Title: The Poems of John Donne,  Volume II (of 2) - Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts
Author: Donne, John
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Poems of John Donne,  Volume II (of 2) - Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts" ***

This book is indexed by ISYS Web Indexing system to allow the reader find any word or number within the document.

II (OF 2)***


      file which includes the sheet music illustrations
      as well as audio music files.
Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).

      Text enclosed by plus signs is in Old English script
      (+Old English script+).

      A carat character is used to denote superscription. A
      character or characters following the carat is/are
      superscripted (examples: S^t, Pe^tr). In some instances
      the superscripted characters are enclosed by curly
      brackets (examples: S^{r}, w^{th}).

      Some characters might not display in this UTF-8 text
      version or in the html version. If so, the reader should
THE POEMS OF JOHN DONNE

Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts
with Introductions & Commentary

by

HERBERT J. C. GRIERSON M.A.

Chalmers Professor of English Literature
in the University Of Aberdeen

VOL. II

Introduction and Commentary



Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
1912

Henry Frowde, M.A.
Publisher to the University of Oxford
London, Edinburgh, New York
Toronto and Melbourne



CONTENTS


                                                     PAGE
  INTRODUCTION                                          v

      I. THE POETRY OF DONNE                            v

     II. THE TEXT AND CANON OF DONNE'S POEMS          lvi

  COMMENTARY                                            1

  INDEX OF FIRST LINES                                276



INTRODUCTION


I

THE POETRY OF DONNE


Donne's position among English poets, regarded from the historical and
what we like to call scientific point of view, has been defined
with learning and discrimination by Mr. Courthope in his _History of
English Poetry_. As a phenomenon of curious interest for the student
of the history of thought and literary fashions, there it is. Mr.
Courthope is far too well-informed and judicious a critic to explain
Donne's subtle thought and erudite conceits by a reference to 'Marini
and his followers'. Gongora and Du Bartas are alike passed over in
silence. What we are shown is the connexion of 'metaphysical wit' with
the complex and far-reaching changes in men's conception of Nature
which make the seventeenth century perhaps the greatest epoch in human
thought since human thinking began.

The only thing that such a criticism leaves unexplained and undefined
is the interest which Donne's poetry still has for us, not as an
historical phenomenon, but as poetry. Literary history has for the
historian a quite distinct interest from that which it possesses for
the student and lover of literature. For the historian it is a
matter of positive interest to connect Donne's wit with the general
disintegration of mediaeval thought, to recognize the influence on
the Elizabethan drama of the doctrines of Machiavelli, or to find in
Pope's achievement in poetry a counterpart to Walpole's in politics.
For the lover of literature none of these facts has any positive
interest whatsoever. Donne's wit attracts or repels him equally
whatever be its source; Tamburlaine and Iago lose none of their
interest for us though we know nothing of Machiavelli; Pope's poetry
is not a whit more or less poetical by being a strange by-product of
the Whig spirit in English life. For the lover of literature, literary
history has an indirect value. He studies history that he may discount
it. What he relishes in a poet of the past is exactly the same
essential qualities as he enjoys in a poet of his own day--life and
passion and art. But between us and every poet or thinker of the past
hangs a thinner or thicker veil of outworn fashions and conventions.
The same life has clothed itself in different garbs; the same passions
have spoken in different images; the same art has adapted itself to
different circumstances. To the historian these old clothes are in
themselves a subject of interest. His enjoyment of Shakespeare is
heightened by finding the explanation of Falstaff's hose, Pistol's
hyperboles, and the poet's neglect of the Unities. To the lover of
literature they are, until by understanding he can discount them,
a disadvantage because they invest the work of the poet with an
irrelevant air of strangeness. He studies them that he may grow
familiar with them and forget them, that he may clear and intensify
his sense of what alone has permanent value, the poet's individuality
and the art in which it is expressed.

Donne's conceits, of which so much has been made and on whose
historical significance Mr. Courthope has probably said the last word,
are just like other examples of these old clothes. The question for
literature is not whence they came, but how he used them. Is he a
poet in virtue or in spite of them, or both? Are they fit only to be
gathered into a museum of antiquated fashions such as Johnson prefixed
to his study of the last poet who wore them in quite the old way
(for Dryden, who pilfered more freely from Donne than from any of his
predecessors, cut them to a new fashion), or are they the individual
and still expressive dress of a true and great poet, commanding
admiration in their own manner and degree as freshly and enduringly as
the stiff and brocaded magnificence of Milton's no less individual, no
less artificial style?

Donne's reputation as a poet has passed through many vicissitudes in
the course of the last three centuries. With regard to his 'wit',
its range and character, erudition and ingenuity, all generations of
critics have been at one. It is as to the relation of this 'wit' to,
and its effect on, his poetry that they have been at variance. To his
contemporaries the 'wit' was identical with the poetry. Donne's 'wit'
gave him the same supremacy among poets that learning and humour and
art gave to Jonson among dramatists. To certain of his Dutch admirers
the wit of _The Flea_ seemed superhuman, and the epitaph with which
Carew closes his _Elegy_ expresses the almost universal English
opinion of the seventeenth century:

  Here lies a king that ruled as he thought fit
  The universal monarchy of wit;
  Here lies two flamens, and both those the best,
  Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest.

It may be doubted if Milton shared this opinion. He never mentions
Donne, but it was probably of him or his imitators he was thinking
when in his verses at Cambridge he spoke of

      those new-fangled toys and trimmings slight
  Which take our late fantastics with delight.

Certainly the growing taste for 'correctness' led after the
Restoration to a discrimination between Donne's wit and his poetry.
'The greatest wit,' Dryden calls him, 'though not the greatest poet of
our nation.' What he wanted as a poet were just the two essentials
of 'classical' poetry--smoothness of verse and dignity of expression.
This point of view is stated with clearness and piquancy in the
sentences of outrageous flattery which Dryden addressed to the Earl of
Dorset in the opening paragraphs of his delightful _Essay on Satire_:

    'There is more of salt in all your verses, than I have seen in
    any of the moderns, or even of the ancients; but you have
    been sparing of the gall, by which means you have pleased
    all readers, and offended none. Donne alone, of all our
    countrymen, had your talent; but was not happy enough to
    arrive at your versification; and were he translated into
    numbers, and English, he would yet be wanting in the dignity
    of expression. That which is the prime virtue, and chief
    ornament, of Virgil, which distinguishes him from the rest
    of writers, is so conspicuous in your verses, that it casts a
    shadow on all your contemporaries; we cannot be seen, or
    but obscurely, while you are present. You equal Donne in the
    variety, multiplicity, and choice of thoughts; you excel him
    in the manner and the words. I read you both with the same
    admiration, but not with the same delight.

    He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but
    in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and
    perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of
    philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain
    them with the softnesses of love. In this (if I may be
    pardoned for so bold a truth) Mr. Cowley has copied him to
    a fault; so great a one, in my opinion, that it throws
    his Mistress infinitely below his Pindarics and his latter
    compositions, which are undoubtedly the best of his poems and
    the most correct.'

Dryden's estimate of Donne, as well as his application to his poetry
of the epithet 'metaphysical', was transmitted through the eighteenth
century. Johnson's famous paragraphs in the _Life of Cowley_ do little
more than echo and expand Dryden's pronouncement, with a rather vaguer
use of the word 'metaphysical'. In Dryden's application it means
correctly 'philosophical'; in Johnson's, no more than 'learned'. 'The
metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning
was their whole endeavour; but unluckily resolving to show it in
rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and very
often such verses as stood the trial of the fingers better than of
the ear.' They 'drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very
much frequented by common readers of poetry'. Waller is exempted
from being a metaphysical poet because 'he seldom fetches an amorous
sentiment from the depths of science; his thoughts are for the most
part easily understood, and his images such as the superficies of
nature readily supplies'.

Even to those critics with whom began a revived appreciation of
Donne as a poet and preacher, his 'wit' still bulks largely. It
is impossible to escape from it. 'Wonder-exciting vigour,' writes
Coleridge, 'intenseness and peculiarity, using at will the almost
boundless stores of a capacious memory, and exercised on subjects
where we have no right to expect it--this is the wit of Donne.' And
lastly De Quincey, who alone of these critics recognizes the essential
quality which may, and in his best work does, make Donne's wit the
instrument of a mind which is not only subtle and ingenious but
profoundly poetical: 'Few writers have shown a more extraordinary
compass of powers than Donne; for he combined what no other man has
ever done--the last sublimation of dialectical subtlety and address
with the most impassioned majesty. Massy diamonds compose the very
substance of his poem on the Metempsychosis, thoughts and descriptions
which have the fervent and gloomy sublimity of Ezekiel or Aeschylus,
whilst a diamond dust of rhetorical brilliancies is strewed over the
whole of his occasional verses and his prose.'

What is to-day the value and interest of this wit which has arrested
the attention of so many generations? How far does it seem to us
compatible with poetry in the full and generally accepted sense of
the word, with poetry which quickens the imagination and touches
the heart, which satisfies and delights, which is the verbal and
rhythmical medium whereby a gifted soul communicates to those who have
ears to hear the content of impassioned moments?

Before coming to close quarters with this difficult and debated
question one may in the first place insist that there is in Donne's
verse a great deal which, whether it be poetry in the full sense
of the word or not, is arresting and of worth both historically
and intrinsically. Whatever we may think of Donne's poetry, it is
impossible not to recognize the extraordinary interest of his mind and
character. In an age of great and fascinating men he is not the least
so. The immortal and transcendent genius of Shakespeare leaves Donne,
as every other contemporary, lost in the shadows and cross-lights of
an age that is no longer ours, but from which Shakespeare emerges
into the clear sunlight. Of Bacon's mind, 'deep and slow, exhausting
thought,' and divining as none other the direction in which the road
led through the débris of outworn learning to a renovated science and
a new philosophy, Donne could not boast. Alike in his poetry and in
his soberest prose, treatise or sermon, Donne's mind seems to want the
high seriousness which comes from a conviction that truth is, and
is to be found. A spirit of scepticism and paradox plays through and
disturbs almost everything he wrote, except at moments when an intense
mood of feeling, whether love or devotion, begets faith, and silences
the sceptical and destructive wit by the power of vision rather than
of intellectual conviction. Poles apart as the two poets seem at a
first glance to lie in feeling and in art, there is yet something of
Tennyson in the conflict which wages perpetually in Donne's poetry
between feeling and intellect.

But short of the highest gifts of serene imagination or serene wisdom
Donne's mind has every power it well could, wit, insight, imagination;
and these move in such a strange medium of feeling and learning,
mediaeval, renaissance and modern, that every imprint becomes of
interest. To do full justice to that interest one's study of
Donne must include his prose as well as his verse, his paradoxical
_Pseudomartyr_, and equally paradoxical, more strangely mooded
_Biathanatos_, the intense and subtle eloquence of his sermons,
the tormented passion and wit of his devotions, and the gaiety
and melancholy, wit and wisdom, of his letters. But most of these
qualities have left their mark on his poetry, and given it interests
over and above its worth simply as poetry.

One quality of his verse, which has been somewhat overlooked by
critics intent upon the definition and sources of metaphysical wit, is
wit in our sense of the word, wit like the wit of Swift and Sheridan.
The habit in which this wit masquerades is doubtless old-fashioned. It
is not always the worse for that, for the wit of the Elizabethans
is delightfully blended with fancy and feeling. There is a little
of Jaques in all of them. But if fanciful and at times even boyish,
Donne's wit is still amusing, the quickest and most fertile wit of the
century till we come to the author of _Hudibras_.

It is not in the _Satyres_ that this wit is to us most obvious.
Nothing grows so soon out of date as contemporary satire. Even the
brilliance and polish of Pope's satire--and Pope's art is nowhere more
perfect than in _The Dunciad_ and the _Imitations of Horace_--cannot
interest us in Lord Hervey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and
the forgotten poets of an unpoetic age. How then should we be
interested in Elizabeth's fantastic 'Presence', the streets of
sixteenth-century London, and the knavery of pursuivants, presented
with a satiric art which is wonderfully vivid and caustic but still
tentative,--over-emphatic, rough in style and verse, though with a
roughness which is obviously a studied and in a measure successful
effect. The verses upon _Coryats Crudities_ are in their way a
masterpiece of insult veiled as compliment, but it is a rather boyish
and barbarous way.

It is in the lighter of his love verses that Donne's laughable wit is
most obvious and most agile. Whatever one may think of the choice of
subject, and the flame of a young man's lust that burns undisguised
in some of the _Elegies_, it is impossible to ignore the dazzling wit
which neither flags nor falters from the first line to the last. And
in the more graceful and fanciful, the less heated _Songs and Sonets_,
the same wit, gay and insolent, disports itself in a philosophy of
love which must not be taken altogether seriously. Donne at least,
as we shall see, outgrew it. His attitude is very much that of
Shakespeare in the early comedies. But the Petrarchian love, which
Shakespeare treats with light and charming irony, the vows and tears
of Romeo and Proteus, Donne openly scoffs. He is one of Shakespeare's
young men as these were in the flesh and the Inns of Court, and he
tells us frankly what in their youthful cynicism (which is often even
more of a pose than their idealism) they think of love, and constancy,
and women.

Of all miracles, Donne cries, a constant woman is the greatest, of all
strange sights the strangest:

  If thou findst one, let mee know,
    Such a Pilgrimage were sweet;
  Yet doe not, I would not goe,
    Though at next doore wee might meet,
  Though shee were true, when you met her,
  And last, till you write your letter,
                  Yet shee
                  Will bee
  False, ere I come, to two, or three.

But is it true that we desire to find her? Donne's answer is _Woman's
Constancy_:

  Now thou hast lov'd me one whole day,
  To-morrow when thou leav'st what wilt thou say?

She will, like Proteus in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, have no
dearth of sophistries--but why elaborate them?

  Vain lunatique, against these scapes I could
  Dispute, and conquer, if I would,
  Which I abstaine to doe,
  For by to-morrow, I may think so too.

Why ask for constancy when change is the life and law of love?

  I can love both fair and brown;
  Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
  Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays.
  .      .      .      .      .      .      .
  I can love her and her, and you and you,
  I can love any so she be not true.

It is not often that the reckless and wilful gaiety of youth masking
as cynicism has been expressed with such ebullient wit as in these
and companion songs. And when he adopts for a time the pose of the
faithful lover bewailing the cruelty of his mistress the sarcastic wit
is no less fertile. It would be difficult to find in the language a
more sustained succession of witty surprises than _The Will_. Others
were to catch these notes from Donne, and Suckling later flutes them
gaily in his lighter fashion, never with the same fullness of wit and
fancy, never with the same ardour of passion divinable through the
audacious extravagances.

But to amuse was by no means the sole aim of Donne's 'wit'; gay humour
touched with fancy and feeling is not its only quality. Donne's 'wit'
has many strands, his humour many moods, and before considering how
these are woven together into an effect that is entirely poetical,
we may note one or two of the soberer strands which run through his
_Letters_, _Epicedes_, and similar poems--descriptive, reflective, and
complimentary.

Not much of Donne's poetry is given to description. Of the feeling
for nature of the Elizabethans, their pastoral and ideal pictures of
meadow and wood and stream, which delighted the heart of Izaak Walton,
there is nothing in Donne. A greater contrast than that between
Marlowe's _Come live with me_ and Donne's imitation _The Baite_ it
would be hard to conceive. But in _The Storme_ and _The Calme_ Donne
used his wit to achieve an effect of realism which was something new
in English poetry, and was not reproduced till Swift wrote _The City
Shower_. From the first lines, which describe how

  The South and West winds join'd, and as they blew,
  Waves like a rolling trench before them threw,

to the close of _The Storme_ the noise of the contending elements is
deafening:

  Thousands our noises were, yet we 'mongst all
  Could none by his right name, but thunder call:
  Lightning was all our light, and it rain'd more
  Than if the Sunne had drunke the sea before.
  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
  Hearing hath deaf'd our sailors, and if they
  Knew how to hear, there's none knowes what to say:
  Compared to these stormes, death is but a qualme,
  Hell somewhat lightsome, and the Bermuda calme.

The sense of tropical heat and calm in the companion poem is hardly
less oppressive, and, if the whole is not quite so happy as the
first, it contains two lines whose vivid and unexpected felicity is
as delightful to-day as when Ben Jonson recited them to Drummond at
Hawthornden:

  No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
  Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday.

Donne's letters generally fall into two groups. The first comprises
those addressed to his fellow-students at Cambridge and the Inns of
Court, the Woodwards, Brookes, and others, or to his maturer and more
fashionable companions in the quest of favour and employment at Court,
Wotton, and Goodyere, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. To the other
belong the complimentary and elegant epistles in which he delighted
and perhaps bewildered his noble lady friends and patronesses with
erudite and transcendental flattery.

In the first class, and the same is true of some of the _Satyres_,
notably the third, and of the satirical _Progresse of the Soule_,
especially at the beginning and the end, the reflective, moralizing
strain predominates. Donne's 'wit' becomes the instrument of a
criticism of life, grave or satiric, melancholy or stoical. Despite
Matthew Arnold's definition, verse of this kind seldom is poetry in
the full sense of the word; but, as Stevenson says in speaking of his
own Scotch verses, talk not song. The first of English poets was a
master of the art. Neither Horace nor Martial, whom Stevenson cites,
is a more delightful talker in verse than Geoffrey Chaucer, and the
archaism of his style seems only to lend the additional charm of a
lisp to his babble. Since Donne's day English poetry has been rich
in such verse talkers--Butler and Dryden, Pope and Swift, Cowper and
Burns, Byron and Shelley, Browning and Landor. It did not come easy to
the Elizabethans, whose natural accent was song. Donne's chief rivals
were Daniel and Jonson, and I venture to think that he excels them
both in the clear and pointed yet easy and conversational development
of his thought, in the play of wit and wisdom, and, despite the
pedantic cast of Elizabethan erudite moralizing, in the power to
leave on the reader the impression of a potent and yet a winning
personality. We seem to get nearer to the man himself in Donne's
letters to Goodyere and Wotton than in Daniel's weighty, but also
heavy, moralizing epistles to the Countess of Cumberland or Sir Thomas
Egerton; and the personality whose voice sounds so distinct and human
in our ear is a more attractive one than the harsh, censorious, burly
but a little blustering Jonson of the epistles on country life and
generous givers. Donne's style is less clumsy, his verse less stiff.
His wit brings to a clear point whatever he has to say, while from
his verse as from his prose letters there disengages itself a very
distinct sense of what it was in the man, underlying his brilliant
intellect, his almost superhuman cleverness, which won for him the
devotion of friends like Wotton and Goodyere and Walton and King, the
admiration of a stranger like Huyghens, who heard him talk as well as
preach:--a serious and melancholy, a generous and chivalrous spirit.

  However, keepe the lively tast you hold
    Of God, love him as now, but feare him more,
  And in your afternoones thinke what you told
    And promis'd him, at morning prayer before.

  Let falshood like a discord anger you,
    Else be not froward. But why doe I touch
  Things, of which none is in your practise new,
    And Tables, or fruit-trenchers teach as much;

  But thus I make you keepe your promise Sir,
    Riding I had you, though you still staid there,
  And in these thoughts, although you never stirre,
    You came with mee to Micham, and are here.

So he writes to Goodyere, but the letter to Wotton going Ambassador to
Venice is Donne's masterpiece in this simpler style, and it seems to
me that neither Daniel nor Jonson nor Drayton ever catches this note
at once sensitive and courtly. To find a like courtliness we must go
to Wotton; witness the reply to Donne's earlier epistle which I have
printed in the notes. But neither Wotton nor any other of the courtly
poets in Hannah's collection adds to this dignity so poignant a
personal accent.

This personal interest is very marked in the two satires which are
connected by tone and temper with the letters, the third of the
early, classical _Satyres_ and the opening and closing stanzas of
the _Progresse of the Soule_. Each is a vivid picture of the inner
workings of Donne's soul at a critical period in his life. The first
was doubtless written at the moment that he was passing from the Roman
to the Anglican Church. It is one of the earliest and most thoughtful
appeals for toleration, for the candid scrutiny of religious
differences, which was written perhaps in any country--one of the
most striking symptoms of the new eddies produced in the stream of
religious feeling by the meeting currents of the Reformation and the
Counter-Reformation.

It was a difficult and dangerous process through which Donne was
passing, this conversion from the Church of his fathers to conformity
with the Church of England as by law established. It would be as
absurd, in the face of a poem like this and of all that we know of
Donne's subsequent life, to call it a conversion in the full sense of
the term, a changed conviction, as to dub it an apostasy prompted
by purely political considerations. Yet doubtless the latter
predominated. The position of a Catholic in the reign of Elizabeth
was that of a man cut off rigorously from the main life of the nation,
with every avenue of honourable ambition closed to him. He had to live
the starved, suspected life of a recusant or to seek service under a
foreign power. Some of the most pathetic documents in Strype's _Annals
of the Reformation_ are those in which we hear the cry of young men of
secure station and means driven by conscientious conviction to abandon
home and country. It is possible that before 1592 Donne himself had
been sent abroad by relatives with a view to his entering a seminary
or the service of a foreign power. His mother spent a great part of
her life abroad, and his own relatives were among those who suffered
most severely under Walsingham's persecution. 'I had', Donne says, 'my
first breeding and conversation with men of suppressed and afflicted
Religion, accustomed to the despite of death, and hungry of an
imagined Martyrdome.' To a young man of ambition, and as yet certainly
with no bent to devotion or martyrdom, it was only common sense to
conform if he might.

From this dilemma Donne escaped, not by any opportune change of
conviction, or by any insincere profession, but by the way of
intellectual emancipation. He looks round in this satire and sees that
whichever be the true Church it is not by any painful quest of truth,
and through the attainment of conviction, that most people have
accepted the Church to which they may belong. Circumstances and
whim have had more to do with their choice than reason and serious
conviction. Yet it is only by search that truth is to be found:

                              On a huge hill
  Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will
  Reach her, about must, and about must goe;
  And what the hills suddenes resists win so.
  Yet strive so, that before age, deaths twilight,
  Thy Soule rest, for none can work in that night.

It was not often in the sixteenth or seventeenth century that a
completely emancipated and critical attitude on religious, not
philosophical, questions was expressed with such entire frankness and
seriousness. From this position, Walton would have us believe, Donne
advanced through the study of Bellarmine and other controversialists
to a convinced acceptance of Anglican doctrine. The evidence points to
a rather different conclusion on Donne's part. He came to think that
all the Churches were 'virtual beams of one sun', 'connatural pieces
of one circle', a position from which the next step was to the
conclusion that for an Englishman the Anglican Church was the right
choice (Cujus regio, ejus religio); but Donne had not reached this
conclusion when he wrote the _Satyre_, and doubtless did not till he
had satisfied himself that the Church of England offered a reasonable
_via media_. But changes of creed made on purely intellectual grounds,
and prompted by practical motives, are not unattended with danger to
a man's moral and spiritual life. Donne had doubtless outwardly
conformed before he entered Egerton's service in 1598, but long
afterwards, when he is already in Orders, he utters a cry which
betrays how real the dilemma still was:

  Show me, deare Christ, thy spouse, so bright and clear;

and the first result of his 'conversion' was apparently to deepen the
sceptical vein in his mind.

Scepticism and melancholy, bitter and sardonic, are certainly the
dominant notes in the sombre fragment of satire _The Progresse of the
Soule_, which he composed in 1601, when he was Sir Thomas Egerton's
secretary, four months before his marriage and six months after the
death of the Earl of Essex. There can be little doubt, as I have
ventured to suggest elsewhere, that it was the latter event which
provoked this strange and sombre explosion of spleen, a satire of the
same order as the _Tale of a Tub_ or the _Vision of Judgment_. The
account of the poem which Jonson gave to Drummond does not seem to be
quite accurate, though it was probably derived from Donne himself. It
was, one suspects from several circumstances, a little Donne's way in
later years to disguise the footprints of his earlier indiscretions.
According to this tradition the final _habitat_ of the soul which
'inanimated' the apple

                      Whose mortal taste
  Brought death into the world and all our woe,

was to be John Calvin. The tradition is interesting as marking how far
Donne was in 1601 from his later orthodox Protestantism, for Calvin is
never mentioned but with respect in the _Sermons_. A few months
later he wrote to Egerton disclaiming warmly all 'love of a corrupt
religion'. But, though sceptical in tone, the poem is written from a
Catholic standpoint; its theme is the progress of the soul of heresy.
And, as the seventh stanza clearly indicates, the great heretic in
whom the line closed was to be not Calvin but Queen Elizabeth:

      the great soule which here among us now
  Doth dwell, and moves that hand, and tongue, and brow
  Which, as the Moone the sea, moves us.

Donne can hardly have thought of publishing such a poem, or
circulating it in the Queen's lifetime. It was an expression of the
mood which begot the 'black and envious slanders breath'd against
Diana for her divine justice on Actaeon' to which Jonson refers in
_Cynthia's Revels_ the same year. That some copies were circulated in
manuscript later is probably due to the reaction which brought
into favour at James's Court the Earl of Southampton and the former
adherents of Essex generally.

The tone, moreover, of the stanza quoted above suggests that it was
no vulgar libel on Elizabeth which Donne contemplated. Elizabeth, the
cruel persecutor of his Catholic kinsfolk, now stained with the blood
of her favourite, appeared to him somewhat as she did to Pope Sixtus,
a heretic but a great woman. He felt to her as Burke did to the 'whole
race of Guises, Condés and Colignis'--'the hand that like a destroying
angel smote the country communicated to it the force and energy under
which it suffered.' In a mood of bitter admiration, of sceptical and
sardonic wonder, he contemplates the great bad souls who had troubled
the world and served it too, for the idea on which the poem was to
rest is the disconcerting reflection that we owe many good things to
heretics and bad men:

  Who ere thou beest that read'st this sullen Writ,
  Which just so much courts thee, as thou dost it,
  Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with mee,
  Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest,
  Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest,
  By cursed _Cains_ race invented be,
  And blest _Seth_ vext us with Astronomie.
  Ther's nothing simply good, nor ill alone,
  Of every quality comparison,
    The onely measure is, and judge, opinion.

It would have been interesting to read Donne's history of the great
souls that troubled and yet quickened the world from Cain to Arius and
from Mahomet to Elizabeth, but unfortunately Donne never got beyond
the introduction, a couple of cantos which describe the progress of
the soul while it is still passing through the vegetable and animal
planes, the motive of which, so far as it can be disentangled, is to
describe the pre-human education of a woman's soul:

              keeping some quality
  Of every past shape, she knew treachery,
  Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
  To be a woman.

The fragment has some of the sombre power which De Quincey attributes
to it, but on the whole one must confess it is a failure. The 'wit' of
Donne did not apparently include invention, for many of the episodes
seem pointless as well as disgusting, and indeed in no poem is the
least attractive side of Donne's mind so clearly revealed, that aspect
of his wit which to some readers is more repellent, more fatal to
his claim to be a poet, than too subtle ingenuity or misplaced
erudition--the vein of sheer ugliness which runs through his work,
presenting details that seem merely and wantonly repulsive. The same
vein is apparent in the work of Chapman, of Jonson, and even in places
of Spenser, and the imagery of _Hamlet_ and the tragedies owes some of
its dramatic vividness and power to the same quality. The ugly has its
place in art, and it would not be difficult to find it in every phase
of Renaissance art, marked like the beautiful in that art by the
same evidence of power. Decadence brought with it not ugliness but
prettiness.

The reflective, philosophic, somewhat melancholy strain of the poems
I have been touching on reappears in the letters addressed to noble
ladies. Here, however, it is softened, less sardonic in tone, while
it blends with or gives place to another strain, that of absurd and
extravagant but fanciful and subtle compliment. Donne cannot write to
a lady without his heart and fancy taking wing in their own passionate
and erudite fashion. Scholastic theology is made the instrument
of courtly compliment and pious flirtation. He blends in the
same disturbing fashion as in some of the songs and elegies that
depreciation of woman in general, which he owes less to classical
poetry than to his over-acquaintance with the Fathers, with an
adoration of her charms in the individual which passes into the
transcendental. He tells the Countess of Huntingdon that active
goodness in a woman is a miracle; but it is clear that she and the
Countess of Bedford and Mrs. Herbert and Lady Carey and the Countess
of Salisbury are all examples of such miracle--ladies whose beauty
itself is virtue, while their virtues are a mystery revealable only to
the initiated.

The highest place is held by Lady Bedford and Mrs. Herbert. Nothing
could surpass the strain of intellectual and etherealized compliment
in which he addresses the Countess. If lines like the following are
not pure poetry, they haunt some quaint borderland of poetry to which
the polished felicities of Pope's compliments are a stranger. If not
pure fancy, they are not mere ingenuity, being too intellectual and
argumentative for the one, too winged and ardent for the other:

  Should I say I liv'd darker then were true,
  Your radiation can all clouds subdue;
  But one, 'tis best light to contemplate you.

  You, for whose body God made better clay,
  Or tooke Soules stuffe such as shall late decay,
  Or such as needs small change at the last day.

  This, as an Amber drop enwraps a Bee,
  Covering discovers your quicke Soule; that we
  May in your through-shine front your hearts thoughts see.

  You teach (though wee learne not) a thing unknowne
  To our late times, the use of specular stone,
  Through which all things within without were shown.

  Of such were Temples; so and such you are;
  _Beeing_ and _seeming_ is your equall care,
  And _vertues_ whole _summe_ is but _know_ and _dare_.

The long poem dedicated to the same lady's beauty,

  You have refin'd me

is in a like dazzling and subtle vein. Those addressed to Mrs.
Herbert, notably the letter

  Mad paper stay,

and the beautiful _Elegie_

  No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
  As I have seen in one Autumnall face,

are less transcendental in tone but bespeak an even warmer admiration.
Indeed it is clear to any careful reader that in the poems addressed
to both these ladies there is blended with the respectful flattery of
the dependant not a little of the tone of warmer feeling permitted to
the 'servant' by Troubadour convention. And I suspect that some poems,
the tone of which is still more frankly and ardently lover-like, were
addressed to Lady Bedford and Mrs. Herbert, though they have come to
us without positive indication.

The title of the subtle, passionate, sonorous lyric _Twicknam Garden_,

  Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with teares,

points to the person addressed, for Twickenham Park was the residence
of Lady Bedford from 1607 to 1618, and Donne's intimacy with her seems
to have begun in or about 1608. There can, I think, be little doubt
that it is to her, and neither to his wife nor the mistresses of his
earlier, wandering fancy, that these lines, conventional in theme
but given an amazing _timbre_ by the impulse of Donne's subtle and
passionate mind, were addressed. But if _Twicknam Garden_ was written
to Lady Bedford, so also, one is tempted to think, must have been _A
Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day_, for Lucy was the Countess's name,
and the thought, feeling, and rhythm of the two poems are strikingly
similar.

But the _Nocturnall_ is a sincerer and profounder poem than _Twicknam
Garden_, and it is more difficult to imagine it the expression of a
conventional sentiment. Mr. Gosse, and there is no higher authority
when it comes to the interpretation of Donne's character and mind,
rightly, I think, suggests that the death of the lady addressed is
assumed, not actual, but he connects the poem with Donne's earlier and
troubled loves. 'So also in a most curious ode, the _Nocturnal_ ...,
amid fireworks of conceit, he calls his mistress dead and protests
that his hatred has grown cold at last.' But I can find no note of
bitterness, active or spent, in the song. It _might_ have been written
to Ann More. It is a highly metaphysical yet sombre and sincere
description of the emptiness of life without love. The critics have,
I think, failed somewhat to reckon with this stratum in Donne's songs,
of poems Petrarchian in convention but with a Petrarchianism coloured
by Donne's realistic temper and impatient wit. Any interpretation of
so enigmatical a poem must be conjectural, but before one denied too
positively that its subject was Lady Bedford--perhaps her illness
in 1612--one would need to answer two questions, how far could a
conventional passion inspire a strain so sincere, and what was Donne's
feeling for Lady Bedford and hers for him?

Poetry is the language of passion, but the passion which moves the
poet most constantly is the delight of making poetry, and very little
is sufficient to quicken the imagination to its congenial task.
Our soberer minds are apt to think that there must be an actual,
particular experience behind every sincere poem. But history refutes
the idea of such a simple relation between experience and art. No
poet will sing of love convincingly who has never loved, but that
experience will suffice him for many and diverse webs of song and
drama. Without pursuing the theme, it is sufficient for the moment to
recall that in the fashion of the day Spenser's sonnets were addressed
to Lady Carey, not to his wife; that it was to Idea or to Anne Goodere
that Drayton wrote so passionate a poem as

  Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part;

and that we know very little of what really lies behind Shakespeare's
profound and plangent sonnets, weave what web of fancy we will.

Of Lady Bedford's feeling for Donne we know only what his letters
reveal, and that is no more than that she was his warm friend
and generous patroness. It is clear, however, from their enduring
friendship and from the tone of that correspondence that she found in
him a friend of a rarer and finer calibre than in the other poets whom
she patronized in turn, Daniel and Drayton and Jonson--some one whose
sensitive, complex, fascinating personality could hardly fail to touch
a woman's imagination and heart. Friendship between man and woman is
love in some degree. There is no need to exaggerate the situation, or
to reflect on either her loyalty or his to other claims, to recognize
that their mutual feeling was of the kind for which the Petrarchian
convention afforded a ready and recognized vehicle of expression.

And so it was, one fancies, with Mrs. Herbert. She too found in Donne
a rare and comprehending spirit, and he in her a gracious and delicate
friend. His relation to her, indeed, was probably simpler than to
Lady Bedford, their friendship more equal. The letter and the elegy
referred to already are instinct with affection and tender reverence.
To her Donne sent some of his earliest religious sonnets, with a
sonnet on her beautiful name. And to her also it would seem that at
some period in the history of their friendship, the beginning of which
is very difficult to date, he wrote songs in the tone of hopeless,
impatient passion, of Petrarch writing to Laura, and others which
celebrate their mutual affection as a love that rose superior to
earthly and physical passion. The clue here is the title prefixed to
that strange poem _The Primrose, being at Montgomery Castle upon the
hill on which it is situate_. It is true that the title is found
for the first time in the edition of 1635 and is in none of the
manuscripts. But it is easier to explain the occasional suppression
of a revealing title than to conceive a motive for inventing such
a gloss. The poem is doubtless, as Mr. Gosse says, 'a mystical
celebration of the beauty, dignity and intelligence of Magdalen
Herbert'--a celebration, however, which takes the form (as it might
with Petrarch) of a reproach, a reproach which Donne's passionate
temper and caustic wit seem even to touch with scorn. He appears to
hint to Mrs. Herbert that to wish to be more than a woman, to claim
worship in place of love, is to be a worse monster than a coquette:

              Since there must reside
  Falshood in woman, I could more abide
  She were by Art, than Nature falsifi'd.

Woman needs no advantages to arbitrate the fate of man.

In exactly the same mood as _The Primrose_ is _The Blossome_, possibly
written in the same place and on the same day, for the poet is
preparing to return to London. _The Dampe_ is in an even more scornful
tone, and one hesitates to connect it with Mrs. Herbert. But all these
poems recur so repeatedly together in the manuscripts as to suggest
that they have a common origin. And with them go the beautiful poems
_The Funerall_ and _The Relique_. In the former the cruelty of
the lady has killed her lover, but in the second the tone changes
entirely, the relation between Donne and Mrs. Herbert (note the lines

  Thou shalt be a Mary _Magdalen_ and I
  A something else thereby)

has ceased to be Petrarchian and become Platonic, their love a thing
pure and of the spirit, but none the less passionate for that:

      First, we lov'd well and faithfully,
      Yet knew not what wee lov'd, nor why,
      Difference of sex no more wee knew,
      Then our Guardian Angells doe;
          Comming and going, wee
  Perchance might kisse, but not between those meales;
          Our hands ne'r toucht the seales,
  Which nature, injur'd by late law, sets free:
  These miracles wee did; but now alas,
  All measure, and all language, I should passe,
  Should I tell what a miracle shee was.

Such were the notes that a poet in the seventeenth century might still
sing to a high-born lady his patroness and his friend. No one who
knows the fashion of the day will read into them more than they were
intended to convey. No one who knows human nature will read them as
merely frigid and conventional compliments. Any uncertainty one may
feel about the subject arises not from their being love-poems, but
from the difficulty which Donne has in adjusting himself to the
Petrarchian convention, the tendency of his passionate heart and
satiric wit to break through the prescribed tone of worship and
complaint.

Without some touch of passion, some vibration of the heart, Donne is
only too apt to accumulate 'monstrous and disgusting hyperboles'. This
is very obvious in the _Epicedes_--his complimentary laments for the
young Lord Harington, Miss Boulstred, Lady Markham, Elizabeth Drury
and the Marquis of Hamilton, poems in which it is difficult to find a
line that moves. Indeed, seventeenth-century elegies are not as a rule
pathetic. A poem in the simple, piercing strain and the Wordsworthian
plainness of style of the Dutch poet Vondel's lament for his little
daughter is hardly to be found in English. An occasional epitaph like
Browne's

  May! be thou never grac'd with birds that sing,
              Nor Flora's pride!
  In thee all flowers and roses spring,
              Mine only died,

comes near it, but in general seventeenth-century elegy is apt to
spend itself on three not easily reconcilable themes--extravagant
eulogy of the dead, which is the characteristically Renaissance
strain, the Mediaeval meditation on death and its horrors, the more
simply Christian mood of hope rising at times to the rapt vision of
a higher life. In the pastoral elegy, such as _Lycidas_, the poet
was able to escape from a too literal treatment of the first into a
sequence of charming conventions. The second was alien to Milton's
thought, and with his genius for turning everything to beauty Milton
extracts from the reference to the circumstances of King's death the
only touch of pathos in the poem:

  Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding Seas
  Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurld,

and some of his loveliest allusions:

  Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
  Looks towards _Namancos_ and _Bayona's_ hold;
  Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth.
  And, O ye _Dolphins_, waft the hapless youth.

In the metaphysical elegy as cultivated by Donne, Beaumont, and others
there was no escape from extravagant eulogy and sorrow by way of
pastoral convention and mythological embroidery, and this class of
poetry includes some of the worst verses ever written. In Donne all
three of the strains referred to are present, but only in the third
does he achieve what can be truly called poetry. In the elegies on
Lord Harington and Miss Boulstred and Lady Markham it is difficult to
say which is more repellent--the images in which the poet sets forth
the vanity of human life and the humiliations of death or the frigid
and blasphemous hyperboles in which the virtues of the dead are
eulogized.

Even the _Second Anniversary_, the greatest of Donne's epicedes, is
marred throughout by these faults. There is no stranger poem in
the English language in its combination of excellences and faults,
splendid audacities and execrable extravagances. 'Fervour of
inspiration, depth and force and glow of thought and emotion and
expression'--it has something of all these high qualities which
Swinburne claimed; but the fervour is in great part misdirected, the
emotion only half sincere, the thought more subtle than profound,
the expression heated indeed but with a heat which only in passages
kindles to the glow of poetry.

Such are the passages in which the poet contemplates the joys of
heaven. There is nothing more instinct with beautiful feeling in
_Lycidas_ than some of the lines of Apocalyptic imagery at the close:

  There entertain him all the Saints above,
  In solemn troops, and sweet Societies
  That sing, and singing in their glory move,
  And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

But in spiritual sense, in passionate awareness of the transcendent,
there are lines in Donne's poem that seem to me superior to
anything in Milton if not in purity of Christian feeling, yet in the
passionate, mystical sense of the infinite as something other than
the finite, something which no suggestion of illimitable extent and
superhuman power can ever in any degree communicate.

  Think then my soule that death is but a Groome,
  Which brings a Taper to the outward roome,
  Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light,
  And after brings it nearer to thy sight:
  For such approaches does heaven make in death.
  .     .     .     .     .     .     .
  Up, up my drowsie Soule, where thy new eare
  Shall in the Angels songs no discord heere, &c.

In passages like these there is an earnest of the highest note of
spiritual eloquence that Donne was to attain to in his sermons and
last hymns.

Another aspect of Donne's poetry in the _Anniversaries_, of his
_contemptus mundi_ and ecstatic vision, connects them more closely
with Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ than Milton's _Lycidas_. Like Tennyson,
Donne is much concerned with the progress of science, the revolution
which was going on in men's knowledge of the universe, and its
disintegrating effect on accepted beliefs. To him the new astronomy is
as bewildering in its displacement of the earth and disturbance of a
concentric universe as the new geology was to be to Tennyson with the
vistas which it opened into the infinities of time, the origin and the
destiny of man:

  The new philosophy calls all in doubt,
  The Element of fire is quite put out;
  The Sun is lost, and th' earth, and no mans wit
  Can well direct him where to look for it.
  And freely men confesse that this world's spent,
  When in the Planets, and the Firmament
  They seeke so many new; they see that this
  Is crumbled out againe to his Atomies.

On Tennyson the effect of a similar dislocation of thought, the
revelation of a Nature which seemed to bring to death and bring to
life through endless ages, careless alike of individual and type, was
religious doubt tending to despair:

  O life as futile, then, as frail!
  .     .     .     .     .
  What hope of answer, or redress?
  Behind the veil, behind the veil.

On Donne the effect was quite the opposite. It was not of religion he
doubted but of science, of human knowledge with its uncertainties, its
shifting theories, its concern about the unimportant:

  Poore soule, in this thy flesh what dost thou know?
  Thou know'st thy selfe so little, as thou know'st not,
  How thou didst die, nor how thou wast begot.
  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
  Have not all soules thought
  For many ages, that our body is wrought
  Of Ayre, and Fire, and other Elements?
  And now they thinke of new ingredients;
  And one Soule thinkes one, and another way
  Another thinkes, and 'tis an even lay.
  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
  Wee see in Authors, too stiffe to recant,
  A hundred controversies of an Ant;
  And yet one watches, starves, freeses, and sweats,
  To know but Catechismes and Alphabets
  Of unconcerning things, matters of fact;
  How others on our stage their parts did Act;
  What _Cæsar_ did, yea, and what _Cicero_ said.

With this welter of shifting theories and worthless facts he contrasts
the vision of which religious faith is the earnest here:

  In this low forme, poore soule, what wilt thou doe?
  When wilt thou shake off this Pedantery,
  Of being taught by sense, and Fantasie?
  Thou look'st through spectacles; small things seeme great
  Below; But up unto the watch-towre get,
  And see all things despoyl'd of fallacies:
  Thou shalt not peepe through lattices of eyes,
  Nor heare through Labyrinths of eares, nor learne
  By circuit, or collections, to discerne.
  In heaven thou straight know'st all concerning it,
  And what concernes it not, shalt straight forget.

It will seem to some readers hardly fair to compare a poem like _In
Memoriam_, which, if in places the staple of its feeling and thought
wears a little thin, is entirely serious throughout, with poems which
have so much the character of an intellectual _tour de force_ as
Donne's _Anniversaries_, but it is easy to be unjust to the sincerity
of Donne in these poems. Their extravagant eulogy did not argue any
insincerity to Sir Robert and Lady Drury. It was in the manner of the
time, and doubtless seemed to them as natural an expression of grief
as the elaborate marble and alabaster tomb which they erected to the
memory of their daughter. The _Second Anniversarie_ was written in
France when Donne was resident there with the Drurys. And it was
on this occasion that Donne had the vision of his absent wife which
Walton has related so graphically. The spiritual sense in Donne was
as real a thing as the restless and unruly wit, or the sensual,
passionate temperament. The main thesis of the poem, the comparative
worthlessness of this life, the transcendence of the spiritual, was
as sincere in Donne's case as was in Tennyson the conviction of the
futility of life if death closes all. It was to be the theme of the
finest passages in his eloquent sermons, the burden of all that
is most truly religious in the verse and prose of a passionate,
intellectual, self-tormenting soul to whom the pure ecstasy of love of
a Vondel, the tender raptures of a Crashaw, the chastened piety of a
Herbert, the mystical perceptions of a Vaughan could never be quite
congenial.

I have dwelt at some length on those aspects of Donne's 'wit' which
are of interest and value even to a reader who may feel doubtful as to
the beauty and interest of his poetry as such, because they too
have been obscured by the criticism which with Dr. Johnson and Mr.
Courthope represents his wit as a monster of misapplied ingenuity, his
interest as historical and historical only. Apart from poetry there is
in Donne's 'wit' a great deal that is still fresh and vivid, wit as we
understand wit; satire pungent and vivid; reflection on religion
and on life, rugged at times in form but never really unmusical as
Jonson's verse is unmusical, and, despite frequent carelessness,
singularly lucid and felicitous in expression; elegant compliment,
extravagant and grotesque at times but often subtle and piquant;
and in the _Anniversaries_, amid much that is both puerile and
extravagant, a loftier strain of impassioned reflection and vision. It
is not of course that these things are not, or may not be constituents
of poetry, made poetic by their handling. To me it seems that in Donne
they generally are. It is the poet in Donne which flavours them all,
touching his wit with fancy, his reflection with imagination, his
vision with passion. But if we wish to estimate the poet simply in
Donne, we must examine his love-poetry and his religious poetry. It is
here that every one who cares for his unique and arresting genius will
admit that he must stand or fall as a great poet.

For it is here that we find the full effect of what De Quincey points
to as Donne's peculiarity, the combination of dialectical subtlety
with weight and force of passion. Objections to admit the poetic worth
and interest of Donne's love-poetry come from two sides--from those
who are indisposed to admit that passion, and especially the
passion of love, can ever speak so ingeniously (this was the
eighteenth-century criticism); and from those, and these are his more
modern critics, who deny that Donne is a great poet because with rare
exceptions, exceptions rather of occasional lines and phrases than of
whole poems, his songs and elegies lack beauty. Can poetry be at once
passionate and ingenious, sincere in feeling and witty,--packed with
thought, and that subtle and abstract thought, Scholastic dialectic?
Can love-poetry speak a language which is impassioned and expressive
but lacks beauty, is quite different from the language of Dante
and Petrarch, the loveliest language that lovers ever spoke, or the
picturesque hyperboles of _Romeo and Juliet_? Must not the imagery and
the cadences of love poetry reflect 'l'infinita, ineffabile bellezza'
which is its inspiration?

The first criticism is put very clearly by Steele, who goes so far as
to exemplify what the style of love-poetry should be; and certainly
it is something entirely different from that of _The Extasie_ or the
_Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day_. Nothing could illustrate better the
'return to nature' of our Augustan literature than Steele's words:

    'I will suppose an author to be really possessed with the
    passion which he writes upon and then we shall see how he
    would acquit himself. This I take to be the safest way to form
    a judgement upon him: since if he be not truly moved, he
    must at least work up his imagination as near as possible
    to resemble reality. I choose to instance in love, which is
    observed to have produced the most finished performances in
    this kind. A lover will be full of sincerity, that he may be
    believed by his mistress; he will therefore think simply; he
    will express himself perspicuously, that he may not perplex
    her; he will therefore write unaffectedly. Deep reflections
    are made by a head undisturbed; and points of wit and fancy
    are the work of a heart at ease; these two dangers then into
    which poets are apt to run, are effectually removed out of the
    lover's way. The selecting proper circumstances, and placing
    them in agreeable lights, are the finest secrets of all
    poetry; but the recollection of little circumstances is the
    lover's sole meditation, and relating them pleasantly, the
    business of his life. Accordingly we find that the most
    celebrated authors of this rank excel in love-verses. Out of
    ten thousand instances I shall name one which I think the most
    delicate and tender I ever saw.

      To myself I sigh often, without knowing why;
      And when absent from Phyllis methinks I could die.

    A man who hath ever been in love will be touched by the
    reading of these lines; and everyone who now feels that
    passion, actually feels that they are true.'

It is not possible to find so distinct a statement of the other view
to which I have referred, but I could imagine it coming from Mr.
Robert Bridges, or (since I have no authority to quote Mr. Bridges in
this connexion) from an admirer of his beautiful poetry. Mr. Bridges'
love-poetry is far indeed from the vapid naturalness which Steele
commended in _The Guardian_. It is as instinct with thought, and
subtle thought, as Donne's own poetry; but the final effect of his
poetry is beauty, emotion recollected in tranquillity, and recollected
especially in order to fix its delicate beauty in appropriate and
musical words:

  Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake!
  The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break,
  It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake
  The o'ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake!

  She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee;
  Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee,
  Already they watch the path thy feet shall take:
  Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake!

  And if thou tarry from her,--if this could be,--
  She cometh herself, O heart, to be loved, to thee;
  For thee would unashamed herself forsake:
  Awake to be loved, my heart, awake, awake!

  Awake, the land is scattered with light, and see,
  Uncanopied sleep is flying from field and tree:
  And blossoming boughs of April in laughter shake;
  Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake!

  Lo all things wake and tarry and look for thee:
  She looketh and saith, 'O sun, now bring him to me.
  Come more adored, O adored, for his coming's sake,
  And awake my heart to be loved: awake, awake!'

Donne has written nothing at once so subtle and so pure and lovely
as this, nothing the end and aim of which is so entirely to leave an
untroubled impression of beauty.

But it is not true either that the thought and imagery of love-poetry
must be of the simple, obvious kind which Steele supposes, that any
display of dialectical subtlety, any scintillation of wit, must be
fatal to the impression of sincerity and feeling, or on the other hand
that love is always a beautiful emotion naturally expressing itself in
delicate and beautiful language. To some natures love comes as above
all things a force quickening the mind, intensifying its purely
intellectual energy, opening new vistas of thought abstract and
subtle, making the soul 'intensely, wondrously alive'. Of such were
Donne and Browning. A love-poem like 'Come into the garden, Maud'
suspends thought and fills the mind with a succession of picturesque
and voluptuous images in harmony with the dominant mood. A poem such
as _The Anniversarie_ or _The Extasie_, _The Last Ride Together_ or
_Too Late_, is a record of intense, rapid thinking, expressed in the
simplest, most appropriate language--and it is a no whit less natural
utterance of passion. Even the abstractness of the thought, on
which Mr. Courthope lays so much stress in speaking of Donne and the
'metaphysicals' generally, is no necessary implication of want of
feeling. It has been said of St. Augustine 'that his most profound
thoughts regarding the first and last things arose out of prayer ...
concentration of his whole being in prayer led to the most abstract
observation'. So it may be with love-poetry--so it was with Dante in
the _Vita Nuova_, and so, on a lower scale, and allowing for the time
that the passion is a more earthly and sensual one, the thought more
capricious and unruly, with Donne. The _Nocturnall upon S. Lucies
Day_ is not less passionate because that passion finds expression in
abstract and subtle thought. Nor is it true that all love-poetry is
beautiful. Of none of the four poems I have mentioned in the last
paragraph is pure beauty, beauty such as is the note of Mr. Bridges'
song, the distinctive quality. It is rather vivid realism:

  And alive I shall keep and long, you will see!
    I knew a man, was kicked like a dog
  From gutter to cesspool; what cared he
    So long as he picked from the filth his prog?
  He saw youth, beauty and genius die,
    And jollily lived to his hundredth year.
  But I will live otherwise: none of such life!
    At once I begin as I mean to end.

But this sacrifice of beauty to dramatic vividness is a characteristic
of passionate poetry. Beauty is not precisely the quality we should
predicate of the burning lines of Sappho translated by Catullus:

  lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
  flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
  tintinant aures geminae, teguntur
    lumina nocte.

Beauty is the quality of poetry which records an ideal passion
recollected in tranquillity, rather than of poetry either dramatic or
lyric which utters the very movement and moment of passion itself.

Donne's love-poetry is a very complex phenomenon, but the two dominant
strains in it are just these: the strain of dialectic, subtle play
of argument and wit, erudite and fantastic; and the strain of vivid
realism, the record of a passion which is not ideal nor conventional,
neither recollected in tranquillity nor a pure product of literary
fashion, but love as an actual, immediate experience in all its
moods, gay and angry, scornful and rapturous with joy, touched with
tenderness and darkened with sorrow--though these last two moods,
the commonest in love-poetry, are with Donne the rarest. The first of
these strains comes to Donne from the Middle Ages, the dialectic of
the Schools, which passed into mediaeval love-poetry almost from
its inception; the second is the expression of the new temper of the
Renaissance as Donne had assimilated it in Latin countries. Donne uses
the method, the dialectic of the mediaeval love-poets, the poets
of the _dolce stil nuovo_, Guinicelli, Cavalcanti, Dante, and their
successors, the intellectual, argumentative evolution of their
_canzoni_, but he uses it to express a temper of mind and a conception
of love which are at the opposite pole from their lofty idealism. The
result, however, is not so entirely disintegrating as Mr. Courthope
seems to think: 'This fine Platonic edifice is ruthlessly demolished
in the poetry of Donne. To him love, in its infinite variety and
inconsistency, represented the principle of perpetual flux in
nature.'[1] The truth is rather that, owing to the fullness of Donne's
experience as a lover, the accident that made of the earlier libertine
a devoted lover and husband, and from the play of his restless and
subtle mind on the phenomenon of love conceived and realized in this
less ideal fashion, there emerged in his poetry the suggestion of
a new philosophy of love which, if less transcendental than that
of Dante, rests on a juster, because a less dualistic and ascetic,
conception of the nature of the love of man and woman.

The fundamental weakness of the mediaeval doctrine of love, despite
its refining influence and its exaltation of woman, was that it
proved unable to justify love ethically against the claims of the
counter-ideal of asceticism. Taking its rise in a relationship which
excluded the thought of marriage as the end and justification of love,
which presumed in theory that the relation of the 'servant' to his
lady must always be one of reverent and unrewarded service, this
poetry found itself involved from the beginning in a dualism from
which there was no escape. On the one hand the love of woman is the
great ennobler of the human heart, the influence which elicits its
latent virtue as the sun converts clay to gold and precious stones. On
the other hand, love is a passion which in the end is to be repented
of in sackcloth and ashes. Lancelot is the knight whom love has made
perfect in all the virtues of manhood and chivalry; but the vision of
the Holy Grail is not for him, but for the virgin and stainless Sir
Galahad.

In the high philosophy of the Tuscan poets of the 'sweet new style'
that dualism was apparently transcended, but it was by making love
identical with religion, by emptying it of earthly passion, making
woman an Angel, a pure Intelligence, love of whom is the first
awakening of the love of God. 'For Dante and the poets of the learned
school love and virtue were one and the same thing; love _was_
religion, the lady beloved the way to heaven, symbol of philosophy and
finally of theology.'[2] The culminating moment in Dante's love for
Beatrice arrives when he has overcome even the desire that she should
return his salutation and he finds his full beatitude in 'those words
that do praise my lady'. The love that begins in the _Vita Nuova_ is
completed in the _Paradiso_.

The dualism thus in appearance transcended by Dante reappears sharply
and distinctly in Petrarch. 'Petrarch', says Gaspary, 'adores not the
idea but the person of his lady; he feels that in his affections there
is an earthly element, he cannot separate it from the desire of the
senses; this is the earthly tegument which draws us down. If not as,
according to the ascetic doctrine, sin, if he could not be ashamed of
his passion, yet he could repent of it as a vain and frivolous thing,
regret his wasted hopes and griefs.'[3] Laura is for Petrarch the
flower of all perfection herself and the source of every virtue in her
lover. Yet his love for Laura is a long and weary aberration of
the soul from her true goal, which is the love of God. This is the
contradiction from which flow some of the most lyrical strains in
Petrarch's poetry, as the fine canzone 'I'vo pensando', where he
cries:

  E sento ad ora ad or venirmi in core
  Un leggiadro disdegno, aspro e severo,
  Ch'ogni occulto pensero
  Tira in mezzo la fronte, ov' altri 'l vede;
  Che mortal cosa amar con tanta fede,
  Quanta a Dio sol per debito convensi,
  Più si disdice a chi più pregio brama.

Elizabethan love-poetry is descended from Petrarch by way of Cardinal
Bembo and the French poets of the _Pléiade_, notably Ronsard
and Desportes. Of all the Elizabethan sonneteers the most finely
Petrarchian are Sidney and Spenser, especially the former. For Sidney,
Stella is the school of virtue and nobility. He too writes at times in
the impatient strain of Petrarch:

  But ah! Desire still cries, give me some food.

And in the end both Sidney and Spenser turn from earthly to heavenly
love:

  Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust,
  And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things:
  Grow rich in that which never taketh rust,
  Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings.

And so Spenser:

  Many lewd lays (Ah! woe is me the more)
  In praise of that mad fit, which fools call love,
  I have in the heat of youth made heretofore;
  That in light wits affection loose did move,
  But all these follies now I do reprove.

But two things had come over this idealist and courtly love-poetry by
the end of the sixteenth century. It had become a literary artifice, a
refining upon outworn and extravagant conceits, losing itself at
times in the fantastic and absurd. A more important fact was that this
poetry had begun to absorb a new warmth and spirit, not from Petrarch
and mediaeval chivalry, but from classical love-poetry with its
simpler, less metaphysical strain, its equally intense but more
realistic description of passion, its radically different conception
of the relation between the lovers and of the influence of love in a
man's life. The courtly, idealistic strain was crossed by an Epicurean
and sensuous one that tends to treat with scorn the worship of woman,
and echoes again and again the Pagan cry, never heard in Dante or
Petrarch, of the fleetingness of beauty and love:

      Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus!
      Soles occidere et redire possunt:
      Nobis quum semel occidit brevis lux
      Nox est perpetua una dormienda.

      Vivez si m'en croyez, n'attendez à demain;
      Cueillez dès aujourd'hui les roses de la vie.

  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
  But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

Now if we turn from Elizabethan love-poetry to the _Songs and Sonets_
and the _Elegies_ of Donne, we find at once two distinguishing
features. In the first place his poetry is in one respect less
classical than theirs. There is far less in it of the superficial
evidence of classical learning with which the poetry of the
'University Wits' abounds, pastoral and mythological imagery. The
texture of his poetry is more mediaeval than theirs in as far as it is
more dialectical, though a dialectical evolution is not infrequent
in the Elizabethan sonnet, and the imagery is less picturesque, more
scientific, philosophic, realistic, and homely. The place of the

          goodly exiled train
  Of gods and goddesses

is taken by images drawn from all the sciences of the day, from the
definitions and distinctions of the Schoolmen, from the travels and
speculations of the new age, and (as in Shakespeare's tragedies or
Browning's poems) from the experiences of everyday life. Maps and sea
discoveries, latitude and longitude, the phoenix and the mandrake's
root, the Scholastic theories of Angelic bodies and Angelic knowledge,
Alchemy and Astrology, legal contracts and _non obstantes_, 'late
schoolboys and sour prentices,' 'the king's real and his stamped
face'--these are the kind of images, erudite, fanciful, and homely,
which give to Donne's poems a texture so different at a first glance
from the florid and diffuse Elizabethan poetry, whether romantic epic,
mythological idyll, sonnet, or song; while by their presence and
their abundance they distinguish it equally (as Mr. Gosse has
justly insisted) from the studiously moderate and plain style of
'well-languaged Daniel'.

But if the imagery of Donne's poetry be less classical than that of
Marlowe or the younger Shakespeare there is no poet the spirit of
whose love-poetry is so classical, so penetrated with the sensual,
realistic, scornful tone of the Latin lyric and elegiac poets. If one
reads rapidly through the three books of Ovid's _Amores_, and then
in the same continuous rapid fashion the _Songs_ and the _Elegies_ of
Donne, one will note striking differences of style and treatment.
Ovid develops his theme simply and concretely, Donne dialectically and
abstractly. There is little of the ease and grace of Ovid's verses in
the rough and vehement lines of Donne's _Elegies_. Compare the song,

  Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,

with the famous thirteenth Elegy of the first book,

  Iam super oceanum venit a seniore marito,
    Flava pruinoso quae vehit axe diem.

Ovid passes from one natural and simple thought to another, from one
aspect of dawn to another equally objective. Donne just touches one or
two of the same features, borrowing them doubtless from Ovid, but the
greater part of the song is devoted to the subtle and extravagant, if
you like, but not the less passionate development of the thought that
for him the woman he loves is the whole world.

But if the difference between Donne's metaphysical conceits and Ovid's
naturalness and simplicity is palpable it is not less clear that the
emotions which they express, with some important exceptions to which I
shall recur, are identical. The love which is the main burden of their
song is something very different from the ideal passion of Dante or of
Petrarch, of Sidney or Spenser. It is a more sensual passion. The same
tone of witty depravity runs through the work of the two poets. There
is in Donne a purer strain which, we shall see directly, is of the
greatest importance, but such a rapid reader as I am contemplating
might be forgiven if for the moment he overlooked it, and declared
that the modern poet was as sensual and depraved as the ancient, that
there was little to choose between the social morality reflected in
the Elizabethan and in the Augustan poet.

And yet even in these more cynical and sensual poems a careful reader
will soon detect a difference between Donne and Ovid. He will begin
to suspect that the English poet is imitating the Roman, and that
the depravity is in part a reflected depravity. In revolt from one
convention the young poet is cultivating another, a cynicism and
sensuality which is just as little to be taken _au pied de la
lettre_ as the idealizing worship, the anguish and adoration of the
sonneteers. There is, as has been said already, a gaiety in the poems
elaborating the thesis that love is a perpetual flux, fickleness the
law of its being, which warns us against taking them too seriously;
and even those _Elegies_ which seem to our taste most reprehensible
are aerated by a wit which makes us almost forget their indecency. In
the last resort there is all the difference in the world between the
untroubled, heartless sensuality of the Roman poet and the gay wit,
the paradoxical and passionate audacities and sensualities of the
young Elizabethan law-student impatient of an unreal convention, and
eager to startle and delight his fellow students by the fertility and
audacity of his wit.

It is not of course my intention to represent Donne's love-poetry
as purely an 'evaporation' of wit, to suggest that there is in it
no reflection either of his own life as a young man or the moral
atmosphere of Elizabethan London. It would be a much less interesting
poetry if this were so. Donne has pleaded guilty to a careless and
passionate youth:

  In mine Idolatry what showres of raine
  Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?
  That sufferance was my sinne; now I repent;
  Cause I did suffer I must suffer pain.

From what we know of the lives of Essex, Raleigh, Southampton,
Pembroke, and others it is probable that Donne's _Elegies_ come quite
as close to the truth of life as Sidney's Petrarchianism or Spenser's
Platonism. The later cantos of _The Faerie Queene_ reflect vividly the
unchaste loves and troubled friendships of Elizabeth's Court. Whether
we can accept in its entirety the history of Donne's early amours
which Mr. Gosse has gathered from the poems or not, there can be no
doubt that actual experiences do lie behind these poems as behind
Shakespeare's sonnets. In the one case as in the other, to recognize a
literary model is not to exclude the probability of a source in actual
experience.

But however we may explain or palliate the tone of these poems it is
impossible to deny their power, the vivid and packed force with which
they portray a variously mooded passion working through a swift and
subtle brain. If there is little of the elegant and accomplished art
which Milton admired in the Latin Elegiasts while he 'deplored' their
immorality, there is more strength and sincerity both of thought and
imagination. The brutal cynicism of

  Fond woman which would have thy husband die,

the witty anger of _The Apparition_, the mordant and paradoxical
wit of _The Perfume_ and _The Bracelet_, the passionate dignity and
strength of _His Picture_,

  My body a sack of bones broken within,
  And powders blew stains scatter'd on my skin,

the passion that rises superior to sensuality and wit, and takes wing
into a more spiritual and ideal atmosphere, of _His parting from her_,

  I will not look upon the quick'ning Sun,
  But straight her beauty to my sense shall run;
  The ayre shall note her soft, the fire most pure;
  Water suggest her clear, and the earth sure--

compare these with Ovid and the difference is apparent between an
artistic, witty voluptuary and a poet whose passionate force redeems
many errors of taste and art. Compare them with the sonnets and
mythological idylls and _Heroicall Epistles_ of the Elizabethans and
it is they, not Donne, who are revealed as witty and 'fantastic' poets
content to adorn a conventional sentiment with mythological fancies
and verbal conceits. Donne's interest is his theme, love and woman,
and he uses words not for their own sake but to communicate his
consciousness of these surprising phenomena in all their varying and
conflicting aspects. The only contemporary poems that have the same
dramatic quality are Shakespeare's sonnets and some of Drayton's later
sonnets. In Shakespeare this dramatic intensity and variety is of
course united with a rarer poetic charm. Charm is a quality which
Donne's poetry possesses in a few single lines. But to the passion
which animates these sensual, witty, troubled poems the closest
parallel is to be sought in Shakespeare's sonnets to a dark lady and
in some of the verses written by Catullus to or of Lesbia:

  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame.

But neither sensual passion, nor gay and cynical wit, nor scorn
and anger, is the dominant note in Donne's love-poetry. Of the last
quality there is, despite the sardonic emphasis of some of the poems,
less than in either Shakespeare or Catullus. There is nothing in
his poetry which speaks so poignantly of an outraged heart, a love
lavished upon one who was worthless, as some of Shakespeare's sonnets
and of Catullus's poems. The finest note in Donne's love-poetry is the
note of joy, the joy of mutual and contented passion. His heart might
be subtle to plague itself; its capacity for joy is even more obvious.
Other poets have done many things which Donne could not do. They have
invested their feelings with a garb of richer and sweeter poetry. They
have felt more deeply and finely the reverence which is in the heart
of love. But it is only in the fragments of Sappho, the lyrics of
Catullus, and the songs of Burns that one will find the sheer joy
of loving and being loved expressed in the same direct and simple
language as in some of Donne's songs, only in Browning that one will
find the same simplicity of feeling combined with a like swift and
subtle dialectic.

  I wonder by my troth what thou and I
  Did till we loved.

  For God's sake hold your tongue and let me love.

    If yet I have not all thy love,
  Deare, I shall never have it all.

Lines like these have the same direct, passionate quality as

  [Greek: phainetai moi kênos isos theoisin emmen ônêr]

or

  O my love's like a red, red rose
    That's newly sprung in June.

The joy is as intense though it is of a more spiritual and
intellectual quality. And in the other notes of this simple passionate
love-poetry, sorrow which is the shadow of joy, and tenderness,
Donne does not fall far short of Burns in intensity of feeling and
directness of expression. These notes are not so often heard in Donne,
but

  So, so break off this last lamenting kiss

is of the same quality as

  Had we never lov'd sae kindly

or

  Take, O take those lips away.

And strangest of all perhaps is the tenderness which came into Donne's
poetry when a sincere passion quickened in his heart, for tenderness,
the note of

  O wert thou in the cauld blast,

is the last quality one would look for in the poetry of a nature at
once so intellectual and with such a capacity for caustic satire. But
the beautiful if not flawless _Elegy XVI_,

  By our first strange and fatal interview,

and the _Valedictions_ which he wrote on different occasions of
parting from his wife, combine with the peculiar _élan_ of all Donne's
passionate poetry and its intellectual content a tenderness as perfect
as anything in Burns or in Browning:

        O more than Moone,
  Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,
  Weepe me not dead in thine armes, but forbeare
  To teach the sea, what it may doe too soone.

    Let not thy divining heart
      Forethink me any ill,
    Destiny may take thy part
      And may thy feares fulfill;
        But thinke that we
  Are but turn'd aside to sleep;
  They who one another keepe
      Alive, ne'er parted be.

  Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
    Like th' other foot, obliquely runne;
  Thy firmnes makes my circle just,
    And makes me end, where I begunne.

The poet who wrote such verses as these did not believe any longer
that 'love ... represents the principle of perpetual flux in nature'.

But Donne's poetry is not so simple a thing of the heart and of the
senses as that of Burns and Catullus. Even his purer poetry has more
complex moods--consider _The Prohibition_--and it is metaphysical, not
only in the sense of being erudite and witty, but in the proper sense
of being reflective and philosophical. Donne is always conscious of
the import of his moods; and so it is that there emerges from his
poems a philosophy or a suggested philosophy of love to take the place
of the idealism which he rejects. Set a song of the joy of love
by Burns or by Catullus such as I have cited beside Donne's
_Anniversarie_,

        All Kings, and all their favorites,
        All glory of honors, beauties, wits,
  The Sun itselfe, which makes times, as they passe,
        Is elder by a year, now, than it was
  When thou and I first one another saw,

and the difference is at once apparent. Burns gets no further than the
experience, Catullus than the obvious and hedonistic reflection that
time is flying, the moment of pleasure short. In Donne's poem one
feels the quickening of the brain, the vision extending its range, the
passion gathering sweep with the expanding rhythms, and from the mind
thus heated and inspired emerges, not a cry that time might stay its
course,

  Lente, lente currite noctis equi,

but a clearer consciousness of the eternal significance of love, not
the love that aspires after the unattainable, but the love that
unites contented hearts. The method of the poet is, I suppose, too
dialectical to be popular, for the poem is in few Anthologies. It may
be that the Pagan and Christian strains which the poet unites are not
perfectly blended--if it is possible to do so--but to me it seems that
the joy of love has never been expressed at once with such intensity
and such elevation.

And it is with sorrow as with joy. There is the same difference
of manner in the expression between Donne and these poets, and the
deepest thought is the same. The _Nocturnall on S. Lucies Day_ is
at the opposite pole of Donne's thought from the _Anniversarie_, and
compared with

  Had we never loved sae kindly

or

  Take, O take those lips away,

both the feeling and its expression are metaphysical. But the passion
is felt through the subtle and fantastic web of dialectic; and the
thought from which the whole springs is the emptiness of life without
love.

What, then, is the philosophy which disengages itself from Donne's
love-poetry studied in its whole compass? It seems to me that it is
more than a purely negative one, that consciously or unconsciously
he sets over against the abstract idealism, the sharp dualism of the
Middle Ages, a justification of love as a natural passion in the human
heart the meaning and end of which is marriage. The sensuality and
exaggerated cynicism of so much of the poetry of the Renaissance was
a reaction from courtly idealism and mediaeval asceticism. But a mere
reaction could lead no-whither. There are no steps which lead only
backward in the history of human thought and feeling. Poems like
Donne's _Elegies_, like Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_, like
Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_ could only end in penitent outcries like
those of Sidney and Spenser and of Donne himself. The true escape from
courtly or ascetic idealism was a poetry which should do justice to
love as a passion in which body and soul alike have their part, and of
which there is no reason to repent.

And this with all its imperfections Donne's love-poetry is. It was not
for nothing that Sir Thomas Egerton's secretary made a runaway match
for love. For Dante the poet, his wife did not exist. In love of his
wife Donne found the meaning and the infinite value of love. In later
days he might bewail his 'idolatry of profane mistresses'; he never
repented of having loved. Between his most sensual and his most
spiritual love-songs there is no cleavage such as separates natural
love from Dante's love of Beatrice, who is in the end Theology. The
passion that burns in Donne's most outspoken elegies, and wantons
in the _Epithalamia_, is not cast out in _The Anniversarie_ or _The
Canonization_, but absorbed. It is purified and enriched by being
brought into harmony with his whole nature, spiritual as well as
physical. It has lost the exclusive consciousness of itself which
is lust, and become merged in an entire affection, as a turbid and
discoloured stream is lost in the sea.

This justification of natural love as fullness of joy and life is the
deepest thought in Donne's love-poems, far deeper and sincerer than
the Platonic conceptions of the affinity and identity of souls with
which he plays in some of the verses addressed to Mrs. Herbert. The
nearest approach that he makes to anything like a reasoned statement
of the thought latent rather than expressed in _The Anniversarie_
is in _The Extasie_, a poem which, like the _Nocturnall_, only Donne
could have written. Here with the same intensity of feeling, and
in the same abstract, dialectical, erudite strain he emphasizes the
interdependence of soul and body:

  As our blood labours to beget
    Spirits, as like soules as it can,
  Because such fingers need to knit
    That subtile knot, which makes us man:
  So must pure lovers soules descend
    T'affections, and to faculties,
  Which sense may reach and apprehend,
    _Else a great Prince in prison lies_.

It may be that Donne has not entirely succeeded in what he here
attempts. There hangs about the poem just a suspicion of the
conventional and unreal Platonism of the seventeenth century. In
attempting to state and vindicate the relation of soul and body he
falls perhaps inevitably into the appearance, at any rate, of the
dualism which he is trying to transcend. He places them over against
each other as separate entities and the lower bulks unduly. In love,
says Pascal, the body disappears from sight in the intellectual and
spiritual passion which it has kindled. That is what happens in _The
Anniversarie_, not altogether in _The Extasie_. Yet no poem makes one
realize more fully what Jonson meant by calling Donne 'the first poet
in the world for some things'. 'I should never find any fault with
metaphysical poems,' is Coleridge's judgement, 'if they were all like
this or but half as excellent.'

It was only the force of Donne's personality that could achieve even
an approximate harmony of elements so divergent as are united in his
love-verses, that could master the lower-natured steed that drew the
chariot of his troubled and passionate soul and make it subservient to
his yoke-fellow of purer strain who is a lover of honour, and modesty,
and temperance, and the follower of true glory. In the work of his
followers, who were many, though they owed allegiance to Jonson
also, the lower elements predominated. The strain of metaphysical
love-poetry in the seventeenth century with its splendid _élan_ and
sonorous cadence is in general Epicurean and witty. It is only now and
again--in Marvell, perhaps in Herrick's

  Bid me to live, and I will live,
    Thy Protestant to be,

certainly in Rochester's songs, in

  An age in her embraces past
    Would seem a winter's day,

or the unequalled:

  When wearied with a world of woe
    To thy safe bosom I retire,
  Where love, and peace, and truth does flow,
    May I contented there expire,

that the accents of the _heart_ are clearly audible, that passion
prevails over Epicurean fancy or cynical wit. On the other hand, the
idealism of seventeenth-century poetry and romances, the Platonism of
the Hôtel de Rambouillet that one finds in Habington's _Castara_, in
Kenelm Digby's _Private Memoirs_, in the French romances of chivalry
and their imitations in English is the silliest, because the emptiest,
that ever masqueraded as such in any literature, at any period. A
sensual and cynical flippancy on the one hand, a passionless, mannered
idealism on the other, led directly to that thinly veiled contempt
of women which is so obvious in the satirical essays of Addison and
Pope's _Rape of the Lock_.

But there was one poet who meditated on the same problem as Donne, who
felt like him the power and greatness of love, and like him could
not accept a doctrine of love which seemed to exclude or depreciate
marriage. In 1640, just before his marriage, as rash in its way as
Donne's but less happy in the issue, Milton, defending his character
against accusations of immorality, traced the development of his
thought about love. The passage, in _An Apology against a Pamphlet
called 'A Modest Confutation'_, &c., has been taken as having a
reference to the _Paradise Lost_. But Milton rather seems at the time
to have been meditating a work like the _Vita Nuova_ or a romance like
that of Tasso in which love was to be a motive as well as religion,
for the whole theme of his thought is love, true love and its
mysterious link with chastity, of which, however, 'marriage is no
defilement'. In the arrogance of his youthful purity Milton would
doubtless have looked with scorn or loathing on the _Elegies_ and the
more careless of Donne's songs. But perhaps pride is a greater enemy
of love than such faults of sense as Donne in his passionate youth was
guilty of, and from which Dante by his own evidence was not exempt.
Whatever be the cause--pride, and the disappointment of his marriage,
and political polemic--Milton never wrote any English love-poetry,
except it be the one sonnet on the death of the wife who might have
opened the sealed wells of his heart; and some want of the experience
which love brought to Dante has dimmed the splendour of the great poem
in which he undertook to justify the ways of God to men. Donne is not
a Milton, but he sounded some notes which touch the soul and quicken
the intellect in a way that Milton's magnificent and intense but
somewhat hard and objective art fails to achieve.

That the simpler and purer, the more ideal and tender of Donne's
love-poems were the expression of his love for Ann More cannot of
course be proved in the case of each individual poem, for all Donne's
verses have come to us (with a few unimportant exceptions) undated
and unarranged. But the general thesis, that it was a great experience
which purified and elevated Donne's poetry, receives a striking
confirmation from the better-known history of his devotional poetry.
Here too wit, often tortured wit, fancy, and the heat which Donne's
wit was always able to generate, would have been all his verse had to
show but for the great sorrow which struck him down in 1617 and gave
to his subsequent sonnets and hymns a sincerer and profounder note,
his imagery a more magnificent quality, his rhythms a more sonorous
music.

Donne was not by nature a devotional poet in the same way and to the
same degree as Giles Fletcher or Herbert or Crashaw. It was a sound
enough instinct which, despite his religious upbringing and his wide
and serious interest in theological questions, made him hesitate to
cross the threshold of the ministry and induced him to seek rather for
some such public service as fell to the lot of his friend Wotton. It
was not, I think, the transition from the Roman to the Anglican Church
which was the obstacle. I have tried to describe what seems to me to
have been the path of enlightenment which opened the way for him to
a change which on every ground of prudence and ambition was desirable
and natural. But to conform, and even to take a part as a free-lance
in theological controversy was one thing, to enter the ministry
another. When this was pressed upon him by Morton or by the King it
brought him into conflict with something deeper and more fundamental
than theological doctrines, namely, a temperament which was rather
that of the Renaissance than that either of Puritan England or of the
Counter-Reformation, whether in Catholic countries or in the Anglican
Church--the temperament of Raleigh and Bacon rather than of Milton or
Herbert or Crashaw.

The simple way of describing Donne's difficulty is Walton's, according
to whom Donne shrank from entering the ministry for fear the notorious
irregularities of his early years should bring discredit on the sacred
calling. But there was more in Donne's life than a youth of pleasure,
an old age of prayers. It is not the case that all which was best and
most serious in Donne's nature led him towards Holy Orders. In his
earliest satires and even in his 'love-song weeds' there is evidence
enough of an earnest, candid soul underneath the extravagances of
wit and youthful sensuality. Donne's mind was naturally serious and
religious; it was not naturally devout or ascetic, but worldly and
ambitious. But to enter the ministry was, for Donne and for all
the serious minds of his age, to enter a profession for which the
essential qualifications were a devotional and an ascetic life.
The country clergy of the Anglican Church were often careless and
scandalous livers before Laud took in hand the discipline of the
Church; but her bishops and most eminent divines, though they might
be courtly and sycophantic, were with few exceptions men of devout and
ascetic life. When Donne finally crossed the Rubicon, convinced that
from the King no promotion was to be hoped for in any other line of
life, it was rather with the deliberate resolution that he would make
his life a model of devotion and ascetic self-denial than as one drawn
by an irresistible attraction or impelled by a controlling sense of
duty to such a life. Donne was no St. Augustine whose transition from
libertinism to saintliness came entirely from within. The noblest
feature of Donne's earlier clerical life was the steadfast spirit in
which he set himself to realize the highest ideals of the calling
he had chosen, and the candour with which he accepted the contrast
between his present position and his earlier life, leaving to
whosoever wished to judge while he followed the path of duty and
penitence.

But such a spirit will not easily produce great devotional poetry.
There are qualities in the religious poetry of simpler and purer souls
to which Donne seldom or never attains. The natural love of God which
overflows the pages of the great mystics, which dilates the heart
and the verses of a poet like the Dutchman Vondel, the ardour and
tenderness of Crashaw, the chaste, pure piety and penitence of
Herbert, the love from which devotion and ascetic self-denial come
unbidden--to these Donne never attained. The high and passionate joy
of _The Anniversary_ is not heard in his sonnets or hymns. Effort is
the note which predominates--the effort to realize the majesty of God,
the heinousness of sin, the terrors of Hell, the mercy of Christ.
Some of the very worst traits in Donne's mind are brought out in
his religious writing. _The Essays on Divinity_ are an extraordinary
revelation of his accumulations of useless Scholastic erudition, and
his capacity to perform feats of ingenious deduction from traditional
and accepted premises. To compare these freakish deductions from the
theory of verbal inspiration with the luminous sense of the _Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus_ is to realize how much rationalism was doing
in the course of the century for the emancipation and healing of the
human intellect. Some of the poems, and those the earliest written,
before Donne had actually taken Orders, are not much more than
exercises in these theological subtleties, poems such as that _On
the Annunciation and Passion falling in the same year_ (1608), _The
Litany_ (1610), _Good-Friday_ (1613), and _The Cross_ (_c._ 1615)
are characteristic examples of Donne's intense and imaginative wit
employed on traditional topics of Catholic devotion to which no
change of Church ever made him indifferent. Donne never ignored in his
sermons the gulf that separated the Anglican from the Roman Church, or
the link that bound her to the Protestant Churches of the Continent.
'Our great protestant divines' are one of his courts of appeal,
and included Luther and Calvin of whom he never speaks but with the
deepest respect. But he was unwilling to sacrifice to a fanatical
puritanism any element of Catholic devotion which was capable of
an innocent interpretation. His language is guarded and perhaps not
always consistent, but it would not be difficult to show from his
sermons and prose-writings that many of the most distinctively
Catholic tenets were treated by him with the utmost tenderness.

But, as Mr. Gosse has pointed out, the sincerest and profoundest of
Donne's devotional poetry dates from the death of his wife. The loss
of her who had purified and sweetened his earliest love songs lent
a new and deeper _timbre_ to the sonnets and lyrics in which he
contemplates the great topics of personal religion,--sin, death,
the Judgement, and throws himself on the mercy of God as revealed in
Christ. The seven sonnets entitled _La Corona_ have been generally
attributed to this period, but it is probable that they were composed
earlier, and their treatment of the subject of Christ's life and death
is more intellectual and theological than spiritual and poetical. It
is when the tone becomes personal, as in the _Holy Sonnets_, when he
is alone with his own soul in the prospect of death and the Judgement,
that Donne's religious poetry acquires something of the same unique
character as his love songs and elegies by a similar combination
of qualities, intensity of feeling, subtle turns of thought, and
occasional Miltonic splendour of phrase. Here again we meet the
magnificent openings of the _Songs and Sonets_:--

  This is my playes last scene; here heavens appoint
  My pilgrimages last mile; and my race
  Idly yet quickly run hath this last space,
  My spans last inch, my minutes latest point;

or,

  At the round earths imagin'd quarters blow
  Your trumpets, Angels, and arise, arise
  From death you numberlesse infinities
  Of soules, and to your scatter'd bodies go:

and again--

  What if this present were the worlds last night!
  Marke in my heart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell,
  The picture of Christ crucified, and tell
  Whether that countenance can thee affright,
  Teares in his eyes quench the amazing light,
  Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell.

This passionate penitence, this beating as it were against the bars
of self in the desire to break through to a fuller apprehension of
the mercy and love of God, is the intensely human note of these latest
poems. Nothing came easily to his soul that knew so well how to be
subtle to plague itself. The vision of divine wrath he can conjure up
more easily than the beatific vision of the love that 'moves the sun
in heaven and all the stars'. Nevertheless it was that vision which
Donne sought. He could never have been content with Milton's heaven of
majesty and awe divorced from the quickening spirit of love. And there
are moments when he comes as close to that beatific vision as perhaps
a self-tormenting mind involved in the web of seventeenth-century
theology ever could,--at moments love and ecstasy gain the upper hand
of fear and penitence. But it is in the sermons that he reaches these
highest levels. There is nothing in the florid eloquence of Jeremy
Taylor that can equal the splendour of occasional passages in Donne's
sermons, when the lava-like flow of his heated reasoning seems
suddenly to burst and flower in such a splendid incandescence of
mystical rapture as this:--

    'Death and life are in the power of the tongue, says Solomon,
    in another sense: and in this sense too, If my tongue,
    suggested by my heart, and by my heart rooted in faith, can
    say, _non moriar, non moriar_: If I can say (and my conscience
    do not tell me that I belie mine own state) if I can say, That
    the blood of the Saviour runs in my veins, That the breath of
    his spirit quickens all my purposes, that all my deaths
    have their Resurrection, all my sins their remorses, all my
    rebellions their reconciliations, I will hearken no more after
    this question as it is intended _de morte naturali_, of a
    natural death; I know I must die that death; what care I? nor
    _de morte spirituali_, the death of sin, I know I doe, and
    shall die so; why despair I? but I will find out another
    death, _mortem raptus_, a death of rapture and of extasy, that
    death which St. Paul died more than once, the death which St.
    Gregory speaks of, _divina contemplatio quoddam sepulchrum
    animae_, the contemplation of God and heaven is a kind of
    burial and sepulchre and rest of the soul; and in this death
    of rapture and extasy, in this death of the Contemplation of
    my interest in my Saviour, I shall find myself and all my
    sins enterred, and entombed in his wounds, and like a Lily in
    Paradise, out of red earth, I shall see my soul rise out of
    his blade, in a candor, and in an innocence, contracted there,
    acceptable in the sight of his Father.'

This is the highest level that Donne ever reached in eloquence
inspired by the vision of the joy and not the terror of the Christian
faith, higher than anything in the _Second Anniversary_, but in his
last hymns hope and confidence find a simpler and a tenderer note. The
noble hymn, 'In what torn ship so ever I embark,' is in somewhat
the same anguished tone as the _Holy Sonnets_; but the highly
characteristic

  Since I am coming to that Holy roome,
  Where with thy Quire of Saints for evermore,
  I shall be made thy Musique;

and the _Hymn to God the Father_, speak of final faith and hope in
tones which recall--recall also by their sea-coloured imagery, and
by their rhythm--the lines in which another sensitive and tormented
poet-soul contemplated the last voyage:

  I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne
    My last thred, I shall perish on the shore;
  Swear by thy self that at my death thy sunne
    Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore:
  And having done that, Thou hast done,
    I feare no more.

Beside the passion of these lines even Tennyson's grow a little pale:

  Twilight and evening bell
    And after that the dark;
  And may there be no sadness of farewell
    When I embark:
  For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
    The flood may bear me far,
  I hope to see my Pilot face to face
    When I have crost the bar.

It has not been the aim of the present editor to attempt to pronounce
a final judgement upon Donne. It seems to him idle to compare Donne's
poetry with that of other poets or to endeavour to fix its relative
worth. Its faults are great and manifest; its beauties _sui generis_,
incommunicable and incomparable. My endeavour here has been by
an analysis of some of the different elements in this composite
work--poems composed at different times and in different moods; flung
together at the end so carelessly that youthful extravagances of witty
sensuality and pious aspirations jostle each other cheek by jowl;
and presenting a texture so diverse from that of poetry as we usually
think of it--to show how many are the strands which run through it,
and that one of these is a poetry, not perfect in form, rugged of line
and careless in rhyme, a poetry in which intellect and feeling are
seldom or never perfectly fused in a work that is of imagination all
compact, yet a poetry of an extraordinarily arresting and haunting
quality, passionate, thoughtful, and with a deep melody of its own.



    [Footnote 1: _History of English Poetry_, iii. 154. Mr.
    Courthope qualifies this statement somewhat on the next
    page: 'From this spirit of cynical lawlessness he was
    perhaps reclaimed by genuine love,' &c. But he has, I think,
    insufficiently analysed the diverse strains in Donne's
    love-poetry.]

    [Footnote 2: Gaspary: _History of Italian Literature_
    (Oelsner's translation), 1904. Consult also Karl Vossler:
    _Die philosophischen Grundlagen des 'süssen neuen Stils'_,
    Heidelberg, 1904, and _La Poesia giovanile &c. di Guido
    Cavalcanti: Studi di Giulio Salvadori_, Roma, 1895.]

    [Footnote 3: Gaspary: _Op. Cit._]


       *       *       *        *        *



II

THE TEXT AND CANON OF DONNE'S POEMS



TEXT


Both the text and the canon of Donne's poems present problems which
have never been frankly faced by any of his editors--problems which,
considering the greatness of his reputation in the seventeenth
century, and the very considerable revival of his reputation which
began with Coleridge and De Quincey and has advanced uninterruptedly
since, are of a rather surprising character. An attempt to define and,
as far as may be, to solve these problems will begin most simply with
a brief account of the form in which Donne's poems have come down to
us.

Three of Donne's poems were printed in his lifetime--the Anniversaries
(i.e. _The Anatomy of the World_ with _A Funerall Elegie_ and _The
Progresse of the Soule_) in 1611 and 1612, with later editions in
1621 and 1625; the _Elegie upon the untimely death of the incomparable
Prince Henry_, in Sylvester's _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_, 1613; and the
lines prefixed to _Coryats Crudities_ in 1611. We know nothing of any
other poem by Donne being printed prior to 1633. It is noteworthy,
as Mr. Gosse has pointed out, that none of the _Miscellanies_ which
appeared towards the end of the sixteenth century, as _Englands
Parnassus_[1] (1600), or at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
as Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_,[2] contained poems by Donne. The
first of these is a collection of witty and elegant passages from
different authors on various general themes (Dissimulation, Faith,
Learning, &c.) and is just the kind of book for which Donne's poems
would have been made abundant use of at a somewhat later period.
There are in our libraries manuscript collections of 'Donne's choicest
conceits', and extracts long or short from his poems, dating from the
second quarter of the seventeenth century.[3] The editor of the second
of the anthologies mentioned, Francis Davison, became later much
interested in Donne's poems. In notes which he made at some date after
1608, we find him inquiring for 'Satyres, Elegies, Epigrams etc., by
John Don', and querying whether they might be obtained 'from Eleaz.
Hodgson and Ben Johnson'. Among the books again which he has lent to
his brother at a later date are 'John Duns Satyres'. This interest on
the part of Davison in Donne's poems makes it seem to me very unlikely
that if he had known them earlier he would not have included some of
them in his _Rhapsody_, or that if he had done so he would not
have told us. It has been the custom of late to assign to Donne the
authorship of one charming lyric in the _Rhapsody_, 'Absence hear thou
my protestation.' I hope to show elsewhere that this is the work, not
of Donne, but of another young wit of the day, John Hoskins, whose few
extant poems are a not uninteresting link between the manner of Sidney
and the Elizabethans and of Donne and the 'Metaphysicals'.

The first collected edition of Donne's poems was issued in 1633, two
years after his death. This is a small quarto, the title-page of which
is here reproduced.



  POEMS,

  _By_ J. D.

  WITH

  ELEGIES

  ON THE AUTHORS

  DEATH.


  LONDON.

  Printed by _M. F._ for IOHN MARRIOT,
  and are to be sold at his shop in S^t '_Dunstans_
  Church-yard in _Fleet-street_. 1633.


The first eight pages (Sheet A) are numbered, and contain (1) _The
Printer to the Understanders_,[4] (2) the _Hexastichon Bibliopolae_,
(3) the dedication of, and introductory epistle to, _The Progresse of
the Soule_, with which poem the volume opens. The poems themselves,
with some prose letters and the _Elegies upon the Author_, fill pages
1-406. The numbers on some of the pages are misprinted. The order of
the poems is generally chaotic, but in batches the poems follow the
order preserved in the later editions. Of the significance of this,
and of the source and character of this edition, I shall speak later.
As regards text and canon it is the most trustworthy of all the old
editions. The publisher, John Marriot, was a well-known bookseller
at the sign of the Flower de Luce, and issued the poems of Breton,
Drayton, Massinger, Quarles, and Wither. The printer was probably
Miles Fletcher, or Flesher, a printer of considerable importance
in Little Britain from 1611 to 1664. It would almost seem, from
the heading of the introductory letter, that the printer was more
responsible for the issue than the bookseller Marriot, and it is
perhaps noteworthy that when in 1650 the younger Donne succeeded in
getting the publication of the poems into his own hand, John Marriot's
name remained on the title-page (1650) as publisher, but the printer's
initials disappeared, and his prefatory letter made way for a
dedication by the younger Donne. (See page 4.) It should be added that
copies of the 1633 edition differ considerably from one another. In
some a portrait has been inserted. Occasionally _The Printer to the
Understanders_ is omitted, the _Infinitati Sacrum &c._ following
immediately on the title-page. In some poems, notably _The Progresse
of the Soule_, and certain of the _Letters_ to noble ladies, the text
underwent considerable alteration as the volume passed through the
press. Some copies are more correct than others. A few of the errors
of the 1635 edition are traceable to the use by the printer of a
comparatively imperfect copy of the 1633 edition.


  POEMS,

  _By_ J. D.

  WITH

  ELEGIES

  ON

  THE AUTHORS

  DEATH.


  _LONDON_

  Printed by _M. F._ for JOHN MARRIOT,
  and are to be sold at his Shop in S^t _Dunstans_
  Church-yard in _Fleet-street_.

  1635.


The _Poems by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death_ were reprinted
by M. F. for John Harriot in 1635 (the title-page is here reproduced),
but with very considerable alterations. The introductory material
remained unchanged except that to the _Hexastichon Bibliopolae_ was
added a _Hexastichon ad Bibliopolam. Incerti_. (See p. 3.) To the
title-page was prefixed a portrait in an oval frame. Outside the frame
is engraved, to the left top, ANNO DNI. 1591. ÆTATIS SVÆ. 18.; to
the right top, on a band ending in a coat of arms, ANTES MVERTO
QUE MVDADO. Underneath the engraved portrait and background is the
following poem:

  _This was for youth, Strength, Mirth, and wit that Time
  Most count their golden Age; but t'was not thine.
  Thine was thy later yeares, so much refind
  From youths Drosse, Mirth, & wit; as thy pure mind
  Thought (like the Angels) nothing but the Praise
  Of thy Creator, in those last, best Dayes.
    Witnes this Booke, (thy Embleme) which begins
    With Love; but endes, with Sighes, & Teares for sins._
        IZ: WA:

  _Will: Marshall sculpsit_.[5]

_The Printer to the Understanders_ is still followed immediately by
the dedication, _Infinitati Sacrum_, of _The Progresse of the Soule_,
although the poem itself is removed to another part of the volume. The
printer noticed this mistake, and at the end of the _Elegies upon the
Author_ adds this note:

    _Errata_.[6]

    _Cvrteous Reader, know, that that Epistle intituled, Infinitati
    Sacrum, 16. of August, 1601. which is printed in the
    beginning of the Booke, is misplaced; it should have beene
    printed before the Progresse of the Soule, in Page 301.
    before which it was written by the Author; if any other in the
    Impression doe fall out, which I know not of, hold me excused
    for I have endeavoured thy satisfaction._

      Thine, I. M.


The closing lines of Walton's poem show that it must have been written
for this edition, as they refer to what is the chief feature in the
new issue of the poems (pp. 1-388, including some prose letters in
Latin and English, pp. 275-300, but not including the _Elegies upon
the Author_ which in this edition and those of 1639, 1649, 1650,
and 1654 are added in unnumbered pages). This new feature is their
arrangement in a series of groups:[7]--

  Songs and Sonets.
  Epigrams.
  Elegies.
  Epithalamions, _or_, Marriage Songs.
  Satyres.
  Letters to Severall Personages.
  Funerall Elegies, (including _An Anatomie of the
    World_ with _A Funerall Elegie_, _Of the Progresse of
    the Soule_, and _Epicedes and Obsequies upon the
    deaths of sundry Personages_.)
  (Letters in Prose).[8]
  The Progresse of the Soule.
  Divine Poems.

While the poems were thus rearranged, the canon also underwent some
alteration. One poem, viz. Basse's _Epitaph on Shakespeare_ ('Renowned
Chaucer lie a thought more nigh To rare Beaumont'), which had found
its way into _1633_, was dropped; but quite a number were added,
twenty-eight, or twenty-nine if the epitaph _On Himselfe_ be reckoned
(as it appears) twice. Professor Norton, in the bibliographical note
in the Grolier Club edition (which I occasionally call Grolier for
convenience), has inadvertently given the _Elegie on the L. C._ as one
of the poems first printed in _1635_. This is an error. The poem was
included in _1633_ as the sixth in a group of _Elegies_, the rest of
which are love poems. The editor of _1635_ merely transferred it to
its proper place among the _Funerall Elegies_, just as modern editors
have transferred the _Elegie on his Mistris_ ('By our first strange
and fatall interview') from the funeral to the love _Elegies_.

The authenticity of the poems added in _1635_ will be fully discussed
later. The conclusion of the present editor is that of the English
poems fifteen are certainly Donne's; three or four are probably or
possibly his; the remaining eleven are pretty certainly _not_ by
Donne. There is no reason to think that _1635_ is in any way a more
authoritative edition than _1633_. It has fewer signs of competent
editing of the text, and it begins the process of sweeping in poems
from every quarter, which was continued by Waldron, Simeon, and
Grosart.

The third edition of Donne's poems appeared in 1639. This is identical
in form, contents, and paging with that of 1635. The dedication and
introduction to _The Progresse of the Soule_ are removed to their
right place and the _Errata_ dropped, and there are a considerable
number of minor alterations of the text.



  POEMS,

  _By_ J. D.

  VVITH

  ELEGIES

  ON

  THE AUTHORS

  DEATH.

  [Illustration]


  _LONDON_,

  Printed by _M. F._ for JOHN MARRIOT,
  and are to be sold at his Shop in S^t _Dunstans_
  Church-yard in _Fleet-street_.

  1639.


In the issuing of all these editions of Donne's poems, the younger
Donne, who seems to have claimed the right to benefit by his father's
literary remains, had apparently no part.[9] What assistance, if
any, the printer and publisher had from others of Donne's friends and
executors it is impossible now to say, though one can hardly imagine
that without some assistance they could have got access to so many
poems or been allowed to publish the elegies on his death, some of
which refer to the publication of the poems.[10] Walton, as we have
seen, wrote verses to be prefixed to the second edition. At any
rate in 1637 the younger John Donne made an effort to arrest the
unauthorized issue of his father's works. Dr. Grosart first printed
in his edition of the poems (_Fuller Worthies' Library_, 1873, ii,
p. lii) the following petition and response preserved in the Record
Office:

        To y^e most Reverende Father in God
          William Lorde Arch-Bisshop of
            Canterburie Primate, and
            Metropolitan of all Eng-
               lande his Grace.

    The humble petition of John Donne, Clercke. Doth show unto
    your Grace that since y^e death of his Father (latly Deane of
    Pauls) there hath bene manie scandalous Pamflets printed, and
    published, under his name, which were none of his, by severall
    Boocksellers, withoute anie leave or Autoritie; in particuler
    one entitoled Juvenilia, printed for Henry Seale; another
    by John Marriott and William Sheares, entitoled Ignatius his
    Conclave, as allsoe certaine Poems by y^e sayde John Marriote,
    of which abuses thay have bene often warned by your Pe^tr
    and tolde that if thay desisted not, thay should be proceeded
    against beefore your Grace, which thay seeme soe much
    to slight, that thay profess soddainly to publish new
    impressions, verie much to the greife of your Pe^tr and the
    discredite of y^e memorie of his Father.

    Wherefore your Pe^tr doth beeseece your Grace that you
    would bee pleased by your Commaunde, to stopp their farther
    proceedinge herein, and to cale the forenamed boocksellers
    beefore you, to giue an account, for what thay haue allreadie
    done; and your Pe^tr shall pray, &c.

    I require y^e Partyes whom this Pe^t concernes, not to meddle
    any farther w^th y^e Printing or Selling of any y^e pretended
    workes of y^e late Deane of St. Paules, saue onely such as
    shall be licensed by publicke authority, and approued by the
    Peticon^r, as they will answere y^e contrary at theyr perill.
    And of this I desire Mr. Deane of y^e Arches to take care.

      Dec: 16, 1637.                                W. Cant.

Despite this injunction the edition of 1639 was issued, as the
previous ones had been, by Marriot and M. F. It was not till ten years
later that the younger Donne succeeded in establishing his claim. In
1649 Marriot prepared a new edition, printed as before by M. F. The
introductory matter remained unchanged except that the printing being
more condensed it occupies three pages instead of five; the use of
Roman and Italic type is exactly reversed; and there are some slight
changes of spelling. The printing of the poems is also more condensed,
so that they occupy pp. 1-368 instead of 1-388 in _1635-39_. The text
underwent some generally unimportant alteration or corruption, and two
poems were added, the lines _Upon Mr. Thomas Coryats Crudities_ (p.
172. It had been printed with _Coryats Crudities_ in 1611) and the
short poem called _Sonnet. The Token_ (p. 72).

Only a very few copies of this edition were issued. W. C. Hazlitt
describes one in his _Bibliographical Collections, &c._, _Second
Series_ (1882), p. 181. The only copy of whose existence I am aware is
in the Library of Harvard College. It was used by Professor Norton in
preparing the Grolier Club edition, and I owe my knowledge of it
to this and to a careful description made for me by Miss Mary H.
Buckingham. The title-page is here reproduced.



  POEMS,

  _By_ J. D.

  WITH

  ELEGIES

  ON

  THE AUTHORS

  DEATH.


  [Illustration]


  _LONDON_

  Printed by _M. F._ for JOHN MARRIOT,
  and are to be sold at his shop in S^t _Dunstans_
  Church-yard in _Fleet-Street_.

  1649.


What happened seems to have been this. The younger Donne intervened
before the edition was issued, and either by authority or agreement
took it over. Marriot remained the publisher. The title-page which in
_1649_ was identical with that of _1635-39_, except for the change of
date and the 'W' in 'WITH', now appeared as follows:



  POEMS,

  _By_ J. D.

  WITH

  ELEGIES

  ON THE

  AUTHORS DEATH.

  TO WHICH

  _Is added divers Copies under his own hand
  never before in print._


  _LONDON_,

  Printed for _John Marriot_, and are
  to be sold by _Richard Marriot_ at his shop
  by _Chancery_ lane end over against the Inner
  Temple gate. 1650.


The initials of the printer, M. F., disappear, and the name of John
Marriot's son, partner, and successor, Richard, appears along with his
own. There is no great distance between St. Dunstan's Churchyard and
the end of Chancery Lane. With M. F. went the introductory _Printer
to the Understanders_, its place being taken by a dedicatory letter
in young Donne's most courtly style to William, Lord Craven, Baron of
Hamsted-Marsham.

In the body of the volume as prepared in 1649 no alteration was made.
The 'divers Copies ... never before in print', of which the new editor
boasts, were inserted in a couple of sheets (or a sheet and a half,
aa, bb incomplete) at the end. These are variously bound up in
different copies, being sometimes before, sometimes at the end of
the _Elegies upon the Author_, sometimes before and among them. They
contain a quite miscellaneous assortment of writings, verse and
prose, Latin and English, by, or presumably by, Donne, with a few
complimentary verses on Donne taken from Jonson's _Epigrams_.

The text of Donne's own writings is carelessly printed. In short,
Donne's son did nothing to fix either the text or the canon of his
father's poems. The former, as it stands in the body of the volume
in the editions of 1650-54, he took over from Marriot and M. F. As
regards the latter, he speaks of the 'kindnesse of the Printer, ...
adding something too much, lest any spark of this sacred fire might
perish undiscerned'; but he does not condescend to tell us, if he
knew, what these unauthentic poems are. He withdrew nothing.

In 1654 the poems were published once more, but printed from the same
types as in 1650. The text of the poems (pp. 1-368) is identical in
_1649_, _1650_, _1654_; of the additional matter (pp. 369-392) in
_1650_, _1654_. The only change made in the last is on the title-page,
where a new publisher's name appears,[11] as in the following
facsimile:



  POEMS,

  _By_ J. D.

  WITH

  ELEGIES

  ON THE

  AUTHORS DEATH.

  TO WHICH

  _Is added divers Copies under his own hand
  never before in Print._


  _LONDON_,

  Printed by _J. Flesher_, and are to be sold
  by _John Sweeting_ at the Angel in
  Popeshead-Alley. 1654.


James Flesher was the son of Miles Flesher, or Fletcher, who is
probably the M. F. of the earlier editions. John Sweeting was an
active bookseller and publisher, first at the Crown in Cornhill, and
subsequently at the Angel as above (1639-1661). He was the publisher
of many plays and poems, and in 1657 the publication of Donne's
_Letters to Severall Persons of Honour_ was transferred to him from
Richard Marriot, who issued them in 1651.



  POEMS, &c.

  BY

  JOHN DONNE,

  _late Dean of St._ Pauls.

  WITH

  ELEGIES

  ON THE

  AUTHORS DEATH.

  To which is added

  _Divers Copies under his own hand_,

  +Never before Printed.+


  _In the SAVOY_,

  Printed by _T. N._ for _Henry Herringman_, at the sign of
  the _Anchor_, in the lower-walk of the
  _New-Exchange._ 1669.


The last edition of Donne's poems which bears evidence of recourse
to manuscript sources, and which enlarged the canon of the poems, was
that of 1669. The younger Donne died in 1662, and this edition was
purely a printer's venture. Its title-page runs as opposite.

This edition added two elegies which a sense of propriety had hitherto
excluded from Donne's printed works, though they are in almost all
the manuscript collections, and a satire which most of the manuscripts
assign not to Donne but to Sir John Roe. The introductory material
remains as in _1650-54_ and unpaged; but the _Elegies to the Author_
are now paged, and the poems with the prose letters inserted in _1633_
and added to in _1635_ (see above, p. lxiii, note 8), the _Elegies to
the Author_, and the additional sheets inserted in _1650_, occupy pp.
1-414. The love _Elegies_ were numbered as in earlier editions, but
the titles which some had borne were all dropped. _Elegie XIIII_ (XII
in this edition) was enlarged. Two new Elegies were added, one (_Loves
Progress_) as _Elegie XVIII_, the second (_Going to Bed_) unnumbered
and simply headed _To his Mistress going to bed_. The text of the
poems underwent considerable alteration, some of the changes showing
a reversion to the text of _1633_, others a reference to manuscript
sources, many editorial conjecture.

The edition of 1669 is the last edition of Donne's poems which can
be regarded as in any degree an authority for the text of the poems,
because it is the last which affords evidence of access to independent
manuscript sources. All subsequent editions, till we come to those of
Grosart and Chambers, were based on these. If the editor preferred one
reading to another it was on purely internal evidence, a result of
his own decision as to which was the more correct or the preferable
reading. In 1719, for example, a new edition was brought out by the
well-known publisher Jacob Tonson. The title-page runs as over.



  POEMS

  ON SEVERAL

  OCCASIONS.

  Written by the Reverend

  _JOHN DONNE_, D.D.

  Late Dean of St. PAUL'S.

  WITH

  ELEGIES on the Author's Death.

  To this Edition is added,

  Some ACCOUNT of the LIFE
  of the AUTHOR.


  _LONDON_:

  Printed for J. TONSON, and Sold by
  W. TAYLOR at the _Ship_ in
  _Pater-noster-Row_. 1719.


This edition opens with the Epistle Dedicatory as in _1650-69_,
which is followed by an abridgement of Walton's _Life_ of Donne. An
examination of the text of the poems shows clearly that this
edition was printed from that of 1669, but is by no means a slavish
reproduction. The editor has consulted earlier editions and corrected
mistakes, but I have found no evidence either that he knew the
editions of 1633 and 1635, or had access to manuscript collections. He
very wisely dropped the Satire 'Sleep next Society', inserted for the
first time by the editor of _1669_, and certainly not by Donne. It was
reinserted by Chalmers in 1810.[12]

These, then, are the early editions of Donne's poems. But the printed
editions are not the only form in which the poems, or the great
majority of the poems, have come down to us. None of these editions,
we have seen, was issued before the poet's death. None, so far as
we can discover (I shall discuss this point more fully later), was
printed from sources carefully prepared for the press by the author,
as were for example the _LXXX Sermons_ issued in 1640. But Donne's
poems were well known to many readers before 1633. One of the earliest
published references to them occurs in 1614, in a collection of
Epigrams by Thomas Freeman, called _Runne_ | _And a great Cast_ |
_The_ | _Second Book_.


  Epigram 84.

  To Iohn Dunne.

  The _Storme_ describ'd hath set thy name afloate,
  Thy _Calme_ a gale of famous winde hath got:
  Thy _Satyres_ short, too soone we them o'relooke,
  I prethee Persius write a bigger booke.

In 1616 Ben Jonson's _Epigrammes_ were published in the first (folio)
edition of his works, and they contain the Epigram, printed in this
edition, _To Lucy, Countesse of Bedford, with Mr. Donnes Satyres_. In
these and similar cases the 'bookes' referred to are not printed but
manuscript works. Mr. Chambers has pointed out (_Poems of John Donne_,
i, pp. xxxviii-ix) an interesting reference in Drayton's _Epistle to
Reynolds_ to poems circulating thus 'by transcription'; and Anthony
Wood speaks of Hoskins having left a 'book of poems neatly written'.
In Donne's own letters we find references to his poems, his paradoxes
and problems, and even a long treatise like the [Greek: BIATHANATOS],
being sent to his friends with injunctions of secrecy, and in the case
of the last with an express statement that it had not been, and was
not to be, printed. Sometimes the manuscript collection seems to have
been made by Donne himself, or on his instruction, for a special
friend and patron like Lord Ancrum; but after he had become a
distinguished Churchman who, as Jonson told Drummond, 'repenteth
highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems,' it was his friends and
admirers who collected and copied them. An instructive reference to
the interest awakened in Donne's early poems by his fame as a preacher
comes to us from Holland. Constantine Huyghens, the Dutch poet, and
father of the more famous scientist, Christian, was a member of the
Dutch embassy in 1618, 1621-23, and again in 1624. He moved in the
best circles, and made the acquaintance of Donne ('great preacher and
great conversationalist', he calls him) at the house probably of Sir
Robert Killigrew. Writing to his friend and fellow-poet Hooft, in
1630, he says:[13]

    'I think I have often entertained you with reminiscences of
    Dr. Donne, now Dean of St. Pauls in London, and on account
    of this remunerative post (such is the custom of the English)
    held in high esteem, in still higher for the wealth of his
    unequalled wit, and yet more incomparable eloquence in the
    pulpit. Educated early at Court in the service of the great;
    experienced in the ways of the world; sharpened by study; in
    poetry, he is more famous than anyone. Many rich fruits from
    the green branches of his wit[14] have lain mellowing among
    the lovers of art, which now, when _nearly rotten with age_,
    they _are distributing_. Into my hands have fallen, by the
    help of my special friends among the gentlemen of that nation,
    some five and twenty of the best sort of medlars. Among
    our people, I cannot select anyone to whom they ought to be
    communicated sooner than to you,[15] as this poets manner of
    conceit and expression are exactly yours, Sir.'

