[The Life of John Donne, Dr. in Divinity, and Late Dean of Saint Pauls
Church London. The second impression corrected and enlarged. Ecclus.48.14.
_He did wonders in his life, and at his death his works were marvelous_.
London, Printed by J.G. for R. Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop
under S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street. 1658.]



_To My Noble & honoured Friend Sir Robert Holt of Afton, in the County of
Warwick, Baronet._

Sir,

When this relation of the life of Doctor Donne was first made publick, it
had besides the approbation of our late learned & eloquent King, a
conjunction with the Authors most excellent Sermons to support it; and
thus it lay some time fortified against prejudice; and those passions that
are by busie and malicious men too freely vented against the dead.

And yet, now, after almost twenty yeares, when though the memory of Dr.
Donne himself, must not, cannot die, so long as men speak English; yet
when I thought Time had made this relation of him so like my self, as to
become useless to the world, and content to be forgotten; I find that a
retreat into a defired privacy, will not be afforded; for the Printers
will again expose it and me to publick exceptions; and without those
supports, which we first had and needed, and in an Age too, in which
Truth & Innocence have not beene able to defend themselves from worse then
severe censures.