in the grave. There, again, Hamlet in the churchyard gave pithy utterance to a theme which Donne extends into elaborate subtleties, and considers a 'little too curiously.' If he has in some sense found peace and consolation, he has to be always mortifying the flesh and scourging himself to keep down the old man. He meditates upon hell and the gloomy aspect of the world, which preoccupies him and leads to his most effective passages. To give specimens would be difficult, if only on account of the excessive luxuriance of his rhetoric. A singularly fine passage is the peroration to a sermon upon the text, 'He that believeth not shall be damned,' where the real torment of hell is described as the hopeless separation of the soul from God. That, perhaps, of which a slight indication can be most easily given is an appeal to the atheist. He challenges the 'poor, intricated, perplexed, labyrinthical soul' to stand by its creed. If I asked, he says, whether there be a God when you are at church or in the world or at a theatre, you might consider that religion was an invention of priests or poets or rulers. But, he proceeds, 'I respite thee not till the day of judgment, when thou wilt call upon the hills to cover thee; nor till the day of thine own
