John Donne, Priest, Poet, and Preacher "All mankind is one
volume. When one man dies, one chapter is torn out of the book
and translated into a better language. And every chapter must be
so translated. God employs several translators. Some pieces are
translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by
justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves
again for that library where every book shall lie open to
another." Donne (rhymes with "sun") was born in 1573 (his father
died in 1576) into a Roman Catholic family, and from 1584 to
1594 was educated at Oxford and Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn
(this last a highly regarded law school). He became an Anglican
(probably around 1594) and aimed at a career in government. He
joined with Raleigh and Essex in raids on Cadiz and the Azores,
and became private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. But in 1601
he secretly married Anne More, the 16-year-old niece of Egerton,
and her enraged father had Donne imprisoned. The years following
were years of poverty,