This is a very interesting piece of evidence as to the manner in which
Donne's poems had been preserved by his friends, and the form in which
they were being distributed. There is no reference to publication. It
is doubtless due to this activity in collecting and transcribing the
poems of the now famous preacher that we owe the number of manuscript
collections dating from the years before and immediately after 1630.

Had Donne undertaken the publication of his own poems, such of these
manuscript collections as have been preserved--none of which
are autograph, and few or none of which have a now traceable
history--would have little importance for a modern editor. The most
that they could do would be to show us occasionally what changes a
poem had undergone between its earliest and its latest appearance.
But Donne's poems were not published in this way, and the manuscripts
cannot be ignored. They must have for his editor at least the
same interest and importance as the Quartos have for the editor
of Shakespeare. Whatever opinion he may hold, on _a priori_ or _a
posteriori_ grounds, regarding the superior authority of the First
Folio of Shakespeare's plays, no editor, not 'thirled to' a theory,
will deny that a right reading has been preserved for us often by the
Quartos and the Quartos only. No wise man will neglect the assistance
even of the more imperfect of them. Before therefore discussing the
relative value of the different editions, and the use that may be made
of the manuscripts, it will be well to give a short description of the
manuscripts which the present editor has consulted and used, of their
relation to one another, their comparative value, and the relation of
_some_ of them to the editions. It is, of course, possible that there
are manuscripts of Donne's poems which have not yet come to light; and
among them may be some more correctly transcribed than any which
has come into the present editor's hands. He has, however, examined
between twenty and thirty, and with the feeling recently of moving
in a circle--that new manuscripts were in part or whole duplicates of
those which had been already examined, and confirmed readings already
noted but did not suggest anything fresh.

I will divide the manuscripts into four classes, of which the first
two, it will be seen at a glance, are likely to be the most important
for the textual critic.

(1) Manuscript collections of portions of Donne's poems, e.g. the
_Satyres_. The 'booke' to which Freeman refers in the epigram quoted
above was probably a small collection of this kind, and we have seen
that Jonson sent the _Satyres_ to Lady Bedford, and Francis Davison
lent them to his brother. Of such collections I have examined the
following:


_Q._ This is a small quarto manuscript, bound up with a number of
other manuscripts, in a volume (MS. 216) in the library of Queen's
College, Oxford. It is headed _Mr. John Dunnes Satires_, and contains
the five Satires (which alone I have accepted as Donne's own) followed
by _A Storme_, _A Calme_, and one song, _The Curse_ (see p. 41), here
headed _Dirae_. As Mr. Chambers says (_Poems of John Donne_, i, p.
xxxvi), this is probably just the kind of 'booke' which Freeman read.
The poems it contains are probably those of Donne's poems which were
first known outside the circle of his intimate friends.

What seems to be a duplicate of _Q_ is preserved among the Dyce MSS.
in the South Kensington Museum. This contains the five _Satyres_, and
the _Storme_ and _Calme_. The MSS. are evidently transcribed from the
same source, but one is not a copy of the other. They agree in such
exceptional readings as e.g. _Satyres_, I. 58 'Infanta of London'; 94
'goes in the way' &c.; II. 86 'In wringing each acre'; 88 'Assurances
as bigge as glossie civill lawes'. The last suggests that the one is
a copy of the other, but again they diverge in such cases as III. 49
'Crants' _Dyce MS._; 'Crates' _Q_; and IV. 215-16 'a Topclief would
have ravisht him quite away' _Q_, where the _Dyce MS._ preserves the
normal 'a Pursevant would have ravisht him quite away'.

If manuscripts like _Q_ and the _Dyce MS._ carry us back, as they seem
to do, to the form in which the _Satyres_ circulated before any of the
later collections of Donne's poems were made (between 1620 and 1630),
they are clearly of great importance for the editor. The text of the
_Satyres_ in _1633_ and the later editions, which closely resembles
that of one of the later MS. collections, presents many variants from
the older tradition. It is a difficult matter to decide how far these
may be the corrections of the author himself, or of the collector and
editor.


_W._ This, the Westmoreland MS., belonging to Mr. Edmund Gosse, is
one of the most interesting and valuable manuscripts of Donne's poems
which have come down to us. It is bound in its original vellum, and
was written, Mr. Warner, late Egerton Librarian, British Museum,
conjectured from the handwriting, 'a little later than 1625'. This
date agrees with what one would gather from the contents, for the
manuscript contains sonnets which must have been written after 1617,
but does not contain any of the hymns written just at the close of
Donne's life.

_W_ is a much larger 'book' than _Q_. It begins with the five
_Satyres_, as that does. Leaving one page blank, it then continues
with a collection of the _Elegies_ numbered, thirteen in all, of which
twelve are Love Elegies, and one, the last, a Funeral Elegy, 'Sorrow
who to this house.'[16] These are followed by an _Epithalamion_ (that
generally called 'made at Lincolns Inn') and a number of verse letters
to different friends, some of which are not contained in any of the
old editions. So many of them are addressed to Rowland Woodward, or
members of his family, that Mr. Gosse conjectures that the manuscript
was prepared for him, but this cannot be proved.[17] The letters are
followed by the _Holy Sonnets_, these by _La Corona_, and the book
closes (as many collections of the poems do) with a bundle of prose
_Paradoxes_, followed in this case by the _Epigrams_. Both the _Holy
Sonnets_ and the _Epigrams_ contain poems not printed in any of the
old editions.

It should be noted that though _W_ as a whole may have been
transcribed as late as 1625, it clearly goes back in portions to an
earlier date. The letters are headed e.g. To Mr. H. W., To Mr. C.
B., &c. Now the custom in manuscripts and editions is to bring these
headings up to date, changing 'To Mr. H. W.' into 'To S^r Henry
Wotton'. That they bear headings which were correct at the date when
the poems were written points to their fairly direct descent from the
original copies.

If _Q_ probably represents the kind of manuscript which circulated
pretty widely, _W_ is a good representative of the kind which
circulated only among Donne's friends. Some of the poems escaped being
transcribed into larger collections and were not published till our
own day. The value of _W_ for the text of Donne's poems must stand
high. For some of the letters and religious poems it is our sole
authority. Though a unique manuscript now, it was probably not so
always, for Addl. MS. 23229 in the British Museum contains a single
folio which must have been torn from a manuscript identical with _W_.
The handwriting is slightly different, but the order of the poems and
their text prove the identity.


_A23._ This same manuscript (Addl. MS. 23229), which is a very
miscellaneous collection of fragments, presented to the Museum by John
Wilson Croker, contains two other portions of what seem to have been
similar small 'books' of Donne's poems. The one is a fragment of what
seems to have been a carefully written copy of the _Epithalamion_,
with introductory _Eclogue_, written for the marriage of the Earl of
Somerset. Probably it was one of those prepared and circulated at
the time. The other consists of some leaves from a collection of the
_Satyres_ finely written on large quarto sheets.


_G._ This is a manuscript containing only the _Metempsychosis_, or
_Progresse of the Soule_, now in the possession of Mr. Gosse, who
(_Life &c. of John Donne_, i. 141) states that it 'belonged to a
certain Bradon, and passed into the Phillipps Collection'. It is not
without errors, but its text is, on the whole, more correct than that
of the manuscript source from which the version of 1633 was set up in
the first instance.


(2) In the second class I place manuscripts which are, or aim at
being, complete collections of Donne's poems. Most of these belong to
the years between 1620 and 1633. They vary considerably in accuracy of
text, and in the care which has been taken to include only poems that
are authentic. They were made probably by professional copyists,
and some of those whose calligraphy is most attractive show that the
scribe must have paid the smallest attention to the meaning of what he
was writing.

Of those which I have examined, two groups of manuscripts seem to me
especially noteworthy, because both show that their collectors had a
clear idea of what were, and what were not, Donne's poems, and because
of the general accuracy with which the poems in one of them are
transcribed. Taken with the edition of 1633 they form an invaluable
starting-point for the determination of the canon of Donne's poems.

The first of these is represented by three manuscripts which I
have examined, _D_ (Dowden), _H49_ (Harleian MS. 4955), and _Lec_
(Leconfield).


_D_ is a small quarto manuscript, neatly written in a thin, clear hand
and in ordinary script. It was formerly in the Haslewood collection,
and is now in the possession of Professor Edward Dowden, Trinity
College, Dublin, by whose kindness I have had it by me almost all the
time that I have been at work on my edition.


_H49_ is a collection of Donne's poems, in the British Museum, bound
up with some by Ben Jonson and others. It is a large folio written
throughout apparently in the same hand. It opens with some poems and
masques by Jonson. A certain Doctor Andrewes' poems occupy folios
57-87. They are signed _Franc: Andrilla. London August 14. 1629_.
Donne's poems follow, filling folios 88 to 144_b_. Thereafter follow
more poems by Andrewes, Jonson, and others, with some prose letters by
Jonson.


_Lec._ This is a large quarto manuscript, beautifully transcribed,
belonging to Lord Leconfield and preserved at Petworth House. Many of
the manuscripts in this collection were the property of Henry, ninth
Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632), the friend who communicated the
news of Donne's marriage to his father-in-law.


These three manuscripts are obviously derived from one common source.
They contain the same poems, except that _D_ has one more than _H49_,
and both of these have some which are not in _Lec_. The order of the
poems is the same, except that _D_ and _Lec_ show more signs of
an attempt to group the poems than _H49_. The text, with some
divergences, especially on the part of _Lec_, is identical. One
instance seems to point to one of them being the source of the others.
In the long _Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington, Brother to the Countess
of Bedford_, the original copyist, after beginning l. 159 'Vertue
whose flood', had inadvertently finished with the second half of l.
161, 'were [_sic_] blowne in, by thy first breath.' This error is
found in all the three manuscripts. It may, however, have come from
the common source of this poem, and there are divergences in order and
text which make me think that they are thus derived from one common
source.

A special interest attaches to this collection, apart from the
relative excellence of its text and soundness of its canon, from the
probability that a manuscript of this kind was used for a large, and
that textually the best, part of the edition of 1633. This becomes
manifest on a close examination of the order of the poems and of their
text. Mr. Gosse has said, in speaking of the edition of 1633: 'The
poems are thrown together without any attempt at intelligent order;
neither date, nor subject, nor relation is in the least regarded.'
This is not entirely the case. Satires, Elegies, Epigrams, Songs are
grouped to some extent. The disorder which prevails is due to two
causes: (1) to the fact that the printer set up from a variety
of sources. There was no previous collected edition to guide him.
Different friends supplied collections, and of a few poems there were
earlier editions. He seems to have passed from one of these to another
as was most convenient at the moment. Perhaps some were lent him only
for a time. The differences between copies of _1633_ show that it was
prepared carefully, but emended from time to time while the printing
was actually going on. (2) The second source of the order of the poems
is their order in the manuscripts from which they were copied. Now
a comparison of the order in _1633_ with that in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_
reveals a close connexion between them, and throws light on the
composition of _1633_.

It is necessary, before instituting this comparison with _1633_, to
say a word on the order of the poems in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ themselves,
as it is not quite the same in all three. _H49_ is the most irregular,
perhaps therefore the earliest, each of the others showing efforts
to obtain a better grouping of the poems. All three begin with the
_Satyres_, of which _D_ and _Lec_ have five, _H49_ only four; but
the text of _Lec_ differs from that of the other two, agreeing
more closely with the version of _1633_ and of another group of
manuscripts. They have all, then, thirteen _Elegies_ in the same
order. After these _H49_ continues with a number of letters (_The
Storme_, _The Calme_, _To S^r Henry Wotton_, _To S^r Henry Goodyere_,
_To the Countesse of Bedford_, _To S^r Edward Herbert_, and others)
intermingled with Funeral Elegies (_Lady Markham_, _Mris Boulstred_)
and religious poems (_The Crosse_, _The Annuntiation_, _Good Friday_).
Then follows a long series of lyrical pieces, broken after _The
Funerall_ by _A Letter to the Lady Carey, and Mrs. Essex Rich_, the
_Epithalamion_ on the Palatine marriage, and an _Old Letter_ ('At once
from hence', p. 206). The lyrical pieces are then resumed, and the
collection ends with the Somerset _Eclogue_ and _Epithalamion_, the
_Letanye_, both sets of _Holy Sonnets_, a letter (_To the Countesse of
Salisbury_), and the long _Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington_.


_D_ makes an effort to arrange the poems following the _Elegies_ in
groups. The _Funeral Elegies_ come first, and two blank pages are
headed _An Elegye on Prince Henry_. The letters are then brought
together, and are followed by the religious poems dispersed in _H49_.
The lyrical poems follow piece by piece as in _H49_, and the whole
closes with the two epithalamia and the _Obsequies to the Ld.
Harrington_.

The order in _Lec_ resembles that of _H49_ more closely than that of
_D_. The mixed letters, funeral elegies, and religious poems follow
the _Elegies_ as in _H49_, but _Lec_ adds to them the two letters
(_Lady Carey_ and _The Countess of Salisbury_) and the _Letanie_ which
in _H49_ are dispersed through the lyrical pieces. _Lec_ does not
contain any of the _Holy Sonnets_, but after _The Letanie_ ten pages
are left blank, evidently intended to receive them. Thereafter, the
lyrical poems follow piece by piece as in _D_, _H49_, except that _The
Prohibition_ ('Take heed of loving mee') is omitted--a fact of some
interest when we come to consider _1633_. _Lec_ closes, like _D_, with
the epithalamia and the _Obsequies to the Lo: Harrington_.

Turning now to _1633_, we shall see that, whatever other sources the
editor of that edition used, one was a collection identical with, or
closely resembling, _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, especially _Lec_. That edition
begins with the _Progresse of the Soule_, which was _not_ derived from
this manuscript. Thereafter follow the two sets of _Holy Sonnets_, the
second set containing exactly the same number of sonnets, and in the
same order, as in _D_, _H49_, whereas other manuscripts, e.g. _B_,
_O'F_, _S_, _S96_, which will be described later, have more sonnets
and in a different order; and _W_, which agrees otherwise with _B_,
_O'F_, _S_, _S96_, adds three that are found nowhere else. The sonnets
are followed in _1633_ by the _Epigrams_, which are not in _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_, but after that the resemblance of _1633_ to _D_, _H49_, _Lec_
becomes quite striking. These manuscripts, we have seen, begin
with the _Satyres_. The edition, however, passes on at once to the
_Elegies_. Of the thirteen given in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, _1633_ prints
eight, omitting the first (_The Bracelet_), the second (_Going to
Bed_), the tenth (_Loves Warr_), the eleventh (_On his Mistris_),
and the thirteenth (_Loves Progresse_). That the editor, however,
had before him, and intended to print, the _Satyres_ and the thirteen
_Elegies_ as he found them in _his_ copy of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, is
proved by the following extract which Mr. Chambers quotes from the
Stationers' Register:

  13^o September, 1632

  John Marriot.  Entered for his copy under the hands of Sir
                 Henry Herbert and both the Wardens, a book
                 of verse and poems (the five Satires, the first,
                 second, tenth, eleventh and thirteenth Elegies
                 being excepted) and these before excepted to
                 be his, when he brings lawful authority.
                                         vi_d._

                 written by Doctor John Dunn

This note is intelligible only when compared with this particular
group of manuscripts. In others the order is quite different.

This bar--which was probably dictated by reasons of propriety, though
it is difficult to see why the first and the eleventh _Elegies_ should
have been singled out--was got over later as far as the _Satyres_ were
concerned. They are printed after all the other poems, just before
the prose letters. But by this time the copy of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ had
perhaps passed out of Marriot's hands, for the text of the _Satyres_
seems to show that they were printed, not from this manuscript, but
from one represented by another group, which I shall describe later.
This is, however, not quite certain, for in _Lec_ the version of the
_Satyres_ given is not the same as in _D_, _H49_, but is that of this
second group of manuscripts. Several little details show that of
the three manuscripts _D_, _H49_, and _Lec_ the last most closely
resembles _1633_.

Following the _Elegies_ in _1633_ come a group of letters, epicedes,
and religious poems, just as in _H49_, _Lec_ (_D_ re-groups
them)--_The Storme_, _The Calme_, _To Sir Henry Wotton_, ('Sir, more
than kisses'), _The Crosse_, _Elegie on the Lady Marckham_, _Elegie
on Mris Boulstred_ ('Death I recant'), _To Sr Henry Goodyere_, _To Mr.
Rowland Woodward_, _To Sr Henry Wootton_ ('Here's no more newes'), _To
the Countesse of Bedford_ ('Reason is our Soules left hand'), _To
the Countesse of Bedford_ ('Madam, you have refin'd'), _To Sr Edward
Herbert, at Julyers_. Here _1633_ diverges. Having got into letters
to noble and other people the editor was anxious to continue them,
and accordingly from another source (which I shall discuss later)
he prints a long series of letters to the Countess of Bedford, the
Countess of Huntingdon, Mr. T. W., and other more intimate friends
(they are 'thou', the Countesses 'you'), and Mrs. Herbert. He perhaps
returns to _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ in those to _The Lady Carey and Mrs.
Essex Riche, from Amyens_, and _To the Countesse of Salisbury_; and,
as in that manuscript, the Palatine and Essex epithalamia (to which,
however, _1633_ adds that written at Lincoln's Inn) are followed
immediately by the long _Obsequies to Lord Harrington_. Three odd
_Elegies_ follow, two of which (_The Autumnall_ and _The Picture_,
'Image of her') occur in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ in the same detached
fashion. Other manuscripts include them among the numbered _Elegies_.
_The Elegie on Prince Henry_, _Psalme 137_ (probably not by Donne),
_Resurrection, imperfect_, _An hymne to the Saints, and to Marquesse
Hamilton_, _An Epitaph upon Shakespeare_ (certainly not by Donne),
_Sapho to Philaenis_, follow in _1633_--a queerly consorted lot. The
_Elegie on Prince Henry_ is taken from the _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_ of
Joshua Sylvester (1612); the rest were possibly taken from some small
commonplace-book. This would account for the doubtful poems, the only
doubtful poems in _1633_. These past, the close connexion with our
manuscript is resumed. _The Annuntiation_ is followed, as in _H49_,
_Lec_, by _The Litanie_. Thereafter the lyrical pieces begin, as in
these manuscripts, with the song, 'Send home my long strayd eyes
to me.' This is followed by two pieces which are not in _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_,--the impressive, difficult, and in manuscripts comparatively
rare _Nocturnall upon S. Lucies day_, and the much commoner
_Witchcraft by a picture_. Thereafter the poems follow piece by piece
the order in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_[18] until _The Curse_ is reached.[19]
Then, in what seems to have been the editor's or printer's regular
method of proceeding in this edition, he laid aside the manuscript
from which he was printing the _Songs and Sonets_ to take up another
piece of work that had come to hand, viz. _An Anatomie of the World_
with _A Funerall Elegie_ and _Of the Progresse of the Soule_, which
he prints from the edition of 1625. Without apparent rhyme or reason
these long poems are packed in between _The Curse_ and _The Extasie_.
With the latter poem _1633_ resumes the songs and (with the exception
of _The Undertaking_) follows the order in _Lec_ to _The Dampe_, with
which the series in the manuscripts closes. It has been noted that in
_Lec_, _The Prohibition_ (which in _D_, _H49_ follows _Breake of day_
and precedes _The Anniversarie_) is omitted. This must have been the
case in the manuscript used for _1633_, for it is omitted at this
place and though printed later was probably not derived from this
source.

With _The Dampe_ the manuscript which I am supposing the editor to
have followed in the main probably came to an end. The poems which
follow in _1633_ are of a miscellaneous character and strangely
conjoined. _The Dissolution_ (p. 64), _A Ieat Ring sent_ (p. 65),
_Negative Love_ (p. 66), _The Prohibition_ (p. 67), _The Expiration_
(p. 68), _The Computation_ (p. 69), complete the tale of lyrics. A few
odd elegies follow ('Language thou art,' 'You that are she,' 'To
make the doubt clear') with _The Paradox_. _A Hymne to Christ, at the
Authors last going into Germany_ is given a page to itself, and is
followed by _The Lamentations of Jeremy_, _The Satyres_, and _A Hymne
to God the Father_. Thereafter come the prose letters and the _Elegies
upon the Author_.

What this comparison of the order of the poems points to is borne out
by an examination of the text. The critical notes afford the materials
for a further verification, and I need not tabulate the resemblances
at length. In _Elegie IV_, for example, ll. 7, 8, which occur in all
the other manuscripts and editions, are omitted by _1633_ and by
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_. Again, when a song has no title in _1633_ it
has frequently none in the manuscript. When there are evidently two
versions of a poem, as e.g. in _The Good-morrow_ and _The Flea_, the
version given in _1633_ is generally that of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. Later
editions often contaminate this with another version of the poem. At
the same time there are ever and again divergences between the edition
and the manuscript which are not to be ignored, and cannot always be
explained. Some are due to error in one or the other, but some point
either to divergence between the text of the editor's manuscript and
ours, or to the use by the editor of other sources as well as this.
In the fifth elegy (_The Picture_), for example, _1633_ twice seems
to follow, not _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, but another source, another group of
manuscripts which has been preserved; and in _The Aniversarie_ ll. 23,
24, the version of _1633_ is not that of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ but of
the same second group, which will be described later. On the whole,
however, it is clear that a manuscript closely resembling that now
represented by these three manuscripts supplied the editor of _1633_
with the bulk of the shorter poems, especially the older and more
privately circulated poems, the _Songs and Sonets_ and _Elegies_. When
he is not following this manuscript he draws from miscellaneous and
occasionally inferior sources.

It would be interesting if we could tell whence this manuscript was
obtained, and whether it was _a priori_ likely to be a good one. On
this point we can only conjecture, but it seems to me a fairly tenable
conjecture (though not to be built on in any way) that the nucleus of
the collection, at any rate, may have been a commonplace-book which
had belonged to Sir Henry Goodyere. The ground for this conjecture is
the inclusion in the edition of some prose letters addressed to this
friend, one in Latin and seven in English. There is indeed also one
addressed to the Countess of Bedford; but in the preceding letter to
Goodyere Donne says, 'I send you, with this, a letter which I sent to
the Countesse. It is not my use nor duty to do so. But for your having
it, there were but two consents, and I am sure you have mine, and you
are sure you have hers.' He goes on to refer to some verses which are
the subject of the letter to the Countesse. There can be no doubt that
the letter printed is the letter sent to Goodyere. The Burley MS. (see
Pearsall-Smith's _Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton_, Oxford, 1907)
gives us a good example of how a gentleman in the seventeenth century
dealt with his correspondence. That contains, besides various letters,
as of Sidney to Queen Elizabeth on the Anjou marriage, and other
matter which recurs in commonplace-books, a number of poems and
letters, sent to Wotton by his friends, including Donne, and
transcribed by one or other of Wotton's secretaries. The letters have
no signatures appended, which is the case with the letters in the
1633 edition of Donne's poems. Wotton and Goodyere did not need to be
reminded of the authors, and perhaps did not wish others to know. The
reason then for the rather odd inclusion of nine prose letters in a
collection of poems is probably, that the principal manuscript used
by the printer was an 'old book'[20] which had belonged to Sir Henry
Goodyere and in which his secretaries had transcribed poems and
letters by Donne. Goodyere's collection of Donne's poems would not
necessarily be exhaustive, but it would be full; it would not like the
collections of others include poems that were none of Donne's; and its
text would be accurate, allowing for the carelessness, indifference,
and misunderstandings of secretaries and copyists.

After _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, the most carefully made collection of Donne's
poems is one represented now by four distinct manuscripts:

_A18._ Additional MS. 18646, in the British Museum.

_N._ The Norton MS. in Harvard College Library, Boston, of which an
account is given by Professor Norton in a note appended to the Grolier
Club edition.

_TCC._ A manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

_TCD._ A large manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin,
containing two apparently quite independent collections of poems--the
first a collection of Donne's poems with one or two additional poems
by Sir John Roe, Francis Beaumont, Sir Thomas Overbury, and Corbet;
the second a quite miscellaneous collection, put together some time in
the thirties of the seventeenth century, and including some of Donne's
poems. It is only the first of these which belongs to the group in
question.

These four manuscripts are closely connected with one another, but a
still more intimate relation exists between _A18_ and _TCC_ on the
one hand, _N_ and _TCD_ on the other. _N_ and _TCD_ are the larger
collections; _A18_ and _TCC_ contain each a smaller selection from the
same body of poems. Indeed it would seem that _N_ is a copy of _TCD,
A18_ of _TCC_.


_TCD_, to start with it, is a beautifully written collection
of Donne's poems beginning with the _Satyres_, passing on to an
irregularly arranged series of elegies, letters, lyrics and epicedes,
and closing with the _Metempsychosis_ or _Progresse of the Soule_ and
the _Divine Poems_, which include the hymns written in the last years
of the poet's life. _N_ has the same poems, arranged in the same
order, and its readings are nearly always identical with those of
_TCD_, so far as I can judge from the collation made for me. The
handwriting, unlike that of _TCD_, is in what is known as secretary
hand and is somewhat difficult to read. What points to the one
manuscript being a copy of the other is that in 'Sweetest Love, I do
not go' the scribe has accidentally dropped stanza 4, by giving its
last line to stanza 3, and passing at once to the fifth stanza. Both
manuscripts make this mistake, whereas _A18_ and _TCC_ contain the
complete poem. In other places _N_ and _TCD_ agree in their readings
where _A18_ and _TCC_ diverge. If the one is a copy of the other,
_TCD_ is probably the more authoritative, as it contains some marginal
indications of authorship which _N_ omits.


_TCC_ is a smaller manuscript than _TCD_, but seems to be written
in the same clear, fine hand. It does not contain the _Satyres_, the
Elegy (XI. in this edition) _The Bracelet_, and the epistles _The
Storme_ and _The Calme_, with which _N_ and _TCD_ open. It looks,
however, as though the sheets containing these poems had been torn
out. Besides these, however, _TCC_ omits, without any indication
of their being lost, an _Elegie to the Lady Bedford_ ('You that are
she'), the Palatine Epithalamion, a long series of letters[21]
which in _N_, _TCD_ follow that _To M.M.H._ and precede _Sapho to
Philaenis_, the elegies on Prince Henry and on Lord Harington, and
_The Lamentations of Jeremy_. There are occasional differences in
the grouping of the poems; and _TCC_ does not contain some poems by
Beaumont, Corbet, Sir John Roe, and Sir Thomas Overbury which are
found in _N_ and _TCD_. In _TCD_ these, with the exception of that
by Beaumont, are carefully initialled, and therefore not ascribed to
Donne. In _N_ these initials are in some cases omitted; and some of
the poems have found their way into editions of Donne's poems.

Presumably _TCC_ is the earlier collection, and when _TCD_ was made,
the copyist was able to add fresh poems. It is clear, however, that
in the case of even those poems which the two have in common, the
one manuscript is not simply a copy of the others. There are several
divergences, and the mistake referred to above, in 'Sweetest Love, I
do not go', is not made in _TCC_. Strangely enough, a similar mistake
is made by _TCC_ in transcribing _Loves Deitie_ and is reproduced in
_A18_.


_A18_, indeed, would seem to be a copy of _TCC_. It is not in the same
handwriting, but in secretary hand. It omits the opening _Satyres_,
&c., as does _TCC_, but there is no sign of excision. Presumably,
then, the copy was made after these poems were, if they ever were,
torn out of _TCC_. Wherever _TCC_ diverges from _TCD_, _A18_ follows
_TCC_.[22]

Whoever was responsible for this collection of Donne's poems, it was
evidently made with care, at least as regards the canon. Very few
poems that are not certainly by Donne are included, and they are
correctly initialled. The only uninitialled doubtful poems are _A
Paradox_, 'Whoso terms Love a fire,' which in all the four manuscripts
follows 'No Lover saith, I love', and Beaumont's letter to the
Countess of Bedford, which begins, 'Soe may my verses pleasing be.' In
_N_, _TCD_ this follows Donne's letter to the same lady, 'You that are
she and you.' It is regrettable that the text of the poems is not
so good as the canon is pure. The punctuation is careless. There are
numerous stupid blunders, and there are evidences of editing in the
interest of more regular metre or a more obvious meaning. At times,
however, it would seem that the copyist is following a different
version of a poem or poems (e.g. the _Satyres_) from that given
in _D_, _H49_, and other manuscripts, and is embodying corrections
perhaps made by the author himself. It is quite credible that Donne,
in sending copies of his poems at different times to different people,
may have revised and amended them. It is quite clear, as my notes will
show, that of certain poems more than one version (each correct in
itself) was in circulation.

Was _A18_, _N_, _TC_, or a manuscript resembling it one of the sources
of the edition of _1633_? In part, I think, it was. The most probable
case at first sight is that of the _Satyres_. These, we have seen,
Marriot was at first prohibited from printing. Otherwise they would
have followed the _Epigrams_, and immediately preceded the _Elegies_.
As it is, they come after all the other poems; they are edited with
some cautious dashes; and their text is almost identical with that of
_N_, _TCD_. In the first satire the only difference between _1633_
and _N_, _TCD_ occurs in l. 70, where _N_, _TCD_, with all the other
manuscripts read--

              Sells for a little state his libertie;

_1633_,

              Sells for a little state high libertie;

'high' is either a slip or an editorial emendation. There are other
cases of similar editing, not all of which it is possible to correct
with confidence; but a study of the textual notes will show that in
general _1633_ follows the version preserved in _N_, _TCD_, and also
in _L74_ (of which later), when the rest of the manuscripts present an
interestingly different text. But strangely enough this version of
the _Satyres_ is also in _Lec_. This is the feature in which that
manuscript diverges most strikingly from _D_ and _H49_. Moreover in
some details in which _1633_ differs from _A18_, _N_, _TC_ it agrees
with _Lec_. It is possible therefore that the _Satyres_ were printed
from the same manuscript as the majority of the poems.

Again in the _Letters_ not found in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ there is a close
but not invariable agreement between the text of _1633_ and that of
this group of manuscripts. Those letters, which follow that _To Sir
Edward Herbert_, are printed in _1633_ in the same order as in
this edition (pp. 195-226), except that the group of short letters
beginning at p. 203 ('All haile sweete Poet') is here amplified and
rearranged from _W_. Now in _A18_, _N_, _TC_ these letters are also
brought together (_N_, _TCD_ adding some which are not in _A18_,
_TCC_), and the special group referred to, of letters to intimate
friends, are arranged in exactly the same order as in _1633_; have the
same headings, the same omissions, and the same accidental linking
of two poems. In the other letters, to the Countesses of Bedford,
Huntingdon, Salisbury, &c., the textual notes will show some striking
resemblances between the edition and the manuscripts. In the difficult
letter, 'T'have written then' (p. 195), _1633_ follows _N_, _TCD_
where _O'F_ gives a different and in some details more correct text.
In 'This twilight of two yeares' (p. 198) the strange reading of
l. 35, 'a prayer prayes,' is obviously due to _N_, _TCD_, where 'a
praiser prayes' has accidentally but explicably been written 'a prayer
praise'. In the letter _To the Countesse of Huntingdon_ (p. 201) the
_1633_ version of ll. 25, 26 is a correct rendering of what _N_, _TCD_
give wrongly:

  Shee guilded us, But you are Gold; and shee
  Vs inform'd, but transubstantiates you.

On the other hand there are some differences, as e.g. in the placing
of ll. 40-2 in 'Honour is so sublime' (p. 218), which make it
impossible to affirm that these poems were taken direct from
this group of manuscripts as we know them, without alteration or
emendation. The _Progresse of the Soule_ or _Metempsychosis_, as
printed in _1633_, must have been taken in the first instance from
this manuscript. In both the manuscripts and the edition, at l. 83 of
the poem a blank space is left after 'did'; in both, l. 137 reads,
'To see the Prince, and soe fill'd the waye'; in both, 'kinde' is
substituted for 'kindle' at l. 150; in l. 180 the 'uncloth'd child' of
1633 is explicable as an emendation of the 'encloth'd' of _A18_,
_N_, _TC_; and similarly the 'leagues o'rpast', l. 296 of _1633_, is
probably due to the omission of 'many' before 'leagues' in _A18_, _N_,
_TC_--'o'rpast' supplies the lost foot. It is clear, however, from a
comparison of different copies that as _1633_ passed through the press
this poem underwent considerable correction and alteration; and in
its final printed form there are errors which I have been enabled to
correct from _G_.

The paraphrase of _Lamentations_, and the _Epithalamion made at
Lincolns Inn_ (which is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_) are other poems
which show, in passages where there are divergent readings, a tendency
to follow the readings of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, though in neither of
these poems is the identity complete. It is further noteworthy that
to several poems unnamed in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ the editor of _1633_ has
given the title which these bear in _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, and _TCD_, as
though he had access to both the collections at the same time.

These two groups of manuscripts, which have come down to us, thus seem
to represent the two principal sources of the edition of _1633_. What
other poems that edition contains were derived either from previously
printed editions (The _Anniversaries_ and the _Elegy on Prince Henry_)
or were got from more miscellaneous and less trustworthy sources.


A third manuscript collection of Donne's poems is of interest because
it seems very probable that it or a similar collection came into the
hands of the printer before the second edition of 1635 was issued. A
considerable number of the errors, or inferior readings, of the
later editions seem to be traceable to its influence. At least it is
remarkable how often when _1635_ and the subsequent editions depart
from _1633_ and the general tradition of the manuscripts they have
the support of this manuscript and this manuscript alone. This is the
manuscript which I have called

_O'F_, because it was at one time in the possession of the Rev. T. R.
O'Flaherty, of Capel, near Dorking, a great student of Donne, and
a collector. He contributed several notes on Donne to _Notes and
Queries_. I do not know of any more extensive work by him on the
subject.

This manuscript has been already described by Mr. R. Warwick Bond in
the Catalogue of Ellis and Elvey, 1903. It is a large but somewhat
indiscriminate collection, made apparently with a view to publication.
The title-page states that it contains 'The Poems of D. J. Donne (not
yet imprinted) consisting of

    Divine Poems, beginning Pag.          1
    Satyres                              57
    Elegies                             113
    Epicedes and Obsequies              161
    Letters to severall personages      189
    Songs and Sonnets                   245
    Epithalamions                       317
    Epigrams                            337
    With his paradoxes and problems     421
  finished this 12 of October 1632.'

The reader will notice how far this arrangement agrees with, how far
it differs from, that adopted in 1635.

Of the twenty-eight new poems, genuine, doubtful, and spurious, added
in _1635_, this manuscript contains twenty, a larger number than I
have found in any other single manuscript. An examination of the text
of these does not, however, make it certain that all of them were
derived from this source or from this source only. The text, for
example, of the _Elegie XI. The Bracelet_, in _1635_, is evidently
taken from a manuscript differing in important respects from _O'F_ and
resembling closely _Cy_ and _P_. _Elegie XII_, also, _His parting
from her_, can hardly have been derived from _O'F_, as _1635_ gives
an incomplete, _O'F_ has an entire, version of the poem. In others,
however, e.g. _Elegie XIII. Julia_; _Elegie XVI. On his Mistris_;
_Satyre_, 'Men write that love and reason disagree,' it will be seen
that the text of 1635 agrees more closely with _O'F_ than with any of
the other manuscripts cited. The second of these, _On his Mistris_, is
a notable case, and so are the four _Divine Sonnets_ added in _1635_.
Most striking of all is the case of the _Song_, probably not by Donne,
'Soules joy now I am gone,' where the absurd readings 'Words'
for 'Wounds' and 'hopes joyning' for 'lipp-joyning' (or perhaps
'lipps-joyning') must have come from this source. One can hardly
believe that two independent manuscripts would perpetrate two such
blunders. Taken with the many changes from the text of _1633_ in which
_1635_ has the support of _O'F_, one can hardly doubt that among the
fresh manuscript collections which came into the hands of the printer
of _1635_ (often only to mislead him) _O'F_ was one.

Besides the twenty poems which passed into _1635_, _O'F_ attributes
some eighteen other poems to Donne, of which few are probably
genuine.[23] Of the other manuscript collections I must speak more
shortly. There is no evidence that any of them was used by the
seventeenth-century editors.


_B_ is a handsome, vellum-bound manuscript belonging to the Earl of
Ellesmere's library at Bridgewater House. I am, I think, the first
editor who has examined it. The volume bears on the fly-leaf
the autograph signature ('J. Bridgewater') of the first Earl of
Bridgewater, the son of Donne's early patron, Elizabeth's Lord Keeper
and later Lord Chancellor. On the title-page 'Dr Donne' is written in
the same hand. John Egerton, it will be remembered, was, like Donne, a
volunteer in Essex's expedition to the Azores in 1597. In 1599 he and
his elder brother Thomas were in Ireland, where the latter was killed,
leaving John to be his father's heir. The book-number, inscribed
on the second leaf, is in the handwriting of the second Earl of
Bridgewater, the Elder Brother of Milton's _Comus_. The manuscript has
thus interesting associations, and links with Donne's earliest patron.
I had hoped that it might prove, being made for those who had known
Donne all his life, an exceptionally good manuscript, but can hardly
say that my expectations were fulfilled. It was probably put together
in the twenties, because though it contains the _Holy Sonnets_ it
does not contain the hymns written at the close of the poet's life. It
resembles _O'F_, _S_, _S96_, and _P_, rather than either of the first
two collections which I have described, _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_,
_N_, _TC_, in that it includes with Donne's poems a number of poems
not by Donne,[24] but most of them apparently by his contemporaries,
Sir John Roe, Francis Beaumont, Jonson, and other of the wits of the
first decade of the seventeenth century, the men who collaborated in
writing witty poems on Coryat, or _Characters_ in the style of Sir
Thomas Overbury. In the case of some of these initials are added, and
a later, but not modern, hand has gone over the manuscript and denied
or queried Donne's authorship of others. Textually also _B_ tends to
range itself, especially in certain groups of poems, as the _Satyres_
and _Holy Sonnets_, with _O'F_, _S96_, _W_ when these differ from _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_, _N_, _TC_. In such cases the tradition which
it represents is most correctly preserved in _W_. In a few poems the
text of _B_ is identical with that of _S96_. On the whole _B_ cannot
be accepted in any degree as an independent authority for the text.
It is important only for its agreements with other manuscripts, as
helping to establish what I may call the manuscript tradition, in
various passages, as against the text of the editions.

Still less valuable as an independent textual authority is


_P_. This manuscript is a striking example of the kind of collections
of poems, circulating in manuscript, which gentlemen in the
seventeenth century caused to be prepared, and one cannot help
wondering how they managed to understand the poems, so full is the
text of gross and palpable errors. _P_ is a small octavo manuscript,
once in the Phillipps collection, now in the possession of Captain C.
Shirley Harris, Oxford. On the cover of brown leather is stamped the
royal arms of James I. On p. 1 is written, '1623 me possidet Hen.
Champernowne de Dartington in Devonia, generosus.' Two other members
of this old, and still extant, Devonshire family have owned the
volume, as also Sir Edward Seymour (Knight Baronett) and Bridgett
Brookbrige. The poems are written in a small, clear hand, and in
Elizabethan character. Captain Harris has had a careful transcript of
the poems made, and he allowed me after collating the original with
the transcript to keep the latter by me for a long time.

The collection is in the nature of a commonplace-book, and includes
a prose letter to Raleigh, and a good many poems by other poets than
Donne, but the bulk of the volume is occupied with his poems,[25] and
most of the poems are signed 'J. D. Finis.' The date of the collection
is between 1619, when the poem _When he went with the Lo Doncaster_
was written, and 1623, the date on the title-page. Neither for text
nor for canon is _P_ an authority, but the very carelessness
with which it is written makes its testimony to certain readings
indisputable. It makes no suggestion of conscious editing. In certain
poems its text is identical with that of _Cy_, even to absurd errors.
It sometimes, however, supports readings which are otherwise confined
to _O'F_ and the later editions of the poem, showing that these may be
older than 1632-5.


_Cy._ The Carnaby MS. consists of one hundred folio pages bound in
flexible vellum, and is now in the Harvard College Library, Boston.
It is by no means an exhaustive collection; the poems are chaotically
arranged; the text seems to be careless, and the spelling unusually
erratic; but most of the poems it contains are genuine.[26] This
manuscript is not as a whole identical with _P_, but some of the poems
it contains must have come from that or from a common source.


_JC._ The John Cave MS. is a small collection of Donne's poems now
in the possession of Mr. Elkin Matthews, who has kindly allowed me
to collate it. It was formerly in Mr. O'Flaherty's possession. The
original possessor had been a certain John Cave, and the volume opens
with the following poem, written, it will be seen, while Donne was
still alive:

  Oh how it joys me that this quick brain'd Age
  can nere reach thee (Donn) though it should engage
  at once all its whole stock of witt to finde
  out of thy well plac'd words thy more pure minde.
  Noe, wee are bastard Aeglets all; our eyes
  could not endure the splendor that would rise
  from hence like rays from out a cloud. That Man
  who first found out the Perspective which can
  make starrs at midday plainly seen, did more
  then could the whole Chaos of Arte before
  or since; If I might have my wish 't shuld bee
  That Man might be reviv'd againe to see
  If hee could such another frame, whereby
  the minde might bee made see as farr as th' eye.
  Then might we hope to finde thy sense, till then
  The Age of Ignorance I'le still condemn.

  IO. CA.
    Jun. 3. 1620.

The manuscript is divided into three parts, the first containing the
five _Satyres_, the _Litany_ and the _Storme_ and _Calme_. The second
consists of _Elegies_ and _Epigrammes_ and the third of _Miscellanea,
Poems, Elegies, Sonnets by the same Author_. The elegies in the second
part are, as in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_, thirteen in number.
Their arrangement is that of _W_, and, like _W_, _JC_ gives _The
Comparison_, which, _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ do not, but drops _Loves
Progress_, which the latter group contains. The text of these poems is
generally that of _W_, but here and throughout _JC_ abounds in errors
and emendations. It contains one or two poems which were published
in the edition of 1650, and which I have found in no other manuscript
except _O'F_. In these _JC_ supplies some obvious emendations. The
poems in the third part are very irregularly arranged. This is the
only manuscript, professing to be of Donne's poems, which contains the
elegy, 'The heavens rejoice in motion,' which the younger Donne
added to the edition of 1650. It is not a very correct, but is an
interesting manuscript, with very few spurious poems. At the other end
of the manuscript from Donne's, are poems by Corbet.

What seems to be practically a duplicate of _JC_ is preserved in the
Dyce Collection at the South Kensington Museum. It belonged originally
to a certain 'Johannes Nedlam e Collegio Lincolniense' and is dated
1625. Cave's poem 'Upon Doctor Donne's Satyres' is inscribed and the
contents and arrangement of the volume are identical with those of
_JC_ except that one poem, _The Dampe_, is omitted, probably by an
oversight, in the Dyce MS. After my experience of _JC_ I did not think
it necessary to collate this manuscript. It was from it that Waldron
printed some of the unpublished poems of Donne and Corbet in _A
Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry_ (1802).


_H40_ and _RP31_, i.e. Harleian MS. 4064 in the British Museum,
and Rawlinson Poetical MS. 31, in the Bodleian Library, are two
manuscripts containing a fairly large number of Donne's poems
intermingled with poems by other and contemporary authors. A note on
the fly-leaf of _RP31_ declares that the manuscript contains 'Sir John
Harringtons poems written in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth', which is
certainly not an accurate description.[27] Some of the poems must have
been written as late as 1610, and they are by various authors,
Wotton, Jonson, Sir Edward Herbert, Sir John Roe, Donne, Beaumont,
and probably others, but names of authors are only occasionally given.
Each manuscript starts with the words 'Prolegomena Quaedam', and the
poem, 'Paynter while there thou sit'st.' The poems follow the same
order in the two manuscripts, but of poems not by Donne _RP31_
contains several which are not in _H40_, and, on the other hand,
of poems by Donne _H40_ inserts at various places quite a number,
especially of songs, which are not in _RP31_. The latter is, in short,
a miscellaneous collection of Elizabethan and early Jacobean poems,
including several of Donne's; the former, the same collection in which
Donne's poems have become by insertion the principal feature. I have
cited the readings of _H40_ throughout; those of _RP31_ only when
they differ from _H40_, or when I wish to emphasize their agreement.
Wherever derived from, the poems are generally carefully and
intelligently transcribed. They contain some unpublished poems of
Jonson, Sir Edward Herbert, and probably Daniel.


_L74._ The Lansdowne MS. 740, in the British Museum, is an interesting
collection of Donne's mainly earlier and secular poems, along with
several by contemporaries.[28] The text of the _Satyres_ connects
this collection with _A18_, _N_, _TC_, but it is probably older, as
it contains none of the _Divine Poems_ and no poem written later
than 1610. Its interest, apart from the support which it lends to the
readings of other manuscripts, centres in the evidence it affords as
to the authorship of some of the unauthentic poems which have been
ascribed to Donne.


_S._ The Stephens MS., now in the Harvard College Library, Boston, is
the manuscript on which Dr. Grosart based his edition (though he does
not reproduce it either consistently or with invariable accuracy) in
1873--an unhappy choice even were it legitimate to adopt any
single manuscript in preference to the edition of 1633. Of all the
manuscripts I have examined (I know it only through the collation
made for me and from Dr. Grosart's citations) it is, I think, without
exception the worst, the fullest of obvious and absurd blunders. There
are too in it more evidences of stupid editing than in _P_, whose
blunders are due to careless copying by eye or to dictation, and
therefore more easy to correct.

The manuscript is dated, at the end, '19th July 1620,' and contains
no poems which are demonstrably later than this date, or indeed
than 1610. As, however, it contains several of the _Divine Poems_,
including _La Corona_, but _not_ the _Holy Sonnets_, it affords a
valuable clue to the date of these poems,--of which more elsewhere.
The collection is an ambitious one, and an attempt has been made at
classification. Six Satires are followed by twenty-seven Elegies (one
is torn out) under which head love and funeral elegies are included,
and these by a long series of songs with the _Divine Poems_
interspersed. Some of the songs, as of the elegies, are not by
Donne.[29]


_S96._ Stowe MS. 961 is a small folio volume in the British Museum,
containing a collection of Donne's poems very neatly and prettily
transcribed. It cannot have been made before 1630 as it contains all
the three hymns written during the poet's last illnesses. Indeed it is
the only manuscript which I have found containing a copy of the _Hymne
to God, my God in my Sicknes_. It is a very miscellaneous collection.
Three satires are followed by the long obsequies to the Lord
Harington, and these by a sequence of Letters, Funeral Elegies,
Elegies, and Songs intermingled. It is regrettable that so
well-written a manuscript is not more reliable, but its text is poor,
its titles sometimes erroneous, and its ascriptions inaccurate.[30]

(3) In the third class I place manuscripts which are not primarily
collections of Donne's poems but collections of seventeenth-century
poems among which Donne's are included. It is not easy to draw a hard
and fast line between this class and the last because, as has been
seen, most of the manuscripts at the end of the last list contain
poems which are not, or probably are not, by Donne. Still, in these
collections Donne's work predominates, and the tendency of the
collector is to bring the other poems under his aegis. Initials like
J. R., F. B., J. H. disappear, or J. D. takes their place. In the case
of these last collections this is not so. Poems by Donne are included
with poems which the collector assigns to other wits. Obviously this
class could be made to include many different kinds of collections,
ranging from those in which Donne is a prominent figure to those
which include only one or two of his poems. But such manuscripts have
comparatively little value and no authority for the textual critic,
though they are not without importance for the student of the canon
of Donne's poetry. I shall mention only one or two, though I have
examined a good many more.


_A25._ Additional MS. 25707, in the British Museum, is a large and
interesting collection, written in several different hands, of early
seventeenth-century poems, Jacobean and Caroline. It contains an
_Elegie_ by Henry Skipwith on the death of King Charles I, but most
of the poems are early Jacobean, and either the bulk of the collection
was made before this and some other poems were inserted, or it is
derived from older collections. Indeed, most of the poems by Donne
were probably got from some older collection or collections not
unlike some of those already described. They consist of twelve elegies
arranged in the same order as in _JC_, _W_, and to some extent _O'F_,
which is not the order of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _1633_; a number of
_Songs_ with some _Letters_ and _Obsequies_ following one another
sometimes in batches, at times interspersed with poems by other
writers; the five _Satyres_, separated from the other poems and
showing some evidences in the text of deriving from a collection like
_Q_ or its duplicate in the Dyce collection.[31] The only one of the
_Divine Poems_ which _A25_ contains is _The Crosse_. No poem which can
be proved to have been written later than 1610 is included.

The poems by Donne in this manuscript are generally, but not always,
initialled J. D., and are thus distinguished from others by F. B., H.
K., N. H., H. W., Sr H. G., T. P., T. G., G. Lucy., No. B., &c. The
care with which this has been done lends interest to those poems which
are here ascribed to Donne but are not elsewhere assigned to him.
_A25_ (with its partial duplicate _C_) is the only manuscript which
attributes to 'J. D.' the Psalm, 'By Euphrates flowery side,' that was
printed in _1633_ and all the subsequent editions.[32]


_C._ A strange duplicate of certain parts of _A25_ is a small
manuscript in the Cambridge University Library belonging to the
Baumgartner collection. It is a thin folio, much damaged by damp, and
scribbled over. A long poem, _In cladem Rheensen_ ('Verses upon the
slaughter at the Isle of Rhees'), has been used by the cataloguer to
date the manuscript, but as this has evidently been inserted when the
whole was bound, the rest of the contents may be older or younger. The
collection opens with three of the _Elegies_ contained in _A25_. It
then omits eleven poems which are in _A25_, and continues with twenty
_Songs_ and _Obsequies_, following the order of _A25_ but omitting the
intervening poems. Some nine more poems are given, following the order
of _A25_, but many are omitted in _C_ which are found in _A25_, and
the poems in _C_ are often only fragments of the whole poems in _A25_.
Evidently _C_ is a selection of poems either made directly from _A25_,
or from the collection of Donne's poems (with one or two by Beaumont
and others) which _A25_ itself drew from.


_A10._ Additional MS. 10309, in the British Museum, is a little octavo
volume which was once the property of Margaret Bellasis, probably
the eldest daughter of Thomas, first Lord Fauconberg. It is a very
miscellaneous collection of prose (Hall's _Characterismes of Vice_)
and verse. Of Donne's undoubted poems there are very few, but there
is an interesting group of poems by Roe or others (the authors are not
named in the manuscript) which are frequently found with Donne's, and
some of which have been printed as his.[33]


_M._ This is a manuscript bought by Lord Houghton and now in the
library of the Marquis of Crewe. It is entitled

  A Collection of

  Original Poetry

  written about the time of

  Ben: Jonson

  qui ob. 1637

A later hand, probably Sir John Simeon's, has added 'Chiefly in
the Autograph of Dr. Donne Dean of St. Pauls', but this is quite
erroneous. It is a miscellaneous collection of poems by Donne, Jonson,
Pembroke, Shirley, and others, with short extracts from Fletcher and
Shakespeare. Donne's are the most numerous, and their text generally
good, but such a collection can have no authority. It is important
only as supporting readings and ascriptions of other manuscripts. I
cite it seldom.


_TCD_ (_Second Collection_).[34] The large manuscript volume in
Trinity College, Dublin, contains two collections of poems (though
editors have spoken of them as one) of very different character and
value. The first I have already described. It occupies folios 1 to
292. On folio 293 a new hand begins with the song, 'Victorious Beauty
though your eyes,' and from that folio to folio 565 (but some folios
are torn out) follows a long and miscellaneous series of early
seventeenth-century poems. There are numerous references to
Buckingham, but none to the Long Parliament or the events which
followed, so that the collection was probably put together before
1640. The poems are ascribed to different authors in a very haphazard
and untrustworthy fashion. James I is credited with Jonson's epigram
on the Union of the Crowns; Donne's _The Baite_ is given to Wotton;
and Wotton's 'O Faithless World' to Robert Wisedom. Probably there
is more reliance to be put on the ascriptions of later and Caroline
poems, but for the student of Donne and early Jacobean poetry the
collection has no value. Some of Donne's poems occur, and it is
noteworthy that the version given is often a different one from that
occurring in the first part of the volume. Probably two distinct
collections have been bound up together.

Another collection frequently cited by Grosart, but of little
value for the editor of Donne, is the _Farmer-Chetham MS._, a
commonplace-book in the Chetham Library, Manchester, which has been
published by Grosart. It contains one or two of Donne's poems, but
its most interesting contents are the 'Gulling Sonnets' of Sir John
Davies, and some poems by Raleigh, Hoskins, and others. Nothing could
be more unsafe than to ascribe poems to Donne, as Grosart did, because
they occur here in conjunction with some that are certainly his.

A similar collection, which I have not seen, is the
_Hazlewood-Kingsborough MS._, as Dr. Grosart called it. To judge from
the analysis in Thorpe's Catalogue, 1831, this too is a miscellaneous
anthology of poems written by, or at any rate ascribed to,
Shakespeare, Jonson, Bacon, Raleigh, Donne, and others. There is no
end to the number of such collections, and it is absurd to base a text
upon them.


The _Burley MS._, to which I refer once or twice, and which is a
manuscript of great importance for the editor of Donne's letters,
is not a collection of poems. It is a commonplace-book of Sir Henry
Wotton's in the handwriting of his secretaries. Amid its varied
contents are some letters, unsigned but indubitably by Donne; ten of
his _Paradoxes_ with a covering letter; and a few poems of Donne's
with other poems. Of the last, one is certainly by Donne (_H. W. in
Hibernia belligeranti_), and I have incorporated it. The others seem
to me exceedingly doubtful. They are probably the work of other
wits among Wotton's friends. I have printed a selection from them in
Appendix C.[35]


Of the manuscripts of the first two classes, which alone could put
forward any claim to be treated as independent sources of the text
of an edition of Donne's poems, it would be impossible, I think, to
construct a complete genealogy. Different poems, or different groups
of poems in the same manuscript, come from different sources, and
to trace each stream to its fountain-head would be a difficult task,
perhaps impossible without further material, and would in the end
hardly repay the trouble, for the difficulties in Donne's text are
not of so insoluble a character as to demand such heroic methods.
The interval between the composition of the poems and their first
publication ranges from about forty years at the most to a year or
two. There is no case here of groping one's way back through centuries
of transmission. The surprising fact is rather that so many of the
common errors of a text preserved and transmitted in manuscript should
have appeared so soon, that the text and canon of Donne's poems should
present an editor in one form or another with all the chief problems
which confront the editor of a classical or a mediaeval author.

The manuscripts fall into three main groups (1) _D_, _H49_, _Lec_.
These with a portion of _1633_ come from a common source. (2) _A18_,
_N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. These also come from a single stream and some parts
of _1633_ follow them. _L74_ is closely connected with them, at least
in parts. (3) _A25_, _B_, _Cy_, _JC_, _O'F_, _P_, _S_, _S96_, _W_.
These cannot be traced in their entirety to a single head, but in
certain groups of poems they tend to follow a common tradition which
may or may not be that of one or other of the first two groups. Of the
_Elegies_, for example, _A25_, _JC_, _O'F_ and _W_ transcribe twelve
in the same order and with much the same text. Again, _B_, _O'F_,
_S96_, and _W_ have taken the _Holy Sonnets_ from a common source,
but _O'F_ has corrected or altered its readings by a reference to a
manuscript resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, while _W_ has a more correct
version than the others of the common tradition, and three sonnets
which none of these include. Generally, whenever _B_, _O'F_, _S96_,
and _W_ derive from the same source, _W_ is much the most reliable
witness.

Indeed, our first two groups and _W_ have the appearance of being
derived from some authoritative source, from manuscripts in the
possession of members of Donne's circle. All the others suggest, by
the headings they give to occasional poems, their misunderstanding
of the true character of some poems, their erroneous ascriptions of
poems, that they are the work of amateurs to whom Donne was not known,
or who belonged to a generation that knew Donne as a divine, only
vaguely as a wit.

These being the materials at our command, the question is, how are we
to use them to secure as accurate a text as possible of Donne's poems,
to get back as close as may be to what the poet wrote himself. The
answer is fairly obvious, though it could not be so until some effort
had been made to survey the manuscript material as a whole.

Of the three most recent editors--the first to attempt to obtain a
true text--of Donne's poems, each has pursued a different plan.
The late Dr. Grosart[36] proceeded on a principle which makes it
exceedingly difficult to determine accurately what is the source of,
or authority for, any particular reading he adopted. He printed now
from one manuscript, now from another, but corrected the errors of
the manuscript by one or other of the editions, most often by that of
1669. He made no estimate of the relative value of either manuscripts
or editions, nor used them in any systematic fashion.

The Grolier Club edition[37] was constructed on a different principle.
For all those poems which _1633_ contains, that edition was accepted
as the basis; for other poems, the first edition, whichever that
might be. The text of _1633_ is reproduced very closely, even when the
editor leans to the acceptance of a later reading as correct. Only
one or two corrections are actually incorporated in the text. But the
punctuation has been freely altered throughout, and no record of these
changes is preserved in the textual notes even when they affect the
sense. In more than one instance the words of _1633_ are retained
in this edition but are made to convey a different meaning from that
which they bear in the original.

The edition of Donne's poems prepared by Mr. E. K. Chambers[38] for
the _Muses Library_ was not based, like Dr. Grosart's, on a casual
use of individual manuscripts and editions, nor like the Grolier Club
edition on a rigid adherence to the first edition, but on an eclectic
use of all the seventeenth-century editions, supplemented by an
occasional reference to one or other of the manuscript collections,
either at first hand or through Dr. Grosart.

Of these three methods, that of the Grolier Club editor is, there can
be no doubt, the soundest. The edition of 1633 comes to us, indeed,
with no _a priori_ authority. It was not published, or (like the
sermons) prepared for the press[39] by the author; nor (as in the case
of the first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays) was it issued by
the author's executors.

But if we apply to _1633_ the _a posteriori_ tests described by
Dr. Moore in his work on the textual criticism of Dante's _Divina
Commedia_, if we select a number of test passages, passages where
the editions vary, but where one reading can be clearly shown to be
intrinsically the more probable, by certain definite tests,[40] we
shall find that _1633_ is, taken all over, far and away superior to
any other single edition, and, I may add at once, to any _single_
manuscript.

Moreover, any careful examination of the later editions, of their
variations from _1633_, and of the text of the poems which they print
for the first time, shows clearly that some method more trustworthy
than individual preference must be found if we are to distinguish
between those of their variations which have, and those which have
not, some authority behind them; those which are derived from a
fresh reference to manuscript sources, and those which are due to
carelessness, to misunderstanding, or to unwarrantable emendation.
Apart from some such sifting, an edition of Donne based, like Mr.
Chambers', on an eclectic use of the editions is exactly in the same
position as would be an edition of Shakespeare based on an eclectic
use of the Folios, helped out by a quite occasional and quite eclectic
reference to a quarto. A plain reprint of _1633_ like Alford's (of
such poems as he publishes) has fewer serious errors than an eclectic
text.

It is here that the manuscripts come to our aid. To take, indeed, any
single manuscript, as Dr. Grosart did, and select this or that reading
from it as seems to you good, is not a justifiable procedure. This is
simply to add to the editions one more possible source of error. There
is no single manuscript which could with any security be substituted
for _1633_. Our analysis of that edition has made it appear probable
that a manuscript resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ was the source of
a large part of its text. But it would be very rash to prefer _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_ as a whole to _1633_.[41] It corrects some errors in that
edition; it has others of its own. Even _W_, which has a completer
version of some poems than _1633_, in these poems makes some mistakes
which _1633_ avoids.

If the manuscripts are to help us it must be by collating them, and
establishing what one might call the agreement of the manuscripts
whether universal or partial, noting in the latter case the
comparative value of the different groups. When we do this we get at
once an interesting result. We find that in about nine cases out of
ten the agreement of the manuscripts is on the side of those readings
of _1633_ which are supported by the tests of intrinsic probability
referred to above,[42] and on the other hand we find that sometimes
the agreement of the manuscripts is on the side of the later editions,
and that in such cases there is a good deal to be said for the later
reading.[43]

The first result of a collation of the manuscripts is thus to
vindicate _1633_, and to provide us with a means of distinguishing
among later variants those which have, from those which have not,
authority. But in vindicating _1633_ the agreement of the manuscripts
vindicates itself. If _B_'s evidence is found always or most often to
support _A_, a good witness, on those points on which _A_'s evidence
is in itself most probably correct, not only is _A_'s evidence
strengthened but _B_'s own character as a witness is established, and
he may be called in when _A_, followed by _C_, an inferior witness,
has gone astray. In some cases the manuscripts _alone_ give us what
is obviously the correct reading, e.g. p. 25, l. 22, 'But wee no more'
for 'But now no more'; p. 72, l. 26, 'his first minute' for 'his short
minute'. These are exceptionally clear cases. There are some where, I
have no doubt, my preference of the reading of the manuscripts to that
of the editions will not be approved by every reader. I have adopted
no rigid rule, but considered each case on its merits. All the
circumstances already referred to have to be weighed--which reading
is most likely to have arisen from the other, what is Donne's usage
elsewhere, what Scholastic or other 'metaphysical' dogma underlies the
conceit, and what is the source of the text of a particular poem in
_1633_.

For my analysis of this edition has thrown light upon what of itself
is evident--that of some poems or groups of poems _1633_ provides a
more accurate text than of others, viz. of those for which its source
was a manuscript resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, but possibly more
correct than any one of these, or revised by an editor who knew the
poems. But in printing some of the poems, e.g. _The Progresse of the
Soule_, a number of the letters to noble ladies and others,[44] the
_Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inne_, _The Prohibition_, and a few
others, for which _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ was not available, _1633_ seems
to have followed an inferior manuscript, _A18_, _N_, _TC_ or one
resembling it. In these cases it is possible to correct _1633_ by
comparing it with a better single manuscript, as _G_ or _W_, or group
of manuscripts, as _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. Sometimes even a generally
inferior manuscript like _O'F_ seems to offer a better text of an
individual poem, at least in parts, for occasionally the correct
reading has been preserved in only one or two manuscripts. Only _W_
among eleven manuscripts which I have recorded (and I have examined
others) preserves the reading in the _Epithalamion made at Lincolns
Inne_, p. 143, l. 57:

  His steeds nill be restrain'd

--which is quite certainly right. Only three manuscripts have the, to
my mind, most probably correct reading in _Satyre I_, l. 58, p. 147:

  The Infanta of London;

and only two, _Q_ and the _Dyce MS._ which is its duplicate, the
tempting and, I think, correct reading in _Satyre IV_, l. 38, p. 160:

  He speaks no language.

Lastly, there are poems for which _1633_ is not available. The
authenticity of these will be discussed later. Their text is generally
very corrupt, especially of those added in _1650_ and _1669_. Here
the manuscripts help us enormously. With their aid I have been able to
give an infinitely more readable text of the fine _Elegie XII_, 'Since
she must go'; the brilliant though not very edifying _Elegies XVII_,
_XVIII_, and _XIX_; as well as of most of the poems in the Appendixes.
The work of correcting some of these had been begun by Dr. Grosart and
Mr. Chambers, but much was still left to do by a wider collation. Dr.
Grosart was content with one or two generally inferior manuscripts,
and Mr. Chambers mentions manuscripts which time or other reasons did
not allow him to examine, or he could not have been content to leave
the text of these poems as it stands in his edition.

One warning which must be borne in mind when making a comparison
of alternative readings has been given by Mr. Chambers, and my
examination of the manuscripts bears it out: 'In all probability most
of Donne's poems existed in several more or less revised forms, and
it was sometimes a matter of chance which form was used for printing a
particular edition.' The examination of a large number of manuscripts
has shown that it is not probable, but certain, that of some poems
(e.g. _The Flea_, _A Lecture upon the Shadow_, _The Good-Morrow_,
_Elegie XI. The Bracelet_) more than one distinct version was in
circulation. Of the _Satyres_, too, many of the variants represent,
I can well believe, different versions of the poems circulated by the
poet among his friends. And the same may possibly be true of variants
in other poems. Our analysis of _1633_ has shown us what versions
were followed by that edition. What happened in later editions was
frequently that the readings of two different versions were combined
eclectically. In the present edition, when it is clear that there
were two versions, my effort has been to retain one tradition pure,
recording the variants in the notes, even when in individual cases
the reading of the text adopted seemed to me inferior to its rival,
provided it was not demonstrably wrong.

In view of what has been said, the aim of the present edition may be
thus briefly stated:

(1) To restore the text of _1633_ in all cases where modern editors
have abandoned or disguised it, if there is no evidence, internal
or external, to prove its error or inferiority; and to show, in the
textual notes, how far it has the general support of the manuscripts.

(2) To correct _1633_ when the meaning and the evidence of the
manuscripts point to its error and suggest an indubitable or highly
probable emendation.

(3) To correct throughout, and more drastically, by help of the
manuscripts when such exist, the often carelessly and erroneously
printed text of those poems which were added in _1635_, _1649_,
_1650_, and _1669_.

(4) By means of the commentary to vindicate or defend my choice of
reading, and to elucidate Donne's thought by reference to his other
works and (but this I have been able to do only very partially) to his
scholastic and other sources.

As regards punctuation, it was my intention from the outset to
preserve the original, altering it only (_a_) when, judged by its own
standards, it was to my mind wrong--stops were displaced or dropped,
or the editor had misunderstood the poet; (_b_) when even though
defensible the punctuation was misleading, tested frequently by the
fact that it had misled editors. In doing this I frequently made
unnecessary changes because it was only by degrees that I came to
understand all the subtleties of older punctuation and to appreciate
some of its nuances. A good deal of my work in the final revision has
consisted in restoring the original punctuation. In doing this I
have been much assisted by the study of Mr. Percy Simpson's work on
_Shakespearian Punctuation_. My punctuation will not probably in the
end quite satisfy either the Elizabethan purist, or the critic who
would have preferred a modernized text. I will state the principles
which have guided me.

I do not agree with Mr. Chambers that the punctuation, at any rate
of _1633_, is 'exceptionally chaotic'. It is sometimes wrong, and in
certain poems, as the _Satyres_, it is careless. But as a rule it
is excellent on its own principles. Donne, indeed, was exceptionally
fastidious about punctuation and such typographical details as capital
letters, italics, brackets, &c. The _LXXX Sermons_ of 1640 are a model
of fine rhetorical and rhythmical pointing, pointing which inserted
stops to show you where to stop. The sermons were not printed in his
lifetime, but we know that he wrote them out for the press, hoping
that they might be a source of income to his son.

But Donne did not prepare his poems for the press. Their punctuation
is that of the manuscript from which they were taken, revised by the
editor or printer. One can often recognize in _D_ the source of a stop
in _1633_, or can see what the pointing and use of capitals would have
been had Donne himself supervised the printing. The printer's man was
sometimes careless; the printer or editor had prejudices of his own
in certain things; and Donne is a difficult and subtle poet. All these
circumstances led to occasional error.

The printer's prejudice was one which Donne shared, but not, I
think, to quite the same extent. Compared, for example, with the
_Anniversaries_ (printed in Donne's lifetime) _1633_ shows a fondness
for the semicolon,[45] not only within the sentence, but separating
sentences, instead of a full stop, when these are closely related in
thought to one another. In an argumentative and rhetorical poet like
Donne the result is excellent, once one grows accustomed to it, as
is the use of commas, where we should use semicolons, within the
sentence, dividing co-ordinate clauses from one another. On the other
hand this use of semicolons leads to occasional ambiguity when one
which separates two sentences comes into close contact with another
within the sentence. For example, in _Satyre III_, ll. 69-72,
how should an editor, modernizing the punctuation, deal with the
semicolons in ll. 70 and 71? Should he print thus?--

                              But unmoved thou
  Of force must one, and forc'd but one allow;
  And the right. Ask thy father which is shee;
  Let him ask his.

With trifling differences that is how Chambers and the Grolier Club
editor print them. But the lines might run, to my mind preferably--

                              But unmoved thou
  Of force must one, and forc'd but one allow.
  And the right; ask thy father which is shee,
  Let him ask his.

'And the right' being taken as equivalent to 'And as to the right'.
One might even print--

  And the right? Ask, &c.

One of the semicolons is equivalent to a little more than a comma, the
other to a little less than a full stop.

Another effect of this finely-shaded punctuation is that the question
is constantly forced upon an editor, is it correct? Has the printer
understood the subtler connexion of Donne's thought, or has he placed
the semicolon where the full stop should be, the comma where the
semicolon? My solution of these difficulties has been to face and try
to overcome them. I have corrected the punctuation where it seemed
to me, on its own principles, definitely wrong; and I have, but more
sparingly, amended the pointing where it seemed to me to disguise the
subtler connexions of Donne's thought or to disturb the rhetoric and
rhythm of his verse paragraphs. In doing so I have occasionally taken
a hint from the manuscripts, especially _D_ and _W_, which, by the
kindness of Mr. Gosse and Professor Dowden, I have had by me while
revising the text. But if I occasionally quote these manuscripts in
support of my punctuation, it is only with a view to showing that I
have not departed from the principles of Elizabethan pointing. I do
not quote them as authoritative. On questions of punctuation none
of the extant manuscripts could be appealed to as authorities. Their
punctuation is often erratic and chaotic, when it is not omitted
altogether. Finally, I have recorded every change that I have made.
A reader should be able to gather from the text and notes combined
exactly what was the text of the first edition of each poem, whether
it appeared in _1633_ or a subsequent edition, in every particular,
whether of word, spelling, or punctuation. My treatment of the last
will not, as I have said, satisfy every reader. I can only say that I
have given to the punctuation of each poem as much time and thought as
to any part of the work. In the case of Donne this is justifiable.
I am not sure that it would be in the case of a simpler, a less
intellectual poet. It would be an easier task either to retain the
old punctuation and leave a reader to correct for himself, or to
modernize. With all its refinements, Elizabethan punctuation erred
by excess. A reader who gives thought and sympathy to a poem does not
need all these commands to pause, and they frequently irritate and
mislead.


    [Footnote 1: _Englands Parnassus; or The Choysest Flowers
    of our Moderne Poets: with their Poetical Comparisons.
    Descriptions of Bewties, Personages, Castles, Pallaces,
    Mountaines, Groves, Seas, Springs, Rivers etc. Whereunto
    are annexed Other Various Discourses both Pleasaunt and
    Profitable. Imprinted at London, For N. L. C. B. And T. H._
    1600.]

    [Footnote 2: _A Poetical Rhapsody Containing, Diuerse Sonnets,
    Odes, Elegies, Madrigalls, and other Poesies, both in Rime and
    Measured Verse. Never yet published._ &c. 1602. The work was
    republished in 1608, 1611, and 1621. It was reprinted by Sir
    Samuel Egerton Brydges in 1814, by Sir Harris Nicolas in 1826,
    and by A. H. Bullen in 1890.

    _Englands Helicon_, printed in 1600, is a collection of songs
    almost without exception in pastoral guise. The _Eclogue_
    introducing the Somerset _Epithalamion_ is Donne's only
    experiment in this favourite convention. Donne's friend
    Christopher Brooke contributed an _Epithalamion_ to this
    collection, but not until 1614. It is remarkable that Donne's
    poem _The Baite_ did not find its way into _Englands Helicon_
    which contains Marlowe's song and two variants on the theme.
    In 1600 Eleazar Edgar obtained a licence to publish _Amours by
    J. D. with Certen Oyr._ (i.e. other) _sonnetes by W. S._ Were
    Donne and Shakespeare to have appeared together? The volume
    does not seem to have been issued.]

    [Footnote 3: e.g. Among Drummond of Hawthornden's
    miscellaneous papers; in Harleian MS. 3991; in a manuscript in
    Emmanuel College, Cambridge.]

    [Footnote 4: So on the first page, and the opening sentences
    of the letter defend the use of the word 'Understanders'.
    Nevertheless the second and third pages have the heading,
    running across from one to the other, 'The Printer to the
    Reader.']

    [Footnote 5: 'Will: Marshall sculpsit' implies that Marshall
    executed the plate from which the whole frontispiece is taken,
    including portrait and poem, not that he is responsible for
    the portrait itself. To judge from its shape the latter would
    seem to have been made originally from a medallion. Marshall,
    the _Dictionary of National Biography_ says, 'floruit c.
    1630,' so could have hardly executed a portrait of Donne in
    1591. Mr. Laurence Binyon, of the Print Department of the
    British Museum, thinks that the original may have been by
    Nicholas Hilyard (see II. p. 134) whom Donne commends in _The
    Storme_. The Spanish motto suggests that Donne had already
    travelled.

    The portrait does not form part of the preliminary matter,
    which consists of twelve pages exclusive of the portrait. It
    was an insertion and is not found in all the extant copies.
    The paper on which it is printed is a trifle smaller than the
    rest of the book.]

    [Footnote 6: One or two copies seem to have got into
    circulation without the _Errata_. One such, identical in other
    respects with the ordinary issue, is preserved in the library
    of Mr. Beverley Chew, New York. I am indebted for this
    information to Mr. Geoffrey Keynes, of St. Bartholomew's
    Hospital, who is preparing a detailed bibliography of Donne's
    works.]

    [Footnote 7: Some such arrangement may have been intended by
    Donne himself when he contemplated issuing his poems in 1614,
    for he speaks, in a letter to Sir Henry Goodyere (see II.
    pp. 144-5), of including a letter in verse to the Countess
    of Bedford 'amongst the rest to persons of that rank'. The
    manuscripts, especially the later and more ambitious, e.g.
    _Stephens_ and _O'Flaherty_, show similar groupings; and in
    _1633_, though there is no consistent sequence, the poems
    fall into irregularly recurring groups. The order of the poems
    within each of these groups in _1633_ is generally retained in
    _1635_. In the _1633_ arrangement there were occasional errors
    in the placing of individual poems, especially _Elegies_,
    owing to the use of that name both for love poems and for
    funeral elegies or epicedes. These were sometimes corrected in
    later editions.

    Modern editors have dealt rather arbitrarily and variously
    with the old classification. Grosart shifted the poems about
    according to his own whims in a quite inexplicable fashion.
    The Grolier Club edition preserves the groups and their
    original order (except that the _Epigrams_ and _Progresse of
    the Soule_ follow the _Satyres_), but corrects some of the
    errors in placing, and assigns to their relevant groups the
    poems added in _1650_. Chambers makes similar corrections and
    replacings, but he further rearranges the groups. In his first
    volume he brings together--possibly because of their special
    interest--the _Songs and Sonets_, _Epithalamions_, _Elegies_,
    and _Divine Poems_, keeping for his second volume the _Letters
    to Severall Personages_, _Funerall Elegies_, _Progresse of the
    Soul_, _Satyres_, and _Epigrams_. There is this to be said
    for the old arrangement, that it does, as Walton indicated,
    correspond generally to the order in which the poems were
    written, to the succession of mood and experience in Donne's
    life. In the present edition this original order has been
    preserved with these modifications: (1) In the _Songs and
    Sonets_, _The Flea_ has been restored to the place which it
    occupied in _1633_; (2) the rearrangement of the misplaced
    _Elegies_ by modern editors has been accepted; (3) their
    distribution of the few poems added in _1650_ (in two sheets
    bound up with the body of the work) has also been accepted,
    but I have placed the poem _On Mr. Thomas Coryats Crudities_
    after the _Satyres_; (4) two new groups have been inserted,
    _Heroical Epistles_ and _Epitaphs_. It was absurd to
    class _Sappho to Philaenis_ with the _Letters to Severall
    Personages_. At the same time it is not exactly an _Elegy_.
    There is a slight difference again between the _Funerall
    Elegy_ and the _Epitaph_, though the latter term is sometimes
    loosely used. Ben Jonson speaks of Donne's _Epitaph on Prince
    Henry_. (5) The _Letter, to E. of D. with six holy Sonnets_
    has been placed before the _Divine Poems_. (6) The _Hymne to
    the Saints, and to Marquesse Hamylton_ has been transferred
    to the _Epicedes_. (7) Some poems have been assigned to an
    Appendix as doubtful.]

    [Footnote 8: The edition of 1633 contained one Latin, and
    seven English, letters to Sir Henry Goodyere, with one letter
    to the Countess of Bedford, a copy of which had been sent
    to Goodyere. To these were added in _1635_ a letter in Latin
    verse, _De libro cum mutuaretur_ (see p. 397), and four prose
    letters in English, one _To the La. G._ written from _Amyens_
    in February, 1611-2, and three _To my honour'd friend G.
    G. Esquier_, the first dated April 14, 1612, the two last
    November 2, 1630, and January 7, 1630.]

    [Footnote 9: In the copy of the 1633 edition belonging to the
    Library of Christ Church, Oxford, which has been used for the
    present edition, and bears the name 'Garrard att his quarters
    in ϑermyte' (_perhaps_ Donne's friend George Garrard or
    Gerrard: see Gosse: _Life and Letters &c._ i. 285), are some
    lines, signed J. V., which seem to imply that the writer had
    some hand in the publication of the poems; but the reference
    may be simply to his gift:

      An early offer of him to yo^r sight
      Was the best way to doe the Author right
      My thoughts could fall on; w^ch his soule w^ch knew
      The weight of a iust Prayse will think't a true.
      Our commendation is suspected, when
      Wee Elegyes compose on sleeping men,
      The Manners of the Age prevayling so
      That not our conscience wee, but witts doe show.
      And 'tis an often gladnes, that men dye
      Of unmatch'd names to write more easyly.
      Such my religion is of him; I hold
      It iniury to have his merrit tould;
      Who (like the Sunn) is righted best when wee
      Doe not dispute but shew his quality.
      Since all the speech of light is less than it.
      An eye to that is still the best of witt.
      And nothing can express, for truth or haste
      So happily, a sweetnes as our taste.
      W^ch thought at once instructed me in this
      Safe way to prayse him, and yo^r hands to kisse.

                Affectionately y^rs
                      J. V.
            tu longe sequere et vestigia
            semper adora
                Vaughani

    The name at the foot of the Latin line, scribbled at the
    bottom of the page, seems to identify J. V. with a Vaughan,
    probably John Vaughan (1603-74) who was a Christ Church man.
    In 1630 (_D.N.B._) he was a barrister at the Inner Temple, and
    a friend of Selden. He took an active part in politics later,
    and in 1668 was created Sir John Vaughan and appointed Chief
    Justice of the Common Pleas.]

    [Footnote 10: I am inclined to believe that Henry King, the
    poet, and later Bishop of Chichester, assisted the printer.
    The 1633 edition bears more evidence of competent editing
    by one who knew and understood Donne's poems than any later
    edition. See p. 255.]

    [Footnote 11: Professor Norton (Grolier Club edition, i,
    p. xxxviii) states that the _Epistle Dedicatory_ and the
    _Epigram_ by Jonson are omitted in this edition. This is an
    error, perhaps due to the two pages having been torn out of
    or omitted in the copy he consulted. They are in the Christ
    Church, Oxford, copy which I have used.]

    [Footnote 12: In 1779 Donne's poems were included in Bell's
    _Poets of Great Britain_. The poems were grouped in an
    eccentric fashion and the text is a reprint of _1719_. In
    1793 Donne's poems were reissued in a _Complete Edition of the
    Poets of Great Britain_, published by Arthur Arch, London, and
    Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh, under the editorship of Robert
    Anderson. The text and arrangement of the poems show that this
    is a reprint of Bell's edition. The same is true of the text,
    so far as I have checked it, in Chalmers's _English Poets_,
    vol. v, 1810. But in the arrangement of the poems the editor
    has recurred to the edition of 1669, and has reprinted some
    poems from that source. Southey printed selections from
    Donne's poems in his _Select Works of the British Poets from
    Chaucer to Jonson_ (1831). The text is that of _1669_. In
    1839 Dean Alford included some of Donne's poems in his very
    incomplete edition of the _Works of Donne_. He printed these
    from a copy of the 1633 edition.

    There were two American editions of the poems before the
    Grolier Club edition. Donne's poems were included in _The
    Works of the British Poets with Lives of their Authors_, by
    Ezekiel Sanford, Philadelphia, 1819. The text is based on the
    edition of 1719. A complete and separate edition was published
    at Boston in 1850. This has an eclectic text, but the editor
    has relied principally on the editions after _1633_. Variants
    are sparingly and somewhat inaccurately recorded.

    In 1802 F. G. Waldron printed in his _Shakespeare Miscellany_
    'Two Elegies of Dr. Donne not in any edition of his Works'. Of
    these, one, 'Loves War,' is by Donne. The other, 'Is Death so
    great a gamster,' is by Lord Herbert of Cherbury. In
    1856-7 Sir John Simeon printed in the _Miscellanies_ of the
    Philobiblon Society several 'Unpublished Poems of Donne'. Very
    few of them are at all probably poems of Donne.

    Of Grosart's edition (1873), the Grolier Club edition (1895),
    and Chambers's edition (1896), a full account will be given
    later.]

    [Footnote 13: Huyghens sent some translations with the letter.
    He translated into Dutch (retaining the original metres,
    except that Alexandrines are substituted for decasyllabics)
    nineteen pieces in all. An examination of these shows that the
    text he used was a manuscript one, the readings he translates
    being in more than one instance those of the manuscript, as
    opposed to the printed, tradition. In a note which he prefixed
    to the translations when he published them many years later
    in his _Korenbloemen_ (1672) he states that Charles I, having
    heard of his intention to translate Dr. Donne, 'declared he
    did not believe that anyone could acquit himself of that task
    with credit'--an interesting testimony to the admiration
    which Charles felt for the poetry of Donne. A copy of the 1633
    edition now in the British Museum is said to have belonged to
    the King, and to bear the marks of his interest in particular
    passages. Huyghens's comment on Charles's criticism shows what
    it was in the English language which most struck a foreigner
    speaking a tongue of a purer Germanic strain: 'I feel sure
    that he would not have passed so absolute a sentence had he
    known the richness of our language, a moderate command of
    which is sufficient to enable one to render the thoughts of
    peoples of all countries with ease and delight. From these I
    must, however, except the English; for their language is all
    languages; and as it pleases them, Greek and Latin become
    plain English. But since _we_ do not thus admit foreign words
    it is easy to understand in what difficulty we find ourselves
    when we have to express in a pure German speech, _Ecstasis_,
    _Atomi_, _Influentiae_, _Legatum_, _Alloy_, and the like. Set
    these aside and the rest costs us no great effort.'

    At the end of his life Huyghens wrote a poem of reminiscences,
    _Sermones de Vita Propria_, in which he recalls the impression
    that Donne had left upon his mind:

      Voortreffelyk Donn, o deugdzaam leeraer, duld
      Dat ik u bovenal, daar'k u bij voorkeur noeme,
      Als godlijk Dichter en welsprekend Reednaer roeme,
      Uit uwen gulden mond, 'tzij ge in een vriendenzaal
      Of van den kansel spraakt, klonk louter godentaal,
      Wier nektar ik zoo vaak met harte wellust proefde.

    'Suffer me, all-surpassing Donne, virtuous teacher, to name
    you first and above all; and sing your fame as god-like poet
    and eloquent preacher. From your golden mouth, whether in
    the chamber of a friend, or in the pulpit, fell the speech
    of Gods, whose nectar I drank again and again with heartfelt
    joy.'

    Vondel did not share the enthusiasm of Huyghens and Hooft.]

    [Footnote 14: That is, many poems of his early years.]

    [Footnote 15: Tot verschiedene reizen meen ik U. E.
    onderhouden te hebben met de gedachtenisse van Doctor Donne,
    tegenwoordigh Deken van St Pauls tot Londen, ende, door dit
    rijckelick beroep, volgens 't Engelsch gebruyck, in hooghen
    ansien, in veel hooger door den rijckdom van sijn gadeloos
    vernuft ende noch onvergelijckerer welsprekentheit op stoel.
    Eertijts ten dienst van de grooten ten hove gevoedt, in de
    werelt gewortelt, in de studien geslepen, in de dictkonst
    vermaerdt, meer als yemand. Van die groene tacken hebben veel
    weelderige vruchten onder de liefhebbers leggen meucken, diese
    nu bynaer verrot van ouderdom uytdeylen, my synde voor den
    besten slag van mispelen ter hand geraeckt by halve vijf en
    twintig, door toedoen van eenighe mijne besondere Heeren ende
    vrienden van die natie. Onder de onze hebb ick geene konnen
    uytkiesen, diese voor U. E. behoorden medegedeelt te werden,
    slaende deze dichter ganschelijck op U. E. manieren van invall
    ende uitspraeck.]

    [Footnote 16: This is not the only manuscript in which this
    poem appears among the _Elegies_ following immediately on that
    entitled _The Picture_, 'Here take my picture, though I bid
    farewell.' It is thus placed in _1633_. The adhesion of two
    poems in a number of otherwise distinct manuscripts may mean,
    I think, that they were written about the same time.]

    [Footnote 17: There are, however, grounds for the conjecture
    besides the contents. The Westmoreland MS. was secured, Mr.
    Gosse writes me, when the library of the Earls of Westmoreland
    was disposed of, about the year 1892. 'The interest of this
    library was that it had not been disturbed since the early
    part of the seventeenth century. With the Westmoreland MS.
    of Donne's Poems was attached a very fine copy of Donne's
    _Pseudomartyr_, which contained, in what was certainly Donne's
    handwriting, the words "Ex dono authoris: Row: Woodward" and
    a motto in Spanish "De juegos el mejor es con la hoja". There
    can be no doubt, I think, that these two books belonged to
    Rowland Woodward and were given him by Donne.' But is it
    likely that after 1617 Donne would give even to a friend a
    manuscript containing the most reprehensible of his earlier
    _Elegies_ and the _Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inn_? It
    seems to me more probable that the manuscript contains two
    distinct collections, made at different times. The one is
    a transcript from an early collection, quite probably
    Woodward's, containing Satires, Elegies, and one Epithalamion.
    To this the Divine Poems have been added.]

    [Footnote 18: With the grouping of _1635_ I have adopted
    generally its order within the groups, but the reader will see
    quite easily what is the order of the _Songs_ in _1633_ and
    in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, if he will turn to the Contents and,
    beginning at _The Message_ (p. 43), will follow down to _A
    Valediction: forbidding mourning_ (p. 49). He must then turn
    back to the beginning and follow the list down till he comes
    to _The Curse_ (p. 41), and then resume at _The Extasie_ (p.
    51). If the seven poems, _The Message_ to _A Valediction_:
    _forbidding mourning_, were brought to the beginning, the
    order of the _Songs and Sonets_ in _1635-69_ would be the same
    as in _1633_.

    The editor of _1633_ began a process, which was carried on
    in _1635_, of naming poems unnamed in the manuscripts, and
    re-naming some that already had titles. The textual notes
    will give full details regarding the names, and will show that
    frequently a poem unnamed in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ remains unnamed
    in _1633_.]

    [Footnote 19: There is one exception to this which I had
    overlooked. In _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, _The Undertaking_ (p. 10)
    comes later, following _The Extasie_.]

    [Footnote 20: When in 1614 Donne contemplated an edition of
    his poems he wrote to Goodyere: 'By this occasion I am made a
    Rhapsoder of mine own rags, and that cost me more diligence
    to seek them, than it did to make them. This made me aske to
    borrow that old book of you,' &c. _Letters_ (1651), p. 197.]

    [Footnote 21: Five are to the Countess of Bedford--'Reason
    is', 'Honour is', 'You have refin'd', 'To have written then',
    and 'This Twy-light'. One is to the Countess of Huntingdon,
    'Man to Gods image'; one to the Countess of Salisbury, 'Fair,
    great and good'; and one to Lady Carey, 'Here where by all.']

    [Footnote 22: In citing this collection I use _TC_ for the two
    groups _TCC_, _TCD_.]

    [Footnote 23: Additional lines to the _Annuntiation and
    Passion_, 'The greatest and the most conceald impostor', 'Now
    why should Love a footeboys place despise', 'Believe not him
    whom love hath made so wise', 'Pure link of bodies where
    no lust controules', 'Whoso terms love a fire', _Upon his
    scornefull Mistresse_ ('Cruel, since that thou dost not fear
    the curse'), _The Hower Glass_ ('Doe but consider this small
    Dust'), 'If I freely may discover', _Song_ ('Now you
    have kill'd me with your scorn'), 'Absence, heare thou my
    protestation', _Song_ ('Love bred of glances'), 'Love if a god
    thou art', 'Greate Lord of Love how busy still thou art', 'To
    sue for all thy Love and thy whole hart'.]

    [Footnote 24: 'Believe not him whom love hath made so wise',
    _On the death of Mris Boulstred_ ('Stay view this stone'),
    _Against Absence_ ('Absence, heare thou my protestation'),
    'Thou send'st me prose and rhyme', _Tempore Hen: 3_ ('The
    state of Fraunce, as now it stands'), _A fragment_ ('Now why
    shuld love a Footboyes place despise'), _To J. D. from Mr. H.
    W._ ('Worthie Sir, Tis not a coate of gray,' see II. p.
    141), 'Love bred of glances twixt amorous eyes', _To a Watch
    restored to its mystres_ ('Goe and count her better houres'),
    'Deare Love continue nyce and chast', 'Cruell, since thou
    doest not feare the curse', _On the blessed virgin Marie_ ('In
    that, ô Queene of Queenes').]

    [Footnote 25: Of 128 items in the volume 99 are by Donne, and
    I have excluded some that might be claimed for him. The poems
    certainly not by Donne are 'Wrong not deare Empresse of my
    heart', 'Good folkes for gold or hire', 'Love bred of glances
    twixt amorous eyes', 'Worthy Sir, Tis not a coat of gray'
    (here marked 'J. D'.), 'Censure not sharply then' (marked 'B.
    J.'), 'Whosoever seeks my love to know', 'Thou sendst me prose
    and rimes' (see II. p. 166), 'An English lad long wooed
    a lasse of Wales', 'Marcella now grown old hath broke her
    glasse', 'Pretus of late had office borne in London', _To
    his mistresse_ ('O love whose power and might'), _Her answer_
    ('Your letter I receaved'), _The Mar: B. to the Lady Fe.
    Her._ ('Victorious beauty though your eyes')--a poem generally
    attributed to the Earl of Pembroke, _A poem_ ('Absence heare
    my protestation'), 'True love findes witt but hee whom witt
    doth move', Earle of Pembroke 'If her disdain', Ben Ruddier
    'Till love breeds love', 'Good madam Fowler doe not truble
    mee', 'Oh faithlesse world; and the most faithlesse part, A
    womans hart', 'As unthrifts greeve in straw for their pawn'd
    beds' (marked 'J. D.'), 'Why shuld not pilgrimes to thy body
    come' (marked 'F. B.'), _On Mrs. Bulstreed_, 'Mee thinkes
    death like one laughing lies', 'When this fly liv'd shee us'd
    to play' (marked 'Cary'), _The Epitaph_ ('Underneath this
    sable hearse'), a couple of long heroical epistles (with notes
    appended) entitled _Sir Philip Sidney to the Lady Penelope
    Rich_ and _The Lady Penelope Rich to Sir Philipe Sidney_. The
    latter epistle after some lines gives way quite abruptly to a
    different poem, a fragment of an elegy, which I have printed
    in Appendix C, p. 463.]

    [Footnote 26: The exceptions are one poor epigram:

      Oh silly John surprised with joy
      For Joy hath made thee silly
      Joy to enjoy thy sweetest Jone
      Jone whiter than the Lillie;

    and two elegies, generally assigned to F. Beaumont, 'I may
    forget to eate' and 'As unthrifts greive in straw'.]

    [Footnote 27: The note may point to some connexion of the MS.
    with the Harington family. The MS. contains an unusually large
    number of poems addressed to the Countess of Bedford, and
    ascribes, quite probably, the Elegy 'Death be not proud' to
    the Countess herself.]

    [Footnote 28: The poems not by Donne are _A Satire: To Sr
    Nicholas Smith_, 1602 ('Sleep next society'); Sir Thomas
    Overbury's 'Each woman is a Breefe of Womankind' and his
    epitaph 'The spann of my daies measurd, here I rest'; a poem
    headed _Bash_, beginning 'I know not how it comes to pass';
    _Verses upon Bishop Fletcher who married a woman of France_
    ('If any aske what Tarquin ment to marrie'); _Fletcher Bishop
    of London_ ('It was a question in Harroldrie'); 'Mistres
    Aturney scorning long to brooke'; 'Wonder of Beautie, Goddesse
    of my sence'; 'Faire eyes doe not thinke scorne to read
    of Love'; two sonnets apparently by Sir Thomas Roe; six
    consecutive poems by Sir John Roe (see pp. 401-6, 408-10);
    'Absence heare thou,'; _To the Countess of Rutland_ ('Oh may
    my verses pleasing be'); _To Sicknesse_ ('Whie disease dost
    thou molest'); 'A Taylor thought a man of upright dealing';
    'Unto that sparkling wit, that spirit of fier'; 'There hath
    beene one that strove gainst natures power.']

    [Footnote 29: _Satyra Sexta_ ('Sleepe next Society'), _Elegia
    Undecima_ ('True Love findes wit'), _Elegia Vicesima_ ('Behold
    a wonder': see Grosart ii. 249), _Elegia Vicesima Secunda_
    ('As unthrifts mourne'), _Elegia vicesima septima_ ('Deare
    Tom: Tell her'), _To Mr. Ben: Jonson_ 9º _Novembris 1603_ ('If
    great men wronge me'), _To Mr. Ben: Jonson_ ('The state
    and mens affairs'), 'Deare Love, continue nice and chaste',
    'Wherefore peepst thou envious Daye', 'Great and good, if she
    deride me', _To the Blessed Virgin Marie_ ('In that ô Queene
    of Queenes'), 'What if I come to my Mistresse bed', 'Thou
    sentst to me a heart as sound', 'Believe your glasse', _A
    Paradox of a Painted Face_ ('Not kisse! By Jove I will').]

    [Footnote 30: The poems not by Donne are not numerous, but
    they are assigned to him without hesitation. They are 'As
    unthrifts grieve in straw', 'Thou sentst me Prose', 'Dear
    Love continue', 'Madam that flea', _The Houre Glass_ ('Doe
    but consider this small dust'), _A Paradox of a Painted Face_
    ('Not kiss, by Jove'), 'If I freely may discover', 'Absence
    heare thou', 'Love bred of glances'.]

    [Footnote 31: Note the readings I. 58 'The Infanta of London',
    IV. 38 'He speaks no language'.]

    [Footnote 32: The other poems here ascribed to J. D. are _To
    my Lo: of Denbrook_ (_sic._, i.e. Pembroke), 'Fye, Fye, you
    sonnes of Pallas', _A letter written by Sr H. G. and J.
    D. alternis vicibus_ ('Since every tree'), 'Why shuld not
    Pillgryms to thy bodie come', 'O frutefull Garden and yet
    never till'd', _Of a Lady in the Black Masque_. See Appendix
    C, pp. 433-7.]

    [Footnote 33: 'The Heavens rejoice in motion', 'Tell her if
    she to hired servants show', 'True love finds wit', 'Deare
    Love continue nice and chaste', 'Shall I goe force an
    Elegie?', 'Men write that Love and Reason disagree', 'Come
    Fates: I feare you not', 'If her disdaine'. The authorship of
    these is discussed later.

    A note on the first page in a modern hand says, 'The pieces
    which I have extracted for the "Specimens" are, Page 91, 211,
    265.' What 'Specimens' are referred to I do not know: the
    pieces are 'You nimble dreams', signed H. (i.e. John Hoskins);
    'Upon his mistresses inconstancy' ('Thou art prettie but
    inconstant'); and _Cupid and the Clowne_. The manuscript was
    purchased at Bishop Heber's sale in 1836.]

    [Footnote 34: I refer to it occasionally as _TCD_ (_II_),
    and (once it has been made plain that this is the collection
    referred to throughout) as simply _TCD_.]

    [Footnote 35: Since Mr. Pearsall-Smith transcribed
    these poems, which I subsequently collated, the house at
    Burley-on-the-Hill has been burned down and the manuscript
    volume has perished.]

    [Footnote 36: _The Complete Poems of John Donne, D.D., Dean
    of St. Paul's. For the First Time Fully Collected and Collated
    With The Original and Early Editions And MSS. And Enlarged
    With Hitherto Unprinted And Inedited Poems From MSS. &c....
    By The Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, &c. The Fuller Worthies'
    Library_, 1872-3. Dr. Grosart's favourite manuscript was the
    Stephens (_S_). When that failed him he used Addl. MS. 18643
    (_A18_), whose relation to the manuscripts in Trinity College,
    Dublin and Cambridge (_TCD_, _TCC_) he did not suspect,
    though he collated these. Some poems he printed from the
    Hazlewood-Kingsburgh MS. or the Farmer-Chetham MS. The first
    two are not good texts of Donne's poems, the last two are
    miscellaneous collections. The three first _Satyres_ Dr.
    Grosart printed from Harleian MS. 5110 (_H51_); and he used
    other sources for the poems he ascribed to Donne. It cannot
    be said that he always recorded accurately the readings of
    the manuscript from which he printed. I have made no effort to
    record all the differences between Grosart's text and my own.

    The description of the editions which Grosart gives at ii, p.
    liii is amazingly inaccurate, considering that he claimed to
    have collated 'all the early and later printed editions'. He
    describes _1639_, _1649_, _1650_, and _1654_ as identical
    with one another, and declares that the younger Donne is
    responsible only for _1669_, which appeared after his death.]

    [Footnote 37: _The Poems of John Donne From The Text of The
    Edition of 1633 Revised By James Russell Lowell With The
    Various Readings of The Other Editions Of The Seventeenth
    Century, And With A Preface, An Introduction, And Notes By
    Charles Eliot Norton. New York._ 1895. In preparing the
    text from Lowell's copy of _1633_, emended in pencil by him,
    Professor Norton was assisted by Mrs. Burnett, the daughter
    of Mr. Lowell. As I could not apportion the responsibility for
    the text I have spoken throughout my textual notes and remarks
    of 'the Grolier Club editor' (_Grolier_ for short). I
    have accepted Professor Norton as the sole author of the
    commentary. For instances where the punctuation has been
    altered, and the meaning, in my opinion, obscured, I may refer
    to the textual notes on _The Legacie_ (p. 20), _The Dreame_
    (p. 37), _A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day_ (p. 45). But I have
    cited and discussed most of the cases in which I disagree with
    the Grolier Club editors. It is for readers to judge whether
    at times they may not be right, and I have gone astray.
    The Grolier Club edition only came into my hands when I had
    completed my first collation of the printed texts. Had I known
    it sooner, or had the edition been more accessible, I should
    probably not have ventured on the arduous task of editing
    Donne. It is based on the best text, and the editors have been
    happier than most in their interpretation and punctuation of
    the more difficult passages.

    Professor Norton made no use of the manuscripts in preparing
    the text, but he added in an appendix an account of the
    manuscript which, following him, I have called _N_, and
    he gave a list of variants which seemed to him possible
    emendations. Later, in the _Child Memorial Volume_ of _Studies
    and Notes in Philology and Literature_ (1896), he gave a
    somewhat fuller description of _N_ and descriptions of _S_
    (the Stephens MS.) and _Cy_ (the Carnaby MS.). Of the readings
    which Professor Norton noted, several have passed into
    my edition on the authority of a wider collation of the
    manuscripts.]

    [Footnote 38: _Poems of John Donne Edited By E. K. Chambers.
    With An Introduction By George Saintsbury. London and New
    York. 1896._ Of the editions Mr. Chambers says: 'Nor can it be
    said that any one edition always gives the best text; even
    for a single poem, sometimes one, sometimes another is to be
    preferred, though, as a rule, the edition of _1633_ is the
    most reliable, and the readings of _1669_ are in many cases a
    return to it' (vol. i, p. xliv). A considerable portion of Mr.
    Chambers' edition would seem to have been 'set up' from a copy
    of the 1639 edition, the earlier and later readings being then
    either incorporated or recorded. The result is that the _1633_
    or _1633-35_ readings have been more than once overlooked.
    This applies especially to the _Epicedes_ and the _Divine
    Poems_.

    As with the Grolier Club edition, so with Mr. Chambers'
    edition, I have recorded and discussed the chief differences
    between my text and his. I have worked with his edition
    constantly beside me. I used it for my collations on account
    of its convenient numbering of the lines. To Mr. Chambers'
    commentary also I owe my first introduction to the wide field
    of the manuscripts. His knowledge of seventeenth-century
    literature and history, which even in 1896 was extensive, has
    directed me in taking up most of the questions of canon and
    authorship which I have investigated. It is easy to record
    one's points of disagreement with a predecessor; it is more
    difficult to estimate accurately how much one owes to his
    labours.

    Mr. Chambers, too, has 'modernized the spelling and corrected
    the exceptionally chaotic punctuation of the old editions'.
    Of the latter changes he has, with one or two exceptions,
    preserved no record, so that when, as is sometimes the case,
    he has misunderstood the poet, it is impossible to get back to
    the original text of which the stops as well as the words are
    a part.]

    [Footnote 39: It is very unlikely that Donne had in his
    possession when he died manuscript copies of his early poems.
    (1) Walton makes no mention of them when enumerating the works
    which Donne left behind in manuscript, including 'six score
    sermons all written with his own hand; also an exact
    and laborious treatise concerning self-murder, called
    _Biathanatos'_, as well as elaborate notes on authors and
    events. (2) In 1614, when Donne thought of publishing his
    poems, he found it necessary to beg for copies from his
    friends: 'By this occasion I am made a Rhapsoder of mine own
    rags, and that cost me more diligence to seek them, then it
    did to make them. This made me aske to borrow that old book
    of you.' _To Sir H. G., Vigilia St. Tho. 1614._ (3) Jonson
    and Walton both tell us that Donne, after taking Orders, would
    have been glad to destroy his early poems. The sincerity of
    this wish has been doubted because of what he says in a letter
    regarding _Biathanatos_: 'I only forbid it the press and the
    fire.' But _Biathanatos_ is a very different matter from
    the poems. It is a grave and devout, if daring, treatise
    in casuistry. No one can enter into Donne's mind from 1617
    onwards, as ascetic devotion became a more and more sincere
    and consuming passion, and believe that he kept copies of
    the early poems or paradoxes, prepared for the press like his
    sermons or devotions.]

    [Footnote 40: _Contributions To The Textual Criticism of
    The Divina Commedia, &c. By the Rev. Edward Moore, D.D., &c.
    Cambridge, 1889._ The tests which Dr. Moore lays down for the
    judgement, on internal grounds, of a reading are--I state them
    shortly in my own words--(1) That is the best reading which
    best explains the erroneous readings. I have sometimes
    recorded a quite impossible reading of a manuscript because it
    clearly came from one rather than another of two rivals, and
    thus lends support to that reading despite its own aberration.
    (2) Generally speaking, 'Difficilior lectio potior,' the more
    difficult reading is the more likely to be the original. This
    applies forcibly in the case of a subtle and difficult author
    like Donne. The majority of the changes made in the later
    editions arise from the tendency to make Donne's thought more
    commonplace. Even in _1633_ errors have crept in. The obsolete
    words 'lation' (p. 94, l. 47), 'crosse' (p. 43, l. 14) have
    been altered; the old-fashioned and metaphorically used idiom
    'in Nature's gifts' has confused the editor's punctuation;
    the subtle thought of the epistles has puzzled and misled. (3)
    'Three minor considerations may be added which are often very
    important, when applicable, though they are from the nature of
    the case less frequently available.' _Moore_. These are (_a_)
    the consistency of the reading with sentiments expressed by
    the author elsewhere. I have used the _Sermons_ and other
    prose works to illustrate and check Donne's thought and
    vocabulary throughout. (_b_) The relation of the reading
    to the probable source of the poet's thought. A Scholastic
    doctrine often lurks behind Donne's wit, ignorance of which
    has led to corruption of the text. See _The Dreame_, p. 37,
    ll. 7, 16; _To Sr Henry Wotton_, p. 180, ll. 17-18. (_c_) The
    relation of a reading to historical fact. In the letter _To Sr
    Henry Wotton_, p. 187, the editors, forgetting the facts, have
    confused Cadiz with Calais, and the Azores with St. Michael's
    Mount.]

    [Footnote 41: It is worth while to compare the kind of
    mistakes in which a manuscript abounds with those which occur
    in a printed edition. The tendency of the copyist was to write
    on without paying much attention to the sense, dropping words
    and lines, sometimes two consecutive half-lines or whole
    stanzas, ignoring or confounding punctuation, mistaking words,
    &c. He was, if a professional copyist or secretary, not very
    apt to attempt emendation. The kind of errors he made were
    easily detected when the proof was read over, or when the
    manuscript was revised with a view to printing. Words or
    half-lines could be restored, &c. But in such revision a new
    and dangerous source of error comes into play, the tendency of
    the editor to emend.]

    [Footnote 42: Take a few instances where the latest editor,
    very naturally and explicably, securing at places a reading
    more obvious and euphonious, has departed from _1633_ and
    followed _1635_ or _1669_. I shall take them somewhat
    at random and include a few that may seem still open to
    discussion. In _The Undertaking_ (p. 10, l. 18), for 'Vertue
    attir'd in woman see', _1633_, Mr. Chambers reads, with
    _1635-69_, 'Vertue in woman see.' So:


    Loves Vsury, p. 13, l. 5:

      let my body raigne _1633_
      let my body range _1635-69_, _Chambers_

    Aire and Angels, p. 22, l. 19:

      Ev'ry thy hair _1633_
      Thy every hair _1650-69_, _Chambers_

    The Curse, p. 41, ll. 3, 10:

      His only, and only his purse _1633-54_
      Him, only for his purse _1669_, _Chambers_

      who hath made him such _1633_
      who hath made them such _1669_, _Chambers_

    A Valediction, p. 50, l. 16:

      Those things which elemented it _1633_
      The thing which elemented it _1669_, _Chambers_

    The Relique, p. 62, l. 13:

      mis-devotion _1633-54_
      mass-devotion _1669_, _Chambers_

    Elegie II, p. 80, l. 6:

      is rough _1633_, _1669_
      is tough _1635-54_, _Chambers_

    Elegie VI, p. 88, ll. 24, 26:

      and then chide _1633_
      and there chide _1635-69_, _Chambers_

      her upmost brow _1633_
      her utmost brow _1635-69_, _Chambers (an oversight)_.

    Epithalamions, p. 129, l. 60:

      store, _1633_
      starres, _1635-69_, _Chambers_

    Ibid., p. 133, l. 55:

      I am not then from Court _1633_
      And am I then from Court? _1635-69_, _Chambers_

    Satyres, p. 169, ll. 37-41:

      The Iron Age _that_ was, when justice was sold, now
      Injustice is sold deerer farre; allow
      All demands, fees, and duties; gamsters, anon
      The mony which you sweat, and sweare for, is gon
      Into other hands: _1633_

      The iron Age _that_ was, when justice was sold (now
      Injustice is sold dearer) did allow
      All claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters, anon
      The mony which you sweat and swear for is gon
      Into other hands. _1635-54_, _Chambers_
            (_no italics_; 'that' _a relative pronoun, I take it_)

    The Calme, p. 179, l. 30:

      our brimstone Bath _1633_
      a brimstone bath _1635-69_, _Chambers_

    To Sr Henry Wotton, p. 180, l. 17:

      dung, and garlike _1633_
      dung, or garlike _1635-69_, _Chambers_

    Ibid., p. 181, ll. 25, 26:

      The Country is a desert, where no good,
      Gain'd, as habits, not borne, is understood. _1633_

      The Country is a desert, where the good,
      Gain'd inhabits not, borne, is not understood.
                                      _1635-54_, _Chambers._


    In all these passages, and I could cite others, it seems to
    me (I have stated my reasons fully in the notes) that if the
    sense of the passage be carefully considered, or Donne's use
    of words (e.g. 'mis-devotion'), or the tenor of his thought,
    the reading of _1633_ is either clearly correct or has much
    to be said for it. Now in all these cases the reading has the
    support of all the manuscripts, or of the most and the best.]

    [Footnote 43: e.g. 'their nothing' p. 31, l. 53; 'reclaim'd'
    p. 56, l. 25; 'sport' p. 56, l. 27.]

    [Footnote 44: The _1633_ text of these letters, which is
    generally that of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, is better than I was at
    one time disposed to think, though there are some indubitable
    errors and perhaps some original variants. The crucial reading
    is at p. 197, l. 58, where _1633_ and _A18_, _N_, _TC_ read
    'not naturally free', while _1635-69_ and _O'F_ read 'borne
    naturally free', at first sight an easier and more natural
    text, and adopted by both Chambers and Grosart. But
    consideration of the passage, and of what Donne says
    elsewhere, shows that the _1633_ reading is certainly right.]

    [Footnote 45: The _1650_ printer delighted in colons, which he
    generally substituted for semicolons indiscriminately.]



CANON.


The authenticity of all the poems ascribed to Donne in the old
editions is a question which has never been systematically and fully
considered by his editors and critics. A number of poems not included
in these editions have been attributed to him by Simeon (1856),
Grosart (1873), and others on very insufficient grounds, whether of
external evidence or internal probability. Of the poems published in
_1633_, one, Basse's _An Epitaph upon Shakespeare_, was withdrawn at
once; another, the metrical _Psalme 137_, has been discredited and
Chambers drops it.[1] Of those which were added in _1635_, one _To Ben
Ionson. 6 Ian. 1603_, has been dropped by Grosart, the Grolier Club
edition, and Chambers on the strength of a statement made to Drummond
by Ben Jonson.[2] But the editors have accepted Jonson's statement
without apparently giving any thought to the question whether, if this
particular poem is by Roe, the same must not be true of its companion
pieces, _To Ben. Ionson. 9 Novembris, 1603_. and _To Sir Tho. Roe.
1603_. They are inserted together in _1635_, and are strikingly
similar in heading, in style, and in verse. Nor has any critic, so far
as I know, taken up the larger question raised by rejecting one of the
poems ascribed to Donne in _1635_, namely, are not all the poems
then added made thereby to some extent suspect, and if so can we
distinguish those which are from those which are not genuine? I
propose then to discuss, in the light afforded by a wider and more
connected survey of the seventeenth-century manuscript collections,
the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Donne in the old editions,
and to ask what, if any, poems may be added to those there published.

