his first return out of Essex, to preach his
last sermon, his old friend and physician, Dr. Fox—a man of great
worth—came to him to consult his health; and that after a sight of
him, and some queries concerning his distempers, he told him, “That
by cordials, and drinking milk twenty days together, there was a
probability of his restoration to health;” but he passionately
denied to drink it. Nevertheless, Dr. Fox, who loved him most
entirely, wearied him with solicitations, till he yielded to take it
for ten days; at the end of which time he told Dr. Fox, “He had
drunk it more to satisfy him, than to recover his health; and that he
would not drink it ten days longer, upon the best moral assurance of
having twenty years added to his life; for he loved it not; and was
so far from fearing death, which to others is the King of Terrors,
that he longed for the day of dissolution.”