there is to us just an overtouch of the dramatic and self-conscious in that matter of the picture, we can see at least how profoundly he impressed Walton and his contemporaries. He was one who, after early errors, had been chastened by long suffering and deep repentance, and had been finally purified from all earthly stains. Baxter, we are told, preached 'as a dying man to dying men.' Walton's description of Donne's preaching might suggest that the phrase was applicable to Donne. We are told how deeply he was in earnest; how his hearers wept with him; how some were 'carried to heaven in holy raptures,' and others enticed to amendment by 'a sacred art and courtship'; how he made vice ugly and virtue beautiful, and preached 'like an angel from a cloud,' though not in a cloud himself. We turn from this panegyric to the sermons to verify the impression. The tendency of oratory to fall flat when it is read instead of heard is a commonplace, and we are prepared for some disillusion. Donne tells us himself that a good sign of the times was the 'hunger for hearing.' Elsewhere he speaks of the 'murmuring and noises' made when a preacher had 'concluded a point.' They often took up, he declares, a quarter of the hour