For this discussion an invaluable starting-point is afforded by the
edition of 1633, the manuscript group _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and the
manuscript group _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. Taken together, and used to
check one another, these three collections provide us with a _corpus_
of indubitable poems which may be used as a test by which to try other
claimants. Of course, it must be clearly understood that the only
proof which can be offered that Donne is the author of many poems is,
that they are ascribed to him in edition after edition and manuscript
after manuscript, and that they bear a strong family resemblance.
There is no edition issued by himself or in his lifetime.[3]

Bearing this in mind we find that in the edition of 1633 there are
only two poems--Basse's _Epitaph on Shakespeare_ and the _Psalme 137_,
both already mentioned--for the genuineness of which there is not
strong evidence, internal and external. But these two poems are the
_only_ ones not contained in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ or in _A18_, _N_, _TC_.
In _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, on the other hand, there are no poems which are
not, on the same evidence, genuine. There are, however, some which
are not in _1633_, seven in all. But of these, five are the _Elegies_
which, we have seen above, the editor of _1633_ was prohibited from
printing. The others are the _Lecture upon the Shadow_ (why omitted in
_1633_ I cannot say) and the lines 'My fortune and my choice'. There
are poems in _1633_ which are not in_ D_, _H49_, _Lec_. These, with
the exception of poems previously printed, as the _Anniversaries_ and
the _Elegie on Prince Henry_, are all in _A18_, _N_, _TC_. This last
collection does contain some twelve poems not by Donne, but of
these the majority are found only in _N_ and _TCD_, and they make no
pretence to be Donne's. Three are initialled 'J. R.' (in _TCD_), and
two of these, with some poems by Overbury and Beaumont, are not part
of the Donne collection but are added at the end. Another poem is
initialled 'R. Cor.' The only poems which are included among Donne's
poems as though by him are _The Paradox_ ('Whoso terms Love a fire')
and the Letter or Elegy, 'Madam soe may my verses pleasing be.' Of
these, the first is in all four manuscripts, the second only in _N_
and _TCD_. Neither is in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, or _1633_. The last is by
Beaumont, and follows immediately a letter by Donne to the same lady,
the Countess of Bedford. Doubtless the two poems have come from some
collection in which they were transcribed together, ultimately from
a commonplace-book of the Countess herself. The former _may_ be by
Donne, but has probably adhered for a like reason to his paradox, 'No
lover saith' (p. 302), which immediately precedes it.

We have thus three collections, each of which has kept its canon pure
or very nearly so, and in which any mistake by one is checked by the
absence of the poem in the other two. It cannot be by accident that
these collections are so free from the unauthentic poems which other
manuscripts associate with Donne's. Those who prepared them must
have known what they were about. Marriot must have had some help in
securing a text on the whole so accurate as that of _1633_, and in
avoiding spurious poems on the whole so well. When that guidance was
withdrawn he was only too willing to go a-gathering what would swell
the compass of his volume. If then a poem does not occur in any of
these collections it is not necessarily unauthentic, but as no such
poem has anything like the wide support of the manuscripts that these
have, it should present its credentials, and approve its authenticity
on internal grounds if external are not available.

We start then with a strong presumption, coming as close to
demonstration as the circumstances of the case will permit, in favour
of the absolute genuineness of all the poems in _1633_ (a glance down
the list headed 'Source' in the 'Contents' will show what these are)
except the two mentioned, and of all the poems added in _1635_, or
later editions, which are also in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_, _N_,
_TC_.[4] These last (to which I prefix the date of first publication)
are--

    _1635._ A Lecture upon the Shadow.
    _1635._ Elegie XI. The Bracelet.
    _1635._ Elegie XVI. On his Mistris.
    _1669._ Elegie XVIII. Love's Progresse.
    _1669._ Elegie XIX. Going to Bed.
    _1802._[5] Elegie XX. Love's Warr.

(These are the five _Elegies_ suppressed in _1633_--at such long
intervals did they find their way into print.)

    _1635._ On himselfe.

We may add to these, without lengthy investigation, the four _Holy
Sonnets_ added in _1635_:--

    I.    'Thou hast made me.'
    III.  'O might those sighs and tears.'
    V.    'I am a little world.'
    VIII. 'If faithfull soules.'

For these (though in none of the three collections) we have, besides
internal probability, the evidence of _W_, clearly an unexceptionable
manuscript witness. Walton, too, vouches for the authenticity of the
_Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse_, which indeed no one but Donne
could have written.

This leaves for investigation, of poems inserted in _1635_, _1649_,
_1650_, or _1669_, the following:--

    1. Song. 'Soules joy, now I am gone.'

    2. _Farewell to love._

    3. Song. 'Deare Love, continue nice and chaste.'

    4. Sonnet. _The Token._

    5. 'He that cannot chuse but love.'

    6. Elegie (XIII in _1635_). 'Come, Fates; I feare you not.'

    7. Elegie XII (XIIII in _1635_). _His parting from her._

           'Since she must goe, and I must mourne.'

    8. Elegie XIII (XV in _1635_). _Julia._

           'Harke newes, ô envy.'

    9. Elegie XIV (XVI in _1635_). _A Tale of a Citizen and his
    Wife._ 'I sing no harme.'

    10. Elegie XVII. _Variety._ 'The heavens rejoice.'

    11. Satyre (VI in _1635_, VII in _1669_).

          'Men write that love and reason disagree.'

    12. Satyre (VI in _1669_).

          'Sleep, next society and true friendship.'

    13. To the Countesse of Huntington.

          'That unripe side of earth, that heavy clime.'

    14. A Dialogue between Sr Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne.

          'If her disdayne least change in you can move.'

    15. To Ben Iohnson, 6. Jan. 1603.

          'The state and mens affaires.'

    16. To Ben Iohnson, 9. Novembris, 1603.

          'If great men wrong me.'

    17. To Sir Tho. Roe. 1603.

          Deare Thom: 'Tell her, if she to hired servants shew.'

    18. Elegie on Mistresse Boulstred.

          'Death be not proud.'

    19. On the blessed Virgin Mary.

          'In that, ô Queene of Queenes.'

    20. Upon the translation of the Psalmes by Sir Philip Sydney
    and the Countesse of Pembroke his Sister.

          'Eternall God, (for whom who ever dare).'

    21. Ode.

          'Vengeance will sit.'

    22. To Mr. Tilman after he had taken Orders.

          'Thou, whose diviner soule hath caus'd thee now.'

    23. On the Sacrament.

          'He was the Word that spake it.'

Of these twenty-three poems there is none which does not seem to me
fairly open to question, though of some I think Donne is certainly the
author.

Seven of the twenty-three (3, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17) I have gathered
together in my Appendix A, with two ('Shall I goe force' and 'True
love finds witt', the first of which[6] was printed in _Le Prince
d'Amour_, 1660, and reprinted by Simeon, 1856, and Grosart, 1872), as
the work not of Donne but of Sir John Roe. The reasons which have led
me to do so are not perhaps singly conclusive, but taken together they
form a converging and fairly convincing demonstration. The argument
starts from Ben Jonson's statement to Drummond of Hawthornden
regarding the Epistle at p. 408 (15 above): 'That Sir John Roe loved
him; and that when they two were ushered by my Lord Suffolk from a
Mask, Roe writt a moral Epistle to him, which began. That next to
playes the Court and the State were the best. God threatneth Kings,
Kings Lords [as] Lords do us.' (_Drummond's Conversations with
Jonson_), ed. Laing.

Now this statement of Jonson's is confirmed by some at any rate of
the manuscripts which contain the poem (see textual notes) since these
append the initials 'J. R.' But all the manuscripts which contain the
one poem contain also the next, 'If great men wrong me,' and though
none have added the initials 'J. R.', _B_, in which it has been
separated from 'The state and mens affairs' by two other poems,
appends 'doubtfull author' (the whole collection being professedly one
of Donne's poems). The third poem, _To Sr Tho. Roe, 1603_ (p. 410),
is in the same way found in all the manuscripts (except two, which are
one, _H40_ and _RP31_) which contain the epistles to Jonson, generally
in their immediate proximity, and in _B_ initialled 'J. R.' In the
others the poem is unsigned, and in _L74_ a much later hand has added
'J. D.'

Of the other poems, the first--the poem which was in _1669_ printed
as Donne's seventh _Satyre_, was dropped in _1719_ but restored by
Chalmers, Grosart, and Chambers--is said in _B_ to be 'By Sir John
Roe', and it is initialled 'J. R.' in _TCD_. Even an undiscriminating
manuscript like _O'F_ adds the note 'Quere, if Donnes or Sr Th:
Rowes', the more famous Sir Thomas Roe being substituted for his (in
1632) forgotten relative. Of the remaining five poems only two, 'Dear
Love, continue nice and chaste' (p. 412) and 'Shall I goe force an
Elegie?' (p. 410) are actually initialled in any of the manuscripts in
which I have found them.

But the presence or absence of a name or initials is not a conclusive
argument. It depends on the character of the manuscript. That 'Sleep
next Society' is initialled 'J. R.' in so carefully prepared a
collection of Donne's poems as _TCD_ is valuable evidence, and the
initials in a collection so well vouched for as _HN_, Drummond's copy
of a collection of poems in the possession of Donne, can only be set
aside by a scepticism which makes all historical questions insoluble.
But no reliance can be placed upon the unsupported statement of any
other of the manuscripts in which some or all of these poems occur,
any more than on that of the 1635 and later editions. The best of
them (_H40_, _RP31_) are often silent, and the others are too often
mistaken to be implicitly trusted. If we are to get the truth from
them it must be by cross-examination.

For the second proof on which my ascription of the poems to Roe
is based is the singular regularity with which they adhere to one
another. If a manuscript has one it generally has the rest in close
proximity. Thus _B_, after giving thirty-six poems by Donne, of which
only one is wrongly ascribed, continues with a number that are clearly
by other authors as well as Donne, and of ten sequent poems five are
'Sleep next Society,' 'The State and mens affairs,' 'True love finds
witt,' 'If great men wrong mee,' 'Dear Thom: Tell her if she.' A
fragment of 'Men say that love and reason disagree' comes rather
later. _H40_ and _RP31_ give in immediate sequence 'The State and mens
affairs,' 'If great men wrong me,' 'True Love finds witt,' 'Shall
I goe force an elegie,' 'Come Fates; I fear you not.' _L74_, a
collection not only of poems by Donne but of the work of other wits of
the day, transcribes in immediate sequence 'Deare Love continue,' 'The
State and mens affairs,' 'If great men wrong mee,' 'Shall I goe force
an elegie,' 'Tell her if shee,' 'True love finds witt,' 'Come Fates,
I fear you not.' Lastly _A10_, a quite miscellaneous collection, gives
in immediate or very close sequence '[Dear Thom:] Tell her if she,'
'True love finds witt,' 'Dear Love continue nice and chaste,' 'Shall I
goe force an elegie,' 'Men write that love and reason disagree.' 'Come
Fates; I fear you not' follows after a considerable interval.

It cannot be by an entire accident that these poems thus recur in
manuscripts which have so far as we can see no common origin.[7] And
as one is ascribed to Roe on indisputable (and) three on very
strong evidence, it is a fair inference, if borne out by a general
resemblance of thought, and style, and verse, that they are all by
Roe.

To my mind they have a strong family resemblance, and very little
resemblance to Donne's work. They are witty, but not with the subtle,
brilliant, metaphysical wit of Donne; they are obscure at times, but
not as Donne's poetry is, by too swift and subtle transitions, and
ingeniously applied erudition; there are in them none of Donne's
peculiar scholastic doctrines of angelic knowledge, of the microcosm,
of soul and body, or of his chemical and medical allusions; they are
coarse and licentious, but not as Donne's poems are, with a kind of
witty depravity, Italian in origin, and reminding one of Ovid and
Aretino, but like Jonson's poetry with the coarseness of the tavern
and the camp. On both Jonson's and Roe's work rests the trail of what
was probably the most licentious and depraving school in Europe, the
professional armies serving in the Low Countries.

For a brief account of Roe's life will explain some features of his
poetry, especially the vivid picture of life in London in the Satire,
'Sleep next Society,' which is strikingly different in tone, and in
the aspects of that life which are presented, from anything in Donne's
_Satyres_. Roe has been hitherto a mere name appearing in the notes
to Jonson's and to Donne's poems. No critic has taken the trouble to
identify him. Gifford suggested or stated that he was the son of Sir
Thomas Roe, who as Mayor of London was knighted in 1569. Mr. Chambers
accepts this and when referring to Jonson, _Epigram 98_, on Roe the
ambassador, he adds, 'there are others in the same collection to his
uncles Sir John Roe and William Roe.' Who this uncle was they do not
tell us, but Hunter in the _Chorus Vatum_ notes that, if Gifford's
conjecture be sound, then he must be John Roe of Clapham in
Bedfordshire, the eldest son of the Lord Mayor.

It is a quaint picture we thus get of the famous ambassador's uncle
(he was older than 'Dear Thom's' father)--a kind of Sir Toby Belch,
taking the pleasures of the town with his nephew, and writing a satire
which might make a young man blush to read. But in fact John Roe of
Clapham was never Sir John, and he was dead twelve years before
1603, when these poems were written.[8] Sir John Roe the poet was the
cousin, not the uncle, of the ambassador. He was the eldest son of
William Rowe (or Roe) of Higham Hill, near Walthamstow, in the county
of Essex.[9] William Roe was the third son of the first Lord Mayor
of the name Roe.[10] He had two sons, John and William, the latter
of whom is probably the person addressed in Jonson's _Epigrammes_,
cxxviii. John was born, according to a statement in Morant's _History
of Essex_ (1768), on the fifth of May, 1581. This harmonizes with the
fact that when the elder William Roe died in 1596 John was still a
minor and thereby a cause of anxiety to his father, who in his will,
proved in 1596, begs his wife and executors to 'be suiters for his
wardeshipp, that his utter spoyle (as much as in them is) maie be
prevented'. This probably refers to the chance of a courtier being
made ward and despoiling the lad. The following year he matriculated
at Queen's College, Oxford.[11] How long he stayed there is not known,
probably not long. The career he chose was that of a soldier, and his
first service was in Ireland. If he went there with Essex in 1599 he
is perhaps one of that general's many knights. But he may have gone
thither later, for he evidently found a patron in Mountjoy. In 1605
that nobleman, then Earl of Devonshire, wrote to Sir Ralph Winwood,
Ambassador to the United Provinces, first to recommend Roe to him as
one wishing to follow the wars and therein to serve the States; and
then to thank him for his readiness to befriend Sir John Roe. He adds
that he will be ever ready to serve the States to requite any favour
Roe shall receive.[12] By 1608 he was dead, for a list of captains
discharged in Ireland since 1603 gives the following: 'Born in England
and dead in 1608--Sir John Roe.'[13]

Such in brief outline is the life of the man who in 1603, possibly
between his Irish and Low Country campaigns, appears in London as
one, with his more famous cousin Thomas, of the band of wits and poets
whose leader was Jonson, whose most brilliant star was Donne. Jonson's
epigrams and conversations enable us to fill in some of the colours
wanting in the above outline. The most interesting of these shows Roe
to have been in Russia as well as Ireland and the Low Countries, and
tells us that he was, like 'Natta the new knight' in his _Satyre_, a
duellist:


XXXII.

ON SIR IOHN ROE.

  What two brave perills of the private sword
  Could not effect, not all the furies doe,
  That selfe-devided _Belgia_ did afford;
  What not the envie of the seas reach'd too,
  The cold of _Mosco_, and fat _Irish_ ayre,
  His often change of clime (though not of mind)
  What could not worke; at home in his repaire
  Was his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.
  Which shewes, where ever death doth please t' appeare,
  Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sicknesse, all are there.

In his conversations with Drummond Jonson as usual gave more intimate
and less complimentary details: 'Sir John Roe was an infinite spender,
and used to say, when he had no more to spend he could die. He died
in his (i.e. Jonson's) arms of the pest, and he furnished his charges
20lb., which was given him back,' doubtless by his brother William.
Morant states that 'Sir John the eldest son, having no issue, sold
this Manor (i.e. Higham-hill) to his father-in-law Sir Reginald
Argall, of whom it was purchased by the second son--Sir William Rowe'.

Such a career is much more likely than Donne's to have produced the
satire 'Sleep, next Society', with its lurid picture of cashiered
captains, taverns, stews, duellists, hard drinkers, and parasites.
It is much more like a scene out of _Bartholomew Fair_ than any of
Donne's five _Satyres_. Nor was Donne likely at any time to have
written of James I as Roe does. He moved in higher circles, and was
more politic. But Roe had ability. 'Deare Love, continue nice and
chaste' is not quite in the taste of to-day, but it is a good example
of the paradoxical, metaphysical lyric; and there are both feeling
and wit in 'Come, Fates; I feare you not', unlike as it is to Donne's
subtle, erudite, intenser strain.

Returning to the list of poems open to question on pp. cxxviii-ix we
have sixteen left to consider. Of some of these there is very little
to say.

Nos. 1 and 14 are most probably by the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl
of Pembroke collaborating with Sir Benjamin Rudyard. Both were wits
and poets of Donne's circle. The first song,

  'Soules joy, now I am gone'

is ascribed to Donne only in _1635-69_, and is there inaccurately
printed. It is assigned to Pembroke in the younger Donne's edition
of Pembroke and Ruddier's _Poems_ (1660), a bad witness, but also
by Lansdowne MS. 777, which Mr. Chambers justly calls 'a very good
authority'.[14] The latter, however, believes the poem to be Donne's
because the central idea--the inseparableness of souls--is his, and so
is the contemptuous tone of

  Fooles have no meanes to meet,
    But by their feet.

But both the contemptuous tone and the Platonic thought were growing
common. We get it again in Lovelace's

  If to be absent were to be
    Away from thee.

The thought is Donne's, but not the airy note, the easy style, or
the tripping prosody. Donne never writes of absence in this cheerful,
confident strain. He consoles himself at times with the doctrine of
inseparable souls, but the note of pain is never absent. He cannot
cheat his passionate heart and senses with metaphysical subtleties.

The song _Farewell to love_, the second in the list of poems added
in _1635_, is found only in _O'F_ and _S96_. There is therefore no
weighty external evidence for assigning it to Donne, but no one can
read it without feeling that it is his. The cynical yet passionate
strain of wit, the condensed style, and the metaphysical turn given to
the argument, are all in his manner. As printed in _1635_ the point
of the third stanza is obscured. As I have ventured to amend it, an
Aristotelian doctrine is referred to in a way that only Donne would
have done in quite such a setting.

The three _Elegies_, XII, XIII, and XIV (7, 8, 9 in the list), must
also be assigned to Donne, unless some more suitable candidate can be
advanced on really convincing grounds. The first of the three, _His
parting from her_, is so fine a poem that it is difficult to think any
unknown poet could have written it. In sincerity and poetic quality it
is one of the finest of the _Elegies_,[15] and in this sincerer
note, the absence of witty paradox, it differs from poems like _The
Bracelet_ and _The Perfume_ and resembles the fine elegy called _His
Picture_ and two other pieces that stand somewhat apart from the
general tenor of the _Elegies_, namely, the famous elegy _On his
Mistris_, in which he dissuades her from travelling with him as a
page:

  By our first strange and fatal interview,

and that rather enigmatical poem _The Expostulation_, which found its
way into Jonson's _Underwoods_:

  To make the doubt clear that no woman's true,
  Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?

All of these poems bear the imprint of some actual experience, and to
this cause we may perhaps trace the comparative rareness with which
_His parting from her_ is found in manuscripts, and that it finally
appeared in a mutilated form. The poet may have given copies only to
a few friends and desired that it should not be circulated. In the
Second Collection of poems in _TCD_ it is signed at the close, 'Sir
Franc: Wryothlesse.' Who is intended by this I do not know. The
ascriptions in this collection are many of them purely fanciful.
Still, that the poem is Donne's rests on internal evidence alone.

Of the other two elegies, _Julia_, which is found in only two
manuscripts, _B_ and _O'F_, is quite the kind of thing Donne might
have amused himself by writing in the scurrilous style of Horace's
invectives against Canidia, frequently imitated by Mantuan and other
Humanists. The chief difficulty with regard to the second, _A Tale of
a Citizen and his Wife_, is to find Donne writing in this vein at
so late a period as 1609 or 1610, the date implied in several of the
allusions. He was already the author of religious poems, including
probably _La Corona_. In 1610 he wrote his _Litanie_, and, as
Professor Norton points out, in the same letter in which he tells of
the writing of the latter he refers to some poem of a lighter nature,
the name of which is lost through a mutilation of the letter, and
says, 'Even at this time when (I humbly thank God) I ask and have his
comfort of sadder meditations I do not condemn in myself that I
have given my wit such evaporations as those, if they be free from
profaneness, or obscene provocations.' Whether this would cover the
elegy in question is a point on which perhaps our age and Donne's
would not decide alike. Donne's nature was a complex one. Jack Donne
and the grave and reverend divine existed side by side for not a
little time, and even in the sermons Donne's wit is once or twice
rather coarser than our generation would relish in the pulpit. But
once more we must add that it is possible Donne has in this case
been made responsible for what is another's. Every one wrote this
occasional poetry, and sometimes wrote it well.

There is no more difficult poem to understand or to assign to or from
Donne than the long letter headed _To the Countesse of Huntington_, 13
on the list, which, for the time being, I have placed in the Appendix
B. On internal grounds there is more to be said for ascribing it to
Donne than any other single poem in this collection. Nevertheless I
have resolved to let it stand, that it may challenge the attention it
deserves.[16] The reasons which led me to doubt Donne's authorship are
these:

(1) The poem was not included in the 1633 edition, nor is it found in
either of the groups _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_.
It was added in _1635_ with four other spurious poems, the dialogue
ascribed to Donne and Wotton but assigned by the great majority of
manuscripts to the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Rudyard, the two
epistles to Ben Jonson, and the Elegy addressed to Sir Thomas Roe,
which we have assigned, for reasons given above, to Sir John Roe. The
poem is found in only two manuscript collections, viz. _P_ and the
second, miscellaneous collection of seventeenth-century poems in
_TCD_. In both of these it is headed _Sr Walter Ashton_ (or _Aston_)
_to the Countesse of Huntingtone_, and no reference whatsoever is made
to Donne. I do not attach much importance to this title. Imaginary
headings were quite common in the case of poems circulating in
manuscript. Poems are inscribed as having been written by the Earl of
Essex or Sir Walter Raleigh the night before he died, or as found in
the pocket of Chidiock Tichbourne. Editors have occasionally taken
these too seriously. Drayton's _Heroicall Epistles_ made it a fashion
to write such letters in the case of any notorious love affair or
intrigue. The manuscript _P_ contains a long imaginary letter from Sir
Philip Sidney to Lady Mary Rich and a fragment of her reply. In
the same manuscript the poem, probably by the Earl of Pembroke,
'Victorious beauty though your eyes,' is headed _The Mar: B to the
Lady Fe: Her._, i.e. the Marquis of Buckingham to--I am not sure what
lady is intended. The only thing which the title given to the letter
in question suggests is that it was not an actual letter to the
Countess but an imaginary one.

(2) Of Donne's relations with Elizabeth Stanley, who in 1603 became
the Countess of Huntingdon, his biographers have not been able to tell
us very much. He must have met her at the house of Sir Thomas Egerton
when her mother, the dowager Countess of Derby, married that statesman
in 1600. Donne says:

  I was your Prophet in your yonger dayes,
  And now your Chaplaine, God in you to praise.

  (p. 203, ll. 69-70.)

Donne's friend, Sir Henry Goodyere, seems to have had relations with
her either directly or through her first cousin, the Countess of
Bedford, for Donne writes to him from Mitcham, 'I remember that
about this time you purpose a journey to fetch, or meet the Lady
_Huntington_.' This fact lends support to the view of Mr. Chambers
and Mr. Gosse that she is 'the Countesse' referred to in the following
extract from a letter to Goodyere, which has an important bearing on
the poem under consideration. Very unfortunately it is not dated, and
Mr. Chambers and Mr. Gosse differ widely as to the year in which it
may have been written. The latter places it in April, 1615, when
Donne was on the eve of taking Orders, and was approaching his noble
patronesses for help in clearing himself of debt. But Mr. Chambers
points to the closing reference to 'a Christning at _Peckam_', and
dates the letter 1605-6, when Donne was at Peckham after leaving
Pyrford and before settling at Mitcham. I am not sure that this is
conclusive, for in Donne's unsettled life before 1615 Mrs. Donne might
at any time have gone for her lying-in or for a christening festival
to the house of her sister Jane, Lady Grimes, at Peckham. But the tone
of the letter, melancholy and reflective, is that of the letters to
Goodyere written at Mitcham, and the general theme of the letter, a
comparison of the different Churches, is that of other letters of
the same period. The one in question (_Letters_ 1651, p. 100;
Gosse, _Life_, ii. 77) seems to be almost a continuation of another
(_Letters_, 1651, p. 26; Gosse, _Life_, i. 225). Whatever be its date,
this is what Donne says: 'For the other part of your Letter, spent
in the praise of the Countesse, I am always very apt to beleeve it of
her, and can never beleeve it so well, and so reasonably, as now, when
it is averred by you; but for the expressing it to her, in that sort
as you seeme to counsaile, I have these two reasons to decline it.
That that knowledge which she hath of me, was in the beginning of
a graver course then of a Poet, into which (that I may also keep my
dignity) I would not seeme to relapse. The Spanish proverb informes
me, that he is a fool which cannot make one Sonnet, and he is mad
which makes two. The other strong reason is my integrity to the other
Countesse' (i.e. probably the Countess of Bedford. The words which
follow seem to imply a more recent acquaintance than is compatible
with so late a date as 1615), 'of whose worthinesse though I swallowed
your words, yet I have had since an explicit faith, and now a
knowledge: and for her delight (since she descends to them) I had
reserved not only all the verses which I should make, but all the
thoughts of womens worthinesse. But because I hope she will not
disdain, that I should write well of her Picture, I have obeyed you
thus far as to write; but intreat you by your friendship, that by this
occasion of versifying, I be not traduced, nor esteemed light in that
Tribe, and that house where I have lived. If those reasons which moved
you to bid me write be not constant in you still, or if you meant
not that I should write verses; or if these verses be too bad, or too
good, over or under her understanding, and not fit; I pray receive
them as a companion and supplement of this Letter to you,' &c. If this
was written in 1615 it is incompatible with the fact (supposing the
poem under consideration to be by Donne) that he had already written
to the Countess of Huntingdon a letter in a very thinly disguised tone
of amatory compliment. If, however, it was written, as is probable,
earlier, the reference may be to this very poem. Perhaps Goodyere
thought it 'over or under' the Countess's understanding and did not
present it.

(3) Certainly, looking at the poem itself, one has difficulty in
declaring it to be, or not to be, Donne's work. Its metaphysical wit
and strain of high-flown, rarefied compliment suggest that only he
could have written it; in parts, on the other hand, the tone does not
seem to me to be his. It is certainly very different from that of the
other letters to noble ladies. It carries one back to the date of the
_Elegies_. If Donne's, it is a further striking proof how much of the
tone of a lover even a married poet could assume in addressing a noble
patroness. Would Donne at any time of his life write to the Countess
of Huntingdon in the vein of p. 418, ll. 21-36, or the next paragraph,
ll. 37-76? One could imagine the Earl of Pembroke, or some one on
a level of equality socially with the Countess, writing so; not a
dependent addressing a patroness. The only points of style and verse
which might serve as clues are (1) the peculiar use of 'young',
e.g. l. 84 'youngest flatteries', l. 13 'younger formes'. With which
compare in the _Letter_ to Wotton, here added, at p. 188:

  Ere sicknesses attack, yong death is best.

(2) A recurring pattern of line to which Sir Walter Raleigh drew my
attention:

  35. Who first looked sad, griev'd, pin'd, and shew'd his pain.
  61. Love is wise here, keeps home, gives reason sway.
  88. You are the straight line, thing prais'd, attribute.
  113. Such may have eye and hand, may sigh, may speak.

I have not found this pattern elsewhere, and indeed the versification
throughout seems to me unlike that of Donne. Donne's decasyllabic
couplets have two quite distinctive patterns. The one is that of the
_Satyres_. In these the logical or rhetorical scheme runs right across
the metrical scheme--that is, the sense overflows from line to line,
and the pauses come regularly inside the line. A good example is the
paragraph beginning at p. 156, l. 65.

  Graccus loves all as one, &c.

In the _Elegies_ and in the _Letters_ the structure is not so
irregular and unmusical, but is periodic or paragraphic, i.e. the
lines do not fall into couplets but into larger groups knit together
by a single sentence or some closely connected sentences, the full
meaning or emphasis being well sustained to the close. Good examples
are _Elegie I._ ll. 1 to 16, _Elegie IV._ ll. 13 to 26, _Elegie V._ l.
5 to the end, _Elegie VIII._ ll. 1 to 34. Excellent examples are also
the letter _To the Countesse of Salisbury_ and the _Hymn to the Saints
and the Marquesse Hamylton_. Each of these is composed of three or
four paragraphs at the most. Now in the poem under consideration
there are two, or three at the most, paragraphs which suggest Donne's
manner, viz. ll. 1 to 10, ll. 11 to 16, and ll. 37 to 46. But the rest
of the poem is almost monotonously regular in its couplet structure.
To my mind the poem is not unlike what Rudyard might have written.
Indeed a fine piece of verse by Rudyard, belonging to the dialogue
between him and the Earl of Pembroke on Love and Reason, is attributed
to Donne in several manuscripts. The question is an open one, but had
I realized in time the weakness of the positive external evidence I
should not have moved the poem. I have been able to improve the text
materially.

With regard to the _Elegie on Mistris Boulstred_ (18 on the list) I
cannot expect readers to accept at once the conjecture I have ventured
to put forward regarding the authorship, for I have changed my own
mind regarding it. Two Elegies, both perhaps on Mris. Boulstred, Donne
certainly did write, viz.

  Death I recant, and say, unsaid by mee
  What ere hath slip'd, that might diminish thee;

and another, entitled _Death_, beginning

  Language thou art too narrow, and too weake
  To ease us now; great sorrow cannot speake.

Both of these are attributed to Donne by quite a number of manuscripts
and are very characteristic of his poetry in this kind, highly charged
with ingenious wit and extravagant eulogy. It is worth noting that in
the Hawthornden MS. the second bears no title (it is signed 'J. D.'),
and that it is not included in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. It is certainly
Donne's; it is not quite certain that it was written on Mris.
Boulstred. Indeed, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the reference to
Judith in a verse letter which seems to have been sent to Lady Bedford
with the poem, and the tenor of the poem, suggest that Lady Markham
is the subject of the elegy. Jonson, in speaking of Mris. Boulstred,
says, 'whose Epitaph Done made,' which points to a single poem; but he
may have been speaking loosely, or be loosely reported.

In contrast to these two elegies that beginning 'Death be not proud'
is found in only five manuscripts, _B_, _H40_, _O'F_, _P_, _RP31_.
Of these _H40_ and _RP31_ are really one, and in them the poem is not
ascribed to Donne. In two others, _O'F_ and _P_, the poem is given in
a very interesting and suggestive manner, viz. as a continuation of
'Death I recant'. What this suggests is the fairly obvious fact that
the second poem is to some extent a reply to the first. 'Death I
recant' is answered by 'Death be not proud'. If _O'F_ and _P_ are
right in their arrangement, then Donne answers himself. Beginning in
one mood, he closes in another; from a mood which is almost rebellious
he passes to one of Christian resignation. This was the view I put
forward in a note to the Cambridge _History of Literature_ (iv. 216).
I had hardly, however, sent off my proofs before I felt that there
was more than one objection to this view. There is in the first
place nothing to show that 'Death I recant' is not a poem complete
in itself; there is no preparation for the recantation. In the second
place, 'Death be not proud' is as a poem slighter in texture, vaguer
in thought, in feeling more sentimental and pious, than Donne's own
_Epicedes_. Whoever wrote it had a warmer feeling for Mris. Boulstred
than underlies Donne's rather frigid hyperboles. This suggested to me
that the poem was indeed an answer to 'Death I recant', but by another
person, another member of Lady Bedford's entourage. In this mood I
came on the ascription in _H40_, viz. 'By C. L. of B.' This indicated
no one whom I knew; but in _RP31_ it appeared as 'By L. C. of B.,'
i.e. Lucy, Countess of Bedford. We know that the Countess did write
verses, for Donne refers to them. In a letter which Mr. Gosse dates
1609 (Gosse's _Life_, &c., i. 217; _Letters_, 1651, p. 67) he speaks
of some verses written to himself: 'They must needs be an excellent
exercise of your wit, which speak so well of so ill.' That the
Countess of Bedford could have written 'Death be not proud', we cannot
prove in the absence of other examples of her work; that if she could
she did, is very likely. She had probably asked Donne for some verses
on the death of her friend. He replied with 'Death I recant'. The
tone, which if not pagan is certainly not Christian, while it is
untouched by any real feeling for the subject of the elegy, displeased
her, and she replied in lines at once more ardent and more resigned.
At any rate, whether by Lady Bedford or not, the poem is not like
Donne's work, and the external evidence is against its being his. _B_
attributes it to 'F. B.', i.e. Francis Beaumont. It is right, on the
other hand, to point out that Donne opens one of the _Holy Sonnets_
with the exclamation used here:

  Death be not proud!

I have left the question of authorship an open one. Personally I
cannot bring myself to think that it is Donne's.

The sonnet _On the Blessed Virgin Mary_ (19 on the list), 'In that
O Queene of Queenes, thy birth was free,' is included among Donne's
poems in _1635_ and in _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _S96_. There is little doubt
that it is not Donne's but Henry Constable's. It is found in a series
of Spiritual Sonnets by H. C., in Harl. MS. 7553, f. 41, which were
first published by T. Park in _Heliconia_, ii. 1815, and unless all
of these are to be given to Donne this cannot. It is not in his style,
and Donne more than once denies the Immaculate Conception in the
full Catholic sense of the doctrine. Nothing could more expressly
contradict this sonnet than the lines in the _Second Anniversarie_:

  Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid
  Joy in not being that, which men have said.
  Where she is exalted more for being good,
  Then for her interest of Mother-hood.

Of the next three poems (20, 21, 22 on the list), the second, the
_Ode_ beginning 'Vengeance will sit above our faults', seems to me
very doubtful, although on second thoughts I have re-transferred
it from the Appendix to the place among the _Divine Poems_ which
it occupies in _1635_. Against its authenticity are the following
considerations: (1) It is not at all in the style of Donne's other
specifically religious poems. The elevated, stoical tone is more like
Jonson's occasional religious pieces than Donne's personal, tormented,
Scholastic _Divine Poems_. (2) Of the manuscripts in which it appears,
_B_, _Cy_, _H40_, _RP31_, _O'F_, _P_, _S_, the best, _RP31_, assigns
it, not to Donne, but to 'Sir Edward Herbert', i.e. Lord Herbert of
Cherbury.[17] Mr. Chambers, indeed, inadvertently stated that in this
manuscript 'it is said to have been written to George Herbert'. The
name 'Sr Edw. Herbert' is written beside the poem, and that in such
cases is meant to indicate the author of the poem. It seems to me
quite possible that it was written by Lord Herbert, but until more
evidence be forthcoming I have let it stand, because (1) the letters
'I. D.' printed after the poem show that the poem must have been
so initialled in the manuscript from which it was printed, and (2)
because, though not in the style of Donne's later religious poems, it
is somewhat in the style of the philosophical, stoical letter which
Donne addressed to Sir Edward Herbert at the siege of Juliers in 1610.
The poem was possibly composed at the same time. (3) The thought of
the last verse, our ignorance of ourselves, recurs in Donne's poems
and prose. Compare _Negative Love_ (p. 66):

  If any who deciphers best,
  What we know not, our selves,

and the passage quoted in the note to this poem.

The poem _Upon the translation of the Psalmes by Sir Philip Sydney,
and the Countesse of Pembroke his Sister_, if by Donne, was probably
written late in his life and never widely circulated. It occurred
to me that the author might be John Davies of Hereford, who was
a dependent of the Countess and her two sons, and who made a
calligraphic copy of the _Psalms_ of Sidney and his sister, from
which they were printed by Singer in 1823. But Professor Saintsbury
considers, I think justly, that the 'wit' of the opening lines,

  Eternall God (for whom who ever dare
  Seeke new expressions, doe the Circle square,
  And thrust into strait corners of poore wit
  Thee who art cornerlesse and infinite),

is above Davies' level, and indeed the whole poem is. The lines _To
Mr. Tilman after he had taken orders_ (22 on the list) were also
probably privately communicated to the person to whom they were
addressed. The best argument for their genuineness is that Walton
seems to quote from them when he describes Donne's preaching.

                             For they doe
  As Angels out of clouds, from Pulpits speake,

must have suggested 'always preaching to himself, like an angel from a
cloud, but in none'. This does not, however, carry us very far. Walton
had seen the editions of 1635 and 1639 before he wrote these lines in
1640.

The verse _On the Sacrament_ (23 on the list) is probably assigned to
Donne by a pure conjecture. It is very frequently attributed to Queen
Elizabeth.

Of the two poems added in _1649_ the lines _Upon Mr. Thomas Coryats
Crudities_ are of course Donne's. They appeared with his name in his
lifetime, and Donne is one of the friends mentioned by Coryat in his
letters from India. _The Token_ (4 on the list) may or may not be
Donne's. It is found in several, but no very good, manuscripts.
Its wit is quite in Donne's style, though not absolutely beyond the
compass of another. The poems which the younger Donne added in _1650_
are in much the same position. 'He that cannot chose but love' (5
on the list) is a trifle, whoever wrote it. 'The heavens rejoice in
motion' (10 on the list) is in a much stronger strain of paradox, and
if not Donne's is by an ambitious and witty disciple. If genuine, it
is strange that it did not find its way into more collections. It is
found in _A10_, where a few of Donne's poems are given with others by
Roe, Hoskins, and other wits of his circle. It is also, however, given
in _JC_, a manuscript containing in its first part few poems that are
not demonstrably genuine. As things stand, the balance of evidence is
in favour of Donne's authorship.

Besides the _Elegies XVIII_ and _XIX_, which are Donne's, as we have
seen, and the _Satyre_ 'Sleep next Society', which is not Donne's, the
edition of 1669 prefixed to the song _Breake of Day_ a fresh stanza:

  Stay, O sweet, and do not rise.

It appears in the same position in _S96_, but is given as a separate
poem in _A25_, _C_, _O'F_, and _P_. It certainly has no connexion with
Donne's poem, for the metre is entirely different and the strain of
the poetry less metaphysical.

The separate stanza was a favourite one in Song-Books of the
seventeenth century. It was printed apparently for the first time in
1612, in _The First Set of Madrigals and Motets of five Parts: apt for
Viols and Voices. Newly composed by Orlando Gibbons_. Here it begins

  Ah, deare hart why doe you rise?

In the same year it was printed in _A Pilgrimes Solace. Wherein is
contained Musicall Harmonie of 3, 4 and 5 parts, to be sung and plaid
with the Lute and Viols. By John Dowland._ The stanza begins

  Sweet stay awhile, why will you rise?

Mr. Chambers conjectures that the affixing of Dowland's initials to
the verse in some collection led to Donne being credited with it,
which is quite likely; but we are not sure that Dowland wrote it, and
the common theme appears to have drawn the poems together. In _The
Academy of Complements, Wherein Ladies, Gentlewomen, Schollers,
and Strangers may accomodate their Courtly practice with gentile
Ceremonies, Complemental amorous high expressions, and Formes of
speaking or writing of Letters most in fashion_ (1650) the verse is
connected with a variation of the first stanza of Donne's poem so as
to make a consistent song:

  Lie still, my dear, why dost thou rise?
  The light that shines comes from thine eyes.
  The day breaks not, it is my heart,
  Because that you and I must part.
    Stay or else my joys will die,
    And perish in their infancy.
  'Tis time, 'tis day, what if it be?
  Wilt thou therefore arise from me?
  Did we lie down because of night,
  And shall we rise for fear of light?
  No, since in darkness we came hither,
  In spight of light we'll lye together.
  Oh! let me dye on thy sweet breast
  Far sweeter than the Phœœnix nest.

It was probably some such combination as this which suggested to the
editor of _1669_ to prefix the stanza to Donne's poem. The poem in
_The Academy of Compliments_ was repeated in _Wits Interpreter, the
English Parnassus, a sure guide to those Admirable Accomplishments
that compleat our English Gentry in the most acceptable Qualifications
of Discourse or Writing_ (1655). But the first stanza is given again
in this collection as a separate poem.

The translation of the _Psalme 137_, which was inserted in _1633_
and never withdrawn (as the _Epitaph on Shakespeare_ was) is pretty
certainly not by Donne. The only manuscript which ascribes it to him
is _A25_ followed by _C_. On the other hand it is assigned to Francis
Davison, editor of the _Poetical Rhapsody_, in _RP61_ (Bodleian
Library). In one manuscript, Addl. MS. 27407, the poem is accompanied
with a letter, unsigned and undirected, which speaks of this as one
out of several translations made by the author. The handwriting and
style of the letter are not Donne's, but the letter explains why this
one Psalm is found floating around by itself. It was, the translator
says, a freer paraphrase than the others. Apparently it proved a
favourite.

When one turns from the poems attributed to Donne in the old editions
to those which some of the more recent editors have added, one
launches into a sea which I have no intention of attempting to
navigate in its entirety. Both Sir John Simeon and Dr. Grosart were
disposed to cry 'Eureka' too readily, and assigned to Donne a number
of poems culled from various manuscripts for the genuineness of which
there is no evidence external or internal. I shall confine my remarks
to the few poems I have myself incorporated for the first time in an
edition of Donne's poems; to the Song 'Absence hear my protestation',
which it is now the fashion to ascribe to Donne absolutely, letting
evidence 'go hang'; and to the four poems which Mr. Chambers printed
from _A25_. I have added some more in my Appendix C, because they are
interesting [Greek: adespota] illustrative of the influence in
seventeenth-century poetry of Donne's realistic passion and his
paradoxical wit.

Of the poems which appear here for the first time in a collected
edition, it is not necessary to say much of those which are taken from
_W_, the Westmoreland MS. now in the possession of Mr. Gosse, who with
the greatest and most spontaneous kindness has permitted me to print
them all. These include two Epigrams, four additional Letters, and
three Holy Sonnets. The Epigrams, the Holy Sonnets, and two of the
Letters have been already printed by Mr. Gosse in his _Life of John
Donne_, 1899. There can be no doubt of their genuineness. They enlarge
a series of Letters and a series of Sonnets which appear in _1633_ and
in all the best manuscript collections. In their arrangement I have
followed _W_ in preference to _1633_, which is based on _A18_, _N_,
_TC_. Of the letter taken from the Burley MS. there may be greater
doubt in some minds. To me it seems unquestionably Donne's (aut Donne
aut Diabolus), an addition to the series of letters which he wrote
to Sir Henry Wotton between the return of the Islands Expedition and
Essex's return from Ireland. The Burley MS. is a commonplace-book
of Wotton's and includes poems which we know as Donne's, e.g. 'Come,
Madam, come'; some of his Paradoxes with a covering letter; other
letters which from their substance and style seem to be Donne's; and a
number of poems, including this which alone of all the doubtful poems
in the manuscript is initialled 'J. D.' The manuscript contains work
by Donne. Does this come under that head? Only internal evidence can
decide. Of the other poems in the manuscript, most of which I print in
Appendix C, none are certainly Donne's.

'Absence heare my protestation' was printed in Donne's lifetime
in Davison's _A Poetical Rhapsody_ (1602, 1608, 1621), but with no
reference to Donne's authorship, although his name was yearly growing
a more popular hostel for wandering, unclaimed poems.[18] It was not
printed in any edition of his poems from _1633_ to _1719_. It is not
found in either of the most trustworthy manuscript collections, _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_, or _A18_, _N_, _TC_. It _is_ found in _B_, _Cy_, _L74_,
_O'F_, _P_, _S96_, but none of these can be counted an authority. In
1711 it was for the first time ascribed to Donne in _The Grove_,
a miscellaneous collection of poems, on the authority of 'an old
Manuscript of Sir John Cotton's of Stratton in Huntington-Shire'.
On the other hand, in one well authenticated manuscript, _HN_, it is
transcribed by William Drummond of Hawthornden from what he describes
as a collection of poems 'belonging to John Don' (not '_by_ Donne'),
and, with another poem, is initialled 'J. H.' That other poem called

  _His Melancholy._

  Love is a foolish melancholy, &c.,

is by a Manchester manuscript (Farmer-Chetham MS., ed. Grosart,
_Chetham Society Publications_, lxxxix, xc) assigned to 'Mr. Hoskins',
and in another manuscript (_A10_) it is signed 'H' with the left leg
of H so written as to suggest JH run together. Clearly at any rate
the _onus probandi_ lies with those who say the poem is by Donne.
Internally it has never seemed to me so since I came to know Donne
well. The metaphysical, subtle strain is like Donne, as it is in
_Soules Joy_, but here as there (though there is more feeling in
_Absence_, the closing line has a very Donne-like note of sudden
anguish, 'and so miss her') the tone is airier, the prosody more
tripping. The stressed syllables are less weighted emotionally and
vocally. Compare

  Sweetest love, I do not goe,
    For wearinesse of thee
  Nor in hope the world can show
    A fitter Love for me;

or

  Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,
  Weepe me not dead, in thine armes, but forbeare
  To teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;

with the more tripping measure, in which one touches the stressed
syllables as with tiptoe, of

  By absence this good means I gaine,
      That I can catch her
      Where none can watch her,
  In some close corner of my braine.

There are more of Hoskins' poems extant, but the manuscript volume of
poems which he left behind ('bigger than those of Dr. Donne') was lost
in 1653.

Four poems were first printed as Donne's by Mr. Chambers (op. cit.,
Appendix B). They are all found in Addl. MS. 25707 (_A25_), and, so
far as I know, there only. I have placed them first in Appendix C,
as the only pieces in that Appendix which are at all likely to be by
Donne. _A25_ is a manuscript written in a number of different hands,
some six within the portion that includes poems by Donne. The relative
age of these it would be impossible to assign with any confidence.
What looks the oldest (I may call it A) is used only for three poems,
viz. Donne's _Elegye_: 'What [_sic_] that in Color it was like thy
haire,' his _Obsequies Upon the Lord Harrington yt last died_, and the
_Elegie of Loves progresse_. It is in Elizabethan secretary's hand,
and seems to me identical with the writing in which the same poems are
copied in C, the Cambridge University Library MS. A second hand, B,
inserts the larger number of the poems unquestionably by Donne in
close succession, but a third hand, C, transcribes several by Donne
along with poems by other wits, as Francis Beaumont. A fourth hand,
D, seems to be the latest because it is the handwriting in which the
Index was made out, and the poems inserted in this hand are inserted
in odd spaces left by the other writers. Now of the poems in question,
one, _A letter written by S^{r} H: G: and J. D. alternis vicibus_,
is copied by D, and the same hand adds immediately _An Elegie on the
Death of my never enough Lamented master King Charles the First_, by
Henry Skipwith. The poem attributed to Donne was therefore not entered
here till after 1649. But of course it may have come from an older
source, and it has quite the appearance of being genuine. Whoever made
the collection would seem to have had access to some of Goodyere's
work, for this poem is almost immediately preceded by an _Epithalamion
of the Princess Mariage_, by S^{r} H. G., and a little earlier the
_Good Friday_ poem by Donne is headed _Mr J. Dun goeing from Sir H. G.
on good friday sent him back this Meditacon on the waye_. That reads
like a note by Goodyere himself. If this be what happened, the copyist
may have ascribed to Donne some of Goodyere's own verses. Certainly
there is nothing in the other three poems, 'O Fruitful garden,'
'Fie, fie, you sons of Pallas,' 'Why chose she black' (all in the
handwriting C) which would warrant our ascribing them to Donne. Later
in the collection a coarse poem, 'Why should not Pilgrims to thy body
come,' in a fifth hand, is signed J. D., but _P_ assigns it to F. B.,
and it is more in Beaumont's style. Poems by and on Beaumont occupy a
considerable space in _A25_. He is a quite possible candidate for the
authorship of some of the poems assigned to Donne in the hand C.

Mr. Hazlitt attributes to Donne (_General Index to Hazlitt's Handbook,
&c._, p. 228) a Funeral Elegie on the death of Philip Stanhope, who
died at Christ Church in 1625. I have not been able to find the volume
in which it appears; but, as it is said to be by John Donne _Alumnus_,
the author must be the younger Donne.


    [Footnote 1: Mr. Chambers has reprinted a good many of these,
    but only in an Appendix and under the title of _Doubtful
    Poems_. He has added a few more from _A25_, from _Coryats
    Crudities_, and from some manuscripts in the Bodleian Library.
    If printed at all it is a pity that these poems were not
    reproduced more correctly. Textually the appendices are much
    the worst part of Mr. Chambers' edition. In most cases he has,
    I presume, taken the poems over as they stand from Simeon and
    Grosart.]

    [Footnote 2: All three editors have also dropped the song
    'Deare Love continue nice and chaste', David Laing having
    pointed out (_Archaeologia Scotica_, iv. 73-6) that this poem
    occurs in the Hawthornden MSS, with the signature 'J. R.'
    Chambers also rejects the sonnet _On the Blessed Virgin Mary_,
    probably by Henry Constable, and all three editors exclude the
    lines _On the Sacrament_.]

    [Footnote 3: I have given with each poem a list of the
    editions and manuscripts (known to me) in which it is
    contained. A glance at these will show the weight of the
    external evidence. Of internal evidence every man must be
    judge for himself.]

    [Footnote 4: To these must of course be added poems already
    published in Donne's name. See II. lvi.]

    [Footnote 5: In F. G. Waldron's _A Collection of Miscellaneous
    Poetry_. 1802.]

    [Footnote 6: Chambers includes it in his Appendix A, _Doubtful
    Poems_, but seems to lean to the view that it is by Roe. The
    second is printed as Donne's by Grosart and as presumably
    Donne's by Chambers.]

    [Footnote 7: In _O'F_ and _S_, where they also occur, they
    are more dispersed; but these manuscripts have, like _1635_,
    adopted a classification of the poems they contain which
    involves their distribution as songs, elegies, letters
    and satires. _A10_ is the most significant witness. This
    manuscript contains very few poems by Donne. Why should it
    select just this suspicious group?]

    [Footnote 8: Among the marriage licences granted by the Bishop
    of London in 1601 (_Harleian Society Publications_) is the
    following: 'Henry Sackford the younger, of the Charter House,
    Gent; 27, father dead, and Sarah Rowe of St Johns in St John's
    Street, co. Middlesex, Maiden, dau. of John Rowe of Clapham,
    Beds, Esq. decd (i.e. deceas'd) about 9 years since,' &c.]

    [Footnote 9: See the genealogies given in the _Harleian
    Society Publications_, vol. xiii, 1878, from the _Visitation
    of Essex_ 1612 (pp. 282-3) and the _Visitation of Essex_ 1634
    (p. 479).]

    [Footnote 10: The oldest was the John Rowe of Clapham, Beds.
    The second, Henry, was also Mayor of London and was knighted
    in 1603. The fourth, Robert, was the father of the
    ambassador, and died while his son was a child. There were two
    daughters--Mary, who married Thomas Randall, and Elizabeth,
    who married William Garret of Dorney, co. Bucks. The son of
    the latter couple was Donne's intimate friend George Gerrard
    or Garrard.]

    [Footnote 11: Row, John, of Essex. arm. matric. 14 Oct., 1597,
    aged 16. (Joseph Foster, _Alumni Oxonienses_, iii, 1284). The
    Provost of Queen's has kindly informed me that in the College
    books his name is entered simply as 'Rowe' and as having
    entered 'Ter. Mich. 1597'. He tells me further that in Andrew
    Clark's edition of the University Matriculation Registers it
    is stated that the date of his matriculation was between Oct.
    14 and Dec. 2, 1597. There can be no doubt, I think, that
    this is our Roe. There are not likely to have been two in the
    County of Essex with the right to be called 'armiger'. Had his
    father still lived he would have been entered as 'fil. gen.'
    or 'fil. arm.']

    [Footnote 12: _Hist. MSS. Com._: _Buccleugh MSS._ (Montague
    House), vol. i, pp. 56, 58. The letters are dated May 13, Nov.
    7.]

    [Footnote 13: _Calendar of State Papers._ Ireland, 1606-8,
    p. 538. I owe this and the last reference to Mr. Murray L. R.
    Beavan, University Assistant in History, Aberdeen University.]

    [Footnote 14: Other poems by Pembroke are found in the
    manuscript collections of Donne's poems. A scholarly edition
    of the poems of Pembroke and Rudyard would be a boon. Many
    ascribed to them by the younger Donne in his edition of 1660
    could be removed and others added from manuscript sources.]

    [Footnote 15: It is one of the worst printed in _1635_ and
    _1669_ (where it first appeared in full), and has admitted
    of many emendations from the manuscripts. Grosart has already
    introduced some from the Hazlewood-Kingsborough MS., but he
    left some gross errors. In the lines,

      That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
      When my own thoughts I there reflected find,

    all the three modern editions are content still to read,

      When my own thoughts I there neglected find

    --a strange reason for being enamoured. Some difficult and
    perhaps corrupt lines still remain.]

    [Footnote 16: In forming this Appendix it was not my intention
    to remove these poems dogmatically from under the aegis of
    Donne's name. I wished rather to separate them from those
    which are indubitably his and facilitate comparison. Further
    evidence may show that I have erred as to one or other. This
    letter is the only one about which I feel any doubt myself. I
    have taken as much trouble with their text as with the rest of
    the poems.]

    [Footnote 17: _H40_ has no ascription. In the poem
    just discussed the ascription made correctly, at least
    intelligibly, in _RP31_, was transposed in _H40_. This must be
    the later collection. See II. p. cxiv.]

    [Footnote 18: _Absence_ is printed, again unsigned, in _Wit
    Restored in severall Select Poems not formerly published_.
    (1658.)]



       *       *       *       *       *



COMMENTARY.


[Sidenote: _Metaphysical Poetry._]

Donne is a 'metaphysical' poet. The term was perhaps first applied
by Dryden, from whom Johnson borrowed it: 'He' (Donne) 'affects the
metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where
nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with
the speculations of philosophy, where he should engage their hearts,
and entertain them with the softness of love.' _Essay on Satire_. 'The
metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning
was their whole endeavour.' Johnson, _Life of Cowley_. The parade of
learning, and a philosophical or abstract treatment of love had been
a strain in mediaeval poetry from the outset, manifesting itself
most fully in the Tuscan poets of the 'dolce stil nuovo', but never
altogether absent from mediaeval love-poetry. The Italian poet Testi
(1593-1646), describing his choice of classical in preference to
Italian models (he is thinking specially of Marino), says: 'poichè
lasciando quei concetti metafisici ed ideali di cui sono piene le
poesie italiane, mi sono provato di spiegare cose più domestiche, e
di maneggiarle con effetti più famigliari a imitazione d'Ovidio, di
Tibullo, di Properzio, e degli altri migliori.' Donne's love-poetry is
often classical in spirit; his conceits are the 'concetti metafisici'
of mediaeval poetry given a character due to his own individuality and
the scientific interests of his age.

A metaphysical poet in the full sense of the word is a poet who finds
his inspiration in learning; not in the world as his own and common
sense reveal it, but in the world as science and philosophy report of
it. The two greatest metaphysical poets of Europe are Lucretius and
Dante. What the philosophy of Epicurus was to Lucretius, that of
Thomas Aquinas was to Dante. Their poetry is the product of their
learning, transfigured by the imagination, and it is not to be
understood without some study of their thought and knowledge.

Donne is not a metaphysical poet of the compass of Lucretius and
Dante. He sets forth in his poetry no ordered system of the universe.
The ordered system which Dante had set forth was breaking in pieces
while Donne lived, under the criticism of Copernicus, Galileo, and
others, and no poet was so conscious as Donne of the effect on
the imagination of that disintegration. In the two _Anniversaries_
mystical religion is made an escape from scientific scepticism.
Moreover, Donne's use of metaphysics is often frivolous and flippant,
at best simply poetical. But he is a learned poet, and he is a
philosophical poet, and without some attention to the philosophy
and science underlying his conceits and his graver thought it is
impossible to understand or appreciate either aright. Failure to do so
has led occasionally to the corruption of his text.

[Sidenote: _Donne's Learning._]

Walton tells us that Donne's learning, in his eleventh year when he
went to Oxford, 'made one then give this censure of him, "That this
age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula; of whom story says that
he was rather born than made wise by study."' 'In the most unsettled
days of his youth', the same authority reports, 'his bed was not able
to detain him beyond the hour of four in the morning; and it was no
common business that drew him out of his chamber till past ten; all
which time was employed in study; though he took great liberty after
it.' 'He left the resultances of 1,400 authors, most of them abridged
and analysed with his own hand.' The lists of authors prefixed to
his prose treatises and the allusions and definite references in the
sermons corroborate Walton's statement regarding the range of Donne's
theological and controversial reading.

[Sidenote: _Classical Literature._]

Confining attention here to Donne's poetry, and the spontaneous
evidence of learning which it affords, one would gather that his
reading was less literary and poetic in character than was Milton's
during the years spent at Horton. It is clear that he knew the
classical poets, but there are few specific allusions. Ovid, Horace,
and Juvenal one can trace, not any other with certainty, nor in his
sermons do references to Virgil, Horace, or other poets abound.

[Sidenote: _Italian._]

Like Milton, Donne had doubtless read the Italian romances. One
reference to Angelica and an incident in the _Orlando Furioso_
occur in the _Satyres_, and from the same source as well as from an
unpublished letter we learn that he had read Dante. Aretino is the
only other Italian to whom he makes explicit reference.

[Sidenote: _French._]

One of Régnier's satires opens in a manner resembling the fourth of
Donne's, and in a letter written from France apparently in 1612 he
refers to 'a book of French Satires', which Mr. Gosse conjectures to
be Régnier's. The resemblance may be accidental, for Donne's _Satyres_
were written before the publication of Régnier's (1608, 1613), and
Donne makes no explicit mention of him or any other French poet.
We learn, however, from his letters that he had read Montaigne and
Rabelais; and it is improbable that he did not share the general
interest of his contemporaries in the poetry of the _Pléiade_. The
one poet to whom recent criticism has pointed as the inspiration
of Donne's metaphysical verse is the Protestant poet Du Bartas. Mr.
Alfred Horatio Upham (_The French Influence in English Literature._
New York, 1908), and following him Sir Sidney Lee (_The French
Renaissance in England._ Oxford, 1910), have insisted strongly on the
importance of this influence. The latter goes so far as to say that
'Donne clothed elegies, eclogues, divine poems, epicedes, obsequies,
satires, in a garb barely distinguishable from the style of Du Bartas
and Sylvester', and that the metaphysical style in English poetry is a
heritage from Du Bartas.

I confess this seems to me a somewhat exaggerated statement. When
I turn from Donne's passionate and subtle songs and elegies to
Sylvester's hum-drum and yet 'conceited' work, I find their styles
eminently distinguishable. Mr. Upham indeed allows that Donne's
genius makes 'vital and impressive' what in the original is 'vapid
and commonplace'. He pleads for no more than an 'element of French
suggestion'.

Of the most characteristic features of Du Bartas's rhetoric, his
affected antitheses, his studied alliterative effects, and especially
his double-epithets 'aime-carnage', 'charme-souci', 'blesse-honneur',
Sylvester's 'forbidden-Bit-lost-glory', 'the Act-simply-pure', &c.,
Mr. Upham admits that Donne makes sparing use. Donne uses a fair
number of compounds but the majority of these are nouns and verbs. Of
the epithets only one or two are of the sentence-compressing
character which the French poet cultivated. The most like is
'full-on-both-side-written rolls'. The real link between Du Bartas and
Donne is that they are metaphysical poets. Following Lucretius, whom
he often translates, the Frenchman set himself to give a scientific
account of the creation of the universe as outlined in _Genesis_. He
describes with the utmost minuteness of detail, and necessarily uses
similes better fitted to elucidate and illustrate than to give poetic
pleasure, drawn from the most everyday sources as well as arts and
sciences. It was part of the programme of the _Pléiade_ thus to annex
the vocabulary of learning and the crafts. Now Donne may have read Du
Bartas in the original, or he may have seen some parts of Sylvester's
translation (it did not appear till 1598), as it was in preparation,
though to a Catholic, as Donne was, the poem would not have the
attraction it had for Protestant poets in England, Holland, and
Germany. The bent of his own mind was to metaphysics, to erudition,
and also to figures realistic and surprising rather than beautiful.
It would be rash to deny that he may have found in Du Bartas a style
which he preferred to the Italianate picturesqueness of sonneteers and
idyllists, and been encouraged to follow his bent. That he borrowed
his style from Du Bartas is _non proven_: and there are in his work
strains of feeling, thought, and learning which cannot be traced
to the French poet. Two poets more essentially unlike it would be
difficult to imagine. There are very few passages where one can trace
or conjecture echoes or borrowings (see note, II. p. 193). I agree
indeed with Mr. Upham that the poems which most strongly suggest
that Donne had been reading Du Bartas are the First and Second
_Anniversaries_, which Sir Sidney Lee inadvertently calls early
poems. Here at least he is often dealing with the same themes. One
can illustrate his thought from Du Bartas. Perhaps it was the latter's
poem which suggested the use of marginal notes, giving the argument of
the poem.

[Sidenote: _Spanish._]

We know from Donne's explicit statement that his library was full both
of Spanish poets and Spanish theologians, and there has been some talk
of Spanish influence in his poetry. But no one has adduced evidence.
Gongora is out of the question, for Gongora did not begin to cultivate
the extravagant conceits of his later poetry till he came under the
influence of Carillo's posthumous poems in 1611 (Fitzmaurice Kelly:
_Spanish Literature_, 283-5); nor is there much resemblance between
his high-flown Marinism and Donne's metaphysical subtleties. It is
possible that Spanish mysticism and religious eloquence have left
traces in Donne's _Divine Poems_ and sermons. The subject awaits
investigation.

[Sidenote: _Scholastic Philosophy._]

A commentator on Donne is, therefore, not called on to trace literary
echoes in his poetry as Bishop Newton and others have done in Milton's
poems. It is reading of another kind, though a kind also traceable
in Milton, that he has to note. Donne was steeped in Scholastic
Philosophy and Theology. Often under his most playful conceits lurk
Scholastic definitions and distinctions. The question of the influence
of Plato on the poets of the Renaissance has been discussed of recent
years, but generally without a sufficient preliminary inquiry as
to the Scholastic inheritance of these poets. Doctrines that derive
ultimately, it may be, from Plato and Aristotle were familiar to Donne
and others in the first place from Aquinas and the theology of the
Schools, and, as Professor Picavet has insisted (_Esquisse d'une
histoire générale et comparée des philosophies médiévales._ Paris,
1907), they entered the Scholastic Philosophy through Plotinus and
were modified in the passage.[1] The present editor is in no way a
specialist in Scholasticism, and such notes and extracts as are given
here concern passages where some inquiry was necessary to fix the text
and to elucidate the meaning. They are intended simply to do this
as far as possible, and to suggest the direction which further
investigation must follow. An expert will doubtless note many
allusions that have escaped notice. Whenever possible I have
endeavoured to start from Donne's own sermons and prose works.


    [Footnote 1: The influence of Scholastic Philosophy and
    Theology in English poetry deserves attention. When Milton
    states that

      They also serve who only stand and wait,

    he has probably in mind the opinion of Dionysius the
    Areopagite (adopted by Aquinas), that the four highest
    orders of angels (Dominations, Thrones, Cherubs, and
    Seraphim) never leave God's presence to bear messages.]


[Sidenote: _The Fathers, &c._]

Donne is as familiar with the Fathers as with the Schoolmen,
especially Tertullian and Augustine, and of them too he makes use
in poems neither serious nor edifying. His work with Morton had
familiarized him with the whole range of Catholic controversy from
Bellarmine to Spanish and German Jesuit pamphleteers and casuists.
_The Progresse of the Soule_ reveals his acquaintance with Jewish
apocryphal legends.

[Sidenote: _Law._]

But Donne's studies were not confined to Divinity. When a Law-student
he was 'diverted by the worst voluptuousness, which is an hydroptic
immoderate desire of humane learning and languages'; but his legal
studies have left their mark in his _Songs and Sonets_. Of Medicine he
had made an extensive study, and the poems abound in allusions to both
the orthodox Galenist doctrines and the new Paracelsian medicine with
its chemical drugs and homoeopathic cures.[2] In Physics he knows,
like Milton, the older doctrines, the elements, their concentric
arrangement, the origin of winds and meteors, &c., and at the same
time is acutely interested in the speculations of the newer science,
of Copernicus and Galileo, and the disintegrating effect of their
doctrines on the traditional views.


    [Footnote 2: In the _Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, &c._
    (1651, 1654), pp. 14-15, Donne gives a short sketch of the history
    of medical doctrines from Hippocrates through Galen to Paracelsus,
    but declares that the new principles are attributed to the latter
    'too much to his honour'.]


[Sidenote: _Travels._]

A special feature of Donne's imagery is the use of images drawn from
the voyages and discoveries of the age. Sir Walter Raleigh has not
included Donne among the poets whom he discusses in considering the
influence of the Voyages on Poetry and Imagination (_The English
Voyages of the Sixteenth Century._ Glasgow, 1906, iii), but perhaps
none took a more curious interest. His mistress is 'my America,
my Newfoundland', his East and West Indies; he sees, at least in
imagination,

                        a Tenarif, or higher Hill
  Rise so high like a Rocke, that one might thinke
  The floating Moone would shipwracke there, and sinke;

he sails to heaven, the Pacific Ocean, the Fortunate Islands, by the
North-West Passage, or through the Straits of Magellan.

In attempting to illustrate these and other aspects of Donne's
erudition as displayed in his poetry it has been my endeavour not so
much to trace them to their remote sources as to discover the form
in which he was familiar with a doctrine or a theory. Next to his own
works, therefore, I have had recourse to contemporary or but slightly
later works, as Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and Browne's
_Pseudodoxia Epidemica_. I have made constant use of the _Summa
Theologiae_ of St. Thomas Aquinas, using the edition in Migne's
_Patrologiae Cursus Completus_ (1845). By Professor Picavet my
attention was called to Bouillet's translation of Plotinus's _Enneads_
with ample notes on the analogies to and developments of Neo-Platonic
thought in the Schoolmen. I have also used Zeller's _Philosophie der
Griechen_, on Plotinus, and Harnack's _History of Dogma_. Throughout,
my effort has been rather to justify, elucidate, and suggest, than to
accumulate parallels.

*** In the following notes the _LXXX Sermons &c._ (1640), _Fifty
Sermons &c._ (1649), and _XXVI Sermons &c._ (1669/70) are referred to
thus:--80. 19. 189, i.e. the _LXXX Sermons_, the nineteenth sermon,
page 189. References to page and line simply of the poems are to the
first volume of this edition. References to the second are given thus,
II. p. 249.



THE PRINTER TO &c.

See _Text and Canon of Donne's Poems_, p. lix.

PAGE =1=, ll. 17-18. _it would have come to us from beyond the Seas_:
e.g. from Holland.

ll. 19-20. _My charge and pains in procuring of it_: A significant
statement as to the source of the edition.

PAGE =3=. _Hexastichon Bibliopolae._

l. 1. _his last preach'd, and printed Booke_, i.e. _Deaths Duell or
a Consolation to the Soule against the dying Life and living Death
of the body. Delivered in a sermon at Whitehall, before the Kings
Majesty in the beginning of Lent 1630, &c. ... Being his last Sermon
and called by his Majesties household the Doctors owne Funerall
Sermon. 1632, 1633._

This has for frontispiece a bust of Donne in his shroud, engraved by
Martin Dr[oeshout] from the drawing from which Nicholas Stone cut the
figure on Donne's tomb (Gosse's _Life, &c._ ii. 288). Walton's account
of the manner in which this picture was prepared is well known. See
II. p. 249.

PAGE =4=. _William, Lord Craven, &c._ This is the younger Donne's
dedication. See _Text and Canon, &c._, p. lxx.

William Craven (1606-1697) entered the service of Maurice, Prince of
Nassau in 1623. He served later, 1631, under Gustavus Adolphus; and
became a devoted adherent of Elizabeth of Bohemia and the cause of the
Palatine house. He lost his estates in the Rebellion, but after the
Restoration was created successively Baron Craven of Hampsted-Marsham,
Viscount Craven of Uffington, and Earl of Craven. He was an early
member of the Royal Society.

Of the younger John Donne, D.C.L., whose life was dissolute and
poetry indecent, perhaps the most pleasing relic is the following poem
addressed to his father. It is found in _O'F_ and has been printed by
Mr. Warwick Bond:

A LETTER.

  No want of duty did my mind possesse,
  I through a dearth of words could not expresse
  That w^{ch} I feare I doe too soone pursue
  W^{ch} is to pay my duty due to you.
  For, through the weaknesse of my witt, this way
  I shall diminish what I hope to pay.
  And this consider, T'was the sonne of May
  And not Apollo that did rule the day.
  Had it bin hee then somthing would have rose;
  In gratefull verse or else in thankfull prose
  I would have told you (father) by my hand
  That I yo^r sonne am prouder of yo^r band
  Then others of theyr freedome, And to pay
  Thinke it good service to kneele downe and pray.

  Yo^r obedient sonne
  JO. DONNE.

PAGES =5, 6=. The three poems by Jonson were printed in the sheets
hastily added by the younger Donne in 1650 to the edition of Donne's
poems prepared for the press in 1649. See _Text and Canon, &c._
They were taken from Jonson's _Epigrams_ (1616), where they are Nos.
xxiii., xciv., and xcvi. Of Donne as a poet Jonson uttered three
memorable criticisms in his _Conversations with Drummond_ (ed. Laing,
Shakespeare Society, 1842):

'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in the world for some things.'

'That Done for not keeping of accent deserved hanging.'

'That Done himself, for not being understood, would perish.'



SONGS AND SONETS.

Of all Donne's poems these are the most difficult to date with any
definiteness. Jonson, Drummond notes, 'affirmeth Done to have written
all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five years old,' that would be
before 1598, the year in which Donne became secretary to Sir Thomas
Egerton. This harmonizes fairly well with such indications of date as
are discoverable in the _Elegies_, poems similar in theme and tone
to the _Songs and Sonets_. Mr. Chambers pushes the more daring and
cynical of these poems in both these groups further back. He says,
'All Donne's Love-poems ... seem to me to fall into two divisions.
There is one, marked by cynicism, ethical laxity and a somewhat
deliberate profession of inconstancy. This I believe to be his
earliest style, and ascribe the poems marked by it to the period
before 1596. About that date he became acquainted with Anne More, whom
he evidently loved devotedly and sincerely ever after. And therefore
from 1596 onwards I place the second division, with its emphasis of
the spiritual, and deep insight into the real things of love.' This is
a little too early. Anne More was only twelve years old in 1596, and
it is unlikely that she and Donne were known to each other before
1598. Their affection probably ripened later. It almost seems from
Donne's letters to his friends as though about 1599 he was proffering
at least courtly adoration to some other lady.

Moreover, it is to conceive somewhat inadequately of Donne's complex
nature to make too sharp a temporal division between his gayer, more
cynical effusions and his graver, even religious pieces. The truth
about Donne is well stated by Professor Norton: 'Donne's "better
angel" and his "worser spirit" seem to have kept up a continual
contest, now the one, now the other, gaining the mastery in his

  Poor soul, the centre of his sinful earth.'

The 'evaporations' which he allowed his wit from time to time till he
took orders showed always a certain 'ethical laxity' and 'cynicism' of
outlook on men and women. The _Elegie XIV_ (if it be Donne's, and
Mr. Chambers does not question its authenticity), the lines _Upon Mr.
Thomas Coryats Crudities_, the two frankly pagan _Epithalamia_ on the
Princess Elizabeth and the Countess of Somerset, to say nothing of
_Ignatius his Conclave_, were all written long after his marriage and
when he was already the author of moral epistles and 'divine poems'.
Even Professor Norton's statement exaggerates the 'contest' a little.
These things were evaporations of wit, and even a serious man in
the seventeenth century allowed to his wit satyric gambols which
disconcert our staider and more fastidious taste. I am quite at one
with Mr. Chambers in accepting his marriage as a turning-point in the
history of Donne's life and mind. But it would be rash to affirm that
_none_ of his wittier lyrics were written after this date.

Donne's 'songs and sonets' seem to me to fall into three rather than
two classes, though there is a good deal of overlapping. Donne's wit
is always touched with passion; his passion is always witty. In the
first class I would place those which are frankly 'evaporations'
of more or less cynical wit, the poems in which he parades his own
inconstancy or enlarges on the weaknesses of women, poems such as 'Goe
and catche', _Womans constancy_, _The Indifferent_, _Loves Vsury_,
_The Legacie_, _Communitie_, _Confined Love_, _Loves Alchymie_, _The
Flea_, _The Message_, _Witchcraft by a picture_, _The Apparition_,
_Loves Deitie_, _Loves diet_, _The Will_, _A Jeat Ring sent_,
_Negative love_, _Farewell to love_. In another group the wit in
Donne, whether gaily or passionately cynical, is subordinate to the
lover, pure and simple, singing, at times with amazing simplicity and
intensity of feeling, the joys of love and the sorrow of parting. Such
are _The good-morrow_, _The Sunne Rising_, _The Canonization_, _Lovers
infiniteness_, 'Sweetest love, I do not goe,' _A Feaver_, _Aire and
Angells_ (touched with cynical humour at the close), _Breake of day_,
_The Anniversarie_, _A Valediction: of the booke_, _Loves growth_,
_The Dreame_, _A Valediction: of weeping_, _The Baite_, _A
Valediction: forbidding mourning_, _The Extasie_, _The Prohibition_,
_The Expiration_, _Lecture upon the Shadow_. It would, of course, be
rash to say that all such poems were addressed to his wife. Some, like
_The Baite_, are purely literary in origin; others present the obverse
side of the passion portrayed in the first group, its happier moments.
But one must believe that those in which ardour is combined with
elevation and delicacy of feeling were addressed to Anne More before
and after their marriage.

In the third and smallest group, which includes, however, such fine
examples of his subtler moods as _The Funerall_, _The Blossome_, _The
Primrose_, Donne adopts the tone (as sincerely as was generally the
case) of the Petrarchian lover whose mistress's coldness has slain him
or provokes his passionate protestations. Some of these must, I think,
have been written after Donne's marriage. The titles one or two bear
connect them with Mrs. Herbert and the Countess of Bedford. The two
most enigmatical poems in the _Songs and Sonets_ are _Twicknam Garden_
and _A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day_. Yet the very names 'Twicknam
Garden' and 'S. Lucies day' suggest a reference to the Countess of
Bedford. It is possible that the last was written when Lady Bedford
was ill in December, 1612? 'My Lady Bedford last night about one of
the clock was suddenly, and has continued ever since, speechless,
and is past all hopes though yet alive,' writes the Earl of Dorset on
November 23, 1612. It is probable that on December 13 she was still in
a critical condition, supposing the illness to have been that common
complaint of an age of bad drains, namely typhoid fever, and Donne
may have written in anticipation of her death. But the suggestion is
hazardous. The third verse speaks a stronger language than that of
Petrarchian adoration. Still it is difficult for us to estimate aright
all that was allowed to a 'servant' under the accepted convention.
It is noteworthy that the poem is not included in any known MS.
collection made before 1630. The Countess died in 1627.


PAGE =7=. THE GOOD-MORROW.

The MSS. point to two distinct recensions of this poem. The one which
is given in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and in _1633_, reads,
3. countrey pleasures childishly 4. snorted 14. one world 17. better.
The other, which is the most common in the MSS., reads, 3. childish
pleasures seelily 4. slumbred 14. our world 17. fitter. The edition of
1635 shows a contamination of the two due to the fact that the printer
'set up' from _1633_, and he or the editor corrected from a MS.
collection, probably _A18_, _N_, _TC_. In _TCD_ the second recension
is given in the collection of Donne's poems in the first part of the
MS.; in the second part, a miscellaneous collection of poems, the poem
is given again, but according to the other version. It does not seem
to me possible to decide absolutely the relative authority of the two
versions, but to my mind that of 1633 and _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ seems the
more racy and characteristic. It probably represents the first
version of the poem, whether Donne or another be responsible for the
alterations. The only point of importance to be decided is whether
'better' or 'fitter' expresses more exactly what the poet meant to
say. The 1635 editor preferred 'fitter', thinking probably that
the idea of exact correspondence is emphasized, 'where find two
hemispheres that fit one another more exactly?' But this is not,
I think, what Donne meant. The mutual fittingness of the lovers is
implied already in the idea that each is a whole world to the other.
Gazing in each other's eyes each beholds a hemisphere of this world.
The whole cannot, of course, be reflected. And where could either find
a _better_ hemisphere, one in which there is as here neither 'sharpe
North' nor 'declining West', neither coldness nor alteration.

l. 13. _Let Maps to other._ The edition may have dropped the 's',
which occurs in most of the MSS., but the plural without 's' is common
even till a later period: 'These, as his other, were naughty things.'
Bunyan, _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_, p. 106 (Cambridge English
Classics). 'And other of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show
their teeth in way of smile.' Shakespeare, _Merchant of Venice_, I. i.
54.

ll. 20-1. _If our two loves be one, &c._ If our two loves are _one_,
dissolution is impossible; and the same is true if, though _two_,
they are always alike. What is simple--as God or the soul--cannot
be dissolved; nor compounds, e.g. the Heavenly bodies, between whose
elements there is no contrariety. 'Impossibile autem est quod forma
separetur a se ipsa. Unde impossibile est, quod forma subsistens
desinat esse. Dato etiam, quod anima esset ex materia et
forma composita, ut quidam dicunt, adhuc oporteret ponere eam
incorruptibilem. Non enim invenitur corruptio nisi ubi invenitur
contrarietas; generationes enim et corruptiones ex contrariis et in
contraria sunt' &c., Aquinas, _Summa_ I. Quaest. lxxv, Art. 6. The
body, being composed of contrary elements, has not this essential
immortality: 'In Heaven we doe not say, that our bodies shall devest
their mortality, so, as that naturally they could not dye; for they
shall have a composition still; and every compounded thing may perish;
but they shall be so assured, and with such a preservation, as they
shall alwaies know they shall never dye.' _Sermons_ 80. 19. 189.


PAGE =8=. SONG.

The first two stanzas of this song are printed in the 1653 edition of
the Poems of Francis Beaumont, with the title _A Raritie_. It is
set to music in Eg. MS. 2013, f. 58. Mr. Chambers points out that
Habington's poem, _Against them who lay Unchastity to the Sex of
Women_ (_Castara_, ed. Elton, p. 231), evidently refers to this poem:

  They meet but with unwholesome springs
    And summers which infectious are:
  They hear but when the meremaid sings,
    And only see the falling starre:
        Who ever dare
  Affirme no woman chaste and faire.

  Goe cure your feavers; and you'le say
    The Dog-dayes scorch not all the yeare:
  In copper mines no longer stay,
    But travel to the west, and there
        The right ones see,
  And grant all gold's not alchimie.

A poem modelled on Donne's appears in Harleian MS. 6057, and in _The
Treasury of Music. By Mr. Lawes and others._ (1669)

  Goe catch a star that's falling from the sky,
  Cause an immortal creature for to die;
  Stop with thy hand the current of the seas,
  Post ore the earth to the Antipodes;
  Cause times return and call back yesterday,
  Cloake January with the month of May;
    Weigh out an ounce of flame, blow back the winde:
    And then find faith within a womans minde.

  JOHN DUNNE.

l. 2. _Get with child a mandrake root._ 'Many Mola's and false
conceptions there are of _Mandrakes_, the first from great Antiquity,
conceiveth the Root thereof resembleth the shape of Man.... Now
whatever encourageth the first invention, there have not been wanting
many ways of its promotion. The first a Catachrestical and far derived
similitude it holds with Man; that is, in a bifurcation or division of
the Root into two parts, which some are content to call Thighs.' Sir
Thomas Browne's _Vulgar Errors_ (1686), ii. 6, p. 72. Compare also
_The Progresse of the Soule_, st. xv, p. 300.


PAGE =10=. THE UNDERTAKING.

l. 2. _the Worthies._ The nine worthies usually named are Joshua,
David, Judas Maccabaeus, Hector, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Arthur,
Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon, but they varied. Guy of Warwick
is mentioned by Gerard Legh, _Accedens of Armorye_. Nash mentions
Solomon and Gideon; and Shakespeare introduces Hercules and Pompey
in _Love's Labour's Lost_. _All the Worthies_ therefore covers a
wide field. The Worthies figured largely in decorative designs and
pageants. On a target taken at the siege of Ostend 'was enammeled
in gold the seven [_sic_] Worthies, worth seven or eight hundred
guilders'. Vere's _Commentaries_ (1657), p. 174.

l. 6. _The skill of specular stone._ Compare _To the Countesse of
Bedford_, p. 219, ll. 28-30:

  You teach (though wee learne not) a thing unknowne
  To our late times, the use of specular stone,
  Through which all things within without were shown.

Grosart (ii. 48-9) and Professor Norton (Grolier, i. 217) take
'specular' as meaning simply 'translucent', and the latter quotes
Holinshed's _Chronicle_, ii. ch. 10: 'I find obscure mention of the
specular stone also to have been found and applied to this use' (i.e.
glazing windows) 'in England, but in such doubtful sort as I dare
not affirm for certain.' This is the 'pierre spéculaire' or 'pierre à
miroir' which Cotgrave describes as 'A light, white, and transparent
stone, easily cleft into thinne flakes, and used by th' Arabians
(among whom it growes) instead of glasse; anight it represents the
Moon, and even increases or decreases, as the Moon doth'. But surely
Donne refers to crystal-gazing. Paracelsus has a paragraph in the
_Coelum Philosophorum_:

  'How to conjure the Crystal so that all Things may
                    be seen in it.

'To conjure is nothing else than to observe anything rightly, to know
and to understand what it is. The crystal is a figure of the air.
Whatever appears in the air, movable or immovable, the same appears
also in the speculum or crystal as a wave. For the air, the water, and
the crystal, so far as vision is concerned, are one, like a mirror
in which an inverted copy of an object is seen.' The old name for
crystal-gazers was 'specularii'. Mr. Chambers suggests very probably
that there is a reference to Dr. Dee's magic mirrors or 'show stone',
but one would like to explain the reference to the cutting of the
stone on the one hand, and its being no longer to be found on the
other.

l. 16. _Loves but their oldest clothes._ The 'her' of _B_ is a
tempting reading in view of the 'woman' which follows, but 'their'
is the common version and the poet's mind passes rapidly to and fro
between the abstract and its concrete embodiments. The proleptic use
of the pronoun is striking in either case.

Compare _To Mrs. M. H._, p. 217, ll. 31-2.

l. 18. _Vertue attir'd in woman see._ The reading of the 1633
edition, which is that of the best manuscripts, has more of Donne's
characteristic hyperbole than the metrically more regular 'Vertue in
woman see'. 'If you can see the Idea of Vertue attired in the visible
form of woman and love that.'


PAGE =11=. THE SUNNE RISING.

Compare Ovid, _Amores_, I. 13.

  Iam super oceanum venit a seniore marito,
    Flava pruinoso quae vehit axe diem.
  Quo properas, Aurora?
          .       .       .
  Quo properas, ingrata viris, ingrata puellis?
          .       .       .
  Tu pueros somno fraudas, tradisque magistris,
    Ut subeant tenerae verbera saeva manus.

A comparison of Ovid's simple and natural images and reflections with
Donne's passionate but ingenious hyperboles will show exactly what
Testi meant by his contrast of the homely imagery of classical and the
metaphysical manner of Italian love poetry.

l. 17. _both th' India's of spice and Myne._ A distinction that Donne
is never tired of. 'The use of the word mine specifically for mines
of gold, silver, or precious stone is, I believe, peculiar to Donne.'
Coleridge, quoted by Norton. The O.E.D. does not contradict this, for
the word had a wider connotation. Compare _Loves exchange_, p. 35, ll.
34-35:

                            and make more
  Mynes in the earth, then Quarries were before.

And _The Progresse of the Soule_, p. 295, l. 17:

  thy Western land of Myne.

And for the two Indias: 'As hee that hath a plentifull fortune in
Europe, cares not much though there be no land of perfumes in the
East, nor of gold, in the West-Indies.' _Sermons_ 50. 15. 123. And
'Sir. Your way into Spain was eastward, and that is the way to the
land of perfumes and spices; their way hither is westward, and that
is the way to the land of gold and of mines,' &c. _To Sir Robert Ker._
Gosse's _Life, &c._, ii. 191.

l. 24. _All wealth alchimie_: i.e. imposture or 'glittering dross'
(O.E.D.). 'Though the show of it were glorious, the substance of it
was dross, and nothing but alchymy and cozenage.' Harrington, _Orlando
Furioso_ (1591). See also poem cited II. p. 11.


PAGE =12=. THE INDIFFERENT.

l. 7. _dry corke._ Cork was a favourite metaphor for what was dry
and withered. To our taste it is hardly congruous with love or tragic
poetry, perhaps because of its associations. 'Bind fast his corky
arms,' says Cornwall, speaking of Gloucester (_King Lear_, III. vii.
31), but Shakespeare seems to have taken the epithet from Harsnett's
_Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures, &c._ (1603): 'It would
pose all the cunning exorcists ... to teach an old corkie woman to
writhe, tumble, curvet,' c. 5, p. 23.


PAGE =13=. LOVES USURY.

l. 5. _My body raigne._ Grosart and Chambers substitute 'range', from
_1635-69_. Perhaps they are right; but I feel doubtful. All the best
MSS. read 'raigne.' Donne contrasts the reign of love and the reign of
lust on the body, and frankly declares for the latter. A lover might
range, 'I can love both fair and brown,' but no lover could

              mistake by the way
  The maid, and tell the lady of that delay.

Adonis, with graver rhetoric, states the other side of Donne's
paradoxical thesis:

  Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
  But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
  Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
  Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
    Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
    Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
                        Shakespeare, _Venus and Adonis_, v. cxxxiv.

ll. 13-16. Chambers and Grosart have adopted, with some modification
of punctuation, the reading of the 1633-54 editions, and the lines are
frequently quoted as printed by Chambers:

  Only let me love none; no, not the sport
  From country-grass to confitures of court,
  Or city's quelque-choses; let not report
          My mind transport.

I confess I find it difficult to attach any exact meaning to them.
Are there any instances of 'sport' thus used apparently for 'sportive
lady'? The difficulty seems to me to have arisen from the accidental
dropping in the 1633 edition of the semicolon after 'sport', which the
1669 editor rightly restored. What Donne means by 'the sport' is clear
enough from other passages, e.g. 'the short scorn of a bridegroom's
play' (_Loves Alchimie_), 'as she would man should despise the sport'
(_Farewell to Love_). The prayer that report _may_ ('let', not 'let
not') carry his roving fancy from one to another, is in keeping
with the whole tenor of the poem. The Grolier Club edition has the
punctuation I have given, which I had adopted before I saw that
edition. I find it difficult to attach any meaning to 'let not
report'.


PAGE =14=. THE CANONIZATION.

l. 7. _Or the Kings reall, or his stamped face Contemplate._ Donne's
conceits reappear in his sermons in a different setting. 'Beloved in
Christ Jesus, the heart of your gracious God is set upon you; and we
his servants have told you so, and brought you thus neare him, into
his Court, into his house, into the Church, but yet we cannot get
you to see his face, to come to that tendernesse of conscience as to
remember and consider that all your most secret actions are done in
his sight and his presence; Caesars face, and Caesars inscription you
can see: The face of the Prince in his coyne you can rise before the
Sun to see, and sit up till mid-night to see; but if you do not see
the face of God upon every piece of that mony too, all that mony is
counterfeit; If Christ have not brought that fish to the hook, that
brings the mony in the mouth (as he did to _Peter_) that mony is ill
fished for.' _Sermons_ 80. 12. 122.

l. 15. 'Man' is the reading of every MS. except _Lec_, which here
as in several other little details appears to resemble _1633_ more
closely than either of the other MSS., _D_, _H49_. It is quite
possible that 'man' is correct--a vivid and concrete touch, but in
view of the 'men' which follows 'more' is preferable. The two words
are frequently interchanged in the MSS.

ll. 24-5. The punctuation of these lines is that of _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_, though I adopted it independently as required by the sense. The
editions put a full stop after each line. Chambers alters the first
(l. 24) to a semicolon and connects

  So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.

with the two preceding lines. To me it seems the line _must_ go with
what follows, and that 'so' (which should have no comma) is not an
illative conjunction but a subordinate conjunction of effect. 'Both
sexes fit _so_ entirely into one neutral thing that we die and rise
the same,' &c. The Grolier Club editor, like Chambers, connects the
line with what has gone before, but drops the comma after 'so', making
it an adverb of degree.

ll. 37-45. _And thus invoke us, &c._ Grosart and Chambers have
disguised and altered the sense of this stanza. Grosart, indeed, by
printing 'Who did the whole world's extract', has made it completely
unintelligible. Chambers's version gives a meaning, but a wrong one.
He prints the last six lines thus:

    Who did the whole worlds soul contract, and drove
      Into the glasses of your eyes;
      So made such mirrors, and such spies,
  That they did all to you epitomize--
    Countries, towns, courts beg from above
    A pattern of your love.

These harsh constructions are not Donne's. The object of 'drove' is
not the 'world's soul', but 'Countries, towns, courts'; and 'beg' is
not in the indicative but the imperative mood. For clearness' sake
I have bracketed ll. 42-3 and printed 'love!' otherwise leaving the
punctuation unchanged.

Donne as usual is pedantically accurate in the details of his
metaphor. The canonized lovers are invoked as saints, i.e. _their
prayers are requested_. They are asked to beg from above a pattern of
their love for those below. Of prayers to saints Donne speaks in one
of his _Letters_, p. 181: 'I see not how I can admit that circuit of
sending them' (i.e. letters) 'to you to be sent hither; that seems a
kinde of praying to Saints, to whom God must tell first, that such a
man prays to them to pray to him.'

l. 40. The 'contract' of the printed editions is doubtless correct,
despite the preference of the MSS. for 'extract'. This goes in several
MSS. with other errors which show confusion. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ read
'and drawe', a bad rhyme; and _A18_, _N_, _TCC_ (the verse is lost in
_TCD_) drop 'soule', reading 'the world extract'. The reading
'extract' is due to what Dr. Moore calls 'the extraordinary
short-sightedness of the copyists in respect of a construction. Their
vision seems often to be bounded by a single line.' To 'extract the
soul' of things is a not uncommon phrase with Donne. Here it does not
suit the thought which is coming so well as 'contract': 'As the spirit
and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this
psalme, so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted
into this verse.' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 663. (Psal. lxiii. 7. _Because
thou hast beene my helpe, Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I
rejoice._)

l. 45. _A patterne of your love._ The 'of our love' of 1633 _might_
mean 'for our love', but it is clear from the manner in which
this stanza is given in _D_ that the copyist has misunderstood the
construction--'our love' follows from the assumption that 'Countries,
Townes, Courts' is the subject to 'Beg'. The colon and the capital
letter would not make such a view impossible, as they might be given a
merely emphasizing value; or if regarded as imperative the 'Beg' might
be taken as in the third person: 'Countries, Townes, Courts--let them
beg,' &c. Compare:

                    The God of Souldiers:
  With the consent of supreame Jove, informe
  Thy thoughts with Noblenesse.
          Shakespeare, _Cor._ V. iii. 70-2 (Simpson, _Shakespearian
                                            Punctuation_, p. 98).

But clearly here 'Beg' is in the second person plural, predicate to
'You whom reverend love', and 'your love' is the right reading.


PAGE =16=. THE TRIPLE FOOLE.

He is trebly a fool because (1) he loves, (2) he expresses his love in
verse, (3) he thereby enables some one to set the verse to music and
by singing it to re-awaken the passion which composition had lulled to
sleep.


PAGE =17=. LOVERS INFINITENESS.

This song, which is one of the obviously authentic lyrics which is
not included in the _A18_, _N_, _TC_ collection, would seem to have
undergone some revision after its first issue. The version given in
_A25_, from which _Cy_ is copied, would seem to be the original,
at least the readings of ll. 25-6 and ll. 29-30 do not look like
corruptions. The reading 'beget' at l. 25 gives a better rhyme to
'yet' than 'admit'. In l. 29 _A25_ has obviously interchanged 'thine'
and 'mine'. The slightly different version of _JC_ gives the correct
order. The generally careful _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ group has an unusually
faulty text of this poem. Among other mistakes it reads (with _S96_)
'Thee' for 'them' in l. 32.

'Lovers Infiniteness' is a strange title. It is not found in any
of the MSS., and possibly should be 'Loves Infiniteness'. Yet the
'Lovers' suits the closing thought:

                  so we shall
  Be one, and one anothers All.

For a poem in obvious imitation of this, see _Appendix C_, p. 439.

ll. 1-11. The rhetoric and rhythm of Donne's elaborate stanzas depends
a good deal on their right punctuation. Mine is an attempt to correct
that of _1633_ without modernizing. The full stop after 'fall' is
obviously an error, and so is, I think, the comma after 'spent'. The
first six lines state in a rapid succession of clauses all that the
poet has done to gain his lady's love. A new thought begins with 'Yet
no more', &c.

l. 9. _generall_ is the reading of two MSS. which are practically one.
I have recorded it because (1) ll. 29-30 (see textual note) would seem
to suggest that their version of the poem is an early one (revised by
Donne), and this may be an early reading; (2) because in l. 20 this
epithet is used as though repeated, 'thy gift being generall.' It
would be not unlike Donne to quibble with the word, making it mean
first a gift made generally to all, and secondly a gift general in its
content, not limited or defined in any way. The whole poem is a piece
of legal quibbling not unlike Shakespeare's 87th Sonnet:

  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
  My bonds in thee are all determinate, &c.


PAGE =18=. SONG.

_Sweetest love, &c._ Of the music to this and 'Send home my long
stray'd eyes' I can discover no trace. _The Baite_ was doubtless sung
to the same air as Marlowe's 'Come live with me'. See II. p. 57.

ll. 6-8. I have retained the text of _1633_, which has the support of
all the MSS. That of _1635-54_ is an attempt to accommodate the lines,
by a little padding, to the rhythm of the corresponding lines in the
other stanzas.


PAGE =20=. THE LEGACIE.

ll. 9-16. I HEARD ME SAY, _&c._ The construction of this verse has
proved rather a difficulty to editors. I give it as printed by
Chambers and by the Grolier Club editor. Chambers's modernized version
runs:

  I heard me say, 'Tell her anon,
    That myself', that is you not I,
    'Did kill me', and when I felt me die,
  I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
  But I alas! could there find none;
    When I had ripp'd and search'd where hearts should lie,
  It killed me again, that I who still was true
  In life, in my last will should cozen you.

The Grolier Club version has no inverted commas, and runs:

  I heard me say, Tell her anon,
    That myself, that's you not I,
    Did kill me; and when I felt me die,
  I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
  But I alas! could there find none.
    When I had ripped me and searched where hearts did lie,
  It killed me again that I, who still was true
  In life, in my last will should cozen you.

In my own version the only departure which I have made from the
punctuation of the 1633 version is the substitution of a semicolon for
a comma after 'lye' (l. 14). If inverted commas are to be used at all
it seems to me they would need to be extended to 'gone' (l. 12) or
to 'lie' (l. 14). As Donne is addressing the lady throughout it is
difficult to distinguish what he says to her now from what he said on
the occasion imagined.

But the point in which both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor seem
to me in error is in connecting l. 14, _When I had ripp'd, &c._, with
what follows instead of with the immediately preceding line. There
is no justification for changing the comma after 'none' either to a
semicolon or a full stop. The meaning of ll. 13-14 is, 'But alas! when
I had ripp'd me and search'd where hearts did (i.e. used to) lie, I
could there find none.' It is so that the Dutch translator understands
the lines:

  Maer, oh, ick vond er geen, al scheurd ick mijn geraemt,
  En socht door d'oude plaets die 't Hert is toegeraemt.

The last two lines are a comment on the whole incident, the making of
the will and the poet's inability to implement it.

l. 20. _It was intire to none_: i.e. 'It was tied to no one lover.'
The word 'entire' in this sense is still found on public-house signs,
and misled the American Pinkerton in Stevenson's _The Wrecker_.
Compare: 'But this evening I will spie upon the B[ishop] and give you
an account to-morrow morning of his disposition; when, if he cannot be
intire to you, since you are gone so farre downwards in your favours
to me, be pleased to pursue your humiliation so farre as to chuse your
day, and either to suffer the solitude of this place, or to change it,
by such company, as shall waite upon you.' _Letters_, p. 315 (To ...
Sir Robert Karre). This seems to mean, 'if the Bishop cannot fulfill,
be faithful to, his engagement to you, come and dine here.'

ll. 21-24. These lines are also printed or punctuated in a misleading
fashion by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor. The former, following
_1669_, but altering the punctuation, prints:

  As good as could be made by art
  It seemed, and therefore for our loss be sad.
  I meant to send that heart instead of mine,
  But O! no man could hold it, for 'twas thine.

The 'for our loss be sad' comes in very strangely before the end, nor
is the force of 'and therefore' very clear.

The Grolier Club editor, following the words of _1633_, but altering
the punctuation, reads:

  As good as could be made by art
    It seemed, and therefore for our losses sad;
  I meant to send this heart instead of mine
  But oh! no man could hold it, for twas thine.

Apparently the heart was sad for our losses because it was no better
than might be made by art. The confusion arises from deserting
the punctuation of _1633_. 'For our losses sad' is an adjectival
qualification of 'I'. 'I, sad to have lost my heart, which by legacy
was yours, resolved as a _pis aller_ to send this, which seemed as
good as could be made by art. But to send it was impossible, for no
man could hold it. It was thine.'

Huyghens translates:

  Soo meenden ick 't verlies dat ick vergelden most
  Te boeten met dit Hert, en doen 't u toebehooren:
  Maer, oh, 't en kost niet zijn, 't was uw al lang te voren.

But this does not appear to be quite accurate. Huyghens appears to
think that Donne could not give his heart to the lady, because it
was hers already. What he really says is, that no one could keep this
heart of hers, which had taken the place of his own in his bosom,
because, being hers, it was too volatile.


PAGE =21=. A FEAVER.

ll. 13-14. _O wrangling schooles, that search what fire
             Shall burne this world._

'I cannot but marvel from what _Sibyl_ or Oracle they' (the Ancients)
'stole the prophecy of the world's destruction by fire, or whence
Lucan learned to say,

  Communis mundo superest rogus, ossibus astra
  Misturus.

  There yet remaines to th'World one common fire
  Wherein our Bones with Stars shall make one pyre.

I believe the World grows near its end, yet is neither old nor
decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruines of its own Principles.
As the work of Creation was above nature, so is its adversary
annihilation; without which the World hath not its end, but its
mutation. Now what force should be able to consume it thus far,
without the breath of God, which is the truest consuming flame, my
Philosophy cannot inform me.' Browne's _Religio Medici_, sect. 45.


PAGE =22=. AIRE AND ANGELS.

l. 19. _Ev'ry thy haire._ This, the reading of _1633-39_ and the MSS.,
is, I think, preferable to the amended 'Thy every hair', &c., of
the 1650-69 editions (which Chambers adopts, ascribing it to _1669_
alone), though the difference is slight. 'Every thy hair' has the
force of 'Thy every hair' with the additional suggestion of 'even
thy least hair' derived from the construction with a superlative
adjective. 'Every the least remembrance.' J. King, _Sermons_ 28.
'Every, the most complex, web of thought may be reduced to simple
syllogisms.' Sir W. Hamilton. See note to _The Funerall_, l. 3.

  ll. 23-4. _Then as an Angell face and wings
           Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare._

St. Thomas (_Summa Theol._ I. li. 2) discusses the nature of the body
assumed by Angels when they appear to men, seeing that naturally they
are incorporeal. There being four elements, this body must consist of
one of these, but 'Angeli non assumunt corpora de terrâ vel aquâ: quia
non subito disparerent. Neque iterum de igne: quia comburerent ea
quae contingerent. Neque iterum ex aere: quia aer infigurabilis est
et incolorabilis'. To this Aquinas replies, 'Quod licet aer in sua
raritate manens non retineat figuram neque colorem: quando tamen
condensatur, et figurari et colorari potest: sicut patet in nubibus.
Et sic Angeli assumunt corpora ex aere, condensando ipsum virtute
divina, quantum necesse est ad corporis assumendi formationem.'

Tasso, familiar like Donne with Catholic doctrine, thus clothes his
angels:

  Così parlògli, e Gabriel s' accinse
  Veloce ad eseguir l' imposte cose.
  _La sua forma invisibil d'aria cinse,
  Ed al senso mortal la sottopose_:
  Umane membra, aspetto uman si finse,
  Ma di celeste maestà il compose.
  Tra giovane e fanciullo età confine
  Prese, ed ornò di raggi il biondo crine.
                                        _Gerus. Lib._ I. 13.

Fairfax translates the relevant lines:

  In form of airy members fair imbared,
  His spirits pure were subject to our sight.

Milton's language is vague and inconsistent, but his angels are
indubitably corporeal. When Satan is wounded,

              the ethereal substance closed,
  Not long divisible; and from the gash
  A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed
  Sanguine, such as celestial Spirits may bleed.
  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
  Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout
  Vital in every part, (not as frail man
  In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,)
  Cannot but by annihilating die;
  Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
  Receive, _no more than can the fluid air_.
  All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
  All intellect, all sense; _and as they please,
  They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size
  Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare_.

The lines italicized indicate that Milton is familiar with the
doctrine of the schools, and is giving it a turn of his own. Milton's
angels, apparently, do not _assume_ a body of air but, remaining in
their own ethereal substance, assume what form and colour they choose.
Raphael, thus having passed through the air like a bird,

            to his proper shape returns
  A Seraph winged, &c.

Nash says, speaking of Satan, 'Lucifer (before his fall) an Archangel,
was a cleere body, compact of the purest and brightest of the ayre,
but after his fall hee was vayled with a grosser substance, and tooke
a new forme of darke and thicke ayre, which he still reteyneth.'
_Pierce Penniless_ (Grosart), ii. 102. The popular mind had difficulty
in appreciating the scholastic doctrine of the purely spiritual nature
of angels who do not possess but only assume bodies; who do not occupy
any point in space but are _virtually_ present as operating at that
point. 'Per applicationem igitur virtutis angelicae ad aliquem locum
qualitercumque dicitur Angelus esse in loco corporeo.' The popular
mind gave them thin bodies and wondered how many could stand on a
needle.

The Scholastic doctrine of Angelic bodies was an inheritance from the
Neo-Platonic doctrine of the bodies of demons, the beings intermediary
between gods and men. According to Plotinus these could assume a body
of air or of fire, but the generally entertained view of the school
was, that their bodies were of air. Apuleius was the author of a
definition of demons which was transmitted through the Middle Ages:
'Daemones sunt genere animalia, ingenio rationalia, animo passiva,
corpore aeria, tempore aeterna.' See also Dante, _Purgatorio_, xv. The
aerial or aetherial body is a tenet of mysticism. It has been defended
by such different thinkers as Leibnitz and Charles Bonnet. See
Bouillet's note to Plotinus's _Enneads_, I. 454.


PAGE =23=. BREAKE OF DAY.

This poem is obviously addressed by a woman to her lover, not _vice
versa_, though the fact has eluded some of the copyists, who have
tried to change the pronouns. It is strange to find the subtle and
erudite Donne in his quest of realism falling into line with the
popular song-writer. Mr. Chambers has pointed out in his learned and
delightful essay on the mediaeval lyric (_Early English Lyrics_, 1907)
that the popular as opposed to the courtly love-song was frequently
put into the mouth of the woman. One has only to turn to Burns and
the Scotch lyrists to find the same thing true. This song, indeed, is
clearly descended from the popular _aube_, or lyric dialogue of lovers
parting at daybreak. The dialogue suggestion is heightened by the
punctuation of l. 3 in some MSS.

  Why should we rise? Because 'tis light?

ll. 13-18. _Must businesse thee from hence remove, &c._ 'It is a good
definition of ill-love, that St. Chrysostom gives, that it is _Animae
vacantis passio_, a passion of an empty soul, of an idle mind.
For fill a man with business, and he hath no room for such love.'
_Sermons_ 26. 384.


PAGE =24=. THE ANNIVERSARIE.

l. 3. _The Sun itselfe, which makes times, as they passe_: i.e. which
makes times and seasons as they pass.

  Before the Sunne, the which fram'd daies, was fram'd.
                                _The Second Anniversary_, l. 23.

The construction is somewhat of an anacoluthon, the sun alone being
given the predicate, 'Is elder by a year,' which has to be supplied
with all the other subjects in the first two lines. Chambers,
inadvertently or from some copy of _1633_, reads 'time', and this
makes 'they' refer back to 'Kings, favourites', &c. This does not
improve the construction.

l. 22. _But wee no more, then all the rest._ The 'wee' of every MS.
which I have consulted seems to me certainly the correct reading.
The 'now' of all the printed editions is due to the editor of _1633_
imagining that he got thereby the right antithesis to 'then'. But he
was too hasty, for the antithesis is between 'then' when we are in
heaven, and now while we are 'here upon earth'. In heaven indeed we
shall be 'throughly blest', but _all_ in heaven are equally happy,
whereas here on earth,

          we'are kings and none but we
  Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.

The 'none but we' is the extreme antithesis to 'But we no more than
all the rest'.

The Scholastic Philosophy held, not indeed that all in heaven are
equally blest, but that all are equally content. Basing themselves on
the verse, 'In domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt,' John xiv. 2,
they argued that the blessed have in varying degree according to their
merit, the essential happiness of Heaven which is the vision of God:

                Only who have enjoy'd
  The sight of God, in fulnesse, can think it;
  For it is both the object and the wit.
  This is essential joy, where neither hee
  Can suffer diminution, nor wee;
  'Tis such a full, and such a filling good;
  Had th'Angells once look'd on him they had stood.
                  _The Second Anniversary_, ll. 140-6 (p. 264).

But though not all equally dowered with the virtue and the wisdom to
understand God, all are content, for each is full to his measure, and
each is happy in the happiness of the other: 'Solet etiam quaeri an in
gaudio dispares sint, sicut in claritate cognitionis differunt. De hoc
August. ait in lib. de Civ. Dei: Multae mansiones in una domo erunt,
scilicet, variae praemiorum dignitates: sed ubi Deus erit omnia in
omnibus, erit etiam in dispari claritate par gaudium; ut quod habebunt
singuli, commune sit omnibus, quia etiam gloria capitis omnium erit
per vinculum charitatis. Ex his datur intelligi quod par gaudium omnes
habebunt, etsi disparem cognitionis claritatem, quia per charitatem
quae in singulis erit perfecta, tantum quisque gaudebit de bono
alterius, quantum gauderet si in se ipso haberet. Sed si par erit
cunctorum gaudium, videtur quod par sit omnium beatitudo; quod constat
omnino non esse. Ad quod dici potest quod beatitudo par esset si ita
esset par gaudium, ut etiam par esset cognitio; sed quia hoc non erit,
non faciet paritas gaudii paritatem beatitudinis. Potest etiam
sic accipi par gaudium, ut non referatur paritas ad intensionem
affectionis gaudentium, sed ad universitatem rerum de quibus
laetabitur: quia de omni re unde gaudebit unus, gaudebunt omnes.'
Petri Lombardi ... _Sententiarum_ Lib. IV, Distinct. xlix. 4. Compare
Aquinas, _Summa, Supplement._ Quaest. xciii.

All in heaven are perfectly happy in the place assigned to them, is
Piccardo's answer to Dante (_Paradiso_, iii. 70-88): 'So that our
being thus, from threshold unto threshold throughout the realm, is a
joy to all the realm, as to the King, who draweth our wills to what he
willeth: and his will is our peace.'

ll. 23-4. The variants in these lines show that _1633_ has in this
poem followed not _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ but _A18_, _N_, _TC_.


PAGE =25=. A VALEDICTION: OF MY NAME IN THE WINDOW.

I have adopted from the title of this poem in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ the
correct manner of entitling all these poems. In the printed editions
the titles run straight on, _A Valediction of my name, in the window_.
This has led in the case of the next of these poems, _A Valediction
of the booke_, to the mistake expressed in the title of _1633_,
_Valediction to his Booke_, and repeated by Grosart, that the latter
was a dedication, 'formed the concluding poem of the missing edition
of his poems.' This is a complete mistake. _Valediction_ is the
general title of a poem bidding farewell. _Of the Booke_, _Of teares_,
&c., indicate the particular themes. This is clearly brought out in
_O'F_, where they are brought together and numbered. _Valediction 2.
of Teares_, &c.

PAGE =26=, l. 28. _The Rafters of my body, bone._ Compare: 'First,
_Ossa_, bones, We know in the naturall and ordinary acceptation, what
they are; They are these Beames, and Timbers, and Rafters of these
Tabernacles, these Temples of the Holy Ghost, these bodies of ours.'
_Sermons_ 80. 51. 516.

