The value of John Donne's poetry has ever been acknowledged to the extent that, together with Spenser and Jonson, he has been conceded leadership in the English Renaissance. Until recently, however, the Dean of St. Paul's has only casually been touched upon as a prose writer of pronounced merit. This neglect Coleridge hinted at when, in his Table Talk, June 4, 1830, he wrote: “Why is not Donne's volume of sermons reprinted at Oxford?” Of all Donne's prose, the sermons seem to me to be most important. Meritorious as they are for content (which does not interest us here), Donne's sermons best display his mature ability as a man of letters, wherefore as a master of English homiletic style Donne deserves his place among the leading writers of his day.