Devotions vpon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes digested into I. Meditations vpon our humane condition, 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God, 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to Him / by Iohn Donne ...

12. MEDITATION.

VVHat will not kill a man, if a

vapor will? how great an Elephant, how small a Mouse destroyes? to dye by a bullet is the Souldiers dayly bread; but few men dye by haile-shot: A man is more worth, then to bee sold for single mo∣ney; a life to be valued aboue a trifle. If this were a violent shaking of the Ayre by Thunder, or by Canon, in that case the Ayre is condensed aboue the thicknesse of water, of water baked into Ice, almost petrifi∣ed,

almost made stone, and no wonder that that kills; but that that which is but a vapor, and a vapor not forced, but breathed, should kill, that our Nourse should ouerlay vs, and Ayre, that nourishes vs, should destroy vs, but that it is a halfe Atheis∣me to murmure against Nature, who is Gods immediate Commissioner, who would not think himselfe miserable to bee put into the hands of Nature, who does

not only set him vp for a marke for others to shoote at, but delights her selfe to blow him vp like a glasse, till shee see him breake, euen with her owne breath? nay if this infectious vapor were sought for, or trauail'd to, as Plinie hunted after the vapor of Aetna and dard, and challenged Death in the forme of a vapor to doe his worst, and felt the worst, he dyed; or if this vapor were met withall in an ambush,

and we surprized with it, out of a long shut•• Well, or out of a new o∣pened Myne, who wold lament, who would ac∣cuse, when we had no∣thing to accuse, none to lament against, but For∣tune, who is lesse then a vapour: But when our selues are the Well, that breaths out this exhala∣tion, the Ouen that spits out this fiery smoke, the Myne that spues out this suffocating, and strang∣ling dampe, who can e∣uer after this, aggrauate

his sorrow, by this Cir∣cumstance, That it was his Neighbor, his familiar friend, his brother that destroyed him, and de∣stroyed him with a whispering, & a calum∣niating breath, when wee our selues doe it to our selues by the same meanes, kill our selues with our owne vapors? Or if these occasions of this selfe-destruction, had any contribution from our owne wils, a∣ny assistance from our owne intentions, nay frō

our owne errors, wee might diuide the re∣buke, & chide our selues as much as them. Feuers vpon wilful distempers of drinke, and surfets, Consumptions vpon intē∣perances, & licentious∣nes, Madnes vpon mis∣placing, or ouer-ben∣ding our naturall facul∣ties, proceed from our selues, and so, as that our selues are in the plot, and wee are not onely passiue, but actiue too, to our owne de∣struction; But what

haue I done, either to breed, or to breath these vapors? They tell me it is my Melancholy; Did I infuse, did I drinke in Melancholly into my selfe? It is my thought∣fulnesse; was I not made to thinke? It is my study; doth not my Calling call for that•• I haue don no∣thing, wilfully, peruers∣ly toward it, yet must suffer in it, die by it; There are too many Examples of men, that haue bin their own exe∣cutioners, and that haue

made hard shift to bee so; some haue alwayes had poyson about them, in a hollow ring vpō their finger, and some in their Pen that they vsed to write with: some haue beat out their braines at the wal of their prison, and some haue eate the fire out of their chim∣neys:* 1.1 and one is said to haue come neerer our case then so, to haue strāgled himself, though his hands were bound, by crushing his throat between his knees; But

I doe nothing vpon my selfe, and yet am mine owne Executioner. And we haue heard of death, vpon small occasions, and by scornefull instru∣ments; a pinne, a combe, a haire, pulled, hath gan∣gred, & killd; But when I haue said, a vapour, if I were asked again, what is a vapour, I could not tell, it is so insensible a thing; so neere nothing is that that red••ces vs to nothing. But extend this vapour, rarifie it; from so narow a roome, as our

Naturall bodies, to any Politike body, to a State. That which is fume in vs, is in a State, Rumor, and these vapours in vs, which wee consider here pestilent, and infe∣ctious fumes, are in a State infectious rumors, detracting and disho∣nourable Calumnies, Li∣bels. The Heart in that body is the King; and the Braine, his Councell; and the whole Magistracie, that ties all toge••her, is the Sinewes, which pro∣ceed from thence; and

the life of all is Honour, and iust respect, and due reuerence; and therfore, when these vapors, these venimous rumors, are directed against these Noble parts, the whole body suf••ers. But yet for all their priuiledges, they are not priuiledged from our misery; that as the vapours most perni∣tious to vs, arise in our owne bodies, so doe the most dishonorable ru∣mours, and those that wound a State most, a∣rise at home. What ill

ayre, that I could haue met in the street, what channell, what shambles, what dunghill, what vault, could haue hurt mee so much, as these home-bredd vapours? What fugitiue, what Almes-man of any forraine State, can doe so much harme, as a Detracter, a Libeller, a scornefull Ie∣ster at home? For, as they that write of Poy∣sons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruine of Man, do as well mention the Flea,

as the Viper, because the Flea,* 1.2 though hee kill none, hee does all the harme hee can, so euen these libellous and li∣centious Iesters, vtter the venim they haue, though sometimes vertue, and alwaies power, be a good Pigeon to draw this va∣por from the Head, and from doing any deadly harme there.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Coma, la∣tro. in Val. Max.
• * 1.2

  Ardio∣nus.