Here are some of my finds about the seventeenth century. I'll be adding new discoveries from time to time, so if you would like to suggest your own favourites, please e-mail me from my Contact page.

The City of London Destroyed by Fire a Second Time

Miraculously, John Donne's effigy survived not only the burning of the medieval St Paul's in 1666, but also the bombing of Sir Christopher Wren's cathedral during the London Blitz. My uncle, Ned Young, writes:

	St Paul's during London Blitz, December 29, 1940

"Reading in your synopsis about the great fire in London, and in particular about St Paul's, reminded me of my first visit to that great edifice. It was during the war, but subsequent to the fire storm that raged in the area during the bombing raids. As I walked down Fleet Street it was amazing to see the church standing there, seemingly untouched, while all the buildings around it were burned to shells--just their brick walls remaining. Actually the church was not untouched, however. Last year I saw a dramatization of those raids, based on survivors' recollections. Many incendiaries were dropped on the great dome, lighting a number of small fires, as it was made of wood. The wardens who were stationed inside up there had to put them out with buckets of water carried up from the main floor, as there was not enough pressure in the hoses to reach the top. If they had not been successful the entire dome would have collapsed. I wonder if John Donne's effigy would have survived."

The film Ned saw is The Blitz: London's Longest Night, a documentary about December 29, 1940, the night when 136 German planes dropped incendiary bombs on the heart of London. A square mile of the City was burned, including a giant book warehouse on Shoe Lane. Miraculously, St Paul's survived. Film clips from that night show the dome of St Paul's rising triumphantly--a symbol of national pride and hope--out of the smoke and flames. More survivors' stories appear in the WW II People's War archive at the BBC.

Literary Fathers and Sons

Dmitri Nabokov, the son of Vladimar of Lolita fame, has been dithering in public again about whether he should publish his father's last "novel"--actually 50 index cards with notes that Nabokov ordered destroyed upon his death. The Times calls it "a story about a son caught between a powerful urge to go against his late father’s wishes and an equally powerful urge to carry them out".

This reminds me of another literary father and son. In an emotional slump, years before he became a priest, John Donne wrote Biathanatos, in which he defended suicide, admitting that "I have often such a sickly inclination" because he came from a Catholic family, "hungry of an imagined martyrdom".  Years later, he entrusted his only MS to a friend, calling it "a book written by Jack Donne, and not by Dr Donne. Reserve it for me if I live, and if I die, I only forbid it the press and the fire; publish it not, but yet burn it not, and between those do what you will with it." After Donne's death, his son took it upon himself to be his literary executor, with mixed results.  When his study was raided twice by the Commonwealth army, John Donne Jr gave in to the urge to publish his father's book, reasoning, with more than a little sophistry, that if it was not safely in print, the soldiers might return to consign it to the flames.  

	Shakespeare and His Friends at the Mermaid Tavern

Were Shakespeare and Donne Friends?

This 1850s painting by John Faed is known as Shakespeare and His Friends at the Mermaid Tavern and features a "Tudor hall of fame." Shakespeare, seated in the centre dressed in black, resembles the First Folio engraving of him by Martin Droeshout.  Ben Jonson's biographer Gifford wrote that around the year 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh "instituted a meeting of beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Friday Street. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius, perhaps, than ever met together before or since, [Jonson] was a member; and here, for many years, he regularly repaired with Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect."

Is that Beaumont and Fletcher waiting in the wings for their turn on stage and Sir Walter Raleigh leaning on the "lovely boy" to Shakespeare's left, the Earl of Southampton? There are far too many men sporting pointed beards to tell, but the best candidate for Donne is the head above and to Shakespeare's right. However, there's no evidence that Donne knew Shakespeare and it's unlikely that these men of letters were ever in the same inn at the same time, let alone in the storied Mermaid Tavern. For more on what Shakespeare looked like, a good place to start is Stephanie Nolen's book Shakespeare's Face.

	John Donne as a melancholy lover about 1595

John Donne in the News

When a cache of old letters was recently found in a laundry room in Switzerland, a letter by John Donne was estimated to be worth $250,000. Donne was something of a specialist in writing letters to great ladies in order to win favour, and the letter was penned to Lady Kingsmill in 1624 to console her on the death of her husband.

Unlike Shakespeare, whose portraits are always being discredited, we have no doubt what John Donne looked like at various stages of his life since he was fond of having his image captured. He had himself etched, sketched, engraved, miniaturized, painted in flamboyant costumes, and even carved in marble for his great effigy in St Paul's cathedral in London.

This sexy picture of "Jack Donne" as a melancholy lover in a big floppy hat, open collar, and crossed arms has been called "the most famous of all Elizabethan love portraits." The Latin inscription translates as O Lady Lighten Our Darkness, suggesting that Donne had himself painted for one of his mistresses around the time that he wrote his most famous elegy, "To His Mistress Going to Bed."

	Queen Elizabeth
Portrait of Samuel Pepys

Donne died in 1631 and his picture in the shadows, as he called it, was lost from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. It eventually came to light at Newbattle Abbey in 1959. The name had been written Duns, and mistaken for Duns Scotus! In May 2006, the painting was bought by the National Portrait Gallery in London, after an enthusiastic campaign to raise the £2M. BBC News covered the fundraising step by step, announcing triumphantly at the close, "John Donne Portrait Saved for Nation". The restored painting has just been hung in Room 2 of the National Portrait Gallery with portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Elizabethan courtiers and poets.

A 17th-century Blog

Ready for your daily dose of Samuel Pepys? Read Pepys's diary for this day in 1664. This marvellous website posts a new entry from the 17th-century diary each morning. Pepys was a bit of a philanderer, but to see just how far he indulged his libido, you will have to read through the million-and-a-quarter words of his famous diary, which ended soon after his wife Elizabeth caught him in flagrante with her maid. For years these diaries sat undeciphered in Pepys's own library, bequeathed to his alma mater, Magdalene College at Cambridge, until someone found the key to the shorthand sitting in the same bookshelves. Pepysdiary.com posted Pepys's first diary entry of January 1, 1660 on New Year's Day 2003 and will continue until the last entry of May 31, 1669 has been reached in 2012. If you can't wait that long, look for the print edition by Robert Latham and William Matthews, since Victorian editors omitted the unprintable passages. If the twelve Latham & Matthews volumes are too daunting, try The Illustrated Pepys, which has one-fourteenth of the diary accompanied by charming period illustrations.