PAGE =27=, ll. 31-2. _Till my returne, repaire
                 And recompact my scattered body so._

This verse is rightly printed in the 1633 edition. In that of 1635 it
went wrong; and the errors were transmitted through all the subsequent
editions, and have been retained by Grosart and Chambers, but
corrected in the Grolier Club edition. The full stop after 'so' was
changed to a comma on the natural but mistaken assumption that 'so'
pointed forward to the immediately following 'as'. In fact, 'so'
refers _back_ to the preceding verse. Donne has described how from his
anatomy or skeleton, i.e. his name scratched in the glass, the lady
may repair and recompact his whole frame, and he opens the new verse
by bidding her do so. Compare: 'In this chapter ... we have Job's
Anatomy, Jobs Sceleton, the ruins to which he was reduced.... Job felt
the hand of destruction upon him, and he felt the hand of preservation
too; and it was all one hand: This is God's Method ... even God's
demolitions are super-edifications, his Anatomies, his dissections
are so many recompactings, so many resurrections; God winds us off the
Skein, that he may weave us up into the whole peece, and he cuts us
out of the whole peece into peeces, that he may make us up into a
whole garment.' _Sermons_ 80. 43. 127-9. Again, 'It is a divorce
and no super-induction, it is a separating, and no redintegration.'
_Sermons_ 80. 55. 552. With the third line, 'As all the virtuous
powers,' Donne begins a new comparison which is completed in the next
stanza. Therefore the sixth stanza closes rightly in the 1633 text
with a colon. The full stop of the later editions, which Chambers
adopts, is obviously wrong. Grosart has a semicolon, but as he retains
the comma at 'so' and puts a semicolon at the end of the previous
stanza, the sense becomes very obscure.


PAGE =28=. TWICKNAM GARDEN.

l. 1. _surrounded with tears_: i.e. overflowed with tears, the root
idea of 'surrounded'. The Dutch poet translates:

  Van suchten hytgedort, van tranen overvloeyt.

Compare: 'The traditional doctrines in the Roman Church, which are
so many, as that they overflow even the water of life, the Scriptures
themselves, and suppresse and surround them.' _Sermons_ 80. 59. 599.

With this whole poem compare: 'Sir, Because I am in a place and season
where I see every thing bud forth, I must do so too, and vent some of
my meditations to you.... The pleasantnesse of the season displeases
me. Everything refreshes, and I wither, and I grow older and not
better, my strength diminishes and my load growes, and being to pass
more and more stormes, I finde that I have not onely cast out all my
ballast, which nature and time gives, Reason and discretion, and so
am as empty and light as Vanity can make me, but I have overfraught
myself with vice, and so am ridd(l)ingly subject to two contrary
wracks, Sinking and Oversetting,' &c. _Letters_ (1651), pp. 78-9 (_To
Sir Henry Goodyere_).

l. 15. _Indure, nor yet leave loving._ This is at first sight a
strange reading, and I was disposed to think that _1635-69_, which
has the support of several MSS. (none of very high textual authority),
must be right. It is strange to hear the Petrarchian lover (Donne is
probably addressing the Countess of Bedford) speak of 'leaving loving'
as though it were in his power. The reading 'nor leave this garden'
suits what follows: 'Not to be mocked by the garden and yet to linger
here in the vicinity of her I love let me become,' &c.

It is remarkable that _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _H40_ omit this half
line. If the same omission was in the MS. from which _1633_ printed,
the present reading might be an editor's emendation. But it is older
than that, for it was the reading of the MS. from which the Dutch poet
Huyghens translated, and he has tried by his rhymes to produce the
effect of the alliteration:

    Maer, om my noch te decken
  Voor sulcken ongeval, en niet te min de Min
    Te voeren in mijn zin,
  Komt Min, en laet my hier yet ongevoelicks wezen.

Donne means, I suppose, 'Not to be mocked by the garden, and yet to be
ever the faithful lover.' Compare _Loves Deitie_, l. 24. 'Love might
make me leave loving.' The remainder of the verse may have been
suggested by Jonson's

  Slow, slow, fresh Fount, keep time with my salt Tears.

  _Cynthias Revels_ (1600).

l. 17. I have ventured to adopt 'groane' for 'grow' ('grone' and
'growe' are almost indistinguishable) from _A18_, _N_, _TC_; _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_; and _H40_. It is surely much more in Donne's style than
the colourless and pointless 'growe'. It is, too, in closer touch with
the next line. If 'growing' is all we are to have predicated of the
mandrake, then it should be sufficient for the fountain to 'stand', or
'flow'. The chief difficulty in accepting the MS. reading is that
the mandrake is most often said to shriek, sometimes to howl, not to
groan:

                  I prethee yet remember
  Millions are now in graves, which at last day
  Like mandrakes shall rise shreeking.
                          Webster, _The White Devil_, V. vi. 64.

On the other hand the lover most often groans:

  Thy face hath not the power to make love grone.
                                 Shakespeare, _Sonnets_, 131. 6.

  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groane.
                                 Shakespeare, _Sonnets_, 133. 1.

  _Ros._ I would be glad to see it. (_i.e._ _his heart_)

  _Bir._ I would you heard it groan.
                                         _Love's Labour's Lost._

In a metaphor where two objects are identified such a transference of
attributes is quite permissible. Moreover, although 'shriek' is the
more common word, 'groan' is used of the mandrake:

  Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
  I would invent as bitter searching terms, &c.
                                        _2 Hen. VI_, III. ii. 310.

In the _Elegie upon ... Prince Henry_ (p. 269, ll. 53-4) Donne writes:

              though such a life wee have
  As but so many mandrakes on his grave.

i.e. a life of groans.


PAGE =29=. A VALEDICTION: OF THE BOOKE.

l. 3. _Esloygne._ Chambers alters to 'eloign', but Donne's is a good
English form.

  From worldly care himself he did esloyne.
                                       Spenser, _F. Q._ I. iv. 20.

The two forms seem to have run parallel from the outset, but that with
's' disappears after the seventeenth century.

PAGE =30=, l. 7. _Her who from Pindar could allure._ Corinna, who
five times defeated Pindar at Thebes. Aelian, _Var. Hist._ xiii. 25,
referred to by Professor Norton. He quotes also from Pausanias, ix.
22.

l. 8. _And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame._ His wife, Polla
Argentaria, who 'assisted her husband in correcting the three first
books of his _Pharsalia_'. Lemprière. The source of this tradition
I cannot discover. The only reference indicated by Schanz is to
Apollinaris Sidonius (Epist. 2, 10, 6, p. 46), who includes her among
a list of women who aided and inspired their husbands: 'saepe versum
... complevit ... Argentaria cum Lucano.'

l. 9. _And her, whose booke (they say) Homer did finde, and name._ I
owe my understanding of this line to Professor Norton, who refers
to the _Myriobiblon_ or _Bibliotheca_ of Photius, of which the first
edition was published at Augsburg in 1601. There Photius, in an
abstract of a work by Ptolemy Hephaestion of Alexandria, states that
Musaeus' daughter Helena wrote on the war of Troy, and that from her
work Homer took the subject of his poem. But another account refers to
Phantasia of Memphis, the daughter of Nicarchus, whose work Homer
got from a sacred scribe named Pharis at Memphis. This last source
is mentioned by Lemprière, who knows nothing of the other. Probably,
therefore, it is the better known tradition.

ll. 21-2. I have interchanged the old semicolon at the end of l. 21
and the comma at the end of l. 22. I take the first three lines of the
stanza to form an absolute clause: 'This book once written, in
cipher or new-made idiom, we are thereby (in these letters) the only
instruments for Loves clergy--their Missal and Breviary.' I presume
this is how it is understood by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor,
who place a semicolon at the end of each line. It seems to me that
with so heavy a pause after l. 21 a full stop would be better at the
end of l. 22.

l. 25. _Vandals and Goths inundate us._ This, the reading of quite a
number of independent MSS., seems to me greatly preferable to that of
the printed texts:

  Vandals and the Goths invade us.

The agreement of the printed texts does not carry much weight, for
any examination of the variants in this poem will reveal that they are
errors due to misunderstanding, e.g. l. 20, 'tome,' 'to me,' 'tomb'
show that each edition has been printed from the last, preserving,
or conjecturally amending, its blunders. If therefore the 1633 editor
mistook 'inũdate' for 'invade', that is sufficient. Besides the
metrical harshness of the line there seems to be no reason why the
epithet 'ravenous' should be applied to the Vandals and not extended
to the Goths. The metaphor of inundation is used by Donne in the
sermons: 'The Torrents, and Inundations, which invasive Armies pour
upon Nations, we are fain to call by the name of Law, _The Law of
Armes_.' _Sermons_ 26. 3. 36. Milton too uses it:

  A multitude like which the populous North
  Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
  Rhene or the Danaw, where her barbarous sons
  Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
  Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
                                      _Paradise Lost_, i. 351-4.

Probably both Donne and Milton had in mind Isaiah's description of the
Assyrian invasion, where in the Vulgate the word is that used here:
'Propter hoc ecce Dominus adducet super eos aquas fluminis fortes et
multas, regem Assyriorum, et omnem gloriam eius; et ascendet super
omnes rivos eius, et fluet super universas ripas eius; et ibit per
Iudam, _inundans_, et transiens usque ad collum veniet.' Isaiah viii.
7-8.

Donne uses the word exactly as here in the _Essays in Divinity_: 'To
which foreign sojourning ... many have assimilated and compared the
Roman Church's straying into France and being impounded in Avignon
seventy years; and so long also lasted the inundation of the Goths in
Italy.' Ed. Jessop (1855), p. 155.

PAGE =31=, ll. 37-54. These verses are somewhat difficult but very
characteristic. 'In these our letters, wherein is contained the
whole mystery of love, Lawyers will find by what titles we hold our
mistresses, what dues we are bound to pay as to feudal superiors. They
will find also how, claiming prerogative or privilege they devour
or confiscate the estates for which we have paid due service, by
transferring what we owe to love, to womankind. The service which we
pay expecting love in return, they claim as due to their womanhood,
and deserving of no recompense, no return of love. Even when going
beyond the strict fee they demand subsidies they will forsake a lover
who thinks he has thereby secured them, and will plead "honour" or
"conscience".'

'Statesmen will learn here the secret of their art. Love and
statesmanship both alike depend upon what we might call the art of
"bluffing". Neither will bear too curious examination. The statesman
and the lover must impose for the moment, disguising weakness or
inspiring fear in those who descry it.'

l. 53. _In this thy booke, such will their nothing see._ After some
hesitation I have adopted the 1635-54 reading in preference to that of
1633 and 1669, 'there something.' I do so because (1) the MSS. support
it. Their uncertainty as to 'their' and 'there' is of no importance;
(2) 'there' is a weak repetition of 'in this thy book', an emphatic
enough indication of place; (3) 'their nothing' is both the more
difficult reading and the more characteristic of Donne. The art of a
statesman is a 'nothing'. He uses the word in the same way of his own
Paradoxes and Problems when sending some of them to Sir Henry Wotton,
and with the same emphatic stress on the first syllable: 'having
this advantage to escape from being called ill things that they are
nothings' (An unpublished letter, quoted in the _Cambridge History of
Literature_, vol. iv, p. 218). The word was pronounced with a fully
rounded 'no'. Compare _Negative Love_, l. 16.

With the sentiment compare: 'And as our Alchymists can finde their
whole art and worke of Alchymy, not only in Virgil and Ovid, but in
Moses and Solomon; so these men can find such a transmutation
into golde, such a foundation of profit, in extorting a sense for
Purgatory, or other profitable Doctrines, out of any Scripture.'
_Sermons_ 80. 78. 791.

'Un personnage de grande dignité, me voulant approuver par authorité
cette queste de la pierre philosophale où il est tout plongé,
m'allegua dernièrement cinq ou six passages de la Bible, sur
lesquels il disoit s'estre premièrement fondé pour la descharge de sa
conscience (car il est de profession ecclesiastique); et, à la verité,
l'invention n'en estoit pas seulement plaisante, mais encore bien
proprement accommodée à la défence de cette belle science.' Montaigne,
_Apologie de Raimond Sebond_ (_Les Essais_, ii. 12).

PAGE =32=, ll. 59-61. _To take a latitude, &c._ The latitude of a spot
may always be found by measuring the distance from the zenith of a
star whose altitude, i.e. distance from the equator, is known. The
words 'At their brightest' are only used to point the antithesis with
the 'dark eclipses' used to measure longitude.

  ll. 61-3.              _but to conclude
      Of longitudes, what other way have wee,
    But to marke when, and where the dark eclipses bee_.

This method of estimating longitude was, it is said, first discovered
by noting that an eclipse which took place during the battle of Arbela
was observed at Alexandria an hour later. If the time at which an
instantaneous phenomenon such as an eclipse of the moon begins at
Greenwich (or whatever be the first meridian) is known, and the
time of its beginning at whatever place a ship is be then noted, the
difference gives the longitude. The eclipses of the moons in Saturn
have been used for the purpose. The method is not, however, a
practically useful one. Owing to the penumbra it is difficult to
observe the exact moment at which an eclipse of the moon begins. In
certain positions of Saturn her satellites are not visible. Another
method used was to note the lunar distances of certain stars, but the
most common and practical method is by the use of well adjusted and
carefully corrected chronometers giving Greenwich time.

The comparison in the last five lines rests on a purely verbal basis.
'Longitude' means literally 'length', 'latitude', 'breadth'. Therefore
longitude is compared with the duration of love, 'how long this love
will be.' There is no real appropriateness.


PAGE =33=. LOVES GROWTH.

ll. 7-8. _But if this medicine, &c._ 'The quintessence then is a
certain matter extracted from all things which Nature has produced,
and from everything which has life corporeally in itself, a matter
most subtly purged of all impurities and mortality, and separated from
all the elements. From this it is evident that the quintessence is,
so to say, a nature, a force, a virtue, and a medicine, once shut
up within things but now free from any domicile and from all outward
incorporation. The same is also the colour, the life, the properties
of things.... Now the fact _that this quintessence cures all diseases_
does not arise from temperature, but from an innate property, namely
its great cleanliness and purity, by which, after a wonderful manner,
it alters the body into its own purity, and entirely changes it....
When therefore the quintessence is separated from that which is not
the quintessence, as the soul from its body, and itself is taken into
the body, what infirmity is able to withstand this so noble, pure,
and powerful nature, or to take away our life save death, which being
predestined separates our soul and body, as we teach in our treatise
on Life and Death. But by whatsoever method it takes place, the
quintessence should not be extracted by the mixture or the addition
of incongruous matters; but the element of the quintessence must be
extracted from a separated body, and in like manner by that separated
body which is extracted.' Paracelsus, _The Fourth Book of the
Archidoxies. Concerning the Quintessence_.

The O.E.D. quotes the first sentence of this passage to illustrate its
first sense of the word--'the "fifth essence" of ancient and mediaeval
philosophy, supposed to be the substance of which the heavenly bodies
were composed, and to be actually latent in all things, the extraction
of it ... being one of the great objects of Alchemy.' But Paracelsus
expressly denies 'that the quintessence exists as a fifth element
beyond the other four'; and as he goes on to discuss the different
quintessences of different things (each thing having in its
constitution the four elements, though one may be predominant) it
would seem that he is using the word rather in the second sense given
in the O.E.D.--'The most essential part of any substance, extracted by
natural or artificial processes.' Probably the two meanings ran into
each other. There was a real and an ideal quintessence of things.
A specific sense given to the word in older Chemistry is a definite
alcoholic tincture obtained by digestion at a gentle heat. This is
probably the 'soule of simples' (p. 186, l. 26), unless that also is
the quintessence in Paracelsus's full sense of the word.

  ll. 17-20.              _As, in the firmament,
      Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg'd, but showne.
      Gentle love deeds, as blossomes on a bough,
      From loves awakened root do bud out now_.

_P_ reads here:

            As in the firmament
      Starres by the sunne are not enlarg'd but showne
      Greater; Loves deeds, &c.

This certainly makes the verse clearer. As it stands l. 18 is
rather an enigma. The stars are not revealed by the sun, but hidden.
Grosart's note is equally enigmatical: 'a curious phrase meaning that
the stars that show in daylight are not enlarged, but showne to be
brighter than their invisible neighbours, and to be comparatively
brighter than they appear to be when all are seen together in
the darkness of the night.' _P_ is so carelessly written that an
occasional good reading may be an old one because there is no evidence
of any editing. The copyist seems to have written on without paying
any attention to the sense of what he set down. Still, 'Gentle' is the
reading of all the other MSS. and editions, and I do not think it is
necessary or desirable to change it. But _P_'s emendation shows what
Donne meant. By 'showne' he does not mean 'revealed'--an adjectival
predicate 'larger' or 'greater' must be supplied from the verb
'enlarg'd'. 'The stars at sunrise are not really made larger, but they
are made to seem larger.' It is a characteristically elliptical and
careless wording of a characteristically acute and vivid image. Mr.
Wells has used the same phenomenon with effect:

'He peered upwards. "Look!" he said.

"What?" I asked.

"In the sky. Already. On the blackness--a little touch of blue.
See! _The stars seem larger._ And the little ones and all those dim
nebulosities we saw in empty space--they are hidden."

Swiftly, steadily the day approached us.' _The first Men in the Moon._
(Chap. vii. Sunrise on the Moon.)

A similar phenomenon is noted by Donne: 'A Torch in a misty night,
seemeth greater then in a clear.' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 326.


PAGE =34=. LOVES EXCHANGE.

l. 11. _A non obstante_: a privilege, a waiving of any law in favour
of an individual: 'Who shall give any other interpretation, any
modification, any _Non obstante_ upon his law in my behalf, when he
comes to judge me according to that law which himself hath made.'
_Sermons_ 50. 12. 97. 'A _Non obstante_ and priviledge to doe a sinne
before hand.' Ibid. 50. 35. 313.

l. 14. _minion_: i.e. 'one specially favoured or beloved; a dearest
friend' &c. O.E.D. Not used in a contemptuous sense. '_John_ the
Minion of _Christ_ upon earth, and survivor of the Apostles, (whose
books rather seem fallen from Heaven, and writ with the hand which
ingraved the stone Tables, then a mans work)' &c. _Sermons_ 50. 33.
309.

ll. 29 f. Dryden borrows:

  Great God of Love, why hast thou made
    A Face that can all Hearts command,
  That all Religions can invade,
    And change the Laws of ev'ry Land?
          _A Song to a fair Young Lady Going out of Town in
                       the Spring._


PAGE =36=. CONFINED LOVE.

Compare with this the poem _Loves Freedome_ in Beaumont's _Poems_
(1652), sig. E. 6:

  Why should man be only ty'd
    To a foolish Female thing,
  When all Creatures else beside,
    Birds and Beasts, change every Spring?
  Who would then to one be bound,
  When so many may be found?

The third verse runs:

  Would you think him wise that now
    Still one sort of meat doth eat,
  When both Sea and Land allow
    Sundry sorts of other meat?
  Who would then, &c.

Poems on such themes were doubtless exercises of wit at which more
than one author tried his hand in rivalry with his fellows.

l. 16. _And not to seeke new lands, or not to deale withall._ I have,
after some consideration, adhered to the _1633_ reading. Chambers has
adopted that of the later editions, taking the line to mean that a man
builds ships in order to seek new lands and to deal or trade with all
lands. But ships cannot trade with inland countries. The form 'withal'
is the regular one for 'with' when it follows the noun it governs.
'We build ships not to let them lie in harbours but to seek new lands
with, and to trade with.' The MS. evidence is not of much assistance,
because it is not clear in all cases what 'w^{th} all' stands for. The
words were sometimes separated even when the simple preposition
was intended. 'People, such as I have dealt with all in their
marchaundyse.' Berners' _Froissart_, I. cclxvii. 395 (O.E.D.). But
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_ read 'w^{th} All', supporting Chambers.

For the sentiment compare:

  A stately builded ship well rig'd and tall
  The Ocean maketh more majesticall:
  Why vowest thou to live in Sestos here,
  Who on Loves seas more glorious would appeare.
         Marlowe, _Hero and Leander_: _First Sestiad_ 219-222.

For 'deale withall' compare:

  For ye have much adoe to deale withal.
                           Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, VI. i. 10.


PAGE =37=. THE DREAME.

  ll. 1-10. _Deare love, for nothing lesse then thee
            Would I have broke this happy dreame,
                  It was a theame
            For reason, much too strong for phantasie,
            Therefore thou wak'dst me wisely; yet
            My Dreame thou brok'st not, but continued'st it,
            Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,
            To make dreames truths; and fables histories;
            Enter these armes, &c._

I have left the punctuation of the first stanza unaltered. The sense
is clear and any modernization alters the rhetoric. Chambers places a
semicolon after 'dreame' and a full stop after 'phantasie'. The
last is certainly wrong, for the statement 'It was a theme', &c. is
connected not with what precedes, but with what follows, 'Therefore
thou waked'st me wisely.' In like manner Chambers's full stop
after 'but continued'st it' breaks the close connexion with the two
following lines, which are really an adverbial clause of explanation
or reason. 'My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it,' for 'Thou
art so truth', &c. A full stop might more justifiably be placed after
'histories', but the semicolon is more in Donne's manner.

l. 7. _Thou art so truth._ The evidence of the MSS. shows that both
'truth' and 'true' were current versions and explains the alteration
of _1635-69_. But 'truth' is both the more difficult reading and
the more subtle expression of Donne's thought; 'true' is the obvious
emendation of less metaphysical copyists and editors. Donne's 'Love'
is not true as opposed to false only; she is 'truth' as opposed
to dreams or phantasms or aught that partakes of unreality. She is
essentially truth as God is: 'Respondeo dicendum quod ... veritas
invenitur in intellectu, secundum quod apprehendit rem ut est; et
in re, secundum quod habet esse conformabile intellectui. Hoc autem
maxime invenitur in Deo. Nam esse eius non solum est conforme suo
intelligere; et suum intelligere est mensura et causa omnis alterius
esse, et omnis alterius intellectus; et ipse est suum esse et
intelligere. Unde sequitur quod non solum in ipso sit veritas, sed
quod ipse sit ipsa summa et prima veritas. _Summa_ I. vi. 5.

To deify the object of your love was a common topic of love-poetry;
Donne does so with all the subtleties of scholastic theology at his
finger-ends. In this single poem he attributes to the lady addressed
two attributes of Deity, (1) the identity of being and essence, (2)
the power of reading the thoughts directly.

The Dutch poet keeps this point:

          de Waerheyt is so ghy, en
  Ghy zijt de Waerheyt so.

  ll. 11-12. _As lightning, or a Tapers light
             Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak'd mee._

'A sodain light brought into a room doth awaken some men; but yet a
noise does it better.' _Sermons_ 50. 38. 344.

'A candle wakes some men as well as a noise.' _Sermons_ 80. 61. 617.

  ll. 15-16. _But when I saw thou sawest my heart,
         And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an Angels art._

Modern editors, by removing the comma after 'thoughts', have altered
the sense of these lines. It is not that she could read his thoughts
better than an angel, but that she could read them at all, a power
which is not granted to Angels.

St. Thomas (_Summa Theol._ Quaest. lvii. Art. 4) discusses 'Utrum
angeli cognoscant cogitationes cordium', and concludes, 'Cognoscunt
Angeli cordium cogitationes in suis effectibus: ut autem in se ipsis
sunt, Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae.' Angels may read our
thoughts by subtler signs than our words and acts, or even those
changes of countenance and pulsation which we note in each other,
'quanto subtilius huiusmodi immutationes occultas corporales
perpendunt.' But to know them as they are in the intellect and will
belongs only to God, to whom only the freedom of the human will is
subject, and a man's thoughts are subject to his will. 'Manifestum
est autem, quod ex sola voluntate dependet, quod aliquis actu aliqua
consideret; quia cum aliquis habet habitum scientiae, vel species
intelligibiles in eo existentes, utitur eis cum vult. Et ideo dicit
Apostolus I Corinth. secundo: quod _quae sunt hominis, nemo novit nisi
spiritus hominis qui in ipso est_.'

Donne recurs to this theme very frequently: 'Let the Schoole dispute
infinitely (for he that will not content himself with means of
salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled, will come too late);
let Scotus and his Heard think, That Angels, and separate souls have a
naturall power to understand thoughts ... And let Aquinas present his
arguments to the contrary, That those spirits have no naturall power
to know thoughts; we seek no farther, but that Jesus Christ himself
thought it argument enough to convince the Scribes and Pharisees,
and prove himself God, by knowing their thoughts. _Eadem Maiestate
et potentia_ sayes _S. Hierome_, Since you see I proceed as God, in
knowing your thoughts, why beleeve you not that I may forgive his sins
as God too?' _Sermons_ 80. 11. 111; and compare also _Sermons_ 80. 9.
92.

This point is also preserved in the Dutch version:

  Maer als ick u sagh sien wat om mijn hertje lagh
  En weten wat ick docht (dat Engel noyt en sagh).

M. Legouis in a recent French version has left it ambiguous:

  Mais quand j'ai vu que tu voyais mon coeur
  Et savais mes pensées au dela du savoir d'un ange.

The MS. reading, 14 'but an Angel', heightens the antithesis.

  ll. 27-8. _Perchance as torches which must ready bee
            Men light and put out._

'If it' (i.e. a torch) 'have _never_ been _lighted_, it does not
easily take light, but it must be _bruised_ and _beaten_ first; if
it have been lighted and put out, though it cannot take fire _of it
self_, yet it does easily conceive fire, if it be presented within any
convenient distance.' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 332.


PAGE =38=. A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING.

ll. 1-9. I have changed the comma at l. 6 to a semicolon, as the first
image, that of the coins, closes here. Chambers places a full stop
at l. 4 'worth', and apparently connects the next two lines with what
follows--wrongly, I think. Finishing the figure of the coins, coined,
stamped, and given their value by her, Donne passes on to a couple of
new images. 'The tears are fruits of much grief; but they are symbols
of more to come. For, as your image perishes in each tear that falls,
so shall we perish, be nothing, when between us rolls the "salt,
estranging sea".'

It is, I suppose, by an inadvertence that Chambers has left 'divers'
unchanged to 'diverse'. I cannot think there is any reference to 'a
diver in the pearly seas'. Grolier and the Dutch poet divide as here:

  Laet voor uw aengesicht mijn trouwe tranen vallen,
  Want van dat aengensicht ontfangen sy uw' munt,
  En rijsen tot de waerd dies' uwe stempel gunt
  Bevrucht van uw' gedaent: vrucht van veel' ongevallen,
  Maer teekenen van meer, daer ghy valt met den traen,
  Die van u swanger was, en beyde wy ontdaen
  Verdwijnen, soo wy op verscheiden oever staen.


PAGE =39=. LOVES ALCHYMIE.

l. 7. _th'Elixar_: i.e. 'the Elixir Vitae', which heals all disease
and indefinitely prolongs life. It is sometimes identified with the
philosopher's stone, which transmutes metals to gold. In speaking of
quintessences (see note, II. p. 30) Paracelsus declares that there are
certain quintessences superior to those of gold, marchasite, precious
stones, &c., 'of more importance than that they should be called a
quintessence. It should be rather spoken of as a certain secret and
mystery ... Among these arcana we here put forward four. Of these
arcana the first is the mercury of life, the second is the primal
matter, the third is the Philosopher's Stone, and the fourth the
tincture. But although these arcana are rather angelical than human to
speak of we shall not shrink from them.' From the description he gives
they all seem to operate more or less alike, purging metals and other
bodies from disease.

ll. 7-10. _And as no chymique yet, &c._ 'My Lord Chancellor gave me
so noble and so ready a dispatch, accompanied with so fatherly advice
that I am now, like an alchemist, delighted with discoveries by the
way, though I attain not mine end.' To ... Sir H. G., Gosse's _Life,
&c._, ii. 49.

  ll. 23-4.                           _at their best
      Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest._

The punctuation of these lines in _1633-54_ is ambiguous, and Chambers
has altered it wrongly to

  Sweetness and wit they are, but Mummy possest.

The MSS. generally support the punctuation which I have adopted, which
is that of the Grolier Club edition.


PAGE =40=. THE FLEA.

I have restored this poem to the place it occupied in _1633_. In
_1635_ it was placed first of all the _Songs and Sonets_. A strange
choice to our mind, but apparently the poem was greatly admired as
a masterpiece of wit. It is the first of the pieces translated by
Huyghens:

De Vloy.

  Slaet acht op deze Vloy, en leert wat overleggen,
  Hoe slechten ding het is dat ghy my kont ontzeggen, &c.,

and was selected for special commendation by some of his
correspondents. Coleridge comments upon it in verse:

  Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas!
  In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees.
  Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns;
  Thrice-honored Fleas! I greet you all as _Dons_.
  In Phoebus' archives registered are ye,
  And this your patent of nobility.

It will be noticed that there are two versions of Donne's poem.


PAGE =41=. THE CURSE.

l. 3. _His only, and only his purse._ This, the reading of all the
editions except the last, and of the MSS., is obviously right. What
is to dispose 'some dull heart to love' is his _only_ purse and _his_
alone, no one's but his purse. Chambers adopts the _1669_ conjecture,
'Him only for his purse,' but in that case there is no subject to 'may
dispose', or if 'some dull heart' be subject then 'itself' must be
supplied--a harsh construction. 'Dispose' is not used intransitively
in this sense.

l. 27. _Mynes._ I have adopted the plural from the MSS. It brings it
into line with the other objects mentioned.


PAGE =43=. THE MESSAGE.

l. 11. _But if it be taught by thine._ It seems incredible that Donne
should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which'
of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had
accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the
MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that.
'Which' was in the MS. used by the printer. If 'But' is not Donne's
own reading or emendation it ought to be, and I am loath to injure a
charming poem by pedantic adherence to authority in so small a point.
_De minimis non curat lex_; but art cares very much indeed. _JC_ and
_P_ read 'Yet since it hath learn'd by thine'.

  ll. 14 f. _And crosse both
              Word and oath, &c._

The 'crosse' of all the MSS. is pretty certainly what Donne wrote. An
editor would change to 'break' hardly the other way. To 'crosse' is,
of course, to 'cancel'. Compare Jonson's _Poetaster_, Act II, Scene i:

              Faith, sir, your mercer's Book
  Will tell you with more patience, then I can
  (For I am crost, and so's not that I thinke.)

and

  Examine well thy beauty with my truth,
  And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.
                                              Daniel, _Delia_, i.


PAGE =44=. A NOCTURNALL, &c.

l. 12. _For I am every dead thing._ I have not thought it right to
alter the _1633_ 'every' to the 'very' of _1635-69_. 'Every' has some
MS. support, and it is the more difficult reading, though of course 'a
very' might easily enough be misread. But I rather think that 'every'
expresses what Donne means. He is 'every dead thing' because he is the
quintessence of all negations--'absence, darkness, death: things which
are not', and more than that, 'the first nothing.'

ll. 14-18. _For his art did expresse ... things which are not._ This
is a difficult stanza in a difficult poem. I have after considerable
hesitation adopted the punctuation of _1719_, which is followed by all
the modern editors. This makes 'dull privations' and 'lean emptinesse'
expansions of 'nothingnesse'. This is the simpler construction. I am
not sure, however, that the punctuation of the earlier editions and of
the MSS. may not be correct. In that case 'From dull privations' goes
with 'he ruined me'. Milton speaks of 'ruining from Heaven'. 'From me,
who was nothing', says Donne, 'Love extracted the very quintessence
of nothingness--made me more nothing than I already was. My state was
already one of "dull privation" and "lean emptiness", and Love reduced
it still further, making me once more the non-entity I was before
I was created.' Only Donne could be guilty of such refined and
extravagant subtlety. But probably this is to refine too much. There
is no example of 'ruining' as an active verb used in this fashion.
A feature of the MS. collection from which this poem was probably
printed is the omission of stops at the end of the line. In the next
verse Donne pushes the annihilation further. Made nothing by Love,
by the death of her he loves he is made the elixir (i.e. the
quintessence) not now of ordinary nothing, but of 'the first nothing',
the nothing which preceded God's first act of creation. The poem turns
upon the thought of degrees in nothingness.

For 'elixir' as identical with 'quintessence' see Oxf. Eng. Dict.,
_Elixir_, †† iii. b, and the quotation there, 'A distill'd
quintessence, a pure elixar of mischief, pestilent alike to all.'
Milton, _Church Govt._

Of the 'first Nothing' Donne speaks in the _Essays in Divinity_
(Jessop, 1855), pp. 80-1, but in a rather different strain: 'To speak
truth freely there was no such Nothing as this' (the nothing which a
man might wish to be) 'before the beginning: for he that hath refined
all the old definitions hath put this ingredient _Creabile_ (which
cannot be absolutely nothing) into his definition of creation; and
that Nothing which was, we cannot desire; for man's will is not larger
than God's power: and since Nothing was not a pre-existent matter, nor
mother of this all, but only a limitation when any thing began to be;
how impossible it is to return to that first point of time, since God
(if it imply contradiction) cannot reduce yesterday? Of this we
will say no more; for this Nothing being no creature; is more
incomprehensible than all the rest.'

ll. 31-2. The Grolier Club edition reads:

            I should prefer
  If I were any beast; some end, some means;

which is to me unintelligible. 'If I were a beast, I should prefer
some end, some means' refers to the Aristotelian and Schools doctrine
of the soul. The soul of man is rational and self-conscious; of beasts
perceptive and moving, therefore able to select ends and means; the
vegetative soul of plants selects what it can feed on and rejects what
it cannot, and so far detests and loves. Even stones, which have no
souls, attract and repel. But even of stones Donne says: 'We are not
sure that stones have not life; stones may have life; neither (to
speak humanely) is it unreasonably thought by them, that thought the
whole world to be inanimated by one soule, and to be one intire living
creature; and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before
the Sun, because a fly hath life, and the Sun hath not.' _Sermons_ 80.
7. 69-70.

l. 35. _If I an ordinary nothing were._ 'A shadow is nothing, yet, if
the rising or falling sun shines out and there be no shadow, I will
pronounce there is no body in that place neither. Ceremonies are
nothing; but where there are no ceremonies, order, and obedience, and
at last (and quickly) religion itself will vanish.' _Sermons_ (quoted
in _Selections from Donne_, 1840).

l. 41. _Enjoy your summer all_; This is Grosart's punctuation. The old
editions have a comma. Chambers, obviously quite wrongly, retains the
comma, and closes the sentence in the next line. The clause 'Since she
enjoys her long night's festival' explains 43 'Let me prepare towards
her', &c., _not_ 41 'Enjoy your summer all'.


PAGE =47=. THE APPARITION.

ll. 1-13. The Grolier Club editor places a full stop, Chambers a
colon, after 'shrinke', for the comma of the old editions. Chambers's
division is better than the first, which interrupts the steady run of
the thought to the climax,

  A verier ghost than I.

The original punctuation preserves the rapid, crowded march of the
clauses.

l. 10. This line throws light on the character of the _1669_ text.
The correct reading of _1633_ was spoiled in _1635_ by accidentally
dropping 'will', and this error continued through _1639-54_. The 1669
editor, detecting the metrical fault, made the line decasyllabic by
interpolating 'a' and 'even'.


PAGE =48=. THE BROKEN HEART.

l. 8. _A flaske of powder burne a day._ The 'flash' of later editions
is probably a conjectural emendation, for 'flaske' (_1633_ and many
MSS.) makes good sense; and the metaphor of a burning flask of powder
seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to
the heart which love inflamed

                            but Love, alas,
  At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.

Shakespeare uses the same simile in a different connexion:

  Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
  Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both:
  Like powder in a skilless soldiers flaske,
  Is set a fire by thine own ignorance,
  And thou dismembred with thine owne defence.
                              _Romeo and Juliet_, III. iii. 130.

l. 14. _and never chawes_: 'chaw' is the form Donne generally uses:
'Implicite beleevers, ignorant beleevers, the adversary may swallow;
but the understanding beleever, he must chaw, and pick bones, before
he come to assimilate him, and make him like himself.' _Sermons_ 80.
18. 178.


PAGE =49=. A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING.

This poem is quoted by Walton after his account of the vision which
Donne had of his wife in France, in 1612: 'I forbear the readers
farther trouble as to the relation and what concerns it, and will
conclude mine with commending to his view a copy of verses given by
Mr. Donne to his wife at the time that he then parted from her: and
I beg leave to tell, that I have heard some critics, learned both in
languages and poetry, say, that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
ever equal them.' The critics probably included Wotton,--perhaps also
Hales, whose criticism of Shakespeare shows the same readiness to find
our own poets as good as the Ancients.

The song, 'Sweetest love I do not go,' was probably written at the
same time. It is almost identical in tone. They are certainly the
tenderest of Donne's love poems, perhaps the only ones to which the
epithet 'tender' can be applied. The _Valediction: of weeping_ is more
passionate.

An early translation of this poem into Greek verse is found in a
volume in the Bodleian Library.

ll. 9-12. _Moving of th'earth, &c._ 'The "trepidation" was the
precession of the equinoxes, supposed, according to the Ptolemaic
astronomy, to be caused by the movements of the Ninth or Crystalline
Sphere.' Chambers.

  First you see fixt in this huge mirrour blew,
  Of trembling lights, a number numberlesse:
  Fixt they are nam'd, but with a name untrue,
  For they all moove and in a Daunce expresse
  That great long yeare, that doth contain no lesse
    Then threescore hundreds of those yeares in all,
    Which the sunne makes with his course naturall.

  What if to you those sparks disordered seem
  As if by chaunce they had beene scattered there?
  The gods a solemne measure doe it deeme,
  And see a iust proportion every where,
  And know the points whence first their movings were;
    To which first points when all returne againe,
    The axel-tree of Heav'n shall breake in twain.
                             Sir John Davies, _Orchestra_, 35-6.

l. 16. _Those things which elemented it._ Chambers follows _1669_ and
reads 'The thing'--wrongly, I think. 'Elemented' is just 'composed',
and the things are enumerated later, 20. 'eyes, lips, hands.' Compare:

  But neither chance nor compliment
    Did element our love.
        Katharine Phillips (Orinda), _To Mrs. M. A. at parting_.

This and the fellow poem _Upon Absence_ may be compared with Donne's
poems on the same theme. See Saintsbury's _Caroline Poets_, i, pp.
548, 550.

l. 20. _and hands_: 'and' has the support of _all_ the MSS. The want
of it is no great loss, for though without it the line moves a little
irregularly, 'and hands' is not a pleasant concatenation.

ll. 25-36. _If they be two, &c._ Donne's famous simile has a close
parallel in Omar Khayyam. Whether Donne's 'hydroptic immoderate thirst
of humane learning and languages' extended to Persian I do not know.
Captain Harris has supplied me with translations and reference:

  In these twin compasses, O Love, you see
  One body with two heads, like you and me,
    Which wander round one centre, circle wise,
  But at the last in one same point agree.
            Whinfield's edition of _Omar Khayyam_ (Kegan Paul,
                   Trübner, 1901, Oriental Series, p. 216).

'Oh my soul, you and I are like a compass. We form but one body having
two points. Truly one point moves from the other point, and makes the
round of the circle; but the day draws near when the two points must
re-unite.' J. H. M^{c}Carthy (D. Nutt, 1898).


PAGE =51=. THE EXTASIE.

This is one of the most important of the lyrics as a statement
of Donne's metaphysic of love, of the interconnexion and mutual
dependence of body and soul. It is printed in _1633_ from _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_ or a MS. resembling it, and from this and the other MSS. I
have introduced some alterations in the text: and two rather vital
emendations, ll. 55 and 59. _The Extasie_ is probably the source of
Lord Herbert of Cherbury's best known poem, _An Ode Upon a Question
Moved Whether Love Should Continue For Ever_. Compare with the opening
lines of Donne's poem:

  They stay'd at last and on the grass
    Reposed so, as o're his breast
    She bowed her gracious head to rest,
  Such a weight as no burden was.

  While over eithers compass'd waist
    Their folded arms were so compos'd
    As if in straightest bonds inclos'd
  They suffer'd for joys they did taste

  Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent,
    Unchanged they did never move,
    As if so great and pure a love
  No glass but it could represent.

In a letter to Sir Thomas Lucy, Donne writes: 'Sir I make account that
this writing of letters, when it is with any seriousness, is a kind of
extasie, and a departing, and secession, and suspension of the soul,
which doth then communicate itself to two bodies.' Ecstasy in
Neo-Platonic philosophy was the state of mind in which the soul,
escaping from the body, attained to the vision of God, the One, the
Absolute. Plotinus thus describes it: 'Even the word vision ([Greek:
theama]) does not seem appropriate here. It is rather an ecstasy
([Greek: ekstasis]), a simplification, an abandonment of self, a
perfect quietude ([Greek: stasis]), a desire of contact, in short a
wish to merge oneself in that which one contemplates in the
Sanctuary.' _Sixth Ennead_, ix. 11 (from the French translation of
Bouillet, 1857-8). Readers will observe how closely Donne's poem
agrees with this--the exodus of the souls (ll. 15-16), the perfect
quiet (ll. 18-20), the new insight (ll. 29-33), the contact and union
of the souls (l. 35). Donne had probably read Ficino's translation of
Plotinus (1492), but the doctrine of ecstasy passed into Christian
thought, connecting itself especially with the experience of St. Paul
(2 Cor. xii. 2). St. Paul's word is [Greek: harpagenta], and Aquinas
distinguishes between 'raptus' and 'ecstasis': 'Extasis importat
simpliciter excessum a seipso ... raptus super hoc addit violentiam
quandam.' Another word for 'ecstasy' was 'enthusiasm'.

l. 9. _So to entergraft our hands._ All the later editions read
'engraft', which makes the line smoother. But to me it seems more
probable that Donne wrote 'entergraft' and later editors changed this
to 'engraft', than that the opposite should have happened. Moreover,
'entergraft' gives the reciprocal force correctly, which 'engraft'
does not. Donne's precision is as marked as his subtlety. 'Entergraft'
has the support of all the best MSS.

PAGE =52=, l. 20. _And wee said nothing all the day._ 'En amour un
silence vaut mieux qu'un langage. Il est bon d'être interdit; il y
a une éloquence de silence qui pénètre plus que la langue ne saurait
faire. Qu'un amant persuade bien sa maîtresse quand il est interdit,
et que d'ailleurs il a de l'esprit! Quelque vivacité que l'on ait,
il est bon dans certaines rencontres qu'elle s'éteigne. Tout cela se
passe sans règle et sans réflexion; et quand l'esprit le fait, il n'y
pensait pas auparavant. C'est par nécessité que cela arrive.' Pascal,
_Discours sur les passions de l'amour_.

l. 32. _Wee see, wee saw not what did move._ Chambers inserts a comma
after 'we saw not', perhaps rightly; but the punctuation of the old
editions gives a distinct enough sense, viz., 'We see now, that we did
not see before the true source of our love. What we thought was due
to bodily beauty, we perceive now to have its source in the soul.'
Compare, 'But when I wakt, I saw, that I saw not.' _The Storme_, l.
37.

l. 42. _Interinanimates two soules._ The MSS. give the word which
the metre requires and which I have no doubt Donne used. The verb
_inanimates_ occurs more than once in the sermons. 'One that quickens
and inanimates all, and is the soul of the whole world.' _Sermons_ 80.
29. 289. 'That universall power which sustaines, and inanimates the
whole world.' Ibid. 80. 31. 305. 'In these bowels, in the womb of this
promise we lay foure thousand yeares; The blood with which we were fed
then, was the blood of the Sacrifices, and the quickening which we had
there, was an inanimation, by the often refreshing of this promise
of that Messias in the Prophets.' Ibid. 80. 38. 381. 'Hee shews them
Heaven, and God in Heaven, sanctifying all their Crosses in this
World, inanimating all their worldly blessings.' Ibid. 80. 44. 436.

PAGE =53=, l. 51. _They'are ours though they'are not wee, Wee are_
The line as given in all the MSS. is metrically, in the rhetorically
effective position of the stresses, superior to the shortened form of
the editions:

  They'are ours, though not wee, wee are

l. 52. _the spheare._ The MSS. all give the singular, the editions
the plural. Donne is not incapable of making a singular rhyme with a
plural, or at any rate a form with 's' with one without:

  Then let us at these mimicke antiques jeast,
  Whose deepest projects, and egregious gests
  Are but dull Moralls of a game of Chests.
                         _To S^r Henry Wotton_, p. 188, ll. 22-4.

Still, I think 'spheare' is right. The bodies made one are the Sphere
in which the two Intelligences meet and command. This suits all that
followes:

  Wee owe them thanks, because they thus, &c.

The Dutch translation runs:

      Het Hemel-rond zijn sy,
  Wy haren _Hemel-geest_.

l. 55. _forces, sense_, This reading of all the MSS. is, I think,
certainly right; the 'senses force' of the editions being an
emendation. (1) It is the more difficult reading. It is inconceivable
that an ordinary copyist would alter 'senses force' to 'forces sense',
which, unless properly commaed, is apt to be read as 'forces' sense'
and make nonsense. (2) It is more characteristic of Donne's thought.
He is, with his usual scholastic precision, distinguishing the
functions of soul and body. Perception is the function (the [Greek:
dynamis], power or force) of soul:

      thy faire goodly soul, which doth
  Give this flesh power to taste joy.
                                               _Satyre III._

But the body has its function also, without which the soul could not
fulfil its; and that function is 'sense'. It is through this medium
that human souls must operate to obtain knowledge of each other. The
bodies must yield their forces or faculties ('sense' in all its forms,
especially sight and touch--hands and eyes) to us before our souls can
become one. The collective term 'sense' recurs:

    T'affections, and to faculties,
  Which sense may reach and apprehend.

  ll. 57-8. _On man heavens influence workes not so,
               But that it first imprints the ayre._

'Aucuns ont escrit que l'air a aussi cette vertu de faire decouler
avec le feu elementaire les influences et proprietez secrettes des
estoilles et planettes: alleguans que l'efficace des corps celestes
ne peut s'estendre aux inferieurs et terrestres, que par les moyens et
elemens qui sont entre deux. Mais cela soit au iugement des lecteurs
que nous renvoyons aux disputes de ceux qui ont escrit sur la
philosophie naturelle. Voyez aussi _Pline au 5 ch. du 2 liu._,
_Plutarque au 5 & 2 liu. des opinions des Philosophes_, _Platon en
son Timee_, _Aristote_ en ses disputes de physique, specialement au i.
liu. de la generation et corruption, et ceux qui ont escrit depuis luy
touchant les elemens.' Du Bartas, _La Sepmaine, &c._ (1581), _Indice_.
Air.

l. 59. _Soe soule into the soule may flow._ The 'Soe' of the MSS.
must, I think, be right rather than the 'For' of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
and the editions. It corresponds to the 'So' in l. 65, and it
expresses the simpler and more intelligible thought. In references
to the heavenly bodies and their influence on men one must remember
certain aspects of older thought which have become unfamiliar to us.
They were bodies of great dignity, 'aeterna corpora,' not composed
of any of the four elements, and subject to no change in time but
movement, change of position. If not as the older philosophers and
some of the Fathers had held, 'animata corpora,' having a soul united
to the body, yet each was guided by an Intelligence operating by
contact: 'Ad hoc autem quod moveat, non opportet quod uniatur ei
ut forma, sed per contactum virtutis, sicut motor unitur mobili.'
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. lxx. 3. Such bodies, it was claimed, influence
human actions: 'Corpora enim coelestia, cum moveantur a spiritualibus
substantiis ... agunt in virtute earum quasi instrumenta. Sed illae
substantiae spirituales sunt superiores animabus nostris. Ergo videtur
quod possint _imprimere in animas nostras_, et sic causare actus
humanos.' Aquinas, however, disputes this, as Plotinus had before him,
and distinguishes: As bodies, the stars affect us only indirectly, in
so far namely as the mind and will of man are subject to the influence
of physical and corporeal disturbances. But man's will remains free.
'_Sapiens homo dominatur astris_ in quantum scilicet dominatur suis
passionibus.' As Intelligences, the stars do not operate on man
thus mediately and controllingly: 'sed in intellectum humanum agunt
_immediate illuminando_: voluntatem autem immutare non possunt.'
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. cxv. 4.

Now if 'Soe' be the right reading here then Donne is thinking of
the heavenly bodies without distinguishing in them between soul or
intelligence and body. 'As these high bodies or beings operate on
man's soul through the comparatively low intermediary of air, so
lovers' souls must interact through the medium of body.'

If 'For' be the right reading, then Donne is giving as an example of
soul operating on soul through the medium of body the influence of the
heavenly intelligences on our souls. But this is not the orthodox view
of their interaction. I feel sure that 'Soe' is the right reading. The
thought and construction are simpler, and 'Soe' and 'For' are easily
interchanged.

Of noblemen Donne says: 'They are _Intelligences_ that move great
_Spheares_.' _Sermon_, Judges xv. 20, p. 20 (1622).

  ll. 61-4. _As our blood labours to beget
              Spirits, as like soules as it can,
            Because such fingers need to knit
              That subtile knot, which makes us man._

'Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the Bloud,
and the instrument of the soule, to perform all his actions; a common
tye or _medium_ betwixt the body and the soule, as some will have it;
or as _Paracelsus_, a fourth soule of itselfe. _Melancthon_ holds
the fountaine of these spirits to be the _Heart_, begotten there; and
afterward convayed to the Braine, they take another nature to them. Of
these spirits there be three kindes, according to the three principall
parts, _Braine_, _Heart_, _Liver_; _Naturall_, _Vitall_, _Animall_.
The _Naturall_ are begotten in the _Liver_, and thence dispersed
through the Veines, to performe those naturall actions. The _Vitall
Spirits_ are made in the Heart, of the _Naturall_, which by the
Arteries are transported to all the other parts: if these _Spirits_
cease, then life ceaseth, as in a _Syncope_ or Swowning. The _Animall
spirits_ formed of the _Vitall_, brought up to the Braine, and
diffused by the Nerves, to the subordinate Members, give sense and
motion to them all.' Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1638), p. 15.
'The spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood,
and so are of a kind of middle nature, between soul and body, those
spirits are able to doe, and they doe the office, to unite and apply
the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body, and so there is a
man.' _Sermons_ 26. 20. 291.


PAGE =55=. LOVES DIET.

ll. 19-24. This stanza, carefully and correctly printed in the 1633
edition, which I have followed, was mangled in that of 1635, and
has remained in this condition, despite conjectural emendations, in
subsequent editions, including those of Grosart and Chambers. What
Donne says is obvious: 'Whatever Love dictated I wrote, but burned the
letters. When she wrote to me, and when (correctly resumed by 'that')
that favour made him (i.e. Love) fat, I said,' &c. The 1650-54
'Whate'er might him distaste,' &c. is obviously an attempt to put
right what has gone wrong. No reading but that of the 1633 edition
gives _any_ sense to 'that favour' and 'convey'd by this'.

ll. 25-7. _reclaim'd ... sport._ In _1633_ 'reclaim'd' became
'redeem'd', probably owing to the frequent misreading of 'cl' as 'd'.
The mistake here increases the probability that 'sports' is an error
for 'sport' or 'sporte'. It is doubtful if 'sports' was used as now.


PAGE =56=. THE WILL.

ll. 19-27. This verse is omitted in most of the MSS. Probably in
James's reign its references to religion were thought too outspoken
and flippant. Charles admired in Donne not only the preacher but also
the poet, as Huyghens testifies.

The first three lines turn on a contrast that Donne is fond of
elaborating between the extreme Protestant doctrine of justification
by faith only and the Catholic, especially Jesuit, doctrine of
co-operant works. It divided the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The
Jansenists had not yet emerged, but their precursors in the quarrel
(as readers of _Les Provinciales_ will recall) were the Dominicans,
to whom Donne refers: 'So also when in the beginning of S. Augustines
time, Grace had been so much advanced that mans Nature was scarce
admitted to be so much as any means or instrument (not only no kind
of cause) of his own good works: And soon after in S. Augustines time
also mans free will (by fierce opposition and arguing against the
former error) was too much overvalued, and admitted into too near
degrees of fellowship with Grace; those times admitted a doctrine and
form of reconciliation, which though for reverence to the time, both
the Dominicans and Jesuits at this day in their great quarrell about
Grace and Free Will would yet seem to maintaine, yet indifferent and
dispassioned men of that Church see there is no possibility in it, and
therefore accuse it of absurdity, and almost of heresie.' _Letters_
(1651), pp. 15-16. As an Anglican preacher Donne upheld James's point
of view, that the doctrine of grace and free-will was better left
undiscussed: 'Resistibility, and Irresistibility of Grace, which is
every Artificers wearing now, was a stuff that our Fathers wore not, a
language that pure antiquity spake not.... They knew Gods law, and his
Chancery: But for Gods prerogative, what he could do of his absolute
power, they knew Gods pleasure, _Nolumus disputari_: It should scarce
be disputed of in Schools, much less serv'd in every popular pulpit
to curious and itching ears; least of all made table-talke, and
houshold-discourse.' _Sermons_ 26. 1. 4.

The 'Schismaticks of Amsterdam' were the extreme Puritans. See
Jonson's _The Alchemist_ for Tribulation Wholesome and 'We of the
separation'.


PAGE =58=. THE FUNERALL.

l. 3. _That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme_; 'And
Theagenes presented her with a diamond ring which he used to wear,
entreating her, whensoever she did cast her eyes upon it, to conceive
that it told her in his behalf, that his heart would prove as hard as
that stone in the admittance of any new affection; and that his to
her should be as void of end as that circular figure was;' (compare
_A Ieat Ring sent_, p. 65) 'and she desired him to wear for her sake
a lock of hair which she gave him; the splendour of which can be
expressed by no earthly thing, but it seemed as though a stream of
the sun's beams had been gathered together and converted into a solid
substance. With this precious relique about his arm,' (compare _The
Relique_, p. 62) 'whose least hair was sufficient' (compare _Aire and
Angels_, p. 22, 'Ev'ry thy hair' and note) 'to bind in bonds of love
the greatest heart that ever was informed with life, Theagenes took
his journey into Attica.' Kenelm Digby's _Private Memoirs_ (1827), pp.
80-1. When later Theagenes heard that Stelliana (believing Theagenes
to be dead) was to wed Mardonius, 'he tore from his arm the bracelet
of her hair ... and threw it into the fire that was in his chamber;
when that glorious relic burning shewed by the wan and blue colour
of the flame that it had sense and took his words unkindly in her
behalf.'

Theagenes was Sir Kenelm Digby himself, Stelliana being Lady Venetia
Stanley, afterwards his wife. Mardonius was probably Edward, Earl of
Dorset, the brother of Donne's friend and patron.

It is probable that this sequence of poems, _The Funerall_, _The
Blossome_, _The Primrose_ and _The Relique_, was addressed to Mrs.
Herbert in the earlier days of Donne's intimacy with her in Oxford or
London.

l. 24. _That since you would save none of me, I bury some of you._ I
have hesitated a good deal over this line. The reading of the editions
is 'have none of me'; and in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
while _H49_ reads 'save', _D_ has corrected 'have' to what _may_ be
'save', and _Lec_ reads 'have'. The reading of the editions is the
full form of the construction, which is more common without the
'have'. 'It's four to one she'll none of me,' _Twelfth Night_, I.
iii. 113; 'She will none of him,' Ibid. II. ii. 9, are among Schmidt's
examples (_Shakespeare Lexicon_), in none of which 'have' occurs.
The reading of the MSS., 'save none of me,' is also quite idiomatic,
resembling the ' fear none of this' (i.e. 'do not fear this') of
_Winter's Tale_, IV. iv. 601; and I have preferred it because: (1) It
seems difficult to understand how it could have arisen if 'have none'
was the original. (2) It gives a sharper antithesis, 'You would not
save me, keep me alive. Therefore I will bury, not you indeed, but
a part of you.' (3) To be saved is the lover's usual prayer; and the
idea of the poem is that his death is due to the lady's cruelty.

  Come not, when I am dead,
  To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
  To trample round my fallen head,
  And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
  There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
      But thou go by.

Compare also the Letter _To M^{rs} M. H._ (pp. 216-8), where the same
idea recurs:

  When thou art there, if any, whom we know,
  Were sav'd before, and did that heaven partake, &c.


PAGE =59=. THE BLOSSOME.

l. 10. _labour'st._ The form with 't' occurs in most of the MSS., and
't' is restored in _1635_. The 'labours' of _1633_ represents a
common dropping of the 't' for ease of pronunciation. See Franz,
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 152. It is colloquial, and I doubt if Donne
would have preserved it if he had printed the poem, supposing that he
wrote the word so, and not some copyist.

  ll. 21-4. _You goe to friends, whose love and meanes present
                        Various content
            To your eyes, eares, and tongue, and every part:
            If then your body goe, what need you a heart?_

I have adopted the MS. readings 'tongue' and 'what need you a heart?'
because they seem to me more certainly what Donne wrote. He may have
altered them, but so may an editor. 'Tongue' is more exactly parallel
to eyes and ears, and the whole talk is of organs. 'What need you a
heart?' is more pointed. 'With these organs of sense, what need have
you of a heart?' The idiom was not uncommon, the verb being used
impersonally. The O.E.D. gives among others:

  What need us so many instances abroad.
                                       _Andros Tracts_, 1691.

'What need your heart go' is of course also idiomatic. The latest
example the O.E.D. gives is from Hall's _Satires_, 1597: 'What needs
me care for any bookish skill?'


PAGE =61=. THE PRIMROSE, &c.

It is noteworthy that the addition 'being at Montgomery Castle', &c.
was made in _1635_. It is unknown to _1633_ and the MSS. It may be
unwarranted. If it be accurate, then the poem is probably addressed
to Mrs. Herbert and is a half mystical, half cynical description of
Platonic passion. The perfect primrose has apparently five petals, but
more or less may be found. Seeking for one to symbolize his love, he
fears to find either more or less. What can be less than woman? But if
more than woman she becomes that unreal thing, the object of Platonic
affection and Petrarchian adoration: but, as he says elsewhere,

  Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
  To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse.

Let woman be content to be herself. Since five is half ten, united
with man she will be half of a perfect life; or (and the cynical
humour breaks out again) if she is not content with that, since five
is the first number which includes an even number (2) and an odd (3),
it may claim to be the perfect number, and she to be the whole in
which we men are included and absorbed. We have no will of our own.

'From Sarai's name He took a letter which expressed the number ten,
and reposed one which made but five; so that she contributed that
five which man wanted before, to show a mutual indigence and support.'
_Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop, 1855), p. 118.

'Even for this, he will visite to the third, and fourth generation;
and three and foure are seven, and seven is infinite. _Sermons_ 50.
47. 440.

l. 30. _this, five,_ I have introduced a comma after 'this' to show
what, I think, must be the relation of the words. The later editions
drop 'this', and it seems to me probable that an original reading and
a correction have survived side by side. Donne may have written 'this'
alone, referring back to 'five', and then, thinking the reference too
remote, he may have substituted 'five' in the margin, whence it crept
into the text without completely displacing 'this'. The support which
the MSS. lend to _1633_ make it dangerous to remove either word now,
but I have thought it well to show that 'this' _is_ 'five'. In
the MSS. when a word is erased a line is drawn under it and the
substituted word placed in the margin.


PAGE =62=. THE RELIQUE.

l. 13. _Where mis-devotion doth command._ The unanimity of the earlier
editions and the MSS. shows clearly that 'Mass-devotion' (which
Chambers adopts) is merely an ingenious conjecture of the _1669_
editor. Donne uses the word frequently, e.g.:

  Here in a place, where miss-devotion frames
  A thousand Prayers to Saints, whose very names
  The ancient Church knew not, &c.
              _Of the Progresse of the Soule_, p. 266, ll. 511-13.

and: 'This mis-devotion, and left-handed piety, of praying for the
dead.' _Sermons_ 80. 77. 780.

l. 17. _You shalbe._ I have recorded this reading of several MSS.
because the poem is probably addressed to Mrs. Herbert and Donne may
have so written. His discrimination of 'thou' and 'you' is very marked
throughout the poems. 'Thou' is the pronoun of feeling and intimacy,
'you' of respect. Compare 'To Mrs. M. H.', and remember that Mrs.
Herbert's name was Magdalen.

ll. 27-8. _Comming and going, wee Perchance might kisse, but not
between those meales_: i.e. the kiss of salutation and parting. In a
sermon on the text 'Kisse the Son, lest he be angry', Donne enumerates
the uses of kissing sanctioned by the Bible, and this among them: 'Now
by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first
part, The perswasion to come to this holy kisse, though defamed by
treachery, though depraved by licentiousnesse, since God invites us to
it, by so many good uses thereof in his Word. It is an imputation laid
upon _Nero_, that _Neque adveniens neque proficiscens_, That whether
comming or going he never kissed any: And Christ himself imputes it
to _Simon_, as a neglect of him, That when he _came into his house_ he
did not _kisse_ him. This then was in use', &c. _Sermons_ 80. 41. 407.

The kiss of salutation lasted in some countries till the later
eighteenth century, perhaps still lasts. See Rousseau's _Confessions_,
Bk. 9, and Byron's _Childe Harold_, III. lxxix.

But Erasmus, in 1499, speaks as though it were a specially English
custom: 'Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Sive quo venis,
omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedis aliquo, osculis dimitteris;
redis, redduntur suavia; venitur ad te, propinantur suavia; disceditur
abs te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicubi, basiatur affatim;
denique quocunque te moves, suaviorum plena sunt omnia.'


PAGE =64=. THE DISSOLUTION.

l. 10. _earthly sad despaire._ Cf. O.E.D.: 'Earthly. 3. Partaking of
the nature of earth, resembling earth as a substance, consisting of
earth as an element; = Earthy, archaic or obsolete.' The form was
used as late as 1843, but the change in the later editions of Donne
indicates that it was growing rare in this sense. Compare,'A young
man of a softly disposition.' Camden's _Reign of Elizabeth_ (English
transl.).


PAGE =66=. NEGATIVE LOVE.

l. 15. _What we know not, our selves._ 'All creatures were brought to
Adam, and, because he understood the natures of all those creatures,
he gave them names accordingly. In that he gave no name to himselfe it
may be by some perhaps argued, that he understood himselfe lesse then
he did other creatures.' _Sermons_ 80. 50. 563.


PAGE =67=. THE PROHIBITION.

l. 18. _So, these extreames shall neithers office doe._ The 'neithers'
of _D_, _H40_, _JC_, supported by 'neyther' in _O'F_ and 'neyther
their' in _Cy_, is much more characteristic than 'ne'er their', and
more likely to have been altered than to have been substituted for
'ne'er their'. The reading of _Cy_ shows how the phrase puzzled an
ordinary copyist. 'These extremes shall by counteracting each other
prevent either from fulfilling his function.' Compare, 'As two
yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose' (i.e. each to the other's
purpose). Shakespeare, _Hen. V_, II. ii. 107.

l. 22. _So shall I, live, thy stage not triumph bee._ I have placed
a comma after I to make quite clear that 'live' is the adjective, not
the verb. The 'stay' of _1633_ is defensible, but the _1633_ editor
was somewhat at sea about this poem, witness the variations introduced
while the edition was printing in ll. 20 and 24 and the misprinting
of l. 5. All the MSS. I have consulted support 'stage'; and this gives
the best meaning: 'Alive, I shall continue to be the stage on which
your victories are daily set forth; dead, I shall be but your triumph,
a thing achieved once, never to be repeated.' Compare:

  And cause her leave to triumph in this wise
  Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart!
  That serves a Trophy to her conquering eyes,
  And must their glory to the world impart.
                                             Daniel, _Delia_, X.

ll. 23, 24. There are obviously two versions of these lines which the
later editions have confounded. The first is that of the text, from
_1633_. The second is that of the MSS. and runs, properly pointed:

  Then lest thy love, hate, and mee thou undoe,
  O let me live, O love and hate me too.

The punctuation of the MSS. is very careless, but the lines as printed
are quite intelligible. As given in the editions _1635-69_ they are
nonsensical.


PAGE =68=. THE EXPIRATION.

l. 5. _We ask'd._ The past tense of the MSS. makes the antithesis
and sense more pointed. 'It was with no one's leave we lov'd to begin
with, and we will owe to no one the death that comes with parting.'

  ll. 7 f. _Goe: and if that word have not quite kil'd thee,
           Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too_.

Compare:

  _Val._ No more: unless the next word that thou speak'st
  Have some malignant power upon my life:
  If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
  As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
                  _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, III. i. 236 f.


PAGE =70=. THE PARADOX.

l. 14. _lights life._ The MSS. correct the obvious mistake of the
editions, 'lifes light.' The 'lights life' is, of course, the sun.
In the same way at 21 'lye' is surely better suited than 'dye' to an
epitaph. This poem is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _1633_ has printed
it from _A18_, _N_, _TC_.

In the latter group of MSS. this poem is followed immediately by
another of the same kind, which is found also in _H40_, _RP31_, and
_O'F_, as well as several more miscellaneous MSS. I print from _TCC_:

A PARADOX.

  Whosoe termes Love a fire, may like a poet
  Faine what he will, for certaine cannot showe it.
  For Fire nere burnes, but when the fuell's neare
  But Love doth at most distance most appeare.
  Yet out of fire water did never goe,
  But teares from Love abundantly doe flowe.
  Fire still mounts upward; but Love oft descendeth.
  Fire leaves the midst: Love to the Center tendeth.
  Fire dryes and hardens: Love doth mollifie.
  Fire doth consume, but Love doth fructifie.
  The powerful Queene of Love (faire Venus) came
  Descended from the Sea, not from the flame,
  Whence passions ebbe and flowe, and from the braine
  Run to the hart like streames, and back againe.
  Yea Love oft fills mens breasts with melting snow
  Drowning their Love-sick minds in flouds of woe.
  What is Love, water then? it may be soe;
  But hee saith trueth, that saith hee doth not knowe.

FINIS.


PAGE =71=. FAREWELL TO LOVE.

l. 12. _His highnesse &c._ 'Presumably his highness was made of gilt
gingerbread.' Chambers. See Jonson, _Bartholomew Fair_, III. i.

ll. 28-30. As these lines stand in the old editions they are
unintelligible:

  Because that other curse of being short,
    And only for a minute made to be
  Eager, desires to raise posterity.

Grosart prints:

  Because that other curse of being short
    And--only-for-a-minute-made-to-be--
  Eager desires to raise posterity.

This and the note which he appends I find more incomprehensible than
the old text. This is his note: 'The whole sense then is: Unless
Nature decreed this in order that man should despise it, (just) as
she made it short, that man might for that reason also despise a
sport that was only for a minute made to be eager desires to raise
posterity.' Surely this is Abracadabra!

What has happened is, I believe, this: Donne here, as elsewhere, used
an obsolescent word, viz. 'eagers', the verb, meaning 'sharpens'. The
copyist did not recognize the form, took 'desire' for the verb, and
made 'eager' the adjectival complement to 'be', changing 'desire'
to 'desires' as predicate to 'curse'. What Donne had in mind was
the Aristotelian doctrine that the desire to beget children is
an expression of man's craving for immortality. The most natural
function, according to Aristotle, of every living thing which is not
maimed in any way is to beget another living thing like itself, that
so it may partake of what is eternal and divine. This participation
is the goal of all desire, and of all natural activity. But perishable
individuals cannot partake of the immortal and divine by continuous
existence. Nothing that is perishable can continue always one and the
same individual. Each, therefore, participates as best he may, some
more, some less; remaining the same in a way, i.e. in the species, not
in the individual.' (_De Anima_, B. 4. 415 A-B.) Donne's argument then
is this: 'Why of all animals have we alone this feeling of depression
and remorse after the act of love? Is it a device of nature to
restrain us from an act which shortens the life of the individual (he
refers here to a prevalent belief as to the deleterious effect of the
act of love), needed because that other curse which Adam brought upon
man, the curse of mortality,

                 of being short,
  And only for a minute made to be,
  Eagers [i.e. whets or provokes] desire to raise posterity.'

The latest use of 'eager' as a verb quoted by the O.E.D. is from
Mulcaster's _Positions_ (1581), where the sense is that of imitating
physically: 'They that be gawled ... may neither runne nor wrastle
for eagering the inward'. The Middle English use is closer to Donne's:
'The nature of som men is so ... unconvenable that ... poverte myhte
rather egren hym to don felonies.' Chaucer, Boëth. _De Consol. Phil._
In the Burley MS. (seventeenth century) the following epigram on
Bancroft appears:

  A learned Bishop of this land
  Thinking to make religion stand,
  In equall poise on every syde
  The mixture of them thus he tryde:
  An ounce of protestants he singles
  And a dramme of papists mingles,
  Then adds a scruple of a puritan
  And melts them down in his brayne pan,
  But where hee lookes they should digest
  The scruple eagers all the rest.

In Harl. MS. 4908 f. 83 the last line reads:

  That scruple troubles all the rest.


PAGE =71=. A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.

The text of this poem in the editions is that of _A18_, _N_, _TC_
among the MSS. A slightly different recension is found in most of the
other MSS. The chief difference is that the latter read 'love' for
'loves' at ll. 9, 14, and 19. They also, however, read 'least' for
'high'st' at l. 12. In l. 19 they vacillate between 'once' and 'our'.
It would not be difficult to defend either version. The only variation
from the printed text which I have admitted is that on which all the
MSS. are unanimous, viz. 'first' for 'short' in l. 26; 'short' is an
obvious blunder.


NOTE ON THE MUSIC TO WHICH CERTAIN OF DONNE'S SONGS WERE SET.

A song meant for the Elizabethans a poem intended to be sung,
generally to the accompaniment of the lute. Donne had clearly no
thought of his songs being an exception to this rule:

    But when I have done so,
  Some man his art and voice to show
    Doth set and sing my paine.

Yet it is difficult to think of some, perhaps the majority, of Donne's
_Songs and Sonets_ as being written to be sung. Their sonorous and
rhetorical rhythm, the elaborate stanzas which, like the prolonged
periods of the _Elegies_, seem to give us a foretaste of the Miltonic
verse-paragraph, suggest speech,--impassioned, rhythmical speech
rather than the melody of song. We are not haunted by a sense of the
tune to which the song should go, as we are in reading the lyrics of
the Elizabethan Anthologies or of Robert Burns. Yet some of Donne's
songs _were_ set to music. A note in one group of MSS. describes three
of them as 'Songs which were made to certain ayres which were made
before'. One of these is _The Baite_, which must have been set to
the same air as Marlowe's song. I reproduce here a lute-accompaniment
found in William Corkine's _Second Book of Ayres_ (1612). The airs of
the other two (see p. 18) I have not been able to find, nor are they
known to Mr. Barclay Squire, who has kindly helped and guided me in
this matter of the music. With his aid I have reproduced here the
music of two other songs, and, at another place, that of one of
Donne's great _Hymns_.


PAGE =8=. SONG.

The following air is found in Egerton MS. 2013. As given here it has
been conjecturally corrected by Mr. Barclay Squire:

[Music:

  Go and catch a falling star
    Get with child a mandrake roote,
  Tell me where all past times are
    Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
  Teach me to hear mermaid's singing
    Or to keep of Envy's singing
            And find
            what wind
  Serves to advance an honest mind.]


PAGE =23=. BREAKE OF DAY.

This is set to the following air in Corkine's _Second Book of Ayres_
(1612). As given here it has been transcribed by Mr. Barclay Squire,
omitting the lute accompaniment:

[Music:

  'Tis true 'tis day, What though it be?
  And will you there-fore rise from me?
  What, will you rise,  What, will you rise be-cause 'tis light?
  Did we lye downe be-cause 'twas night?
  Love that in spight of dark-nesse brought us he-ther,
  In spight of light should keepe us still to-ge-ther,
  In spight of light should keepe us still to-ge-ther,
  In spight of light should keepe us still to-ge-ther.]


PAGE =46=. THE BAITE.

From Corkine's _Second Book of Ayres_ (1612).

[Music: _Lessons for the Lyra Violl._

Come liue with me, and be my Loue.]



EPIGRAMS.

PAGES =75-8=. Of the epigrams sixteen are given in all the editions,
_1633-69_. Of these, thirteen are in _A18_, _N_, _TC_, none in _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_. Of the remaining three, two are in _W_, one in _HN_,
both good authorities. I have added three of interest from _W_, of
which one is in _HN_, and all three are in _O'F_. _W_ includes among
the _Epigrams_ the short poem _On a Jeat Ring Sent_, printed generally
with the _Songs and Sonets_. In _HN_ there is one and in the Burley
MS. are three more. Of these the one in _HN_ and two of those in _Bur_
are merely coarse, and there is no use burdening Donne with more of
this kind than he is already responsible for. The last in _Bur_ runs:

  Why are maydes wits than boyes of lower strayne?
  Eve was a daughter of the ribb not brayne.

Donne's epigrams were much admired, and some of his elegies were
classed with them as satirical 'evaporations of wit'. Drummond says:
'I think if he would he might easily be the best epigrammatist we
have found in English; of which I have not yet seen any come near
the Ancients. Compare his Marry and Love with Tasso's stanzas against
beauty; one shall hardly know who hath best.' The stanzas referred to
are entitled _Sopra la bellezza_, and begin:

  Questo che tanto il cieco volgo apprezza.

PAGE =75=. PYRAMUS AND THISBE. The Grolier Club edition prints the
first line of this epigram,

  Two by themselves each other love and fear,

which suggests that 'love' and 'fear' are verbs. As punctuated in
_1633_ the epigram is condensed but precise: 'These two, slain by
themselves, by each other, by fear, and by love, are joined here in
one tomb, by the friends whose cruel action in parting them brought
them together here.' Every point in the epigram corresponds to the
incidents of the story as narrated in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, iv.
55-165. The closing line runs:

  Quodque rogis superest, una requiescit in urna.

A BURNT SHIP. In _W_ the title is given in Italian, in _O'F_ in
Latin. Compare James's letter to Salisbury on the Dutch demands for
assistance against Spain;--'Should I ruin myself for maintaining
them.... I look that by a peace they should enrich themselves to pay
me my debts, and if they be so weak as they cannot subsist, either in
peace or war, without I ruin myself for upholding them, in that case
surely the nearest harm is to be first eschewed: _a man will leap out
of a burning ship and drown himself in the sea_; and it is doubtless
a farther off harm from me to suffer them to fall again into the hands
of Spain, and let God provide for the danger that may with time fall
upon me or my posterity, than presently to starve myself and mine
with putting the meat in their mouth.' _The King to Salisbury_, 1607,
Hatfield MSS., quoted in Gardiner's _History of England_, ii. 25.

PAGE =76=. A LAME BEGGER. Compare:

  Dull says he is so weake, he cannot rise,
  Nor stand, nor goe; if that be true, he lyes.
                    Finis quoth R.

    Thomas Deloney, _Strange Histories of Songes & Sonets of
    Kings, Princes, Dukes, Lords, Ladyes, Knights and Gentlemen.
    Very pleasant either to be read or songe, &c._, 1607.

PAGE =76=. SIR JOHN WINGEFIELD. _In that late Island._ Mr. Gosse has
inadvertently printed 'base' for 'late'. The 'Lady' island of _O'F_
is due probably to ignorance of what island was intended. It is, of
course, Cadiz itself, which is situated on an island at the extreme
point of the headland which closes the bay of Cadiz to the west. 'Then
we entered into the island of Cales with our footmen,' says Captain
Pryce in his letter to Cecil. Strype's _Annals_, iv. 398. Another
account relates how 'on the 21st they took the town of Cadiz and at
the bridge in the island were encountered by 400 horses'. Here the
severest fighting took place at 'the bridge from Mayne to Cadiz'. What
does Donne mean by 'late island'? Is it the island we lately visited
so gloriously, or the island on which the sun sets late, that western
island, now become a new Pillar of Hercules? It would not be unlike
Donne to give a word a startlingly condensed force. Compare (if the
reading be right) 'far faith' (p. 189, l. 4) and the note.

PAGES =75-6=. The series of Epigrams _A burnt ship_, _Fall of a wall_,
_A lame begger_, _Cales and Guyana_, _Sir John Wingefield_ seem to
me all to have been composed during the Cadiz expedition. The first
suggests, and was probably suggested by, the fight in the harbour when
so many of the Spanish ships were burned. The _Fall of a wall_ may
mark an incident in the attack of the landing party which forced its
way into the city. _A lame begger_ records a common spectacle in a
Spanish and Catholic town. _Cales and Guyana_ must clearly have been
written when, after Cadiz had been taken and sacked, the leaders were
debating their next step. Essex (and Donne is on Essex's side) urged
that the fleet should sail west and intercept the silver fleet, but
Howard, the Lord Admiral, insisted on an immediate return to England.
The last of the series chronicles the one death to which every account
of the expedition refers.

PAGE =77=. ANTIQUARY. Who is the Hamon or Hammond that is evidently
the subject of this epigram and is referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, I
cannot say. I am disposed to think that it may be John Hammond, LL.D.,
the civilist, the father of James I's physician and of Charles I's
chaplain. I have no proof that he was an antiquarian, but a civilist
and authority on tithes may well have been so, and he belonged to
the class which Donne satirizes with most of anger and feeling, the
examiners and torturers of Catholic prisoners. We find him in Strype's
_Annals_ collaborating with the notorious Topcliffe.

PHRYNE. An epigram often quoted by Ben Jonson. Drummond,
_Conversations_, ed. Laing, 842.

PAGE =78=. RADERUS. 'Matthew Rader (1561-1634), a German Jesuit,
published an edition of and commentary upon Martial in 1602.'
Chambers. Compare: 'He added, moreover, that though Raderus and others
of his order did use to geld Poets and other authors (and here I could
not choose but wonder why they have not gelded their Vulgar Edition
which in some places hath such obscene words, as the Hebrew tongue
which is therefore called holy, doth so much abhorre that no obscene
thing can be uttered in it)....' The reason which Donne gives is that
'They reserve to themselves the divers forms, and the secrets, and
mysteries in this latter which they find in the authors whom they
gelde.' _Ignatius his Conclave_ (1610), pp. 94-6. The epigram is
therefore a coarse hit at the Jesuits.

MERCURIUS GALLO-BELGICUS. A journal or register of news started at
Cologne in 1598. The first volume consisted of 659 pages and was
entitled: _Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus; sive rerum in Gallia et Belgia
potissimum: Hispania quoque, Italia, Anglia, Germania, Polonia,
vicinisque locis ab anno 1588 usque ad Martium anni praesentis 1594
gestarum, nuncius_. In the seventeenth century it was published
half-yearly and ornamented with maps. Its Latin was not unimpeachable
(Jonson speaks of a 'Gallo-Belgic phrase', _Poetaster_, V. i), nor its
news always trustworthy.

THE LIER. This was first printed in Sir John Simeon's _Unpublished
Poems of Donne_ (1856-7), whence it is included by Chambers in his
Appendix A. It is given the title _Supping Hours_. Its inclusion in
_HN_ (whence the present title) and _W_ strengthens its claim to
be genuine. Probably it was written after the Cadiz expedition, and
contains a reminiscence (Mr. Gosse has suggested this) of Spanish
fare.

l. 3. _Like Nebuchadnezar._ Compare: 'I am no great Nebuchadnezzar,
sir; I have not much skill in grass.' Shakespeare, _All's Well_, IV.
v.



THE ELEGIES.

Of the Elegies two groups seem to have been pretty widely circulated
before the larger collections were made or publication took place.
Each contained either twelve or thirteen, the twelve or thirteen being
made up sometimes by the inclusion of the Funeral Elegy, 'Sorrow who
to this house,' afterwards called _Elegie on the L. C._ The order
in the one group, as we find it in e.g. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, is _The
Bracelet_,[1] _Going to Bed_, _Jealousie_, _The Anagram_, _Change_,
_The Perfume_, _His Picture_, 'Sorrow who to this house,' 'Oh, let
mee not serve,' _Loves Warr_, _On his Mistris_, 'Natures lay Ideott,
I taught,' _Loves Progress_. The second group, as we find it in
_A25_, _JC_, and _W_, contains _The Bracelet_, _The Comparison_, _The
Perfume_, _Jealousie_, 'Oh, let not me (_sic_ _W_) serve,' 'Natures
lay Ideott, I taught,' _Loves Warr_, _Going to Bed_, _Change_, _The
Anagram_, _On his Mistris_, _His Picture_, 'Sorrow, who to this
house.' The last is not given in _A25_. It will be noticed that
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_ drops _The Comparison_; _A25_, _JC_, _W_, _Loves
Progress_; and that there were thirteen elegies, taking the two groups
together, apart from the Funeral Elegy.


    [Footnote 1: I take the titles given in the editions for ease
    of reference to the reader of this edition. The only title
    which _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ have is _On Loves Progresse_;
    _A25_, _JC_, and _W_ have none. Other MSS. give one or other
    occasionally.]


These are the most widely circulated and probably the earliest of
Donne's _Elegies_, taken as such. Of the rest _The Dreame_ is given in
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_, but among the songs, and _The Autumnall_ is placed
by itself. The rest are either somewhat doubtful or were not allowed
to get into general circulation.

Can we to any extent date the _Elegies_? There are some hints which
help to indicate the years to which the earlier of them probably
belong. In _The Bracelet_ Donne speaks of Spanish 'Stamps' as having

                                      slily made
  Gorgeous France, ruin'd, ragged and decay'd;
  Scotland which knew no State, proud in one day:
  mangled seventeen-headed Belgia.

The last of these references is too indefinite to be of use. I mean
that it covers too wide a period. Nor, indeed, do the others bring us
very far. The first indicates the period from the alliance between
the League and the King of Spain, 1585, when Philip promised a monthly
subsidy of 50,000 crowns, to the conversion and victory of Henry IV in
1593; the second, the short time during which Spanish influence gained
the upper hand in Scotland, between 1582 and 1586. After 1593 is the
only determinable date. In _Loves Warre_ we are brought nearer to a
definite date.

  France in her lunatique giddiness did hate
  Ever our men, yea and our God of late;
  Yet shee relies upon our Angels well
  Which nere retorne

points to the period between Henry's conversion ('yea and our God of
late') and the conclusion of peace between France and Spain in 1598.
The line,

  And Midas joyes our Spanish journeyes give

(taken with a similar allusion in one of his letters:

  Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring
  I feare, &c., p. 210),

refers most probably to Raleigh's expedition in 1595 to discover the
fabulous wealth of Manoa. Had the Elegy been written after the Cadiz
expedition there would certainly have been a more definite reference
to that war. The poem was probably written in the earlier part of
1596, when the expedition was in preparation and Donne contemplated
joining it.

To date one of the poems is not of course to date them all, but their
paradoxical, witty, daring tone is so uniform that one may fairly
conjecture that these thirteen Elegies were written between 1593 and
Donne's first entry upon responsible office as secretary to Egerton in
1598.

The twelfth (_His parting from her_) and fifteenth (_The
Expostulation_) Elegies it is impossible to date, but it is not
_likely_ that they were written after his marriage. _Julia_ is quite
undatable, a witty sally Donne might have written any time before
1615. But the fourteenth (_A Tale of a Citizen and his Wife_) was
certainly written after 1609, probably in 1610.

_The Autumnall_ raises rather an interesting question. Mr. Gosse has
argued that it was most probably composed as late as 1625. Walton's
dating of it is hopelessly confused. He states (_Life of Mr. George
Herbert_, 1670, pp. 14-19) 'that Donne made the acquaintance of Mrs.
Herbert and wrote this poem when she was residing at Oxford with her
son Edward, Donne being then near to (about _First Ed._) the Fortieth
year of his Age'; 'both he and she were then past the Meridian of
man's life.' But according to Lord Herbert his mother left Oxford and
brought him to town about 1600, shortly before the insurrection of
Essex, i.e. when Donne was twenty-seven years old, and secretary
to Sir Thomas Egerton, and Lady Herbert was about thirty-five or
thirty-six. It is, of course, not impossible that Donne visited Oxford
between 1596 and 1600, but he was not then the grave person Walton
portrays. The period which the latter has in view is that in which
Donne was at Mitcham and Mrs. Herbert living in London. 'This day', he
writes in a letter to her, dated July 23, 1607, 'I came to town and to
the best part of it your house.' In 1609 Mrs. Herbert married Sir John
Danvers. We know that in 1607-9 Donne was in correspondence with Mrs.
Herbert and was sending her copies of his religious verses. Walton's
evidence points to its being about the same time that he wrote this
poem.

Mr. Gosse's argument for a later date is, regarded _a priori_, very
persuasive. 'Unless it is taken as describing the venerable and
beautiful old age of a distinguished woman, the piece is an absurdity;
to address such lines to a youthful widow, who was about to become the
bride of a boy of twenty, would have been a monstrous breach of taste
and good manners' (_Life, &c._, ii. 228). It is, however, somewhat
hazardous to fix a standard of taste for the age of James I, and above
all others for John Donne. To the taste of the time and the temper
of Donne such a poem might more becomingly be addressed to a widow
of forty, the mother of ten children, one already an accomplished
courtier, than it might be written by a priest in orders. Donne would
have been startled to hear that in 1625 he had spent any time in such
a vain amusement as composing a secular elegy. The poem he wrote
to Mrs. Herbert before 1609 was probably thought by her and him an
exquisite compliment. He expressly disclaims speaking of the old age
which disfigures. He writes of one whose youthful beauty has flown.
Forty seemed old for a woman, even to Jane Austen, and in Montaigne's
opinion it is old for a man: 'J'estois tel, car je ne me considère pas
à cette heure, que je suis engagé dans les avenues de la vieillesse,
ayant pieça franchy les quarante ans:

    Minutatim vires et robur adultum
  Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas.

Ce que je seray doresnevant ce ne sera plus qu'un demy estre, ce ne
sera plus moy; je m'eschappe les jours et me desrobe a moy mesme:

  Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.'
                                            _Essais_, ii. 17.

Mrs. Herbert's marriage was due to no 'heyday of the blood'. It was
the gravity of Danvers' temper which attracted her, and he became the
steady friend and adviser of her children.

There are, moreover, some items of evidence which go to support
Walton's testimony. The poem is found in one MS., _S_, dated 1620,
which gives us a downward date; and in 1610 occurs what looks very
like an allusion to Donne's poem in Ben Jonson's _Silent Woman_.
Clerimont and True-wit are speaking of the Collegiate ladies, and the
former asks,

                         Who is the president?

  _True._  The grave and youthful matron, the Lady Haughty.

  _Cler._  A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no
  man can be admitted till she be ready now-a-days, till she has
  painted and perfumed ... I have made a song (I pray thee
  hear it) on the subject

            Still to be neat, still to be drest...

The resemblance may be accidental, yet the frequency with which the
poem is dubbed _An Autumnal Face_ or _The Autumnall_ shows that the
phrase had struck home. Jonson's comedies seethe with such allusions,
and I rather suspect that he is poking fun at his friend's paradoxes,
perhaps in a sly way at that 'grave and youthful matron' Lady Danvers.
We cannot _prove_ that the poem was written so early, but the evidence
on the whole is in favour of Walton's statement.


PAGE =79=. ELEGIE I.

l. 4. That Donne must have written 'sere-barke' or 'seare-barke' is
clear, both from the evidence of the editions and MSS. and from the
vacillation of the latter. 'Cere-cloth' is a word which Donne uses
more than once in the sermons: 'A good Cere-cloth to bruises,'
_Sermons_ 80. 10. 101; 'A Searcloth that souples all bruises,' Ibid.
80. 66. 663. But to substitute 'sere-cloth' for 'sere-barke' would be
to miss the force of Donne's vivid description. The 'sere-cloth' with
which the sick man is covered is his own eruptive skin. Both Chambers
and Norton have noted the resemblance to Hamlet's poisoned father:

          a most instant tetter barked about,
  Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
  All my smooth body.

  ll. 19-20. _Nor, at his board together being sat
             With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate._

  Quum premit ille torum, vultu comes ipsa modesto
    Ibis, ut adcumbas; clam mihi tange pedem,
  Me specta, nutusque meos, vultumque loquacem:
    Excipe furtivas, et refer ipsa, notas.
  Verba superciliis sine voce loquentia dicam:
    Verba leges digitis, verba notata mero.
  Quum tibi succurrit Veneris lascivia nostrae,
    Purpureas tenero pollice tange genas.
  Si quid erit, de me tacita quod mente queraris,
    Pendeat extrema mollis ab aure manus:
  Quum tibi, quae faciam, mea lux, dicamve placebunt,
    Versetur digitis annulus usque tuis,
  Tange manu mensam, quo tangunt more precantes,
    Optabis merito quum mala multa viro.
  Quod tibi miscuerit sapias, bibat ipse iubeto;
    Tu puerum leviter posce, quod ipsa velis.
  Quae tu reddideris, ego primus pocula sumam,
    Et qua tu biberis, hac ego parte bibam.
                                    Ovid, _Amores_, I. iv. 15-32.

    Thenceforth to her he sought to intimate
    His inward grief, by meanes to him well knowne:
    Now Bacchus fruit out of the silver plate
    He on the table dasht as overthrowne,
    Or of the fruitfull liquor overflowne,
    And by the dancing bubbles did divine,
    Or therein write to let his love be showne;
    Which well she red out of the learned line;
  (A sacrament profane in mysterie of wine.)
                               Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix.

  ll. 21 f. _Nor when he, swoln and pamper'd with great fare
            Sits down and snorts, cag'd in his basket chair, &c._

  Vir bibat usque roga: precibus tamen oscula desint;
    Dumque bibit, furtim, si potes, adde merum.
  Si bene compositus somno vinoque iacebit;
    Consilium nobis resque locusque dabunt.
                                     Ovid, _Amores_, I. iv. 51-4.


PAGE =80=. ELEGIE II.

l. 4. _Though they be Ivory, yet her teeth be jeat_: i.e. 'Though her
eyes be yellow as ivory, her teeth are black as jet.' The edition
of 1669 substitutes 'theirs' for 'they', referring back to 'others'.
Grosart follows.

l. 6. _rough_ is the reading of _1633_, _1669_, and all the best MSS.
Chambers and Grosart prefer the 'tough' of _1635-54_, but 'rough'
means probably 'hairy, shaggy, hirsute'. O.E.D., _Rough_, B. I. 2. Her
hair is in the wrong place. To have hair on her face and none on her
head are alike disadvantageous to a woman's beauty.

PAGE =81=, ll. 17-21. _If we might put the letters, &c._ Compare:

  As six sweet Notes, curiously varied
  In skilfull Musick, make a hundred kindes
  Of Heav'nly sounds, that ravish hardest mindes;
  And with Division (of a choice device)
  The Hearers soules out at their ears intice:
  Or, as of twice-twelve Letters, thus transpos'd,
  The World of Words, is variously compos'd;
  And of these Words, in divers orders sow'n
  This sacred _Volume_ that you read is grow'n
  (Through gracious succour of th'Eternal Deity)
  Rich in discourse, with infinite Variety.
               Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, First Week, Second Day.

Sylvester follows the French closely. Du Bartas' source is probably:

  Quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
  Multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
  Cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest
  Confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti,
  Tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo.
                       Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, I. 824-7.

Compare Aristotle, _De Gen. et Corr._ I. 2.

l. 22. _unfit._ I have changed the semicolon after this word to a full
stop. The former suggests that the next two lines are an expansion
or explanation of this statement. But the poet is giving a series of
different reasons why Flavia may be loved.

ll. 41-2. _When Belgias citties, the round countries drowne,
          That durty foulenesse guards, and armes the towne:_

Chambers, adopting a composite text from editions and MSS., reads:

  Like Belgia' cities the round country drowns,
  That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns.

Here 'the round country drowns' is an adjectival clause with the
relative suppressed. But if the country actually drowned the cities
the protector would be as dangerous as the enemy. The best MSS. agree
with _1633-54_, and the sentence, though a little obscure, is probably
correct: 'When the Belgian cities, to keep at bay their foes, drown
(i.e. flood) the neighbouring countries, the foulness thus produced
is their protection.' The 'cities' I take to be the subject. The
reference is to their opening the sluices. See Motley's _Rise of the
Dutch Republic_, the account of the sieges of Alkmaar and Leyden.
'The Drowned Land' ('Het verdronken land') was the name given to land
overflowed by the bursting of the dykes.


PAGE =82=. ELEGIE III.

l. 5. _forc'd unto none_ is a strange expression, and the 'forbid
to none' of _B_ is an attempt to emend it; but 'forc'd unto none'
probably means 'not bound by compulsion to be faithful to any'. In
woman's love and in the arts you may always expect to be ousted from
a favoured position by a successful rival. No one has in these a
monopoly:

  Is sibi responsum hoc habeat, in medio omnibus
  Palmam esse positam, qui artem tractant musicam.
                                     Ter. _Phorm._ Prol. 16-17.

l. 8. _these meanes, as I,_ It is difficult to say whether the 'these'
of the editions and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ or the 'those' of the rest of
the MSS. is preferable. The construction with either in the sense of
'the same as', 'such as', was not uncommon:

  Under these hard conditions as this time
  Is like to lay upon us.
                         Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes._  I. ii. 174.

l. 17. _Who hath a plow-land, &c._ This has nothing to do, as Grosart
seems to think, with the name for a certain measurement of land in the
north of England corresponding to a hide in the south. A 'plow-land'
here is an arable or cultivated field. Possibly the 'a' has crept in
and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands.'
Otherwise 'Who hath' is to be slurred in reading the line. The meaning
of the passage seems to be that though a man puts all his own seed
into his land, he is quite willing to reap the corn which has sprung
from others' seed, brought thither, it may be, by wind or birds.

l. 30. _To runne all countries, a wild roguery._ The Oxford English
Dictionary quotes this line, giving to 'roguery' the meaning of 'a
knavish, rascally act'. But Grosart is certainly right in explaining
it as 'vagrancy'. In love, Donne does not wish to be a captive bound
to one, but he does not wish on the other hand to be a vagrant with
no settled abode. The O.E.D. dates the poem c. 1620, which is much too
late. Donne was not writing in this manner after he took orders. It
cannot be later than 1601, and is probably earlier.

l. 32. _more putrifi'd_, or, as in the MSS., 'worse putrifi'd.'
The latter is probably correct, but the difference is trifling. By
'putrifi'd' Donne means 'made salt' and so less fit for drinking. The
'purifi'd' of some editions points to a misunderstanding of Donne's
meaning; for saltness and putrefaction were not identical: 'For Salt
as incorruptible was the Symbol of friendship, and before the other
service was offered unto their guests.' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, v.
22.


PAGE =84=. ELEGIE IV.

l. 2. _All thy suppos'd escapes._ He is addressing the lady. All her
supposed transgressions (e.g. of chastity) are laid to the poet's
charge. 'Escape' = 'An inconsiderate transgression; a peccadillo,
venial error. (In Shaks. with different notion: an outrageous
transgression.) Applied _esp._ to breaches of chastity.' O.E.D. It is
probably in Shakespeare's sense that Donne uses the word:

  _Brabantio._ For your sake, jewel,
  I am glad at soul I have no other child;
  For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
  To hang clogs on them.
                               Shakespeare, _Othello_, I. iii. 195-8.

ll. 7-8.

  _Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
  As though he came to kill a Cockatrice,_

i.e. 'with staring eyes'. I take 'glazed' to be the past participle of
the verb 'glaze', 'to stare':

                          I met a lion
  Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by,
  Without annoying me.
                              Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes._ I. iii. 20-2.

The past participle is thus used by Shakespeare in: 'With time's
deformed hand' (_Com. of Err._ V. i. 298), i.e. 'deforming hand';
'deserved children' (_Cor._ III. i. 292), i.e. 'deserving'. See Franz,
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 661.

The Cockatrice or Basilisk killed by a glance of its eye:

  Here with a cockatrice dead-killing eye
  He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause.
                                       Shakespeare, _Lucrece_, 540-1.

The eye of the man who comes to kill a cockatrice stares with terror
lest he be stricken himself.

If 'glazed' meant 'covered with a film', an adverbial complement would
be needed:

  For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears.
                                 Shakespeare, _Rich. II_, II. ii. 16.

ll. 9, 15. _have ... take._ I have noted the subjunctive forms
found in certain MSS., because this is undoubtedly Donne's usual
construction. In a full analysis that I have made of Donne's syntax in
the poems I have found over ninety examples of the subjunctive against
seven of the indicative in concessive adverbial clauses. In these
ninety are many where the concession is an admitted fact, e.g.

  Though her eyes be small, her mouth is great.
                                              _Elegie II_, 3 ff.

  Though poetry indeed be such a sin.
                                                 _Satire II_, 5.

Of the seven, two are these doubtful examples here noted; one, where
the subjunctive would be more appropriate, is due to the rhyme.

  ll. 10-11. _Thy beauties beautie, and food of our love,
             Hope of his goods._

Grosart is puzzled by this phrase and explains 'beauties beautie' as
'the beauty of thy various beauties' (face, arms, shape, &c.). I fear
that Donne means that the beauty which he most loves in his mistress
is her hope or prospect of obtaining her father's goods. The whole
poem is in a vein of extravagant and cynical wit. It must not be taken
too seriously.

l. 22. _palenesse, blushing, sighs, and sweats._ All the MSS. read
'blushings', which is very probably correct, but I have left the two
singulars to balance the two plurals. But the use of abstract nouns
as common is a feature of Donne's syntax: 'We would not dwell upon
increpations, and chidings, and bitternesses; we would pierce but so
deepe as might make you search your wounds, when you come home to your
Chamber, to bring you to a tendernesse there, not to a palenesse or
blushing here.' _Sermons_ 80. 61. 611.

l. 29. _ingled_: i.e. fondled, caressed. O.E.D.

  ll. 33-4. _He that to barre the first gate, doth as wide
            As the great Rhodian Colossus stride._

Porters seem to have been chosen for their size. Compare: 'Those
big fellows that stand like Gyants (at Lords Gates) having bellies
bumbasted with ale in Lambswool and with Sacks.' Dekker.

l. 37. _were hir'd to this._ All the MSS. read 'for this', but 'to'
is quite Elizabethan, and gives the meaning more exactly. He was not
taken on as a servant for this purpose, but was specially paid for
this piece of work:

                        This naughty man
  Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
  Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,
  Hir'd to it by your brother.
                            Shakespeare, _Much Ado_, V. i. 307.

l. 44. _the pale wretch shivered._ I have (with the support of the
best MSS.) changed the semicolon to a full stop here, not that as
the punctuation of the editions goes it is wrong, but because it is
ambiguous and has misled both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor.
By changing the semicolon to a comma they make ll. 43-4 an adverbial
clause of time which, with the conditional clause 'Had it beene some
bad smell', modifies 'he would have thought ... had wrought'. This
seems to me out of the question. The 'when' links the statement 'the
pale wretch shivered' to what precedes, not to what follows. As soon
as the perfume reached his nose he shivered, knowing what it meant. A
new thought begins with 'Had it been some bad smell'.

The use of the semicolon, as at one time equivalent to a little less
than a full stop, at another to a little more than a comma, leads
occasionally to these ambiguities. The few changes which I have
made in the punctuation of this poem have been made with a view to
obtaining a little more consistency and clearness without violating
the principles of seventeenth-century punctuation.

l. 49. _The precious Vnicornes._ See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, iii. 23:
'Great account and much profit is made of _Unicornes horn_, at least
of that which beareth the name thereof,' &c. He speaks later of the
various objects 'extolled for precious Horns'; and Donne's epithet
doubtless has the same application, i.e. to the horns.


PAGE =86=. ELEGIE V.

l. 8. _With cares rash sodaine stormes being o'rspread._ I have
let the _1633_ reading stand, though I feel sure that Donne is not
responsible for 'being o'rspread'. Printing from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
in which probably the word 'cruel' had been dropped, the editor or
printer supplied 'being' to adjust the metre. I have not corrected it
because I am not sure which is Donne's version. Clearly the line has
undergone some remodelling. My own view is that the earliest form is
suggested by _B_, _S_, _S96_,

  With Cares rash sudden storms o'rpressed,

where 'o'erpress' means 'conquer, overwhelm'. Compare Shakespeare's

                            but in my sight
  Deare heart forbear to glance thine eye aside.
  What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
  Is more than my o'erprest defence can bide.
                                            _Sonnets_, 139. 8.

  He bestrid an o'erpressed Roman.
                                     _Coriolanus_, II. ii. 97.

To begin with, Donne described his grey hairs by a bold synecdoche,
leaving the greyness to be inferred: 'My head o'erwhelmed,
o'ermastered by Cares storms.' But 'o'erpressed' was harshly used and
was easily changed to 'o'erspread', which was made more appropriate by
substituting the effect, 'hoariness,' for the cause, 'Cares storms.'
This is what we find in _JC_ and such a good MS. as _W_:

  With cares rash sudden horiness o'erspread.

In _B_ and _P_ 'cruel' has been inserted to complete the verse
when 'o'erpressed' was contracted to 'o'erprest' or changed to
'o'erspread'. In _1635-69_ the somewhat redundant 'rash' has been
altered to 'harsh'.

  With cares harsh, sodaine horinesse o'rspread.

The image is more easily apprehended, and this may be Donne's final
version, but the original (if my view is correct) was bolder, and more
in the style of Shakespeare's

  That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold,
  When yellow leaues, or none, or few doe hange
  Vpon those boughes which shake against the could,
  Bare ruin'd quiers, where late the sweet birds sang.
                                             _Sonnets_, 72. 1-4.

l. 16. _Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see._ Here again
there has been some recasting of the original by Donne or an editor.
Most MSS. read:

  Should like and love less what hee did love to see.

To 'like and love' was an Elizabethan combination:

  And yet we both make shew we like and love.
                     Farmer, _Chetham MS._ (ed. Grosart), i. 90.

  Yet every one her likte, and every one her lov'd.
                          Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix. 24.

Donne or his editor has made the line smoother.

l. 20. _To feed on that, which to disused tasts seems tough._ I have
made the line an Alexandrine by printing 'disused', which occurs in
_A25_ and _B_, but it is 'disus'd' in the editions and most MSS. The
'weak' of _1650-69_ adjusts the metre, but for that very reason one
a little suspects an editor. Donne certainly wrote 'disus'd' or
'disused'. Who changed it to 'weak' is not so certain. The meaning of
'disused' is, of course, 'unaccustomed.' The O.E.D. quotes: 'I can
nat shote nowe but with great payne, I am so disused.' Palsgr. (1530).
'Many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret.'
Baxter, _Reformed Pastor_ (1656).

It seems to me probable that _P_ preserves an early form of these
lines:

                  who now is grown tough enough
  To feed on that which to disused tastes seems rough.

The epithet 'tough' is appropriately enough applied to Love's
mature as opposed to his childish constitution, while rough has the
recognized sense of 'sharp, acid, or harsh to the taste'. The O.E.D.
quotes: 'Harshe, rough, stipticke, and hard wine,' Stubbs (1583).
'The roughest berry on the rudest hedge', Shakespeare, _Antony and
Cleopatra_, I. iv. 64 (1608).

Possibly Donne changed 'tough' to 'strong' in order to avoid the
monotonous sound of 'tough enough ... rough', and this ultimately led
to the substitution of 'weak' for 'disused'. The present close of the
last line I find it difficult to away with. How can a thing seem tough
to the taste? Even meat does not _taste_ tough: and it is not of meat
that Donne is thinking but of wine. I should be disposed to return
to the reading of _P_, or, if we accept 'strong' and 'weak' as
improvements, at any rate to alter 'tough' to 'rough '.


PAGE =87=. ELEGIE VI.

l. 6. _Their Princes stiles, with many Realmes fulfill._ This is the
reading of all the best MSS. The 'which' for 'with' of the editions
is due to an easy confusion of two contractions invariably used in
the MSS. Grosart and Chambers accept 'with' from _S_ and _A25_, but
further alter 'styles' to 'style', following these generally inferior
MSS. The plural is correct. Donne refers to more than one prince and
style. The stock instance is

      the poor king Reignier, whose large style
  Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
                                     _2 Henry VI_, I. i. 111-12.

But the English monarchs themselves bore in their 'style' the kingdom
of France, and for some years (1558-1566) Mary, Queen of Scots, bore
in her 'style' the arms of England and Ireland.

PAGE =88=, ll. 21-34. These lines evidently suggested Carew's poem,
_To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side, An Eddy_:

  Mark how yon eddy steals away
  From the rude stream into the bay;
  There, locked up safe, she doth divorce
  Her waters from the channel's course,
  And scorns the torrent that did bring
  Her headlong from her native spring, &c.

  ll. 23-4.                      _calmely ride
      Her wedded channels bosome, and then chide._

The number of MSS. and editions is in favour of 'there', but the
quality (e.g. _1633_ and _W_) of those which read 'then', and the
sense of the lines, favour 'then'. The stream is at one moment in
'speechless slumber', and the next chiding. She cannot in the same
place do both at once:

  The current that with gentle murmur glides,
  Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
  But when his fair course is not hindered,
  He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones,
  Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
  He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
  And so by many winding nooks he strays,
  With willing sport to the wild ocean.
         Shakespeare, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. vii. 25-32.

  ll. 27-8. _Yet if her often gnawing kisses winne
            The traiterous banke to gape, and let her in._

The 'banke' of the MSS. must, I think, be the right reading rather
than the 'banks' of the editions, the 's' having arisen from the final
'e'. A river which bursts or overflows its banks does not leave its
course, though it 'drowns' the 'round country', but if it breaks
through a weak part in a bank it may quit its original course for
another. 'The traiterous bank' I take to be equivalent to 'the weak or
treacherous spot in its bank'.


PAGE =89=. ELEGIE VII.

l. 1. _Natures lay Ideot._ Here 'lay' means, I suppose, ignorant',
as Grosart says. His other suggestion, that 'lay' has the meaning of
'lay' in 'layman', a painter's figure, is unlikely. That word has a
different origin from 'lay' (Lat. _laicus_), and the earliest example
of it given in O.E.D. is dated 1688.

  ll. 7-8. _Nor by the'eyes water call a maladie
           Desperately hot, or changing feaverously._

The 'call' of _1633_ is so strongly supported by the MSS. that it is
dangerous to alter it. Grosart (whom Chambers follows) reads 'cast',
from _S_; but a glance at the whole line as it stands there shows how
little can be built upon it. 'To cast' is generally used in the phrase
'to cast his water' and thereby tell his malady; but the O.E.D. gives
one example which resembles this passage if 'cast' be the right word
here:

  Able to cast his disease without his water.
                                             Greene's _Menaphon_.

I rather fancy, however, that 'call' is right, and is to be taken
in close connexion with the next line, 'You could not cast the
eyes water, and thereby call the malady desperately hot or changing
feverously.'

  If thou couldst, Doctor, cast
  The water of my land, find her disease.
                              Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, V. iii. 50.

The 'casting' preceded and led to the finding, naming the disease,
calling it this or that.

  ll. 9 f. _I had not taught thee then, the Alphabet
             Of flowers, &c._

'_Posy_, in both its senses, is a contraction of _poesy_, the flowers
of a nosegay expressing by their arrangement a sentiment like that
engraved on a ring.' Weekly, _Romance of Words_, London, 1912, p. 134.
She had not yet learned to sort flowers so as to make a posy.

l. 13. _Remember since, &c._ For the idiom compare:

                  Beseech you, sir,
  Remember since you owed no more to time
  Than I do now.
                        Shakespeare, _Winter's Tale_, V. i. 219.

See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 559.

l. 22. _Inlaid thee._ The O.E.D. cites this line as the only example
of 'inlay' meaning 'to lay in, or as in, a place of concealment or
preservation.' The sense is much that of 'to lay up', but the word has
perhaps some of its more usual meaning, 'to set or embed in another
substance.' 'Your husband has given to you, his jewel, such a setting
as conceals instead of setting off your charms. I have refined and
heightened those charms.'

l. 25. _Thy graces and good words my creatures bee._ I was tempted
to adopt with Chambers the 'good works' of _1669_ and some MSS., the
theological connexion of 'grace' and 'works' being just the kind of
conceit Donne loves to play with. But the 'words' of _1633-54_ has the
support of so good a MS. as _W_, and 'good words' is an Elizabethan
idiom for commendation, praise, flattery:

                            He that will give,
  Good words to thee will flatter neath abhorring.
                           Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, I. i. 170-1.

  In your bad strokes you give good words.
                           Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, V. i. 30.

Moreover, Donne's word is 'graces', not 'grace'. 'Your graces and
commendations are my work', i.e. either the commendations you receive,
or, more probably, the refined and elegant flatteries with which you
can now cajole a lover, though once your whole stock of conversation
did not extend beyond 'broken proverbs and torne sentences'. Compare,
in _Elegie IX: The Autumnall_, the description of Lady Danvers'
conversation:

  In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
    You may at Revels, you at Counsaile, sit.

And again, _Elegie XVIII: Loves Progresse_:

  So we her ayres contemplate, words and heart,
  And virtues.

l. 28. _Frame and enamell Plate._ Compare: 'And therefore they that
thinke to gild and enamell deceit, and falsehood, with the additions
of good deceit, good falshood, before they will make deceit good,
will make God bad.' _Sermons_ 80. 73. 742. 'Frame' means, of course,
'shape, fashion', and 'plate' gold or silver service. The elaborate
enamelling of such dishes and cups was, I presume, as common as in the
case of gold watches and clocks. See F. J. Britten's _Old Clocks and
Watches and their Makers_, 1904.


PAGE =90=. ELEGIE VIII.

l. 2. _Muskats_, i.e. 'Musk-cats.' The 'muskets' of _1669_ is only a
misprint.

ll. 5-6. In these lines as they stand in the editions and most of the
MSS. there is clearly something wrong:

  And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
  They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets.

A 'coronet' is not an ornament of the neck, but of the head. The
obvious emendation is that of _A25_, _C_, _JC_, and _W_, which Grosart
and Chambers have adopted. A 'carcanet' is a necklace, and carcanets
of pearl were not unusual: see O.E.D., _s. v._ But why then do the
editions and so many MSS. read 'coronets'? Consideration of this
has convinced me that the original error is not here but in the word
'neck'. Article by article, as in an inventory, Donne contrasts his
mistress and his enemy's. But in the next line he goes on:

  Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's _brow_ defiles,

contrasting her brow with that of his mistress, where the sweat drops
seem 'no sweat drops but pearle coronets'.

