IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 83 



sealed his will with one of these seals. The reader 

 who would pursue the history of these seals must 

 consult The, Perverse Widow ; or, Memorials of 

 the Boevey Family (Longmans & Co., 1898), where 

 all the learning on the subject of these seals 

 will be found. His illness left Donne but as much 

 flesh as did "only cover his bones," but he would 

 preach, and he amazed the beholders when he 

 appeared in the pulpit to preach what turned out 

 to be his last sermon. Many that then saw his 

 tears, and heard his faint and hollow voice, pro- 

 fessed they thought that Dr Donne had preached 

 his own funeral sermon : — 



"When pale looks and faint accents of thy breath, 

 Presented so to life that piece of death, 

 That it was feared and prophesied by all 

 Thou thither cam'st to preach thy funeral."^ 



Donne was easily persuaded to have a monu- 

 ment erected to his memory. A "choice painter" 

 was taken into his study, and Donne draped him- 

 self in his shroud and closed his eyes, and, " with 

 so much of the sheet turned aside as might show 

 his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was pur- 

 posely turned towards the East,^ from whence he 

 expected the second coming of his and of our 

 Saviour Jesus," his portrait was taken. When the 

 portrait was fully finished, he caused it to be set 

 by his bedside, where it continued his hourly 



' Bishop King's " Elegy '' on Donne. 



2 The statue as now placed in St Paul's does not look eastward. 



