Immediately after his return from Cambridge his wife died, leaving him a man of a narrow, unsettled estate, and--having buried five--the careful father of seven children then living, to whom he gave a voluntary assurance never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother; which promise he kept most faithfully, burying with his tears all his earthly joys in his most dear and deserving wife's grave, and betook himself to a most retired and solitary life. In this retiredness, which was often from the sight of his dearest friends, he became crucified to the world, and all those vanities, those imaginary pleasures, that are daily acted on that restless stage, and they were as perfectly crucified to him. His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife lay buried--in St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, London; and his text was a part of the Prophet Jeremy's Lamentation: "Lo, I am the man that have seen affliction." In this time of sadness he was importuned by the grave Benchers of Lincoln's Inn--who were once the companions and friends of his youth--to accept of their Lecture, which, by reason of Dr. Gataker's removal from thence, was then void; of which he accepted, being most glad to renew his intermitted friendship with those whom he so much loved, and where he had been a Saul,--though not to persecute Christianity, or to deride it, yet in his irregular youth to neglect the visible practice of it,--there to become a Paul, and preach salvation to his beloved brethren. About which time the Emperor of Germany died, and the Palsgrave, who had lately married the Lady Elizabeth, the King's only daughter, was elected and crowned King of Bohemia, the unhappy beginning of many miseries in that nation. King James, whose motto--_Beati pacifici_--did truly speak the very thoughts of his heart, endeavoured first to prevent, and after to compose, the discords of that discomposed State; and, amongst other his endeavours, did then send the Lord Hay, Earl of Doncaster, his Ambassador to those unsettled Princes; and, by a special command from his Majesty, Dr. Donne was appointed to assist and attend that employment to the Princes of the Union, for which the Earl was most glad, who had always put a great value on him, and taken a great pleasure in his conversation and discourse: and his friends at Lincoln's Inn were as glad; for they feared that his immoderate study, and sadness for his wife's death, would, as Jacob said, "make his days few," and, respecting his bodily health, "evil" too: and of this there were many visible signs. About fourteen months after his departure out of England, he returned to his friends of Lincoln's Inn, with his sorrows moderated, and his health improved; and there betook himself to his constant course of preaching.