t his being in the furthest parts of
Italy, the disappointment of company, or of a safe convoy, or the
uncertainty of returns of money into those remote parts, denied him
that happiness, which he did often occasionally mention with a
deploration.

Not long after his return into England, that exemplary pattern of
gravity and wisdom, the Lord Ellesmere, then Keeper of the Great Seal,
the Lord Chancellor of England, taking notice of his learning,
languages, and other abilities, and much affecting his person and
behaviour, took him to be his chief secretary; supposing and intending
it to be an introduction to some more weighty employment in the State;
for which, his Lordship did often protest, he thought him very fit.

Nor did his Lordship, in this time of Master Donne's attendance upon
him, account him to be so much his servant as to forget he was his
friend; and, to testify it, did always use him with much courtesy,
appointing him a place at his own table, to which he esteemed his
company and discourse to be a great ornament.

He continued that employment for the space of five years, being daily
useful, and not mercenary to his friend. During which time he--I dare
not say unhappily--fell into such a liking, as,--with her
approbation,--increased into a love, with a young gentlewoman that lived
in that family, who was niece to the Lady Ellesmere, and daughter to Sir
George More, then Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower.

Sir George had some intimation of it, and, knowing prevention to be a
great part of wisdom, did therefore remove her with much haste from that
to his own house at Lothesley, in the County of Surrey; but too late, by
reason of some faithful promises which were so interchangeably passed,
as never to be violated by either party.

These promises were only known to themselves; and the friends of both
parties used much diligence, and many arguments, to kill or cool their
affections to each other; but in vain, for love is a flattering mischief
that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too
often prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion that
carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move
feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of
what we desire. And such an industry did, notwithstanding much
watchfulness against it, bring them secretly together,--I forbear to
tell the manner how,--and at last to a marriage too