family crest for a new one--Christ crucified on an anchor. But he might
well have left the snakes writhing about the anchor. He remained a tempted
man to the end. One wishes that the _Sermons_ threw more light on his
later personal life than they do. But perhaps that is too much to expect
of sermons. There is no form of literature less personal except a leading
article. The preacher usually regards himself as a mouthpiece rather than
a man giving expression to himself. In the circumstances what surprises us
is that the _Sermons_ reveal, not so little, but so much of Donne. Indeed,
they make us feel far more intimate with Donne than do his private
letters, many of which are little more than exercises in composition. As a
preacher, no less than as a poet, he is inflamed by the creative heat. He
shows the same vehemence of fancy in the presence of the divine and
infernal universe--a vehemence that prevents even his most far-sought
extravagances from disgusting us as do the lukewarm follies of the
Euphuists. Undoubtedly the modern reader smiles when Donne, explaining
that man can be an enemy of God as the mouse can be an enemy to the
elephant, goes on to speak of "God who is not only a multiplied elephant,
millions of elephants multiplied into one, but a multiplied world, a
multiplied all, all that can be conceived by us, infinite many times over;
nay (if we may dare to say so) a multiplied God, a God that hath the
millions of the heathens' gods in Himself alone." But at the same time one
finds oneself taking a serious pleasure in the huge sorites of quips and
fancies in which he loves to present the divine argument. Nine out of ten
readers of the _Sermons_, I imagine, will be first attracted to them
through love of the poems. They need not be surprised if they do not
immediately enjoy them. The dust of the pulpit lies on them thickly
enough. As one goes on reading them, however, one becomes suddenly aware
of their florid and exiled beauty. One sees beyond their local theology to
the passion of a great suffering artist. Here are sentences that express
the Paradise, the Purgatory, and the Hell of John Donne's soul. A noble