The explanation of the error is, probably, that an early copyist
passed in his mind from breast to neck more easily than to brow.
Another explanation is that Donne altered 'brow' to 'neck' and forgot
to alter 'coronets' to 'carcanets'. I do not think this likely. The
force of the poem lies in its contrasts, and the brow is proverbially
connected with sweat. 'In the sweat of thy brow,' &c. Possibly Donne
himself in the first version, or a copy of it, wrote 'neck', meaning
to write 'brow', misled by the proximity and associations of 'breast'.
Mr. J. C. Smith has shown that Spenser occasionally wrote a word which
association brought into his mind, but which was clearly not the word
he intended to use, as it is destructive of the rhyme-scheme. Oddly
enough the late Francis Thompson used 'carcanet' in the sense of
'coronet':

  Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set
    Upon her brow the day-fall's carcanet?
                                       _Ode to the Setting Sun._

PAGE =91=, l. 10. _Sanserra's starved men._ 'When I consider what God
did for Goshen in Egypt ... How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from
famines, how many Genevas from plots and machinations.' _Sermons._

The Protestants in Sancerra were besieged by the Catholics for nine
months in 1573, and suffered extreme privations. Norton quotes Henri
Martin, _Histoire de France_, ix. 364: 'On se disputa les débris les
plus immondes de toute substance animale ou végétale; on créa, pour
ainsi dire, des aliments monstrueux, impossibles.'

  ll. 13-14. _And like vile lying stones in saffrond tinne,
             Or warts, or wheales, they hang upon her skinne._

Following the MSS. I have made 'lying' an epithet attached to 'stones'
and substituted 'they hang' for the superficially more grammatical 'it
hangs'. The readings of _1633_, 'vile stones lying' and 'it hangs',
seem to me just the kind of changes a hasty editor would make, the
kind of changes which characterize the Second Folio of Shakespeare.
The stones are not only 'vile'; they are 'lying', inasmuch as they
pretend to be what they are not, as the 'saffron'd tinne' pretends to
be gold.

l. 19. _Thy head_: i.e. 'the head of thy mistress.' Donne continues
this construction in ll. 25, 32, 39, and I have restored it from the
later editions and MSS. at l. 34, 'thy gouty hand.'

l. 34. _thy gouty hand_: 'thy' is the reading of all the editions
except _1633_ and of all the MSS. except _JC_ and _S_. It is probably
right, corresponding to l. 19 'Thy head' and l. 32 'thy tann'd
skins'. Donne uses 'thy' in a condensed fashion for 'the head of thy
mistress', &c.

PAGE =92=, l. 51. _And such._ The 'such' of the MSS. is doubtless
right, the 'nice' of the editions being repeated from l. 49.


PAGE =92=. ELEGIE IX.

For the date, &c., of this poem, see the introductory note on the
_Elegies_.

The text of _1633_ diverges in some points from that of all the MSS.,
in some others it agrees with _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. In the latter case I
have retained it, but where _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ agree with the rest of
the MSS. I have corrected _1633_, e.g.:

PAGE =93=, l. 6. _Affection here takes Reverences name_: where
'Affection' seems more appropriate than 'Affections'; and l. 8. _But
now shee's gold_: where 'They are gold' of _1633_ involves a very
loose use of 'they'. Possibly _1633_ here gives a first version
afterwards corrected.

ll. 29-32. _Xerxes strange Lydian love, &c._ Herodotus (vii. 31) tells
how Xerxes, on his march to Greece, found in Lydia a plane-tree which
for its beauty ([Greek: kalleos heineka]) he decked with gold
ornaments, and entrusted to a guardian. Aelian, _Variae Historiae_,
ii. 14, _De platano Xerxe amato_, attributes his admiration to its
size: [Greek: en Lydia goun, phasin, idôn phyton eumegethes platanou,]
&c. In the Latin translation in Hercler's edition (Firmin Didot, 1858)
size is taken as equivalent to height, 'quum vidisset proceram
platanum,' but the reference is more probably to extent. Pliny, _N.
H._ 12. 1-3, has much to say of the size of certain planes under which
companies of men camped and slept.

The quotation from Aelian confirms the _1633_ reading, 'none being so
large as shee,' which indeed is confirmed by the lines that follow.
The question of age is left open. The reference to' barrennesse' I do
not understand.

PAGE =94=, l. 47. _naturall lation._ This, the reading of the
great majority of the MSS., is obviously correct and explains the
vacillation of the editions. The word was rare but quite good. The
O.E.D. quotes: 'I mean lation or Local-motion from one place to
another.' Fotherby (1619);

  Make me the straight and oblique lines,
  The motions, lations, and the signs.
                                        (Herrick, _Hesper._ 64);

and other examples as late as 1690. The term was specially
astronomical, as here. The 'motion natural' of _1633_ is an unusual
order in Donne; the 'natural station' of _1635-69_ is the opposite
of motion. The first was doubtless an intentional alteration by the
editor, which the printer took in at the wrong place; the second a
misreading of 'lation'.


PAGE =95=. ELEGIE X.

The title of this Elegy, _The Dream_, was given it in _1635_, perhaps
wrongly. _S96_ seems to come nearer with _Picture_. The 'Image of
her whom I love', addressed in the first eight lines, seems to be a
picture. When that is gone and reason with it, fantasy and dreams come
to the lover's aid (ll. 9-20). But the tenor of the poem is somewhat
obscure; the picture is addressed in terms that could hardly be
strengthened if the lady herself were present.

l. 26. _Mad with much heart, &c._ Aristotle made the heart the source
of all 'the actions of life and sense'. Galen transferred these to the
brain. See note to p. 99, l. 100.


PAGE =96=. ELEGIE XI.

Donne has in this Elegy carried to its farthest extreme, as only a
metaphysical or scholastic poet like himself could, the favourite
Elizabethan pun on the coin called the Angel. Shakespeare is fond of
the same quibble: 'She has all the rule of her husband's purse; she
hath a legion of angels' (_Merry Wives_, I. iii. 60). But Donne knows
more of the philosophy of angels than Shakespeare and can pursue the
analogy into more surprising subtleties. Nor is the pun on angels the
only one which he follows up in this poem: crowns, pistolets, and gold
are all played with in turn. The poem was a favourite with Ben
Jonson: 'his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart' (_Drummond's
Conversations_, ed. Laing).

The text of the poem, which was first printed in _1635_ (Marriot
having been prohibited from including it in the edition of 1633),
is based on a MS. closely resembling _Cy_ and _P_, and differing
in several readings from the text given in the rest of the MSS.,
including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_. I have endeavoured rather to
give this version correctly, while recording the variants, than either
to substitute another or contaminate the two. When _Cy_ and _P_ go
over to the side of the other MSS. it is a fair inference that the
editions have gone astray. When they diverge, the question is a more
open one.

PAGE =97=, l. 24. _their naturall Countreys rot_: i.e. 'their native
Countreys rot', the 'lues Gallica'. Compare 'the naturall people of
that Countrey', Greene, _News from Hell_ (ed. Grosart, p. 57). This
is the reading of _Cy_, and the order of the words in the other MSS.
points to its being the reading of the MS. from which _1635_ was
printed.

l. 26. _So pale, so lame, &c._ The chipping and debasement of the
French crown is frequently referred to, and Shakespeare is fond
of punning on the word. But two extracts from Stow's _Chronicle_
(_continued ... by_ Edmund Howes), 1631, will throw some light on the
references to coins in this poem: In the year 1559 took place the last
abasement of English money whereby testons and groats were lowered in
value and called in, 'and according to the last valuation of them,
she gave them fine money of cleane silver for them commonly called
Sterling money, and from this time there was no manner of base money
coyned or used in England ... but all English monies were made of gold
and silver, which is not so in any other nation whatsoever, but have
sundry sorts of copper money.'

'The 9. of November, the French crowne that went currant for six
shillings foure pence, was proclaimed to be sixe shillings.'

In 1561, 'The fifteenth of November, the Queenes Maiestie published a
Proclamation for divers small pieces of silver money to be currant,
as the sixe pence, foure pence, three pence, 2 pence and a peny, three
half-pence, and 3 farthings: and also forbad all forraigne coynes to
be currant within the same Realme, as well gold as silver, calling
them all into her Maiesties Mints, except two sorts of crownes of
gold, the one the French crowne, the other the Flemish crowne.' The
result was the bringing in of large sums in 'silver plates: and as
much or more in pistolets, and other gold of Spanish coynes, and one
weeke in pistolets and other Spanish gold 16000 pounds, all these to
be coyned with the Queenes stamps.'

l. 29. _Spanish Stamps still travelling._ Grosart regards this as an
allusion to the wide diffusion of Spanish coins. The reference is more
pointed. It is to the prevalence of Spanish bribery, the policy of
securing paid agents in every country. It was by money that Parma
secured his first hold on the revolted provinces. Gardiner has shown
that Lord Cranborne, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, accepted a pension
from the Spanish king (_Hist. of England_, i, p. 215). The discovery
of the number of his Court who were in Spanish pay came as a profound
shock to James at a later period. The invariable charge brought by
one Dutch statesman against another was of being in the pay of the
Spaniard.

'It is his Indian gold,' says Raleigh, speaking of the King of Spain
in 1596, 'that endangers and disturbs all the nations of Europe; it
creeps into councils, purchases intelligence, and sets bound loyalty
at liberty in the greatest monarchies thereof.'

  ll. 40-1. _Gorgeous France ruin'd, ragged and decay'd;
            Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day:_

The punctuation of _1669_ has the support generally of the MSS.,
but in matters of punctuation these are not a very safe guide. As
punctuated in _1635_, 'ragged and decay'd' are epithets of Scotland,
contrasting her with 'Gorgeous France'. I think, however, that the
antithesis to 'gorgeous' is 'ruin'd, ragged and decay'd', describing
the condition of France after the pistolets of Spain had done their
work. The epithet applied to Scotland is 'which knew no state', the
antithesis being 'proud in one day'.

PAGE =98=, ll. 51-4. _Much hope which they should nourish, &c._
Professor Norton proposed that the last two of these lines should run:

  Will vanish if thou, Love, let them alone,
  For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;

but that 'alone' is a misprint for 'atone.' This is unnecessary, and
there is no authority for 'atone'. What Donne says, in the cynical
vein of _Elegie VI_, 9-10, is: 'If thou love me let my crowns alone,
for the poorer I grow the less you will love me. I shall lose the
qualities which you admired in me when you saw them through the
glamour of wealth.'

l. 55. _And be content._ The majority of the MSS. begin a new
paragraph here and read:

  Oh, be content, &c.

Donne would almost seem to have read or seen (he was a frequent
theatre-goer) the old play of _Soliman and Perseda_ (pr. 1599). There
the lover, having lost a carcanet, sends a cryer through the street
and offers one hundred crowns reward. Chambers notes a similar case in
_The Puritan_ (1607). Lost property is still cried by the bellman
in northern Scottish towns. The custom of resorting in such cases
to 'some dread Conjurer' is frequently referred to. See Jonson's
_Alchemist_ for the questions with which their customers approached
conjurers.

ll. 71-2. _So in the first falne angels, &c._ Aquinas discusses the
question: 'Utrum intellectus daemonis sit obtenebratus per privationem
cognitionis omnis veritatis.' After stating the arguments for such
privation he replies: 'Sed contra est quod Dionysius dicit ... quod
"data sunt daemonibus aliqua dona, quae nequaquam mutata esse dicimus,
sed sunt integra et splendidissima." Inter ista, autem, naturalia
dona est cognitio veritatis.' Aquinas then explains that knowledge is
twofold, that which comes by nature, and that which comes by
grace: and that the latter again is twofold, that which is purely
speculative, and that which is 'affectiva, producens amorem Dei'.
'Harum autem trium cognitionum prima in daemonibus nec est ablata nec
diminuta: consequitur enim ipsam naturam Angeli, qui secundum suam
naturam est quidam intellectus vel mens. Propter simplicitatem autem
suae substantiae a natura eius aliquid subtrahi non potest.'
Devils, therefore, have natural knowledge in an eminent degree
(_splendidissima_); they have even the knowledge which comes by grace
in so far as God chooses to bestow it, for His own purposes, by
the mediation of angels or 'per aliqua temporalia divinae virtutis
effecta' (Augustine). But of the knowledge which leads to good they
have nothing: 'tenendum est firmiter secundum fidem catholicam, quod
et voluntas bonorum Angelorum confirmata est in bono, et voluntas
daemonum obstinata est in malo.' _Summa_ I.

lxiv. 1-2. They have 'wisdom and knowledge', but it is immovably set
to do ill.

  ll. 77-8.  _Pitty these Angels; yet their dignities
             Passe Vertues, Powers and Principalities._

There is a good deal of vacillation in the MSS. as to the punctuation
of 'Angels yet', some placing the semicolon before, others after
'yet'. The difference is not great, but that which I have adopted,
though it has least authority, brings out best what I take to be the
meaning of these somewhat difficult lines. 'Pity these Angels, for yet
(i.e. until they are melted down and lose their form) they, as good
angels, are superior in dignity to Vertues, Powers, and Principalities
among the bad angels.' The order of the Angelic beings, which the
Middle Ages took from Pseudo-Dionysius, consisted of nine Orders in
three Hierarchies. The first and highest Hierarchy included (beginning
with the highest Order) Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; the second,
Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; the third, Principalities, Archangels,
Angels. Thus the three Orders mentioned by Donne are all in rank
superior to mere Angels; but the lowest Order of Good Angels is
superior to the highest Order of Evil Spirits, although before their
fall these belonged to the highest Orders. Probably, however, there
is a second and satiric reference in Donne's words which explains his
choice of Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. In the other sense of
the words Angels are coins, money; and the power of money surpasses
that of earthly Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. This may explain,
further, why Donne singles out 'Vertues, Powers, and Principalities'.
One would expect that, to make the antithesis between good and bad
angels as complete as possible, he would have named the three highest
orders, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. But the three orders which he
does mention are the highest Orders which travel, as money does. The
angels are divided into _Assistentes_ and _Administrates_. To the
former class belong all the Orders of the first Hierarchy, and the
Dominions of the second. The Vertues are thus the highest Order of
_Administrantes_. Aquinas, _Summa_, cxii. 3, 4. The _Assistentes_ are
those who 'only stand and wait'.

PAGE =99=, l. 100. _rot thy moist braine_: So Sylvester's _Du Bartas_,
I. ii. 18:

                                    the Brain
  Doth highest place of all our Frame retain,
  And tempers with its moistful coldness so
  Th'excessive heat of other parts below.

This was Aristotle's opinion (_De Part. Anim._ II. 7), refuted by
Galen, who, like Plato, made the brain the seat of the soul and the
generator of the animal spirits. See II. p. 45.

PAGE =100=, ll. 112, 114. _Gold is Restorative ... 'tis cordiall._
'Most men say as much of gold, and some other minerals, as these have
done of precious stones. Erastus still maintaineth the opposite part,
Disput. in Paracelsum, cap. 4, fol. 196, he confesseth of gold, that
it makes the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a
miser's chest:

  ----at mihi plaudo
  ----simulac nummos contemplor in arcâ

as he said in the poet: it so revives the spirits, and is an excellent
receipt against melancholy,

  For gold in phisik is a cordial,
  Therefore he lovede gold in special.'
                  Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Pt. 2, Sub. 4.


ELEGIE XII.

PAGE =101=, l. 37. _And mad'st us sigh and glow_: 'sigh and blow' has
been the somewhat inelegant reading of all editions hitherto.

l. 42. _And over all thy husbands towring eyes._ The epithet 'towring'
is strange and the MSS. show some vacillation. Most of them read
'towred', probably the past participle of the same verb, though
Grosart alters to 'two red'--not a very poetical description. _RP31_
here diverges from _H40_ and reads 'loured', perhaps for 'lurid', but
both these MSS. alter the order of the words and attach the epithet
to 'husbands', which is manifestly wrong, and the Grolier Club edition
prints 'lowering' without comment, regarding, I suppose, 't' as a
mistake for 'l'.

The 'towring' of _1669_ and _TCD_ is probably correct, being a
bold metaphor from hawking, and having the force practically of
'threatening'. The hawk towers threateningly above its prey before it
'sousing kills with a grace'. If 'towring' is not right, 'lowring' is
the most probable emendation.

PAGE =102=, l. 43. _That flam'd with oylie sweat of jealousie._ This
is the reading of all the MSS., and as on the whole their text is
superior I have followed it. If 'oylie' is, as I think, the right
epithet, it means 'moist', as in 'an oily palm', with perhaps a
reference to the inflammability of oil. If 'ouglie '(i.e. ugly) be
preferred it is a forcible transferred epithet.

l. 49. _most respects?_ This is the reading of all the MSS., and
'best' in _1669_ is probably an emendation. The use of 'most' as an
adjective, superlative of 'great', is not uncommon:

  God's wrong is most of all.
                            Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 377.

  Though in this place most master wear no breeches.
                                  Ibid., _2 Hen. VI_, I. iii. 144.

l. 54. I can make no exact sense of this line either as it stands in
_1669_ or in the MSS. One is tempted to combine the versions and read:

  Yea thy pale colours, and thy panting heart,

the 'secrets of our Art' being all the signs by which they
communicated to one another their mutual affection. But it is
necessary to explain the presence of 'inwards' or 'inward' in both the
versions.

PAGE =103=, l. 79. _The Summer how it ripened in the eare_; This fine
passage has been rather spoiled in all editions hitherto by printing
in this line 'yeare' for 'eare', even in modernized texts. The MSS.
and the sense both show that 'eare' is the right word, and indeed I
have no doubt that 'year' in _1635_ was simply due to a compositor's
or copyist's pronunciation. It occurs again in the 1669 edition in the
song _Twicknam Garden_ (p. 28, l. 3):

  And at mine eyes, and at mine years,

These forms in 'y' are common in Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, e.g.
'yerst'. The O.E.D. gives the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries as
those in which 'yere' was a recognized pronunciation of 'ear', but it
is found sporadically later and has misled editors. Thus in Sir George
Etherege's letter to the Earl of Middleton from Ratisbon, printed in
Dryden's _Works_ (Scott and Saintsbury), xi, pp. 38-40, some lines
run:

  These formed the jewel erst did grace
  The cap of the first Grave o' the race,
  Preferred by Graffin Marian
  To adorn the handle of her fan;
  And, as by old record appears,
  Worn since in Kunigunda's years;
  Now sparkling in the Froein's hair,
  No rocket breaking in the air
  Can with her starry head compare.

In a modernized text, as this is, surely 'Kunigunda's years' should be
'Kunigunda's ears'.

ll. 93-4. _That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
          When my own thoughts I there reflected find._

'I there neglected find' has been the reading of all editions
hitherto--a strange reason for being enamoured.

PAGE =104=, l. 96. _My deeds shall still be what my words are now_:
'words' suits the context better than either the 'deeds' of _1635-69_
or 'thoughts' of _A25_.


PAGE =104=. ELEGIE XIII.

PAGE =105=, ll. 13-14.    _Liv'd Mantuan now againe,
        That foemall Mastix, to limme with his penne_

Chambers, following the editions from _1639_ onwards, drops the comma
after 'Mastix', which suggests that Julia is the 'foemall Mastix',
not Mantuan. By Mantuan he understands Virgil, and supposes there is
a reference to the 'flammis armataque Chimaera' of _Aen._ vi. 289. The
Mantuan of the text is the 'Old Mantuan' of _Love's Labour's Lost_,
iv. 2. 92. Donne calls Mantuan the scourge of women because of his
fourth eclogue _De natura mulierum_. Norton quotes from it:

  Femineum servile genus, crudele, superbum.

The O.E.D. quotes from S. Holland, _Zara_ (1656): 'It would have
puzzell'd that Female Mastix Mantuan to have limn'd this she
Chymera'--obviously borrowed from this poem. The dictionary gives
examples of 'mastix' in other compounds.

The reference to Mantuan as a woman-hater is a favourite one with
the prose-pamphleteers: 'To this might be added _Mantuans_ invective
against them, but that pittie makes me refraine from renewing his
worne out complaints, the wounds whereof the former forepast feminine
sexe hath felt. I, but here the _Homer_ of Women hath forestalled an
objection, saying that _Mantuans_ house holding of our Ladie, he was
enforced by melancholic into such vehemencie of speech', &c. Nash,
_The Anatomy of Absurdity_ (ed. McKerrow, i. 12).

'Where I leave you to consider, Gentlemen, how far unmeete women are
to have such reproches laid upon them, as sundrye large lipt fellows
have done: who when they take a peece of work in hand, and either for
want of matter, or lack of wit, are half gravelled, then they must
fill up the page with slaundering of women, who scarsly know what
a woman is: but if I were able either by wit or arte to be their
defender, or had the law in my hand to dispose as I list, which would
be as unseemely, as an Asse to treade the measures: yet, if it were
so, I would correct _Mantuans Egloge_, intituled _Alphus_: or els
if the Authour were alive, I would not doubt to persuade him in
recompence of his errour, to frame a new one,' &c. Greene, _Mamillia_
(ed. Grosart), 106-7. Greene is probably the '_Homer_ of Women'
referred to in the first extract.

l. 19. _Tenarus._ In the _Anatomy of the World_ 'Tenarif' is thus
spelt in the editions of 1633 to 1669, and Grosart declared that the
reference here is to that island. It is of course to 'Taenarus' in
Laconia. There was in that headland a sulphurous cavern believed to be
a passage to Hades. Through it Orpheus descended to recover Eurydice.
Ovid, _Met._ x. 13; Paus. iii. 14, 25.

l. 28. _self-accusing oaths_: 'oaths' is the reading of the MSS.,
'loaths' of the editions. The word 'loaths' in the sense of 'dislike,
hatred, ill-will' is found as late as 1728 (O.E.D.). 'If your Horse
... grow to a loath of his meat.' Topsell (1607). A self-accusing
loath may mean a hatred, e.g. of good, which condemns yourself. In
the context, however, 'cavils, untroths,' I am inclined to think that
'oaths' is right. Among the malevolent evils with which her breast
swarms are oaths accusing others of crimes, which accuse herself,
either because she is willing to implicate herself so long as she
secures her enemy's ruin, or because the information is of a kind that
could be got only by complicity in crime.


PAGE =105=. ELEGIE XIV.

PAGE =106=, l. 6. _I touch no fat sowes grease._ Probably 'I say
nothing libellous as to the way in which this or that rich man has
acquired his wealth'. I cannot find the proverb accurately explained,
or given in quite this form, in any collection.

l. 10. _will redd or pale._ The reading of _1669_ and the two MSS. is
doubtless correct, 'looke' being an editorial insertion as the use
of 'red' as a verb was growing rare. If 'looke' had belonged to the
original text 'counsellor' would probably have had the second syllable
elided. Compare:

  Roses out-red their [i.e. women's] lips and cheeks,
    Lillies their whiteness stain.
                                            Brome, _The Resolve_.

l. 21. _the number of the Plaguy Bill_: i.e. the weekly bill of deaths
by the plague. By a Privy Council order of April 9, 1604, the theatres
were permitted to be open 'except ther shall happen weeklie to die of
the Plague above the number of thirtie'. The number was later raised
to forty. The theatres were repeatedly closed for this reason between
July 10, 1606, and 1610. In 1609 especially the fear of infection made
it difficult for the companies, driven from London, to gain permission
to act anywhere. There were no performances at Court during the winter
1609-10. Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_.

l. 22. _the Custome Farmers._ The Privy Council registers abound in
references to the farmers of the customs and their conflicts with the
merchants. As they had to pay dearly for their farm, they were tempted
to press the law against the merchants in exacting dues.

l. 23. _Of the Virginian plot._ Two expeditions were sent to Virginia
in 1609, in May under Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain
Newport, and at the end of the year under Lord de la Warr, 'who by
free election of the Treasurer and counsell of Virginia, and with the
full consent of the generality of that company was constituted and
authorized, during his natural life to be Lord Governor and Captaine
Generall of all the English Collonies planted, or to be planted in
Virginia, according to the tenor of his Majesties letters patents
granted that yeare 1609.' Stow. Speculation in Virginia stock was
encouraged: 'Besides many noblemen, knights, gentlemen, merchants,
and wealthy tradesmen, most of the incorporated trades of London were
induced to take shares in the stock.' Hildreth, _History of the United
States_, i. 108, quoted by Norton.

The meaning of 'plot' here is 'device, design, scheme' (O.E.D.), as
'There have beene divers good plottes devised, and wise counsells
cast allready about reformation of that realme': Spenser, _State of
Ireland_. Donne uses the word also in the more original sense of 'a
piece of ground, a spot'. See p. 132, l. 34.

l. 23-4. _whether Ward ... the I(n)land Seas._ I have taken 'Iland'
_1635-54_ as intended for 'Inland', perhaps written 'ĩland', not
for 'Island'. The edition of 1669 reads 'midland', and there is no
doubt that the Mediterranean was the scene of the career and exploits
of the notorious Ward, whose head-quarters were at Tunis. The
Mediterranean is called the Inland sea in Holland's translation of
Pliny (_Hist. of the World_, III. _The Proeme_); and Donne uses
the phrase (with a different application but one borrowed from this
meaning) in the _Progresse of the Soule_, p. 308, ll. 317-8:

            as if his vast wombe were
  Some Inland sea.

Previous editors read 'Island seas' but do not explain the reference,
except Grosart, who declares that the 'Iland seas are those around the
West Indian and other islands. The Midland seas (as in _1669_)
were probably the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Seas'. He cites no
authority; nor have we proof that Ward was ever in these seas. Writing
to Salisbury on the 7th of March, 1607-8, Wotton says: 'The voice is
here newly arrived that Warde hath taken another Venetian vessel of
good value, so as the hatred of him increaseth among them and fully
as fast as the fear of him. These are his effects. Now to give your
Lordship some taste of his language. One Moore, captain of an English
ship that tradeth this way ... was hailed by him not long since a
little without the Gulf, and answering that he was bound for Venice,
"Tell those flat caps" (said he) "who have been the occasion that I
am banished out of my country that before I have done with them I will
make them sue for pardon." In this style he speaketh.' Pearsall Smith,
_Life and Letters of ... Wotton_, ii. 415. Mr. Pearsall Smith adds in
a note that Ward hoped to 'buy or threaten the English Government into
pardoning him', and that some attempt was also made by the Venetian
Government to procure his assassination.

If 'Island' be the right reading the sea referred to must be the
Adriatic. The Islands of the Illyrian coast were at various times the
haunt of pirates. But I have found no instance of the phrase in this
sense.

l. 25. _the Brittaine Burse._ This was built by the Earl of Salisbury
on the site of an 'olde long stable' in the Strand on the north side
of Durham House: 'And upon Tuesday the tenth of Aprill this yeere, one
thousand sixe hundred and nine, many of the upper shoppes were richly
furnished with wares, and the next day after that, the King, Queene,
and Prince, the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Yorke, with many great
Lords, and chiefe Ladies, came thither, and were there entertained
with pleasant speeches, giftes, and ingenious devices, and then
the king gave it a name, and called it Brittaines Burse.' Stow,
_Chronicle_, p. 894.

l. 27. _Of new built Algate, and the More-field crosses._ Aldgate, one
of the four principal gates in the City wall, was taken down in 1606
and rebuilt by 1609: Stow, _Survey_. Norton refers to Jonson's _Silent
Woman_, I. i: 'How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the
people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity while they were
rude stone, before they were painted and burnished?'

'The More-field crosses' are apparently the walks at Moor-field.
Speaking of the embellishment of London which ensued from the long
duration of peace, Stow says, 'And lastly, whereof there is a more
generall, and particular notice taken by all persons resorting and
residing in London, the new and pleasant walks on the north side of
the city, anciently called More fields, which field (untill the third
yeare of King James) was a most noysome and offensive place, being a
generall laystall, a rotten morish ground, whereof it tooke first the
name.' Stow, _Chronicle_. For the ditches which crossed the field were
substituted 'most faire and royall walkes'.

PAGE =107=, l. 41. The '(_quoth Hee_)' of the 1669 edition is
obviously correct. 'Hee' is required both by rhyme and reason. Mr.
Chambers has ingeniously put '"True" quoth I' into a parenthesis, as
a remark interjected by the poet. But apart from the rhyme the 'quoth
Hee' is needed to explain the transition to direct speech. Without it
the long speech of the citizen begins very awkwardly.

ll. 42-44. These lines seem to echo the Royal Proclamation of 1609,
though the reference is different: 'in this speciall Proclamation his
Majestic declared how grievously, the people of this latter age and
times are fallen into verball profession, as well of religion, as of
all commendable morall vertues, but wanting the actions and deeds of
so specious a profession, and the insatiable and immeasurable itching
boldnesse of the spirits, tongues and pens of most men.' Stow,
_Chronicle_.

l. 46. _Bawd, Tavern-keeper, Whore and Scrivener_; The singular number
of the MS. gives as good a sense as the plural and a better rhyme.

  l. 47. _The much of Privileg'd kingsmen, and the store
         Of fresh protections, &c._

'We have many bankrupts daily, and as many protections, which doth
marvellously hinder all manner of commerce.' Chamberlain to Carleton,
Dec. 31, 1612. By 'kingsmen' I understand noblemen holding monopolies
from the King. I do not understand the 'kinsmen' of the editions.
By 'protections' is meant 'exemptions from suits in law', especially
suits for debt. The London tradesmen were much cheated by the
protections granted to the servants and followers of members of
Parliament.

l. 65. _found nothing but a Rope._ I cannot identify this Rope. In the
_Aulularia_ of Plautus, when Euclio finds his treasure gone he laments
in the usual manner. At l. 721 he says, 'Heu me miserum, misere perii,
male perditu', _pessume ornatus eo_.' The last words may have been
taken as meaning 'I have the rope round my neck'.


PAGE =108=. ELEGIE XV.

l. 12. Following _RP31_ and also Jonson's _Underwoods_ I have taken
'at once' as going with 'Both hot and cold', not with 'make life, and
death' as in _1633-69_. This is one of the poems which _1633_ derived
from some other source than _D_, _H49_, _Lec_.

ll. 16-18 (_all sweeter ... the rest_) Chambers has overlooked
altogether the _1633_ reading 'sweeter'. He prints 'sweeten'd'
from _1635-69_. It is clear from the MSS. that this is an editor's
amendment due to Donne's 'all sweeter' suggesting, perhaps
intentionally, 'all the sweeter'. By dropping the bracket Chambers
has left at least ambiguous the construction of 17-18: _And the divine
impression of stolne kisses That sealed the rest._ Does this, as in
_1633_, belong to the parenthesis, or is 'the divine impression' to be
taken with 'so many accents sweet, so many sighes' and 'so many oathes
and teares' as part subject to 'should now prove empty blisses'. I
prefer the _1633_ arrangement, which has the support of the MSS.,
though the punctuation of these is apt to be careless. The accents,
sighs, oaths, and tears were all made sweeter by having been stolen
with fear and trembling. This is how the Grolier Club editor takes it;
Grosart and Chambers prefer to follow _1635-69_.

PAGE 109, l. 34. I do not know whence Chambers derived his reading
'drift' for 'trust'--perhaps from an imperfect copy of _1633_. He
attributes it to all the editions prior to 1669. This is an oversight.

PAGE =110=, ll. 59 f. _I could renew, &c._ Compare Ovid, _Amores_, III.
ii. 1-7.

  Non ego nobilium sedeo studiosus equorum;
    Cui tamen ipsa faves, vincat ut ille precor.
  Ut loquerer tecum veni tecumque sederem,
    Ne tibi non notus, quem facis, esset amor.
  Tu cursum spectas, ego te; spectemus uterque
    Quod iuvat, atque oculos pascat uterque suos.
  O, cuicumque faves, felix agitator equorum!


PAGE =111=. ELEGIE XVI.

A careful study of the textual notes to this poem will show that there
is a considerable difference between the text of this poem as given
for the first time in _1635_, and that of the majority of the MSS. It
is very difficult, however, to decide between them as the differences
are not generally such as to suggest that one reading is necessarily
right, the other wrong. The chief variants are these: 7 'parents' and
'fathers'. Here I fancy the 'parents' of the MSS. is right, and that
'fathers' in the editions and in a late MS. like _O'F_ is due to the
identification of Donne's mistress with his wife. Only the father of
Anne More was alive at the time of their first acquaintance. It is not
at all certain, however, that this poem is addressed to Anne More,
and in any case Donne would probably have disguised the details. The
change of 'parents' to 'fathers' is more likely than the opposite.
In l. 12 'wayes' (edd.) and 'meanes' (MSS.) are practically
indistinguishable; nor is there much to choose between the two
versions of l. 18: 'My soule from other lands to thee shall soare'
(edd.) and 'From other lands my soule towards thee shall soare'
(MSS.). In each case the version of the editions is slightly the
better. In l. 28, on the other hand, I have adopted 'mindes' without
hesitation although here the MSS. vary. There is no question of
changing the mind, but there is of changing the mind's habit, of
adopting a boy's cast of thought and manner: as Rosalind says,

                           and in my heart
  Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will,
  We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
  As many other mannish cowards have
  That do outface it with their semblances.
                                 _As You Like It_, I. iii. 114-18.

In l. 35 the reading 'Lives fuellers', i.e. 'Life's fuellers', which
is found in such early and good MSS. as _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _W_,
is very remarkable. If I were convinced that it is correct I should
regard it as decisive and prefer the MS. readings throughout. But
'Loves fuellers', though also a strange phrase, seems more easy of
interpretation, and applicable.

In l. 37 there can, I think, be no doubt that the original reading is
preserved by _A18_, _N_, _S_, _TCD_, and _W_.

  Will quickly knowe thee, and knowe thee, and, alas!

The sudden, brutal change in the sense of the word 'knowe' is quite in
Donne's manner. The reasons for omitting or softening it are obvious,
and may excuse my not restoring it. The whole of these central lines
reveal that strange bad taste, some radical want of delicacy, which
mars not only Donne's poems and lighter prose but even at times the
sermons. In l. 49 the reading of the MSS. _A18_, _N_, _TC_; _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_, and _W_ is also probably original:

  Nor praise, nor dispraise me; Blesse nor curse.

It is not uncommon in Donne's poetry to find a syllable dropped with
the effect of increasing the stress on a rhetorically emphatic word,
here 'Blesse'. An editor would be sure to supply 'nor'.

Lamb has quoted from this Elegy in his note to Beaumont and Fletcher's
_Philaster_ (_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_, 1808). It is
clear that he used a copy of the 1669 edition, for he reads 35 'Lives
fuellers', and also 42 'Aydroptique' for 'Hydroptique'. Both these
mistakes were corrected in _1719_. Donne speaks in his sermons of
'fuelling and advancing his tentations'. _Sermons_ 80. 10. 99.

PAGE =112=, l. 44. _England is onely a worthy Gallerie_: i.e. entrance
hall or corridor: 'Here then is the use of our hope before death, that
this life shall be a gallery into a better roome and deliver us over
to a better Country: for, _if in this life only_,' &c. _Sermons_ 50.
30. 270. 'He made but one world; for, this, and the next, are not _two
Worlds_;... They are not _two Houses_; This is the _Gallery_, and
that the _Bedchamber_ of one, and the same Palace, which shall feel no
ruine.' _Sermons_ 50. 43. 399.

In connexion with the general theme of this poem it may be noted
that in 1605 Sir Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son of the Earl of
Leicester, who like Donne served in the Cadiz and Islands expeditions,
left England accompanied by the beautiful Elizabeth Southwell
disguised as a page. At this period the most fantastic poetry was
never more fantastic than life itself.


PAGE =113=. ELEGIE XVII.

l. 12. _wide and farr._ The MSS. here correct an obvious error of the
editions.

PAGE =114=, l. 24. This line is found only in _A10_, which omits the
next eleven lines. It may belong to a shorter version of the poem, but
it fits quite well into the context.

PAGE =115=, l. 58. _daring eyes._ The epithet looks as though it had
been repeated from the line above, and perhaps 'darling' or 'darting'
may have been the original reading. However, both the MSS. agree with
the editions, and the word is probably used in two distinct senses,
'bold, adventurous' with 'armes' and 'dazzling' with 'eyes'. Compare:

                         O now no more
  Shall his perfections, like the sunbeams, dare
  The purblind world; in heaven those glories are.
       Campion, _Elegie upon the Untimely Death of Prince Henry_.

          Let his Grace go forward
  And dare us with his cap like larks.
                         Shakespeare, _Henry VIII_, III. ii. 282.

This refers to the custom of 'daring' or dazzling larks with a mirror.


PAGE =116=. ELEGIE XVIII.

PAGE =117=, ll. 31-2. _Men to such Gods, &c._ Donne has in view here
the different kinds of sacrifice described by Porphyry:

  How to devote things living in due form
  My verse shall tell, thou in thy tablets write.
  For gods of earth and gods of heaven each three;
  For heavenly pure white; for gods of earth
  Cattle of kindred hue divide in three,
    And on the altar lay thy sacrifice.
    For gods infernal bury deep, and cast
    The blood into a trench. For gentle Nymphs
    Honey and gifts of Dionysus pour.
                      Eusebius: _Praeparatio Evangelica_, iv. 9
                         (trans. E. H. Gifford, 1903).

l. 47. _The Nose_ (_like to the first Meridian_) 'In the state
of nature we consider the light, as the sunne, to be risen at the
Moluccae, in the farthest East; In the state of the law we consider it
as the sunne come to Ormus, the first Quadrant; but in the Gospel to
be come to the Canaries, the fortunate Ilands, the first Meridian.
Now whatsoever is beyond this, is Westward, towards a Declination.'
_Sermons_ 80. 68. 688.

'Longitude is length, and in the heavens it is understood the distance
of any starre or Planet, from the begining of Aries to the place of
the said Planet or Starre ... Otherwise, longitude in the earth, is
the distance of the Meridian of any place, from the Meridian which
passeth over the Isles of Azores, where the beginning of longitude is
said to be.' _The Sea-mans Kalender_, 1632. But ancient Cosmographers
placed the first meridian at the Canaries. See note to p. 187, l. 2.

PAGE =118=, l. 52. _Not faynte Canaries but Ambrosiall._ The 'Canary'
of several MSS. is probably right--an adjective, like 'Ambrosiall'.
By 'faynte' is meant 'faintly odorous' as opposed to 'Ambrosial', i.e.
'divinely fragrant; perfumed as with Ambrosia' (O.E.D.). 'Fruit that
ambrosial smell diffus'd': Milton, _Par. Lost_, ix. 852. The text
gives an earlier use of both these words in this meaning than any
indicated by the O.E.D. William Morris uses the same adjective in a
somewhat ambiguous way but meaning, I suppose, 'weak, ready to die':

  Where still mid thoughts of August's quivering gold
  Folk hoed the wheat, and clipped the vine in trust
  Of faint October's purple-foaming must.
                            _Earthly Paradise, Atalanta's Race._


PAGE =119=. ELEGIE XIX.

PAGE =120=, l. 17. _then safely tread._ The 'safely' of so many MSS.,
including _W_, seems to me a more likely reading than 'softly'. The
latter was probably suggested by the 'soft' of the following line. The
'safely' means of course that even without her shoes she will not be
hurt.

l. 22. _Ill spirits._ It is not easy to decide between the 'Ill' of
_1669_ and some MSS. and the 'All' of some other MSS. Besides those
enumerated, two lesser MSS., viz. the Sloane MSS. 542 and 1792, read
'all'.

In _Elegie IV_, l. 68, 'all' is written for 'ill' in _B_.

PAGE =121=, l. 30. _How blest am I in this discovering thee!_
The 'this' of almost all the MSS. is supported by the change of
'discovering' into 'discovery' of _B_, _O'F_, one way of evading the
rather unusual construction, 'this' with a verbal noun followed by an
object. The alteration of 'this' to 'thus' in _1669_ is another. But
the construction, though bold, is not inexcusable, and Donne wishes
to lay the stress not on the manner of the discovery, but on the
discovery itself, comparing it (in a very characteristic manner) to
the discovery of America. This figure alone is sufficient to establish
Donne's authorship, for he is peculiarly fond of these allusions to
voyages, using them again and again in his sermons. For the use of
'this' with the gerund compare: 'Sir,--I humbly thank you for this
continuing me in your memory, and enlarging me so far, as to the
memory of my Sovereign, and (I hope) my Master.' _Letters_, p. 306.

l. 32. _Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be._ Chambers reads
'my soul'--I do not know from what source. The metaphor is from
signing and sealing.

ll. 35-8. _Gems which you women use, &c._ I have adopted several
emendations from the MSS. In the edition of 1669 the lines are printed
thus:

            Jems which you women use
  Are like Atlantas ball: cast in men's views,
  That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem
  His earthly soul may court that, not them:

I have adopted 'balls' from several MSS. as agreeing with the story
and with the plural 'Gems'. I have taken 'are' with 'cast in mens
views', regarding 'like Atlantas balls' as parenthetic. Both the metre
and the sense of l. 38 are improved by reading 'covet' for 'court',
though the latter has considerable support. The two words are easily
confused in writing. I have adopted 'theirs' too in preference to
'that' because it is more in Donne's manner as well as strongly
supported. 'A man who loves dress and ornaments on a woman loves
not her but what belongs to her; what is accessory, not what is
essential.' Compare:

  For he who colour loves, and skin,
    Loves but their oldest clothes.

The antithesis 'theirs not them' is much more pointed than 'that not
them'.

l. 46. _There is no pennance due to innocence._ I suspect that the
original cast of this line was that pointed to by the MSS.,

  Here is no penance, much less innocence:

Penance and innocence alike are clothed in white. The version in the
text is a softening of the original to make it compatible with the
suggestion that the poem could be read as an epithalamium. 'Why', says
a note in the margin of the Bridgewater MS., 'may not a man write his
own epithalamium if he can do it so modestly?'


PAGE =122=. ELEGIE XX.

Though not printed till 1802 there can be no doubt that this poem
is by Donne. The MS. which Waldron used is the Dyce fellow of _JC_.
Compare Ovid, _Amor._ i. 9: 'Militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra
Cupido.'


PAGE =124=. HEROICALL EPISTLE. _Sapho to Philaenis._

I have transferred this poem hither from its place in _1635-69_ among
the sober _Letters to Severall Personages_. It has obviously a closer
relation to the Elegies, and must have been composed about the same
time. Its genus is the Heroical Epistle modelled on Ovid, of which
Drayton produced the most popular English imitations in 1597. Donne's
was possibly evoked by these and written in 1597-8, but there is no
means of dating it exactly. 'Passionating' and 'conceited' eloquence
is the quality of these poems modelled on Ovid, and whatever one may
think of the poem on moral grounds it is impossible to deny that Donne
has caught the tone of the kind, and written a poem passionate and
eloquent in its own not altogether admirable way. The reader is more
than once reminded of Mr. Swinburne's far less conceited but more
diffuse _Anactoria_.

l. 22. _As Down, as Stars, &c._ 'Down' is probably correct, but the
'Dowves' (i.e. doves) of _P_ gives the plural as in the other
nouns, and a closer parallel in poetic vividness. We get a series of
pictures--doves, stars, cedars, lilies. The meaning conveyed would be
the same:

                          this hand
  As soft as doves-downe, and as white as it.
                                      _Wint. Tale_, IV. iv. 374.

But of course swan's down is also celebrated:

      Heaven with sweet repose doth crowne
  Each vertue softer than the swan's fam'd downe.
                                           Habington, _Castara_.

PAGE =125=, l. 33. Modern editors separate 'thorny' and 'hairy' by a
comma. They should rather be connected by a hyphen as in _TCD_.

l. 40. _And are, as theeves trac'd, which rob when it snows._ This is
doubtless the source of Dryden's figurative description of Jonson's
thefts from the Ancients: 'You track him everywhere in their snow.'
_Essay of Dramatic Poesy_.



EPITHALAMIONS.

PAGE =127=. The dates of the two chief Marriage Songs are: the
Princess Elizabeth, Feb. 14, 1613; the Earl of Somerset, Dec. 26,
1613. The third is an earlier piece of work, dating from the years
when Donne was a student at Lincoln's Inn. It is found in _W_,
following the _Satyres_ and _Elegies_ and preceding the _Letters_,
being probably the only one written when the collection in the first
part of that MS. was made.

While quite himself in his treatment of the theme of this kind of
poem, Donne comes in it nearer to Spenser than in any other kind.
In glow and colour nothing he has written surpasses the Somerset
Epithalamion:

  First her eyes kindle other Ladies eyes,
    Then from their beams their jewels lusters rise,
  And from their jewels torches do take fire,
    And all is warmth and light and good desire.


_An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song, &c._ 'In February following, the
Prince Palatine and that lovely Princess, the Lady Elizabeth, were
married on Bishop Valentine's Day, in all the Pomp and Glory that so
much grandeur could express. Her vestments were white, the Emblem of
Innocency; her Hair dishevel'd hanging down her Back at length,
an Ornament of Virginity; a Crown of pure Gold upon her Head, the
Cognizance of Majesty, being all over beset with precious Gems,
shining _like a Constellation_; her Train supported by Twelve young
Ladies in White Garments, so adorned with Jewels, that her passage
looked like a Milky-way. She was led to Church by her Brother Prince
Charles, and the Earl of Northampton; the young Batchelor on the Right
Hand, and the old on the left.' Camden, _Annales_.

A full description of the festivities will be found in Nichol's
_Progresses of King James_, in Stow's _Chronicle_, and other works.
In a letter to Mrs. Carleton, Chamberlain gives an account of what he
saw: 'It were long and tedious to tell you all the particulars of the
excessive bravery, both of men and women, but you may conceive the
rest by one or two. The Lady Wotton had a gown that cost fifty pounds
a yard the embroidery.... The Viscount Rochester, the Lord Hay, and
the Lord Dingwall were exceeding rich and costly; but above all, they
speak of the Earl of Dorset. But this extreme cost and riches makes us
all poor.' _Court and Times of James I_, i. 226. The princess had been
educated by Lord and Lady Harington, the parents of Donne's patroness,
the Countess of Bedford. They accompanied her to Heidelberg, but
Lord Harington died on his way home, Lady Harington shortly after her
return. Donne had thus links with the Princess, and these were renewed
and strengthened later when with Lord Doncaster he visited Heidelberg
in 1619, and preached before her and her husband. He sent her his
first printed sermon and his _Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, &c._
(1624), and to the latter she, then in exile and trouble, replied in a
courteous strain.

PAGE =128=. Compare with the opening stanzas Chaucer's _Parliament
of Foules_ and Skeat's note (_Works of Chaucer_, i. 516). Birds were
supposed to choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day (Feb. 14).

l. 42. _this, thy Valentine._ This is the reading of all the editions
except _1669_ and of all the MSS. except two of no independent value.
I think it is better than 'this day, Valentine', which Chambers adopts
from _1669_. The bride is addressed throughout the stanza, and it
would be a very abrupt change to refer 'thou' in l. 41 to Valentine.
I take 'this, thy Valentine' to mean 'this which is thy day, _par
excellence_', 'thy Saint Valentine's day', 'the day which saw you
paired'. But 'a Valentine' is a 'true-love': 'to be your
Valentine' (_Hamlet_, IV. v. 50), and the reference may be to
Frederick,--Frederick's Day is to become an era.

ll. 43-50. The punctuation of these lines requires attention. That of
the editions, which Chambers follows, arranges them thus:

  Come forth, come forth, and as one glorious flame
  Meeting Another growes the same,
  So meet thy Fredericke, and so
  To an unseparable union goe,
      Since separation
  Falls not on such things as are infinite,
  Nor things which are but one, can disunite.
  You'are twice inseparable, great, and one.

In this it will be seen that the clause 'Since separation ... can
disunite' is attached to the _previous_ verb. It gives the reason
why they should 'go to an unseparable union'. In that which I have
adopted, which is that of several good MSS., the clause 'Since
separation ... can disunite' goes with what _follows_, explains 'You
are twice inseparable, great, and one.' This is obviously right. My
attention was first called to this emendation by the punctuation of
the Grolier Club editor, who changes the comma after 'goe' (l. 46) to
a semicolon.

l. 46. _To an unseparable union growe._ I have adopted 'growe' from
the MSS. in place of 'goe' from the editions. The former are unanimous
with the strange exception of _Lec_. This MS., which in several
respects seems to be most like that from which _1633_ was printed,
varies here from its fellows _D_ and _H49_, probably for the same
reason that the editor of _1633_ did, because he did not quite
understand the phrase 'growe to' as used here, and 'goe' follows
later. But it is unlikely that 'goe' would have been changed to
'growe', and

  To an unseparable union growe

is, I think, preferable, because (1) both the words used in l. 44 are
thus echoed.

  _Meeting_ Another, _growes_ the same,
  So _meet_ thy Fredericke, and so
  To an unseparable union _growe_.

(2) 'To an unseparable union growe', meaning 'Become inseparably
incorporated with one another', is a slightly violent but not
unnatural application of the phrase 'grow to' so common in Elizabethan
English:

'I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body.' _All's Well that
Ends Well_, II. i. 36.

  First let our eyes be rivited quite through
  Our turning brains, and both our lips grow to.
                                     Donne, _Elegie XII_, 57-8.

l. 56. The 'or' of the MSS. must, I think, be right. 'O Bishop
Valentine' does not make good sense. Chambers's ingenious emendation
of _1669_, by which he connects 'of Bishop Valentine' with 'one way
left', lacks support. Bishop Valentine has paired them; the Bishop in
church has united them; the consummation is their own act.


PAGE =131=. ECCLOGUE. 1613. _December_ 26, &c.

It is unnecessary to detail all the ugly history of this notorious
marriage. See Gardiner, _History of England_, ii. 16 and 20. Frances
Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, the first Earl of Suffolk, was
married in 1606 to the youthful Earl of Essex, the later Parliamentary
general. In 1613, after a prolonged suit she was granted a divorce,
or a decree of nullity, and was at once married to King James's ruling
favourite, Robert Carr, created Viscount Rochester in 1611, and
Earl of Somerset in 1613. Donne, like every one else, had sought
assiduously to win the favour of the all-powerful favourite. Mr. Gosse
was in error in attributing to him a report on 'the proceedings in the
nullity of the marriage of Essex and Lady Frances Howard' (Harl. MS.
39, f. 416), which was the work of his namesake, Sir Daniell Dunn.
None the less, Donne's own letters show that he was quite willing to
lend a hand in promoting the divorce; and that before the decree was
granted he was already busy polishing his epithalamium. One of these
letters is addressed to Sir Robert Ker, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, a
friend of Donne's and a protégé of Somerset's. It seems to me probable
that Sir Robert Ker is the 'Allophanes' of the Induction. Donne is
of course 'Idios', the private man, who holds no place at Court.
'Allophanes' is one who seems like another, who bears the same name as
another, i.e. the bridegroom. The name of both Sir Robert and the Earl
of Somerset was Robert Ker or Carr.

PAGE =132=, l. 34. _in darke plotts._ Here the reading of _1635_,
'plotts,' has the support of all the MSS., and the 'places' of _1633_,
to which _1669_ returns, is probably an emendation accidental or
intentional of the editor or printer. It disturbs the metre. The word
'plot' of a piece of ground was, and is, not infrequent, and here its
meaning is only a little extended. In the _Progresse of the Soule_, l.
129, Donne speaks of 'a darke and foggie plot'.

_fire without light._ Compare: 'Fool, saies Christ, this night they
will fetch away thy soul; but he neither tells him, who they be that
shall fetch it, nor whither they shall carry it; he hath no light but
lightnings; a sodain flash of horror first, and then he goes into fire
without light.' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 273. 'This dark fire, which was not
prepared for us.' Ibid.

l. 57. _In the East-Indian fleet._ The MSS. here give us back a word
which _1633_ had dropped, the other editions following suit. It was
the East-Indian fleet which brought spices, the West-Indian brought
'plate', i.e. gold or (more properly) silver, to which there is no
reference here.

l. 58. _or Amber in thy taste?_ 'Amber' is here of course 'Ambergris',
which was much used in old cookery, in which considerable importance
was attached to scent as well as flavour. Compare:

            beasts of chase, or foul of game,
  In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd,
  Gris-amber steam'd;
                              Milton, _Paradise Regained_, ii. 344.

and

                        Be sure
  The wines be lusty, high, and full of spirit,
  And amber'd all.
      Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Custom of the Country_, iii. 2.

This was the original meaning of the word 'amber', which was extended
to the yellow fossil resin through some mistaken identification of
the two substances. Mr. Gosse has called my attention to some passages
which seem to indicate that the other amber was also eaten. Tallemant
des Réaux says of the Marquise de Rambouillet, 'Elle bransle un peu la
teste, et cela lui vient d'avoir trop mangé d'ambre autrefois.'
This may be ambergris; but Olivier de Serres, in his _Théâtre
d'Agriculture_ (1600), speaks of persons who had formed a taste for
drinking 'de l'ambre jaune subtilement pulvérisé'.

PAGE =134=, ll. 85-6. _Thou hast no such; yet here was this, and more,
                      An earnest lover, wise then, and before._

This is the reading of _1633_ and gives, I think, Donne's meaning.
Missing this, later editions placed a full stop after 'more', so that
each line concludes a sentence. Mr. Chambers emends by changing the
full stop after 'before' into a comma, and reading:

  Thou hast no such; yet here was this and more.
  An earnest lover, wise then, and before,
  Our little Cupid hath sued livery.

This looks ingenious, but I confess I do not know what it means. When
was Cupid wise? When had he been so before? And with what special
propriety is Cupid here called 'an earnest lover'? What Donne says is:
'Here _was_ all this,--a court such as I have described, and more--an
earnest lover (viz. the Earl of Somerset), wise in love (when most
men are foolish), and wise before, as is approved by the King's
confidence. In being admitted to that breast Cupid has ceased to be a
child, has attained his majority, and the right to administer his own
affairs.' Compare: '_I love them that love me, &c._... The Person that
professes love in this place is Wisdom herself ... so that _sapere et
amare_, to be wise and to love, which perchance never met before nor
since, are met in this text.' _Sermons_ 26. 18, Dec. 14, 1617.

  Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
  True love we know, precipitates delay.
  Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove;
  No man at one time can be wise and love.
                                   Herrick, _To Silvia to Wed_.

PAGE =135=. I have inserted the title _Epithalamion_ after the
_Ecclogue_ from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, _O'F_, _S96_, as otherwise the
latter title is extended to the whole poem. This poem is headed in
two different ways in the MSS. In _A18_, _N_, _TC_, the title at the
beginning is: _Eclogue Inducing an Epithalamion at the marriage of the
E. of S._ The proper titles of the two parts are thus given at once,
and no second title is needed later. In the other MSS. the title at
the beginning is _Eclogue. 1613. Decemb. 26._ Later follows the title
_Epithalamion_. As _1633_ follows this fashion at the beginning, it
should have done so throughout.

PAGE =136=, l. 126. _Since both have both th'enflaming eyes._ This
is the reading of all the MSS. and it explains the fact that
'th'enflaming' is so printed in _1633_. Without the 'both' this
destroys the metre and, accordingly, the later editions read 'the
enflaming'. It was natural to bring 'eye' into the singular and
make 'th'enflaming eye' balance 'the loving heart'. Moreover 'both
th'enflaming eyes' may have puzzled a printer. It is a Donnean device
for emphasis. He has spoken of _her_ flaming eyes, and now that he
identifies the lovers, that identity must be complete. Both the eyes
of both are lit with the same flame, both their hearts kindled at the
same fire. Compare later: 225. 'One fire of foure inflaming eyes,' &c.

l. 129. _Yet let_ _A23_, _O'F_. The first of these MSS. is an early
copy of the poem. 'Yet' improves both the sense and the metre. It
would be easily dropped from its likeness to 'let' suggesting a
duplication of that word.

PAGE =137=, l. 150. _Who can the Sun in water see._ The Grolier Club
edition alters the full stop here to a semicolon; and Chambers quotes
the reading of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, 'winter' for 'water', as worth
noting. Both the change and the suggestion imply some misapprehension
of the reference of these lines, which is to the preceding verse:

  For our ease, give thine eyes th'unusual part
  Of joy, a Teare.

The opening of a stanza with two lines which in thought belong to the
previous one is not unprecedented in Donne's poems. Compare the sixth
stanza of _A Valediction: of my name in the window_, and note.

Dryden has borrowed this image--like many another of Donne's:

  Muse down again precipitate thy flight;
  For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?
  But as the sun in water we can bear,
  Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
  So let us view her here in what she was,
  And take her image in this watery glass.
                                         _Eleonora_, ll. 134-9.

l. 156. _as their spheares are._ The crystalline sphere in which each
planet is fixed.

PAGE =138=, ll. 171-81. _The Benediction._ The accurate punctuation
of Donne's poetry is not an easy matter. In the 1633 edition the last
five lines of this stanza have no stronger stop than a comma. This may
be quite right, but it leaves ambiguous what is the exact force and
what the connexion of the line--

  Nature and grace doe all, and nothing Art.

The editions of 1635-69, by placing a full stop after 'give' (l. 178),
connect 'Nature and grace' with what follows, and Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor have accepted this, though they place a semicolon
after 'Art'. It seems to me that the line must go with what precedes.
The force of 'may' is carried on to 'doe all':

                may here, to the worlds end, live
  Heires from this King, to take thanks, you, to give,
  Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art.

'May there always be heirs of James to receive thanks, of you two to
give; and may this mutual relation owe everything to nature and grace,
the goodness of your descendants, the grace of the king, nothing to
art, to policy and flattery.' That is the only meaning I can give to
the line. The only change in _1633_ is that of a comma to a full stop,
a big change in value, a small one typographically.

PAGE =139=, l. 200. _they doe not set so too_; I have changed the full
stop after 'too' to a semicolon, as the 'Therefore thou maist' which
follows is an immediate inference from these two lines. 'You rose at
the same hour this morning, but you (the bride) must go first to bed.'

ll. 204-5. _As he that sees, &c._ 'I have sometimes wondered in the
reading what was become of those glaring colours which amazed me in
_Bussy D'Ambois_ upon the theatre; but when I had taken up what I
supposed a fallen star, I found I had been cozened with a jelly;
nothing but a cold, dull mass, which glittered no longer than it was
a-shooting.' Dryden, _The Spanish Friar_. In another place Dryden uses
the figure in a more poetic or at least ambitious fashion:

                The tapers of the gods,
  The sun and moon, run down like waxen globes;
  The shooting stars end all in purple jellies,
  And chaos is at hand.
                                              _Oedipus_, II. i.

The idea was a common one, but I have no doubt that Dryden owed his
use of it as an image to Donne. There is no poet from whom he pilfers
'wit' more freely.

PAGE =140=, ll. 215-16. _Now, as in Tullias tombe_, i.e. Cicero's
daughter. 'According to a ridiculous story, which some of the moderns
report, in the age of Pope Paul III a monument was discovered on the
Appian road with the superscription _Tulliolae filiae meae_; the body
of a woman was found in it, which was reduced to ashes as soon as
touched; there was also a lamp burning, which was extinguished as soon
as the air gained admission there, and which was supposed to have been
lighted above 1500 years.' Lemprière. See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_,
iii. 21.

PAGE =141=, l. 17. _Help with your presence and devise to praise._
I have dropped the comma after 'presence' because it suggests to us,
though it did not necessarily do so to seventeenth-century readers,
that 'devise' here is a verb--both Dr. Grosart and Mr. Chambers have
taken it as such--whereas it is the noun 'device' = fancy, invention.
Their fancy and invention is to be shown in the attiring of the bride:

  Conceitedly dresse her, and be assign'd
  By you, fit place for every flower and jewell,
    Make her for love fit fewell
    As gay as Flora, and as rich as Inde.

'Devise to praise' would be a very awkward construction.

PAGE =142=, l. 26. _Sonns of these Senators wealths deep oceans._ The
corruption of the text here has arisen in the first place from the
readily explicable confusion of 'sonnes' or 'sonns' as written and
'sonne', the final 's' being the merest flourish and repeatedly
overlooked in copying and printing, while 'sonne' easily becomes
'some', and secondly from a misapprehension of Donne's characteristic
pun. The punctuation of the 1633 edition is supported by almost every
MS.

The 'frolique Patricians' are of course not the sons of 'these
Senators' by birth. 'I speak not this to yourselves, you Senators
of London,' says Donne in the _Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross ... 26
Mart. 1616_, 'but as God hath blessed you in your ways, and in your
callings, so put your children into ways and courses too, in which God
may bless them.... The Fathers' former labours shall not excuse their
Sons future idleness.' The sons of wealthy citizens might grow idle
and extravagant; they could not be styled 'Patricians'. It is not
of them that Donne is thinking, but of the young noblemen who are
accompanying their friend on his wedding-day. They are, or are willing
to be, the sons, by marriage not by blood, of 'these Senators', or
rather of their money-bags. In a word, they marry their daughters for
money, as the hero of the _Epithalamion_ is doing. It is fortunate for
the Senators if the young courtiers do not find in their wives as well
as their daughters, like Fastidious Brisk in Jonson's comedy, 'Golden
Mines and furnish'd Treasurie.' But they are 'Sunnes' as well as
Sonnes'--suns which drink up the deep oceans of these Senators'
wealth:

                            it rain'd more
  Then if the Sunne had drunk the sea before.
                                            _Storme_, 43-4.

Hence the metaphor 'deep oceans', and hence the appropriateness of the
predicate 'Here shine'. This pun on 'sunne' and 'sonne' is a favourite
with Donne:

  Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burne
  With all those sonnes [sunnes _B_, _S96_] whom my braine did create.
                                         _To Mrs. M. H. H._, p. 216.

  I am thy sonne, made with thyself to shine.
                                            _Holy Sonnets_, II. 5.

  Sweare by thyself, that at my death thy sonne
  Shall shine as hee shines now, and heretofore.

  _A Hymn to God the Father._

'This day both Gods Sons arose: The Sun of his Firmament, and the Son
of his bosome.' _Sermons_ 80. 26. 255. 'And when thy Sun, thy soule
comes to set in thy death-bed, the Son of Grace shall suck it up into
glory.' Ibid. 80. 45. 450.

Correctly read the line has a satiric quality which Donne's lines
rarely want, and in which this stanza abounds. I have chosen the
spelling 'Sonns' as that which is most commonly used in the MSS. for
'sonnes' and 'sunnes'.

PAGE =143=, l. 57. _His steeds nill be restrain'd._ I had adopted
the reading 'nill' for 'will' conjecturally before I found it in _W_.
There can be no doubt it is right. As printed, the two clauses (57-8)
simply contradict each other. The use of 'nill' for 'will' was one
of Spenser's Chaucerisms, and Donne comes closer to Spenser in the
_Epithalamia_ than anywhere else. Sylvester uses it in his translation
of Du Bartas:

  For I nill stiffly argue to and fro
  In nice opinions, whether so or so.

And it occurs in Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_:

  And therefore nill I boast of war.

In Shakespeare, setting aside the phrase 'nill he, will he', we have:

  in scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether.

  ll. 81-2. _Till now thou wast but able
                To be what now thou art_;

She has realized her potentiality; she is now actually what hitherto
she has been only [Greek: en dynamei], therefore she 'puts on
perfection'. 'Praeterea secundum Philosophum ... _qualibet potentiâ
melior est eius actus_; nam forma est melior quam materia, et actio
quam potentia activa: est enim finis eius.' Aquinas, _Summa_, xxv. i.
See also Aristotle, _Met._ 1050 _a_ 2-16. This metaphysical doctrine
is not contradicted by the religious exaltation of virginity, for it
is not virginity as such which is preferred to marriage by the Church,
but the virgin's dedication of herself to God: 'Virginitas inde
honorata, quia Deo dicata.... Virgines ideo laudatae, quia Deo
dicatae. Nec nos hoc in virginibus praedicamus, quod virgines sunt;
sed quod Deo dicatae piâ continentiâ virgines. Nam, quod non temere
dixerim, felicior mihi videtur nupta mulier quam virgo nuptura: habet
enim iam illa quod ista adhuc cupit.... Illa uni studet placere cui
data est: haec multis, incerta cui danda est,' &c.; August. _De Sanct.
Virg._ I. x, xi. Compare Aquinas, _Summa_ II. 2, Quaest. clii. 3.
Wedded to Christ the virgin puts on a higher perfection.



SATYRES.

The earliest date assignable to any of the _Satyres_ is 1593, or more
probably 1594-5. On the back of the Harleian MS. 5110 (_H51_), in the
British Museum, is inscribed:[1]

  Jhon Dunne his Satires
  Anno Domini 1593

The handwriting is not identical with that in which the poems are
transcribed, and it is impossible to say either when the poems were
copied or when the title and date were affixed. One may not build too
absolutely on its accuracy; but there are in the three first _Satires_
(which alone the MS. contains) some indications that point to 1593-5
as the probable date. Mr. Chambers notes the reference in 1., 80, 'the
wise politic horse,' to Banks' performing horse, and says: 'A large
collection of them' (i.e. allusions to the horse) 'will be found in
Mr. Halliwell-Phillips's Memoranda on _Love's Labour's Lost_. Only one
of these allusions is, however, earlier than 1593. It is in 1591, and
refers not to an exhibition in London, but in the provinces, and not
to Morocco, which was a bay, but to a white horse. It is probable,
therefore, that by 1591 Banks had not yet come to London, and if so
the date 1593 on the Harl. MS. 5110 of Donne's _Satires_ cannot be far
from that of their composition.' But this is not the only allusion.
The same lines run on:

  Or thou O Elephant or Ape wilt doe.

This has been passed by commentators as a quite general reference; but
the Ape and Elephant seem to have been animals actually performing,
or exhibited, in London about 1594. Thus in _Every Man out of his
Humour_, acted in 1599, Carlo Buffone says (IV. 6): ''S heart he keeps
more ado with this monster' (i.e. Sogliardo's dog) 'than ever Banks
did with his horse, or the fellow with the elephant.' Further, all
three are mentioned in the _Epigrams_ of Sir John Davies, e.g.:

In Dacum.

  Amongst the poets Dacus numbered is
  Yet could he never make an English rime;
  But some prose speeches I have heard of his,
  Which have been spoken many an hundred time:
  The man that keepes the Elephant hath one,
  Wherein he tells the wonders of the beast:
  Another Bankes pronounced long agon,
  When he his curtailes qualities exprest:
  Hee first taught him that keepes the monuments
  At Westminster his formall tale to say:
  And also him which Puppets represents,
  And also him that w^{th} the Ape doth play:
    Though all his poetry be like to this,
    Amongst the poets Dacus numbred is.

And again:

In Titum

  Titus the brave and valorous young gallant
  Three years together in the town hath beene,
  Yet my Lo. Chancellors tombe he hath not seene,
  Nor the new water-worke, nor the Elephant.
  I cannot tell the cause without a smile:
  Hee hath been in the Counter all the while.

Colonel Cunningham has pointed out another reference in Basse's
_Metamorphosis of the Walnut Tree_ (1645), where he tells how 'in our
youth we saw the Elephant'. Grosart's suggestion that the Elephant was
an Inn is absurd.

Davies' _Epigrams_ were first published along with Marlowe's version
of Ovid's _Elegies_, but no date is affixed to any of the three
editions which followed one another. But a MS. in the Bodleian
which contains forty-five of the Epigrams describes them as _English
Epigrammes much like Buckminsters Almanacke servinge for all England
but especially for the meridian of the honourable cittye of London
calculated by John Davies of Grayes Inne gentleman An^o 1594 in
November_.[2] This seems much too exact to be a pure invention, and
if it be correct it is very unlikely that the allusions would be to
ancient history. Banks' Horse, the performing Ape, and the Elephant
were all among the sights of the day, like the recently erected tomb
of Lord Chancellor Hatton, who died in 1591. The atmosphere of the
first _Satyre_, as of Davies' _Epigrams_, is that of 1593-5.
The phrase 'the Infanta of London, Heire to an India', in which
commentators have found needless difficulty, contains possibly,
besides its obvious meaning, an allusion to the fact that since 1587
the Infanta of Spain had become in official Catholic circles heir to
the English throne. In 1594 Parsons' tract, _A Conference about the
next Succession to the Crown of England. By R. Doleman_, defended her
claim, and made the Infanta's name a byword in England.

If _H51_ is thus approximately right in its dating of the first Satire
it may be the better trusted as regards the other two, and there is at
least nothing in them to make this date impossible. The references to
poetry in the second acquire a more vivid interest when their date or
approximate date is remembered. In 1593 died Marlowe, the greatest of
the brilliant group that reformed the stage, giving

                      ideot actors means
  (Starving 'themselves') to live by 'their' labour'd sceanes;

and Shakespeare was one of the 'ideot actors'. Shakespeare, too, was
one of the many sonneteers who 'would move Love by rithmes', and in
1593 and 1594 he appeared among those 'who write to Lords, rewards to
get'.

It would be interesting if we could identify the lawyer-poet, Coscus,
referred to in this Satire. Malone, in a MS. note to his copy of
_1633_ (now in the Bodleian Library), suggested John Hoskins or
Sir Richard Martin. Grosart conjectured that Donne had in view the
_Gullinge Sonnets_ preserved in the Farmer-Chetham MS., and ascribed
with probability to Sir John Davies, the poet of the _Epigrams_
just mentioned. Chambers seems to lean to this view and says, 'these
sonnets are couched in legal terminology.' Donne is supposed to have
mistaken Davies' 'gulling' for serious poetry. This is very unlikely.
Moreover, only the last two of Davies' sonnets are 'couched in legal
terminology':

  My case is this, I love Zepheria bright,
  Of her I hold my harte by fealty:

and

  To Love my lord I doe knights service owe
  And therefore nowe he hath my wit in ward.

Nor, although Davies' style parodies the style of the sonneteers (not
of the anonymous _Zepheria_ only), is it particularly harsh. It is
much more probable that Donne, like Davies, has chiefly in view this
anonymous series of sonnets--_Zepheria_. _Ogni dì viene la sera. Mysus
et Haemonia juvenis qui cuspide vulnus senserat, hac ipsa cuspide
sensit opem. At London: Printed by the Widow Orwin, for N. L.
and John Busby._ 1594. The style of _Zepheria_ exactly fits Donne's
description:

                words, words which would teare
  The tender labyrinth of a soft maids eare.

'The verbs "imparadize", "portionize", "thesaurize", are some of
the fruits of his ingenuity. He claims that his Muse is capable
of "hyperbolised trajections"; he apostrophizes his lady's eyes as
"illuminating lamps" and calls his pen his "heart's solicitor".'
Sidney Lee, _Elizabethan Sonnets_. The following sonnet from the
series illustrates the use of legal terminology which both Davies and
Donne satirize:

Canzon 20.

  How often hath my pen (mine heart's Solicitor)
  Instructed thee in Breviat of my case!
  While Fancy-pleading eyes (thy beauty's visitor)
  Have pattern'd to my quill, an angel's face.
  How have my Sonnets (faithful Counsellors)
  Thee without ceasing moved for Day of Hearing!
  While they, my Plaintive Cause (my faith's Revealers!),
  Thy long delay, my patience, in thine ear ring.
  How have I stood at bar of thine own conscience
  When in Requesting Court my suit I brought!
  How have the long adjournments slowed the sentence
  Which I (through much expense of tears) besought!
  Through many difficulties have I run,
  Ah sooner wert thou lost, I wis, than won.

We do not know who the author of _Zepheria_ was, so cannot tell how
far Donne is portraying an individual in what follows. It can hardly
be Hoskins or Martin, unless _Zepheria_ itself was intended to be
a burlesque, which is possible. Quite possibly Donne has taken the
author of _Zepheria_ simply as a type of the young lawyer who writes
bad poetry; and in the rest of the poem portrays the same type when
he has abandoned poetry and devoted himself to 'Law practice for
mere gain', extorting money and lands from Catholics or suspected
Catholics, and drawing cozening conveyances. If _Zepheria_ be the
poems referred to, then 1594-5 would be the date of this Satire.

The third _Satyre_ has no datable references, but its tone reflects
the years in which Donne was loosening himself from the Catholic
Church but had not yet conformed, the years between 1593 and 1599,
and probably the earlier rather than the later of these years. On the
whole 1593 is a little too early a date for these three satires. They
were probably written between 1594 and 1597.

The long fourth _Satyre_ is in the Hawthornden MS. (_HN_) headed
_Sat. 4. anno 1594_. But this is a mistake either of Drummond, who
transcribed the poems probably as late as 1610, or of Donne himself,
whose tendency was to push these early effusions far back in his life.
The reference to 'the losse of Amyens' (l. 114) shows that the poem
must have been written after March 1597, probably between that date
and September, when Amiens was re-taken by Henry IV. These lines _may_
be an insertion, but there is no extant copy of the _Satyre_ without
them. It belongs to the period between the 'Calis-journey' and the
'Island-voyage', when first Donne is likely to have appeared at court
in the train of Essex.

The fifth _Satyre_ is referred by Grosart and Chambers to 1602-3 on
the ground that the phrase 'the great Carricks pepper' is a reference
to the expedition sent out by the East India Company under Captain
James Lancaster to procure pepper, the price of which commodity was
excessively high. Lancaster captured a Portuguese Carrick and sent
home pepper and spice. There is no proof, however, that this ship was
ever known as 'the Carrick' or 'the great Carrick'. That phrase _was_
applied to 'that prodigious great carack called the _Madre de Dios_ or
_Mother of God_, one of the greatest burden belonging to the crown of
Portugal', which was captured by Raleigh's expedition and brought to
Dartmouth in 1592. 'This prize was reckoned the greatest and richest
that had ever been brought into England' and 'daily drew vast numbers
of spectators from all parts to admire at the hugeness of it' (Oldys,
_Life of Raleigh_, 1829, pp. 154-7). Strype states that she 'was seven
decks high, 165 foot long, and manned with 600 men' (_Annals_, iv.
177-82). That pepper formed a large part of the Carrick's cargo is
clear from the following order issued by the Privy Council: _A letter
to Sir Francis Drake, William Killigrewe, Richard Carmarden and Thomas
Midleton Commissioners appointed for the Carrique_. 'Wee have received
your letter of the 23^{rd} of this presente of your proceeding in
lading of other convenient barkes with the pepper out of the Carrique,
and your opinion concerning the same, for answere whereunto we do
thinke it meete, and so require you to take order, so soone as the
goods are quite dischardged, that Sir Martin Frobisher be appointed to
have the charge and conduction of those shippes laden with the pepper
and other commodities out of the Carrique to be brought about to
Chatham.' 27 Octobris, 1592. See also under October 1. The reference
in 'the great Carricks pepper' is thus clear. The words 'You Sir,
whose righteousness she loves', &c., ll. 31-3, show that the poem was
written after Donne had entered Sir Thomas Egerton's service,
i.e. between 1598, if not earlier, and February 1601-2 when he was
dismissed, which makes the date suggested by Grosart and Chambers
(1602-3) impossible. The poem was probably written in 1598-9. There is
a note of enthusiasm in these lines as of one who has just entered
on a service of which he is proud, and the occasion of the poem was
probably Egerton's endeavour to curtail the fees claim'd by the Clerk
of the Star Chamber (see note below). With Essex's return from
Ireland in 1599 began a period of trouble and anxiety for Egerton, and
probably for Donne too. The more sombre cast of his thought, and
the modification in his feelings towards Elizabeth, after the fatal
February of 1600-1, are reflected in the satirical fragment _The
Progresse of the Soule_.

The so-called sixth and seventh _Satyres_ (added in 1635 and 1669)
I have relegated to the _Appendix B_, and have given elsewhere my
reasons for assigning them to Sir John Roe. That Donne wrote only five
regular _Satyres_ is very definitely stated by Drummond of Hawthornden
in a note prefixed to the copy of the fourth in _HN_: 'This Satyre
(though it heere have the first place because no more was intended
to this booke) was indeed the authors fourth in number and order
he having written five in all to using which this caution will
sufficientlie direct in the rest.'


    [Footnote 1: Attention was first called to this inscription by
    J. Payne Collier in his _Poetical Decameron_ (1820). He uses
    the date to vindicate the claim for Donne's priority as a
    satirist to Hall. 'Dunne' is of course one of the many ways
    in which the poet's name is spelt, and 'Jhon' is a spelling
    of 'John'. The poet's own signature is generally 'Jo. Donne.'
    'Jhon Don' is Drummond's spelling on the title-page of _HN_.
    In _Q_ the first page is headed 'M^r John Dunnes Satires'.]


    [Footnote 2: Of the forty-five which the MS. contains, some
    thirty-three were published in the edition referred to above.
    On the other hand the edition contains some which are not
    in the MS. Of these, one, 47, 'Meditations of a gull,' alone
    refers to events which are certainly later than 1594. As this
    is not in the MS. there is nothing to contradict the assertion
    that it (and the Epigrams cited above) belong to 1594.
    Davies' Epigrams are referred to in Sir John Harrington's
    _Metamorphosis of Ajax_, 1596.]


PAGE =145=. SATYRE I.

This _Satyre_ is pretty closely imitated in the _Satyra Quinta_ of
_SKIALETHEIA. or, A shadowe of Truth in certaine Epigrams and Satyres.
1598_. attributed to Edward Guilpin (or Gilpin), to whom extracts from
it are assigned in _Englands Parnassus_ (1600). Who Guilpin was we
do not know. Besides the work named he wrote two sonnets prefixed to
Gervase Markham's _Devoreux. Vertues tears for the losse of the most
Christian King Henry, third of that name; and the untimely death of
the most noble and heroical Gentleman, Walter Devoreux, who was slain
before Roan in France. First written in French by the most excellent
and learned Gentlewoman, Madame Geneuefe Petan Maulette. And
paraphrastically translated into English by Jervis Markham._ 1597. See
Grosart's Introduction to his reprint of _Skialetheia_ in _Occasional
Issues_. 6. (1878). Donne addresses a letter to _Mr. E. G._ (p. 208),
which Gosse conjectures to be addressed to Guilpin. That Guilpin
knew Donne is probable in view of this early imitation of a privately
circulated MS. poem. Guilpin's poem begins:

  Let me alone I prethee in thys Cell,
  Entice me not into the Citties hell;
  Tempt me not forth this _Eden_ of content,
  To tast of that which I shall soone repent:
  Prethy excuse me, I am hot alone
  Accompanied with meditation,
  And calme content, whose tast more pleaseth me
  Then all the Citties lushious vanity.
  I had rather be encoffin'd in this chest
  Amongst these bookes and papers I protest,
  Then free-booting abroad purchase offence,
  And scandale my calme thoughts with discontents.
  Heere I converse with those diviner spirits,
  Whose knowledge, and admire, the world inherits:
  Heere doth the famous profound _Stagarite_,
  With Natures mistick harmony delight
  My ravish'd contemplation: I heere see
  The now-old worlds youth in an history:

l. 1. _Away thou fondling, &c._ The reading of the majority of
editions and MSS. is 'changeling', but this is a case not of a right
and wrong reading but of two versions, both ascribable to the author.
Which was his emendation it is impossible to say. He may have changed
'fondling' (a 'fond' or foolish person) thinking that the idea was
conveyed by 'motley', which, like Shakespeare's epithet 'patch', is a
synecdoche from the dress of the professional fool or jester. On the
other hand the idea of 'changeling' is repeated in 'humorist', which
suggests changeable and fanciful. I have, therefore, let the _1633_
text stand. 'Changeling' has of course the meaning here of 'a fickle
or inconstant person', not the common sense of a person or thing
or child substituted for another, as 'fondling' is not here a 'pet,
favourite', as in modern usage.

l. 3. _Consorted._ Grosart, who professes to print from _H51_, reads
_Consoled_, without any authority.

l. 6. _Natures Secretary_: i.e. Aristotle. He is always 'the
Philosopher' in Aquinas and the other schoolmen. Walton speaks of 'the
great secretary of nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon'.

l. 7. _jolly Statesmen._ All the MSS. except _O'F_ agree with _1633_
in reading 'jolly', though 'wily' is an obvious emendation.
Chambers adopts it. By 'jolly' Donne probably meant 'overweeningly
self-confident ... full of presumptuous pride ... arrogant,
over-bearing' (O.E.D.). 'Evilmerodach, a jolly man, without Iustyse
and cruel.' Caxton (1474). 'It concerneth every one of us ... not
to be too high-minded or jolly for anything that is past.' Sanderson
(1648).

l. 10. _Giddie fantastique Poets of each land._ In a letter Donne
tells Buckingham, in Spain, how his own library is filled with Spanish
books 'from the mistress of my youth, Poetry, to the wife of mine age,
Divinity'. This line in the Satires points to the fact, which Donne
was probably tempted later to obscure a little, that his first
prolonged visit to the Continent had been made before he settled in
London in 1592 and probably without the permission of the Government.
The other than Spanish poets would doubtless be French and Italian.
Donne had read Dante. He refers to him in the fourth _Satyre_ ('who
dreamt he saw hell'), and in an unpublished letter in the Burley MS.
he dilates at some length, but in no very creditable fashion, on an
episode in the _Divina Commedia_. Of French poets he probably knew at
any rate Du Bartas and Regnier.

l. 12. _And follow headlong, wild uncertain thee?_ I have retained the
_1633_ punctuation instead of, with Chambers, comma-ing 'wild' as
well as 'headlong'. The latter is possibly an adverb here, going with
'follow'. The use of 'headlong' as an adjective with persons was not
common. The earliest example in the O.E.D. is from _Hudibras_:

  The Friendly Rug preserv'd the ground,
  And headlong Knight from bruise or wound.

Donne's line is, however, ambiguous; and the subsequent description of
the humorist would justify the adjective.

l. 18. _Bright parcell gilt, with forty dead mens pay._ Compare:
'Captains some in guilt armour (unbatt'red) some in buffe jerkins,
plated o'r with massy silver lace (raz'd out of the ashes of dead
pay).' Dekker, _Newes from Hell_, ii. 119 (Grosart). So many
'dead pays' (i.e. men no longer on the muster roll) were among the
perquisites allowed to every captain of a company, but the number was
constantly exceeded: 'Moreover where' (i.e. whereas) 'there are 15
dead paies allowed ordinarily in every bande, which is paid allwaies
and taken by the captaines, althogh theire nombers be greatly
dyminished in soche sorte as sometimes there are not fower score or
fewer in a company, her Majestys pleasure is that from hence the saide
15 dead paies shall not be allowed unlesse the companies be full and
compleate, but after the rate of two dead paies for everie twenty men
that shalbe in the saide bande where the companies are dyminished.'
Letter to Sir John Norreyes, Knighte. _Acts of the Privy Council_,
1592.

PAGE =146=, l. 27. _Oh monstrous, superstitious puritan._ The
'Monster' of the MSS. is of course _not_ due to the substitution
of the noun for the adjective, but is simply an older form of the
adjective. Compare 'O wonder Vandermast', Greene's _Friar Bacon and
Friar Bungay_.

l. 32. _raise thy formall_: 'raise' is probably right, but 'vaile' is
a common metaphor. 'A Player? Call him, the lousie slave: what will
he saile by, and not once strike or vaile to a Man of Warre.' Captain
Tucca in Jonson's _Poetaster_, III. 3.

l. 33. _That wilt consort none, &c._ It is unnecessary to alter
'consort none' to 'consort with none', as some MSS. do. The
construction is quite regular. 'Wilt thou consort me, bear me
company?' Heywood. The 'consorted with these few books' of l. 3
is classed by the O.E.D. under a slightly different sense of the
word--not 'attended on by' these books, but 'associated in a common
lot with' them.

l. 39. _The nakednesse and barenesse, &c._ The reading 'barrennesse'
of all the editions and some MSS. is due probably to similarity of
pronunciation (rather than of spelling) and a superficial suggestion
of appropriateness to the context. A second glance shows that
'bareness' is the correct reading. The MSS. give frequent evidence of
having been written to dictation.

l. 46. The 'yet', which the later editions and Chambers drop, is quite
in Donne's style. It is heavily stressed and 'he was' is slurred, 'h'
was.'

PAGE =147=, l. 58. _The Infanta of London, Heire to an India._ It is
not necessary to suppose a reference to any person in particular.
The allusion is in the first place to the wealth of the city, and the
greed of patricians and courtiers to profit by that wealth. 'No one
can tell who, amid the host of greedy and expectant suitors, will
carry off whoever is at present the wealthiest minor (and probably the
king's ward) in London, i.e. the City.' Compare the _Epithalamion made
at Lincolns Inn_:

  Daughters of London, you which be
  Our Golden Mines, and furnish'd Treasury,
    You which are Angels, yet still bring with you
  Thousands of Angels on your marriage days
      .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
    Make her for Love fit fuel,
    As gay as Flora, and as rich as Inde.

Compare also: 'I possess as much in your wish, Sir, as if I were made
Lord of the Indies.' Jonson, _Every Man out of his Humour_, II. iii.

The 'Infanta' of _A25_, _O'F_, _Q_ is pretty certainly right, though
'Infant' can be applied, like 'Prince', to a woman. There is probably
a second allusion to the claim of the Infanta of Spain to be heir to
the English throne.

l. 60. _heavens Scheme_: 'Scheme' is certainly the right reading. The
common MS. spelling, 'sceame' or 'sceames', explains the 'sceanes'
which _1633_ has derived from _N_, _TCD_. For the _Satyres_ the editor
did not use his best MS. See _Text and Canon, &c._, p. xcv. It is
possible that a slurred definite article ('th'heavens') has been lost.

In preparing his 'theme' or horoscope the astrologer had five
principal things to consider, (1) the heavenly mansions, (2) the signs
of the zodiac, (3) the planets, (4) the aspects and configurations,
(5) the fixed stars. With this end in view the astrologer divided the
heavens into twelve parts, called mansions, to which he related the
positions occupied at the same moment by the stars in each of them
('drawing the horoscope'). There were several methods of doing this.
That of Ptolemy consisted in dividing the zodiac into twelve equal
parts. This was called the equal manner. To represent the mansions the
astrologers constructed twelve triangles between two squares placed
one within the other. Each of the twelve mansions thus formed had
a different name, and determined different aspects of the life and
fortune of the subject of the horoscope. From the first was foretold
the general character of his life, his health, his habits, morals.
The second indicated his wealth; and so on. The different signs of
the zodiac and the planets, in like manner, had each its special
influence. But sufficient has been said to indicate what Donne means
by 'drawing forth Heavens scheme'.

l. 62. _subtile-witted._ There is something to be said for the
'supple-witted' of _H51_ and some other MSS. 'Subtle-witted' means
'fantastic, ingenious'; 'supple-witted' means 'variable'. Like
Fastidious Brisk in _Every Man out of his Humour_, they have a fresh
fashion in suits every day. 'When men are willing to prefer their
friends, we heare them often give these testimonies of a man; He
hath good parts, and you need not be ashamed to speak for him; he
understands the world, he knowes how things passe, and he hath a
discreet, a supple, and an appliable disposition, and hee may make a
fit instrument for all your purposes, and you need not be afraid to
speake for him.' _Sermons_ 80. 74. 750. A 'supple disposition' is one
that changes easily to adapt itself to circumstances.

PAGE =148=, l. 81. _O Elephant or Ape_, See Introductory Note to
_Satyres_.

l. 89. _I whispered let'us go._ I have, following the example of
_1633_ in other cases, indicated the slurring of 'let'us' or 'let's',
which is necessary metrically if we are to read the full 'whispered'
which _1669_ first contracts to 'whisperd'. _Q_ shows that 'let's'
is the right contraction. Donne's use of colloquial slurrings must be
constantly kept in view when reading especially his satires. They are
not always indicated in the editions: but note l. 52:

  I shut my chamber doore, and come, lets goe.

PAGE =149=, ll. 100-4. My punctuation of these lines is a slight
modification of that indicated by _W_ and _JC_, which give the proper
division of the speeches. The use of inverted commas would make this
clearer, but Chambers' division seems to me (if I understand it) to
give the whole speech, from 'But to me' to 'So is the Pox', to Donne's
companion, which is to deprive Donne of his closing repartee. The
Grolier Club editor avoids this, but makes 'Why he hath travelled
long?' a part of Donne's speech beginning 'Our dull comedians want
him'. I divide the speeches thus:--

  _Donne._ Why stoop'st thou so?

  _Companion._ Why? he hath travail'd.

  _Donne._ Long?

  _Companion._ No: but to me (_Donne interpolates_ 'which
        understand none') he doth seem to be
    Perfect French and Italian.

  _Donne._ So is the Pox.

The brackets round 'which understand none' I have taken from _Q_.
I had thought of inserting them before I came on this MS. Of course
brackets in old editions are often used where commas would be
sufficient, and one can build nothing on their insertion here in one
MS. But it seems to me that these words have no point unless regarded
as a sarcastic comment interpolated by Donne, perhaps _sotto voce_.
'To you, who understand neither French nor Italian, he may seem
perfect French and Italian--but to no one else.' Probably an eclectic
attire was the only evidence of travel observable in the person in
question. 'How oddly is he suited!' says Portia of her English wooer;
'I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his
bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.' Brackets are thus
used by Jonson to indicate a remark interjected _sotto voce_. See the
quotation from the _Poetaster_ in the note on _The Message_ (II. p.
37). Modern editors substitute for the brackets the direction 'Aside',
which is not in the Folio (1616).


PAGE =149=. SATYRE II.

ll. 1-4. It will be seen that _H51_ gives two alternative versions of
these lines. The version of the printed text is that of the majority
of the MSS.

PAGE =150=, ll. 15-16. _As in some Organ, &c._ Chambers prints these
lines with a comma after 'move', connecting them with what follows
about love-poetry. Clearly they belong to what has been said about
dramatic poets. It is Marlowe and his fellows who are the bellows
which set the actor-puppets in motion.

ll. 19-20. _Rammes and slings now, &c._ The 'Rimes and songs' of _P_
is a quaint variant due either to an accident of hearing or to an
interpretation of the metaphor: 'As in war money is more effective
than rams and slings, so it is more effective in love than songs.' But
there is a further allusion in the condensed stroke, for 'pistolets'
means also 'fire-arms'. Money is as much more effective than poetry in
love as fire-arms are than rams and slings in war. Donne is Dryden's
teacher in the condensed stroke, which 'cleaves to the waist', lines
such as

  They got a villain, and we lost a fool.

PAGE =151=, l. 33. _to out-sweare the Letanie._ 'Letanie,' the reading
of all the MSS., is indicated by a dash in _1633_ and is omitted
without any indication by _1635-39_. In _1649-50_ the blank was
supplied, probably conjecturally, by 'the gallant'. It was not till
_1669_ that 'Letanie' was inserted. In 'versifying' Donne's _Satyres_
Pope altered this to 'or Irishmen out-swear', and Warburton in a note
explains the original: 'Dr. Donne's is a low allusion to a licentious
quibble used at that time by the enemies of the English Liturgy, who,
disliking the frequent invocations in the Litanie, called them the
_taking God's name in vain_, which is the Scripture periphrasis for
swearing.'

l. 36. _tenements._ Drummond in _HN_ writes 'torments', probably a
conjectural emendation. Drummond was not so well versed in Scholastic
Philosophy as Donne.

l. 44. _But a scarce Poet._ This is the reading of the best MSS., and
I have adopted it in preference to 'But scarce a Poet', which is an
awkward phrase and does not express what the writer means. Donne does
not say that he is barely a poet, but that he is a bad poet. Donne
uses 'scarce' thus as an adjective again in _Satyre IV_, l. 4 (where
see note) and l. 240. It seems to have puzzled copyists and editors,
who amend it in various ways. By 'jollier of this state' he means
'prouder of this state', using the word as in 'jolly statesmen', I. 7.

l. 48. '_language of the Pleas and Bench._' See Introductory Note for
legal diction in love-sonnets.

  PAGE =152=, ll. 62-3. _but men which chuse
    Law practise for meere gaine, bold soule, repute._

The unpunctuated 'for meere gaine bold soule repute' of _1633-69_ and
most MSS. has caused considerable trouble to the editors and copyists.
One way out of the difficulty, 'bold souls repute,' appears in
Chambers' edition as an emendation, and before that in Tonson's
edition (1719), whence it was copied by all the editions to Chalmers'
(1810). Lowell's conjecture, 'hold soules repute,' had been anticipated
in some MSS. There is no real difficulty. I had comma'd the words
'bold soule' before I examined _Q_, which places them in brackets,
a common means in old books of indicating an apostrophe. The 'bold
soule' addressed, and invoked to esteem such worthless people
aright, is the 'Sir' (whoever that may be) to whom the whole poem is
addressed. A note in _HN_ prefixed to this poem says that it is taken
from 'C. B.'s copy', i.e. Christopher Brooke's. It is quite possible
that this _Satyre_, like _The Storme_, was addressed to him.

  ll. 71-4. _Like a wedge in a block, wring to the barre,
      Bearing-like Asses; and more shamelesse farre, &c._

These lines are printed as in _1633_, except that the comma after
'Asses' is raised to a semicolon, and that I have put a hyphen between
'Bearing' and 'like'. The lines are difficult and have greatly puzzled
editors. Grosart prints from _H51_ and reads 'wringd', which, though
an admissible form of the past-participle, makes no sense here. The
Grolier Club editor prints:

  Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
  Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
  Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge; for ...

Chambers adopts much the same scheme:

  Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
  Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
  Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge, for ...

By retaining the comma after 'bar' in a modernized text with modern
punctuation these editors leave it doubtful whether they do or do not
consider that 'asses' is the object to 'wring'. Further, they connect
'and more shameless far than carted whores' closely with 'asses',
separating it by a semicolon from 'lie to the grave judge'. I take it
that 'more shameless far' is regarded by these editors as a qualifying
adjunct to 'asses'. This is surely wrong. The subject of the
long sentence is 'He' (l. 65), and the infinitives throughout are
complements to 'must': 'He must walk ... he must talk ... [he must]
lie ... [he must] wring to the bar bearing-like asses; [he must], more
shameless than carted whores, lie to the grave judge, &c.' This is the
only method in which I can construe the passage, and it carries with
it the assumption that 'bearing like' should be connected by a hyphen
to form an adjective similar to 'Relique-like', which is the MS. form
of 'Relique-ly' at l. 84. Certainly it is 'he', Coscus, who is 'more
shameless, &c.,' not his victims. These are the 'bearing-like asses',
the patient Catholics or suspected Catholics whom he wrings to the bar
and forces to disgorge fines. Coscus, a poet in his youth, has become
a Topcliffe in his maturer years. 'Bearing,' 'patient' is the regular
epithet for asses in Elizabethan literature:

  Asses are made to bear and so are you.
                              _Taming of the Shrew_, II. i. 200.

In Jonson's _Poetaster_, v. i, the ass is declared to be the
hieroglyphic of

  Patience, frugality, and fortitude.

Possibly, but it is not very likely, Donne refers not only to the
stupid patience of the ass but to her fertility: 'They be very
gainefull and profitable to their maisters, yielding more commodities
than the revenues of good farmers.' Holland's _Pliny_, 8. 43, _Of
Asses_.

PAGE =153=, l. 87. _In parchments._ The plural is the reading of the
better MSS. and seems to me to give the better sense. The final 's'
is so easily overlooked or confounded with a final 'e' that one must
determine the right reading by the sense of the passage.

ll. 93-6. _When Luther was profest, &c._ The 'power and glory clause'
which is not found in the Vulgate or any of the old Latin versions
of the New Testament (and is therefore not used in Catholic prayers,
public or private), was taken by Erasmus (1516) from all the Greek
codices, though he does not regard it as genuine. Thence it passed
into Luther's (1521) and most Reformed versions. In his popular and
devotional _Auslegung deutsch des Vaterunsers_ (1519) Luther makes no
reference to it.

l. 105. _Whereas th'old ... In great hals._ The line as I have printed
it combines the versions of _1633_ and the later editions. It is found
in several MSS. Some of these, on the other hand, like _1633-69_,
read 'where'; but 'where's' with a plural subject following was quite
idiomatic. Compare: 'Here needs no spies nor eunuchs,' p. 81, l. 39;
'With firmer age returns our liberties,' p. 115, l. 77.

At p. 165, l. 182, the MSS. point to 'cryes his flatterers' as
the original version. See Franz, _Shak.-Gram._ § 672; Knecht, _Die
Kongruenz zwischen Subjekt und Prädikat_ (1911), p. 28.

Donne has other instances of irregular concord, or of the plural form
in 's', and 'th':

                        by thy fathers wrath
  By all paines which want and divorcement hath.
                                                P. 111, l. 8.

  Had'st thou staid there, and look'd out at her eyes,
  All had ador'd thee that now from thee flies.
                                               P. 285, l. 17.

  Those unlick't beare-whelps, unfil'd pistolets
  That (more than Canon shot) availes or lets.
                                                P. 97, l. 32.

The rhyme makes the form here indisputable. The MSS. point to a more
frequent use of 'hath' with a plural subject than the editions have
preserved. The above three instances seem all plurals. In other cases
the individuals form a whole, or there is ellipsis:

    All Kings, and all their favorites,
    All glory of honors, beauties, wits,
  The Sunne it selfe which makes times, as they passe,
  Is elder by a year, now, then it was.
                          _The Anniversarie_, p. 24, ll. 1-4.

  He that but tasts, he that devours,
  And he that leaves all, doth as well.
                               _Communitie_, p. 33, ll. 20-1.

PAGE =154=, l. 107. _meanes blesse_. The reading of _1633_ has the
support of the best MSS. Grosart and Chambers prefer the reading of
the later editions, 'Meane's blest.' This, it would seem to me, needs
the definite article. The other reading gives quite the same sense,
'in all things means (i.e. middle ways, moderate measures) bring
blessings':

  Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
  Semper urgendo neque, dum procellas
  Cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
        Litus iniquum.

  Auream quisquis mediocritatem
  Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
  Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
        Sobrius aula.
                                      Horace, _Odes_, ii. 10.

The general tenor of the closing lines recalls Horace's treatment of
the same theme in _Sat._ ii. 2. 88, 125, more than either Juvenal,
_Sat._ ix, or Persius, _Sat._ vi.

Grosart states that 'means, then as now, meant riches, possessions,
but never the mean or middle'. But see O.E.D., which quotes for the
plural in this sense: 'Tempering goodly well Their contrary dislikes
with loved means.' Spenser, _Hymns_. In the singular Bacon has, 'But
to speake in a Meane.' _Of Adversitie_.


PAGE =154=. SATYRE III.

PAGE =155=, l. 19. _leaders rage._ This phrase might tempt one to date
the poem after the Cadiz expedition and Islands voyage, in both of
which 'leaders' rage', i.e. the quarrels of Howard and Essex, and of
Essex and Raleigh, militated against success; but it is too little to
build upon. Donne may mean simply the arbitrary exercise of arbitrary
power on the part of leaders.

ll. 30-2. _who made thee to stand Sentinell, &c._ 'Souldier' is the
reading of what is perhaps the older version of the _Satyres_. It
would do as well: 'Quare et tibi, Publi, et piis omnibus retinendus
est animus in custodia corporis; nec iniussu eius a quo ille est
vobis datus ex hominum vita migrandum est, ne munus assignatum a Deo
defugisse videamini.' Cicero, _Somnium Scipionis_.

'Veteres quidem philosophiae principes, Pythagoras et Plotinus,
prohibitionis huius non tam creatores sunt quam praecones, omnino
illicitum esse dicentes _quempiam militiae servientem a praesidio et
commissa sibi statione discedere_ contra ducis vel principis iussum.
Plane eleganti exemplo usi sunt eo quod militia est vita hominis super
terram.' John of Salisbury, _Policrat._ ii. 27.

Donne considers the rashness of those whom he refers to as a degree
of, an approach to, suicide. To expose ourselves to these perils we
abandon the moral warfare to which we are appointed. In his own work
on suicide ([Greek: BIATHANATOS], &c.) Donne discusses the permissible
approaches to suicide. An unpublished _Problem_ shows his knowledge of
John of Salisbury.

ll. 33-4. _Know thy foes, &c._ I have followed the better MSS. here
against _1633_ and _L74_, _N_, _TCD_. The dropping of 's' after 'foe'
has probably led to the attempt to regularize the construction by
interjecting 'h'is'. Donne has three foes in view--the devil, the
world, and the flesh.

l. 35. _quit._ Whether we read 'quit' or 'rid' the construction
is difficult. The phrase seems to mean 'to be free of his whole
Realm'--an unparalleled use of either adjective.

l. 36. _The worlds all parts._ Here 'all' means 'every', but
Shakespeare would make 'parts' singular: 'All bond and privilege of
nature break,' _Cor._ V. iii. 25. Donne blends two constructions.

PAGE =156=, l. 49. _Crantz._ I have adopted the spelling of _W_, which
emphasizes the Dutch character of the name. The 'Crates' of _Q_ is
tempting as bringing the name into line with the other classical ones,
but all the other MSS. have an 'n' in the word. Donne has in view
the 'schismatics of Amsterdam' (_The Will_) and their followers.
The change to Grant or Grants shows a tendency in the copyists to
substitute a Scotch for a Dutch name.

PAGE =157=, ll. 69-71. _But unmoved thou, &c._ As punctuated in the
old editions these lines are certainly ambiguous. The semicolon after
'allow' has a little less value than that of a full stop; that
after 'right' a little more than a comma, or contrariwise. Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor all connect 'and the right' with
what precedes:

                            But unmoved thou
  Of force must one, and forced but one allow;
  And the right.

So Chambers,--Grosart and the Grolier Club editor place a comma after
'allow'. It seems to me that 'And the right' goes rather with what
follows:

                          But unmoved thou
  Of force must one, and forced but one allow.
  And the right, ask thy father which is she.

If the first arrangement be right, then 'And' seems awkward. The
second marks two stages in the argument: a stable judgement compels
us to acknowledge religion, and that there can be only one. This being
so, the next question is, Which is the true one? As to that, we cannot
do better than consult our fathers:

  In doubtful questions 'tis the safest way
  To learn what unsuspected ancients say;
  For 'tis not likely we should higher soar
  In search of Heaven than all the Church before;
  Nor can we be deceived unless we see
  The Scriptures and the Fathers disagree.
                                         Dryden, _Religio Laici_.

'Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:
ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell
thee.' Deut. xxxii. 7.

l. 76. _To adore, or scorne an image, &c._ Compare: 'I should violate
my own arm rather than a Church, nor willingly deface the name of
Saint or Martyr. At the sight of a Cross or Crucifix I can dispense
with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour: I
cannot laugh at, but rather pity the fruitless journeys of Pilgrims,
or contemn the miserable condition of Friars; for though misplaced
in circumstances, there is something in it of Devotion. I could
never hear the _Ave-Mary_ Bell without an elevation, or think it a
sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me
to err in all, that is in silence and dumb contempt.... At a solemn
Procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts blind with
opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn and
laughter.' Sir Thomas Browne, _Religio Medici_, sect. 3. Compare also
Donne's letter To Sir H. R. (probably to Goodyere), (_Letters_,
p. 29), 'You know I have never imprisoned the word Religion; not
straightning it Friarly _ad religiones factitias_, (as the Romans
call well their orders of Religion), nor immuring it in a Rome, or
a Geneva; they are all virtual beams of one Sun.... They are not so
contrary as the North and South Poles; and they are connaturall pieces
of one circle. Religion is Christianity, which being too spirituall to
be seen by us, doth therefore take an apparent body of good life and
works, so salvation requires an honest Christian.'

l. 80. _Cragged and steep._ The three epithets, 'cragged', 'ragged',
and 'rugged', found in the MSS., are all legitimate and appropriate.
The second has the support of the best MSS. and is used by Donne
elsewhere: 'He shall shine upon thee in all dark wayes, and rectifie
thee in all ragged ways.' _Sermons_ 80. 52. 526. Shakespeare uses it
repeatedly: 'A ragged, fearful, hanging rock,' _Gent. of Ver._ I.
ii. 121; 'My ragged prison walls,' _Rich. II_, V. v. 21; and
metaphorically, 'Winter's ragged hand,' _Sonn._ VI. i.

ll. 85-7. _To will implyes delay, &c._ I have changed the 'to' of
_1633_ to 'too'. It is a mere change of spelling and has the support
of both _H51_ and _W_. Grosart and Chambers take it as the preposition
following the noun it governs, 'hard knowledge to'--an unexampled
construction in the case of a monosyllabic preposition. Franz
(_Shak.-Gram._ § 544) gives cases of inversion for metrical purposes,
but only with 'mehrsilbigen Präpositionen', e.g. 'For fear lest day
should look their shapes upon.' _Mid. N. Dream_, III. ii. 385.

Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers have all, I think, been
misled by the accidental omission in _1633_ of the full stop or colon
after 'doe', l. 85. Chambers prints:

  To will implies delay, therefore now do
  Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge to
  The mind's endeavours reach.

The Grolier Club version is:

  To will implies delay, therefore now do
  Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge too
  The mind's endeavours reach.

The latter is the better version, but in each 'the body's pains' is a
strange apposition to 'deeds' taken as object to 'do'. We do not 'do
pains'. The second clause also has no obvious relation to the first
which would justify the 'too'. If we close the first sentence at
'doe', we get both better sense and a better balance: 'Act _now_, for
the night cometh. Hard deeds are achieved by the body's pains (i.e.
toil, effort), and hard knowledge is attained by the mind's efforts.'
The order of the words, and the condensed force given to 'reach'
produce a somewhat harsh effect, but not more so than is usual in the
_Satyres_, and less so than the alternative versions of the editors.
The following lines continue the thought quite naturally: 'No
endeavours of the mind will enable us to _comprehend_ mysteries, but
all eyes can _apprehend_ them, dazzle as they may.' Compare: 'In all
Philosophy there is not so darke a thing as light; As the sunne which
is _fons lucis naturalis_, the beginning of naturall light, is the
most evident thing to be seen, and yet the hardest to be looked upon,
so is naturall light to our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer,
for it is _clearnesse_ it selfe, nothing darker, it is enwrapped in so
many scruples. Nothing nearer, for it is round about us, nothing more
remote, for wee know neither entrance, nor limits of it. Nothing
more _easie_, for a child discerns it, nothing more _hard_ for no man
understands it. It is apprehensible by _sense_, and not comprehensible
by _reason_. If wee winke, wee cannot chuse but see it, if wee stare,
wee know it never the better.' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 324.

PAGE =158=, ll. 96-7. _a Philip, or a Gregory, &c._ Grosart and Norton
conjecture that by Philip is meant Melanchthon, and for 'Gregory'
Norton conjectures Gregory VII; Grosart either Gregory the Great or
Gregory of Nazianzus. But surely Philip of Spain is balanced against
Harry of England, one defender of the faith against another, as
Gregory against Luther. What Gregory is meant we cannot say,
but probably Donne had in view Gregory XIII or Gregory XIV,
post-Reformation Popes, rather than either of those mentioned above.
Satire does not deal in Ancient History. The choice is between
Catholic and Protestant Princes and Popes.


PAGE =158=. SATYRE IIII.

This satire, like several of the period, is based on Horace's _Ibam
forte via Sacra_ (_Sat._ i. 9), but Donne follows a quite independent
line. Horace's theme is at bottom a contrast between his own
friendship with Maecenas and 'the way in which vulgar and pushing
people sought, and sought in vain, to obtain an introduction'. Donne,
like Horace, describes a bore, but makes this the occasion for a
general picture of the hangers-on at Court. A more veiled thread
running through the poem is an attack on the ways and tricks of
informers. The bore's gossip is probably not without a motive:

            I ... felt my selfe then
  Becoming Traytor, and mee thought I saw
  One of our Giant Statutes ope his jaw
  To sucke me in.

The manner in which the stranger accosts him suggests the
'intelligencer': 'Two hungry turns had I scarce fetcht in this wast
gallery when I was encountered by a neat pedantical fellow, in the
forme of a Cittizen, who thrusting himself abruptly into my companie,
like an Intelligencer, began very earnestly to question me.' Nash,
_Pierce Penniless_.

In the _Satyres_ Donne is always, though he does not state his
position too clearly, one with links attaching him to the persecuted
Catholic minority. He hates informers and pursuivants.

ll. 1-4. These lines resemble the opening of Régnier's imitation of
Horace's satire:

  Charles, de mes peches j'ay bien fait penitence;
  Or, toy qui te cognois aux cas de conscience,
  Juge si j'ay raison de penser estre absous.

I can trace no further resemblance.

l. 4. _A recreation to, and scarse map of this._ I have ventured here
to restore, from _Q_ and its duplicate among the Dyce MSS., what I
think must have been the original form of this line. The adjective
'scarse' or 'scarce' used in this way ('a scarce poet', 'a scarce
brook') is characteristic of Donne, and it always puzzled his
copyists, who tried to correct it in one way or another, e.g. 'scarce
a poet', II. 44; 'a scant brooke', IV. 240. It is inconceivable that
they would have introduced it. The preposition 'to' governing 'such
as' regularizes the construction, but would very easily be omitted by
a copyist who wished to smooth the metre or did not at once catch its
reference. Donne's use of 'scarse', like his use of 'Macaron' in this
poem, is probably an Italianism; in Italian 'scarso' means 'wanting,
scanty, poor'--'stretta e scarsa fortuna', 'E si riduce talvolta nell'
Estate con si scarsa acqua', 'Veniva bellissima tanto quanto ogni
comparazione ci saria scarsa', 'Ma l'ingegno e le rime erano scarse'
(Petrarch).

