habitually assigned to a sermon. Donne's own sermons, as printed, stretch sometimes to nearly three times that length; but it seems that he spoke from notes on a carefully prepared scheme, and afterwards expanded and revised for publication. In any case, it is clear that Donne's audiences were prepared to be receptive of pulpit eloquence to a degree not easy now to realise. It is not strange if we find their raptures surpass our own; though we can share one part of their wonder. Donne's sermons, whatever else they may be, are astonishing intellectual feats. In spite of ill-health and many distractions, he published, as Dr. Jessopp counts, one hundred and eighty sermons; each itself rather a short treatise than a brief flight of rhetoric; first elaborated, then spoken, and then elaborately rewritten. As mere exhibitions of learning they are remarkable, and the more so, because Donne does not seem to be turning out a commonplace book, or going out of his way to display learning. He has a mind so full of learning that references crowd in spontaneously. He makes, it may be noticed, few allusions to the classics, but he is thoroughly at home with all the fathers and ecclesiastical history; Augustine is at his fingers' ends, and
