John Donne

Donne, John, D.D., born in London, 1573, and educated as a Roman Catholic, but at the age of nineteen he embraced Anglicanism. He acted for some time as Secretary to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere. At the desire of King James he took Holy Orders, and rising to great fame as a preacher, had the offer of fourteen livings during the first year of his ministry. He was chosen, in 1617, preacher at Lincoln's Inn. In 1621 he became Dean of St. Paul's, and soon afterwards Vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West. Died in 1631, and was buried in St. Paul's. His work as a Poet and Divine is set forth by I. Walton in his Lives, He was the author of the plaintive hymn, "Wilt Thou forgive," &c. (q. v.). Donne's Poems (1633) have been recently edited in an admirable manner by the Rev. Dr. Grosart in his Fuller Worthies Library, where for the first time is printed a full and complete edition of the Poems.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)