l us what we should be. But, _Madam_, you are beyond
instruction, and therefore there can belong to you only praise; of
which, though you be no good hearer, yet allow all my Letters leave to
have in them one part of it, which is thankfulness towards you.

_Your unworthiest Servant
Except your accepting
have mended him_

JOHN DONNE.

MITCHAM, July 11, 1607.

9. _To the worthiest Lady, Mrs._ MAGDALEN HERBER(T)

_Madam_,

This is my second Letter, in which though I cannot tell you what is
good, yet this is the worst, that I must be a great part of it; yet to
me, that is recompensed, because you must be mingled. After I knew you
were gone (for I must, little less than accusingly tell you, I knew not
you would go) I sent my first Letter, like a _Bevis of Hampton_, to seek
Adventures. This day I came to Town, and to the best part of it, your
House; for your memory is a State-cloth and Presence; which I reverence,
though you be away; though I need not seek that there which I have about
and within me. There, though I found my accusation, yet anything to
which your hand is, is a pardon; yet I would not burn my first Letter,
because as in great destiny no small passage can be omitted or
frustrated, so in my resolution of writing almost daily to you, I would
have no link of the Chain broke by me, both because my Letters interpret
one another, and because only their number can give them weight. If I
had your Commission and Instructions to do you the service of a Legier
Ambassador here, I could say something of the Countess of _Devon_: of
the States, and such things. But since to you, who are not only a World
alone, but the Monarchy of the World your self, nothing can be added,
especially by me; I will sustain myself with the honour of being

_Your Servant Extraordinary
And without place_

JOHN DONNE.

LONDON
July 23, 1607

10. _To the worthiest Lady, Mrs_. MAGDALEN HERBERT

_Madam_,

As we must die before we can have full glory and happiness, so before I
can have this degree of it, as to see you by a Letter, I must almost
die, that is, come to _London_, to plaguy _London_; a place full of
danger, and vanity, and vice, though the Court be gone. And such it will
be, till your return redeem it: Not that, the greatest virtue in the
World, which is you, can be such a Marshal, as to defeat, or disperse
all the vice of this place; but as higher bodies remove, or contract
themselves, when better come, so at your retu