PAGE =159=, l. 21. _seaven Antiquaries studies._ Donne has more than
one hit at Antiquaries. See the _Epigrams_ and _Satyre V_. The reign
of Elizabeth witnessed a great revival of antiquarian studies and the
first formation of an Antiquarian society: 'There was a time, most
excellent king,' says a later writer addressing King James, 'when
as well under Queen Elizabeth, as under your majesty, certain
choice gentlemen, men of known proof, were knit together, _statis
temporibus_, by the love of these studies, upon contribution among
themselves: which company consisted of an elective president and of
clarissimi, of other antiquaries and a register.' Oldys, _Life of
Raleigh_, p. 317. He goes on to describe how the society was dissolved
by death. In the list of names he gives there are more than seven,
but it is just possible that Donne refers to some such society in its
early stages.

l. 22. _Africks monsters, Guianaes rarities._ Africa was famous as the
land of monsters. The second reference is to the marvels described in
Sir Walter Raleigh's _The discoverie of the large, rich and bewtiful
Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden City of
Manoa which the Spaniards call El Dorado, performed in the year 1595_
(pub. 1596). Among the monsters were Amazons, Anthropophagi,

        and men whose heads
  Do grow beneath their shoulders.

l. 23. _Stranger then strangers, &c._ The 'Stranger then strangest'
of some MSS. would form a natural climax to the preceding list of
marvels. But 'strangers' is the authoritative reading, and forms the
transition to the next few lines. The reference is to the unpopularity
in London of the numerous strangers whom wars and religious
persecution had collected in England. Strype (_Annals_, iv) prints a
paper of 1568 in which the Lord Mayor gives to the Privy Council
an account of the strangers in London. In 1593 there were again
complaints of their presence and threats to attack them. 'While these
inquiries were making, to incense the people against them there were
these lines in one of their libels: Doth not the world see that
you, beastly brutes, the Belgians, or rather drunken drones and
faint-hearted Flemings; and you fraudulent father (_sic. Query_
'faitor[s]'), Frenchmen, by your cowardly flight from your own natural
countries, have abandoned the same into the hands of your proud,
cowardly enemies, and have by a feigned hypocrisy and counterfeit show
of religion placed yourself here in a most fertile soil, under a most
gracious and merciful prince; who hath been contented, to the great
prejudice of her own natural subjects, to suffer you to live here in
better case and more freedom then her own people--Be it known to all
Flemings and Frenchmen that it is best for them to depart out of the
realm of England between this and the 9th of July next. If not then to
take that which follows: for that there shall be many a sore stripe.
Apprentices will rise to the number of 2336. And all the apprentices
and journeymen will down with the Flemings and strangers.'

Another libel was in verse, and after quoting it the official document
proceeds: 'The court upon these seditious motives took the most
prudent measures to protect the poor strangers, and to prevent any
riot or insurrection.' Among other provisions, 'Orders to be given to
appoint a strong watch of merchants and others, and like-handicrafted
masters, to answer for their apprentices' and servants' misdoing.'
Strype's _Annals_, iv. 234-5.

In the same year a bill was promoted in Parliament _against aliens
selling foreign wares among us by retail_, which Raleigh supported:
'Whereas it is pretended that for strangers it is against charity,
against honour, against profit to expel them: in my opinion it is no
matter of charity to relieve them. For first, such as fly hither have
forsaken their own king: and religion is no pretext for them; for we
have no Dutchmen here, but such as come from those princes where the
gospel is preached; yet here they live disliking our church,' &c.
Birch, _Life of Raleigh_, p. 163.

I have thought it worth while to note these more recent references as
Grosart refers to the rising against strangers on May-day, 1517.

l. 29. _by your priesthood, &c._ In 1581 a proclamation was issued
imposing the penalty of death on any Jesuits or seminary priests who
entered the Queen's dominions, and in 1585 Parliament again decreed
that all Jesuits and seminary priests were to leave the kingdom
within forty days under the capital penalty of treason. The detection,
imprisonment, torture, and execution of disguised priests form a
considerable chapter in Elizabethan history. Donne's companion looks
so strange that he runs the risk of arrest as a seminary priest
from Rome, or Douay. See Strype's _Annals_, passim, and Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.

PAGE =160=, l. 35. _and saith_: 'saith' is the reading of all the
earlier editions, although Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
silently alter it to an exclamatory 'faith'--turning it into a
statement which Donne immediately contradicts. The 'saith' is a
harshly interpolated 'so he says'. One MS. adds 'he', and possibly the
pronoun in some form has been dropped, e.g. 'sayth a speakes'.

ll. 37-8. _Made of the Accents, &c._ It is perhaps rash to accept
the 'no language' of _A25_, _Q_, and the Dyce MS. But the last
two represent, I think, an early version of the _Satyres_, and 'no
language' (like 'nill be delayed', _Epithal. made at Lincolns Inn_)
is just the sort of reading that would tend to disappear in repeated
transmission. It is too bold for the average copyist or editor. But
its boldness is characteristic of Donne; it gives a much better sense;
and it is echoed by Jonson in his _Discoveries_: 'Spenser in affecting
the ancients writ no language.' In like manner Donne's companion, in
affecting the accents and best phrases of all languages, spoke none. I
confess that seems to me a more pointed remark than that he spoke one
made up of these.

l. 48. _Jovius or Surius_: Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, among many
other works wrote _Historiarum sui temporis Libri XLV. 1553_. Chambers
quotes from the _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_: 'Ses œœuvres sont
pleines des mensonges dont profita sa cupidité.'

Laurentius Surius (1522-78) was a Carthusian monk who wrote
ecclesiastical history. Among his works are a _Commentarius brevis
rerum in orbe gestarum ab anno 1550_ (1568), and a _Vitae Sanctorum,
1570 et seq._ He was accused of inaccuracy by Protestant writers.
It is worth while noting that _Q_ and _O'F_ read 'Sleydan', i.e.
Sleidanus. John Sleidan (1506-56) was a Protestant historian who,
like Surius, wrote both general and ecclesiastical history, e.g. _De
quatuor Summis Imperiis, Babylonico, Persico, Graeco, et Romano_, 1556
(an English translation appeared in 1635), and _De Statu Religionis et
Reipublicae, Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii_ (1555-9). The latter
is a history of the Reformation written from the Protestant point of
view, to which Surius' work is a reply. Sleidan's history did not
give entire satisfaction to the reformers. It is quite possible
that Donne's first sneer was at the Protestant historian and that he
thought it safer later to substitute the Catholic Surius.

l. 54. _Calepines Dictionarie._ A well-known polyglot dictionary
edited by Ambrose Calepine (1455-1511) in 1502. It grew later to
a _Dictionarium Octolingue_, and ultimately to a _Dictionarium XI
Linguarum_ (Basel, 1590).

l. 56. _Some other Jesuites._ The 'other' is found only in _HN_, which
is no very reliable authority. Without it the line wants a whole
foot, not merely a syllable. Donne more than once drops a syllable,
compensating for it by the length and stress which is given to
another. Nothing can make up for the want of a whole foot, though in
dramatic verse an incomplete line may be effective. To me, too, it
seems very like Donne to introduce this condensed and sudden stroke at
Beza and nothing more likely to have been dropped later, either by
way of precaution or because it was not understood. No one of the
reformers was more disliked by Catholics than Beza. The licence of
his early life, his loose Latin verses, the scurrilous wit of his own
controversial method--all exposed him to and provoked attack. The _De
Vita et Moribus Theodori Bezae, Omnium Haereticorum nostri temporis
facile principis, &c.: Authore Jacobo Laingaeo Doctore Sorbonico_
(1585), is a bitter and calumnious attack. There was, too, something
of the Jesuit, both in the character of the arguments used and in the
claim made on behalf of the Church to direct the civil arm, in Beza's
defence of the execution of Servetus. Moreover, the _Vindiciae contra
Tyrannos_ was sometimes attributed to Beza, and the views of the
reformers regarding the rights of kings put forward there, and those
held by the Jesuits, approximate closely. (See _Cambridge Modern
History_, iii. 22, _Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century_, pp.
759-66.) In his subsequent attacks upon the Jesuits, Donne always
singles out the danger of their doctrines and practice to the
authority of kings. Throughout the _Satyres_ Donne's veiled Catholic
prejudices have to be constantly borne in mind.

PAGE =161=, l. 59. _and so Panurge was._ See Rabelais, _Pantagruel_
ii. 9. One day that Pantagruel was walking with his friends he met
'un homme beau de stature et elegant en tous lineaments de corps,
mais pitoyablement navré en divers lieux, et tant mal en ordre qu'il
sembloit estre eschappe es chiens'. Pantagruel, convinced from his
appearance that 'il n'est pauvre que par fortune', demands of him his
name and story. He replies; but, to the dismay of Pantagruel and his
friends, his answer is couched first in German, then in Arabic (?),
then in Italian, in English (or what passes as such), in Basque,
in Lanternoy (an Esperanto of Rabelais's invention), in Dutch, in
Spanish, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Greek, in the language of
Utopia, and finally in Latin. '"Dea, mon amy," dist Pantagruel, "ne
sçavez-vous parler françoys?" "Si faict tresbien, Seigneur," respondit
le compaignon; "Dieu mercy! c'est ma langue naturelle et maternelle,
car je suis né et ay esté nourry jeune au jardin de France: c'est
Touraine."--"Doncques," dist Pantagruel, "racomtez nous quel est votre
nom et dont vous venez."... "Seigneur," dist le compagnon, "mon vray
et propre nom de baptesmes est Panurge."' Panurge was not much behind
Calepine's Dictionary, and if Donne's companion spoke in the
'accent and best phrase' of all these tongues he certainly spoke 'no
language'.

l. 69. _doth not last_: 'last' has the support of several good
MSS., 'taste' (i.e. savour, go down, be acceptable) of some. It is
impossible to decide on intrinsic grounds between them.

l. 70. _Aretines pictures._ The lascivious pictures of Giulio Romano,
for which Aretino wrote sonnets.

l. 75. _the man that keepes the Abbey tombes._ See Davies' epigram,
_On Dacus_, quoted in the general note on the _Satyres_.

l. 80. _Kingstreet._ From Charing Cross to the King's Palace at
Westminster. It was for long the only way to Westminster from the
north. 'The last part of it has now been covered by the new Government
offices in Parliament Street'. Stow's _Survey of London_, ed. Charles
Lethbridge Kingsford (1908), ii. 102 and notes.

ll. 83-7. I divide the dialogue thus:

    _Companion._ Are not your Frenchmen neat?

    _Donne._ Mine? As you see I have but one Frenchman, look he
    follows me.

    _Companion (ignoring this impertinence)._ Certes they (i.e.
    Frenchmen) are neatly cloth'd. I of this mind am, Your only
    wearing is your grogaram.

    _Donne._ Not so Sir, I have more.

The joke turns on Donne's pretending to misunderstand the bore's
colloquial, but rather affected, indefinite use of 'your'. Donne
applies it to himself: 'You are mistaken in thinking that I have only
one suit.' Chambers gives the whole speech, from 'He's base' to 'he
follows me', to the bore. This gives 'Certes ... grogaram' to Donne,
and the closing repartee to the bore. Chambers uses inverted commas,
and has, probably by an oversight, omitted to begin a new speech at
'Mine'.

For 'your' as used by the bore compare Bottom's use of it in
_A Midsummer Nights Dream_: 'I will discharge it in either your
straw-coloured beard, or your orange-tawny beard', and 'there is not
a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion'. In most of the instances
quoted by Schmidt there is the suggestion that Shakespeare is making
fun of an affectation of the moment. That Donne had a French servant
appears from one of his letters: 'therefore I onely send you this
Letter ... and my promise to distribute your other Letters, according
to your addresses, as fast as my Monsieur can doe it.' To Sir G. B.,
_Letters_, p. 201.

PAGE =162=, l. 97. _ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stowes._ Every
reader of these old chroniclers knows how they mingle with their
account of the greater events of each year mention of trifling events,
strange births, fires, &c. This characteristic of the Chronicles is
reflected in the History-Plays based on them. Nash complains of these
'lay-chroniclers that write of nothing but of Mayors and Sherifs, and
the deere yere and the great frost'. _Pierce Penniless._

ll. 98. _he knowes; He knowes._ I have followed _D_, _H49_, _Lec_
in thus punctuating. To place the semicolon after 'trash' makes 'Of
triviall household trash' depend rather awkwardly on 'lye'. Donne does
not accuse the chroniclers of lying, but of reporting trivialities.

PAGE =163=, l. 113-4. _since The Spaniards came, &c._: i.e. from 1588
to 1597.

l. 117. _To heare this Makeron talke._ This is the earliest instance
of this Italian word used in English which the O.E.D. quotes, and is
a proof of Donne's Italian travels. The _Vocabolario degli Accademici
della Crusca_ (1747) quotes as an example of the word with this
meaning, _homo crassâ Minerva_, in Italian:

  O maccheron, ben hai la vista corta.
                                         Bellina, _Sonetti_, 29.

Donne's use of the word attracted attention. It is repeated in one of
the _Elegies to the Author_, and led to the absurd substitution, in
the editions after _1633_, of 'maceron' for 'mucheron' (mushroom) in
the epistle prefixed to _The Progress of the Soule_.

l. 124. _Perpetuities._ 'Perpetuities are so much impugned because
they will be prejudiciall to the Queenes profitt, which is raised
daily from fines and recoveries.' _Manningham's Diary_, April 22,
1602. Manningham refers probably to real property in which for many
centuries the Judges have ruled there can be no inalienable rights,
i.e. perpetuities. Donne's companion declares that such inalienable
rights are being established in offices. One has but to read Donne's
or Chamberlain's letters (or any contemporaries) to see what a traffic
went on in reversions to offices secular and sacred.

l. 133. _To sucke me in; for_.... I have, with some of the MSS. and
with Chambers and the later editions, connected 'for hearing him' with
what follows. But _1633_ and the better MSS. read:

  To sucke me in for hearing him. I found....

Possibly this is right, but it seems to me better to connect 'for
hearing him' with what follows. It makes the comparison to the
superstition about communicating infection clearer: 'I found that as
... leachers, &c., ... so I, hearing him, might grow guilty and he
free.' 'I should be convicted of treason; he would go free as a spy
who had spoken treason only to draw me out'. See the accounts of
trials of suspected traitors before Walsingham and others. It is on
this passage I base my view that Donne's companion is not merely a
bore, but a spy, or at any rate is ready to turn informer to earn a
crown or two.

PAGE =164=, l. 148. _complementall thankes._ The word 'complement'
or 'compliment' had a bad sense: 'We have a word now denizened and
brought into familiar use among us, Complement; and for the most part,
in an ill sense; so it is, when the heart of the speaker doth not
answer his tongue; but God forbid but a true heart, and a faire
tongue might very well consist together: As vertue itself receives
an addition, by being in a faire body, so do good intentions of the
heart, by being expressed in faire language. That man aggravates his
condemnation that gives me good words, and meanes ill; but he gives me
a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet, he gives me precious wine,
and in a clear glasse, that intends well, and expresses his good
intentions well too.' _Sermons_ 80. 18. 176.

l. 164. _th'huffing braggart, puft Nobility._ I have followed the MSS.
in inserting 'th'' and taking 'braggart' as a noun. It would be
more easy to omit the article than to insert. Moreover 'braggart' is
commoner as a noun. The O.E.D. gives no example of the adjectival use
earlier than 1613. Compare:

  The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.
                                      Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, i. 2.

PAGE =165=, l. 169. _your waxen garden_ or _yon waxen garden_--it
is impossible to say which Donne wrote. The reference is to the
artificial gardens in wax exhibited apparently by Italian puppet or
'motion' exhibitors. Compare:

  I smile to think how fond the Italians are,
  To judge their artificial gardens rare,
  When London in thy cheekes can shew them heere
  Roses and Lillies growing all the yeere.
    Drayton, _Heroical Epistles_ (1597), _Edward IV to Jane Shore_.

l. 176. _Baloune._ A game played with a large wind-ball or football
struck to and fro with the arm or foot.

l. 179. _and I, (God pardon mee.)_ This, the reading of the _1633_
edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping
of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from _1639_ onwards, has
adopted a reading of his own:

                  and aye--God pardon me--
  As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
  The fields they sold to buy them.

But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is not
_his_ fault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon
them!' would be the appropriate exclamation. What Donne asks God's
pardon for is, that he too should be found in the 'Presence' again,
after what he has already seen of Court life and 'the wretchedness
of suitors': as though Dante, who had seen Hell and escaped, should
wilfully return thither.

l. 189. _Cutchannel_: i.e. Cochineal. The ladies' painted faces
suggest the comparison. In or shortly before 1603 an English ship, the
_Margaret and John_, made a piratical attack on the Venetian ship,
_La Babiana_. An indemnity was paid, and among the stolen articles
are mentioned 54 weights of cochineal, valued at £50-7. Our school
Histories tell us of Turkish and Moorish pirates, not so much of
the piracy which was conducted by English merchant ships, not always
confining themselves to the ships of nations at war with their
country.

PAGE =166=, ll. 205-6. _trye ... thighe._ I have, with the support of
_Ash._ 38, printed thus instead of _tryes ... thighes_. If we retain
'tryes', then we should also, with several MSS., read (l. 204)
'survayes'; and if 'thighes' be correct we should expect 'legges'.
The regular construction keeps the infinitive throughout, 'refine',
'lift', 'call', 'survay', 'trye'. If we suppose that Donne shifted the
construction as he got away from the governing verb, the change would
naturally begin with 'survayes'.

ll. 215-6. _A Pursevant would have ravish'd him away._ The reading
of three independent MSS., _Q_, _O'F_, and _JC_, of 'Topcliffe' for
'Pursevant' is a very interesting clue to the Catholic point of
view from which Donne's _Satyres_ were written. Richard Topcliffe
(1532-1609) was one of the cruellest of the creatures employed to
ferret out and examine by torture Catholics and Jesuits. It was he who
tortured Southwell the poet. In 1593 he was on the commission against
Jesuits, and in 1594-5 was in prison. John Hammond, the civilist, who
is possibly referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, sat with him on several
inquiries. See _D.N.B._ and authorities quoted there; also Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.

PAGE =167=, ll. 233-4. _men big enough to throw
  Charing Crosse for a barre._

Of one of Harvey's pamphlets Nash writes: 'Credibly it was once
rumoured about the Court, that the Guard meant to try masteries with
it before the Queene, and, instead of throwing the sledge or the
hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end for a wager.' _Have with
you, &c._ (M^{c}Kerrow, iii, p. 36.)

ll. 235-6.          _Queenes man, and fine
    Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine._

Compare Cowley's _Loves Riddle_, III. i:

  _Apl._  He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,
          And to begin, look on that horned head.

  _Aln._  Whose is't? Jupiters?

  _Apl._  No, tis the Ram!
          Next that the spacious Bull fills up the place.

  _Aln._  The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the Guard
          Intend not to come thither; if they did
          The Gods might chance to lose their beef.

The name 'beefeater' has, I suppose, some responsibility for the jest.
Nash refers to their size: 'The big-bodied Halbordiers that guard
her Majesty,' Nash (Grosart), i. 102; and to their capacities as
trenchermen: 'Lies as big as one of the Guardes chynes of beefe,' Nash
(M^{c}Kerrow), i. 269.

'Ascapart is a giant thirty feet high who figures in the legend of Sir
Bevis of Southampton.' Chambers.

l. 240. _a scarce brooke_. Donne uses 'scarce' in this sense, i.e.
'scanty'. It is not common. See note to l. 4.

PAGE =168=, l. 242. _Macchabees modestie._ 'And if I have done well,
and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired; but
if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.' 2
Maccabees xv. 38.


PAGE =168=. SATYRE V.

l. 9. _If all things be in all._ 'All things are concealed in all.
One of them all is the concealer of the rest--their corporeal vessel,
external, visible and movable.' Paracelsus, _Coelum Philosophorum: The
First Canon, Concerning the Nature and Properties of Mercury_.

PAGE =169=, l. 31. _You Sir, &c._: i.e. Sir Thomas Egerton, whose
service Donne entered probably in 1598 and left in 1601-2. Norton says
1596 to 1600. In 1596 Egerton was made Lord Keeper. In 1597 he
was busy with the reform of some of the abuses connected with the
Clerkship of the Star Chamber, and this is probably what Donne has in
view throughout the Satyre. 'For some years the administration of this
office had given rise to complaints. In the last Parliament a bill
had been brought in ... for the reformation of it; but by a little
management on the part of the Speaker had been thrown out on the
second reading. Upon this I suppose the complainants addressed
themselves to the Queen. For it appears that the matter was under
inquiry in 1595, when Puckering was Lord Keeper; and it is certain
that at a later period some of the fees claimed by the Clerk of
Council were by authority of the Lord Keeper Egerton restrained.'
Spedding, _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, ii. 56. In the note
Spedding refers to a MS. at Bridgewater House containing 'The humble
petition of the Clerk of the Council concerning his fees restrained
by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Keeper'. Bacon held the reversion to this
Clerkship and in a long letter to Egerton he discusses in detail the
nature of the 'claim'd fees'. The question was not settled till 1605.
It will be noticed that in several editions and MSS. the reading is
'claim'd fees'.

ll. 37-41. These lines are correctly printed in _1633_, though the old
use of the semicolon to indicate at one time a little less than a
full stop, at another just a little more than a comma, has caused
confusion. I have, therefore, ventured to alter the first (after
'farre') to a full stop, and the second (after 'duties') to a comma.
'_That_', says Donne (the italics give emphasis), 'was the iron age
when justice was sold. Now' (in this 'age of rusty iron') 'injustice
is sold dearer. Once you have allowed all the demands made on you, you
find, suitors (and suitors are gamblers), that the money you toiled
for has passed into other hands, the lands for which you urged your
rival claims has escaped you, as Angelica escaped while Ferrau and
Rinaldo fought for her.'

To the reading of the editions _1635-54_, which Chambers has adopted
(but by printing in roman letters he makes 'that' a relative pronoun,
and 'iron age' subject to 'did allow'), I can attach no meaning:

  The iron Age _that_ was, when justice was sold (now
  Injustice is sold dearer) did allow
  All claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters anon.

How did the iron age allow fees and duties? The text of _1669_ reverts
to that of _1633_ (keeping the 'claim'd fees' of _1635-54_), but does
not improve the punctuation by changing the semicolon after 'farre' to
a comma.

Mr. Allen (_Rise of Formal Satire, &c._) points out that the allusion
to the age of 'rusty iron', which deserves some worse name, is
obviously derived from Juvenal XIII. 28 ff.:

  Nunc aetas agitur, peioraque saecula ferri
  Temporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa
  Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.

With Donne's

                          so controverted lands
  Scape, like Angelica, the strivers hands

compare Chaucer's

  We strive as did the houndes for the boon
  Thei foughte al day and yet hir parte was noon:
  Ther cam a kyte, whil that they were so wrothe,
  And bar away the boon betwixt hem bothe.
  And therfore at the kynges country brother
  Eche man for himself, there is noon other.
                                      _Knightes Tale_, ll. 319 ff.

ll. 45-6. _powre of the Courts below Flow._ Grosart and Chambers
silently alter to 'Flows', but both the editions and MSS. have the
plural form. Franz notes the construction in Shakespeare:

  The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
  Have lost their quality.
                                              _Hen. V_, V. ii. 18.

  All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.
                                                _Lear_, III. v. 4.

The last is a very close parallel. The proximity of the plural noun in
the prepositional phrase is the chief determining factor, but in
some cases the combined noun and qualifying phrase has a plural
force--'such venomous looks', 'his mental powers or faculties.'

PAGE =170=, l. 61. _heavens Courts._ There can be no doubt that the
plural is right: 'so the Roman profession seems to exhale, and refine
our wills from earthly Drugs, and Lees, more then the Reformed, and so
seems to bring us nearer heaven, but then that carries heaven farther
from us, by making us pass so many Courts, and Offices of Saints in
this life, in all our petitions,' &c. _Letters_, 102.

ll. 65-8. Compare: 'If a Pursevant, if a Serjeant come to thee from
the King, in any Court of Justice, though he come to put thee in
trouble, to call thee to an account, yet thou receivest him, thou
entertainest him, thou paiest him fees.' _Sermons_ 80. 52. 525.
Gardiner, writing of the treatment of Catholics under Elizabeth, says:
'Hard as this treatment was, it was made worse by the misconduct of
the constables and pursevants whose business it was to search for the
priests who took refuge in the secret chambers which were always to
be found in the mansions of the Catholic gentry. These wretches, under
pretence of discovering the concealed fugitives, were in the habit
of wantonly destroying the furniture or of carrying off valuable
property.' _Hist. of England_, i. 97.

PAGE =171=, l. 91. The right reading of this line must be either (_a_)
that which we have taken from _N_ and _TCD_, which differs only by a
letter from that of _1633-69_; or (_b_) that of _A25_, _B_, and other
MSS.:

  And div'd neare drowning, for what vanished.

The first refers to the suitor. He, like the dog, dives for what _has_
vanished; goes to law for what is irrecoverable. The second reading
would refer to the dog and continue the illustration: 'Thou art
the dog whom shadows cozened and who div'd for what vanish'd.' The
ambiguity accounts for the vacillation of the MSS. and editions. The
reading of _1669_ is a conjectural emendation. The 'div'd'st' of some
MSS. is an endeavour to get an agreement of tenses after 'what's' had
become 'what'.


PAGE =172=. VPON MR. THOMAS CORYATS CRUDITIES.

These verses were first published in 1611 with a mass of witty and
scurrilous verses by all the 'wits' of the day, prefixed to Coryats
_Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travells in France,
Savoy, Italy, Rhaetia ... Newly digested in the hungry aire of
Odcombe, in the County of Somerset, and now dispersed to the
nourishment of the travelling members of this Kingdom_. Coryat was
an eccentric and a favourite butt of the wits, but was not without
ability as well as enterprise. In 1612 he set out on a journey
through the East which took him to Constantinople, Jerusalem, Armenia,
Mesopotamia, Persia, and India. In his letters to the wits at home he
sends greetings to, among others, Christopher Brooke, John Hoskins
(as 'Mr. Ecquinoctial Pasticrust of the Middle Temple'), Ben Jonson,
George Garrat, and 'M. John Donne, the author of two most elegant
Latine Bookes, _Pseudomartyr_ and _Ignatius Conclave_' He died at
Surat in 1617.

l. 2. _leavened spirit._ This is the reading of _1611_. It was altered
in _1649_ to 'learned', and modern editors have neglected to correct
the error. A glance at the first line shows that 'leavened' is right.
It is leaven which raises bread. A 'leavened spirit' is one easily
puffed up by the 'love of greatness'. There is much more of satire in
such an epithet than in 'learned'.

l. 17. _great Lunatique_, i.e. probably 'great humourist', whose
moods and whims are governed by the changeful moon. See O.E.D., which
quotes:

  Ther (i.e. women's) hertys chaunge never ...
  Ther sect ys no thing lunatyke.
                                                 Lydgate.

'By nativitie they be lunaticke ... as borne under the influence of
Luna, and therefore as firme ... as melting waxe.' Greene, _Mamillia_.

l. 22. _Munster._ The _Cosmographia Universalis_ (1541) of Sebastian
Munster (1489-1552).

l. 22. _Gesner._ The _Bibliotheca Universalis, siue Catalogus Omnium
Scriptorum in Linguis Latina, Graeca, et Hebraica_, 1545, by Conrad
von Gesner of Zurich (1516-1565). Norton quotes from Morhof's
_Polyhistor_: 'Conradus Gesner inter universales et perpetuos
Catalogorum scriptores principatum obtinet'; and from Dr. Johnson:
'The book upon which all my fame was originally founded.'

l. 23. _Gallo-belgicus._ See _Epigrams_.

PAGE =173=, l. 56. _Which casts at Portescues._ Grosart offers the
only intelligible explanation of this phrase. He identifies the
'Portescue' with the 'Portaque' or 'Portegue', the great crusado of
Portugal, worth £3 12_s._, and quotes from Harrington, _On Playe_:
'Where lords and great men have been disposed to play deep play, and
not having money about them, have cut cards instead of counters, with
asseverance (on their honours) to pay for every piece of card so
lost a portegue.' Donne's reference to the use which is to be made of
Coryat's books shows clearly that he is speaking of some such custom
as this. Chambers asks pertinently, would the phrase not be 'for
Portescues'? but 'to cast at Portescues' may have been a term, perhaps
translated. A greater difficulty is that 'Portescue' is not given as a
form of 'Portague' by the O.E.D., but a false etymology connecting it
with 'escus', crowns, may have produced it.

The following poem is also found among the poems prefixed to Coryat's
_Crudities_. It may be by Donne, but was not printed in any edition of
his poems:

_Incipit Ioannes Dones._

  Loe her's a Man, worthy indeede to trauell;
  Fat Libian plaines, strangest Chinas grauell.
  For Europe well hath scene him stirre his stumpes:
  Turning his double shoes to simple pumpes.
  And for relation, looke he doth afford
  Almost for euery step he tooke a word;
  What had he done had he ere hug'd th'Ocean
  With swimming _Drake_ or famous _Magelan_?
  And kis'd that _vnturn'd[1] cheeke_ of our old mother,
  Since so our Europes world he can discouer?
  It's not that _French_[2] which made his _Gyant_[3] see
  Those vncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee,
  Till by the thaw next yeare they'r voic't againe;
  Whose _Papagauts_, _Andoüelets_, and that traine
  Should be such matter for a Pope to curse
  As he would make; make! makes ten times worse,
  And yet so pleasing as shall laughter moue:
  And be his vaine, his game, his praise, his loue.
    Sit not still then, keeping fames trump vnblowne:
    But get thee _Coryate_  to some land vnknowne.
    From whẽce proclaime thy wisdom with those wõders,
    Rarer then sommers snowes, or winters thunders.
    And take this praise of that th'ast done alreadie:
    T'is pitty ere they _flow_ should haue an _eddie_.
                                          _Explicit Ioannes Dones._


PAGE =174=. IN EUNDEM MACARONICUM.

A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, vii, 1865, gives the
following translation of these lines:

  As many perfect linguists as these two distichs make,
  So many prudent statesmen will this book of yours produce.
  To me the honour is sufficient of being understood: for I leave
  To you the honour of being believed by no one.


    [Footnote 1: _Terra incognita._]

    [Footnote 2: _Rablais._]

    [Footnote 3: _Pantagruel._]

    [(These notes are given in the margin of the original,
    opposite the words explained.)]



LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONAGES.


Of Donne's _Letters_ the earliest are the _Storms_ and _Calme_ which
were written in 1597. The two letters to Sir Henry Wotton, 'Sir, More
then kisses' and 'Heres no more newes, then vertue', belong to 1597-8.
The fresh letter here published, _H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti_ (p.
188), was sent to Wotton in 1599. That _To Mr Rowland Woodward_
(p. 185) was probably written about the same time, and to these
years--1598 to about 1608--belong also, I am inclined to think, the
group of short letters beginning with _To Mr T. W._ at p. 205. There
are very few indications of date. In that to Mr. R. W. (pp. 209-10)
an allusion is made to the disappointment of hopes in connexion with
Guiana:

  Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,
  I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales so
  As with the Jewes guide God did; he did show
  Him the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:
  Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.

Grosart and Chambers refer this, and 'the Spanish businesse' below,
to 1613-14. The more probable reference is to the disappointment of
Raleigh's hopes, in 1596 and the years immediately following, that the
Government might be persuaded to make a settlement in Guiana, both on
account of its wealth and as a strategic point to be used in harassing
the King of Spain. Coolly received by Burleigh, Raleigh's scheme
excited considerable enthusiasm, and Chapman wrote his _De Guiana:
Carmen Epicum_, prefixed to Lawrence Keymis's _A Relation of the
Second Voyage to Guiana_ (1596), to celebrate Raleigh's achievement
and to promote his scheme. The 'Spanish businesse', i.e. businesses,
which, Donne complains,

          as the Earth between the Moone and Sun
  Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,

are probably the efforts in the direction of peace made by the party
in the Government opposed to Essex. Guiana is referred to in the
_Satyres_ which certainly belong to these years, and in _Elegie
XX: Loves War_, which cannot be dated so late as 1613-14. In 1598
Chamberlain writes to Carleton: 'Sir John Gilbert, with six or seven
saile, one and other, is gone for Guiana, and I heare that Sir Walter
Raleigh should be so deeply discontented because he thrives no better,
that he is not far off from making that way himself'. Chamberlain's
_Letters_, Camd. Soc. 1861. Compare also: 'The Queene seemede troubled
to-daye; Hatton came out from her presence with ill countenance, and
pulled me aside by the gyrdle and saide in a secrete waie; If you have
any suite to-day praie you put it aside, The sunne doth not shine.
Tis _this accursede Spanish businesse_; so will I not adventure
her Highnesse choler, lest she should collar me also.' Sir John
Harington's _Nugae Antiquae_, i. 176. (Note dated 1598.) All these
letters are found in the Westmoreland MS. (_W_), whose order I
have adopted, and the titles they bear--'To Mr H. W.', 'To Mr C.
B.'--suggest that they belong to a period before either Wotton or
Brooke was well known, at least before Wotton had been knighted. The
tone throughout points to their belonging to the same time. They are
full of allusions now difficult or impossible to explain. They are
written to intimate friends. 'Thou' is the pronoun used throughout,
whereas 'You' is the formula in the letters to noble ladies. Wotton,
Christopher and Samuel Brooke, Rowland and Thomas Woodward are among
the names which can be identified, and they are the names of Donne's
most intimate friends in his earlier years. Probably there were
answers to Donne's letters. He refers to poems which have called forth
his poems. One of these has been preserved in the Westmoreland MS.,
though we cannot tell who wrote it. A Bodleian MS. contains another
verse letter written to Donne in the same style as these letters,
a little crabbed and enigmatical, and it is addressed to him as
Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. This whole correspondence, then,
I should be inclined to date from 1597 to about 1607-8. The last is
probably the date of the letter _To E. of D._ or _To L. of D._ (so in
_W_), beginning:

  See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
  Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime.

This I have transferred to the _Divine Poems_, and shall give reasons
later for ascribing it to about this year, and for questioning the
identification of its recipient with Viscount Doncaster, later Earl of
Carlisle.

Of the remaining _Letters_ some date themselves pretty definitely.
Donne formed the acquaintance of Lady Bedford about 1607-8 when she
came to Twickenham, and the two letters to her--'Reason is our Soules
left hand' (p. 189) and 'You have refin'd mee' (p. 191)--probably
belong to the early years of their friendship. The second suggests
that the poet is himself at Mitcham. The long, difficult letter,
'T'have written then' (p. 195), belongs probably to some year
following 1609. There is an allusion to Virginia, in which there was a
quickening of interest in 1609 (see _Elegie XIV_, Note), and the 'two
new starres' sent 'lately to the firmament' may be Lady Markham
(died May 4, 1609) and Mris Boulstred (died Aug. 4, 1609). This is
Chambers's conjecture; but Norton identifies them with Prince Henry
(died Nov. 6, 1612) and the Countess's brother, Lord Harington, who
died early in 1614. Public characters like these are more fittingly
described as stars, so that the poem probably belongs to 1614,
to which year certainly belongs the letter _To the Countesse of
Salisbury_ (p. 224). What New Year called forth the letter to Lady
Bedford, beginning 'This twilight of two years' (p. 198), we do not
know, nor the date of the long letter in triplets, 'Honour is so
sublime perfection' (p. 218). But the latter was most probably written
from France in 1611-12, like the fragmentary letter which follows, and
the letter, similar in verse and in 'metaphysics', _To the Lady Carey
and Mrs Essex Riche_ (p. 221). Donne had a little shocked his noble
lady friends by the extravagance of his adulation of the dead child
Mrs. Elizabeth Drury, in 1611, and these letters are written to make
his peace and to show the pitch he is capable of soaring to in praise
of their maturer virtues.

To Sir Henry Wotton (p. 214), Donne wrote in a somewhat more elevated
and respectful strain than that of his earlier letters, when the
former set out on his embassy to Venice in 1604. The letter to Sir
Henry Goodyere (p. 183) belongs to the Mitcham days, 1605-8. To Sir
Edward Herbert (p. 193) he wrote 'at Julyers', therefore in 1610. The
letter _To the Countesse of Huntingdon_ (p. 201) was probably written
just before Donne took orders, 1614-15. The date of the letter _To
Mris M. H._ (p. 216), that is, to Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, not yet Lady
Danvers, must have been earlier than her second marriage in 1608--the
exact day of that marriage I do not know--probably in 1604, as the
verse, style and tone closely resemble that of the letter to Wotton of
that year. This suits the tenor of the letter, which implies that she
had not yet married Sir John Danvers.

The last in the collection of the letters to Lady Bedford, 'You that
are she and you' (p. 227), seems from its position in _1633_ and
several MSS. to have been sent to her with the elegy called _Death_,
and to have been evoked by the death of Lady Markham or Mrs. Boulstred
in 1609.

The majority of the letters thus belong to the years 1596-7 to 1607-8,
the remainder to the next six years. With the _Funerall Elegies_ and
the earlier of the _Divine Poems_ they represent the middle and on the
whole least attractive period of Donne's life and work. The _Songs and
Sonets_ and _Elegies_ are the expression of his brilliant and stormy
youth, the _Holy Sonnets_ and the hymns are the utterance of his
ascetic and penitent last years. In the interval between the two, the
wit, the courtier, the man of the world, and the divine jostle each
other in Donne's works in a way that is not a little disconcerting to
readers of an age and temper less habituated to strong contrasts.


PAGE =175=. THE STORME.

After the Cadiz expedition in 1596, the King of Spain began the
preparation of a second Armada. With a view to destroying this
Elizabeth fitted out a large fleet under the command of Essex, Howard,
and Raleigh. The storm described in Donne's letter so damaged the
fleet that the larger purpose was abandoned and a smaller expedition,
after visiting the Spanish coast, proceeded to the Azores, with a
view to intercepting the silver fleet returning from America. Owing to
dissensions between Raleigh and Essex, it failed of its purpose. This
was the famous 'Islands Expedition'.

The description of the departure and the storm which followed was
probably written in Plymouth, whither the ships had to put back,
and whence they sailed again about a month later; therefore in
July-August, 1597. 'We imbarked our Army, and set sayle about the
ninth of July, and for two dayes space were accompanied with a faire
leading North-easterly wind.' (Mildly it kist our sailes, &c.)......
'Wee now being in this faire course, some sixtie leagues onwards our
journey with our whole Fleet together, there suddenly arose a fierce
and tempestuous storme full in our teethe, continuing for foure dayes
with so great violence, as that now everyone was inforced rather to
looke to his own safetie, and with a low saile to serve the Seas,
then to beate it up against the stormy windes to keep together, or to
follow the directions for the places of meeting.' _A larger Relation
of the said Iland Voyage written by Sir Arthur Gorges, &c. Purchas
his Pilgrimes._ Glasg. MCMVII. While at Plymouth Donne wrote a prose
letter, to whom is not clear, preserved in the Burley Commonplace
Book. There he speaks of 'so very bad wether y^t even some of y^e
mariners have been drawen to think it were not altogether amiss to
pray, and myself heard one of them say, God help us'.

_To Mr. Christopher Brooke._ Donne's intimate friend and
chamber-fellow at Lincoln's Inn. He was Donne's chief abetter in his
secret marriage, his younger brother Samuel performing the ceremony.
They were the sons of Robert Brooke, Alderman of and once M.P. for
York, and his wife Jane Maltby. The Alderman had other sons who
followed in his footsteps and figure among the Freemen of York, but
Christopher and Samuel earned a wider reputation. At Lincoln's Inn,
Christopher wrote verses and cultivated the society of the wits. Wood
mentions as his friends and admirers Selden and Jonson, Drayton and
Browne, Wither and Davies of Hereford. Browne sings his praises in the
second song of the second book of _Britannia's Pastorals_, and in _The
Shepherds Pipe_ (1614) urges him to sing a higher strain. His poems,
which have been collected and edited by the late Dr. Grosart, include
an Elegy on Prince Henry, and a long poem of no merit, _The Ghost of
Richard the Third_ (_Miscellanies_ of the _Fuller Worthies Library_,
vol. iv, 1872). In 1614 he became a bencher and Summer Reader at
Lincoln's Inn. He died February 7, 1627/8.

l. 4. _By Hilliard drawne._ Nicholas Hilliard (1537-1619), the first
English miniature painter. He was goldsmith, carver, and limner to
Queen Elizabeth, and engraved her second great seal in 1586. He drew a
portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, at eighteen, and executed miniatures
of many contemporaries. He also wrote a treatise on miniature
painting. Mr. Laurence Binyon thinks it is quite possible that the
miniature from which Marshall, about 1635, engraved the portrait of
Donne as a young man, was by Hilliard. It is, he says, quite in his
style.

l. 13. _From out her pregnant intrailes._ The ancients attributed
winds to the effect of exhalations from the earth. Seneca,
_Quaestiones Naturales_, v. 4, discusses various causes but mentions
this first: 'Sometimes the earth herself emits a great quantity of
air, which she breathes out of her hidden recesses ... A suggestion
has been made which I cannot make up my mind to believe, and yet
I cannot pass over without mention. In our bodies food produces
flatulence, the emission of which causes great offence to ones nasal
susceptibilities; sometimes a report accompanies the relief of the
stomach, sometimes there is more polite smothering of it. In like
manner it is supposed the great frame of things when assimilating
its nourishment emits air. It is a lucky thing for us that nature's
digestion is good, else we might apprehend some less agreeable
consequences.' (_Q. N. translated by John Clarke, with notes by Sir
Archibald Geikie_, 1910.) These exhalations, according to one view,
mounting up were driven back by the violence of the stars, or
by inability to pass the frozen middle region of the air--hence
commotions. (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 38, 45, 47, 48.) This explains
Donne's 'middle marble room', where 'marble' may mean 'hard', or
_possibly_ 'blue' referring to the colour of the heavens. It is so
used by Studley in his translations of Seneca's tragedies: 'Whereas
the marble sea doth fleete,' _Hipp._ i. 25; 'When marble skies no
filthy fog doth dim,' _Herc. Oet._ ii. 8; 'The monstrous hags of
marble seas' (monstra caerulei maris), _Hipp._ v. 5, I owe this
suggestion to Miss Evelyn Spearing (_The Elizabethan 'Tenne Tragedies
of Seneca'._ _Mod. Lang. Review_, iv. 4). But the peripatetic view
was that the heavens were made of hard, solid, though transparent,
concentric spheres: 'Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven
and ayre; but to say truth, with some small modifications, they'
(i.e. Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman) 'have one and the self same
opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard
and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a _quinta
essentia_, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre itself is,
and that the planets move in it', (according to the older view each
was fixed in its sphere) 'as birds in the ayre, fishes in the sea.'
Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, part ii, sect. 2, Men. 3.

'Wind', says Donne elsewhere, 'is a mixt Meteor, to the making
whereof, diverse occasions concurre with exhalations.' _Sermons_ 80.
31. 305.

The movement which Donne has in view is described by Du Bartas:

    If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, sup
  Som somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,
  Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble Fire
  Would suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:
  But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,
  Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,
  And felt what force their mortall Enemy
  In Garrison keeps there continually;
  When down again towards their Dam they bear,
  Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.
  But in the instant, to their aid arrives
  Another new heat, which their heart revives,
  Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,
  Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.
    Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,
  More bravely they renew their enterprize:
  And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,
  Another-while disgracefully retreating,
  Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,
  As weak or strong their matter doth comport.
  This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,
  Equall in force and fortune, equall bold
  In these assaults; to end this sudden brall,
  Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:
  So that this vapour, never resting stound,
  Stands never still, but makes his motion round,
  Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amain
  From _Spain_ to _India_, and from _Inde_ to _Spain_.
              Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, First Week, Second Day.

l. 18. _prisoners, which lye but for fees_, i.e. the fees due to the
gaoler. 'And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees; so
when,' &c.

_Deaths Duell_ (1632), p. 9. Thirty-three years after this poem was
written, Donne thus uses the same figure in the last sermon he ever
preached.

PAGE =176=, l. 38. _I, and the Sunne._ The 'Yea, and the Sunne' of _Q_
shows that 'I' here is probably the adverb, not the pronoun, though
the passage is ambiguous. Modern editors have all taken 'I' as the
pronoun.

ll. 49-50.                    _And do hear so
    Like jealous husbands, what they would not know._

Compare:

  Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;
    Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.
  Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;
    Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.
  Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:
    Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.
  Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;
    Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.
  Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:
    Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.
                                     Ovid, _Amores_, II. ii. 51-60.

PAGE =177=, l. 60. _Strive._ Later editions and Chambers read
'strives', but 'ordinance' was used as a plural: 'The goodly ordinance
which were xii great Bombardes of brasse', and 'these six small iron
ordinance.' O.E.D. The word in this sense is now spelt 'ordnance'.

l. 66. _the'Bermuda_. It is probably unnecessary to change this to
'the'Bermudas.' The singular without the article is quite regular.

l. 67. _Darknesse, lights elder brother._ The 'elder' of the MSS. is
grammatically more correct than the 'eldest' of the editions. 'We must
return again to our stronghold, faith, and end with this, that this
beginning was, and before it, nothing. It is elder than darkness,
which is elder than light; and was before confusion, which is elder
than order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and
distinctions.' _Essays in Divinity_ (ed. Jessop, 1855), p. 46.


PAGE =178=. THE CALME.

l. 4. _A blocke afflicts, &c._ Aesop's _Fables_. Sir Thomas Rowe
recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court
of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar
Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee
are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck.' _The
Embassy, &c._ (Hakl. Soc.), i. 82.

l. 8. _thy mistresse glasse._ This poem, like the last, is _probably_
addressed to Christopher Brooke, but it is not so headed in any
edition or MS. The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to
both.

l. 14. _or like ended playes._ This suggests that the Elizabethan
stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that
furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne
recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture
and decorations.

l. 16. _a frippery_, i.e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold',
O.E.D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery.'
_Tempest_, IV. i. 225. Here the rigging has the appearance of an
old-clothes shop.

l. 17. _No use of lanthornes._ The reference is to the lanterns in the
high sterns of the ships, used to keep the fleet together. 'There
is no fear now of our losing one another.' Each squadron of a fleet
followed the light of its Admiral. Essex speaks of having lost, or
missing, 'Sir Walter Raleigh with thirty sailes that in the night
followed his light.' _Purchas_, xx. 24-5.

l. 18. _Feathers and dust._ 'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in
the world for some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by
heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not
stirre, all was soe quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written all
his best peeces ere he was twenty-five yeares old.' _Jonson's
Conversations with Drummond._ When Donne wrote _The Calme_ he was in
his twenty-fifth year.

l. 21. _lost friends._ Raleigh and his squadron lost the main fleet
while off the coast of Spain, before they set sail definitely for
the Azores. He rejoined the fleet at the Islands. Donne's poem was
probably written in the interval.

The reading of some MSS., 'lefte friends,' is quite a possible one.
Carleton, writing from Venice to Chamberlain, says: 'Let me tell you,
for your comfort (for I imagine what is mine is yours) that my last
news from the left island ... took knowledge of my vigilancy and
diligency.' The 'left island' is Great Britain, and Donne may mean no
more than that 'we can neither get back to our friends nor on to our
enemies.' There may be no allusion to Raleigh's ships.

l. 23. _the Calenture._ 'A disease incident to sailors within the
tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said,
fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it.'
O.E.D. Theobald had the Calenture in mind when he conjectured that
Falstaff 'babbled o' green fields'.

PAGE =179=, l. 33. _Like Bajazet encaged, &c._: an echo of Marlowe's
_Tamburlaine_:

  There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;
  And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:
  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
  This is my mind, and I will have it so.
  Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
  If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
  Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:
  The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,
  Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,
  Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.

There are frequent references to this scene in contemporary
literature.

ll. 35-6. _a Miriade Of Ants, &c._ 'Erat ei' (i.e. Tiberius) 'in
oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus,
cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis
caveret.' Suetonius, _Tib._ 72.

l. 37. _Sea-goales_, i.e. sea-gaols. 'goale' was a common spelling.
See next poem, l. 52, 'the worlds thy goale.' Strangely enough,
neither the Grolier Club editor nor Chambers seems to have recognized
the word here, in _The Calme_, though in the next poem they change
'goale' to 'gaol' without comment. The Grolier Club editor retains
'goales' and Chambers adopts the reading of the later editions,
'sea-gulls.' A gull would have no difficulty in overtaking the
swiftest ship which ever sailed. Grosart takes the passage correctly.
'Sea-goales' is an accurate definition of the galleys.' Finny-chips'
is a vivid description of their appearance. Compare:

    One of these small bodies fitted so,
  This soul inform'd, and abled it to row
  Itselfe with finnie oars.
                                _Progresse of the Soule_, I. 23.

  Never again shall I with finny oar
  Put from, or draw unto the faithful shore.
                               Herrick, _His Tears to Thamesis_.

l. 38. _our Pinnaces._ 'Venices' is the reading of _1633_ and most of
the MSS., where, as in _1669_, the word is often spelt 'Vinices'. But
I can find no example of the word 'Venice' used for a species of ship,
and Mr. W. A. Craigie of the _Oxford English Dictionary_ tells me that
he has no example recorded. The mistake probably arose in a confusion
of P and V. The word 'Pinnace' is variously spelt, 'pynice', 'pinnes',
'pinace', &c., &c. The pinnaces were the small, light-rigged,
quick-sailing vessels which acted as scouts for the fleet.

l. 48. _A scourge, 'gainst which wee all forget to pray._ The 'forgot'
of _1669_ and several MSS. is tempting--'a scourge against which we
all in setting out forgot to pray.' I rather think, however, that what
Donne means is 'a scourge against which we all at sea always forget to
pray, for to pray for wind at sea is generally to pray for cold under
the poles, for heat in hell'. The 'forgot' makes the reference too
definite. At the same time, 'forgot' is so obvious a reading that it
is difficult to account for 'forget' except on the supposition that it
is right.

ll. 51-4.             _How little more alas,
    Is man now, then before he was? he was
    Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
    Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it._

Donne is here playing with an antithesis which apparently he owes to
the rhetoric of Tertullian. 'Canst thou choose', says the poet in one
of his later sermons, 'but think God as perfect now, at least as he
was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up againe of nothing,
as he made thee of nothing at first? _Recogita quid fueris antequam
esses._ Think over thyselfe; what wast thou before thou wast anything?
_Meminisses utique, si fuisses_: if thou had'st been anything than,
surely thou would'st remember it now. _Qui non eras, factus es; cum
iterum non eris, fies._ Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this
that thou art now; and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be
made better then thou art yet.' _Sermons_ 50. 14. 109. A note in the
margin indicates that the quotations are from Tertullian, and Donne is
echoing here the antithetical _Recogita quid fueris antequam esses_.

This echo is certainly made more obvious to the ear by the punctuation
of _1669_, which Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers all
follow. The last reads:

                    How little more, alas,
  Is man now, than, before he was, he was?
  Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit;
  Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.

This may be right; but after careful consideration I have retained the
punctuation of _1633_. In the first place, if the _1669_ text be right
it is not clear why the poet did not preserve the regular order:

  Is man now than he was before he was.

To place 'he was' at the end of the line was in the circumstances to
court ambiguity, and is not metrically requisite. In the second place,
the rhetorical question asked requires an answer, and that is given
most clearly by the punctuation of _1633_. 'How little more, alas, is
man now than [he was] before he was? He was nothing; and as for us,
we are fit for nothing. Chance or ourselves still throw us out of gear
with everything.' To be nothing and to be fit for nothing--there is
all the difference. In the _1669_ version it is not easy to see the
relevance of the rhetorical question and of the line which follows:
'Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit.' This seems to introduce a
new thought, a fresh antithesis. It is not quite true. A breeze would
fit them very well.

The use of 'for' in 'for us', as I have taken it, is quite idiomatic:

  For me, I am the mistress of my fate.
                           Shakespeare, _Rape of Lucrece_, 1021.

  For the rest o' the fleet, they all have met again.
                                        Id., _The Tempest_, I. i. 232.


PAGE =180=. TO S^r HENRY WOTTON.

The occasion of this letter was apparently (see my article, _Bacon's
Poem, The World: Its Date And Relation to Certain Other Poems_: _Mod.
Lang. Rev._, April, 1911) a literary _débat_ among some of the wits of
Essex's circle. The subject of the _débat_ was 'Which kind of life is
best, that of Court, Country, or City?' and the suggestion came from
the two epigrams in the Greek Anthology attributed to Posidippus and
Metrodorus respectively. In the first ([Greek: Poiên tis biotoio tamê
tribon?]) each kind of life in turn is condemned; in the second each
is defended. These epigrams were paraphrased in _Tottel's Miscellany_
(1557) by Nicholas Grimald, and again in the _Arte of English Poesie_
(1589), attributed to George Puttenham. Stimulated perhaps by the
latter version, in which the Court first appears as one of the
principal spheres of life, or by Ronsard's French version in which
also the 'cours des Roys', unknown to the Greek poet, are introduced,
Bacon wrote his well-known paraphrase:

  The world's a bubble: and the life of man
                        Less than a span.

It is just possible too that he wrote a paraphrase, similar in verse,
of the second epigram, which I have printed in the article referred
to. A copy of _The World_ was found among Wotton's papers and was
printed in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (1651) signed 'Fra. Lord
Bacon'. It had already been published by Thomas Farnaby in his
_Florilegium Epigrammatum Graecorum &c._ (1629). Bacon probably gave
Wotton a copy and he appears to have shown it to his friends. Among
these was Thomas Bastard, who, to judge by the numerous epigrams he
addressed to Essex, belonged to the same circle as Bacon, Donne, and
Wotton,--if we may so describe it, but probably every young man of
letters looked to Essex for patronage. Bastard's poem runs:

Ad Henricum Wottonum.

  Wotton, the country, and the country swayne,
  How can they yeeld a Poet any sense?
  How can they stirre him up or heat his vaine?
  How can they feed him with intelligence?
  You have that fire which can a witt enflame
  In happy London Englands fayrest eye:
  Well may you Poets have of worthy name
  Which have the foode and life of Poetry.
  And yet the Country or the towne may swaye
  Or beare a part, as clownes do in a play.

Donne was one of those to whom Wotton showed Bacon's poem, and the
result was the present letter which occasionally echoes Bacon's words.
Wotton replied to it in some characteristic verses preserved in _B_
(Lord Ellesmere's MS.) and _P_ (belonging to Captain Harris). I print
it from the former:

_To J: D: from M^r H: W:_

  Worthie Sir:
    Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheards life,
      Tis not in feilds or woods remote to live,
    That adds or takes from one that peace or strife,
      Which to our dayes such good or ill doth give:
    It is the mind that make the mans estate           5
    For ever happy or unfortunate.

    Then first the mind of passions must be free
      Of him that would to happiness aspire;
    Whether in Princes Pallaces he bee,
      Or whether to his cottage he retire;            10
    For our desires that on extreames are bent
    Are frends to care and traitors to content.

    Nor should wee blame our frends though false they bee
      Since there are thousands false, for one that's true,
    But our own blindness, that we cannot see         15
      To chuse the best, although they bee but few:
    For he that every fained frend will trust,
    Proves true to frend, but to himself unjust.

    The faults wee have are they that make our woe,
      Our virtues are the motives of our joye,        20
    Then is it vayne, if wee to desarts goe
      To seek our bliss, or shroud us from annoy:
    Our place need not be changed, but our Will,
    For every where wee may do good or ill.

    But this I doe not dedicate to thee,              25
      As one that holds himself fitt to advise,
    Or that my lines to him should precepts be
      That is less ill then I, and much more wise:
    Yet 'tis no harme mortality to preach,
    For men doe often learne when they do teach.

The date of the _débat_ is before April 1598, when Bastard's
_Chrestoleros_ was entered on the Stationers' Register, probably
1597-8, the interval between the return of the Islands Expedition and
Donne's entry into the household of Sir Thomas Egerton. Mr. Chambers
has shown that during this interval Donne was occasionally employed
by Cecil to carry letters to and from the Commanders of the English
forces still in France. But it was not till about April 1598 that he
found permanent employment.

l. 8. _Remoraes_; Browne doubts 'whether the story of the remora be
not unreasonably amplified'. The name is given to any of the fish
belonging to the family Echeneididae, which by means of a suctorial
disk situated on the top of the head adhere to sharks, other large
fishes, vessels, &c., letting go when they choose. The ancient
naturalists reported that they could arrest a ship in full course. See
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Lib. xiii, _De Aqua et ejus Ornatu_.

l. 11. _the even line_ is the reading of all the MS. copies, and must
have been taken from one of these by the 1669 editor. The use of the
word is archaic and therefore more probably Donne's than an editor's
emendation. Compare Chaucer's 'Of his stature he was of even length',
i.e. 'a just mean between extremes, of proper magnitude or degree'.
The 'even line' is, as the context shows, the exact mean between
the 'adverse icy poles'. I suspect that 'raging' is an editorial
emendation. There are several demonstrable errors in the 1633 text
of this poem. The 'other' of _P_, and 'over' of _S_, are errors which
point to 'even' rather than 'raging'.

l. 12. _th'adverse icy poles._ The 'poles' of most MSS. is obviously
necessary if we are to have _two_ temperate regions. The expression is
a condensed one for 'either of the adverse icy poles'. Compare:

  He that at sea prayes for more winde, as well
  Under the poles may begge cold, heat in hell.

One cannot be under both the poles at once. One is 'under' the pole in
Donne's cosmology because the poles are not the termini of the earth's
axis but of the heavens'. 'For the North and Southern Pole, are the
invariable terms of that Axis whereon the Heavens do move.' Browne,
_Pseud. Epidem._ vi. 7.

                     Tristior illa
    Terra sub ambobus non iacet ulla polis.
                                          Ovid, _Pont._ ii. 7. 64.

l. 17. _Can dung and garlike, &c._ This is the text of the 1633
edition made consistent with itself, and it has the support of several
MSS. Clearly if we are to read 'or' in one line we must do so in both,
and adopt the _1635-69_ text. It is tempting at first sight to do so,
but I believe the MSS. are right. What Donne means is, 'Can we procure
a perfume, or a medicine, by blending opposite stenches or poisons?'
This is his expansion of the question, 'Shall cities, built of
both extremes, be chosen?' The change to 'or' obscures the exact
metaphysical point. It would be an improvement perhaps to bracket the
lines as parenthetical.

According to Donne's medical science the scorpion (probably its flesh)
was an antidote to its own poison: 'I have as many Antidotes as the
Devill hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice;
There must be scorpions in the world; _but the Scorpion shall cure the
Scorpion_; there must be tentations; but tentations shall adde to mine
and to thy glory, and _Eripiam_, I will deliver thee.' _Sermons_ 80.
52. 527. Obviously Donne could not ask in surprise, 'Can a Scorpion or
Torpedo cure a man?' Each can; it is their combination he deprecates.
In _Ignatius his Conclave_ he writes, 'and two Poysons mingled might
do no harme.'

In speaking of scent made from dung Donne has probably the statement
of Paracelsus in his mind to which Sir Thomas Browne also refers: 'And
yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and
from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous
Essences; all that had not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear, here
was a subject fit for such extractions.' _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, iii.
26.

  PAGE =181=, ll. 19-20. _Cities are worst of all three; of all three
                         (O knottie riddle) each is worst equally._

This is the punctuation of _1633_ and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_.
The later punctuation which Chambers has adopted and modernized, is
not found to be an improvement if scrutinized. He reads:

  Cities are worst of all three; of all three?
  O knotty riddle! each is worst equally.

The mark of interrogation after 'three' would be justifiable only if
the poet were going to expatiate upon the badness of cities. 'Of all
three? that is saying very little, &c., &c.' But this is not the tenor
of the passage. From one thought he is led to another. 'Cities are
worst of all three (i.e. Court, City, Country). Nay, each is equally
the worst.' The interjected 'O knottie riddle' does not mean, 'Who is
to say which is the worst?' but 'How can it come that each is worst?
This is a riddle!' Donne here echoes Bacon:

  And where's the citty from foul vice so free
  But may be term'd the worst of all the three?

ll. 25-6. _The country is a desert, &c._ The evidence for this reading
is so overwhelming that it is impossible to reject it. I have modified
the punctuation to bring out more clearly what I take it to mean. 'The
country is a desert where no goodness is native, and therefore rightly
understood. Goodness in the country is like a foreign language, a
faculty not born with us, but acquired with pain, and never thoroughly
understood and mastered.' Only Dr. Johnson could stigmatize in
adequate terms so harsh a construction, but the _1635-54_ emendation
is not less obscure. Does it mean that any good which comes there
quits it with all speed, while that which is native and must stay is
not understood? This is not a lucid or just enough thought to warrant
departure from the better authorized text.

l. 27. _prone to more evills_; The reading 'mere evils' of several
MSS., including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, is tempting and _may_ be right.
In that case 'meere' has the now obsolete meaning of 'pure,
unadulterated', 'meere English', 'meere Irish', &c. in O.E.D., or
more fully, 'absolute, entire, sheer, perfect, downright', as in
'Th'obstinacie, willfull disobedience, meere lienge and disceite of
the countrie gentlemen,' _Hist. MSS. Com._ (1600), quoted in O.E.D.;
'the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,' Shakespeare, _Othello_,
II. ii. 3. Such a strong adjective would however come better after
'devills' in the next line. Placed here it disturbs the climax. What
Donne says here is that men in the country become beasts, and more
prone to evil than beasts because of their higher faculties:

  If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
  Cannot be damn'd; Alas; why should I bee?
  Why should intent or reason, borne in mee,
  Make sinnes, else equall, in mee more heinous?
                                    _Holy Sonnets_, IX, p. 326.

And in this same letter, ll. 41-2, he develops the thought further.

PAGE =182=, ll. 59-62. _Only in this one thing, be no Galenist, &c._
The Galenists perceived in the living body four humours; hot, cold,
moist, and dry, and held that in health these were present in fixed
proportions. Diseases were due to disturbance of these proportions,
and were to be cured by correction of the disproportion by drugs,
these being used as they were themselves hot, cold, moist, or dry; to
add to whichever humours were defective. The chymiques or school of
Paracelsus, held that each disease had an essence which might be got
rid of by being purged or driven from the body by an antagonistic
remedy.


PAGE =183=. TO S^r HENRY GOODYERE.

Goodyere and Walton form between them the Boswell to whom we owe
our fullest and most intimate knowledge of the life of Donne. To
the former he wrote apparently a weekly letter in the years of his
residence at Pyrford, Mitcham, and London. And Goodyere preserved
his letters and his poems. Of the letters published by Donne's son
in 1651-4, the greatest number, as well as the most interesting and
intimate, are addressed to Goodyere. Some appeared with the first
edition of the poems, and it is ultimately to Goodyere that we
probably owe the generally sound text of that edition.

Sir Henry Goodyere was the son of Sir William Goodyere of Monks Kirby
in Warwickshire, who was knighted by James in 1603, and was the nephew
of Sir Henry Goodyere (1534-95) of Polesworth in Warwickshire. The
older Sir Henry had got into trouble in connexion with one of the
conspiracies on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots, but redeemed his good
name by excellent service in the Low Countries, where he was knighted
by Leicester. He married Frances, daughter of Hugh Lowther of Lowther,
Westmoreland, and left two daughters, Frances and Anne. The latter,
who succeeded the Countess of Bedford as patroness to the poet Michael
Drayton and as the 'Idea' of his sonnets, married Sir Henry Raynsford.
The former married her cousin, the son of Sir William, and made
him proprietor of Polesworth, to which repeated allusion is made in
Donne's _Letters_. He was knighted, in 1599, in Dublin, by Essex. He
is addressed as a knight by Donne in 1601, and appears as such in
the earliest years of King James. (See Nichol's _Progresses of King
James_.)

He was a friend of wits and poets and himself wrote occasional
verses in rivalry with his friends. Like Donne he wrote satirical
congratulatory verses for _Coryats Crudities_ (1611) and an elegy
on Prince Henry for the second edition of Sylvester's _Lachrymae
Lachrymarum_ (1613), and there are others in MS., including an
_Epithalamium_ on Princess Elizabeth.

The estate which Goodyere inherited was apparently encumbered, and he
was himself generous and extravagant. He was involved all his life in
money troubles and frequently petitioned for relief and appointments.
It was to him probably that Donne made a present of one hundred pounds
when his own fortunes had bettered. The date of the present letter was
between 1605 and 1608, when Donne was living at Mitcham. These were
the years in which Goodyere was a courtier. In 1604-5 £120 was stolen
from his chamber 'at Court', and in 1605 he participated in the
jousting at the Barriers. Life at the dissolute and glittering Court
of James I was ruinously extravagant, and the note of warning in
Donne's poem is very audible. Sir Henry Goodyere died in March 1627-8.

Additional MS. 23229 (_A23_) contains the following:

  Funerall Verses sett on the hearse } of Polesworth.
  of Henry Goodere knighte; late     }
                   [March 18. 1627/8 c.]

  Esteemed knight take triumph over deathe,
    And over tyme by the eternal fame
  Of Natures workes, while God did lende thee breath;
    Adornd with witt and skill to rule the same.
  But what avayles thy gifts in such degrees
  Since fortune frownd, and worlde had spite at these.

  Heaven be thy rest, on earth thy lot was toyle;
    Thy private loss, ment to thy countryes gayne,
  Bredde grief of mynde, which in thy brest did boyle,
    Confyning cares whereof the scarres remayne.
  Enjoy by death such passage into lyfe
  As frees thee quyte from thoughts of worldly stryfe.
                                                WM. GOODERE.

Camden transcribes his epitaph:

  An ill yeare of a Goodyere us bereft,
  Who gon to God much lacke of him here left;
  Full of good gifts, of body and of minde,
  Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kinde.

The Epitaph is probably by the same author as the _Verses_, a nephew
perhaps. Sir Henry's son predeceased him.

PAGE =183=, l. 1. It is not necessary to change 'the past' of
_1633-54_ to 'last' with _1669_. 'The past year' is good English for
'last year'.

PAGE =184=, l. 27. _Goe; whither? Hence; &c._ My punctuation, which
is that of some MSS., follows Donne's usual arrangement in dialogue,
dividing the speeches by semicolons. Chambers's textual note
misrepresents the earlier editions. He attributes to _1633-54_
the reading, 'Go whither? hence you get'. But they have all 'Goe,
whither?', and _1633_ has 'hence;' _1635-54_ drop this semicolon.
In _1669_ the text runs, 'Goe, whither. Hence you get,' &c. The
semicolon, however, is better than the full stop after 'Hence', as the
following clause is expansive and explanatory: 'Anywhere will do so
long as it is out of this. In such cases as yours, to forget is itself
a gain.'

l. 34. The modern editors, by dropping the comma after 'asham'd', have
given this line the opposite meaning to what Donne intended. I have
therefore, to avoid ambiguity, inserted one before. Sir Henry Goodyere
is not to be asham'd to imitate his hawk, but is, _through shame_,
to emulate that noble bird by growing more sparing of extravagant
display. 'But the sporte which for that daie Basilius would
principally shewe to Zelmane, was the mounting at a Hearne, which
getting up on his wagling wings with paine ... was now growen to
diminish the sight of himself, and to give example to greate persons,
that the higher they be the lesse they should show.' Sidney's
_Arcadia_, ii. 4.

Goodyere's fondness for hawking is referred to in one of Donne's prose
letters, 'God send you Hawks and fortunes of a high pitch' (_Letters_,
p. 204), and by Jonson in _Epigram LXXXV_.

l. 44. _Tables, or fruit-trenchers._ I have let the 'Tables' of
_1633-54_ stand, although 'Fables' has the support of _all_ the MSS.
T is easily confounded with F. In the very next poem _1633-54_ read
'Termers' where I feel sure that 'Farmers' (spelt 'Fermers') is the
correct reading. Moreover, Donne makes several references to the
'morals' of fables:

  The fable is inverted, and far more
  A block inflicts now, then a stork before.
                                           _The Calme_, ll. 4-5.

  O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize
  Aesop's fables, and make tales prophesies.
                                                     _Satyre V._

If 'Tables' is the correct reading, Donne means, I take it, not
portable memorandum books such as Hamlet carried (this is Professor
Norton's explanation), but simply pictures (as in 'Table-book'),
probably Emblems.


PAGE =185=. TO M^r ROWLAND WOODWARD.

Rowland Woodward was a common friend of Donne and Wotton. The fullest
account of Woodward is given by Mr. Pearsall Smith (_The Life and
Letters of Sir Henry Wotton_, 1907). Of his early life unfortunately
he can tell us little or nothing. He seems to have gone to Venice
with Wotton in 1604, at least he was there in 1605. This letter was,
therefore, written probably before that date. One MS., viz. _B_,
states that it was written 'to one that desired some of his papers'.
It is quite likely that Woodward, preparing to leave England, had
asked Donne for copies of his poems, and Donne, now a married man,
and, if not disgraced, yet living in 'a retiredness' at Pyrford or
Camberwell, was not altogether disposed to scatter his indiscretions
abroad. He enjoins privacy in like manner on Wotton when he sends
him some Paradoxes. Donne, it will be seen, makes no reference to
Woodward's going abroad or being in Italy.

While with Wotton he was sent as a spy to Milan and imprisoned by the
Inquisition. In 1607, while bringing home dispatches, he was attacked
by robbers and left for dead. On Feb. 2, 1608, money was paid to his
brother, Thomas Woodward (the T. W. of several of Donne's _Letters_),
for Rowland's 'surgeons and diets'. In 1608 he entered the service
of the Bishop of London. For subsequent incidents in his career see
Pearsall Smith, op. cit. ii. 481. He died sometime before April 1636.

It is clear that the MSS. _Cy_, _O'F_, _P_, _S96_ have derived this
poem from a common source, inferior to that from which the _1633_ text
is derived, which has the general support of the best MSS. These MSS.
agree in the readings: 3 'holiness', but _O'F_ corrects, 10 'to use
it,' 13 'whites' _Cy_, _O'F_, 14 'Integritie', but _O'F_ corrects, 33
'good treasure'. It is clear that a copy of this tradition fell into
the hands of the _1635_ editor. His text is a contamination of the
better and the inferior versions. The strange corruption of 4-6 began
by the mistake of 'flowne' for 'showne'. In _O'F_ and the editions
_1635-54_ the sense is adjusted to this by reading, 'How long loves
weeds', and making the two lines an exclamation. The 'good treasure'
(l. 33) of _1635-69_, which Chambers has adopted, comes from this
source also. The reading at l. 10 is interesting; 'to use it', for 'to
us, it', has obviously arisen from 'to use and love Poetrie' of the
previous verse. In the case of 'seeme but light and thin' we have an
emendation, even in the inferior version, made for the sake of the
metre (which is why Chambers adopted it), for though _Cy_, _O'F_, and
_P_ have it, _S96_ reads:

  Thoughe to use it, seeme and be light and thin.

l. 2. _a retirednesse._ This reading of some MSS., including _W_,
which is a very good authority for these Letters, is quite possibly
authentic. It is very like Donne to use the article; it was very easy
for a copyist to drop it. Compare the dropping of 'a' before 'span' in
_Crucifying_ (p. 320), l. 8. The use of abstracts as common nouns with
the article, or in the plural, is a feature of Donne's syntax. He does
so in the next line: 'a chast fallownesse'. Again: 'Beloved, it is not
enough to awake out of an ill sleepe of sinne, or of ignorance, or out
of a good sleep, _out of a retirednesse_, and take some profession, if
you winke, or hide your selves, when you are awake.' _Sermons_ 50.
11. 90. 'It is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that
adversary shall be able to doe him no harm, but that he should have a
refreshing, a respiration, _In velamento alarum_, under the shadow
of Gods wings.' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 670--where also we find 'an
extraordinary sadnesse, a predominant melancholy, a faintnesse of
heart, a chearlessnesse, a joylessnesse of spirit' (Ibid. 672). Donne
does not mean to say that he is 'tied to retirednesse', a recluse. The
letter was not written after he was in orders, but probably, like the
preceding, when he was at Pyrford or Mitcham (1602-8). He is tied to
a degree of retirednesse (compared with his early life) or a period of
retiredness. He does not compare himself to a Nun but to a widow.
Even a third widowhood is not necessarily a final state. 'So all
retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are
alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and
insipid dulnesse of the Country.' _Letters_, p. 63. But the phrase
here applies primarily to the Nun and the widow.

l. 3. _fallownesse_; I have changed the full stop of _1633-54_ to a
semicolon here because I take the next three lines to be an adverbial
clause giving the reason why Donne's muse 'affects ... a chast
fallownesse'. The full stop disguises this, and Chambers, by keeping
the full stop here but changing that after 'sown' (l. 6), has thrown
the reference of the clause forward to 'Omissions of good, ill, as ill
deeds bee.'--not a happy arrangement.

ll. 16-18. _There is no Vertue, &c._ Donne refers here to the Cardinal
Virtues which the Schoolmen took over from Aristotle. There are,
Aquinas demonstrates, four essential virtues of human nature:
'Principium enim formale virtutis, de qua nunc loquimur, est rationis
bonum. Quod quidem dupliciter potest considerari: uno modo secundum
quod in ipsa consideratione consistit; et sic erit una virtus
principalis, quae dicitur _prudentia_. Alio modo secundum quod circa
aliquid ponitur rationis ordo; et hoc vel circa operationes, et sic
est _justitia_; vel circa passiones, et sic necesse est esse duas
virtutes. Ordinem enim rationis necesse est ponere circa passiones,
considerata repugnantia ipsarum ad rationem. Quae quidem potest
esse dupliciter: uno modo secundum quod passio impellit ad aliquid
contrarium rationi; et sic necesse est quod passio reprimatur, et ab
hoc denominatur _temperantia_; alio modo secundum quod passio retrahit
ab eo quod ratio dictat, sicut timor periculorum vel laborum; et sic
necesse est quod homo firmetur in eo quod est rationis, ne recedat; et
ab hoc denominatur _fortitudo_.' _Summa, Prima Secundae_, 61. 2.
Since the Cardinal Virtues thus cover the whole field, what place is
reserved for the Theological Virtues, viz., Faith, Hope, and Charity?
Aquinas's reply is quite definite: 'Virtutes theologicae sunt
supra hominem ... Unde non proprie dicuntur virtutes _humanae_ sed
_suprahumanae_, vel _divinae_.' Ibid., 61. 1. Donne here exclaims that
the cardinal virtues themselves are non-existent without religion.
They are, isolated from religion, habits which any one can assume
who has the discretion to cover his vices. Religion not only gives us
higher virtues but alone gives sincerity to the natural virtues. Donne
is probably echoing St. Augustine, _De Civ. Dei_, xviiii. 25: '_Quod
non possint ibi verae esse virtutes, ubi non est vera religio_.
Quamlibet enim videatur animus corpori et ratio vitiis laudibiliter
imperare, si Deo animus et ratio ipsa non servit, sicut sibi esse
serviendum ipse Deus precepit, nullo modo corpori vitiisque recte
imperat. Nam qualis corporis atque vitiorum potest esse mens domina
veri Dei nescia nec eius imperio subjugata, sed vitiosissimis
daemonibus corrumpentibus prostituta? Proinde virtutes quas habere
sibi videtur per quas imperat corpori et vitiis, ad quodlibet
adipiscendum vel tenendum rettulerit nisi ad Deum, etiam ipsae vitia
sunt potius quam virtutes. Nam licet a quibusdam tunc verae atque
honestae esse virtutes cum referentur ad se ipsas nec propter
aliud expetuntur: etiam tunc inflatae et superbae sunt, et ideo non
virtutes, sed vitia iudicanda sunt. Sicut enim non est a carne sed
super carnem quod carnem facit vivere; sic non est ab homine sed super
hominem quod hominem facit beate vivere: nec solum hominem, sed etiam
quamlibet potestatem virtutemque caelestem.'

PAGE =186=, ll. 25-7. _You know, Physitians, &c._ Paracelsus refers
more than once to the heat of horse-dung used in 'separations', e.g.
_On the Separations of the Elements from Metals_ he enjoins that when
the metal has been reduced to a liquid substance you must 'add to
one part of this oil two parts of fresh _aqua fortis_, and when it
is enclosed in glass of the best quality, set it in horse-dung for a
month'.

l. 31. _Wee are but farmers of our selves._ The reading of _1633_ is
'termers', and as in 'Tables' 'Fables' of the preceding poem it is not
easy to determine which is original. 'Termer' of course, in the sense
of 'one who holds for a term' (see O.E.D.), would do. It is the more
general word and would include 'Farmer'. A farmer generally is a
'termer' in the land which he works. I think, however, that the rest
of the verse shows that 'farmer' is used in a more positive sense
than would be covered by 'termer'. The metaphor includes not only
the terminal occupancy but the specific work of the farmer--stocking,
manuring, uplaying.

Donne's metaphor is perhaps borrowed by Benlowes when he says of the
soul:

    She her own farmer, stock'd from Heav'n is bent
    To thrive; care 'bout the pay-day's spent.
  Strange! she alone is farmer, farm, and stock, and rent.

Donne in a sermon for the 5th of November speaks of those who will
have the King to be 'their Farmer of his Kingdome.' _Sermons_ 50. 43.
403.

It must be remembered that in MS. 'Fermer' and 'Termer' would be
easily interchanged.

l. 34. _to thy selfe be approv'd._ There is no reason to prefer the
_1669_ 'improv'd' here. To be 'improv'd to oneself' is not a very
lucid phrase. What Donne bids Woodward do is to seek the approval
of his own conscience. His own conscience is contrasted with 'vaine
outward things'. Donne has probably Epictetus in mind: 'How then may
this be attained?--Resolve now if never before, to approve thyself to
thyself; resolve to show thyself fair in God's sight; long to be pure
with thine own pure self and God.' _Golden Sayings_, lxxvi., trans. by
Crossley.


PAGE =187=. TO S^r HENRY WOOTTON.

The date of this letter is given in two MSS. as July 20, 1598. Its
tone is much the same as that of the previous letter (p. 180) and
of both the fourth and fifth _Satyres_. The theme of them all is the
Court.

l. 2. _Cales or St Michaels tale._ The point of this allusion was
early lost and has been long in being recovered. The spelling 'Calis'
is a little misleading, as it was used both for Calais and for
Cadiz. In Sir Francis Vere's _Commentaries_ (1657) he speaks of 'The
Calis-journey' and the 'Island voiage'. I have taken 'Cales' from some
MSS. as less ambiguous. All the modern editors have printed 'Calais',
and Grosart considers the allusion to be to the Armada, Norton to the
'old wars with France'. The reference is to the Cadiz expedition
and the Island voyage: 'Why should I tell you what we both know?' In
speaking of 'St. Michaels tale' Donne may be referring to the attack
on that particular island, which led to the loss of the opportunity
to capture the plate-fleet. But the 'Islands of St. Michael' was a
synonym for the Azores. 'Thus the ancient Cosmographers do place the
division of the East and Western Hemispheres, that is, the first term
of longitude, in the _Canary_ or fortunate Islands; conceiving these
parts the extreamest habitations Westward: But the Moderns have
altered that term, and translated it unto the _Azores_ or Islands
of St Michael; and that upon a plausible conceit of the small or
insensible variation of the Compass in those parts,' &c. Browne,
_Pseud. Epidem._ vi. 7.

ll. 10-11. _Fate, (Gods Commissary)_: i.e. God's Deputy or Delegate.
Compare:

  Fate, which God made, but doth not control.
                      _The Progresse of the Soule_, p. 295, l. 2.

  Great Destiny the Commissary of God
  That hast mark'd out a path and period
  For every thing ...
                                         Ibid., p. 296, ll. 31 f.

The idea that Fate or Fortune is the deputy of God in the sphere of
external goods ([Greek: ta ektos agatha], i beni del mondo) is very
clearly expressed by Dante in the _Convivio_, iv. 11, and in the
_Inferno_, vi. 67 f.: '"Master," I said to him, "now tell me also:
this Fortune of which thou hintest to me; what is she, that has the
good things of the world thus within her clutches?" And he to me, "O
foolish creatures, how great is this ignorance that falls upon ye!
Now I wish thee to receive my judgement of her. He whose wisdom
is transcendent over all, made the heavens" (i.e. the nine moving
spheres) "and gave them guides" (Angels, Intelligences); "so that
every part may shine to every part equally distributing the light. In
like manner, for worldly splendours, he ordained a general minister
and guide (ministro e duce); to change betimes the vain possessions,
from people to people, and from one kindred to another, beyond
the hindrance of human wisdom. Hence one people commands, another
languishes; obeying her sentence, which is hidden like the serpent in
the grass. Your knowledge cannot withstand her. She provides,
judges, and maintains her kingdom, as the other gods do theirs. Her
permutations have no truce. Necessity makes her be swift; so oft come
things requiring change. This is she, who is so much reviled, even by
those who ought to praise her, when blaming her wrongfully, and with
evil words. But she is in bliss, and hears it not. With the other
Primal Creatures joyful, she wheels her sphere, and tastes her
blessedness."' Dante finds in this view the explanation of the want of
anything like distributive justice in the assignment of wealth, power,
and worldly glory. Dante speaks here of Fortune, but though in
its original conception at the opposite pole from Fate, Fortune is
ultimately included in the idea of Fate. 'Necessity makes her be
swift.' 'Sed talia maxime videntur esse contingentia quae Fato
attribuuntur.' Aquinas. The relation of Fate or Destiny to God or
Divine Providence is discussed by Boethius, _De Cons. Phil._ IV.
_Prose_ III, whom Aquinas follows, _Summa_, I. cxvi. Ultimately the
immovable Providence of God is the cause of all things; but viewed in
the world of change and becoming, accidents or events are ascribed to
Destiny. 'Uti est ad intellectum ratiocinatio; ad id quod est, id quod
gignitur; ad aeternitatem, tempus; ad punctum medium, circulus; ita
est fati series mobilis ad Providentiae stabilem simplicitatem.'
Boethius. This is clearly what Donne has in view when he calls Destiny
the Commissary of God or declares that God made but doth not control
her. The idea of Fate in Greek thought which Christian Philosophy
had some difficulty in adjusting to its doctrines of freedom
and providence came from the astronomico-religious ideas of the
Chaldaeans. The idea of Fate 'arose from the observation of the
regularity of the sidereal movements'. Franz Cumont, _Astrology and
Religion among the Greeks and Romans_, 1912, pp. 28, 69.

l. 14. _wishing prayers._ This may be a phrase corresponding to
'bidding prayers', but 'wishing' is comma'd off as a noun in some MSS.
and 'wishes' may be the author's correction.

PAGE =188=, l. 24. _dull Moralls of a game at Chests._ The comparison
of life and especially politics to a game of chess is probably an old
one. Sancho Panza develops it with considerable eloquence.


PAGE =188=. H: W: IN HIBER: BELLIGERANTI.

This poem is taken from the Burley MS., where it is found along with
a number of poems some of which are by Donne, viz.: the _Satyres_, one
of the _Elegies_, and several of the _Epigrams_. Of the others this
alone has the initials 'J. D.' added in the margin. There can
be little doubt that it is by Donne,--a continuation of the
correspondence of the years 1597-9 to which the last letter and
'Letters more than kisses' belong. In _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ Mr. Pearsall Smith prints what he takes to be a reply to this
letter and the charge of indolence. 'Sir, It is worth my wondering
that you can complain of my seldom writing, when your own letters come
so fearfully as if they tread all the way upon a bog. I have received
from you a few, and almost every one hath a commission to speak of
divers others of their fellows, like you know who in the old comedy
that asks for the rest of his servants. But you make no mention of
any of mine, yet it is not long since I ventured much of my experience
unto you in a long piece of paper, and perhaps not of my credit; it is
that which I sent you by A. R., whereof till you advertise me I shall
live in fits or agues.' After referring to the malicious reports in
circulation regarding the Irish expedition he concludes in the style
of the previous letters: 'These be the wise rules of policy, and of
courts, which are upon earth the vainest places.'

l. 11. _yong death_: i.e. early death, death that comes to you while
young.

ll. 13-15. These lines are enough of themselves to prove Donne's
authorship of this poem. Compare _To S^r Henry Goodyere_, p. 183, ll.
17-20.


PAGE =189=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF BEDFORD.

Lucy, Countess of Bedford, occupies the central place among Donne's
noble patrons and friends. No one was more consistently his friend; to
none does he address himselfe in terms of sincerer and more respectful
eulogy.

The eldest child of John Harington, created by James first Baron
Harington of Exton, was married to Edward, third Earl of Bedford, in
1594 and was a lady in waiting under Elizabeth. She was one of the
group of noble ladies who hastened north on the death of the Queen
to welcome, and secure the favour of, James and Anne of Denmark. Her
father and mother were granted the tutorship of the young Princess
Elizabeth, and she herself was admitted at once as a Lady of the
Chamber. Her beauty and talent secured her a distinguished place
at Court, and in the years that Donne was a prisoner at Mitcham the
Countess was a brilliant figure in more than one of Ben Jonson's
masques. 'She was "the crowning rose" in that garland of English
beauty which the Spanish ambassador desired Madame Beaumont, the Lady
of the French ambassador, to bring with her to an entertainment on the
8th of December, 1603: the three others being Lady Rich, Lady Susan
Vere, and Lady Dorothy (Sidney); "and", says the Lady Arabella
Stewart, "great cheer they had."' Wiffen, _Historical Memoirs of the
House of Russell_, 1833. She figured also in Daniel's Masque, _The
Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_, which was published (1604) with an
explanatory letter addressed to her. In praising her beauty Donne
is thus echoing 'the Catholic voice'. The latest Masque in which she
figured was the _Masque of Queens_, 2nd of February, 1609-10.

In Court politics the Countess of Bedford seems to have taken some
part in the early promotion of Villiers as a rival to the Earl of
Somerset; and in 1617 she promoted the marriage of Donne's patron Lord
Hay to the youngest daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, against
the wish of the bride's father. Match-making seems to have been a
hobby of hers, for in 1625 she was an active agent in arranging the
match between James, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, and Lady
Charlotte de la Trémouille, the heroic Countess of Derby who defended
Lathom House against the Roundheads.

An active and gay life at Court was no proof of the want of a more
serious spirit. Lady Bedford was a student and a poet, and the patron
of scholars and poets. Sir Thomas Roe presented her with coins and
medals; and Drayton, Daniel, Jonson, and Donne were each in turn among
the poets whom she befriended and who sang her praises. She loved
gardens. One of Donne's finest lyrics is written in the garden of
Twickenham Park, which the Countess occupied from 1608 to 1617; and
the laying out of the garden at Moore Park in Hertfordshire, where she
lived from 1617 to her death in 1627, is commended by her successor in
that place, Sir William Temple.

Donne seems to have been recommended to Lady Bedford by Sir Henry
Goodyere, who was attached to her household. He mentions the death
of her son in a letter to Goodyere as early as 1602, but his intimacy
with the Countess probably began in 1608, and most of his verse
letters were written between that date and 1614. Donne praises her
beauty and it may be that in some of his lyrics he plays the part
of the courtly lover, but what his poems chiefly emphasize is the
religious side of her character. If my conjecture be right that she
herself wrote 'Death be not proud', her religion was probably of
a simpler, more pietistic cast than Donne's own was in its earlier
phase.

In 1612 the Countess had a serious illness which began on November
22-3 (II. p. 10). She recovered in time to take part in the ceremonies
attending the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth (Feb. 14, 1612/3),
but Chamberlain in his letters to Carleton notes a change in her
behaviour. After mentioning an accident to the Earl of Bedford he
continues: 'His lady who should have gone to the Spa but for lack of
money, shows herself again in court, though in her sickness she in a
manner vowed never to come there; but she verifies the proverb, _Nemo
ex morbo melior_. Marry, she is somewhat reformed in her attire, and
forbears painting, which, they say, makes her look somewhat strangely
among so many vizards, which together with their frizzled, powdered
hair, makes them look all alike, so that you can scant know one from
another at the first view.' Birch, _The Court and Times of James the
First_, i. 262. Donne makes no mention of this illness, but it seems
to me probable that the first two of these letters, with the emphasis
which they lay on beauty, were written before, the other more serious
and pious verses after this crisis.

See notes on _Twicknam Garden_ and the _Nocturnall on St. Lucies Day_.

PAGE =189=, ll. 4-5. _light ... faire faith._ I have retained the
'light' and 'faire faith' of the editions, but the MS. readings
'sight' and 'farr Faith' are quite possibly correct. There is not much
to choose between 'light' and 'sight', but 'farr' is an interesting
reading. Indeed at first sight 'fair' is a rather otiose epithet, a
vaguely complimentary adjective. There is, however, probably more
in it than that. 'Fair' as an epithet of 'Faith' is probably
an antithesis to the 'squint ungracious left-handedness' of
understanding. If 'farr' be the right reading, then Donne is
contrasting faith and sight: 'Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Heb. xi. 1. The use of
'far' as an adjective is not uncommon: 'Pulling far history nearer,'
Crashaw; 'His own far blood,' Tennyson; 'Far travellers may lie by
authority,' Gataker (1625), are some examples quoted in the O.E.D.
But there is no parallel to Donne's use of 'far faith' for 'faith
that lays hold on things at a distance'. 'These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off', Heb. xi.
13, is probably the source of the phrase. Such a condensed elliptical
construction is quite in Donne's manner. Compare 'Neere death', p. 28,
l. 63. Both versions may be original. The variants in l. 19 point to
some revision of the poem.

PAGE =190=, l. 22. _In every thing there naturally grows, &c._
'Every thing hath in it as, as Physicians use to call it, _Naturale
Balsamum_, a naturall Balsamum, which, if any wound or hurt which that
creature hath received, be kept clean from extrinseque putrefaction,
will heal of itself. We are so far from that naturall Balsamum, as
that we have a naturall poyson in us, Originall sin:' &c. _Sermons_
80. 32. 313.

'Now Physitians say, that man hath in his Constitution, in his
Complexion, a naturall Vertue, which they call _Balsamum suum_, his
owne Balsamum, by which, any wound which a man could receive in
his body, would cure itself, if it could be kept cleane from the
annoiances of the aire, and all extrinseque encumbrances. Something
that hath some proportion and analogy to this Balsamum of the body,
there is in the soul of man too: The soule hath _Nardum suum_, her
Spikenard, as the Spouse says, _Nardus mea dedit odorem suum_, she
hath a spikenard, a perfume, a fragrancy, a sweet savour in her
selfe. For _virtutes germanius attingunt animam, quam corpus sanitas_,
vertuous inclinations, and disposition to morall goodness, is more
naturall to the soule of man, and nearer of kin to the soule of man,
then health is to the body. And then if we consider bodily health,
_Nulla oratio, nulla doctrinae formula nos docet morbum odisse_, sayes
that Father: There needs no Art, there needs no outward Eloquence, to
persuade a man to be loath to be sick: _Ita in anima inest naturalis
et citra doctrinam mali evitatio_, sayes he: So the soule hath a
naturall and untaught hatred, and detestation of that which is evill,'
&c. _Sermons_ 80. 51. 514.

Paracelsus has a great deal to say about this natural balsam, though
he declares that 'the spirit is _most_ truly the life and balsome of
all Corporeal things'. It was to supply the want of this balsam that
mummy was used as a medicine. Of a man suddenly slain Paracelsus says:
'His whole body is profitable and good and may be prepared into a most
precious Mummie. For, although the spirit of life went out of such a
Body, yet the Balsome, in which lies the Life, remains, which doth as
Balsome preserve other mens.'

l. 27. _A methridate_: i.e. an antidote. See note to p. 255, l. 127.

ll. 31-2. _The first good Angell, &c._ 'Our first consideration
is upon the persons; and those we finde to be Angelicall women and
Evangelicall Angels: ... And to recompense that observation, that
never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman, here are good
women made Angels, that is, Messengers, publishers of the greatest
mysteries of our Religion.' _Sermons_ 80. 25. 242.

  ll. 35-6. _Make your returne home gracious; and bestow
            This life on that; so make one life of two._

'Make a present of this life to the next, by living now as you will
live then; and so make this life and the next one'--or, as another
poet puts it:

  And so make life, death, and that vast forever
    One grand, sweet song.

This I take to be Donne's meaning. The 'This' of _1635-69_ and
the MSS., which Chambers also has adopted, seems required by the
antithesis. If one recalls that 'this' is very commonly written
'thys', and that final 's' is little more than a tail, it is easy to
account for 'Thy' in _1633_. The meaning too is not clear at a glance,
and 'Thy' might seem to an editor to make it easier. The thought is
much the same as in the _Obsequies to the Lord Harrington_, p. 279.

                And I (though with paine)
  Lessen our losse, to magnifie thy gaine
  Of triumph, when I say, It was more fit,
  That all men should lacke thee, then thou lack it.

Compare also: 'Sir, our greatest businesse is more in our power then
the least, and we may be surer to meet in heaven than in any place
upon earth.' _Letters_, p. 188. And see the quotation in note to p.
112, l. 44, 'this and the next are not two worlds,' &c.


PAGE =191=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF BEDFORD.

ll. 1-6. The sense of this verse, carefully and correctly printed in
the 1633 edition, was obscured if not corrupted by the insertion of
a semicolon after 'Fortune' in the later editions. The correct
punctuation was restored in 1719, which was followed in subsequent
editions until Grosart returned to that of the 1635-39 editions (which
the Grolier Club editor also adopts), and Chambers completed the
confusion by printing the lines thus,

  You have refined me, and to worthiest things--
  Virtue, art, beauty, fortune.

Even Mr. Gosse has been misled into quoting this truncated and
enigmatical compliment to Lady Bedford, regarding it, I presume, as of
the same nature as Shakespeare's lines,

            Spirits are not finely touch'd,
  But to fine issues.

But this has a meaning; what meaning is there in saying that a man is
refined to 'beauty and fortune'? Poor Donne was not likely to boast
of either at this time. What he says is something quite different, and
strikes the key-note of the poem. 'You have refined and sharpened my
judgement, and now I see that the worthiest things owe their value
to rareness or use. Value is nothing intrinsic, but depends on
circumstances.' This, the next two verses add, explains why at Court
it is your virtue which transcends, in the country your beauty. To
Donne the country is always dull and savage; the court the focus of
wit and beauty, though not of virtue. On the relative nature of all
goodness he has touched in the _Progresse of the Soule_, p. 316, ll.
518-20:

  There's nothing simply good nor ill alone;
  Of every quality Comparison
  The only measure is, and judge, Opinion.

With the sentiment regarding Courts compare: 'Beauty, in courts, is
so necessary to the young, that those who are without it, seem to be
there to no other purpose than to wait on the triumphs of the fair; to
attend their motions in obscurity, as the moon and stars do the sun
by day; or at best to be the refuge of those hearts which others have
despised; and by the unworthiness of both to give and take a miserable
comfort.' Dryden, Dedication of the _Indian Emperor_.

ll. 8-9. (_Where a transcendent height, (as lownesse mee)
          Makes her not be, or not show_)

I have completed the enclosure of (Where ... show) in brackets which
_1633_ began but forgot to carry out. The statement is parenthetical,
and it is of the essence of Donne's wit to turn aside in one
parenthesis to make another, dart from one distracting thought to
a further, returning at the end to the main track. He has left the
Countess for a moment to explain why the Court 'is not Vertues clime'.
She is too transcendent to be, or at any rate to be seen there, as
I (he adds, quite irrelevantly) am too low. Then taking up again the
thought of the first line he continues: 'all my rhyme is claimed
there by your vertues, for _there_ rareness gives them value. I am the
comment on what _there_ is a dark text; the usher who announces one
that is a stranger.'

For brackets within brackets compare: 'And yet it is imperfect which
is taught by that religion which is most accommodate to sense (I dare
not say to reason (though it have appearance of that too) because
none may doubt but that that religion is certainly best which is
reasonablest) That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all
Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation
and every civill coagulation or society one other; and every man one
other.' _Letters_, p. 43.

l. 13. _To this place_: i.e. Twickenham. _O'F_ heads the poem _To the
Countesse of Bedford, Twitnam_. The poem is written to welcome her
home. See l. 70.

The development of Donne's subtle and extravagant conceits is a little
difficult. The Countess is the sun which exhales the sweetness of the
country when she comes thither (13-18). Apparently the Countess
has returned to Twickenham in Autumn, perhaps arriving late in the
evening. When she emerges from her chariot it is the breaking of a new
day, the beginning of a new year or new world. Both the Julian and the
Gregorian computations are thus falsified (19-22). It shows her truth
to nature that she will not suffer a day which begins at a stated
hour, but only one that begins with the actual appearance of the light
(23-4: a momentary digression). Since she, the Sun, has thus come to
Twickenham, the Court is made the Antipodes. While the 'vulgar sun' is
an Autumnal one, this Sun which is in Spring, receives our sacrifices.
Her priests, or instruments, we celebrate her (25-30). Then Donne
draws back from the religious strain into which he is launching. He
will not sing Hymns as to a Deity, but offer petitions as to a King,
that he may view the beauty of this Temple, and not as Temple, but as
Edifice. The rest of the argument is simpler.

l. 60. _The same thinge._ The singular of the MSS. seems to be
required by 'you cannot two'. The 's' of the editions is probably
due to the final 'e'. But 'things' is the reading of _Lec_, the MS.
representing most closely that from which _1633_ was printed.

ll. 71-2. _Who hath seene one, &c._ 'Who hath seen one, e.g.
Twickenham, which your dwelling there makes a Paradise, would fain see
you too, as whoever had been in Paradise would not have failed to seek
out the Cherubim.' The construction is elliptical. Compare:

  Wee'had had a Saint, have now a holiday.

  P. 286, l. 44.

The Cherubim are specially mentioned (although the Seraphim are the
highest order) because they are traditionally the beautiful angels:
'The Spirit of Chastity ... in the likenesse of a faire beautifull
Cherubine.' Bacon, _New Atlantis_ (1658), 22 (O.E.D.).


PAGE =193=. TO S^r EDWARD HERBERT. AT IULYERS.

Edward Herbert, first Baron of Cherbury (1563-1648), the eldest son of
Donne's friend Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, had not long returned from his
first visit to France when he set out again in 1610 with Lord Chandos
'to pass to the city of Juliers which the Prince of Orange resolved to
besiege. Making all haste thither we found the siege newly begun; the
Low Country army assisted by 4,000 English under the command of
Sir Edward Cecil. We had not long been there when the Marquis de
la Chartre, instead of Henry IV, who was killed by that villain
Ravaillac, came with a brave French army thither'. _Autobiography_,
ed. Sidney Lee. The city was held by the Archduke Leopold for the
Emperor. The Dutch, French, and English were besieging the town in the
interest of the Protestant candidates, the Elector of Brandenburg, and
the Palatine of Neuburg. The siege marked the beginning of the Thirty
Years' War. Herbert was a man of both ability and courage but of
a vanity which outweighed both. Donne's letter humours both his
Philosophical pose and his love of obscurity and harshness in poetry.
His own poems with a few exceptions are intolerably difficult and
unmusical, and Jonson told Drummond that 'Donne said to him he wrote
that Epitaph upon Prince Henry, _Look to me Faith_, to match Sir Ed.
Herbert in obscureness'. (Jonson's _Conversations_, ed. Laing.) The
poems have been reprinted by the late Professor Churton Collins. In
1609 when Herbert was in England he and Donne both wrote Elegies on
Mistress Boulstred.

l. 1. _Man is a lumpe, &c._ The image of the beasts Donne has borrowed
from Plato, _The Republic_, ix. 588 B-E.

PAGE =194=, ll. 23-6. A food which to chickens is harmless poisons
men. Our own nature contributes the factor which makes a food into a
poison either corrosive or killing by intensity of heat or cold:
'Et hic nota quod tantus est ordo naturae, ut quod est venenosum et
inconveniens uni est utile et conveniens alteri; sicut jusquiamus
qui est cibus passeris licet homini sit venenosus; et sicut napellus
interficit hominem solum portatus, et mulierem praegnantem non laesit
manducatus, teste Galieno; et mus qui pascitur napello est tiriaca
contra napellum.' Benvenuto on Dante, _Div. Comm._: _Paradiso_, i. The
plants here mentioned are henbane and aconite. Concerning hemlock the
O.E.D. quotes Swan, _Spec. M._ vi. § 4 (1643), 'Hemlock ... is meat to
storks and poison to men.' Donne probably uses the word 'chickens' as
equivalent to 'young birds', not for the young of the domestic
fowl. For the cold of the hemlock see Persius, _Sat._ v. 145; Ovid,
_Amores_, iii. 7. 13; and Juvenal, _Sat._ vii. 206, a reference to
Socrates' gift from the Athenians of 'gelidas ... cicutas'.

ll. 31-2. _Thus man, that might be'his pleasure, &c._ These lines
are condensed and obscure. The 'his' must mean 'his own'. 'Man who in
virtue of that gift of reason which makes him man might be to himself
a source of joy, becomes instead, by the abuse of reason, his own rod.
Reason which should be the God directing his life becomes the devil
which misleads him.' Chambers prints 'His pleasure', 'His rod',
referring 'his' to God--which seems hardly possible.

ll. 34-8. _wee'are led awry, &c._ Chambers's punctuation of this
passage is clearly erroneous:

                        we're led awry
  By them, who man to us in little show,
  Greater than due; no form we can bestow
  On him, for man into himself can draw
  All;

This must mean that we are led astray by those who, in their
abridgement of man, still show him to us greater than he really is.
But this is the opposite of what Donne says. 'Greater than due' goes
with 'no form'. Compare:

'And therefore the Philosopher draws man into too narrow a table, when
he says he is _Microcosmos_, an Abridgement of the world in little:
_Nazianzen_ gives him but his due, when he calls him _Mundum Magnum_,
a world to which all the rest of the world is but subordinate: For
all the world besides, is but God's Foot-stool; Man sits down upon his
right-hand,' &c. _Sermons_ 26. 25. 370.

'It is too little to call Man a little world; Except God, Man is a
diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than
the world; than the world doth, nay than the world is.' _Devotions
upon Emergent Occasions, &c._ (1624), p. 64.

On the other hand the Grolier Club editor has erroneously followed
_1635-69_ in altering the full stop after 'chaw' to a comma; and has
substituted a semicolon for the comma after 'fill' (l. 39), reading:

            for man into himself can draw
  All; all his faith can swallow or reason chaw,
  All that is filled, and all that which doth fill;

But 'All that is fill'd,' &c. is not _object_ to 'can draw'. It is
_subject_ (in apposition with 'All the round world') to 'is but a
pill'.

PAGE =195=, l. 47. _This makes it credible._ I have changed the comma
after 'credible' to a semicolon to avoid the misapprehension, into
which the Grolier Club editor seems to have fallen, that what is
credible is 'that you have dwelt upon all worthy books'. It is because
Lord Herbert has dwelt upon all worthy books that it is credible that
he knows man.


PAGE =195=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF BEDFORD.

l. 1. _T'have written then, &c._ This is one of the most difficult of
Donne's poems. With his usual strain of extravagant compliment Donne
has interwoven some of his deepest thought and most out-of-the-way
theological erudition and scientific lore. Moreover the poem is one
of those for which the MS. resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ was not
available. The text of _1633_ was taken from a MS. belonging to the
group _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_, and contains several errors. Some of
these were corrected in _1635_ from _O'F_ or a MS. resembling it,
but in the most vital case what was a right but difficult reading in
_1633_ was changed for an apparently easier but erroneous reading.

The emendations which I have accepted from _1635_ are--

l. 5. 'debt' for 'doubt'.

l. 7. '_nothings_' for '_nothing_'.

l. 20. 'or all It; You.' for 'or all, in you.' There is not much
to choose between the two, but 'the world's best all' is not a very
logical expression. But the _1633_ reading may mean 'the world's
best part, or the world's all,--you.' The alteration of _1635_ is not
necessary, but looks to me like the author's own emendation.

l. 4. _Then worst of civill vices, thanklessenesse._ 'Naturall and
morall men are better acquainted with the duty of gratitude, of
thankesgiving, before they come to the Scriptures, then they are
with the other duty of repentance which belongs to Prayer; for in all
_Solomons_ bookes, you shall not finde halfe so much of the duty of
thankefulnesse, as you shall in _Seneca_ and in _Plutarch_. No book of
Ethicks, of moral doctrine, is come to us, where there is not, almost
in every leafe, some detestation, some Anathema against ingratitude.'
_Sermons_ 80. 55. 550.

PAGE =197=, l. 54. _Wee (but no forraine tyrants could) remove._
Following the hint of _O'F_, I have bracketed all these words to show
that the verb to 'Wee' is 'remove', not 'could remove'.

ll. 57-8. _For, bodies shall from death redeemed bee,
          Soules but preserved, not naturally free._

Here the later editions change 'not' to 'borne', and the correction
has been accepted by Grosart and Chambers. But _1633_ is right. If
'not' be changed, the force of the antithesis is lost. What is 'borne
free' does not need to be preserved. What Donne expresses is a form
of the doctrine of conditional immortality. In a sermon on the
Penitential Psalms (_Sermons_ 80. 53. 532) he says: 'We have a full
cleerenesse of the state of the soule after this life, not only above
those of the old Law, but above those of the Primitive Christian
Church, which, in some hundreds of years, came not to a cleere
understanding in that point, whether the soule were immortall by
nature, or but by preservation, whether the soule could not die
or only should not die,' &c. Here the antithesis between 'being
preserved' and 'being naturally free' (i.e. immortal) is presented as
sharply as in this line of the verse _Letter_. But Donne states
the doctrine tentatively 'because that perchance may be without any
constant cleerenesse yet'. Elsewhere he seems to accept it: 'And for
the Immortality of the Soule, it is safelier said to be immortall by
preservation, then immortal, by nature; That God keepes it from dying,
then, that it cannot dye.' _Sermons_ 80. 27. 269. This makes the
correct reading of the line quite certain.

The tenor of Donne's thought seems to me to be as follows: He is
speaking of the soul's eclipse by the body (ll. 40-2), by the body
which should itself be an organ of the soul's life, of prayer as well
as labour (ll. 43-8). He returns in ll. 49-52 to the main theme of the
body's corrupting influence, and this leads him to a new thought. It
is not only the soul which suffers by this absorption in the body, but
the body itself:

  What hate could hurt our bodies like our love?

By this descent of the soul into the body we deprive the latter of
its proper dignity, to be the Casket, Temple, Palace of the Soul.
Then Donne turns aside to enforce the dignity of the Body. It will be
redeemed from death, and the Soul is only preserved. No more than
the Body is the Soul naturally immortal. These lines are almost
a parenthesis. The poet returns once more to his main theme, the
degradation of the soul by our exclusive regard for the body.

Thus the deepest thought of Donne's poetry, his love poetry and
his religious poetry, emerges here again. He will not accept the
antithesis between soul and body. The dignity of the body is hardly
less than that of the soul. But we cannot exalt the body at the
expense of the soul. If we immerse the soul in the body it is not the
soul alone which suffers but the body also. In the highest spiritual
life, as in the fullest and most perfect love, body and soul are
complementary, are merged in each other; and after death the life
of the soul is in some measure incomplete, the end for which it was
created is not obtained until it is reunited to the body. 'Yet have
not those Fathers, nor those Expositors, who have in this text,
acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule, mistaken nor miscalled the
matter. Take _Damascens_ owne definition of Resurrection: _Resurrectio
est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio_: A Resurrection is a second
rising to that state, from which anything is formerly fallen. Now
though by death, the soule do not fall into any such state, as that it
can complaine, (for what can that lack, which God fils?) yet by death,
the soule fals from that, for which it was infused, and poured into
man at first; that is to be the forme of that body, the King of that
Kingdome; and therefore, when in the generall Resurrection, the soule
returns to that state, for which it was created, and to which it hath
had an affection, and a desire, even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of
Heaven, then, when the soule returns to her office, to make up
the man, because the whole man hath, therefore the soule hath a
Resurrection: not from death, but from a deprivation of her former
state; that state which she was made for, and is ever enclined to.'
_Sermons_ 80. 19. 189.

Here, as before, Donne is probably following St. Augustine, who
combats the Neo-Platonic view (to which mediaeval thought tended to
recur) that a direct source of evil was the descent of the soul into
the body. The body is not essentially evil. It is not the body as such
that weighs down the soul (aggravat animam), but the body corrupted
by sin: 'Nam corruptio corporis ... non peccati primi est causa, sed
poena; nec caro corruptibilis animam peccatricem, sed anima peccatrix
fecit esse corruptibilem carnem.' In the Resurrection we desire not
to escape from the body but to be clothed with a new body,--'nolumus
corpore exspoliari, sed ejus immortalitate vestiri.' Aug. _De Civ.
Dei_, xiv. 3, 5. He cites St. Paul, 2 Cor. v. 1-4.

l. 59. _As men to our prisons, new soules to us are sent, &c._: 'new'
is the reading of _1633_ only, 'now' followed or preceded by a comma
of the other editions and the MSS. It is difficult to decide between
them, but Donne speaks of 'new souls' elsewhere: 'The Father creates
new souls every day in the inanimation of Children, and the Sonne
creates them with him.' _Sermons_ 50. 12. 100. 'Our nature is
Meteorique, we respect (because we partake so) both earth and heaven;
for as our bodies glorified shall be capable of spirituall joy, so
our souls demerged into those bodies, are allowed to partake earthly
pleasure. Our soul is not sent hither, only to go back again; we have
some errand to do here; nor is it sent into prison, because it comes
innocent; and he which sent it, is just.' _Letters_ (1651), p. 46.

l. 68. _Two new starres._ See Introductory Note to _Letters_.

PAGE =198=, l. 72. _Stand on two truths_: i.e. the wickedness of the
world and your goodness. You will believe neither.


PAGE =198=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF BEDFORD.
            ON NEW-YEARES DAY.

l. 3. _of stuffe and forme perplext_: i.e. whose matter and form are a
perplexed, intricate, difficult question:

  Whose _what_, and _where_ in disputation is.

Donne cannot mean that the matter and form are 'intricately
intertwined or intermingled', using the words as in Bacon: 'The
formes of substances (as they are now by compounding and transplanting
multiplied) are so perplexed.' Bacon, _Adv. Learn._ ii. 7. § 5. The
question of meteors in all their forms was one of great interest and
great difficulty to ancient science. Seneca, who gathers up most of
what has been said before him, recurs to the subject again and again.
See the _Quaestiones Naturales_, i. 1, and elsewhere. Aristotle, he
says, attributes them to exhalations from the earth heated by the
sun's rays. They are at any rate not falling stars, or parts of stars,
but 'have their origin below the stars, and--being without solid
foundation or fixed abode--quickly perish'. But there was great
uncertainty as to their _what_ and _where_. Donne compares himself to
them in the uncertainty of his position and worldly affairs. 'Wind is
a mixt Meteor, to the making whereof divers occasions concurre with
exhalations.' _Sermons_ 80. 31. 305.

