IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 8i 



of his own soul were engaged in the conversion of 

 others ; in preaching the glad tidings of remission 

 to repenting sinners, and peace to each troubled 

 soul." In 1616 we find Donne chosen to be the 

 preacher at Lincoln's Inn. 



In 1617 his wife died, aged thirty-six ; she was 

 buried in St Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, 

 London. Her death caused him extreme grief, 

 and for a time he retired from the world. "He 

 began the day and ended the night : ended the 

 restless night and began the weary day in 

 lamentations. " 



His first sermon, Walton states, after her death 

 was preached from the text in Lamentations iii. 1, 

 "Lo, I am the man that have seen affliction." Dr 

 Jessopp, in his life of Donne in Leaders of Religion 

 (Methuen & Co., 1897), states it to be "a fable" 

 that Donne preached a funeral sermon upon his 

 wife in St Clement's Church upon that text. His 

 reason is, that some ten years afterwards he 

 preached from the same text in St Dunstan's 

 Church a sermon that was not a funeral sermon. 

 Why Donne could not preach twice within ten 

 years from the same text a fresh sermon, I quite 

 fail to see. Walton writes without any doubt as 

 having himself heard the sermon preached in St 

 Clement's Church,^ and to doubt him upon the 



^ Only an eye-witness, I contend, could have written thus: "And 

 indeed his very words and looks testified him to be truly such a man ; 

 F 



