DCXXI. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII,
MDCXXXI. HIC LICET IN OCCIDUO CINERE, ASPICIT EUM CUJUS NOMEN EST
ORIENS.

And now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities
of a various life, even to the gates of death and the grave; my desire
is, he may rest, till I have told my reader that I have seen many
pictures of him, in several habits, and at several ages, and in several
postures: and I now mention this because I have seen one picture of him,
drawn by a curious hand, at his age of eighteen, with his sword, and
what other adornments might then suit with the present fashions of youth
and the giddy gaieties of that age; and his motto then was--

"How much shall I be changed
Before I am changed!"

And if that young, and his now dying picture were at this time set
together, every beholder might say, "Lord! how much is Dr. Donne already
changed, before he is changed!" And the view of them might give my
reader occasion to ask himself with some amazement, "Lord! how much may
I also, that am now in health, be changed before I am changed; before
this vile, this changeable body shall put off mortality!" and therefore
to prepare for it.--But this is not writ so much for my reader's
memento, as to tell him, that Dr. Donne would often in his private
discourses, and often publicly in his sermons, mention the many changes
both of his body and mind, especially of his mind from a vertiginous
giddiness; and would as often say, "His great and most blessed change
was from a temporal to a spiritual employment"; in which he was so
happy, that he accounted the former part of his life to be lost; and the
beginning of it to be, from his first entering into Sacred Orders, and
serving his most merciful God at His altar.

Upon Monday, after the drawing this picture, he took his last leave of
his beloved study; and, being sensible of his hourly decay, retired
himself to his bedchamber; and that week sent at several times for many
of his most considerable friends, with whom he took a solemn and
deliberate farewell, commending to their considerations some sentences
useful for the regulation of their lives; and then dismissed them, as
good Jacob did his sons, with a spiritual benediction. The Sunday
following, he appointed his servants, that if there were any business
yet undone, that concerned him or themselves, it should be prepared
against Saturday next; for after that day he would not mix his thoughts
wi