PAGE =199=, l. 19. _cherish, us doe wast._ The punctuation of _1633_
is odd at the first glance, but accurate. If with all the later
editions one prints 'cherish us, doe wast', the suggestion is that
'wast' is intransitive--'in cherishing us they waste themselves,'
which is not Donne's meaning. It is us they waste.

PAGE =200=, l. 44. _Some pitty._ I was tempted to think that Lowell's
conjecture of 'piety' for 'pitty' must be right, the more so that the
spelling of the two words was not always differentiated. But it is
improbable that Donne would say that 'piety' in the sense of piety
to God could ever be out of place. What he means is probably that at
Court pity, which elsewhere is a virtue, may not be so if it induces a
lady to lend a relenting ear to the complaint of a lover.

  Beware faire maides of musky courtiers oathes
  Take heed what giftes and favors you receive,
  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
  Beleeve not oathes or much protesting men,
  Credit no vowes nor no bewayling songs.
                       Joshua Sylvester (_attributed to_ Donne).

What follows is ambiguous. As punctuated in _1633_ the lines run:

                              some vaine disport,
  On this side, sinne: with that place may comport.

This must mean, practically repeating what has been said: 'Some vain
amusements which, on this side of the line separating the cloister
from the Court, would be sin; are on that side, in the Court,
becoming--amusements, sinful in the cloister, are permissible at
Court.' The last line thus contains a sharp antithesis. But can 'on
this side' mean 'in the cloister'? Donne is not writing from the
cloister, and if he had been would say 'In this place'. 'Faith',
he says elsewhere, 'is not on this side Knowledge but beyond it.'
_Sermons_ 50. 36. 325. This is what he means here, and I have so
punctuated it, following _1719_ and subsequent editions: 'Some vain
disport, so long as it falls short of actual sin, is permissible at
Court.'

l. 48. _what none else lost_: i.e. innocence. Others never had it.


PAGE =201=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF HUNTINGDON.

Elizabeth Stanley, daughter of Ferdinando, fifth Earl of Derby,
married Henry Hastings, fifth Earl of Huntingdon, in 1603. Her
mother's second husband was Sir Thomas Egerton, whom Lady Derby
married in 1600. Donne was then Egerton's secretary, and in lines
57-60 he refers to his early acquaintance with her, then Lady Alice
Stanley. If the letter in _Appendix A_, p. 417, 'That unripe side',
&c., be also by Donne, and addressed to the Countess of Huntingdon,
it must have been written earlier than this letter, which belongs
probably to the period immediately before Donne's ordination.

l. 13. _the Magi._ The MSS. give _Magis_, and in _The First
Anniversary_ (l. 390) Donne writes, 'The Aegyptian Mages'. The
argument of the verse is: 'As such a miraculous star led the Magi to
the infant Christ, so may the beams of virtue transmitted by your fame
guide fit souls to the knowledge of virtue; and indeed none are so bad
that they may not be thus led. Your light can illumine and guide the
darkest.'

l. 18. _the Sunnes fall._ In Autumn? or does Donne refer to the fall
of the sun to the centre in the new Astronomy? In the _Letters_, p.
102, he says that 'Copernicisme in the Mathematiques hath carried
earth farther up from the stupid Center; and yet not honoured it,
because for the necessity of appearances, it hath carried heaven so
much higher from it'. Compare _An Anatomie of the World_, l. 274.

PAGE 202, l. 25. _She guilded us: But you are gold, and Shee;_
The _1633_ reading is the more pregnant, and therefore the more
characteristic of Donne. 'She guilded us, but you she changed into
_her own_ substance.' The _1635_ reading implies transubstantiation,
but does not indicate so clearly the identity of the new substance
with virtue's own essence.

ll. 33-6. _Else being alike pure, &c._ This verse follows in the
closest way on what has gone before, and should not be separated from
it by a full stop as in Chambers and Grolier. The last line of this
stanza concludes the whole argument which began at l. 29. 'The high
grace of virginity indeed is not yours, because virtue, having made
you one with herself, wished in you to reveal herself. Virtue and
Virginity are each too pure for earthly vision. As air and aqueous
vapour are each invisible till both are changed into thickened air or
cloud, so virtue becomes manifest in you as mother and wife. It is for
_our_ sake you take these low names.'

ll. 41-4. _So you, as woman, one doth comprehend, &c._ 'One, your
husband, comprehends your being. To others it is revealed, but under
the veil of kindred; to still others of friendship; to me, who stand
more remote, under the relationship of prince to subject.'

l. 47. _I, which doe soe._ The edition of 1633 reads, 'I, which to
you', making a logical and grammatical construction of the sentence
impossible. The editor has failed to note that the personal reference
of 'owe' is supplied in l. 45, 'To whom'. 'I, which doe so' means 'I,
who contemplate you'.


PAGE =203=. TO M^r T. W.

_To M^r T. W._ The group of letters which begins with this I have
arranged according to the order in which they are found in _W_, Mr.
Gosse's Westmoreland MS. In this MS. a better text of these poems is
given than that of _1633_; lines are supplied which have been dropped,
and a few whole letters. The series contains also a reply to one of
Donne's letters. For these reasons it seems to me preferable to follow
an order which _may_ correspond to the order of composition.

In _1633_, which follows _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_, the letters are
headed M. T. W., M. R. W., &c., 'M' standing, as often, for 'Mr.'
Seeing, however, that 'Mr.' is the general form in _W_, I have used it
as clearer.

The first of the letters has been headed hitherto To M. I. W., and
Mr. Chambers conjectured that the person addressed _might_ be Izaak
Walton. It is clear from the other MSS. that _A18_, _N_, _TC_, which
_1633_ follows, is wrong and that I. W. should be T. W., Thomas
Woodward. The T and I of this MS. are very similar, though
distinguishable. Unfortunately we know nothing more of Thomas Woodward
than that he was Rowland's brother and Donne's friend. The 'sweet
Poet' must not be taken too seriously. Donne and his friends were
corresponding with one another in verse, and complimenting each other
in the polite fashion of the day.

PAGE =204=, ll. 13-16. _But care not for me, &c._ These lines form a
crux in the textual criticism of Donne's poetry. I shall print them as
they stand in _W_:

  But care not for mee: I y^t ever was
  In natures & in fortunes guifts alas
  Before thy grace got in the Muses schoole
  A monster & a begger, am now a foole.

Some copies of the 1633 edition (including those used by myself and by
the Grolier Club editor) print these words, but obscure the meaning
by bracketing 'alas ... schoole'. Other copies (e.g. that used by
Chambers) insert after 'Before' a 'by', which the Grolier Club editor
also does as a conjecture. The 1635 editor, probably following _O'F_,
resorted to another device to clear up the sense and changed 'Before'
to 'But for', which Grosart and Chambers follow. The majority of
the MSS., however, agree with _W_, and the case illustrates well the
difficulties which beset an eclectic use of the editions.

If the bracket in _1633_ is dropt, or rearranged as in the text, the
reading is correct and intelligible. The printers and editors have
been misled by Donne's phrase, 'In Natures, and in Fortunes gifts'.
They took this to go with 'A monster and a beggar': 'I that ever was
a monster and a beggar in Natures and in Fortunes gifts.' This is a
strange expression, taken, I suppose, to mean that Donne never enjoyed
the blessings either of Nature or of Fortune. But what Donne says
is somewhat different. The phrase 'I that ever was in Natures and
in Fortunes gifts' means 'I that ever was the Almsman of Nature and
Fortune'. Donne is using metaphorically a phrase of which the O.E.D.
quotes a single instance: 'I live in Henry the 7th's Gifts' (i.e.
his Almshouses). T. Barker, _The Art of Angling_ (1651). The whole
sentence might be paraphrased thus: 'I, who was ever the Almsman of
Nature and Fortune, am now a fool.' Parenthetically he adds, 'Till
thy grace begot me, a monster and a beggar, in the Muses' school'.
Possibly 'and a beggar' should be left outside the brackets and taken
with 'In Natures and in Fortunes gifts': 'I, that _was_ an almsman
and beggar, was by you begotten a poet, though a monstrous one;'
('monster' goes properly with 'got') 'and am now a fool'--possibly the
last allusion is to his rash marriage. Donne's prose and verse of
the years following 1601 are full of this melancholy depreciation of
himself and his lot. Daniel calls himself the

  Orphan of Fortune, borne to be her scorne.
                                                        _Delia_, 26.

Compare also:

  O I am fortune's fool.
                       Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_, III. i. 129.

                Let your study
  Be to content your lord, who hath received you
    At fortune's alms.
                              Shakespeare, _King Lear_, I. i. 277-9.

  So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
    And shut myself up in some other course,
  To fortune's alms.
                             Shakespeare, _Othello_, III. iv. 120-2.

In _W_ 'All haile sweet Poet' is followed at once by these lines,
presumably written by Thomas Woodward and possibly in reply to the
above. They are found standing by themselves in _B_, _O'F_, _P_,
_S96_. In these they are apparently ascribed to Donne. I print from
_W_:

TO M^r J. D.

  Thou sendst me prose and rimes, I send for those
  Lynes, which, being neither, seem or verse or prose.
  They'are lame and harsh, and have no heat at all
  But what thy Liberall beams on them let fall.
  The nimble fyre which in thy braynes doth dwell
  Is it the fyre of heaven or that of hell?
  It doth beget and comfort like Heavens eye,
  And like hells fyre it burnes eternally.
  And those whom in thy fury and judgment
  Thy verse shall skourge like hell it will torment.
  Have mercy on mee and my sinfull Muse
  Which rub'd and tickled with thine could not chuse
  But spend some of her pith, and yeild to bee
  One in that chaste and mistique Tribadree.
  Bassaes adultery no fruit did Leave,
  Nor theirs, which their swollen thighs did nimbly weave,
  And with new armes and mouths embrace and kiss,
  Though they had issue was not like to this.
  Thy muse, Oh strange and holy Lecheree
  Being a mayde still, gott this song on mee.

l. 25. _Now if this song, &c._ By interchanging the stops at 'evill'
and at 'passe' the old editions have obscured these lines. Mr.
Chambers, accepting the full stop at 'evill', prints:--

  If thou forget the rhyme as thou dost pass,
  Then write;

The reason for writing is not clear. 'If thou forget,' &c. explains
''Twill be good prose'. 'Read this without attending to the rhymes
and you will find it good prose.' If we drop the epithet 'good', this
criticism will apply to a considerable portion of metaphysical poetry.

PAGE =205=, l. 30. _thy zanee_, i.e. thy imitator, as the Merry-Andrew
imitates the Mountebank:

  He's like the Zani to a tumbler
  That tries tricks after him to make men laugh.
                    Jonson, _Every Man out of his Humour_, IV. i.


PAGE =205=. TO M^r T. W.

l. 1. _Haste thee, &c._ By the lines 5-6, supplied from _W_, this poem
is restored to the compass of a sonnet, though a very irregular one in
form. The letter is evidently written from London, where the plague is
prevalent. The letter is to be (l. 14) Donne's pledge of affection if
he lives, his testament if he dies.


PAGE =206=. TO M^r T. W.

l. 5. _hand and eye_ is the reading of all the MSS., including _W_.
It is written in the latter with a contraction which could easily be
mistaken for 'or'.


TO M^r T. W.

l. 3. _I to the Nurse, they to the child of Art._ The 'Nurse of Art'
is probably Leisure, 'I to my soft still walks':

  And add to these retired Leisure,
  That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.

According to Aristotle, all the higher, more intellectual arts, as
distinct from those which supply necessities or add to the pleasures
of life, are the fruits of leisure: 'At first he who invented any art
that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired
by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions,
but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more
arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life,
others to its recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally
always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because
their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all
such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not
aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered,
and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This
is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there
the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure.' _Met._ A. 981^b
(translated by W. D. Ross).

l. 12. _a Picture, or bare Sacrament._ The last word would seem to be
used in the legal sense: 'The _sacramentum_ or pledge which each of
the parties deposited or became bound for before a suit.' O.E.D. The
letter is a picture of his mind or pledge of his affection.


PAGE =207=. TO M^r R. W.

_Muse not that by, &c._ l. 7. _a Lay Mans Genius_: i.e. his Guardian
Angel. The 'Lay Man' is opposed to the 'Poet'. Donne is very familiar
with the Catholic doctrine of Guardian Angels and recurs to it
repeatedly. Compare Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, III. i. 55.

l. 11. _Wright then._ The version of this poem in _W_ is probably
made from Donne's autograph. One of his characteristic spellings is
'wright' for 'write'. The _Losely Manuscripts_ (ed. Kempe, 1836), in
which some of Donne's letters are printed from the originals, show
this spelling on every page. It is perhaps worth noting that the
irregular past participle similarly spelt, i.e. 'wrought', has
occasionally misled editors by its identity of form with the past
participle of the verb 'work', which has 'gh' legitimately. Thus Mr.
Beeching (_A Selection from the Poetry of Samuel Daniel and Michael
Drayton_, 1899) prints:

  Read in my face a volume of despairs,
    The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe,
  Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares,
    Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.

Here 'wrought' should be 'wrote', used, as frequently, for 'written'.
In Professor Saintsbury's _Patrick Carey_ (Caroline Poets, II.) we
read:

  Who writ this song would little care
  Although at the end his name were wrought.

i.e. 'wrote'.

See also Donne's _The Litanie_, i. p. 342, l. 112.


PAGE =208=. TO M^r C. B.

Pretty certainly Christopher Brooke, to whom _The Storme_ and _The
Calme_, are addressed. Chambers takes 'the Saint of his affection' to
be Donne's wife, and dates the letter after 1600. But surely the
last two lines would not have been written of a wife. They are in the
conventional tone of the poet to his cruel Mistress. If Ann More is
the 'Saint' referred to, she was not yet Donne's wife. Possibly it is
some one else. Writing from Wales in 1599, Wotton says (in a letter
which Mr. Pearsall Smith thinks is addressed to Donne, but this is not
at all certain), 'May I after these, kiss that fair and learned
hand of your mistress, than whom the world doth possess nothing more
virtuous.' (_Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton_, i. 306.)

l. 10. _Heavens liberall and earths thrice fairer Sunne._ I prefer the
_1633_ and _1669_ reading, amended from _W_ which reads 'fairer', to
that of the later editions, 'the thrice faire Sunne', which Chambers
adopts. There are obviously _two_ suns in question--the Heavens'
liberal sun, and the earth's thrice-fairer one, i.e. the lady. Exiled
from both, Donne carries with him sufficient fire to melt the ice of
the wintry regions he must visit--not 'that which walls her heart'.
Commenting on a similar conceit in Petrarch:

  Ite caldi sospiri al freddo core,
  Rompete il ghiaccio, che pietà contende,

Tassoni tells how while writing he found himself detained at an Inn
by a severe frost, and that sighs were of little use to melt it.
_Considerazioni, &c._ (1609), p. 228.


TO M^r E. G.

Gosse conjectures that the person addressed is Edward Guilpin, or
Gilpin, author of _Skialetheia_ (1598), a collection of epigrams and
satires. Guilpin imitates one of Donne's _Satyres_, which may imply
acquaintance. He makes no traceable reference to Donne in his works,
and we know so little of Guilpin that it is impossible to affirm
anything with confidence. Whoever is meant is in Suffolk. There were
Gilpins of Bungay there in 1664. It is worth noting that Sir Henry
Goodyere begins one of his poems (preserved in MS. at the Record
Office, _State Papers Dom._, 1623) with the line: 'Even as lame things
thirst their perfection.' Goodyere's poem was written before the
issue of Donne's poems in 1633, and that edition does not contain this
letter. One suspects that E. G. may be a Goodyere.

ll. 5-6. _oreseest ... overseene._ Donne is probably punning: 'Thou
from the height of Parnassus lookest down upon London; I in London am
too much overlooked, disregarded.' But it is not clear. He may mean
'am too much in men's eye, or kept too strictly under observation'.
The first meaning seems to me the more probable.


PAGE =209=. TO M^r R. W.

l. 3. _brother._ _W_ reads 'brethren', and Morpheus _had_ many
brothers; but of these only two had with himself the power of assuming
what form they would, and of these two Phantasus took forms that lack
life. Donne, therefore, probably means Phobetor, but a friend copying
the poem thought to amend his mythology. See Ovid, _Metam._ xi.
635-41.


PAGE =210=. TO M^r R. W.

l. 18. _Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring._ See introductory
note to the _Letters_.

l. 23. _businesse._ The use of 'businesse' as a trisyllable with
plural meaning is quite legitimate: 'Idle and discoursing men, that
were not much affected, how businesse went, so they might talke of
them.' _Sermon_, Judges XX. 15. p. 7.


PAGE =211=. TO M^r S. B.

Probably Samuel Brooke, the brother of Christopher. He officiated at
Donne's marriage and was imprisoned. He was later Chaplain to Prince
Henry, to James I, and to Charles I; professor of Divinity at Gresham
College (1612-29) and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1629. He
wrote Latin plays, poems, and religious treatises. The tone of Donne's
letter implies that he is a student at Cambridge. It was written
therefore before 1601, probably, like several of these letters, while
Donne was Egerton's secretary, and living in chambers with Christopher
Brooke. A poem by Samuel Brooke, _On Tears_, is printed in Hannah's
_Courtly Poets_.


PAGE =212=. TO M^r J. L.

Of the J. L. of this and the letter which follows the next, nothing
has been unearthed. He clearly belonged to the North of England,
beyond the Trent.


TO M^r B. B.

Grosart conjectures that this was Basil Brooke (1576-1646?), a
Catholic, who was knighted in 1604. In 1644 he was committed to the
Tower by Parliament and in 1646 imprisoned in the King's Bench. He
translated _Entertainments for Lent_ from the French. He was not
a brother of Christopher and Samuel. The identification is only a
conjecture. The tenor of the poem is very similar to that addressed to
Mr. S. B.

PAGE =213=, l. 18. _widowhed._ _W_ here clearly gives us the form
which Donne used. The rhyme requires it and the poet has used it
elsewhere:

  And call chast widowhead Virginitie.
                                         _The Litanie_, xii. 108.

ll. 19-22. As punctuated in the old editions these lines are somewhat
ambiguous:

  My Muse, (for I had one) because I'am cold,
  Divorc'd her self, the cause being in me,
  That I can take no new in Bigamye,
  Not my will only but power doth withhold.

Chambers and the Grolier Club editor, by putting a full stop or
semi-colon after 'the cause being in me', connect these words with
what precedes. This makes the first two lines verbose ('the cause
being in me' repeating 'because I'am cold') and the last two obscure.
I regard 'the cause being in me' as an explanatory participial phrase
qualifying what follows. 'My Muse divorc'd me because of my coldness.
The cause of this divorce, coldness, being in me, the divorced one,
I lack not only the will but the power to contract a new marriage'. I
have therefore, following _W_, placed a colon after 'selfe'.


PAGE =213=. TO M^r I. L.

l. 2. _My Sun is with you._ Here, as in the letter 'To Mr. C. B.' (p.
208), reference is made to some lady whose 'servant' Donne is. See the
note to that poem and the quotation from Sir Henry Wotton. It seems to
me most probable that the person referred to was neither Ann More nor
any predecessor of her in Donne's affections, but some noble lady to
whom the poet stood in the attitude of dependence masking itself in
love which Spenser occupied towards Lady Carey, and so many other
poets towards their patronesses. But in regard to all the references
in these letters we can only grope in darkness. As Professor
Saintsbury would say, we do not _really know_ to whom one of the
letters was addressed.

PAGE =214=, ll. 11-12. These lines from _W_ make the sense more
complete and the transition to the closing invocation less abrupt.
'Sacrifice my heart to that beauteous Sunne; and since being with her
you are in Paradise where joy admits of no addition, think of me
at the sacrifice'; and then begins the prayer to his friend as an
interceding saint. See note to p. 24, l. 22.

The lines seem to have been dropped, not in printing, but at some
stage in transcription, for I have found them in no MS. but _W_.

l. 20. _Thy Sonne ne'r Ward_: i.e. 'May thy son never become a royal
ward, to be handed over to the guardianship of some courtier who will
plunder his estate.' Sir John Roe's father, in his will, begs his wife
to procure the wardship of his son that he be not utterly ruined.

The series of letters which this to Mr. I. L. closes was probably
written during the years 1597 to 1608 or 1610. Donne's first Letters
were _The Storme_ and _The Calme_. These were followed by Letters to
Wotton before and after he went to Ireland, and this series continues
them during the years of Donne's secretaryship and his subsequent
residence at Pyrford and Mitcham. They are written to friends of his
youth, some still at college. Clearly too, what we have preserved is
Donne's side of a mutual correspondence. Of Letters to Donne I have
printed one, probably from Thomas Woodward. Chance has preserved
another probably in the form in which it was sent. Mr. Gosse has
printed it (_Life, &c._, i, p. 91). I reproduce it from the original
MS., Tanner 306, in the Bodleian Library:

            To my ever to be respected friend
            M^r John Done secretary to my
                Lord Keeper give these.

  As in tymes past the rusticke shepheards sceant
  Thir Tideast lambs or kids for sacrefize
  Vnto thir gods, sincear beinge thir intent
  Thoughe base thir gift, if that shoulde moralize
  thir loves, yet noe direackt discerninge eye
  Will judge thir ackt but full of piety.
  Soe offir I my beast affection
  Apparaled in these harsh totterd rimes.
  Think not they want love, though perfection
  or that my loves noe truer than my lyens
  Smothe is my love thoughe rugged be my years
  Yet well they mean, thoughe well they ill rehears.

  What tyme thou meanst to offir Idillnes
  Come to my den for heer she always stayes;
  If then for change of howers you seem careles
  Agree with me to lose them at the playes.
  farewell dear freand, my love, not lyens respeackt,
  So shall you shewe, my freandship you affeckt.

    Yours
  William Cornwaleys.

The writer is, Mr. Gosse says, Sir William Cornwallis, the eldest
son of Sir Charles Cornwallis of Beeston-in-Sprouston, Norfolk. Like
Wotton, Goodyere, Roe, and others of Donne's circle he followed Essex
to Ireland and was knighted at Dublin in 1599. The letter probably
dates from 1600 or 1601. I have reproduced the original spelling,
which is remarkable.

This letter and that to Mr. E. G. show that Donne was a frequenter
of the theatre in these interesting years, 1593 to 1610, the greatest
dramatic era since the age of Pericles. Sir Richard Baker, in his
_Chronicle of the Kings of England_ (1730, p. 424), recalls his 'Old
Acquaintance ... Mr. John Dunne, who leaving Oxford, liv'd at the Inns
of Court, not dissolute but very neat: a great Visiter of Ladies, a
great Frequenter of Plays, a great Writer of conceited Verses'. But of
the Elizabethan drama there is almost no echo in Donne's poetry. The
theatres are an amusement for idle hours: 'Because I am drousie, I
will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy,
or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy.' _Sermons_ 80. 38. 383.


PAGE =214=. TO SIR H. W. AT HIS GOING AMBASSADOR TO VENICE.

On July 8 O.S., 1604, Wotton was knighted by James, and on the 13th
sailed for Venice. 'He is a gentleman', the Venetian ambassador
reported, 'of excellent condition, wise, prudent, able. Your serenity,
it is to be hoped, will be very well pleased with him.' Mr. Pearsall
Smith adds, 'It is worth noting that while Wotton was travelling to
Venice, Shakespeare was probably engaged in writing his great Venetian
tragedy, _Othello_, which was acted before James I in November of this
year.'

PAGE =215=, ll. 21-4. _To sweare much love, &c._ The meaning of this
verse, accepting the 1633 text, is: 'Admit this honest paper to swear
much love,--a love that will not change until with your elevation to
the peerage (or increasing eminence) it must be called _honour_ rather
than _love_.' (We _honour_, not _love_, those who are high above us.)
'But when that time comes I shall not more honour your fortune,
the rank that fortune gives you, than I have honoured your honour
["nobleness of mind, scorn of meanness, magnanimity" (Johnson)], your
high character, magnanimity, without it, i.e. when yet unhonoured.'
Donne plays on the word 'honour'.

Walton's version, and the slight variant of this in _1635-69_, give
a different thought, and this is perhaps the correct reading, more
probably either another (perhaps an earlier) version of the poet or an
attempt to correct due to a failure to catch the meaning of the rather
fanciful phrase 'honouring your honour'. The meaning is, 'I shall not
then more honour your fortune than I have your wit while it was still
unhonoured, or (_1635-69_) unennobled.' The 1633 version seems to me
the more likely to be the correct or final form of the text, because
a reference to character rather than 'wit' or intellectual ability is
implied by the following verse:

  But 'tis an easier load (though both oppresse)
    To want then governe greatnesse, &c.

This stress on character, too, and indifference to fortune, is quite
in the vein of Donne's and Wotton's earlier verse correspondence and
all Wotton's poetry.

For the distinction between love and honour compare Lyly's _Endimion_,
V. iii. 150-80:

    '_Cinthia._ Was there such a time when as for my love thou
    did'st vow thyself to death, and in respect of it loth'd thy
    life? Speake Endimion, I will not revenge it with hate ...

    _Endimion._ My unspotted thoughts, my languishing bodie, my
    discontented life, let them obtaine by princelie favour that,
    which to challenge they must not presume, onelie wishing of
    impossibilities: with imagination of which I will spend my
    spirits, and to myselfe that no creature may heare, softlie
    call it love. And if any urge to utter what I whisper, then
    will I name it honor....

    ... _Cinthia._ Endimion, this honourable respect of thine,
    shalbe christened love in thee, and my reward for it favor.'

With the lines,

  Nor shall I then honour your fortune, &c.,

compare in the same play:

    'O Endimion, Tellus was faire, but what availeth Beautie
    without wisdom? Nay, Endimion, she was wise, but what availeth
    wisdom without honour? She was honourable, Endimion, belie her
    not. I, but how obscure is honour without fortune?'
                                               II. iii. 11-17.

The antithesis here between 'honour' and 'fortune' is exactly that
which Donne makes.

If we may accept 'noble-wanting-wit' as Donne's own phrase (and
Walton's authority pleads for it) and interpret it as 'wit that yet
wants ennoblement' it forms an interesting parallel to a phrase of
Shakespeare's in _Macbeth_, when Banquo addresses the witches:

                My noble partner
  You greet with present grace and great prediction,
  Of noble having and of royal hope.
                                         _Macbeth_, I. iii. 55-7.

Some editors refer 'present grace' to the first salutation, 'Thane
of Glamis'. This is unlikely as there is nothing startling in a
salutation to which Macbeth was already entitled. The Clarendon Press
editors refer the line, more probably, to the two prophecies, 'thane
of Cawdor' and 'that shalt be King hereafter'. The word 'having' is
then not _quite_ the same as in the phrases 'my having is not great',
&c., which these editors quote, but is simply opposed to 'hope'.
You greet him with 'nobility in possession', with 'royalty in
expectation', as being already thane of Cawdor, as to be king
hereafter. Shakespeare's 'noble having' is the opposite of Donne's
'noble wanting'.

One is tempted to put, as Chambers does, an emphasizing comma after
'honour' as well as 'fortune'; but the antithesis is between 'fortune'
and 'honour wanting fortune'.

'Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he
affected was built upon true Worth, esteeming Fame more than Riches,
and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.' Fulke Greville's _Life
of Sidney_, c. iii. p. 38 (_Tudor and Stuart Library_).


PAGE =216=. TO M^{rs} M. H.

I.e. Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, daughter of Sir Richard Newport, mother of
Sir Edward Herbert (Lord Herbert of Cherbury), and of George Herbert
the poet. For her friendship with Donne, see Walton's _Life of Mr.
George Herbert_ (1670), Gosse's _Life and Letters of John Donne_, i.
162 f., and what is said in the _Introduction_ to this volume and
the Introductory Note to the _Elegies_. In 1608 she married Sir John
Danvers. Her funeral sermon was preached by Donne in 1627.

PAGE =217=, l. 27. _For, speech of ill, and her, thou must abstaine._
The O.E.D. gives no example of 'abstain' thus used without 'from'
before the object, and it is tempting with _1635-69_ and all the MSS.
to change 'For' to 'From'. But none of the MSS. has great authority
textually, and the 'For' in _1633_ is too carefully comma'd off to
suggest a mere slip. Probably Donne wrote the line as it stands. One
does not miss the 'from' so much when the verb comes so long after the
object. 'Abstain' acquires the sense of 'forgo'.

ll. 31-2. _And since they'are but her cloathes, &c._ Compare:

  For he who colour loves and skinne,
    Loves but their oldest clothes.
                                      _The Undertaking_, p. 10.


PAGE =218=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF BEDFORD.

l. 13. _Care not then, Madam,'how low your praysers lye._ I cannot but
think that the 'praysers' of the MSS. is preferable to the 'prayses'
of the editions. It is difficult to construe or make unambiguous sense
of 'how low your prayses lie'. Donne does not wish to suggest that the
praise is poor in itself, but that the giver is a 'low person'. The
word 'prayser' he has already used in a letter to the Countess
(p. 200), and there also it has caused some trouble to editors and
copyists.

ll. 20-1. _Your radiation can all clouds subdue;
          But one, 'tis best light to contemplate you._

Grosart and the Grolier Club editor punctuate these lines so as to
connect 'But one' with what precedes.

  Your radiation can all clouds subdue
  But one; 'tis best light to contemplate you.

I suppose 'death' in this reading is to be regarded as the one
cloud which the radiation of the Countess cannot dispel. There is
no indication, however, that this is the thought in Donne's mind.
As punctuated (i.e. with a comma after 'subdue', which I have
strengthened to a semicolon), 'But one' goes with what follows, and
refers to God: 'Excepting God only, you are the most illuminating
object we can contemplate.'

PAGE =219=, l. 27. _May in your through-shine front your hearts
thoughts see._ All the MSS. agree in reading 'your hearts thoughts',
which is obviously correct. _N_, _O'F_, and _TCD_ give the line
otherwise exactly as in the editions. _B_ drops the 'shine' after
'through'; and _S96_ reads:

  May in you, through your face, your hearts thoughts see.

Donne has used 'through-shine' already in '_A Valediction: of my name
in the window_':

    'Tis much that glasse should bee
  As all confessing, and through-shine as I,
    'Tis more that it shewes thee to thee,
    And cleare reflects thee to thine eye.
  But all such rules, loves magique can undoe,
    Here you see mee, and I am you.

If there were any evidence that Donne was, as in this lyric, playing
with the idea of the identity of different souls, there would be
reason to retain the 'our hearts thoughts' of the editions; but there
is no trace of this. He is dwelling simply on the thought of the
Countess's transparency. Donne is fond of compounds with 'through'.
Other examples are 'through-light', 'through-swome', 'through-vaine',
'through-pierc'd'.

ll. 36-7. _They fly not, &c._ Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
have here injured the sense by altering the punctuation. 'Nature's
first lesson' does not complete the previous statement about the
relation of the different souls, but qualifies 'discretion'. 'Just as
the souls of growth and sense do not claim precedence of the rational
soul, so the first lesson taught us by Nature, viz. _discretion_, must
not grudge a place to zeal.' 'Anima rationalis est perfectior quam
sensibilis, et sensibilis quam vegetabilis,' Aquinas, _Summa_, ii. 57.
2.

PAGE =220=, l. 46. _In those poor types, &c._ The use of the circle
as an emblem of infinity is very old. 'To the mystically inclined the
perpendicular was the emblem of unswerving rectitude and purity; but
the circle, "the foremost, richest, and most perfect of curves" was
the symbol of completeness and eternity, of the endless process of
generation and renascence in which all things are ever becoming new.'
W. B. Frankland, _The Story of Euclid_, p. 70. God was described
by St. Bonaventura as 'a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose
circumference nowhere'. See also supplementary note.


PAGE =221=. A LETTER TO THE LADY CAREY, AND M^{rs} ESSEX RICHE, FROM
AMYENS.

Probably written when Donne was abroad with Sir Robert Drury in
1611-12. 'The two ladies', Mr. Chambers says, 'were daughters of
Robert, third Lord Rich, by Penelope Devereux, daughter of Walter,
Earl of Essex, the Stella of Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_.' Lady
Rich abandoned her husband after five years' marriage and declared
that the true father of her children was Charles Blount, Earl of
Devonshire, to whom, after her divorce in 1605, she was married by
Laud. Lettice, the eldest daughter, married Sir George Carey, of
Cockington, Devon. Essex, the younger, was married, subsequently to
this letter, to Sir Thomas Cheeke, of Pirgo, Essex.

ll. 10-12. _Where, because Faith is in too low degree, &c._ Donne
refers to the Catholic doctrine of good works as necessary to
salvation in opposition to the Protestant doctrine of Justification by
Faith. He is fond of the antithesis. Compare:

  My faith I give to Roman Catholiques;
  All my good workes unto the Schismaticks
  Of Amsterdam;...
  Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
  Love her that holds my love disparity,
  Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
                                               _The Will_, p. 57.

PAGE =222=, l. 14. _where no one is growne or spent._ Like the stars
in the firmament your virtues neither grow nor decay. According to
Aquinas the heavenly bodies are neither temporal nor eternal; not
temporal because they are subject neither to growth nor decay; not
eternal because they change their position. They are 'Aeonical', their
life is measured by ages.

l. 19. _humilitie_ has such general support that the 'humidity' of
_1669_ seems to be merely a conjecture.


PAGE =224=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF SALISBURY. 1614.

Catharine Howard, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Suffolk, married
in 1608 William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, son of the greater
earl and grandson of Burghley, 'whose wisdom and virtues died with
them, and their children only inherited their titles'. Clarendon.

It is not impossible, considering the date of this letter, that the
Countess of Salisbury may be 'the Countesse' referred to in Donne's
letter to Goodyere quoted in my introduction on the canon of Donne's
poems. There is a difficulty in applying to the Countess of Huntingdon
the words 'that knowledge which she hath of me, was in the beginning
of a graver course, then of a Poet'. _Letters, &c._, p. 103. Donne
made the acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth Stanley when he was Sir Thomas
Egerton's secretary. She must have known him as a wit before his
graver days. Nor would he have apologized for writing to such an old
friend whose prophet he had been in her younger days.

The punctuation of this poem repays careful study. The whole is a
fine example of that periodic style, drawn out from line to line, and
forming sonorous and impressive verse-paragraphs, in which Donne more
than any other poet anticipated Milton. The first sentence closes only
at the thirty-sixth line. The various clauses which lead up to the
close are separated from one another by the full-stop (ll. 8, 24),
the colon (ll. 2, 7 (sonnets:), 34), and the semicolon (ll. 18, 21, 30
where the old edition had a colon), all with distinct values. The only
change I have made (and recorded) is at l. 30 (fantasticall), where
a careful consideration of the punctuation throughout shows that a
semicolon is more appropriate than a colon. The clause which begins
with 'Since' in l. 25 does not close till l. 34, 'understood'.

In the rest of the poem the punctuation is also careful. The only
changes I have made are--ll. 42 'that day;' and 46 'yesterday;' (a
semi-colon for a colon in each case), 61 'mee:' (a colon for a full
stop), and 63 'good;' (a semicolon for a comma).


PAGE =227=. TO THE LADY BEDFORD.

l. 1. _You that are she and you, that's double shee_: The old
punctuation suggests absurdly that the clause 'and you that's double
she' is an independent co-ordinate clause.

l. 7. _Cusco._ I note in a catalogue, 'South America, a very early
Map, with view of Cusco, the capital of Peru'.

l. 44. _of Iudith._ 'There is not such a woman from one end of the
earth to the other, both for beauty of face and wisdom of words.'
Judith xi. 21.


AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD.

The _Anatomie of the World_ and _Of The Progresse of the Soule_ were
the first poems published in Donne's lifetime. The former was
issued in 1611. It is exceedingly rare. The copy preserved in Lord
Ellesmere's library at Bridgewater House is a small octavo volume
of 26 pages (_Praise of the Dead, &c._ 3 pp., _Anatomy_ 19 pp., and
_Funerall Elegie_ 4 pp., all unnumbered), with title-page as given on
the page opposite.

In 1612 the poem was reissued along with the _Second Anniversary_. A
copy of this rare volume was sold at the Huth sale on the thirteenth
of June this year. With the kind permission of Mr. Edward Huth and
Messrs. Sotheby, Mr. Godfrey Keynes made a careful collation for
me, the results of which are embodied in my notes. The separate
title-pages of the two poems which the volume contains are here
reproduced.

Mr. Keynes supplies the following description of the volume: _A_ first
title, _A-A4 To the praise of the Dead_ (in italics), _A5-D2_ (pp.
1-44) _The First Anniversary_ (in roman), _D3-D7_ (pp. 45-54) _A
funerall Elegie_ (in italics), _D8_ blank except for rules in margins;
_E1_ second title, _E2-E4_ recto _The Harbinger_ (in italics), _E4_
verso blank, _E5-H5_ recto (pp. 1-49) _The Second Anniversarie_ (in
roman), _H5_ verso--_H6_ blank except for rules in margins. A fresh
title-page introduces the second poem.

In 1611 the introductory verses entitled _To the praise of the Dead,
and the Anatomy_, and the _Anatomy_ itself, are printed in italic, _A
Funerall Elegie_ following in roman type. This latter arrangement
was reversed in 1612. In the second part, only the poem entitled _The
Harbinger to the Progresse_ is printed throughout in italic. Donne's
own poem is in roman type.

The reason of the variety of arrangement is, I suppose, this: The
_Funerall Elegie_ was probably, as Chambers suggests, the first part
of the poem, composed probably in 1610. When it was published in
1611 with the _Anatomie_, the latter was regarded as introductory and
subordinate to the _Elegie_, and accordingly was printed in italic.
Later, when the idea of the Anniversary poems emerged, and _Of The
Progresse of the Soule_ was written as a complement to _An Anatomy
of the World_, these became the prominent parts of the whole work in
honour of Elizabeth Drury, and the _Funerall Elegie_ fell into the
subordinate position.

The edition of 1612 does not strike one as a very careful piece of
printing. It was probably printed while Donne was on the Continent. It
supplies only two certain emendations of the later text.

The reprints of this volume made in 1621 and 1625 show increasing
carelessness. They were issued after Donne took orders and probably
without his sanction. The title-pages of the editions are here
reproduced.



[Illustration: title encapsulated in Doric frame:]


  _AN_
  ANATOMY
  of the World.

  WHEREIN,
  BY OCCASION OF
  the vntimely death of Mistris
  ELIZABETH DRVRY
  the frailty and the decay
  of this whole world
  is represented.


  LONDON,
  Printed for _Samuel Macham_.
  and are to be solde at his shop in
  Paules Church-yard, at the
  signe of the Bul-head.

  AN. DOM.
  1611.



[Illustration of title page, containing:]


  _The First Anniuersarie._

  AN
  ANATOMIE
  of the VVorld.

  _Wherein_,
  BY OCCASION OF
  _the vntimely death of Mistris_
  ELIZABETH  DRVRY,
  the frailtie and the decay of
  this whole World is
  represented.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON,

  Printed by _M. Bradwood_ for _S. Macham_, and are
  to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the
  signe of the Bull-head. 1612.



[Illustration of title page, containing:]


  _The Second Anniuersarie._

  OF
  THE PROGRES
  of the Soule.

  _Wherein_:

  By Occasion Of The
  Religious Death of Mistris

  ELIZABETH DRVRY,

  the incommodities of the Soule
  _in this life and her exaltation in_
  the next, are Contem-
  _plated_.


  LONDON,

  Printed by M. _Bradwood_ for _S. Macham_, and are
  to be sould at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at
  the signe of the Bull-head.

  1612.


  The above title is not an exact facsimile.



[Illustration of title page, containing:]


  _The First Anniuersarie._

  AN
  ANATOMIE
  of the World.

  _Wherein_,

  BY OCCASION OF
  _the vntimely death of Mistris_

  ELIZABETH DRVRY,

  the frailtie and the decay of
  this whole World is
  represented.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON,

  Printed by _A. Mathewes_  for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
  to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard in
  Fleetestreete. 1621.



[Illustration of title page, containing:]


  _The Second Anniuersarie._

  OF
  THE PROGRES
  of the Soule.

  _Wherein_,

  BY OCCASION OF

  _the Religious death of Mistris_

  ELIZABETH DRVRY,

  the incommodities of the Soule
  _in this life, and her exaltation in_
  the next, are Contem-
  _plated_.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON,

  Printed by _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
  to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard
  in Fleetestreete. 1621.



[Illustration of title page, containing:]


  AN
  ANATOMIE
  OF THE
  _World._

  WHEREIN,

  _By occasion of the vn_-
  timely death of Mistris
  Elizabeth Drvry,
  _the frailtie and the decay_
  of this whole World is
  _represented_.

  The first Anniuersarie.

  LONDON

  Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
  and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
  Church-yard. 1625



[Illustration of title page, containing:]


  OF
  THE PROGRES
  of the
  _SOVLE_

  WHEREIN,

  _By occasion of the_ Re-
  ligious death of Mistris
  ELIZABETH DRVRY,
  the incommodities of the _Soule_  in
  this life, and her exaltation in the
  _next, are Contemplated_.

  The second Anniuersarie.


  LONDON

  Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
  and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
  Church-yard. 1625.


The symbolic figures in the title-pages of 1625 probably represent the
seven Liberal Arts. A feature of the editions of _1611_, _1612,_ and
_1625_ is the marginal notes. These are reproduced in _1633_, but a
little carelessly, for some copies do not contain them all. They are
omitted in the subsequent editions.

The text of the _Anniversaries_ in _1633_ has been on the whole
carefully edited. It is probable, judging from several small
circumstances (e.g. the omission of the first marginal note even in
copies where all the rest are given), that _1633_ was printed from
_1625_, but it is clear that the editor compared this with earlier
editions, probably those of _1611-12_, and corrected or amended
the punctuation throughout. My collation of _1633_ with _1611_ has
throughout vindicated the former as against _1621-5_ on the one hand
and the later editions on the other.[1] Of mistakes other than of
punctuation I have noted only three: l. 181, thoughts _1611-12_;
thought _1621-33_. This was corrected, from the obvious sense, in
later editions (_1635-69_), and Grosart, Chambers, and Grolier make
no note of the error in _1621-33_. l. 318, proportions _1611-12_;
proportion _1621_ and all subsequent editions without comment. l. 415,
Impressions _1611_; Impression _1612-25_: impression _1633_ and all
subsequent editions. All three cases are examples of the same error,
the dropping of final 's'.

In typographical respects _1611_ shows the hand of the author more
clearly than the later editions. Donne was fastidious in matters of
punctuation and the use of italics and capital letters, witness the
_LXXX Sermons_ (1640), printed from MSS. prepared for the press by the
author. But the printer had to be reckoned with, and perfection was
not obtainable. In a note to one of the separately published sermons
Donne says: 'Those Errors which are committed in mispointing, or
in changing the form of the Character, will soone be discernd, and
corrected by the Eye of any deliberate Reader'. The _1611_ text shows
a more consistent use in certain passages of emphasizing capitals,
and at places its punctuation is better than that of _1633_. My
text reproduces _1633_, corrected where necessary from the earlier
editions; and I have occasionally followed the typography of _1611_.
But every case in which _1633_ is modified is recorded.

Of the _Second Anniversarie_, in like manner, my text is that of
_1633_, corrected in a few details, and with a few typographical
features borrowed, from the edition of _1612_. The editor of _1633_
had rather definite views of his own on punctuation, notably a
predilection for semicolons in place of full stops. The only certain
emendations which _1612_ supplies are in the marginal note at p.
234 and in l. 421 of the _Second Anniversarie_ 'this' for 'his'. The
spelling is less ambiguous in ll. 27 and 326.


    [Footnote 1: _1621-25_ abound in misplaced full stops which
    are not in _1611_ and are generally corrected in _1633_. The
    punctuation of the later editions (_1635-69_) is the work of
    the printer. Occasionally a comma is dropped or introduced
    with advantage to the sense, but in general the punctuation
    grows increasingly careless. Often the correction of one error
    leads to another.]


The subject of the _Anniversaries_ was the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth
Drury, who died in 1610. Her father, Sir Robert Drury, of Hawsted in
the county of Suffolk, was a man of some note on account of his great
wealth. He was knighted by Essex when about seventeen years old, at
the siege of Rouen (1591-2). He served in the Low Countries, and at
the battle of Nieuport (1600) brought off Sir Francis Vere when
his horse was shot under him. He was courtier, traveller, member of
Parliament, and in 1613 would have been glad to go as Ambassador to
Paris when Sir Thomas Overbury refused the proffered honour and was
sent to the Tower. Lady Drury was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper. She and her brother,
Sir Edmund Bacon, were friends and patrons of Joseph Hall, Donne's
rival as an early satirist. From 1600 to 1608 Hall was rector of
Hawsted, and though he was not very kindly treated by Sir Robert
he dedicated to him his _Meditations Morall and Divine_. This tie
explains the fact, which we learn from Jonson's conversations with
Drummond, that Hall is the author of the _Harbinger to the Progresse_.
As he wrote this we may infer that he is also responsible for _To the
praise of the dead, and the Anatomie_.

Readers of Donne's _Life_ by Walton are aware of the munificence with
which Sir Robert rewarded Donne for his poems, how he opened his
house to him, and took him abroad. Donne's letters, on the other hand,
reveal that the poem gave considerable offence to the Countess of
Bedford and other older patrons and friends. In his letters to Gerrard
he endeavoured to explain away his eulogies. In verse-letters to the
Countess of Bedford and others he atoned for his inconstancy by subtle
and erudite compliments.

_The Funerall Elegie_ was doubtless written in 1610 and sent to Sir
Robert Drury. He and Donne may already have been acquainted through
Wotton, who was closely related by friendship and marriage with Sir
Edmund Bacon. (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ (1907). _The Anatomie of the World_ was composed in 1611, _Of
the Progresse of the Soule_ in France in 1612, at some time prior to
the 14th of April, when he refers to his _Anniversaries_ in a letter
to George Gerrard.

Ben Jonson declared to Drummond 'That Donnes Anniversaries were
profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Done if it had
been written of the Virgin Marie it had been something; to which he
answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was'.
This is a better defence of Donne's poems than any which he advances
in his letters, but it is not a complete description of his work.
Rather, he interwove with a rapt and extravagantly conceited laudation
of an ideal woman two topics familiar to his catholic and mediaeval
learning, and developed each in a characteristically subtle and
ingenious strain, a strain whose occasional sceptical, disintegrating
reflections belong as obviously to the seventeenth century as the
general content of the thought is mediaeval.

The burden of the whole is an impassioned and exalted _meditatio
mortis_ based on two themes common enough in mediaeval devotional
literature--a _De Contemptu Mundi_, and a contemplation of the Glories
of Paradise. A very brief analysis of the two poems, omitting the
laudatory portions, may help a reader who cannot at once see the wood
for the trees, and be better than detailed notes.


_The Anatomie of the World._

_l. 1._ The world which suffered in her death is now fallen into the
worse lethargy of oblivion. _l. 60._ I will anatomize the world for
the benefit of those who still, by the influence of her virtue, lead a
kind of glimmering life. _l. 91._ There is no health in the world. We
are still under the curse of woman. _l. 111._ How short is our life
compared with that of the patriarchs! _l. 134._ How small is our
stature compared with that of the giants of old! _l. 147._ How
shrunken of soul we are, especially since her death! _l. 191._ And
as man, so is the whole world. The new learning or philosophy has
shattered in fragments that complete scheme of the universe in which
we rested so confidently, and (_l. 211_) in human society the same
disorder prevails. _l. 250._ There is no beauty in the world, for,
first, the beauty of proportion is lost, alike in the movements of the
heavenly bodies, and (_l. 285_) in the earth with its mountains and
hollows, and (_l. 302_) in the administration of justice in society.
_l. 339._ So is Beauty's other element, Colour and Lustre. _l. 377._
Heaven and earth are at variance. We can no longer read terrestrial
fortunes in the stars. But (_l. 435_) an Anatomy can be pushed too
far.

_The Progresse of the Soule._

_l. 1._ The world's life is the life that breeds in corruption. Let
me, forgetting the rotten world, meditate on death. _l. 85._ Think,
my soul, that thou art on thy death-bed, and consider death a release.
_l. 157._ Think how the body poisoned the soul, tainting it with
original sin. Set free, thou art in Heaven in a moment. _l. 250._ Here
all our knowledge is ignorance. The new learning has thrown all in
doubt. We sweat to learn trifles. In Heaven we know all we need to
know. _l. 321._ Here, our converse is evil and corrupting. There our
converse will be with Mary; the Patriarchs; Apostles, Martyrs and
Virgins (compare _A Litany_). Here in the perpetual flux of things is
no essential joy. Essential joy is to see God. And even the accidental
joys of heaven surpass the essential joys of earth, were there such
joys here where all is casual:

  Only in Heaven joys strength is never spent,
  And accidental things are permanent.

One of the most interesting strands of thought common to the twin
poems is the reflection on the disintegrating effect of the New
Learning. Copernicus' displacement of the earth, and the consequent
disturbance of the accepted mediaeval cosmology with its concentric
arrangement of elements and heavenly bodies, arrests and disturbs
Donne's imagination much as the later geology with its revelation
of vanished species and first suggestion of a doctrine of evolution
absorbed and perturbed Tennyson when he wrote _In Memoriam_ and
throughout his life. No other poet of the seventeenth century known
to me shows the same sensitiveness to the consequences of the new
discoveries of traveller, astronomer, physiologist and physician as
Donne.


TO THE PRAISE OF THE DEAD.

PAGE =231=, l. 43. _What high part thou bearest in those best songs._
The contraction of 'bearest' to 'bear'st' in the earliest editions
(_1611-25_) led to the insertion of 'of' after 'best' in the later
ones (_1633-69_).


AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD.

PAGE =235=, ll. 133-6. Chambers alters the punctuation of these lines
in such a way as to connect them more closely:

  So short is life, that every peasant strives,
  In a torn house, or field, to have three lives;
  And as in lasting, so in length is man,
  Contracted to an inch, who was a span.

But the punctuation of _1633_ is careful and correct. A new paragraph
begins with 'And as in lasting, so, &c.' From length of years Donne
passes to physical stature. The full stop is at 'lives', the semicolon
at 'span'. Grosart and the Grolier Club editor punctuate correctly.

l. 144. _We'are scarce our Fathers shadowes cast at noone_: Compare:

  But now the sun is just above our head,
    We doe those shadowes tread;
  And to brave clearnesse all things are reduc'd.
                                   _A Lecture upon the Shadowe._

PAGE =236=, l. 160. _And with new Physicke_: i.e. the new mineral
drugs of the Paracelsians.

PAGE =237=, l. 190. _Be more then man, or thou'rt lesse then an Ant._
Compare _To M^r Rowland Woodward_, p. 185, ll. 16-18 and note.

l. 205. _The new Philosophy calls all in doubt, &c._ The philosophy
of Galileo and Copernicus has displaced the earth and discredited
the concentric arrangement of the elements,--earth, water, air,
fire. Norton quotes: 'The fire is an element most hot and dry, pure,
subtill, and so clear as it doth not hinder our sight looking through
the same towards the stars, and is placed next to the Spheare of the
Moon, under the which it is turned about like a celestial Spheare'.
_M. Blundeville His Exercises_, 1594.

When the world was formed from Chaos, then--

  Earth as the Lees, and heavie dross of All
  (After his kinde) did to the bottom fall:
  Contrariwise, the light and nimble Fire
  Did through the crannies of th'old Heap aspire
  Unto the top; and by his nature, light
  No less than hot, mounted in sparks upright:
  But, lest the Fire (which all the rest imbraces)
  Being too near, should burn the Earth to ashes;
  As Chosen Umpires, the great All-Creator
  Between these Foes placed the Aire and Water:
  For, one suffiz'd not their stern strife to end.
  Water, as Cozen did the Earth befriend:
  Aire for his Kinsman Fire, as firmly deals &c.
                     Du Bartas, _The second Day of the first Week_
                              (trans. Joshua Sylvester).

Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sect. 2, Mem. 3,
tells how the new Astronomers Tycho, Rotman, Kepler, &c. by their new
doctrine of the heavens are 'exploding in the meantime that element of
fire, those fictitious, first watry movers, those heavens I mean above
the firmament, which Delrio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius and many of
the fathers affirm'. They have abolished, that is to say, the fire
which surrounded the air, as that air surrounded the water and
the earth (all below the moon); and they have also abolished the
Crystalline Sphere and the Primum Mobile which were supposed to
surround the sphere of the fixed stars, or the firmament.

PAGE =238=, l. 215. _Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne are things
forgot._ Donne has probably in mind the effect of the religious wars
in Germany, France, the Low Countries, &c.

l. 217. _that then can be._ This is the reading of all the editions
before _1669_, and there is no reason to change 'then' to 'there':
'Every man thinks he has come to be a Phoenix (preferring private
judgement to authority) and that then comparison ceases, for there
is nothing of the same kind with which to compare himself. There is
nothing left to reverence.'

PAGE =239=, l. 258.               _It teares
  The Firmament in eight and forty sheires._

Norton says that in the catalogue of Hipparchus, preserved in
the Almagest of Ptolemy, the stars were divided into forty-eight
constellations.

l. 260. _New starres._ Norton says: 'It was the apparition of a new
star in 1572, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, that turned Tycho
Brahe to astronomy: and a new bright star in Ophiuchus, in 1604, had
excited general wonder, and afforded Galileo a text for an attack on
the Ptolemaic system'.

At p. 247, l. 70, Donne notes that the 'new starres' went out again.

PAGE =240=, l. 286. _a Tenarif, or higher hill._ 'Tenarif' is
the _1611_ spelling, 'Tenarus' that of _1633-69_. Donne speaks of
'Tenarus' elsewhere, but it is not the same place.

It is not probable that Donne ever saw the Peak of Teneriffe, although
biographers speak of this line as a descriptive touch drawn from
memory. The Canary Isles are below the 30th degree of latitude.
The fleet that made the Islands Exhibition was never much if at all
further south than 43 degrees. After coasting off Corunna 43° N. 8°
W., and some leagues south of that port, the fleet struck straight
across to the Azores, 37° N. 25° W. Donne was somewhat nearer in the
previous year when he was at Cadiz, 36° N. 6° W., but too far off to
descry the Peak. His description, though vivid, is 'metaphysical',
like that of Hell which follows: 'The Pike of Teneriff, how high is
it? 79 miles or 52, as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius demonstrates
in his Eratosthenes'. Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sec. 2,
Mem. 3.

          On the other side, Satan, alarm'd,
  Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
  Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremov'd.
                            Milton, _Par. Lost_, iv. 985-7.

ll. 295 f. _If under all, a Vault infernall bee, &c._ Hell, according
to mediaeval philosophy, was in the middle of the earth. 'If this
be true,' says Donne, 'and if at the same time the Sea is in places
bottomless, then the earth is neither solid nor round. We use these
words only approximately. But you may hold, on the other hand, that
the deepest seas we know are but pock-holes, the highest hills but
warts, on the face of the solid earth. Well, even in that case you
must admit that in the moral sphere at any rate the world's proportion
is disfigured by the want of all proportioning of reward and
punishment to conduct.' The sudden transition from the physical to the
moral sphere is very disconcerting. Compare: 'Or is it the place of
hell, as Virgil in his Aeneides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others
poetically describe it, and as many of our divines think. In good
earnest, Antony Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian college in
Millan, in his great volume _de Inferno_, lib. i, cap. 47, is stiffe
in this tenent.... Whatsoever philosophers write (saith Surius) there
be certaine mouthes of Hell, and places appointed for the punishment
of mens souls, as at Hecla in Island, where the ghosts of dead men are
familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living. God would have
such visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that
there be such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God,'
&c. Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sec. 2, Mem. 3.

ll. 296-8. _Which sure is spacious, &c._ 'Franciscus Ribera will
have hell a materiall and locall fire in the centre of the earth, 200
Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those words _Exivit
sanguis de terra ... per stadia mille sexcenta, &c._ But Lessius
(lib. 13, _de moribus divinis_, cap. 24) will have this locall
hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and
brimstone; because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically
multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand
millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square); which
will abundantly suffice, '_cum certum sit, inquit, facta subductione,
non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum_.' Burton, _Anat. of
Melancholy_, _ut sup._ Eschatology was the 'dismal science' of those
days and was studied with astonishing gusto and acumen. 'For as one
Author, who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the
Earth, lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid, pronounces
that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse,
(and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng, for their
bodies must be there in their dimensions, as well as their soules) so
when the Schoole-men come to measure the house in heaven (as they will
measure it, and the Master, God, and all his Attributes, and tell us
how Allmighty, and how Infinite he is) they pronounce that every soule
in that house shall have more roome to it selfe, then all this world
is.' _Sermons_ 80. 73. 747. The reference in the margin is to Munster.

l. 311. _that Ancient, &c._ 'Many erroneous opinions are about the
essence and originall of it' (i.e. the rational soul), 'whether it be
fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates,'
&c. Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, Part i, Sec. 1, Mem. 2, Subsec.
9. Probably Donne has the same 'Ancient' in view. It is from Cicero
(_Tusc. Disp._ i. 10) that we learn that Aristoxenus held the soul to
be a harmony of the body. Though a Peripatetic, Aristoxenus lived
in close communion with the latest Pythagoreans, and the doctrine is
attributed to Pythagoras as a consequence of his theory of numbers.
Simmias, the disciple of the Pythagorean Philolaus, maintains the
doctrine in Plato's _Phaedo_, and Socrates criticizes it. Aristotle
states and examines it in the _De Anima_, 407b. 30. Two classes of
thinkers, Bouillet says (Plotinus, _Fourth Ennead_, _Seventh Book_,
note), regarded the soul as a harmony, doctors as Hippocrates and
Galen, who considered it a harmony of the four elements--the hot, the
cold, the dry and the moist (as the definition of health Donne refers
to this more than once, e.g. _The good-morrow_, l. 19, and _The
Second Anniversary_, ll. 130 f.); and musicians like Aristoxenus, who
compared the soul to the harmony of the lyre. Donne leaves the sense
in which he uses the word quite vague; but l. 321 suggests the medical
sense.

l. 312. _at next._ This common Anglo-Saxon construction is very
rare in later English. The O.E.D. cites no instance later than 1449,
Pecock's _Repression_. The instance cited there is prepositional in
character rather than adverbial: 'Immediatli at next to the now bifore
alleggid text of Peter this proces folewith.' Donne's use seems to
correspond exactly to the Anglo-Saxon: 'Johannes ða ofhreow þaēre
mēden and ðaera licmanna drēorignysse, and āstrehte his
licaman tō eorðan on langsumum gebēde, and ða _aet nēxtan_
āras, and eft upahafenum handum langlice baed.' Aelfric (Sweet's
_Anglo-Saxon Reader_, 1894, p. 67). But 'at next' in the poem possibly
does not mean simply 'next', but 'immediately', i.e. 'the first thing
he said would have been ...'

l. 314. _Resultances_: i.e. productions of, or emanations from, her.
'She is the harmony from which proceeds that harmony of our bodies
which is their soul.' Donne uses the word also in the sense of
'the sum or gist of a thing': 'He speakes out of the strength and
resultance of many lawes and Canons there alleadged.' _Pseudo-martyr_,
p. 245; and Walton says that Donne 'left the resultance of 1400
Authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand.' _Life_
(1675), p. 60. He is probably using Donne's own title.

PAGE =241=, l. 318. _That th'Arke to mans proportions was made._ The
following quotation from St. Augustine will show that the plural
of _1611-12_ is right, and what Donne had in view. St. Augustine is
speaking of the Ark as a type of the Church: 'Procul dubio figura est
peregrinantis in hoc seculo Civitatis Dei, hoc est Ecclesiae, quae fit
salva per lignum in quo pependit Mediator Dei et hominum, homo
Iesus Christus. (1 Tim. ii. 5.) Nam et mensurae ipsae longitudinis,
altitudinis, latitudinis eius, significant corpus humanum, in cuius
veritate ad homines praenuntiatus est venturus, et venit. Humani
quippe corporis longitudo a vertice usque ad vestigia sexies tantum
habet, quam latitudo, quae est ab uno latere ad alterum latus, et
decies tantum, quam altitudo, cuius altitudinis mensura est in latere
a dorso ad ventrem: velut si iacentem hominem metiaris supinum, seu
pronum, sexies tantum longus est a capite ad pedes, quam latus a
dextra in sinistram, vel a sinistra in dextram, et decies, quam altus
a terra. Unde facta est arca trecentorum in longitudine cubitorum, et
quinquaginta in latitudine, et triginta in altitudine.' _De Civitate
Dei_, XV. 26.

PAGE =242=, ll. 377-80. _Nor in ought more, &c._ 'The father' is the
Heavens, i.e. the various heavenly bodies moving in their spheres;
'the mother', the earth:

  As the bright Sun shines through the smoothest Glasse
  The turning Planets influence doth passe
  Without impeachment through the glistering Tent
  Of the tralucing (_French_ diafane) Fiery Element,
  The Aires triple Regions, the transparent Water;
  But not the firm base of this faire Theater.
  And therefore rightly may we call those Trines
  (Fire, Aire and Water) but Heav'ns Concubines:
  For, never Sun, nor Moon, nor Stars injoy
  The love of these, but only by the way,
  As passing by: whereas incessantly
  The lusty Heav'n with Earth doth company;
  And with a fruitfull seed which lends All life,
  With childes each moment, his own lawfull wife;
  And with her lovely Babes, in form and nature
  So divers, decks this beautiful Theater.
                 Sylvester, _Du Bartas, Second Day, First Week._

PAGE =243=, l. 389. _new wormes_: probably serpents, such as were
described in new books of travels.

l. 394. _Imprisoned in an Hearbe, or Charme, or Tree._ Compare _A
Valediction: of my name, in the window_, p. 27, ll. 33-6:

    As all the vertuous powers which are
    Fix'd in the starres, are said to flow
  Into such characters, as graved bee
        When these starres have supremacie.

l. 409. _But as some Serpents poyson, &c._ Compare: 'But though all
knowledge be in those Authors already, yet, as some poisons, and some
medicines, hurt not, nor profit, except the creature in which they
reside, contribute their lively activitie and vigor; so, much of the
knowledge buried in Books perisheth, and becomes ineffectuall, if it
be not applied, and refreshed by a companion, or friend. Much of their
goodnesse hath the same period which some Physicians of _Italy_ have
observed to be in the biting of their _Tarentola_, that it affects no
longer, then the flie lives.' _Letters_, p. 107.

PAGE =245=, l. 460. _As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse._ Compare
_The Canonization_, p. 15, ll. 31-2:

  And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove
  We'll build in sonnets pretty roomes ...

God's 'last, and lasting'st peece, a song' is of course Moses' song in
Deuteronomy xxxii: 'Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak,' &c.

l. 467. _Such an opinion (in due measure) made, &c._ The bracket of
_1611_ makes the sense less ambiguous than the commas of _1633_:

  Such an opinion, in due measure, made.

According to the habits of old punctuation, 'in due measure' thus
comma'd off might be an adjunct of 'made me ... invade'. The bracket
shows that the phrase goes with 'opinion'. 'Such an opinion (with
all due reverence spoken),' &c. Donne finds that he is attributing to
himself the same thoughts as God.


A FUNERALL ELEGIE.

l. 2. _to confine her in a marble chest._ The 'Funerall Elegie' was
probably the first composed of these poems. Elizabeth Drury's parents
erected over her a very elaborate marble tomb.

PAGE =246=, l. 41. _the Affrique Niger._ Grosart comments on this: 'A
peculiarity generally given to the Nile; and here perhaps not spoken
of our Niger, but of the Nile before it is so called, when, according
to Pliny (_N. H._ v. 9), after having twice been underground, and the
second time for twenty days' journey, it issues at the spring Nigris.'
Probably Donne had been reading 'A Geographical Historie of Africa
written in Arabicke by John Leo a More, borne in Granada, and brought
up in Barbarie ... Translated and collected by Iohn Porie, late of
Gonevill and Caius College in Cambridge, 1600.' Of the Niger he says:
'This land of Negros hath a mighty river, which taking his name of the
region is called Niger: this river taketh his originall from the east
out of a certain desert called by the foresaide Negros _Sen_ ... Our
Cosmographers affirme that the said river of Niger is derived out of
Nilus, which they imagine for some certaine space to be swallowed up
of the earth, and yet at last to burst forth into such a lake as
is before mentioned.' Pory is mentioned occasionally in Donne's
correspondence.

PAGE =247=, l. 50. _An Angell made a Throne, or Cherubin._ See _Elegy
XI_, ll. 77-8 and note. Donne, like Shakespeare, uses 'Cherubin' as a
singular. There can be no doubt that the lines in _Macbeth_, I. vii.
21-3, should read:

  And pity, like a naked new-born babe
  Striding the blast, or heavens cherubins horsed
  Upon the sightless couriers of the air, &c.

It is an echo of:

  He rode upon the cherubins and did fly;
  He came flying upon the wings of the wind.
                                              Psalm xviii. 10.

'Cherubin' is a singular in Shakespeare, and 'cherubim' as a plural he
did not know.

l. 73. _a Lampe of Balsamum_, i.e. burning balsam instead of ordinary
oil: 'And as _Constantine_ ordained, that upon this day' (Christmas
Day), 'the Church should burne no Oyle, but Balsamum in her Lamps, so
let us ever celebrate this day, with a thankfull acknowledgment, that
Christ who is _unctus Domini_, The Anointed of the Lord, hath anointed
us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes.' _Sermons_ 80. 7.
72.

ll. 75-7. _Cloath'd in, &c._ Chambers's arrangement of these lines is
ingenious but, I think, mistaken because it alters the emphasis of the
sentences. The stress is not laid by Donne on her purity, but on her
early death: 'She expir'd while she was still a virgin. She went away
before she was a woman.' Line 76:

  For marriage, though it doe not staine, doth dye.

is a sudden digression. Dryden filches these lines:

  All white, a Virgin-Saint, she sought the skies
  For Marriage, tho' it sullies not, it dies.

  _The Monument of a Faire Maiden Lady._

PAGE =248=, l. 83. _said History_ is a strange phrase, but it has the
support of all the editions which can be said to have any authority.

l. 92. _and then inferre._ Compare: 'That this honour might be
inferred on some one of the blood and race of their ancient king.'
Raleigh (O.E.D.). Donne's sense of 'commit', 'entrust', is not far
from Raleigh's of 'confer', 'bestow', and both are natural extensions
of the common though now obsolete sense, 'bring on, occasion, cause':

  Inferre faire Englands peace by this Alliance.
                             Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 343.

l. 94. _thus much to die._ To die so far as this life is concerned.


OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE.

THE SECOND ANNIVERSARIE.

PAGE =252=, l. 43.

  _These Hymnes thy issue, may encrease so long,
  As till Gods great Venite change the song_.

This is the punctuation of the editions _1612_ to _1633_. Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor follow the later editions,
_1635-69_, in dropping the comma after 'issue', which thus becomes
object to 'encrease'. 'These hymns may encrease thy issue so long,
&c.' This does not seem to me to harmonize so well with l. 44 as the
older punctuation of l. 43. 'These Hymns, which are thy issue,
may encrease'(used intransitively, as in the phrase 'increase and
multiply') 'so long as till, &c.' This suggests that the Hymns
themselves will live and sound in men's ears, quickening in them
virtue and religion, till they are drowned in the greater music of
God's _Venite_. The modern version is compatible with the death of the
hymns, but the survival of their issue.

l. 48. _To th'only Health, to be Hydroptique so._ Here again Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor have agreed in following the
editions _1625-69_ against the earlier ones, _1612_ and _1621_. These
have connected 'to be Hydroptic so' with what follows:

                    to be hydroptic so,
  Forget this rotten world ...

But surely the full stop after 'so' in _1612_ is right, and 'to be
Hydroptique so' is Donne's definition of 'th'only Health'. 'Thirst is
the symptom of dropsy; and a continual thirst for God's safe-sealing
bowl is the best symptom of man's spiritual health.'

'Gods safe-sealing bowl' is of course the Eucharist: 'When thou
commest to this seal of thy peace, the Sacrament, pray that God will
give thee that light, that may direct and establish thee, in necessary
and fundamentall things: that is the light of faith to see, that the
Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action; But
for the manner, how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there, wait his
leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee.' _Sermons, &c._

PAGE =253=, l. 72. _Because shee was the forme, that made it live_:
i.e. the soul of the world. Aquinas, after discussion, accepts the
Aristotelian view that the soul is united to the body as its form,
that in virtue of which the body lives and functions. 'Illud enim quo
primo aliquid operatur, est forma eius cui operatio attribuitur ...
Manifestum est autem quod primum quo corpus vivit, est anima. Et cum
vita manifestetur secundum diversas operationes, in diversis gradibus
viventium, id quo primo operamur unumquodque horum operum vitae, est
anima. Anima enim est primum quo nutrimur, et sentimus, et movemur
secundum locum, et similiter quo primo intelligimus. Hoc ergo
principium quo primo intelligimus, sive dicatur intellectus, sive
anima intellectiva, est forma corporis. Et haec est demonstratio
Aristotelis in 2 de Anima, text. 24.' Aquinas goes on to show that
any other relation as of part to whole, or mover to thing moved, is
unthinkable, _Summa_ I. lxxvi. i. Elizabeth Drury in like manner
was the form of the world, that in virtue of which it lived and
functioned.

PAGE =254=, l. 92. _Division_: a series of notes forming one melodic
sequence:

                    and streightway she
  Carves out her dainty voice as readily,
  Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd Tones,
  And reckons up in soft divisions
  Quicke volumes of wild Notes.
                                       Crashaw, _Musicks Duell_.

l. 102. _Satans Sergeants_, i.e. bailiffs, watching to arrest for
debt. Compare:

                as this fell Sergeant, Death,
  Is strict in his arrest.
                                       Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, V.

l. 120. _but a Saint Lucies night._ Compare p. 44. 'Saint Lucies
night' is the longest in the year, yet it too passes, is only a night.
Death is a long sleep, yet a sleep from which we shall awaken. So the
Psalmist compares life to 'a watch in the night', which _seems_ so
long and _is_ so short.

ll. 123-6. _Shee whose Complexion, &c._: i.e. 'in whose temperaments
the humours were in such perfect equilibrium that no one could
overgrow the others and bring dissolution':

  What ever dyes, was not mixt equally.
                                              _The good-morrow._

And see the note to p. 182, ll. 59-62.

PAGE =255=, l. 127. _Mithridate_: a universal antidote or preservative
against poison and infectious diseases, made by the compounding
together of many ingredients. It was also known as 'Theriaca' and
'triacle': 'As it is truly and properly said, that there are more
ingredients, more simples, more means of restoring in our dram of
triacle or mithridate then in an ounce of any particular syrup, in
which there may be 3 or 4, in the other perchance, so many hundred.'
_Sermons_ 26. 20. 286-7. Vipers were added to the other ingredients by
Andromachus, physician to the Emperor Nero, whence the name 'theriaca'
or 'triacle': 'Can an apothecary make a sovereign triacle of Vipers
and other poysons, and cannot God admit offences and scandalls into
his physick.' _Sermons_ 50. 17. 143. See _To S^r Henry Wotton_, p.
180, l. 18 and note.

ll. 143-6. Compare p. 269, ll. 71-6.

l. 152. _Heaven was content, &c._ 'And from the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force.' Matthew xi. 12.

l. 158. _wast made but in a sinke._ Compare: 'Formatus est homo ... de
spurcissimo spermate.' Pope Innocent, _De Contemptu Mundi_; and

  With Goddes owene finger wroght was he,
  And nat begeten of mannes sperme unclene.
                                          Chaucer, _Monkes Tale_.

PAGE =256=, ll. 159-62. _Thinke that ... first of growth._ According
to Aquinas, who follows Aristotle, the souls of growth, of sense, and
of intelligence are not in man distinct and (as Plato had suggested)
diversely located in the liver, heart, and brain, but are merged in
one: 'Sic igitur anima intellectiva continet in sua virtute quidquid
habet anima sensitiva brutorum et nutritiva plantarum,' _Summa_ I.
lxxvi. 3. He cites Aristotle, _De Anima_, ii. 30-1.

l. 190. _Meteors._ See note to _The Storme_, l. 13. A meteor was
regarded as due to the effect of the air's cold region on exhalations
from the earth:

  If th'Exhalation hot and oily prove,
  And yet (as feeble) giveth place above
  To th'Airy Regions ever-lasting Frost,
  Incessantly th'apt-tinding fume is tost
  Till it inflame: then like a Squib it falls,
  Or fire-wing'd shaft, or sulphry Powder-Balls.
  But if this kind of Exhalation tour
  Above the walls of Winters icy bowr
  'T-inflameth also; and anon becomes
  A new strange Star, presaging wofull dooms.
      Sylvester's _Du Bartas. Second Day of the First Weeke._

i.e. a Meteor below the middle region, it becomes a Comet above.

l. 189 to PAGE =257=, l. 206. Donne summarizes in these lines the old
concentric arrangement of the Universe as we find it in Dante. Leaving
the elements of earth and water the soul passes through the regions of
the air (including the central one where snow and hail and meteors
are generated), and through the element of fire to the Moon, thence
to Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Firmament of the
fixed stars. He has already indicated (p. 237, ll. 205 f.) how this
arrangement is being disturbed by 'the New Philosophy'.

l. 192. _Whether th'ayres middle region be intense._ Compare:

  th'ayres middle marble roome.
                                     _The Storme_, p. 175, l. 14.

PAGE =257=, ll. 219-20. _This must, my Soule, &c._ This is the
punctuation of _1612-25_: _1633_ and all the later editions change
as in the note. Chambers and Grolier follow suit. It is clearly a
corruption. The 'long-short Progresse' is the passage to heaven
which has been described. A new thought begins with 'T'advance these
thoughts'. Grosart puts a colon after (l. 219) 'bee', but as he also
places a semicolon after (l. 220) 'T'advance these thoughts' it is not
quite clear how he reads the lines. The mistake seems to have arisen
from forgetting that the 'she' whose progress has been described is
not Elizabeth Drury but the poet's own soul emancipated by death.

PAGE =258=, ll. 236-40. _The Tutelar Angels, &c._ 'And it is as
imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate
to sense ... That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all
Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation
and every civill coagulation of society one other; and every man one
other.' _Letters_, p. 43. Aquinas insists (_Summa_ I. cxiii) on the
assignment of a guardian angel to every individual. He mentions also,
following St. Gregory, the guardian angel assigned to the Kingdom of
the Persians (Dan. x. 13).

l. 242. _Her body was the Electrum._ 'The ancient Electrum', Bacon
says, 'had in it a fifth of silver to the Gold.' Her body, then, is
not pure gold, but an alloy in which are many degrees of gold. In
Paracelsus' works, Electrum is the middle substance between ore and
metal, neither wholly perfect nor altogether imperfect. It is on
the way to perfection. _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of ...
Paracelsus_, Arthur E. Waite, 1894. 'Christ is not that Spectrum that
_Damascene_ speaks of, nor that Electrum that _Tertullian_ speakes of
... a third metall made of two other metals.' Donne, _Sermons_ 80. 40.
397.

PAGE =259=, l. 270. _breake._ Here--as at p. 260, l. 326, 'choose'--I
have reverted to the spelling of _1612_.

l. 292. _by sense, and Fantasie_: i.e. by sense and the phantasmata
which are conveyed by the senses to the intellect to work upon. See
Aristotle, _De Anima_, iii. and Aquinas, _Summa_ I. lxxxv. i. Angels
obtain their knowledge of material things through immaterial, i.e.
through Ideas. Their knowledge is immediate, not as ours mediate, by
sense and ratiocination, 'collections'.

PAGE =261=, l. 342. _Joy in not being that, which men have said_ 'Joy
in not being "sine labe concepta", for then she would have had no
virtue in being good.' Norton. Her own goodness has gained for her a
higher exaltation than the adventitious honour of being the Mother of
God.

  ll. 343-4. _Where she is exalted more for being good,
             Then for her interest of Mother-hood._

'Scriptum est in Evangelio, quod mater et fratres Christi, hoc
est consanguinei carnis eius, cum illi nuntiati fuissent, et foris
exspectarent, quia non possent eum adire prae turba, ille respondit:
_Quae est mater mea, aut qui sunt fratres mei? Et extendens manum
super discipulos suos, ait: Hi sunt fratres mei; et quicumque fecerit
voluntatem Patris mei, ipse mihi frater, et mater, et soror est_
(Matt. xii. 46-50). Quid aliud nos docens, nisi carnali cognationi
genus nostrum spirituale praeponere; nec inde beatos esse homines,
si iustis et sanctis carnis propinquitate iunguntur, sed si eorum
doctrinae ac moribus obediendo atque imitando cohaerescunt? _Beatior
ergo Maria percipiendo fidem Christi, quam concipiendo carnem
Christi._ Nam et dicenti cuidam, _Beatus venter qui te portavit_; ipse
respondit, _Imo beati qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt_' (Luc.
xi. 27, 28), Augustini _De Sancta Virginitate_, I. 3. (Migne, 40.
397-8.) If a Protestant in the previous two lines, Donne is here as
sound a Catholic as St. Augustine.

l. 354. _joyntenants with the Holy Ghost._ 'We acknowledge the Church
to be the house _onely_ of God, and that we admit no Saint, no Martyr,
to be a _Iointenant_ with him.' _Sermons_ 50. 21. 86.

l. 360. _royalties_: i.e. the prerogatives, rights, or privileges
pertaining to the sovereign. Donne here enumerates them as the power
to make war and conclude peace, uncontrolled authority ('the King
can do no wrong'), the administration of justice, the dispensing of
pardon, coining money, and the granting of protection against legal
arrest.

PAGE =262=, l. 369. _impressions._ The plural of the first edition
must, I think, be accepted. Her stamp is set upon each of our acts as
the impression of the King's head on a coin: 'Ignoraunce maketh him
unmeete metall for the impressions of vertue.' Fleming, _Panopl.
Epist._ 372 (O.E.D.).

  Your love and pitty doth th'impression fill,
  Which vulgar scandall stampt upon my brow.
                                    Shakespeare, _Sonnets_ cxii.

  ll. 397-9.  _So flowes her face, and thine eyes, neither now
              That Saint, nor Pilgrime, which your loving vow
              Concern'd, remaines ..._

I have kept the comma after 'eyes' of _1621_ (_1612_ seems to have
no stop) rather than change it with later and modern editions to a
semicolon, because I take it that the clauses are _not_ co-ordinate;
the second is a subordinate clause of degree after 'so'. 'Her face and
thine eyes so flow that now neither that Saint nor that Pilgrim which
your loving vow concern'd remains--neither you nor the lady you adore
remain the same.' The lady is the Saint, the lover the Pilgrim, as in
_Romeo and Juliet_:

  _Rom._ If I profane with my unworthiest hand
  This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,
  My lips two blushing pilgrims ready stand
  To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

  _Jul._ Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
  Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
  For saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch,
  And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.

Punctuated as the sentence is in modern editions 'so' must mean 'in
like manner', referring back to the statement about the river.

PAGE =263=, l. 421. _this Center_, is the reading of the first edition
and is doubtless correct, the 't' having been dropped accidentally
in _1621_ and so in all subsequent editions. 'This Center' is 'this
Earth.' The Earth could neither support such a tower nor provide
material with which to build it. Compare:

  The Heavens themselves, the Planets, and this Center,
  Observe degree, priority, and place.
                       Shakespeare, _Troil. and Cress._ I. iii. 85.

  As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
  As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.
                                        Milton, _Par. Lost_, i. 74.

PAGE =264=, l. 442. _For it is both the object and the wit._ God, the
Idea of Good, is the source of both being and knowing--the ultimate
object of knowledge and the source of the knowledge by which Himself
is known.

  ll. 445-6. _'Tis such a full, and such a filling good;
  Had th' Angels once look'd on him they had stood._

After discussion Aquinas concludes (I. lxiii. 5) that the devil was
not evil through fault of his own will in the first instant of
his creation, because this would make God the cause of evil: 'Illa
operatio quae simul incipit cum esse rei est ei ab agente a quo habet
esse ... Agens autem quod Angelos in esse produxit, scilicet Deus, non
potest esse causa peccati.' He then considers whether there was any
delay between his creation and his fall, and concludes that the most
probable conclusion and most consonant with the words of the Saints
is that there was none, otherwise by his first good act he would have
acquired the merit whose reward is the happiness which comes from
the sight of God and is enduring: 'Si diabolus in primo instanti,
in gratiâ creatus, meruit, statim post primum instans _beatitudinem_
accepisset, nisi statim impedimentum praestitisset peccando.' This
'beatitudo' is the sight of God: 'Angeli beati sunt per hoc quod
Verbum vident.' And endurance is of the essence of this blessedness:
'Sed contra de ratione beatitudinis est stabilitas, sive confirmatio
in bono.' Thus, as Donne says, 'Had th' Angells,' &c. _Summa_ lxii. 1,
5; lxiii. 6.

PAGE =265=, l. 479. _Apostem_: i.e. Imposthume, deep-seated abscess.

PAGE =266=, l. 509. _Long'd for, and longing for it, &c._ So Dante of
Beatrice:

  Angelo chiama in divino intelletto,
  E dice: 'Sire, nel mondo si vede
  Meraviglia nell' atto, che procede
  Da un' anima, che fin quassù risplende.
  Lo cielo, che non have altro difetto
  Che d'aver lei, al suo Signor la chiede,
  E ciascun santo ne grida mercede.'

  An Angel, of his blessed knowledge, saith
  To God: 'Lord, in the world that Thou hast made,
  A miracle in action is display'd
  By reason of a soul whose splendors fare
  Even hither: and since Heaven requireth
  Nought saving her, for her it prayeth Thee,
  Thy Saints crying aloud continually.'

and again:

  Madonna è desiata in l'alto cielo.

  My lady is desired in the high Heaven.

Donne, one thinks, must have read the _Vita Nuova_ as well as the
_Divina Commedia_. It is possible that in the eulogy of Elizabeth
Drury he is following its transcendental manner without fully
appreciating the transfiguration through which Beatrice passed in
Dante's mind.

ll. 511-18. _Here in a place, &c._ These lines show that _The Second
Anniversary_ was written while Donne was in France with Sir Robert and
Lady Drury. Compare _A Letter to the Lady Carey, &c._, p. 221:

  Here where by All All Saints invoked are, &c.



EPICEDES AND OBSEQUIES, &c.

Of all Donne's poems these are the most easy to date, at least
approximately. The following are the dates of the deaths which called
forth the poems, arranged in chronological order:

  Lady Markham (p. 279), May 4, 1609.
  Mris Boulstred (pp. 282, 284), Aug. 4, 1609.
  Prince Henry (p. 267), Nov. 6, 1612.
  Lord Harington (p. 271), Feb. 27, 1614.
  Marquis Hamilton (p. 288), March 22, 1625.

Those about whose date and subject there is uncertainty are that
entitled in 1635 _Elegie on the L. C._ and that headed _Death_. If
with Chambers and Norton we assume that the former poem is an Elegy on
the death of the Lord Chancellor, Baron Ellesmere, it will have been
written in 1617. The conjecture is a natural one and may be correct,
but there are difficulties, (1) This title is affixed to _Elegie_ in
_1635_ for the first time. The poem bears no such heading in _1633_ or
in any MS. in which I have found it. Probably 'L. C.' stands for Lord
Chancellor (though this is not certain); but on what authority was
the poem given this reference? (2) The position which it occupies in
_1633_ is due to its position in the MS. from which it was printed.
Now in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and in _W_, it is included among the
_Elegies_, i.e. Love Elegies. But in the last of these, _W_, it
appears with a collection of poems (Satyres, Elegies, the Lincoln's
Inn Epithalamium, and a series of letters to Donne's early friends)
which has the appearance of being, or being derived from, an early
collection, a collection of poems written between 1597 and 1608 to
1610 at the latest. (3) The poem is contained, but again without any
title, in _HN_, the Hawthornden MS. in Edinburgh. Now we know that
Drummond was in London in 1610, and there is no poem, of those which
he transcribed from a collection of Donne's, that is demonstrably
later than 1609, though the two _Obsequies_, 'Death, I recant' and
'Language, thou art too narrowe and too weak', must have been written
in that year. Drummond _may_ have been in London at some time between
1625 and 1630, during which years his movements are undetermined
(David Masson: _Drummond of Hawthornden_, ch. viii), but if he had
made a collection of Donne's poems at this later date it would have
been more complete, and would certainly have contained some of the
religious poems. At a later date he seems to have been given a copy of
the _Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton_, for a MS. of
this poem is catalogued among the books presented to the Edinburgh
University Library by Drummond. Unfortunately it has disappeared
or was never actually handed over. Most probably, Drummond's small
collection of poems by Donne, Pembroke, Roe, Hoskins, Rudyerd, and
other 'wits' of King James's reign, now in the library of the Society
of Antiquaries, was made in 1610.

All this points to the _Elegie_ in question being older than 1617. It
is very unlikely that a poem on the death of his great early patron
would have been allowed by him to circulate without anything to
indicate in whose honour it was written. Egerton was as great a man
as Lord Harington or Marquis Hamilton, and if hope of reward from the
living was the efficient cause of these poems quite as much as sorrow
for the dead, Lord Ellesmere too left distinguished and wealthy
successors. Yet the MS. of Donne's poems which belonged to the first
Earl of Bridgewater contains this poem without any indication to whom
it was addressed.

In 1610 Donne sent to the Lord Chancellor a copy of his
_Pseudo-Martyr_, and the following hitherto unpublished letter shows
in what high esteem he held him:

'As Ryvers though in there Course they are content to serve publique
uses, yett there end is to returne into the Sea from whence they
issued. So, though I should have much Comfort that thys Booke might
give contentment to others, yet my Direct end in ytt was, to make it a
testimony of my gratitude towards your Lordship and an acknowledgement
that those poore sparks of Vnderstandinge or Judgement which are in
mee were derived and kindled from you and owe themselves to you. All
good that ys in ytt, your Lordship may be pleased to accept as yours;
and for the Errors I cannot despayre of your pardon since you have
long since pardond greater faults in mee.'

If Donne had written an _Elegie_ on the death of Lord Ellesmere it
would have been as formally dedicated to his memory as his Elegies to
Lord Harington and Lord Hamilton. But by 1617 he was in orders. His
Muse had in the long poem on Lord Harington, brother to the Countess
of Bedford, 'spoke, and spoke her last'. It was only at the express
instance of Sir Robert Carr that he composed in 1625 his lines on the
death of the Marquis of Hamilton, and he entitled it not an Elegy but
_A Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton_.

It seems to me probable that the _Elegie_, 'Sorrow, who to this
house', was an early and tentative experiment in this kind of poetry,
on the death of some one, we cannot now say whom, perhaps the father
of the Woodwards or some other of his earlier correspondents and
friends.

The _Elegie_ headed _Death_ is also printed in a somewhat puzzling
fashion. In _1633_ it follows the lyrics abruptly with the bald
title _Elegie_. It is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, nor was it in the MS.
resembling this which _1633_ used for the bulk of the poems. In _HN_
also it bears no title indicating the subject of the poem. The
other MSS. all describe it as an _Elegie upon the death of M^{ris}
Boulstred_, and from _1633_ and several MSS. it appears that it was
sent to the Countess of Bedford with the verse _Letter_ (p. 227), 'You
that are shee and you, that's double shee'. It is possible that the
MSS. are in error and that the dead friend is not Miss Bulstrode
but Lady Markham, for the closing line of the letter compares her to
Judith:

  Yet but of _Judith_ no such book as she.

But Judith was, like Lady Markham, a widow. The tone of the poem too
supports this conclusion. The Elegy on Miss Bulstrode lays stress on
her youth, her premature death. In this and the other Elegy
(whose title assigns it to Lady Markham) the stress is laid on the
saintliness and asceticism of life becoming a widow.


PAGE =267=. ELEGIE UPON ... PRINCE HENRY.

The death of Prince Henry (1594-1612) evoked more elegiac poetry Latin
and English than the death of any single man has probably ever done.
See Nichols's _Progresses of James I_, pp. 504-12. He was the hope of
that party, the great majority of the nation, which would fain have
taken a more active part in the defence of the Protestant cause in
Europe than James was willing to venture upon. Donne's own _Elegie_
appeared in a collection edited by Sylvester: '_Lachrymae Lachrymarum,
or The Spirit of Teares distilled from the untimely Death of the
Incomparable Prince Panaretus_. By Joshua Sylvester. The Third
Edition, with Additions of His Owne and Elegies. 1613. Printed by
Humphrey Lownes.' Sylvester's own poem is followed by poems in Latin,
Italian, and English by Joseph Hall and others, and then by a
separate title-page: _Sundry Funerall Elegies ... Composed by severall
Authors_. The authors are G. G. (probably George Gerrard), Sir P. O.,
Mr. Holland, Mr. Donne, Sir William Cornwallis, Sir Edward Herbert,
Sir Henry Goodyere, and Henry Burton. Jonson told Drummond 'That Done
said to him, he wrott that Epitaph on Prince Henry _Look to me, Faith_
to match Sir Ed: Herbert in obscurenesse' (Drummond's _Conversations_,
ed. Laing). Donne's elegy was printed with some carelessness in
the _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_. The editor of _1633_ has improved the
punctuation in places.

The obscurity of the poem is not so obvious as its tasteless
extravagance: 'The death of Prince Henry has shaken in me both Faith
and Reason, concentric circles or nearly so (l. 18), for Faith does
not contradict Reason but transcend it.' See _Sermons_ 50. 36.
'Our Faith is shaken because, contemplating his greatnesse and its
influence on other nations, we believed that with him was to begin the
age of peace:

  Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas,
  Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

But by his death this faith becomes heresy. Reason is shaken because
reason passes from cause to effect. Miracle interrupts this progress,
and the loss of him is such a miracle as brings all our argument to
a standstill. We can predict nothing with confidence.' In his
over-subtle, extravagant way Donne describes the shattering of men's
hopes and expectations.

At the end he turns to her whom the Prince loved,

  The she-Intelligence which mov'd this sphere.

Could he but tell who she was he would be as blissful in singing her
praises as they were in one another's love.

A short epitaph on Prince Henry by Henry King (1592-1669), the friend
and disciple of Donne, bears marks of being inspired by this poem. It
is indeed ascribed to 'J. D.' in _Le Prince d'Amour_ (1660), but is
contained in King's _Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes and Sonnets_ (1657).

PAGE =269=, ll. 71-6. These lines are printed as follows in the
_Lachrymae Lachrymarum_:

  If faith have such a chaine, whose diverse links
  Industrious man discerneth, as hee thinks
  When Miracle doth joine; and to steal-in
  A new link Man knowes not where to begin:
  At a much deader fault must reason bee,
  Death having broke-off such a linke as hee.

But compare _The Second Anniversary_, p. 255, ll. 143-6.


PAGE =271=. OBSEQUIES TO THE LORD HARRINGTON, &c.

The MS. from which _1633_ printed this poem probably had the title as
above. It stands so in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. By a pure accident it
was changed to _Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother. To the
Countesse of Bedford._ There was no Lord Harington after the death of
the subject of this poem.

John Harington, the first Baron of Exton and cousin of Sir John
Harington the translator of the _Orlando Furioso_, died at Worms in
1613, when returning from escorting the Princess Elizabeth to her
new home at Heidelberg. His children were John, who succeeded him as
Second Baron of Exton, and Lucy, who had become Countess of Bedford in
1594. The young Baron had been an intimate friend of Prince Henry. In
1609 he visited Venice and was presented to the Doge as likely to be
a power in England when Henry should succeed. 'He is learned',
said Wotton, 'in philosophy, has Latin and Greek to perfection, is
handsome, well-made as any man could be, at least among us.' His fate
was as sudden and tragic as that of his patron. Travelling in France
and Italy in 1613 he grew ill, it was believed he had been poisoned
by accident or design, and died at his sister's house at Twickenham on
the 27th of February, 1614.

There is not much in Donne's ingenious, tasteless poem which evinces
affection for Harington or sorrow for his tragic end, nor is there
anything of the magnificent poetry, 'ringing and echoing with music,'
which in _Lycidas_ makes us forgetful of the personality of King.
Donne's poem was written to please Lady Bedford:

  And they who write to Lords rewards to get,
  Are they not like singers at dores for meat?

Apparently it served its purpose, for in a letter written a year or
two later Donne says to Goodyere: 'I am almost sorry, that an Elegy
should have been able to move her to so much compassion heretofore, as
to offer to pay my debts; and my greater wants now, and for so good
a purpose, as to come disingaged into that profession, being plainly
laid open to her, should work no farther but that she sent me £30,'
&c. _Letters, &c._, p. 219.

Of Harington, Wiffen, in his _Historical Memoirs of the House of
Russell_, says: 'Whilst he devoted much of his time to literary study
he is reported to have uniformly begun and closed the day with prayer
... and to have been among the first who kept a diary wherein his
casual faults and errors were recorded, for his surer advancement in
happiness and virtue.' Wiffen's authority is probably _The Churches
Lamentation for the losse of the Godly Delivered in a Sermon at the
funerals of that truly noble, and most hopefull young Gentleman Iohn
Lord Harington, Baron of Exton, Knight of the noble order of the Bath
etc. by R. Stock_. 1614. To this verses Latin and English by I. P., F.
H. D. M., and Sir Thomas Roe are appended. The preacher gives details
of Harington's religious life. The D. N. B. speaks of two memorial
sermons. This is a mistake.

l. 15. _Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest;_ Chambers
by placing a semicolon after 'midnight' makes 'now all rest' an
independent, rhetorical statement:

  Thou seest me here at midnight; now all rest;

The Grolier Club editor varies it:

  Thou seest me here at midnight now, all rest;

But surely as punctuated in the old editions the line means 'at
midnight, now when all rest', 'the time when all rest'. 'I watch,
while others sleep.'

Donne's description of his midnight watch recalls that of Herr
Teufelsdroeckh: 'Gay mansions, with supper rooms and dancing rooms are
full of light and music and high-swelling hearts, but in the Condemned
Cells the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes
look out through the darkness which is around and within, for the
light of a stern last morning,' &c. _Sartor Resartus_, i. 3.

PAGE =272=, l. 38. _Things, in proportion fit, by perspective._ It is
by an accident, I imagine, that _1633_ drops the comma after 'fit',
and I have restored it. The later punctuation, which Chambers adopts,
is puzzling if not misleading:

  Things, in proportion, fit by perspective.

It is with 'proportion' that 'fit' goes. Deeds of good men show us by
perspective things in a proportion fitted to our comprehension. They
bring the goodness or essence of things, which is seen aright only in
God, down to our level. The divine is most clearly revealed to _us_ in
the human.

PAGE =274=, l. 102. _Sent hither, this worlds tempests to becalme._ I
have adopted the reading to which the MSS. point in preference to that
of the editions. Both the chief groups read 'tempests', and 'this'
(for 'the') has still more general support. Now if the 's' in
'tempests' were once dropped, 'this' would be changed to 'the', the
emphasis shifting from 'this' to 'world'. I think the sense is better.
If but one tempest is contemplated, then either so many 'lumps of
balm' are not needed, or they fail sadly in their mission. They come
rather to allay the storms with which human life is ever and again
tormented. Moreover, in Donne's cosmology 'this world' is frequently
contrasted with other and better worlds. Compare _An Anatomie of the
World_, pp. 225 et seq.

l. 110. _Which the whole world, or man the abridgment hath._ The comma
after 'man' in _1633_ gives emphasis. The absence of a comma, however,
after 'abridgment' gives a reader to-day the impression that it is
object to 'hath'. I have, therefore, with _1635-69_, dropped the
comma after 'man'. The omission of commas in appositional phrases is
frequent. 'Man the abridgment' means of course 'Man the microcosm':
'the Macrocosme and Microcosme, the Great and the Lesser World, man
extended in the world, and the world contracted and abridged into
man.' _Sermons_ 80. 31. 304.

ll. 111-30. _Thou knowst, &c._ The circles running parallel to
the equator are all equally circular, but diminish in size as they
approach the poles. But the circles which cut these at right angles,
and along which we measure the distance of any spot from the equator,
from the sun, are all of equal magnitude, passing round the earth
through the poles, i.e. meridians are great circles, their planes
passing through the centre of the earth.

Harington's life would have been a Great Circle had it completed its
course, passing through the poles of youth and age. In that case we
should have had from him lessons for every phase of life, medicines to
cure every moral malady.

In _The Crosse_ Donne writes:

  All the Globes frame and spheares, is nothing else
  But the Meridians crossing Parallels.

And in the _Anatomie of the World_, p. 239, ll. 278-80:

  For of Meridians, and Parallels,
  Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net throwne
  Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.

PAGE =275=, l. 133. _Whose hand, &c._ The singular is the reading of
all the MSS., and is pretty certainly right. The minute and second
hands were comparatively rare at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. See the illustrations in F. J. Britten's _Old Clocks and
Watches and their Makers, &c._ (1904); and compare: 'But yet, as
he that makes a Clock, bestowes all that labour upon the severall
wheeles, that thereby the Bell might give a sound, and that thereby
the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes,' &c.
_Sermons_ 80. 55. 550.

PAGE =276=, l. 154. _And great Sun-dyall to have set us All._ Compare:

  The lives of princes should like dyals move,
  Whose regular example is so strong,
  They make the times by them go right or wrong.
                             Webster, _White Devil_, I. ii. 313.

PAGE =279=, l. 250. _French soldurii._ The reading of the editions
is a misprint. The correct form is given in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and
is used by Donne elsewhere: 'And we may well collect that in Caesars
time, in France, for one who dyed naturally, there dyed many by
this devout violence. For hee says there were some, whom hee calls
_Devotos_, and _Clientes_ (the latter Lawes call them _Soldurios_)
which enjoying many benefits, and commodities, from men of higher
ranke, alwaies when the Lord dyed, celebrated his Funerall with their
owne. And Caesar adds, that in the memorie of man, no one was found
that ever refused it.' _Biathanatos_, Part I, Dist. 2, Sect. 3. The
marginal note calls them 'Soldurii', and refers to Caes., _Bell.
Gall._ 3, and _Tholosa. Sym._ lib. 14, cap. 10, N. 14.


PAGE =279=. ELEGIE ON THE LADY MARCKHAM.

The wife of Sir Anthony Markham, of Sedgebrook in the county of Notts.
She was the daughter of Sir James Harington, younger brother of John,
first Baron Harington of Exton. See note to last poem. She was thus
first cousin to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and died at her home at
Twickenham on May 4, 1609. On her tombstone it is recorded that she
was 'inclytae Luciae Comitissae de Bedford sanguine (quod satis) sed
et amicitia propinquissima'. It is probably to this friendship of
a great patroness of poets that she owes this and other tributes
of verse. Francis Beaumont wrote one which is found in several MS.
collections of Donne's poems, sometimes with his, sometimes with
Beaumont's initials. In it he frankly confesses that he never knew
Lady Markham. I quote a few lines:

  As unthrifts grieve in strawe for their pawnd Beds,
  As women weepe for their lost Maidenheads
  (When both are without hope of Remedie)
  Such an untimelie Griefe, have I for thee.
  I never sawe thy face; nor did my hart
  Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert,
  But being lifted hence, that which to thee
  Was Deaths sad dart, prov'd Cupids shafte to me.

The taste of Beaumont's poem is execrable. Elegies like this, and I
fear Donne's among them, were frankly addressed not so much to the
memory of the dead as to the pocket of the living.

According to two MSS.(_RP31_ and _H40_) the _Elegie_, 'Death be
not proud', was written by Lady Bedford herself on the death of
her cousin. It is much simpler and sincerer in tone than Donne's or
Beaumont's, but the tenor of the thought seems to connect it with the
_Elegie on M^{ris} Boulstred_, 'Death I recant'. The same MSS. contain
the following _Epitaph uppon the Ladye Markham_, which shows that she
was a widow when she died:

  A Mayde, a Wyfe shee liv'd, a Widdowe dy'd:
  Her vertue, through all womans state was varyed.
  The widdowes Bodye which this vayle doth hide
  Keepes in, expecting to bee justlie [highly _H40_] marryed,
  When that great Bridegroome from the cloudes shall call
  And ioyne, earth to his owne, himself to all.

l. 7. _Then our land waters, &c._ 'That hand which was wont _to wipe
all teares from all our eyes_, doth now but presse and squeaze us as
so many spunges, filled one with one, another with another cause of
teares. Teares that can have no other banke to bound them, but the
declared and manifested _will of God_: For, till our teares flow to
that heighth, that they might be called a _murmuring_ against
the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is
_Disloyaltie_, to give our teares any stop, any termination, any
measure.' _Sermons_ 50. 33. 303: _On the Death of King James_.

PAGE =280=, l. 11. _And even these teares, &c._: i.e. the

  Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall,

which are the waters _above_ our firmament as opposed to the _land_
or _earthly_ waters which are the tears of passion. The 'these' of the
MSS. seems necessary for clearness of references: 'For, _Lacrymae sunt
sudor animae maerentis_, Teares are the sweat of a labouring soule,
... Raine water is better then River water; The water of Heaven,
teares for offending thy God, are better then teares for worldly
losses; But yet come to teares of any kinde, and whatsoever occasion
thy teares, _Deus absterget omnem lacrymam_, there is the largeness of
his bounty, _He will wipe all teares from thine eyes_; But thou must
have teares first: first thou must come to this weeping, or else God
cannot come to this wiping; God hath not that errand to thee, to wipe
teares from thine eyes, if there be none there; If thou doe nothing
for thy selfe, God finds nothing to doe for thee.' _Sermons_ 80. 54.
539-40.

The waters above the firmament were a subject of considerable
difficulty to mediaeval philosophy--so difficult indeed that St.
Augustine has to strengthen himself against sceptical objections by
reaffirming the authority of Scripture: _Maior est Scripturae huius
auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas. Unde quoquo modo et
qualeslibet aquae ibi sint, eas tamen ibi esse, minime dubitamus._
Aquinas, who quotes these words from Augustine, comes to two main
conclusions, himself leaning to the last. If by the firmament be meant
either the firmament of fixed stars, or the ninth sphere, the _primum
mobile_, then, since heavenly bodies are not made of the elements of
which earthly things are made (being incorruptible, and unchangeable
except in position), the waters above the firmament are not of
the same _kind_ as those on earth (_non sunt eiusdem speciei cum
inferioribus_). If, however, by the firmament be meant only the upper
part of the air where clouds are condensed, called firmament because
of the thickness of the air in that part, then the waters above the
firmament are simply the vaporized waters of which rain is formed
(_aquae quae vaporabiliter resolutae supra aliquam partem aeris
elevantur, ex quibus pluviae generantur_). _Above_ the firmament
waters are generated, _below_ they rest. _Summa_ I. 68.

If I follow him, Donne to some extent blends or confounds these views.
Tears shed for our sins differ in _kind_ from tears shed for worldly
losses, as the waters above from those below. But the extract from
the sermon identifies the waters above the firmament with rain-water.
'Rain water is better than River-water.' It is purer; but it does
_not_ differ from it in kind.

l. 12. _Wee, after Gods Noe, drowne our world againe._ I think the
'our' of the majority of the MSS. must be correct. From the spelling
and punctuation both, it is clear that the source from which _1633_
printed closely resembled _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, which read 'our'. The
change to 'the' was made in the spirit which prompted the grosser
error of certain MSS. which read 'Noah'. Donne has in view the
'microcosm' rather than the 'macrocosm'. There is, of course, an
allusion to the Flood and the promise, but the immediate reference
is to Christ and the soul. 'After Christ's work of redemption and his
resurrection, which forbid despair, we yet yield to the passion of
sorrow.' We drown not _the_ world but _our_ world, the world within
us, or which each one of us is. This sense is brought out more clearly
in _Cy_'s version, which is a paraphrase rather than a version:

  Wee after Gods mercy drowne our Soules againe.

l. 22. _Porcelane, where they buried Clay._ 'We are not thoroughly
resolved concerning _Porcelane_ or _China_ dishes, that according to
common belief they are made of Earth, which lieth in preparation about
an hundred years under ground; for the relations thereof are not only
divers, but contrary, and Authors agree not herein.' Browne, _Vulgar
Errors_, ii. 5. Browne quotes some of the older opinions and then
points out that a true account of the manufacture of porcelain had
been furnished by Gonzales de Mendoza, Linschoten, and Alvarez the
Jesuit, and that it was confirmed by the Dutch Embassy of 1665. The
old physical theories were retained for literary purposes long after
they had been exploded.

l. 29. _They say, the sea, when it gaines, loseth too._ 'But we passe
from the circumstance of the time, to a second, that though Christ
thus despised by the _Gergesens_, did, in his Justice, depart from
them; yet, as the sea gaines in one place, what it loses in another,
his abundant mercy builds up more in _Capernaum_, then his Justice
throwes downe among the _Gergesens_: Because they drave him away, in
Judgement he went from them, but in Mercy he went to the others, who
had not intreated him to come.' _Sermons_ 80. 11. 103.

'They flatly say that he eateth into others dominions, as the sea doth
into the land, not knowing that in swallowing a poore Iland as big as
Lesbos he may cast up three territories thrice as big as Phrygia: for
what the sea winneth in the marshe, it looseth in the sand.' Lyly,
_Midas_ v. 2. 17.

Compare also Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sect 2, Mem. 3.

Pope has borrowed the conceit from Donne in _An Essay on Criticism_,
ll. 54-9:

  As on the land while here the ocean gains,
  In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
  Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
  The solid power of understanding fails;
  Where beams of warm imagination play,
  The memory's soft figures melt away.

l. 34. _For, graves our trophies are, and both deaths dust._ The
modern printing of this as given in the Grolier Club edition makes
this line clearer--'both Deaths' dust.' 'Graves are our trophies,
their dust is not our dust but the dust of the elder and the younger
death, i.e. sin and the physical or carnal death which sin brought
in its train.' Chambers's 'death's dust' means, I suppose, the same
thing, but one can hardly speak of 'both death'.

PAGE =281=, ll. 57-8.  _this forward heresie,
  That women can no parts of friendship bee._

Montaigne refers to the same heresy in speaking of 'Marie de Gournay
le Jars, ma fille d'alliance, et certes aymée de moy beaucoup plus que
paternellement, et enveloppée en ma retraitte et solitude comme l'une
des meilleures parties de mon propre estre. Je ne regarde plus qu'elle
au monde. Si l'adolescence peut donner presage, cette ame sera quelque
jour capable des plus belles choses et entre autres de la perfection
de _cette tressaincte amitié ou nous ne lisons point que son sexe ait
pu monter encores_: la sincerité et la solidité de ses moeurs y sont
desja bastantes.' _Essais_ (1590), ii. 17.


PAGE =282=. ELEGIE ON M^{ris} BOULSTRED.

Cecilia Boulstred, or Bulstrode, was the daughter of Hedgerley
Bulstrode, of Bucks. She was baptized at Beaconsfield, February 12,
1583/4, and died at the house of her kinswoman, Lady Bedford, at
Twickenham, on August 4, 1609. So Mr. Chambers, from Sir James
Whitelocke's _Liber Famelicus_ (Camden Society). He quotes also from
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609.' In a letter to Goodyere Donne speaks
of her illness: 'but (by my troth) I fear earnestly that Mistresse
Bolstrod will not escape that sicknesse in which she labours at this
time. I sent this morning to aske of her passage this night, and the
return is, that she is as I left her yesternight, and then by the
strength of her understanding, and voyce, (proportionally to her
fashion, which was ever remisse) by the eavenesse and life of her
pulse, and by her temper, I could allow her long life, and impute all
her sicknesse to her minde. But the History of her sicknesse makes me
justly fear, that she will scarce last so long, as that you, when you
receive this letter, may do her any good office in praying for her.'
Poor Miss Bulstrode, whose

                                  voice was
  Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,

has not lived to fame in an altogether happy fashion, as the subject
of some tortured and tasteless _Epicedes_, a coarse and brutal Epigram
by Jonson (_An Epigram on the Court Pucell_ in _Underwoods_,--Jonson
told Drummond that the person intended was Mris Boulstred), a
complimentary, not to say adulatory, _Epitaph_ from the same pen, and
a dubious _Elegy_ by Sir John Roe ('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p.
410). It was an ugly place, the Court of James I, as full of cruel
libels as of gross flattery, a fit subject for Milton's scorn. The
epitaph which Jonson wrote is found in more than one MS., and in some
where Donne's poems are in the majority. Chambers very tentatively
suggested that it might be by Donne himself, and I was inclined for a
time to accept this conjecture, finding it in other MSS. besides those
he mentioned, and because the sentiment of the closing lines is quite
Donnean. But in the Farmer-Chetham MS. (ed. Grosart) it is signed B.
J., and Mr. Percy Simpson tells me that a letter is extant from Jonson
to George Gerrard which indicates that the epitaph was written by
Jonson while Gerrard's man waited at the door. I quote it from _B_:

_On the death of M^{rs} Boulstred._

  Stay, view this Stone, and if thou beest not such
  Reade here a little, that thou mayest know much.
  It covers first a Virgin, and then one
  That durst be so in Court; a Virtue alone
  To fill an Epitaph; but shee hath more:
  Shee might have claym'd to have made the Graces foure,
  Taught Pallas language, Cynthia modesty;
  As fit to have encreas'd the harmonye
  Of Spheares, as light of Starres; she was Earths eye,
  The sole religious house and votary
  Not bound by rites but Conscience; wouldst thou all?
  She was Sil. Boulstred, in which name I call
  Up so much truth, as could I here pursue,
  Might make the fable of good Woemen true.

The name is given as 'Sal', but corrected to 'Sil' in the margin.
Other MSS. have 'Sell'. It is doubtless 'Cil', a contraction for
'Cecilia'. Chambers inadvertently printed 'still'.

