78 IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 



volume, the reader can get at a glance a very 

 good idea of the lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker 

 and Herbert, so graphically has Cotton depicted 

 their characters and appropriated their very 

 language. But a study of the Lives should be 

 made by any reader as yet unacquainted with 

 them : — 



" the feather whence the pen 

 Was shaped that traced the lives of these good Men, 

 Dropped from an Angel's wing," 



as Wordsworth has in a sonnet so beautifully 

 expressed it. 



" These all died in faith, not having received 

 the promises, but having seen them and greeted 

 them from afar" (Heb. xi. 13). 



" Rare Lives ! that whoso reads, to him is given 

 To pace the precincts of the courts of Heaven." 



T. Westwood. 



(a) JOHN DONNE 



(1573-1631) 



"Diligent and believing." 



Dr John Donne was born in the Parish of 

 St Nicholas Olave, London, in 1573; he was a 

 son of John Donne, a London merchant. His 

 mother was the daughter of a Mr John Hey- 

 wood. They belonged to the Church of Rome. 

 He was sent when in his twelfth year to Hart 



