Her of your name, whose fair inheritance Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo, An active faith so highly did advance, That she once knew more than the Church did know, The Resurrection! so much good there is Delivered of her, that some Fathers be Loth to believe one woman could do this: But think these Magdalens were two or three. Increase their number, Lady, and their fame: To their devotion add your innocence: Take so much of th' example, as of the name; The latter half; and in some recompense That they did harbour Christ himself, a guest, Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest. J.D. These Hymns are now lost to us; but doubtless they were such as they two now sing in Heaven. [Sidenote: Her Funeral Sermon] There might be more demonstrations of the friendship, and the many sacred endearments betwixt these two excellent persons,--for I have many of their letters in my hand,--and much more might be said of her great prudence and piety: but my design was not to write her's, but the life of her son; and therefore I shall only tell my Reader, that about that very day twenty years that this letter was dated, and sent her, I saw and heard this Mr. John Donne--who was then Dean of St. Paul's--weep, and preach her Funeral Sermon, in the Parish Church of Chelsea, near London, where she now rests in her quiet grave: and where we must now leave her, and return to her son George, whom we left in his study in Cambridge. And in Cambridge we may find our George Herbert's behaviour to be such, that we may conclude he consecrated the first-fruits of his early age to virtue, and a serious study of learning. And that he did so, this following Letter and Sonnet, which were, in the first year of his going to Cambridge, sent his dear Mother for a New-year's gift, may appear to be some testimony. [Sidenote: A Letter] --"But I fear the heat of my late ague hath dried up those springs, by which scholars say the Muses use to take up their habitations. However, I need not their help to reprove the vanity of those many love-poems, that are daily writ, and consecrated to Venus; nor to bewail that so few are writ, that look towards God and Heaven. For my own part, my meaning--dear Mother--is, in these Sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that my poor abilities in Poetry, shall be all and ever consecrated to God's glory: and I beg you to receive this as one testimony." [Sidenote: and Sonnets]