The language of Jonson's _Epitaph_ harmonizes ill with that of his
_Epigram_. Of all titles Jonson loved best that of 'honest', but
'honest', in a man, meant with Jonson having the courage to tell
people disagreeable truths, not to conceal your dislikes. He was a
candid friend to the living; after death--_nil nisi bonum_.

For the relation of this _Elegie_ to that beginning 'Death, be not
proud' (p. 416) see _Text and Canon, &c._, p. cxliii.

The _1633_ text of this poem is practically identical with that of
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_. With these MSS. it reads in l. 27 'life' for the
'lives' of other MSS. and editions, and 'but' for 'though' in the last
line. The only variant in _1633_ is 'worke' for 'workes' in l. 45. The
latter reading has the support of other MSS. and is very probably what
Donne wrote. Such use of a plural verb after two singular subjects of
closely allied import was common. See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_,
§ 673, and the examples quoted there, e.g. 'Both wind and tide stays
for this gentleman,' _Com. of Err_. IV. i. 46, where Rowe corrects to
'stay'; 'Both man and master is possessed,' _ibid._ IV. iv. 89.

l. 10. _Eating the best first, well preserv'd to last._ The 'fruite'
or 'fruites' of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, which is as old as _P_ (1623), is
probably a genuine variant. The reference is to the elaborate dainties
of the second course at Elizabethan banquets, the dessert. Sleep, in
Macbeth's famous speech, is

  great Nature's second course,

and Donne uses the same metaphor of the Eucharist: 'This fasting then
... is but a continuation of a great feast: where the first
course (that which we begin to serve in now) is Manna, food of
Angels,--plentiful, frequent preaching; but the second course is the
very body and blood of Christ Jesus, shed for us and given to us, in
that Blessed Sacrament, of which himself makes us worthy receivers at
that time.' _Sermons_. 'The most precious and costly dishes are always
reserved for the last services, but yet there is wholesome meat before
too.' _Ibid._

l. 18. _In birds, &c._: 'birds' is here in the possessive case,
'birds' organic throats'. I have modified the punctuation so as to
make this clearer.

l. 24. _All the foure Monarchies_: i.e. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and
Rome. John Sleidan, mentioned in a note on the _Satyres_, wrote _The
Key of Historie: Or, A most Methodicall Abridgement of the foure
chiefe Monarchies &c._, to quote its title in the English translation.

l. 27. _Our births and lives, &c._ _1633_ and the two groups of MSS.
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_, _L74_, _N_, _TC_ read 'life'. If this be
correct, then 'births' would surely need to be 'birth'. _HN_ shows, I
think, what has happened. The voiced 'f' was not always distinguished
from the breathed sound by a different spelling ('v' for 'f'), and
'lifes' would very easily become 'life'. On the other hand 'v' was
frequently written where we now have 'f', and sometimes misleads.
Peele's _The Old Wives Tale_ is not necessarily, as usually printed,
_Wives'_. It is just an _Old Woman's Tale_.


PAGE =284=. ELEGIE.

PAGE =285=, l. 34. _The Ethicks speake, &c._ A rather strange
expression for 'Ethics tell'. The article is rare. Donne says, 'No
booke of Ethicks.' _Sermons_ 80. 55. 550. In _HN_ Drummond has altered
to 'Ethnicks' a word Donne uses elsewhere: 'Of all nations the Jews
have most chastely preserved that ceremony of abstaining from Ethnic
names.' _Essays in Divinity._ It does not, however, seem appropriate
here, unless Donne means to say that she had all the cardinal virtues
of the heathen with the superhuman, theological virtues which are
superinduced by grace:

  Her soul was Paradise, &c.

But this is not at all clear. Apparently there is no more in the line
than a somewhat vaguely expressed hyperbole: 'she had all the cardinal
virtues of which we hear in Ethics'.

PAGE =286=, l. 44. _Wee'had had a Saint, have now a holiday_: i.e.
'We should have had a saint and should have now a holiday'--her
anniversary. The MS. form of the line is probably correct:

  We hád had á Saint, nów a hólidáy.

l. 48. _That what we turne to_ feast, _she turn'd to_ pray. As printed
in the old editions this line, if it be correctly given, is one of the
worst Donne ever wrote:

  That what we turne to feast, she turn'd to pray,

i.e. apparently 'That, the day which we turn into a feast or festival
she turned into a day of prayer, a fast'. But 'she turn'd to pray'
in such a sense is a hideously elliptical construction and cannot,
I think, be what Donne meant to write. Two emendations suggest
themselves. One occurs in _HN_:

  That when we turn'd to feast, she turn'd to pray.

When we turn'd aside from the routine of life's work to keep holiday,
she did so also, but it was to pray. This is better, but it is
difficult to understand how, if this be the correct reading, the error
arose, and only _HN_ reads 'when'. The emendation I have introduced
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line. I take it that Donne meant 'feast' and 'pray' to be
imperatives, and that the line would be printed, if modernized, thus:

  That what we turn to 'feast!' she turn'd to 'pray!'

That the command to keep the Sabbath day holy, which we, especially
Roman Catholics and Anglicans of the Catholic school, interpret as
to the Christian Church a command to feast, to keep holiday, she
interpreted as a command to fast and pray. Probably both Lady Markham
and Lady Bedford belonged to the more Calvinist wing of the Church.
There is a distinctly Calvinist flavour about Lady Bedford's own
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death. See p. 422, and especially:

  Goe then to people curst before they were,
  Their spoyles in triumph of thy conquest weare.

l. 58. _will be a Lemnia._ All the MSS. read 'Lemnia' without the
article, probably rightly, 'Lemnia' being used shortly for 'terra
Lemnia', or 'Lemnian earth'--a red clay found in Lemnos and reputed
an antidote to poison (Pliny, _N. H._ xxv. 13). It was one of
the constituents of the theriaca. It may be here thought of as an
antiseptic preserving from putrefaction. But Norton points out that by
some of the alchemists the name was given to the essential component
of the Philosopher's stone, and that what Donne was thinking of was
transmuting power, changing crystal into diamond. The alchemists,
however, dealt more in metals than in stones. The thought in Donne's
mind is perhaps rather that which he expresses at p. 280, l. 21. As
in some earths clay is turned to porcelain, so in this Lemnian earth
crystal will turn to diamond.

The words 'Tombe' and 'diamond' afford so bad a rhyme that G. L. Craik
conjectured, not very happily,'a wooden round'. Craik's criticism of
Donne, written in 1847, _Sketches of the History of Literature and
Learning in England_, is wonderfully just and appreciative.


PAGE =287=. ELEGIE ON THE L. C.

Whoever may be the subject of this _Elegie_, Donne speaks as though he
were a member of his household. In 1617 Donne had long ceased to be
in any way attached to the Lord Chancellor's retinue. The reference to
his 'children' also without any special reference to his son the new
earl, soon to be Earl of Bridgewater, is very unlike Donne. Moreover,
Sir Thomas Egerton never had more than two sons, one of whom was
killed in Ireland in 1599.

ll. 13-16. _As we for him dead: though, &c._ Both Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor connect the clause 'though no family ... with him
in joy to share' with the next, as its principal clause, 'We lose
what all friends lov'd, &c.' To me it seems that it must go with the
preceding clause, 'As we [must wither] for him dead'. I take it as a
clause of concession. 'With him we, his family, must die (as the briar
does with the tree on which it grows); but no family could die with
a more certain hope of sharing the joy into which their head has
entered; with none would so many be willing to "venture estates" in
that great voyage of discovery.' With the next lines,'We lose,' &c.,
begins a fresh argument. The thought is forced and obscure, but the
figure, taken from voyages of discovery, is characteristic of Donne.


PAGE =288=. AN HYMNE TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUESSE HAMYLTON.

In the old editions this is placed among the _Divine Poems_, and Donne
meant it to bear that character. For it was rather unwillingly that
Donne, now in Orders, wrote this poem at the instance of his friend
and patron Sir Robert Ker, or Carr, later (1633) Earl of Ancrum.

James Hamilton, b. 1584, succeeded his father in 1604 as Marquis of
Hamilton, and his uncle in 1609 as Duke of Chatelherault and Earl of
Arran. He was made a Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber and held other posts
in Scotland. On the occasion of James I's visit to Scotland in 1617 he
played a leading part, and thereafter became a favourite courtier,
his name figuring in all the great functions described in Nichol's
_Progresses_. In 1617 Chamberlain writes: 'I have not heard a man
generally better spoken of than the Marquis, even by all the English;
insomuch that he is every way held as the gallantest gentleman of
both the nations.' He was High Commissioner to the Parliament held at
Edinburgh in 1624, where he secured the passing of the Five Articles
of Perth. In 1624 he opposed the French War policy of Buckingham, and
when he died on March 2, 1624/5, it was maintained that the latter had
poisoned him.

The rhetoric and rhythm of this poem depend a good deal on getting
the right punctuation and a clear view of what are the periods. I have
ventured to make a few emendations in the arrangement of _1633_. The
first sentence ends with the emphatic 'wee doe not so' (l. 8), where
'wee' might be printed in italics. The next closes with 'all lost a
limbe' (l. 18), and the effect is marred if, with Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor, one places a full stop after 'Music lacks a
song', though a colon might be most appropriate. The last two lines
clinch the detailed statement which has preceded. The next sentence
again is not completed till l. 30, 'in the form thereof his bodie's
there', but, though _1633_ has only a semicolon here, a full stop
is preferable, or at least a colon. Chambers's full stops at l. 22,
'none', and l. 28, 'a resurrection', have again the effect of
breaking the logical and rhythmical structure. Lines 23-4 are entirely
parenthetical and would be better enclosed in brackets. Four sustained
periods compose the elegy.

PAGE =289=, ll. 6-7. _If every severall Angell bee A kind alone._ Ea
enim quae conveniunt specie, et differunt numero, conveniunt in formâ
sed distinguuntur materialiter. Si ergo Angeli non sunt compositi ex
materiâ et formâ ... sequitur quod _impossibile sit esse duos Angelos
unius speciei_: sicut etiam impossibile esset dicere quod essent
plures albedines (whitenesses) separatae aut plures humanitates: ...
Si tamen Angeli haberent materiam nec sic possent esse plures Angeli
unius speciei. Sic enim opporteret quod principium distinctionis unius
ab alio esset materia, non quidem secundum divisionem quantitatis, cum
sint incorporei, sed secundum diversitatem potentiarum: quae quidem
diversitas materiae causat diversitatem non solum speciei sed generis.
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. l. 4.


PAGE =293=. INFINITATI SACRUM, _&c._

PAGE =294=, l. 11. _a Mucheron_: i.e. a mushroom, here equivalent to
a fungus. Chambers adopts without note the reading of the later
editions, 'Maceron', but spells it 'Macaron'. Grosart prints
'Macheron', taking 'Mucheron' as a mis-spelling. Captain Shirley
Harris first pointed out, in _Notes and Queries_, that 'Mucheron'
must be correct, for Donne has in view, as so often elsewhere, the
threefold division of the soul--vegetal, sensitive, rational. Captain
Harris quoted the very apt parallel from Burton, where, speaking
of metempsychosis, he says: 'Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a
captain:

  Ille ego (nam memini Troiani tempore belli)
  Panthoides Euphorbus eram,

a horse, a man, a spunge.' _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 1, Sect. 1,
Mem. 2, Subs. 10. Donne's order is, a man, a horse, a fungus. But
to Burton a sponge was a fungus. The word fungus is cognate with or
derived from the Greek [Greek: spongos].

As for the form 'mucheron' (n. b. 'mushrome' in _G_) the O.E.D.
gives it among different spellings but cites no example of this exact
spelling. From the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ it quotes, 'Muscheron,
toodys hatte, _boletus_, _fungus_.' Captain Harris has supplied me
with the following delightful instance of the word in use as late as
1808. It is from a catalogue of Maggs Bros. (No. 263, 1910):

'THE DISAPPOINTED KING OF SPAIN, or the downfall of the Mucheron King
Joe Bonaparte, late Pettifogging Attorney's Clerk. Between two stools
the Breech comes to the Ground.'

The caricature is etched by G. Cruikshank and is dated 1808.

The 'Maceron' which was inserted in _1635_ is not a misprint, but a
pseudo-correction by some one who did not recognize 'mucheron' and
knew that Donne had elsewhere used 'maceron' for a fop or puppy (see
p. 163, l. 117).

'Mushrome', the spelling of the word in _G_, is found also in the
_Sermons_ (80. 73. 748).

l. 22. _which Eve eate_: 'eate' is of course the past tense, and
should be 'ate' in modernized editions, not 'eat' as in Chambers's and
the Grolier Club editions.


THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE.

The strange poem _The Progresse of the Soule_, or _Metempsychosis_, is
dated by Donne himself, 16 Augusti 1601. The different use of the
same title which Donne made later to describe the progress of the
soul heavenward, after its release from the body, shows that he had no
intention of publishing the poem. How widely it circulated in MS. we
do not know, but I know of three copies only which are extant, viz.
_G_, _O'F_, and that given in the group _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_.
It was from the last that the text of _1633_ was printed, the editor
supplying the punctuation, which in the MS. is scanty. In some copies
of _1633_ the same omissions of words occur as in the MS. but the poem
was corrected in several places as it passed through the press.
_G_, though not without mistakes itself, supplies some important
emendations.

The sole light from without which has been thrown upon the poem comes
from Ben Jonson's conversations with Drummond: 'The conceit of Dones
Transformation or [Greek: Metempsychôsis] was that he sought the soule
of that aple which Eve pulled and thereafter made it the soule of a
bitch, then of a shee wolf, and so of a woman; his generall purpose
was to have brought in all the bodies of the Hereticks from the soule
of Cain, and at last left in the bodie of Calvin. Of this he never
wrotte but one sheet, and now, since he was made Doctor, repenteth
highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems.'

Jonson was clearly recalling the poem somewhat inaccurately, and
at the same time giving the substance of what Donne had told him.
Probably Donne mystified him on purpose, for it is evident from the
poem that in his first intention Queen Elizabeth herself was to be the
soul's last host. It is impossible to attach any other meaning to the
seventh stanza; and that intention also explains the bitter tone in
which women are satirized in the fragment. Women and courtiers are
the chief subject of Donne's sardonic satire in this poem, as of
Shakespeare's in _Hamlet_.

I have indicated elsewhere what I think is the most probable motive
of the poem. It reflects the mood of mind into which Donne, like many
others, was thrown by the tragic fate of Essex in the spring of the
year. In _Cynthia's Revels_, acted in the same year as Donne's poem
was composed, Jonson speaks of 'some black and envious slanders
breath'd against her' (i.e. Diana, who is Elizabeth) 'for her divine
justice on Actaeon', and it is well known that she incurred both
odium and the pangs of remorse. Donne, who was still a Catholic in
the sympathies that come of education and association, seems to
have contemplated a satirical history of the great heretic in lineal
descent from the wife of Cain to Elizabeth--for private circulation.
See _The Poetry of John Donne_, II. pp. xvii-xx.

PAGE =295=, l. 9. _Seths pillars._ Norton's note on this runs: 'Seth,
the son of Adam, left children who imitated his virtues. 'They were
the discoverers of the wisdom which relates to the heavenly bodies and
their order, and that their inventions might not be lost they made
two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone, and inscribed their
discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be
destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain and exhibit
these discoveries to mankind.... Now this remains in the land of
Siriad to this day.' Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_ (Whiston's
translation), I. 2, §3.

PAGE =296=, l. 21. _holy Ianus._ 'Janus, whom Annius of Viterbo and
the chorographers of Italy do make to be the same with Noah.' Browne,
_Vulgar Errors_, vi. 6. The work referred to is the _Antiquitatum
variarum volumina XVII_ (1498, reprinted and re-arranged 1511), by
Annius of Viterbo (1432-1502), a Dominican friar, Fra Giovanni
Nanni. Each of the books, after the first, consists of a digest
with commentary of various works on ancient history, the aim being
apparently to reconcile Biblical and heathen chronology and to
establish the genealogy of Christ. _Liber XIIII_ is a digest, or
'defloratio', of Philo (of whom later); _Liber XV_ of Berosus,
a reputed Chaldaean historian ('patria Babylonicus; et dignitate
Chaldaeus'), cited by Josephus. From him Annius derives this
identification of Janus with Noah: 'Hoc vltimo loco Berosus de tribus
cognominibus rationes tradit: Noa: Cam & Tythea. De Noa dicit quod
fuit illi tributum cognomen Ianus a Iain: quod apud Aramaeos et
Hebraeos sonat vinum: a quo Ianus id est vinifer et vinosus: quia
primus vinum invenit et inebriatus est: vt dicit Berosus: et supra
insinuavit Propertius: et item Moyses Genesis cap ix. vbi etiam Iain
vinum Iani nominat: vbi nos habemus: Cum Noa evigilasset a vino. Cato
etiam in fragmentis originum; et Fabius Pictor in de origine vrbis
Romae dicunt Ianum dictum priscum Oenotrium: quia invenit vinum et
far ad religionem magis quam ad vsum,' &c., XV, Fo. cxv. Elsewhere
the identity is based not on this common interest in wine but on
their priestly office, they being the first to offer 'sacrificia et
holocausta', VII, Fo. lviii. Again, 'Ex his probatur irrevincibiliter
a tempore demonstrato a Solino et propriis Epithetis Iani: eundem
fuisse Ogygem: Ianum et Noam ... Sed Noa fuit proprium: Ogyges verum
Ianus et Proteus id est Vertumnus sunt solum praenomina ejus,' XV, Fo.
cv. No mention of the ark as a link occurs, but a ship figured on the
copper coins distributed at Rome on New Year's day, which was sacred
to Janus. The original connexion is probably found in Macrobius'
statement (_Saturn._ I. 9) that among other titles Janus was invoked
as 'Consivius ... a conserendo id est a propagine generis humani quae
Iano auctore conseritur'. Noah is the father of the extant human race.

PAGE =299=, ll. 114-17. There can be no doubt, I think, that the 1633
text is here correct, though for clearness a comma must be inserted
after 'reasons'. The emendation of the 1635 editor which modern
editors have followed gives an awkward and, at the close, an absurdly
tautological sentence. It is not the reason, the rational faculty,
of sceptics which is like the bubbles blown by boys, that stretch too
thin, 'break and do themselves spill.' What Donne says, is that the
reasons or arguments of those who answer sceptics, like bubbles which
break themselves, injure their authors, the apologists. The verse
wants a syllable--not a unique phenomenon in Donne's satires; but if
one is to be supplied 'so' would give the sense better than 'and'.

PAGE =300=, l. 129. _foggie Plot._ The word 'foggie' has here the in
English obsolete, in Scotch and perhaps other dialects, still known
meaning of 'marshy', 'boggy'. The O.E.D. quotes, 'He that is fallen
into a depe foggy well and sticketh fast in it,' Coverdale, _Bk.
Death_, I. xl. 160; 'The foggy fens in the next county,' Fuller,
_Worthies_.

l. 137. _To see the Prince, and have so fill'd the way._ The
grammatically and metrically correct reading of _G_ appears to me to
explain the subsequent variation. 'Prince' struck the editor of
the 1633 edition as inconsistent with the subsequent 'she', and he
therefore altered it to 'Princess'. He may have been encouraged to
do so by the fact that the copy from which he printed had dropped the
'have', or he may himself have dropped the 'have' to adjust the verse
to his alteration. The former is, I think, the more likely, because
what would seem to be the earlier printed copies of _1633_ read
'Prince': unless he himself overlooked the 'have' and then amended
by 'Princess'. The 1635 editor restored 'Prince' and then amended the
verse by his usual device of padding, changing 'fill'd' to 'fill up'.
Of course Donne's line may have read as we give it, with 'Princess'
for 'Prince', but the evidence of the MSS. is against this, so far
as it goes. The title of 'Prince' was indeed applicable to a female
sovereign. The O.E.D. gives: 'Yea the Prince ... as she hath most of
yearely Revenewes ... so should she have most losse by this dearth,'
W. Stafford, 1581; 'Cleopatra, prince of Nile,' Willobie, _Avisa_,
1594; 'Another most mighty prince, Mary Queene of Scots,' Camden
(Holland), 1610.

  PAGE =301=, ll. 159-160.  _built by the guest,
                This living buried man, &c._

The comma after guest is dropped in the printed editions, the editor
regarding 'this living buried man' as an expansion of 'the guest'. But
the man buried alive is the 'soul's second inn', the mandrake. 'Many
Molas and false conceptions there are of Mandrakes, the first from
great Antiquity conceiveth the Root thereof resembleth the shape of
Man which is a conceit not to be made out by ordinary inspection,
or any other eyes, than such as regarding the clouds, behold them in
shapes conformable to pre-apprehensions.' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_.

PAGE =303=, ll. 203-5. The punctuation of this stanza is in the
editions very chaotic, and I have amended it. A full stop should be
placed at the end of l. 203, 'was not', _because_ these lines complete
the thought of the previous stanza. Possibly the semicolon after 'ill'
was intended to follow 'not', but a full stop is preferable. Moreover,
the colon after 'soule' (l. 204) suggests that the printer took ''twas
not' with 'this soule'. The correct reading of l. 204 is obviously:

  So jolly, that it can move, this soul is.

Chambers prefers:

  So jolly, that it can move this soul, is
  The body ...

but Donne was far too learned an Aristotelian and Scholastic to make
the body move the soul, or feel jolly on its own account:

                    thy fair goodly soul, which doth
  Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe.
                                          _Satyre III_, ll. 41-2.

'The soul is so glad to be at last able to move (having been
imprisoned hitherto in plants which have the soul of growth, not of
locomotion or sense), and the body is so free of its kindnesses to the
soul, that it, the sparrow, forgets the duty of self-preservation.'

l. 214. _hid nets._ In making my first collation of the printed texts
I had queried the possibility of 'hid' being the correct reading for
'his', a conjecture which the Gosse MS. confirms.

PAGE =305=, l. 257. _None scape, but few, and fit for use, to get._
I have added a comma after 'use' to make the construction a little
clearer; a pause is needed. 'The nets were not wrought, as now, to let
none scape, but were wrought to get few and those fit for use; as, for
example, a ravenous pike, &c.'

PAGE =306=, ll. 267-8. '_To make the water thinne, and airelike faith
cares not._' What Chambers understands by 'air like faith', I do not
know. What Donne says is that the manner in which fishes breathe is a
matter about which faith is indifferent. Each man may hold what theory
he chooses. There is not much obvious relevance in this remark, but
Donne has already in this poem touched on the difference between faith
and knowledge:

            better proofes the law
  Of sense then faith requires.

A vein of restless scepticism runs through the whole.

l. 280. _It's rais'd, to be the Raisers instrument and food._ If with
_1650-69_, Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor, we alter the full
stop which separates this line from the last to a comma, 'It' must
mean the same as 'she', i.e. the fish. This is a harsh construction.
The line is rather to be taken as an aphorism. 'To be exalted is often
to become the instrument and prey of him who has exalted you.'

PAGE =307=, l. 296. _That many leagues at sea, now tir'd hee lyes._
The reading of _G_ represents probably what Donne wrote. It is quite
clear that _1633_ was printed from a MS. identical with _A18_, _N_,
_TC_, and underwent considerable correction as it passed through the
press. In no poem does the text of one copy vary so much from that
of another as in this. Now in this MS. a word is dropped. The editor
supplied the gap by inserting 'o're-past', which simply repeats 'flown
long and fast'. _G_ shows what the dropped word was. 'Many leagues at
sea' is an adverbial phrase qualifying 'now tir'd he lies'.

ll. 301-10. I owe the right punctuation of this stanza to the Grolier
Club edition and Grosart. The 'as' of l. 303 requires to be followed
by a comma. Missing this, Chambers closes the sentence at l. 307,
'head', leaving 'This fish would seem these' in the air. The words
'when all hopes fail' play with the idea of 'the hopeful Promontory',
or Cape of Good Hope.

PAGE =308=, ll. 321-2.  _He hunts not fish, but as an officer,
              Stayes in his court, at his owne net._

Compare: 'A confidence in their owne strengths, a sacrificing to their
own Nets, an attributing of their securitie to their own wisedome or
power, may also retard the cause of God.' _Sermons_, Judges xv. 20
(1622).

'And though some of the Fathers pared somewhat too neare the quick in
this point, yet it was not as in the Romane Church, to lay snares, and
spread nets for gain.' _Sermons_ 80. 22. 216.

'The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of comfort comes to him' (the courtier)
'but hee will die in his old religion, which is to sacrifice to his
owne Nets, by which his portion is plenteous.' _Sermons_ 80. 70. 714.

The image of the net is probably derived from Jeremiah v. 26: 'For
among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait as he that setteth
snares; they set a trap, they catch men.' Compare also: 'he lieth in
wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor when he draweth him
into his net.' Psalm x. 9.

PAGES =310-11=, ll. 381-400. Compare: 'Amongst _naturall Creatures_,
because howsoever they differ in bignesse, yet they have some
proportion to one another, we consider that some very little
creatures, contemptible in themselves, are yet called enemies to great
creatures, as the Mouse is to the Elephant.' _Sermons_ 50. 40. 372.
'How great an Elephant, how small a Mouse destroys.' _Devotions_, p.
284.

ll. 405-6.  _Who in that trade, of Church, and kingdomes, there
            Was the first type._

The _1635_ punctuation of this passage is right, though it is better
to drop the comma after 'Kingdoms' and obviate ambiguity. The trade is
the shepherd's; in it Abel is type both of Church and Kingdom, Emperor
and Pope. As a type of Christ Donne refers to Abel in _The Litanie_,
p. 341, l. 86.

PAGE =312=, l. 419. _Nor  resist._ I have substituted 'make' for
the 'much' of the editions, confident that it is the right reading and
explains the vacillation of the MSS. The proper alternative to 'show'
is 'make'. The error arose from the obsolescence of 'resist' used as
a noun. But the O.E.D. cites from Lodge, _Forbonius and Priscilla_
(1585), 'I make no resist in this my loving torment', and other
examples dated 1608 and 1630. Donne is fond of verbal nouns retaining
the form of the verb unchanged.

l. 439. _soft Moaba._ 'Moaba', 'Siphatecia' (l. 457), 'Tethlemite' (l.
487), and Themech' (l. 509) are not creatures of Donne's invention,
but derived from his multifarious learning. It is, however, a little
difficult to detect the immediate source from which he drew. The
ultimate source of all these additions to the Biblical narrative and
persons was the activity of the Jewish intellect and imagination in
the interval between the time at which the Old Testament closes and
the dispersion under Titus and Vespasian, the desire of the Jews in
Palestine and Alexandria to 'round off the biblical narrative, fill
up the lacunae, answer all the questions of the inquiring mind of the
ancient reader'. Of the original Hebrew writings of this period none
have survived, but their traditions passed into mediaeval works like
the _Historia Scholastica_ of Petrus Comestor and hence into popular
works, e.g. the Middle English _Cursor Mundi_. Another compendium
of this pseudo-historical lore was the _Philonis Judaei Alexandrini.
Libri Antiquitatum. Quaestionum et Solutionum in Genesin. de Essaeis.
de Nominibus hebraicis. de Mundo. Basle._ 1527. An abstract of this
work is given by Annius of Viterbo in the book referred to in a
previous note. Dr. Cohn has shown that this Latin work is a third- or
fourth-century translation of a Greek work, itself a translation from
the Hebrew. More recently Rabbi M. Gaster has brought to light the
Hebrew original in portions of a compilation of the fourteenth century
called the _Chronicle of Jerahmeel_, of which he has published
an English translation under the 'Patronage of the Royal Asiatic
Society', _Oriental Translation Fund_. New Series, iv. 1899. In
chapter xxvi of this work we read: 'Adam begat three sons and three
daughters, Cain and his twin wife Qualmana, Abel and his twin wife
Deborah, and Seth and his twin wife Nōba. And Adam, after he had
begotten Seth, lived seven hundred years, and there were eleven sons
and eight daughters born to him. These are the names of his sons: Eli,
Shēēl, Surei, 'Almiel, Berokh, Ke'al, Nabath, Zarh-amah, Sisha,
Mahtel, and Anat; and the names of his daughters are: Havah, Gitsh,
Harē, Bikha, Zifath, Hēkhiah, Shaba, and 'Azin.' In Philo this
reappears as follows: 'Initio mundi Adam genuit tres filios et unam
filiam, Cain, Noaba, Abel, et Seth: Et vixit Adam, postquam genuit
Seth, annos DCC., et genuit filios duodecim, et filias octo: Et haec
sunt nomina virorum, Aeliseel, Suris, Aelamiel, Brabal, Naat, Harama,
Zas-am, Maathal, et Anath: Et hae filiae eius, Phua, Iectas, Arebica,
Siphatecia, Sabaasin.' It is clear there are a good many mistakes in
Philo's account as it has come to us. His numbers and names do not
correspond. Clearly also some of the Latin names are due to the
running together of two Hebrew ones, e.g. Aeliseel, Arebica, and
Siphatecia. Of the names in Donne's poem two occur in the above
lists--Noaba (Heb. Nobā) and Siphatecia. But Noaba has become
Moaba: Siphatecia is 'Adams fift daughter', which is correct according
to the Hebrew, but not according to Philo's list; and there is no
mention in these lists of Tethlemite (or Thelemite) among Adam's sons,
or of Themech as Cain's wife. In the Hebrew she is called Qualmana.
Doubtless since two of the names are traceable the others are so also.
We have not found Donne's immediate source. I am indebted for such
information as I have brought together to Rabbi Gaster.

PAGE =314=, l. 485. (_loth_). I have adopted this reading from the
insertion in _TCC_, not that much weight can be allowed to this
anonymous reviser (some of whose insertions are certainly wrong),
but because 'loth' or 'looth' is more likely to have been changed to
'tooth' than 'wroth'. The occurrence of 'Tooth' in _G_ as well as in
_1633_ led me to consult Sir James Murray as to the possibility of a
rare adjectival sense of that word, e.g. 'eager, with tooth on edge
for'. I venture to quote his reply: 'We know nothing of _tooth_ as an
adjective in the sense _eager_; or in any sense that would fit here.
Nor does _wroth_ seem to myself and my assistants to suit well. In
thinking of the possible word for which _tooth_ was a misprint, or
rather misreading ... the word _loth_, _loath_, _looth_, occurred
to myself and an assistant independently before we saw that it is
mentioned in the foot-note.... _Loath_ seems to me to be exactly the
word wanted, the true antithesis to willing, and it was a very easy
word to write as _tooth_.' Sir James Murray suggests, as just
a possibility, that 'wroth' (_1635-69_) may have arisen from a
provincial form 'wloth'. He thinks, however, as I do, that it is more
probably a mere editorial conjecture.

PAGE =315=, ll. 505-9. _these limbes a soule attend;
    And now they joyn'd: keeping some quality
    Of every past shape, she knew treachery,
    Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
    To be a woman._

Chambers and the Grolier Club editor have erroneously followed
_1635-69_ in their punctuation and attached 'keeping some quality of
every past shape' to the preceding 'they'. The force of Donne's bitter
comment is thus weakened. It is with 'she', i.e. the soul, that the
participial phrase goes. 'She, retaining the evil qualities of all the
forms through which she has passed, has thus "ills enow" (treachery,
rapine, deceit, and lust) to be a woman.'



DIVINE POEMS.

The dating of Donne's _Divine Poems_ raises some questions that have
not received all the consideration they deserve. They fall into two
groups--those written before and those written after he took orders.
Of the former the majority would seem to belong to the years of his
residence at Mitcham. The poem _On the Annunciation and Passion_ was
written on March 25, 1608/9. _The Litanie_ was written, we gather from
a letter to Sir Henry Goodyere, about the same time. _The Crosse_ we
cannot date, but I should be inclined with Mr. Gosse to connect
it rather with the earlier than the later poems. It is in the same
somewhat tormented, intellectual style. On the other hand the _Holy
Sonnets_ were composed, we know now from Sonnet XVII, first published
by Mr. Gosse, after the death of Donne's wife in 1617; and _The
Lamentations of Jeremy_ appear to have been written at the same
juncture. The first sermon which Donne preached after that event was
on the text (Lam. iii. 1): 'I am the man that hath seen affliction,'
and Walton speaks significantly of his having ended the night and
begun the day in _lamentations_.

The more difficult question is the date of the _La Corona_ group of
sonnets. It is usual to attribute them to the later period of Donne's
ministry. This is not, I think, correct. It seems to me most probable
that they too were composed at Mitcham in or before 1609.

Dr. Grosart first pointed out that one of Donne's short verse-letters,
headed in _1663_ and later editions _To E. of D. with six holy
Sonnets_, must have been sent with a copy of six of these sonnets, the
seventh being held back on account of some imperfection. It appears
with the same heading in _O'F_, but in _W_ it is entitled simply _To
L. of D._, and is placed immediately after the letter _To Mr. T. W._,
'Haste thee harsh verse' (p. 205), and before the next to the same
person, 'Pregnant again' (p. 206). It thus belongs to this group of
letters written apparently between 1597 and 1609-10.

Who is the E. of D.? Dr. Grosart, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Gosse assume
that it must be Lord Doncaster, though admitting in the same breath
that the latter was not Earl of, but Viscount Doncaster, and that only
between 1618 and 1622, four short years. The title 'L. of D.' might
indicate Doncaster because the title 'my Lord of' is apparently given
to a Viscount. In his letters from Germany Donne speaks of 'my Lord of
Doncaster'. It may, therefore, be a mistake of the printer or editor
of _1633_; which turned 'L. of D.' into 'E. of D.'; but Hay was still
alive in 1633, and the natural thing for the printer to do would have
been to alter the title to 'E. of C.' or 'Earl of Carlisle'. Before
1618 Donne speaks of the 'Lord Hay' or 'the L. Hay' (see _Letters_,
p. 145),[1] and this or 'the L. H.' is the title the poem would have
borne if addressed to him in any of the years to which the other
letters in the Westmoreland MS. (_W_) seem to belong.

Moreover, there is another of Donne's noble friends who might
correctly be described as either E. of D. or L. of D. and that is
Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. Donne generally speaks of him
as 'my Lord of Dorset': 'I lack you here', he writes to Goodyere,
'for my L. of Dorset, he might make a cheap bargain with me now, and
disingage his honour, which in good faith, is a little bound, because
he admitted so many witnesses of his large disposition towards me.'
Born in 1589, the grandson of the great poet of Elizabeth's early
reign, Richard Sackville was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He
succeeded as third Earl of Dorset on February 27, 1608/9, having two
days previously married Anne, Baroness Clifford in her own right, the
daughter of George Clifford, the buccaneering Earl of Cumberland, and
Margaret, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford. The Countess of
Dorset was therefore a first cousin to Edward, third Earl of Bedford,
the husband of Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford.

The earliest date at which the letter could have been addressed to
Dorset as L. of D. or E. of D. is 1609, just after his marriage into
the circle of Donne's friends. Now in Harleian MS. 4955 (_H49_) we
find the heading,

  Holy Sonnets: written 20 yeares since.

This is followed at once by 'Deign at my hands', and then the title
_La Corona_ is given to the six sonnets which ensue. Thereafter
follow, without any fresh heading, twelve of the sonnets belonging
to the second group, generally entitled _Holy Sonnets_. It will be
noticed that in the editions this last title is used twice, first for
both groups and then, in italics, for the second alone. The question
is, did the copyist of _H49_ intend that the note should apply to all
the sonnets he transcribed or only to the _La Corona_ group? If to
all, he was certainly wrong as to the second lot, which were written
later; but he was quite possibly right as to the first. Now twenty
years before 1629, which is the date given to some of Andrewes' poems
in the MS., would bring us to 1609, the year of the Earl of Dorset's
accession and marriage, and the period when most of the letters among
which that to L. of D. in _W_ appears were written.

Note, moreover, the content of the letter _To L. of D._ Most of the
letters in this group, to Thomas and Rowland Woodward, to S. B., and
B. B., are poetical replies to poetical epistles. Now that _To L. of
D._ is in the same strain:

  See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
    Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime,
    In me, your fatherly yet lusty Ryme
  (For, these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.

This is in the vein of the letter _To Mr. R. W._, 'Muse not that by
thy mind,' and of the epistle _To J. D._ which I have cited in the
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _épistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy.' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses.[2]

But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D._ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9. That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D._, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand.' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i.e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day.'

What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:

                   and in some recompence
  That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
  Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?

Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven.' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i.e. songs of
praise. Mr. Chambers suggests--it is only a suggestion--that they are
the second set, the _Holy Sonnets_. But these are not addressed to
Christ. In them Donne addresses The Trinity, the Father, Angels,
Death, his own soul, the Jews--Christ only in one (Sonnet XVIII, first
published by Mr. Gosse). On the other hand, 'Hymns to his dear name
addrest' is an exact description of the _La Corona_ sonnets.

I venture to suggest, then, that the Holy Sonnets sent to Mrs. Herbert
and to the E. of D. were one and the same group, viz. the _La Corona_
sequence. Probably they were sent to Mrs. Herbert first, and later
to the E. of D. Donne admits their imperfection in his letter to Mrs.
Herbert. One of them seems to have been criticized, and in sending the
sequence to the E. of D. he held it back for correction. If the E.
of D. be the Earl of Dorset they may have been sent to him before
he assumed that title. Any later transcript would adopt the title to
which he succeeded in 1609. We need not, however, take too literally
Donne's statement that the E. of D.'s poetical letter was 'the
only-begetter' of his sonnets.

My argument is conjectural, but the assumptions that they were written
about 1617 and sent to Lord Doncaster are equally so. The last is
untenable; the former does not harmonize so well as that of an earlier
date with the obvious fact, which I have emphasized in the essay
on Donne's poetry, that these sonnets are more in the intellectual,
tormented, wire-drawn style of his earlier religious verse (excellent
as that is in many ways) than the passionate and plangent sonnets and
hymns of the years which followed the death of his wife.


    [Footnote 1: This letter was written in November or December,
    1608, and seems to be the first in which Donne speaks of
    Lord Hay as a friend and patron. The kindness he has shown in
    forwarding a suit seems to have come somewhat as a surprise to
    Donne.]

    [Footnote 2: Lord Dorset is thus described by his wife: 'He
    was in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition,
    and very valiant in his own person: He had a great advantage
    in his breeding by the wisdom and discretion of his
    grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, Lord High Treasurer of
    England, who was then held one of the wisest men of that
    time; by which means he was so good a scholar in all manner of
    learning, that in his youth when he lived in the University
    of Oxford, there was none of the young nobility then students
    there, that excelled him. He was also a good patriot to his
    country ... and so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as
    that with an excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of
    worth that were in distress, he did much diminish his estate;
    As also, with excessive prodigality in house-keeping and other
    noble ways at Court, as tilting, masking, and the like; Prince
    Henry being then alive, who was much addicted to these
    noble exercises, and of whom he was much beloved.' Collins's
    _Peerage_, ii. 194-5. quoted in Zouch's edition of Walton's
    _Lives_, 1817.]


PAGE =317=. TO E. OF D.

ll. 3-4. _Ryme ... their ... have wrought._ The concord here seems
to require the plural, the rhyme the singular. Donne, I fear, does
occasionally rhyme a word in the plural with one in the singular,
ignoring the 's'. But possibly Donne intended 'Ryme' to be taken
collectively for 'verses, poetry'. Even so the plural is the normal
use.


TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT, &c.

ll. 1-2.          _whose faire inheritance
    Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo._

'Mary Magdalene had her surname of magdalo a castell | and was born of
right noble lynage and parents | which were descended of the lynage
of kynges | And her fader was named Sinus and her moder eucharye | She
wyth her broder lazare and her suster martha possessed the castle
of magdalo: whiche is two myles fro nazareth and bethanye the castel
which is nygh to Iherusalem and also a gret parte of Iherusalem whiche
al thise thynges they departed amonge them in suche wyse that marye
had the castelle magdalo whereof she had her name magdalene | And
lazare had the parte of the cytee of Iherusalem: and martha had to her
parte bethanye' _Legenda Aurea_. See Ed. (1493), f. 184, ver. 80.

l. 4. _more than the Church did know_, i.e. the Resurrection. John xx.
9 and 11-18.


PAGE =318=. LA CORONA.

The MSS. of these poems fall into three well-defined groups: (1) That
on which the 1633 text is based is represented by _D_, _H49_; _Lec_
does not contain these poems. (2) A version different in several
details is presented by the group _B_, _S_, _S96_, _W_, of which
_W_ is the most important and correct. _O'F_ has apparently belonged
originally to this group but been corrected from the first. (3) _A18_,
_N_, _TC_ agrees now with one, now with another of the two first
groups. When all the three groups unite against the printed text the
case for an emendation is a strong one.


PAGE =319=. ANNUNCIATION.

l. 10. _who is thy Sonne and Brother._

'Maria ergo faciens voluntatem Dei, corporaliter Christi tantummodo
mater est, spiritualiter autem et soror et mater.' August. _De Sanct.
Virg._ i. 5. Migne 40. 399.


NATIVITIE.

l. 8. _The effect of Herods jealous generall doome_: The singular
'effect' has the support of most of the MSS. against the plural of
the editions and of _D_, _H49_, and there can be no doubt that it is
right. All the effects of Herod's doom were not prevented, but the one
aimed at, the death of Christ, was.


PAGE =320=. CRUCIFYING.

l. 8. _selfe-lifes infinity to'a span._ The MSS. supply the 'a' which
the editions here, as elsewhere (e.g. 'a retirednesse', p. 185),
have dropped. In the present case the omission is so obvious that
the Grolier Club editor supplies the article conjecturally. In the
editions after _1633_ 'infinitie' is the spelling adopted, leading to
the misprint 'infinite' in _1669_ and _1719_, a variant which I have
omitted to note.


PAGE =321=. RESURRECTION.

It will be seen there are some important differences between the text
of this sonnet given in _1633_, _D_, _H49_, on the one hand and that
of _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _S96_, _W_. The former has (l. 5) 'this death'
where the latter gives 'thy death'. It may be noted that 'this' is
always spelt 'thys' in _D_, which makes easy an error one way or the
other. But the most difficult reading in _1633_ is (l. 8) 'thy little
booke'. Oddly enough this has the support not only of _D_, _H49_ but
also of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, whose text seems to blend the two versions,
adding some features of its own. Certainly the 'life-booke' of the
second version and the later editions seems preferable. Yet this too
is an odd expression, seeing that the line might have run:

  If in thy Book of Life my name thou'enroule.

Was Donne thinking vaguely or with some symbolism of his own, not of
the 'book of life' (Rev. xiii. 8, and xx. 12) but of the 'little book'
(Rev. x. 2) which John took and ate? Or does he say 'little book'
thinking of the text, 'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' (Matt. vii. 14)? The
grimmer aspects of the Christian creed were always in Donne's mind:

  And though thou beest, O mighty bird of prey,
  So much reclaim'd by God, that thou must lay
  All that thou kill'st at his feet, yet doth hee
  Reserve but few, and leave the most to thee.

In l. 9 'last long' is probably right. _D_, _H49_ had dropped both
adjectives, and 'long' was probably supplied by the editor _metri
causa_, 'last' disappearing. Between 'glorified' and 'purified' in l.
11 it is impossible to choose. The reading 'deaths' for 'death' I have
adopted. Here _A18_, _N_, _TC_ agree with _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _W_,
and there can be no doubt that 'sleepe' is intended to go with both
'sinne' and 'death'.


PAGE =322=. HOLY SONNETS.

The MSS. of these sonnets evidently fall into two groups: (1) _B_,
_O'F_, _S96_, _W_: of which _W_ is by far the fullest and most correct
representative. (2) _A18_, _D_, _H49_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. I have kept
the order in which they are given in the editions _1635_ to _1669_,
but indicated the order of the other groups, and added at the close
the three sonnets contained only in _W_. I cannot find a definite
significance in any order, otherwise I should have followed that of
_W_ as the fullest and presumably the most authoritative. Each sonnet
is a separate meditation or ejaculation.

PAGE =323=, III. 7. _That sufferance was my sinne; now I repent_: I
have followed the punctuation and order of _B_, _W_, because it shows
a little more clearly what is (I think) the correct construction. As
printed in _1635-69_,

  That sufferance was my sinne I now repent,

the clause 'That sufferance was' &c. is a noun clause subject to
'repent'. But the two clauses are co-ordinates and 'That' is a
demonstrative pronoun. '_That_ suffering' (of which he has spoken
in the six preceding lines) 'was my sin. Now I repent. Because I did
suffer the pains of love, I must now suffer those of remorse.'

PAGE =324=, V. 11. _have burnt it heretofore._ Donne uses 'heretofore'
not infrequently in the sense of 'hitherto', and this seems to be
implied in 'Let their flames retire'. I have therefore preferred the
perfect tense of the MSS. to the preterite of the editions. The 'hath'
of _O'F_ is a change made in the supposed interests of grammar, if not
used as a plural form, for 'their flames' implies that the fires of
lust and of envy are distinguished. In speaking of the first Donne
thinks mainly of his youth, of the latter he has in memory his years
of suitorship at Court.

VI. 7, note. _Or presently, I know not, see that Face._ This line,
which occurs in several independent MSS., is doubtless Donne's, but
the reading of the text is probably his own emendation. The first
form of the line suggested too distinctly a not approved, or even
heretical, doctrine to which Donne refers more than once in his
sermons: 'So _Audivimus, et ab Antiquis_, We have heard, and heard by
them of old, That in how good state soever they dye yet the souls of
the departed do not see the face of God, nor enjoy his presence, till
the day of Judgement; This we have heard, and from so many of them of
old, as that the voyce of that part is louder, then of the other. And
amongst those reverend and blessed Fathers, which straied into these
errors, some were hearers and Disciples of the Apostles themselves, as
Papias was a disciple of S. John and yet Papias was a Millenarian,
and expected his thousand yeares prosperity upon the earth after the
Resurrection: some of them were Disciples of the Apostles, and some of
them were better men then the Apostles, for they were Bishops of Rome;
_Clement_ was so: and yet _Clement_ was one of them, who denied the
fruition of the sight of God, by the Saints, till the Judgement.'
_Sermons_ 80. 73. 739-40.

There are two not strictly orthodox opinions to which Donne seems to
have leant: (1) this, perhaps a remnant of his belief in Purgatory,
the theory of a state of preparation, in this doctrine applied even
to the saints; (2) a form of the doctrine now called 'Conditional
Immortality'. See note on Letter _To the Countesse of Bedford_, p.
196, l. 58.

PAGE =325=, VII. 6. _dearth._ This reading of the Westmoreland MS. is
surely right notwithstanding the consensus of the editions and other
MSS. in reading 'death'. The poet is enumerating various modes in
which death comes; death itself cannot be one of these. The 'death'
in l. 8 perhaps explains the error; it certainly makes the error more
obvious.

VIII. 7. _in us, not immediately._ I have interjected a comma after
'us' in order to bring out distinctly the Scholastic doctrine of
Angelic knowledge on which this sonnet turns. See note on _The Dreame_
with the quotation from Aquinas. What Donne says here is: 'If our
minds or thoughts are known to the saints in heaven as to angels, not
immediately, but by circumstances and signs (such as blushing or a
quickened pulsation) which are apparent in us, how shall the sincerity
of my grief be known to them, since these signs are found in lovers,
conjurers and pharisees?' 'Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae
cogitationes cordium.' 'God alone who put grief in my heart knows its
sincerity.'

l. 10. _vile blasphemous Conjurers._ The 'vilde' of the MSS. is
obviously the right reading. The form too is that which Donne used if
we may judge by the MSS., and by the fact that in _Elegie XIV: Julia_
he rhymes thus:

                and (which is worse than vilde)
  Sticke jealousie in wedlock, her owne childe
  Scapes not the showers of envie.

By printing 'vile' the old and modern editions destroy the rhyme. In
the sonnet indeed the rhyme is not affected, and accordingly, as I am
not prepared to change every 'vile' to 'vilde' in the poems, I have
printed 'vile'. _W_ writes vile. Probably one might use either form.

PAGE =326=, IX. 9-10. I have followed here the punctuation of _W_,
which takes 'O God' in close connexion with the preceding line; the
vocative case seems to be needed since God has not been directly
addressed until l. 9. The punctuation of _D_, _H49_, which has often
determined that of _1633_, is not really different from that of _W_:

  But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee?
  Oh God; Oh of thyne, &c.

Here, as so often, the question-mark is placed immediately after the
question, before the sentence is ended. But 'Oh God' goes with the
question. A new strain begins with the second 'Oh'. The editions, by
punctuating

  But who am I that dare dispute with thee?
  O God, Oh! &c.

(which modern editors have followed), make 'O God, Oh!' a hurried
series of exclamations introducing the prayer which follows. This
suits the style of these abrupt, passionate poems. But it leaves
the question without an address to point it; and to my own mind the
hurried, feverous effect of 'O God, Oh!' is more than compensated for
by the weight which is thrown, by the punctuation adopted, upon the
second 'Oh',--a sigh drawn from the very depths of the heart,

                  so piteous and profound
  As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
  And end his being.

PAGE =327=, XII. 1. _Why are wee by all creatures, &c._ The 'am I' of
the _W_ is probably what Donne first wrote, and I am strongly tempted
to restore it. Donne's usual spelling of 'am' is 'ame' in his letters.
This might have been changed to 'are', which would have brought
the change of 'I' to 'we' in its wake. On the other hand there are
evidences in this sonnet of corrections made by Donne himself (e.g. l.
9), and he may have altered the first line as being too egotistical in
sound. I have therefore retained the text of the editions.

l. 4. _Simple, and further from corruption?_ The 'simple' of _1633_
and _D_, _H49_, _W_ is preferable to the 'simpler' of the later
editions and somewhat inferior MSS. which Chambers has adopted,
inadvertently, I think, for he does not notice the earlier reading.
The dropping of an 'r' would of course be very easy; but the
simplicity of the element does not admit of comparison, and what Donne
says is, I think, 'The elements are purer than we are, and (being
simple) farther from corruption.'

PAGE =328=, XIII. 4-6.  _Whether that countenance can thee affright,
  Teares in his eyes quench the amazing light,
  Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell._

Chambers alters the comma after 'affright' to a full stop, the Grolier
Club editor to a semicolon. Both place a semicolon after 'fell'.
Any change of the old punctuation seems to me to disguise the close
relation in which the fifth and sixth lines stand to the third. It is
with the third line they must go, not with the seventh, with which a
slightly different thought is introduced. 'Mark the picture of Christ
in thy heart and ask, can that countenance affright thee in whose eyes
the light of anger is quenched in tears, the furrows of whose frowns
are filled with blood.' Then, from the countenance Donne's thought
turns to the tongue. The full stop, accidentally dropped after 'fell'
in the editions of _1633_ and _1635_, was restored in _1639_.

l. 14. _assures._ In this case the MSS. enable us to correct an
obvious error of _all_ the printed editions.

PAGE =329=, XVI. 9. _Yet such are thy laws._ I have adopted the
reading 'thy' of the Westmoreland and some other MSS. because the
sense seems to require it. 'These' and 'those' referring to the same
antecedent make a harsh construction. 'Thy laws necessarily transcend
the limits of human capacity and therefore some doubt whether these
conditions of our salvation can be fulfilled by men. They cannot, but
grace and spirit revive what law and letter kill.'

l. 11. _None doth; but all-healing grace and spirit._ I have dropped
the 'thy' of the editions, following all the MSS. I have no doubt
that 'thy' has been inserted: (1) It spoils the rhyme: 'spirit' has
to rhyme with 'yet', which is impossible unless the accent may fall on
the second syllable; (2) 'thy' has been inserted, as 'spirit' has been
spelt with a capital letter, under the impression that 'spirit' stands
for the Divine Spirit, the Holy Ghost. But obviously 'spirit' is
opposed to 'letter' as 'grace' is to 'law'. In _W_ both 'grace' and
'spirit' are spelt with capitals. Either both or neither must be so
treated. 'Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament;
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life.' 2 Cor. iii. 6.

If 'thy' is to be retained, then 'spirit' must be pronounced 'sprit'.
Commentators on Shakespeare declare that this happens, but it is
very difficult to prove it. When Donne needs a monosyllable he uses
'spright'; 'spirit' he rhymes as disyllable with 'merit'.

PAGE =330=, XVII. 1. _she whom I lov'd._ This is the reference to his
wife's death which dates these poems. Anne More, Donne's wife, died
on August 15, 1617, on the seventh day after the birth of her twelfth
child. She was buried in the church of St. Clement Danes. Her monument
disappeared when the Church was rebuilt. The inscription ran:

                    {  ANNAE  }
         GEORGII}   { MORE de }    {Filiae
          ROBERT}   {Lothesley}    {Soror.
        WILIELMI}   { Equitum }    {Nept.
    CHRISTOPHERI}   { Aurator }    {Pronept.
        Foeminae lectissimae, dilectissimaeq'
          Conjugi charissimae, castissimaeq'
         Matri piissimae, indulgentissimaeq'
           xv annis in conjugio transactis,
   vii post xii partum (quorum vii superstant) dies
                immani febre correptae
             (quod hoc saxum fari jussit
               Ipse prae dolore infans)
    Maritus (miserrimum dictu) olim charae charus
           cineribus cineres spondet suos,
  novo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc loco sociandos,
                    JOHANNE DONNE
                Sacr: Theol: Profess:
                       Secessit
         An^o xxxiii aetat. suae et sui Jesu
                    CIↃ. DC. XVII.
                       Aug. xv

XVIII. It is clear enough why this sonnet was not published. It would
have revealed Donne, already three years in orders, as still conscious
of all the difficulties involved in a choice between the three
divisions of Christianity--Rome, Geneva (made to include Germany), and
England. This is the theme of his earliest serious poem, the _Satyre
III_, and the subject recurs in the letters and sermons. Donne entered
the Church of England not from a conviction that it, and it alone, was
the true Church, but because he had first reached the position that
there is salvation in each: 'You know I never fettered nor imprisoned
the word Religion; not straitening it Frierly _ad Religiones
factitias_, (as the _Romans_ call well their orders of Religion) nor
immuring it in a Rome, or a _Wittenberg_, or a _Geneva_; they are all
virtuall beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find clay hearts,
they harden them, and moulder them into dust; and they entender and
mollifie waxen. They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles;
and that they are connatural pieces of one circle.' _Letters_, p. 29.
From this position it was easy to pass to the view that, this being
so, the Church of England may have special claims on _me_, as the
Church of my Country, and to a recognition of its character as
primitive, and as offering a _via media_. As such it attracted
Casaubon and Grotius. But the Church of England never made the appeal
to Donne's heart and imagination it did to George Herbert:

  Beautie in thee takes up her place
  And dates her letters from thy face
        When she doth write.
                                  Herbert, _The British Church_.

Compare, however, the rest of Donne's poem with Herbert's description
of Rome and Geneva, and also: 'Trouble not thy selfe to know the
formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches; neither of a
Church in the Lake, nor a Church upon seven hils'. _Sermons_ 80. 76.
769.


PAGE =331=. THE CROSSE.

Donne has evidently in view the aversion of the Puritan to the sign of
the cross used in baptism.

With the latter part of the poem compare George Herbert's _The
Crosse_.

PAGE =332=, l. 27. _extracted chimique medicine._ Compare:

  Only in this one thing, be no Galenist; To make
  Courts hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
  A dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not adde
  Correctives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.
                               _Letters to, &c._, p. 182, ll. 59-62.

ll. 33-4. _As perchance carvers do not faces make,
          But that away, which hid them there, do take._

'To make representations of men, or of other creatures, we finde two
wayes; Statuaries have one way, and Painters have another: Statuaries
doe it by Substraction; They take away, they pare off some parts of
that stone, or that timber, which they work upon, and then that which
they leave, becomes like that man, whom they would represent: Painters
doe it by Addition; Whereas the cloth or table presented nothing
before, they adde colours, and lights, and shadowes, and so there
arises a representation.' _Sermons_ 80. 44. 440.

Norton compares Michelangelo's lines:

  Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concetto
  Ch' un marmo solo in se non circonscriva
  Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva
  La man che obbedisce all' intelletto.

PAGE =333=, l. 47. _So with harsh, &c._ Chambers, I do not know why,
punctuates this line:

  So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking; cross the rest;

This disguises the connexion of 'cross' with its adverbial
qualifications. The meaning is that as we cross the eye by making it
contemplate 'bad objects' so we must cross the rest, i.e. the other
senses, with harsh (the ear), hard (touch), sour (the taste), and
stinking (the sense of smell). The asceticism of Donne in his later
life is strikingly evidenced in such lines as these.

l. 48. I have made an emendation here which seems to me to combine
happily the text of _1633_ and that of the later editions. It seems
to me that _1633_ has dropped 'all', _1635-69_ have dropped 'call'. I
thought the line as I give it was in _O'F_, but found on inquiry I had
misread the collation. I should withdraw it, but cannot find it in my
heart to do so.

l. 52. _Points downewards._ I think the MS. reading is probably right,
because (1) 'Pants' is the same as 'hath palpitation'; (2) Donne
alludes to the anatomy of the heart, in the same terms, in the
_Essayes in Divinity_, p. 74 (ed. Jessop, 1855): 'O Man, which art
said to be the epilogue, and compendium of all this world, and the
Hymen and matrimonial knot of eternal and mortal things ... and was
made by God's hands, not His commandment; and hast thy head erected to
heaven, and all others to the centre, that yet only thy heart of all
others points downward, and only trembles.'

The reference in each case is to the anatomy of the day: 'The figure
of it, as Hippocrates saith in his Booke _de Corde_ is Pyramidall, or
rather turbinated and somewhat answering to the proportion of a Pine
Apple, because a man is broad and short chested. For the Basis above
is large and circular but not exactly round, and after it by degrees
endeth in a cone or dull and blunt round point ... His lower part is
called the Vertex or top, _Mucro_ or point, the Cone, the heighth of
the heart. Hippocrates calleth it the taile which Galen saith ... is
the basest part, as the Basis is the noblest.' Helkiah Crooke: [Greek:
MIKROKOSMOGRΑPHIΑ], _A Description of the Body of Man, &c._ (1631),
Book I, chap. ii, _Of the Heart_.

'The heart therefore is called [Greek: kardia apo tou kerdainesthai],
(_sic. i.e._ [Greek: kradainesthai]) which signifieth _to beate_
because it is perpetually moved from the ingate to the outgate of
life.' _Ibid._, Book VII, _The Preface_.

l. 53. _dejections._ Donne uses both the words given here: 'dejections
of spirit,' _Sermons_ 50. 13. 102; and 'these detorsions have small
force, but (as sunbeams striking obliquely, or arrows diverted with a
twig by the way) they lessen their strength, being turned upon another
mark than they were destined to,' _Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop), p.
42.

l. 61. _fruitfully._ The improved sense, as well as the unanimity of
the MSS., justifies the adoption of this reading. A preacher may deal
'faithfully' with his people. The adverb refers to his action, not its
result in them. The Cross of Christ, in Donne's view, must always deal
faithfully; whether its action produces fruit depends on our hearts.


PAGE =334=. THE ANNUNTIATION AND PASSION.

The MSS. add 'falling upon one day Anno Dñi 1608'; i.e. March 25,
1608/9. George Herbert wrote some Latin verses _In Natales et Pascha
concurrentes_, and Sir John Beaumont an English poem 'Vpon the two
great feasts of the Annuntiation and Resurrection falling on the same
day, March 25, 1627'.


PAGE =336=. GOOD FRIDAY.

l. 2. _The intelligence_: i.e. the angel. Each sphere has its angel
or intelligence that moves and directs it. Grosart quotes the
arrangement,--the Sun, Raphael; the Moon, Gabriel; Mercury, Michael;
Mars, Chemuel; Jupiter, Adahiel; Venus, Haniel; Saturn, Zaphiel.

l. 4. _motions._ Nothing is more easy and common than the dropping of
the final 's', which in writing was indicated by little more than a
stroke. The reference is to the doctrine of cycles and epicycles.

l. 13. _But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall._ Grosart
and Chambers adopt the reading 'his Crosse' of _1635-69_, the former
without any reference to the alternative reading. Professor Norton,
in the Grolier Club edition, prints this, but in a note at the
end remarks' that all editions after that of 1633 give this verse,
correctly,

  But that Christ on his cross did rise and fall'.

The agreement of the later editions is of little importance. They too
often agree to go wrong. The balance of the MS. evidence is on the
side of _1633_. To me 'this' seems the more vivid and pointed reading.
The line must be taken in close connexion with what precedes. 'If I
turned to the East,' says Donne, 'I should see Christ lifted on to his
Cross to die, a Sun by rising set. And unless Christ had consented
to rise and set on _this_ Crosse (this Crosse which I should see in
vision if I turned my head), which was raised this day, Sin would have
eternally benighted all.'

l. 22. _turne all spheres._ The 'tune all speares' of the editions
and some MSS. is tempting because of (as it is doubtless due to) the
Platonic doctrine of the music of the spheres. But Donne was more of a
Schoolman and Aristotelian than a Platonist, and I think there can be
little doubt that he is describing Christ as the 'first mover'. On the
other hand 'tune' may include 'turne'. The Dutch poet translates:

  Die 't Noord en Zuyder-punt bereicken,
                daer Sy 't spanden
  Er geven met een' draeg elck Hemel-rond
                sijn toon.

The idea that the note of each is due to the rate at which it is spun
is that of Plato, _The Republic_, x.


PAGE =338=. THE LITANIE.

In a letter to Goodyere written apparently in 1609 or 1610, Donne
says: 'Since my imprisonment in my bed, I have made a meditation in
verse, which I call a Litany; the word you know imports no other then
supplication, but all Churches have one forme of supplication, by that
name. Amongst ancient annals I mean some 800 years, I have met
two Litanies in Latin verse, which gave me not the reason of my
meditations, for in good faith I thought not upon them then, but they
give me a defence, if any man, to a Lay man, and a private, impute it
as a fault, to take such divine and publique names, to his own little
thoughts. The first of these was made by Ratpertus a Monk of Suevia;
and the other by S. Notker, of whom I will give you this note by the
way, that he is a private Saint, for a few Parishes; they were both
but monks and the Letanies poor and barbarous enough; yet Pope Nicolas
the 5, valued their devotion so much, that he canonized both their
Poems, and commanded them for publike service in their Churches: mine
is for lesser Chappels, which are my friends, and though a copy of it
were due to you, now, yet I am so unable to serve my self with writing
it for you at this time (being some 30 staves of 9 lines) that I must
intreat you to take a promise that you shall have the first, for a
testimony of that duty which I owe to your love, and to my self,
who am bound to cherish it by my best offices. That by which it will
deserve best acceptation, is, that neither the Roman Church need call
it defective, because it abhors not the particular mention of the
blessed Triumphers in heaven; nor the Reformed can discreetly accuse
it, of attributing more then a rectified devotion ought to doe.'

The Litanies referred to in Donne's letter to Goodyere may be read in
Migne's _Patrologia Latina_, vol. lxxxvii, col. 39 and 42. They are
certainly barbarous enough. That of Ratpertus is entitled _Litania
Ratperti ad processionem diebus Dominicis_, and begins:

  Ardua spes mundi, solidator et inclyte coeli
    Christe, exaudi nos propitius famulos.
  Virgo Dei Genetrix rutilans in honore perennis,
    Ora pro famulis, sancta Maria, tuis.

The other is headed _Notkeri Magistri cognomento Balbuli Litania
rhythmica_, and opens thus:

  Votis supplicibus voces super astra feramus,
    Trinus ut et simplex nos regat omnipotens.
  Sancte Pater, adiuva nos, Sancte Fili, adiuva nos,
    Compar his et Spiritus, ungue nos intrinsecus.

Michael, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, and Stephen, martyrs and
virgins, are appealed to in both. There are some differences in
respect of particular saints invoked.

It is interesting also to compare Donne's series of petitions with
those in a Middle English Litany preserved in the Balliol Coll. MS.
354 (published by Edward Flügel in _Anglia_ xxv. 220). The poetry is
very poor and I need not quote. The interesting feature is the list
of petitions 'Vnto the ffader', 'ye sonne', 'ye holy gost', 'the
trinite', 'our lady', 'ye angelles'. 'ye propre angell', 'John
baptist', 'ye appostiles', 'ye martires', 'the confessours', 'ye
virgins', 'unto all sayntes'. Donne, it will be observed, includes
the patriarchs and the prophets, but omits any reference to a guardian
angel and to the saints. Other references in his poems and sermons
show that he had the thought of a guardian angel often in his mind:
'As that Angel, which God hath given to protect thee, is not weary of
his office, for all thy perversenesses, so, howsoever God deale with
thee, be not thou weary of bearing thy part, in his Quire here in the
Militant Church.' _Sermons_ 80. 44. 440.

PAGE =339=, l. 34. _a such selfe different instinct
              Of these;_

'As the three persons of the Trinity are distinguished as Power (The
Father), Knowledge (The Son), Love (The Holy Ghost), and are yet
identical, not three but one, may in me power, love, and knowledge be
thus at once distinct and identical.' The comma after 'these' in _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_ was accidentally dropped. In _1635-69_ a comma was then
interpolated after 'instinct' and 'Of these' was connected with what
follows: 'Of these let all mee elemented bee,' 'these' being made to
point forward to the next line. Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
both read thus. But _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ show what was the original
punctuation. Without 'Of these' it is difficult to give a precise
meaning to 'instinct'. It would be easy to change 'a such' to 'such
a' with most of the MSS., but Donne seems to have affected this order.
Compare _Elegie X: The Dreame_, p. 95, l. 17:

  After a such fruition I shall wake.

PAGE =341=, l. 86. _In Abel dye._ Abel was to the early Church a type
of Christ, as being the first martyr.

PAGE =343=, ll. 122-4. One might omit the brackets in these lines and
substitute a semicolon after 'hearken too' and a comma after 'and
do', and make the sense clearer. The MSS. bear evidence to their
difficulty. There is certainly no call for brackets as we use them,
and the 1633 edition is more sparing of them in this poem than the
later editions. What Donne says is: 'While this quire' (enumerated in
the previous stanzas) 'prays for us and thou hearkenest to them, let
not us whose duty is to pray, to endure patiently, and to do thy will,
trust in their prayers so far as to forget our duty of obedience and
service.'

PAGE =347=, l. 231. _Which well, if we starve, dine_: 'well' has the
support of all the MSS. and may be the adverb placed before its verb.
'If we starve they dine well.' In this wire-drawn and tormented poem
it is hard to say what Donne may not have written. Most of the editors
read 'will', and this appears in some copies of _1633_.

l. 243. _Heare us, weake ecchoes, O thou eare, and cry._ The 'cry' of
the editions is surely right. God is at once the source of our prayers
and their answerer. Our prayers are echoes of what His grace inspires
in our hearts. The 'eye' of _S_ and other MSS., which also read
'wretches' for 'ecchoes', is due to a misapprehension of the condensed
thought, and 'eye' with 'ecchoes' is entirely irrelevant. _JC_ tries
another emendation: 'Oh thou heare our cry.'

'Every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber, and poures out his
soule in prayer to God;... though his faith assure him, that God hath
granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea
before he made it, (for God put that petition in to his heart and
mouth, and moved him to aske it, that thereby he might be moved to
grant it), yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his
prayer,' &c. _Sermons_ 80. 77. 786.

But indeed we do not need to go to the _Sermons_ to see that this is
Donne's meaning. He has emphasized it already in this poem: e.g. in
Stanza xxiii:

    Heare us, for till thou heare us, Lord
    We know not what to say:
  Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.
  O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,
  Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.

'But in things of this kind (i.e. sermons), that soul that inanimates
them never departs from them. The Spirit of God that dictates them in
the speaker or writer, and is present in his tongue or hand, meets
him again (as we meet ourselves in a glass) in the eyes and ears and
hearts of the hearers and readers.' Gosse, _Life, &c._, i. 123: To ...
the Countess of Montgomery.

'God cannot be called a cry', Grosart says; but St. Paul so describes
the work of the Spirit: 'Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought:
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is
the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God.' Calvin thus closes his note on the
passage: 'Atque ita locutus est Paulus quo significantius id totum
tribueret Spiritus gratiae. Iubemur quidem pulsare, sed nemo sponte
praemeditari vel unam syllabam poterit, nisi arcano Spiritus sui
instinctu nos Deus pulset, adeoque sibi corda nostra aperiat.'

PAGE =348=, l. 246. _Gaine to thy self, or us allow._ If we perish
neither Christ nor we have gained anything. Both have died in vain.
If 'and' is substituted for 'or' in this line (_1635-69_ and Chambers)
then the next line becomes otiose.


PAGE =348=. UPON THE TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMES, &c.

We do not know what was the occasion of these lines. The Countess was
the mother of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert,
Earl of Montgomery, and of Pembroke after his brother's death.
Poems by the former are frequently found with Donne's, e.g. in
the Hawthornden MS. which is made from a collection in Donne's own
possession. Doubtless they were known to one another, but there is no
evidence of intimacy, such as letters. To the Countess of Montgomery
Donne in 1619 sent a copy of one of his sermons which she had asked
for (Gosse, _Life, &c_., ii. 123). It may have been for her that he
composed this poem.

An elaborate copy of the Psalms was prepared by John Davis of
Hereford. From this they were published in 1822.

From l. 53 it is evident that Donne's poem was written after the death
of the Countess of Pembroke in 1621.

PAGE =349=, l. 38. _So well attyr'd abroad, so ill at home._ Donne has
probably in mind the French versions of Clement Marot, which were the
war-songs of the Huguenots.


PAGE =351=. TO MR. TILMAN.

Of Mr. Tilman I can find no trace in printed Oxford or Cambridge
registers. The poem is a strange comment on the seventeenth century's
estimate of the clergy:

              Why do they think unfit
  That Gentry should joyne families with it?

In his _Life of George Herbert_ Walton tells us of Herbert's
resolution to enter the Church, and the opposition he met with:
'He did, at his return to London, acquaint a Court-friend with his
resolution to enter into _Sacred Orders_, who perswaded him to alter
it, as too mean an employment, and too much below his birth, and the
excellent abilities and endowments of his mind. To whom he replied,
'_It hath been formerly judg'd that the Domestick Servants of the King
of Heaven, should be of the noblest Families on Earth: and, though the
Iniquity of the late Times have made Clergy-men meanly valued, and
the sacred name of Priest contemptible; yet, I will labour to make
it honourable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor
abilities, to advance the Glory of that God that gave them._' This
estimate of the clergy must not be overlooked when considering the
struggle that went on in Donne's mind too before he crossed the
Rubicon.

PAGE =352=, l. 43. _As Angels out of clouds, &c._ Walton doubtless
had this line in his mind when he described Donne's own preaching:
'A Preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes
with them, alwayes preaching to himselfe, like an Angel from a cloud,
though in none: carrying some (as S. Paul was) to heaven, in holy
raptures; enticing others, by a sacred art and courtship, to
amend their lives; and all this with a most particular grace, and
un-imitable fashion of speaking.'


PAGE =352=. A HYMNE TO CHRIST.

PAGE =353=, ll. 9-12. Perhaps the rhetoric of these lines would be
improved by shifting the semicolon from l. 10 to l. 11. 'In putting,
at thy behest, the seas between my friends and me, I sacrifice them
unto thee: Do thou put thy,' &c. As the verse stands the connexion
between the first two lines and the next is a little vague.

l. 12. _thy sea_. I have adopted 'sea' from the MSS. in place of
'seas' _1633_. It was easy for the printer to take over 'seas' from
the preceding line, but 'sea' is the more pointed word. The sea is the
blood of Christ. The 1635-69 editions indeed read 'blood', which is as
though a gloss had crept in from the margin. More probably 'blood'
was a first version, changed by a bold metaphor to a more striking
antithesis.

Miss Spearing has drawn my attention, since writing this note, to the
peroration of _A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at
Lincolns-Inne, April_ 18, 1619, which I had overlooked. It confirms
the rightness of 'sea'. The whole passage is of interest in connexion
with this poem: 'Now to make up a circle, by returning to our first
word, remember: As we remember God, so for his sake, let us remember
one another. In my long absence, and far distance from hence, remember
me, as I shall do you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest
East, and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear in
one of us; we hear with both at once, and he hears in both at once;
remember me, not my abilities; for when I consider my Apostleship that
I was sent to you, I am in St. Pauls _quorum, quorum ego sum minimus_,
the least of them that have been sent; and when I consider my
infirmities, I am in his _quorum_, in another commission, another way,
_Quorum ego maximus_; the greatest of them; but remember my labors,
and endeavors, at least my desire, to make sure your salvation. And
I shall remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, and
your christianly respect towards all them that bring that word unto
you, and towards myself in particular far bove my merit. And so as
your eyes that stay here, and mine that must be far of, for all that
distance shall meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, and
meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon; so our hearts may
meet morning and evening in that God, which sees and hears everywhere;
that you may come thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may
be of use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may be
restored to you again; and may come to him with my prayer that what
_Paul_ soever plant amongst you, or what _Apollos_ soever water, God
himself will give us the increase: That if I never meet you again till
we have all passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, I
may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your Saviour, that
which he said to his Father and our Father, _Of those whom thou hast
given me, have I not lost one_. Remember me thus, you that stay in
this Kingdome of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of
Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, where ambition on
one side, and a necessary defence from unjust persecution on the other
side hath drawn many swords; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his
Kingdome, to which, _though we must sail through a sea, it is the
sea of his blood_, where no soul suffers shipwrack; though we must be
blown with strange winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it
is the Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow away
all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; where we
shall be all Souldiers of one army, the Lord of Hostes, and Children
of one Quire, the God of Harmony and consent: where all Clients shall
retain but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, nor present him
any other fee but his own blood, and yet every Client have a Judgment
on his side, not only in a not guilty, in the remission of his sins,
but in a _Venite benedicti_, in being called to the participation
of an immortal Crown of glory: where there shall be no difference in
affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree as fully and perfectly in
our _Allelujah_, and _gloria in excelsis_, as God the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost agreed in the _faciamus hominem_ at first; where we shall
end, and yet begin but then; where we shall have continuall rest, and
yet never grow lazie; where we shall be stronger to resist, and yet
have no enemy; where we shall live and never die, where we shall meet
and never part.' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 280.

l. 28. _Fame, Wit, Hopes, &c._ Compare: 'How ill husbands then of this
dignity are we by _sinne_, to forfeit it by submitting our selves to
inferior things? either to _gold_, then which every worme, (because a
worme hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature more estimable, and
more precious; Or, to that which is lesse than gold, to Beauty; for
there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that;
(the Father cannot diet himselfe so, nor the mother so, as to be sure
of a faire child) but it is a thing that hapned by chance, wheresoever
it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall
themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty.
To that which is lesse then _gold_ or _Beauty_, _voice_, _opinion_,
_fame_, _honour_, we sell our selves.' _Sermons_ 50. 38. 352.


PAGE =354=. THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMY.

Immanuel Tremellius was born in the Ghetto of Ferrara in 1510. His
father was apparently a Jewish surgeon, a man of distinction in the
Jewish community. Educated as a Jew, Tremellius became a Christian
about the age of twenty, and, under the influence of the Protestant
movement which was agitating Italy as well as other countries, a
Calvinist. When persecution began Tremellius fled from Lucca, where
he had taught Hebrew under the reformer Vermigli, to Strasburg, and
thereafter his life was that of the wandering, often fugitive, scholar
and reformer. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and held
the Professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge until 1553. The accession of
Mary drove him back to the Continent, and he was tutor to the children
of the Duke of Zweibrüchen from 1554 to 1558, and rector of the
Gymnasium at Hornbach from 1558 to 1560. The Duke became a Lutheran,
and Tremellius was exiled, but found after a year or two a haven in
the University of Heidelberg, where Duke Frederick III had rallied to
the Calvinist cause. Tremellius was Professor of Theology here from
1562-77, and it was here that he issued most of his works. He had
already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended
for his Jewish brethren. The works issued at Heidelberg include a
Chaldaic and Syriac Grammar, an edition of the Peschito (an old Syrian
version of the New Testament), and the Latin translation of the Old
Testament which Donne utilized for his paraphrase. In this work he was
assisted by his son-in-law Francis Junius (father of the Anglo-Saxon
and Antiquarian scholar), a native of Bourges, who had served as a
field-preacher under William the Silent. Junius was responsible only
for the Apocrypha, so that Donne rightly mentions Tremellius alone.
The work was published at Frankfort in 1575-9; in London in 1580,
1581, and 1585; at Geneva in 1590 and 1617. In the Genevan editions
it was coupled with Beza's translation of the New Testament. The whole
was re-issued at Hanover as late as 1715.

Duke Frederick III's successor was a Lutheran, and Tremellius was
driven into exile once more in 1577. His last years were spent as
teacher in the Academy instituted by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne,
Vicomte de Turenne, in Sedan. Here he died in 1580.

I have compared Donne's version throughout with both Tremellius'
translation and the Vulgate, and wherever the collation helps to fix
the text I have quoted their readings in the textual notes. I add here
one or two more quotations from the originals. Tremellius' version was
accompanied, it must be remembered, with an elaborate commentary.

PAGE =356=, l. 58. _accite_, the reading of _B_, _O'F_ as well as
_1635-69_, I have not yet found elsewhere in Donne's works, but
doubtless it occurs. Shakespeare uses it once:

  He by the Senate is accited home
  From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.
                                       _Tit. Andr._ I. i. 27-8.

  ll. 75-6.           _for they sought for meat
      Which should refresh their soules, they could not get_.

Chambers has printed this poem from _1639_, noting occasionally the
readings of _1635_ and _1650_, but ignoring consistently those of
_1633_. Here _1633_ has the support of _N_, _TCD_; _B_ reads 'they none
could get'; and _O'F_, if I may trust my collation, agrees with
_1635-69;_ Grolier follows _1633_ but conjectures 'the sought-for
meat'. This is unnecessary. It is quite in Donne's style to close with
an abrupt 'they could not get'. Modern punctuation would change the
comma to a semicolon. The version of Tremellius runs: 'Expirarunt
quum quaererent escam sibi, qua reficerent se ipsos.' The Vulgate,
'consumpti sunt, quia quaesierunt cibum sibi ut refocillarent animum.'

PAGE =357=, l. 81. _Of all which heare I mourne_: i.e. 'which hear
that I mourn.' The construction is harsh, and I was tempted for a
moment to adopt the 'me' of _N_, but Donne is translating Tremellius,
and 'me in gemitu esse' is not quite the same thing as 'me gementem'.
Grosart and Chambers and the Grolier Club editor would not have
followed _1639_ in changing 'heare' to 'here' had they consulted the
original poem which Donne is paraphrasing in any version. The Vulgate
runs: 'Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, et non est qui consoletur me.'

PAGE =359=, l. 161. _poure, for thy sinnes_. The 'poure out thy
sinnes' of _1635-69_ which Grosart and Chambers follow is obviously
wrong. The words 'for thy sinnes' have no counterpart in the Latin of
Tremellius or the Vulgate. The latter runs: 'Effunde sicut aquam cor
tuum ante conspectum Domini.'

  PAGE =360=, ll. 182-3.     _hath girt mee in
    With hemlocke, and with labour_.

Cingit cicuta et molestia, _Tremellius_: circumdedit me felle et
labore, _Vulgate_. Donne combines the two versions. He is fond of
using 'hemlock' as the typical poison: and he tells Wotton in one of
his letters that to him labour or business is the worst of evils:
'I professe that I hate businesse so much, as I am sometimes glad
to remember, that the _Roman Church_ reads that verse _A negotio
perambulante in tenebris_, which we reade from the pestilence
walking by night, so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve
avoiding.' _Letters_, p. 142. To Goodyere in like manner he writes,
'we who have been accustomed to one another are like in this, that we
love not businesse.' _Letters_, p. 94.

PAGE =361=, l. 193. _the children of his quiver_. Donne found this
phrase in the Vulgate or in the margin of Tremellius. In the text
of the latter the verse runs, 'Immitit in renes meos tela pharetrae
suae.' The marginal note says, '_Heb._ filios, id est, prodeuntes a
pharetra.' The Vulgate reads, 'filias pharetrae suae.'

l. 197. _drunke with wormewood_: 'inebriavit me absinthio, _Tremellius
and Vulgate_.

PAGE =362=, ll. 226-30. I have changed the full stop in l. 229, 'him',
to a comma, for all these clauses are objective to 'the Lord allowes
not this'. The construction is modelled on the original: 'Non enim
affligit ex animo suo, moestitiaque afficit filios viri. 34. Conterere
sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae, 35. Detorquere ius viri coram
facie superioris, 36. Pervertere hominem in causa sua, Dominus
non probat.' The version of the Vulgate is similar: '33. Non enim
humiliavit ex corde suo, et abiecit filios hominum, 34. Ut contereret
sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae; 35. Ut declinaret iudicium viri
in conspectu vultus Altissimi; 36. Ut perverteret hominem in iudicio
suo; Dominus ignoravit.'

PAGE =364=, l. 299. _their bone_. The reading of the editions
is probably right: 'Concreta est cutis eorum cum osse ipsorum,'
_Tremellius_.

l. 302. _better through pierc'd then through penury_. I have no doubt
that the 'through penury' of the 1635-69 editions and the MSS. is
what Donne wrote. The 1633 editor changed it to 'by penury'. Donne is
echoing the parallelism of 'confossi gladio quam confossi fame'. The
Vulgate has simply 'Melius fuit occisio gladio quam interfectio fame'.

PAGE =366=, l. 337. _The annointed Lord, &c._ Chambers, to judge from
his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to
God,--'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King
of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate
Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio
in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius
regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem
spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi,
neque conditiones sibi imperatas.' 'The anointed of the Lord' is
the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems
to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in
view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis
nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus.' Donne took this verse as
the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there
that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king;
others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we
embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and
bad Kings ... are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the
nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah
of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew
Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in
the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented
the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the
King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was
their case _prophetically_.' _Sermons_ 50. 43. 402.

l. 355. _wee drunke, and pay_: 'pecunia bibimus' _Tremellius and
Vulgate_: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes
on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows
that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized
Version reads 'we have drunken'.

PAGE =367=, l. 374. _children fall_. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et
pueri ad ligna corruunt,' _Tremellius_; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,'
_Vulgate_. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite
differently.


PAGE =368=. HYMN TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.

The date which Walton gives for this poem, March 23, 1630, is of
course March 23, 1631, i.e. eight days before the writer's death.
Donne's tense and torturing will never relaxed its hold before the
final moment: Being speechlesse, he did (as Saint Stephen) look
steadfastly towards heaven, till he saw the Sonne of God standing at
the right hand of his Father; And being satisfied with this blessed
sight, (as his soule ascended, and his last breath departed from him)
he closed his owne eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into
such a posture, as required no alteration by those that came to shroud
him.' _Walton_ (1670).

Donne's monument had been designed by himself and shows him thus
shrouded. The epitaph too is his own composition and is the natural
supplement to this hymn:

  JOHANNES DONNE
  SAC. THEOL. PROFESS.
  POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNIS
  TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER
  INCVBVIT;
  INSTINCTV ET IMPVLSV SP. SANCTI, MONITV
  ET HORTATV
  REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXVS
  ANNO SVI JESV MDCXIV. ET SVÆ ÆTATIS XLII
  DECANATV HVJVS ECCLESIÆ INDVTVS
  XXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI.
  EXVTVS MORTE VLTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI.
  HIC LICET IN OCCIDVO CINERE ASPICIT EVM
  CVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.

The reference in the last line of the epitaph, and the figure of the
map with which he plays in the second and third stanzas of the _Hymne_
are both illustrated by a passage in a sermon on Psalm vi. 8-10: 'In
a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West East, though they be
distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon a round body,
and then West and East are all one. In a flat soule, in a dejected
conscience, in a troubled spirit, there goes no more to the making
of that trouble, peace, then to apply that trouble to the body of the
Merits, to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and conforme thee
to him, and thy West is East, thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity
of spirit. The name of Christ is _Oriens_, _The East_; And yet Lucifer
himself is called _Filius Orientis_, _The Son of the East_. If thou
beest fallen by _Lucifer_, fallen to _Lucifer_, and not fallen as
_Lucifer_, to a senselessnesse of thy fall, and an impenitiblenesse
therein, but to a troubled spirit, still thy prospect is the East,
still thy Climate is heaven, still thy Haven is Jerusalem; for, in
our lowest dejection of all, even in the dust of the grave, we are
so composed, so layed down, as that we look to the East: If I could
beleeve that _Trajan_, or _Tecla_, could look Eastward, that is,
towards Christ, in Hell, I could beleeve with them of Rome, that
Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell.' _Sermons_ 80.
55. 558.

For 'the name of Christ is Oriens'. Donne refers in the margin to
_Zachariae_ vi. 12: 'Et loqueris ad eum dicens: Haec ait Dominus
exercituum, dicens: ECCE VIR ORIENS NOMEN EJUS; et subter eum orietur,
et aedificabit templum Domino.' In the English versions, Genevan and
Authorized, the words run 'whose name is the Branch', but to Donne the
Vulgate was the form in which he knew the Scriptures most intimately.
At the same time he consulted and refers to the English versions
frequently: 'that which we call the _Bishops Bible_, nor that which
we call the _Geneva Bible_, and that which we may call the _Kings_.'
_Sermons_ 80. 50. 506.

The difference between the two versions is due, I understand, to
the fact that the Hebrew participle 'rising' and the Hebrew word for
'branch' contain the same consonants. In unpointed Hebrew it was,
therefore, possible to confound them. The Septuagint version is
[Greek: Anatolê onoma autou].

In describing the preparations for making Donne's tomb Walton says:
'Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of
the sheet turned aside, as might show his lean, pale, and deathlike
face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he
expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus.' Walton
says that he stood, but Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the
drapery by its folds reveals that it was modelled from a recumbent
figure. Gosse, _Life, &c_., ii. 288.

  ll. 18-20.         _Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,
      All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them._

Grosart and Chambers have boggled unnecessarily at these lines. The
former inserts an unnecessary and unmetrical 'are' after 'Gibraltare'.
The latter interpolates a mark of interrogation after 'Gibraltare',
putting 'Anyan, and Magellan and Gibraltare' on a level with the
Pacific, the 'eastern riches' and Jerusalem, i.e. _six_ possible homes
instead of _three_. What the poet says is simply, 'Be my home in the
Pacific, or in the rich east, or in Jerusalem, to each I must sail
through a strait, viz. Anyan (i.e. Behring Strait) if I go west by the
North-West passage, or Magellan, or Gibraltar. These, all of which are
straits, are ways to them, and none but straits are ways to them.'
A condensed construction makes 'are ways to them' predicate to
two subjects. For 'the straight of Anian' see Hakluyt's _Principal
Navigations_, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1904, esp. the map at p. 256, which
shows very distinctly how the 'Straight of Anian' was conceived to
separate America from 'Cathaia in Asia' and to lead right on to
Japan and the 'Ilandes of Moluccae', 'the eastern riches.' The
_Mare Pacificum_ lies further to the south and east, entered by the
'Straight of Magellanes' between Peru and the 'Terra del Fuego', which
latter is not an island but part of the great 'Terra Australis'. Thus
'none but straights' lead to the 'eastern riches' or the Pacific.
'Outre ce que les navigations des modernes ont des-jà presque
descouvert que ce n'est point une isle, ains terre ferme et continente
avec l'Inde orientale d'un costé, et avec les terres qui sont soubs
les deux poles d'autre part; ou, si elle en est separée, que c'est
d'un si petit destroit et intervalle, qu'elle ne merite pas d'estre
nommé isle pour cela.' Montaigne, _Essais_, i. 31: _Des Cannibales_.

The conceit about the 'straits' Donne had already used: 'a narrower
way but to a better Land; thorow Straits; 'tis true; but to the
_Pacifique_ Sea, The consideration of the treasure of the Godly Man
in this World, and God's treasure towards him, both in this, and the
next.' _Sermons_ 26. 5. 71.

'Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the
Moluccaes, or to China, then by the Promontory of _Good Hope_? Yet
another way opened itself to _Magellan_; a Straite; it is true; but
yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a
North-East, and a North-West way thither, besides?' _Sermons_ 80. 24.
241.

Nevertheless by the time Donne wrote his hymn the sea to the south of
Terra del Fuego had recently been discovered. He is using the language
of a slightly earlier date, of his own youth, when travels and far
countries were much in his imagination. In 1617 George, Lord Carew,
writing to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul, says:
'The Hollanders have discovered to the southward of the Strayghts of
Magellen an open sea and free passage to the south sea.' _Letters of
George, Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe_, Camden Society, 1860. For the
'Straight of Anyan' compare also:

  This makes the foisting traveller to sweare,
  And face out many a lie within the yeere.
  And if he have beene an howre or two aboarde
  To spew a little gall: then by the Lord,
  He hath beene in both th'Indias, East and West,
  Talks of Guiana, China, and the rest,
  The straights of Gibraltare, and Ænian
  Are but hard by; no, nor the Magellane:
  Mandeville, Candish, sea-experienst Drake
  Came never neere him, if he truly crake.
                                Gilpin, _Skialetheia_, Satyre I.

For 'Ænian' in this passage Grosart conjectures 'Aegean'! I have put a
semicolon for a comma in the third last line quoted. I take it and the
preceding to be a quotation from the traveller's talk.


PAGE =369=. A HYMNE TO GOD THE FATHER.

The text of the 1633 edition, which is, with one trifling exception,
that of the other printed editions, is followed by Walton in the first
short life of Donne prefixed to the _LXXX Sermons_ (1640). Walton
probably took it from one of the 1633, 1635, or 1639 editions; but he
may have had a copy of the poem. The MSS. which contain the hymn have
some important differences, and instead of noting these as variants
or making a patchwork text I have thought it best to print the poem
as given in _A18_, _N_, _O'F_, _S96_, _TCC_, _TCD_. The six MSS.
represent three or perhaps two different sources if _O'F_ and _S96_
are derived from a common original--(1) _A18_, _N_, _TC_, (2) _S96_,
(3) _O'F_. It is not likely, therefore, that their variants are simply
editorial emendations. In some respects their text seems to me to
improve on that of the printed editions.

_S96_ and _O'F_ differ from the third group in reading, at l. 5, 'I
have not done.' On the other hand, _A18_ and _TC_ at l. 4 read 'do
them', and at l. 15 'this sunne' (probably a misreading of 'thie'). It
seems to me that the readings of l. 2 ('is'), l. 3 ('those sinnes'),
l. 7 ('by which I won'), and l. 15 ('Sweare by thyself') are
undoubtedly improvements, and in a text constructed on the principle
adopted by Mr. Bullen in his anthologies I should adopt them. Some of
the other readings, e.g. l. 18 ('I have no more'), probably belong
to a first version of the poem and were altered by the poet himself.
_O'F_, which was prepared in 1632, strikes out 'have' and writes
'fear' above. But in a seventeenth-century poem, circulating in MS.
and transcribed in commonplace-books, who can say which emendations
are due to the author, which to transcribers? Moreover, the line 'I
have no more', i.e. no more to ask, emphasizes the play upon his own
name which runs through the poem. 'I have no more' is equivalent to 'I
am Donne'.

Walton in citing this hymn adds: 'I have the rather mentioned this
Hymn for that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune
and to be often sung to the Organ by the Choristers of St. Pauls
Church, in his own hearing, especially at the Evening Service; and
at his Customary Devotions in that place, did occasionally say to a
friend, The words of this Hymne have restored me to the same thoughts
of joy that possest my Soul in my sicknesse when I composed it. And,
O the power of Church-music! that Harmony added to it has raised the
Affections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude;
and I observe, that I always return from paying this publick duty of
Prayer and Praise to God, with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind,
and a willingness to leave the world.'

Walton does not tell us who composed the music he refers to, but the
following setting has been preserved in Egerton MS. 2013. The
composer is John Hillton (d. 1657), organist to St. Margaret's Church,
Westminster. See Grove's _Dictionary of Music_.

As given here it has been corrected by Mr. Barclay Squire:

[Illustration: Musical notation with lyrics:

    Wilt thou for-give the sinnes where I be-gunne,
      w^{c}h is my sinne though it weare done be-fore,
    wilt thou for-give those sinnes through w^{c}h I
      runne, & doe them still, though still I doe de-plore
    when thou hast done, thou hast not done,
                for I have more.]

  2 Wilt thou forgive y^t sinne by w^{ch} I won
      Others to sinne & made my sinne their dore
    Wilt thou forgive that sinne w^{ch} I did shun
      A yeare or two, but wallowed in a score
    When thou hast done, thou hast not done
                For I have more.

  3 I have a sinne of feare y^t when I 'ave spun
      My last thred I shall perish one y^e shore
    Sweare by thy selfe y^t att my death thy son
      Shall shine as he shines now & heartofore
    And havinge done, thou hast done
                I need noe more.

  John: Hillton.

The music has been thus harmonized for four voices by Professor C.
Sanford Terry:

[Illustration: musical notation

A - - - men.]


PAGE =370=, ll. 7-8. _that sinne which I have wonne
          Others to sinn? &c._

In a powerful sermon on Matthew xxi. 44, Donne enumerates this among
the curses that will overwhelm the sinner: 'There shall fall upon him
those sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation, and those,
which others have done after his provocation.' _Sermons_ 50. 35. 319.


ELEGIES UPON THE AUTHOR.

The first and third of these _Elegies_, those by King and Hyde, were
affixed, without any signature, to _Deaths Duell, or A Consolation to
the Soule, against the dying Life, and living Death of the Body.... By
that late learned and Reverend Divine John Donne, D^r in Divinity, and
Deane of S. Pauls, London. Being his last Sermon, and called by his
Maiesties houshold_ THE DOCTORS OWNE FVNERALL SERMON. _London, Printed
by Thomas Harper, for Richard Redmer and Beniamin Fisher, and are to
be sold at the signe of the Talbot in Alders-gate street._ 1632. The
book was entered in the Stationers' Register to Beniamin Fisher and
Richard Redmer on the 30th of September, 1631, and was issued with a
dedicatory letter by Redmer to his sister 'M^{rs} Elizabeth Francis of
Brumsted in Norff' and a note 'To the Reader' signed 'R'. Now we know
from his own statement that King was Donne's executor and had been
entrusted with his sermons which at King's 'restless importunity'
Donne had prepared for the press. (Letter, dated 1664, prefixed to
Walton's _Lives_, 1670.) The sermons and papers thus consigned to King
were taken from him later at the instance apparently of Donne's son.
But the presence of King's epitaph in this edition of _Deaths Duell_
seems to show that he was responsible for, or at any rate permitted,
the issue of the sermon by Redmer and Fisher. The reappearance of
these Elegies signed, and accompanied by a number of others, suggests
in like manner that King _may_ have been the editor behind Marriot
of the _Poems_ in 1633. This would help to account for the general
excellence of the text of that edition, for King, a poet himself as
well as an intimate friend, was better fitted to edit Donne's poems
than the gentle and pious Walton, who was less in sympathy with the
side of Donne which his poetry reveals.

Of Henry King (1591-1669) poet, 'florid preacher', canon of Christ
Church, dean of Rochester, and in 1641 Bishop of Chichester it
is unnecessary to say more here. A fresh edition of his poems by
Professor Saintsbury is in preparation and will show how worthy a
disciple he was of Donne as love-poet, eulogist, and religious poet.
Probably the finest of his poems is _The Surrender_.

It was to King also that Redmer was indebted for the frontispiece to
_Deaths Duell_, the picture of Donne in his shroud, reproduced in the
first volume. 'It was given', Walton says, 'to his dearest friend
and Executor D^r King, who caused him to be thus carved in one entire
piece of white Marble, as it now stands in the Cathedral Church of St.
Pauls.'

The second of the _Elegies_ in 1633 was apparently by the author of
the _Religio Medici_ and must be his earliest published work, written
probably just after his return from the Continent. The lines were
withdrawn after the first edition.

The Edw. Hyde responsible for the third Elegy, 'On the death of Dr.
Donne,' is said by Professor Norton to be Edward Hyde, D.D. (1607-59),
son of Sir Lawrence Hyde of Salisbury. Educated at Westminster School
and Cambridge he became a notable Royalist divine; had trouble with
Parliament; and wrote various sermons and treatises (see D.N.B.). 'A
Latin poem by Hyde is prefixed to Dean Duport's translation of Job
into Greek verse (1637) and he contributed to the "Cambridge Poems"
some verses in celebration of the birth of Princess Elizabeth.'

It would be interesting to think that the author of the lines on Donne
was not the divine but his kinsman the subsequent Lord Chancellor.
There is this to be said for the hypothesis, that among those who
contribute to the collection of complimentary verses are some of
Clarendon's most intimate friends about this time, viz. Thomas Carew,
Sir Lucius Carie or Lord Falkland, and (but his elegy appears first
in 1635) Sidney Godolphin. The John Vaughan also, whose MS. lines to
Donne I have printed in the introduction (_Text and Canon, &c._, p.
lxiv, note), is enrolled by Clarendon among his intimates at this
time. If his friends, legal and literary, were thus eulogizing Donne,
why should Hyde not have tried his hand too? However, we know of no
other poetical effusions by the historian, and as these verses were
first affixed with King's to _Deaths Duell_ it is most probable that
their author was a divine.

The author of the fourth elegy, Dr. C. B. of O., is Dr. Corbet, Bishop
of Oxford (1582-1635). Walton reprinted the poem in the _Lives_ (1670)
as 'by Dr. Corbet ... on his Friend Dr. Donne'. We have no particulars
regarding this friendship, but they were both 'wits' and their poems
figure together in MS. collections. Ben Jonson was an intimate of
Corbet's, who was on familiar terms with all the Jacobean wits
and poets. For Corbet's life see D.N.B. His poems are in Chalmers'
collection.

The Hen. Valentine of the next Elegy matriculated at Christ's College,
Cambridge, in December, 1616, and proceeded B.A. in 1620/1, M.A. 1624.
He was incorporated at Oxford in 1628, where he took the degree of
D.D. in 1636. On the 8th of December, 1630, he was appointed Rector
of Deptford. He was either ejected under the Commonwealth or died, for
Mallory, his successor, was deprived in 1662. For this information
I am indebted to the _Biographical Register of Christ's College,
1505-1905, &c., compiled by John Peile ... Master of the College_,
1910. Of works by him the British Museum Catalogue contains _Foure
Sea-Sermons preached at the annual meeting of the Trinitie Companie in
the Parish Church of Deptford_, London, 1635, and _Private devotions,
digested into six litanies ... Seven and twentieth edition_, London,
1706. The last was first published in 1651.

Izaak Walton's _Elegie_ underwent a good deal of revision. Besides the
variants which I have noted, _1635-69_ add the following lines:

  Which as a free-will-offring, I here give
  Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve,
  I want abilities, fit to set forth
  A monument great, as _Donnes_  matchlesse worth.

In 1658 and 1670, when the _Elegie_ was transferred to the enlarged
_Life of Donne_, it was again revised, and opens:

  Our Donne is dead: and we may sighing say,
  We had that man where language chose to stay
  And shew her utmost power. I would not praise
  That, and his great Wit, which in our vaine dayes
  Makes others proud; but as these serv'd to unlocke
  That Cabinet, his mind, where such a stock
  Of knowledge was repos'd, that I lament
  Our just and generall cause of discontent.

But the poem in its final form is included in the many reprints of
Walton's _Lives_, and it is unnecessary to note the numerous verbal
variations. The most interesting is in ll. 25-6.

  Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein
  Lay Loves Philosophy?

Professor Norton notes that 'the name of the author of this' (the
seventh) 'Elegy is given as Carie or Cary in all the early editions,
by mistake for Carew'. But the spelling (common in the MSS.) simply
represents the way in which the name was pronounced. Thomas Carew
(1598?-1639?) was sewer-in-ordinary to King Charles in 1633, and in
February 1633/4 his most elaborate work, the _Coelum Britannicum_,
was performed at Whitehall, on Shrove Tuesday. It was published
immediately afterwards, 1634. His collected _Poems_ were issued in
1640 and contained this _Elegie_. I note the following variants from
the text of 1640 as reproduced by Arthur Vincent (_Muses Library_,
1899):

3. dare we not trust _1633_: did we not trust _1640_; 5. Churchman
_1633_: lecturer _1640_; 8. thy Ashes _1633_: the ashes _1640_; 9.
no voice, no tune? _1633_: nor tune, nor voice? _1640_; 17. our Will,
_1633_: the will, _1640_; 44. dust _1633_: dung _1640_; rak'd _1633_:
search'd _1640_; 50. stubborne language _1633_: troublesome language
_1640_; 58. is purely thine _1633_: was only thine _1640_; 59. thy
smallest worke _1633_: their smallest work _1640_; 63. repeale _1633_:
recall _1640_; 65. Were banish'd _1633_: Was banish'd _1640_; 66.
o'th'Metamorphoses _1633_: i'th'Metamorphoses _1640_;

68-9.

  Till verse refin'd by thee, in this last Age,
  Turne ballad rime _1633_:

  Till verse, refin'd by thee in this last age,
  Turn ballad-rhyme _1640_ (_Vincent_):

Surely 'in this last Age' goes with 'Turne ballad rime'; 73. awfull
solemne _1633_; solemn awful _1640_; 74. faint lines _1633_: rude
lines _1640_; 81. maintaine _1633_: retain _1640_; 88. our losse
_1633_: the loss _1640_; 89. an Elegie, _1633_: one Elegy, _1640_;

91-2.

  Though every pen should share a distinct part,
  Yet art thou Theme enough to tyre all Art;
                           _1633_: _omit 1640_.

Some of these differences are trifling, but in several instances (3,
8, 50, 59, 66, 91-2) the 1633 text is so much better that it seems
probable that the poem was printed in 1640 from an early, unrevised
version. In 87. 'the' _1633_, _1640_ should be 'thee'.

Sir Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), was a young man
of twenty-one when Donne died, and succeeded his father in the year
in which this poem was published. He had been educated at Trinity
College, Dublin. 'His first years of reason', Wood says, 'were spent
in poetry and polite learning, into the first of which he made divers
plausible sallies, which caused him therefore to be admired by the
poets of those times, particularly by Ben Jonson ... by Edm. Waller of
Beaconsfield ... and by Sir John Suckling, who afterwards brought him
into his poem called _The Session of Poets_ thus,

  He was of late so gone with divinity,
  That he had almost forgot his poetry,
  Though to say the truth (and Apollo did know it)
  He might have been both his priest and his poet.'

But Falkland is best known through his friendship with Clarendon,
whose account of him is classical: 'With these advantages' (of birth
and fortune) 'he had one great disadvantage (which in the first
entrance into the world is attended with too much prejudice) in his
person and presence, which was in no degree attractive or promising.
His stature was low, and smaller than most men; his motion not
graceful; and his aspect so far from inviting, that it had somewhat
in it of simplicity; and his voice the worst of the three, and so
untuned, that instead of reconciling, it offended the ear, so that
nobody would have expected music from that tongue; and sure no man
was less beholden to nature for its recommendation into the world:
but then no man sooner or more disappointed this general and customary
prejudice: that little person and small stature was quickly found to
contain a great heart, a courage so keen, and a nature so fearless,
that no composition of the strongest limbs, and most harmonious and
proportioned presence and strength, ever more disposed any man to
the greatest enterprise; it being his greatest weakness to be too
solicitous for such adventures: and that untuned voice and tongue
easily discovered itself to be supplied and governed by a mind and
understanding so excellent that the wit and weight of all he said
carried another kind of lustre and admiration in it, and even another
kind of acceptation from the persons present, than any ornament of
delivery could reasonably promise itself, or is usually attended with;
and his disposition and nature was so gentle and obliging, so much
delighted in courtesy, kindness, and generosity, that all mankind
could not but admire and love him.' _The Life of Edward Earl of
Clarendon_ (Oxford, 1827) i. 42-50. Coming from him, Falkland's
poem is an interesting testimony to the influence of Donne's poetry,
presence, and character.

Jaspar Mayne (1604-72), author of _The City Match_, was a student and
graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, a poet, dramatist, and divine. He
wrote complimentary verses on the Earl of Pembroke, Charles I, Queen
Henrietta, Cartwright, and Ben Jonson--all, like those on Donne,
very bad. He was the translator of the Epigrams ascribed to Donne and
published with some of his _Paradoxes, Problemes, Essays, Characters_
in 1651.

Arthur Wilson (1595-1652), historian and dramatist, author of _The
Inconstant Lady_ and _The Swisser_, had in 1633 just completed a
rather belated course at Trinity College, Oxford, whither he had gone
after leaving the service of the third Earl of Essex. For Wilson's
_Life_ see D.N.B. and Feuillerat: _The Swisser ... avec une
Introduction et des Notes_, Paris, 1904.

The 'Mr. R. B.' who wrote these lines is said by Mr. Gosse to be the
voluminous versifier Richard Brathwaite (1588-1673), author of _A
Strappado for the Divell_ and other works, satirical and pious. He is
perhaps the most likely candidate for the initials, which are all we
have to go by. At the same time it is a little surprising that a
poet whose name was so well known should have concealed himself under
initials, the device generally of a young man venturing among more
experienced poets. If he had not been too young in 1633, I should have
ventured to suggest that the author was Ralph Brideoak, who proceeded
B.A. at Oxford 1634, and in 1638 contributed lines to _Jonsonus
Virbius_. He was afterwards chaplain to Speaker Lenthall, and died
Bishop of Chichester. In the lines on Jonson, Brideoak describes the
reception of Jonson's plays with something of the vividness with which
the poet here describes the reception of Donne's sermons. He also
refers to Donne:

  Had learned Donne, Beaumont, and Randolph, all
  Surviv'd thy fate, and sung thy funeral,
  Their notes had been too low: take this from me
  None but thyself could write a verse for thee.

This last line echoes Donne (p. 204, l. 24). Most of Donne's eulogists
were young men.

Brathwaite's wife died in 1633, and, perhaps following Donne, he for
some years wrote _Anniversaries upon his Panarete_. W. C. Hazlitt
suggests Brome as the author of the lines on Donne, which is not
likely.

The Epitaph which follows R. B.'s poem is presumably by him also.

Endymion Porter (1587-1649) may have had a common interest with Donne
in the Spanish language and literature, for the former owed his early
success as an ambassador and courtier to his Spanish descent and
upbringing. He owes his reputation now mainly to his patronage of art
and poetry and to the songs of Herrick. For his life see D.N.B. and E.
B. de Fonblanque's _Lives of the Lords Strangford_, 1877.

Daniel Darnelly, the author of the long Latin elegy added to the
collection in 1635, was, according to Foster (_Alumni Oxonienses_,
vol. i. 1891), the son of a Londoner, and matriculated at Oxford on
Nov. 14, 1623, at the age of nineteen. He proceeded B.A. in 1627, M.A.
1629/30, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1634. He is described
in Musgrave's _Obituary_ as of Trinity Hall. In 1632 he was appointed
rector of Curry Mallet, Somersetshire, and of Walden St. Paul, Herts.,
1634. This would bring him into closer touch with London, and probably
explains his writing an elegy for the forthcoming second edition of
Donne's _Poems_. He was rector of Teversham, Cambridgeshire, from
1635 to 1645, when his living was sequestered. He died on the 23rd of
November, 1659.

The heading of this poem shows that it was written at the request of
some one, probably King. In l. 35 _Nilusque minus strepuisset_ the
reference is to the great cataract. See Macrobius, _Somn. Scip._ ii.
4.

Of Sidney Godolphin (1610-43) Clarendon says, 'There was never so
great a mind and spirit contained in so little room; so large an
understanding and so unrestrained a fancy in so very small a body: so
that the Lord Falkland used to say merrily, that he was pleased to be
found in his company, where he was the properer man; and it may be
the very remarkableness of his little person made the sharpness of his
wit, and the composed quickness of his judgement and understanding the
more notable.' _The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, i. 51-2. He
was killed at Chagford in the civil war. Professor Saintsbury has not
included this poem in his collection of Godolphin's poems, _Caroline
Poets_, ii. pp. 227-61.

John Chudleigh's name appears in MSS. occasionally at the end of
different poems. In the second collection in the Trinity College,
Dublin MS. G. 2. 21 (_TCD_ Second Collection) he is credited with the
authorship of Donne's lyric _A Feaver_, but two other poems are also
ascribed to him. He is the author of another in Addl. MS. 33998. f. 62
b. Who he was, I am not sure, but probably he may be identified with
John Chudleigh described in 1620 (_Visitation of Devonshire_) as son
and heir of George Chudley of Asheriston, or Ashton, in the county of
Devon, and then aged fourteen. On the 1st of June, 1621, aged 15,
he matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford. He proceeded B.A. 1623-4,
being described as 'equ. aur. fil.' for his father, a member of
Parliament, had been created a baronet on the 1st of August, 1622.
He took his M.A. in 1626, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1629
(Foster, _Alumni Oxonienses_, i. 276). Just before taking his M.A. he
was elected to represent East Looe. He died, however, before May 10,
1634, which is difficult to reconcile with his being the author of
these verses in 1635, unless they were written some time before.



APPENDIX A.

LATIN POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.


Who the Dr. Andrews referred to was we do not know. Dr. Grosart
identifies him with the Andrews whose poems are transcribed in _H49_,
but this is purely conjectural.

The lines which I have taken out and made into a separate Epigram
are printed in the old editions as the third and fourth lines of the
letter. As Professor Norton pointed out, they have no connexion with
it. They seem to be addressed to some one who had travelled to Paris
from Frankfort, on an Embassy to the King of France, and had returned.
'The Maine passed to the Seine, into the house of the Victor, and with
your return comes to Frankfort.'

If Grosart's conjecture be correct, the author of the epigram may be
the Francis Andrews whose poems appear along with Donne's in _H49_,
for among these are some political poems in somewhat the same vein:

  Though Ister have put down the Rhene
    And from his channel thrust him quite;
  Though Prage again repayre her losses,
    And Idol-berge doth set up crosses,
  Yet we a change shall shortly feele
    When English smiths work Spanish steele;
  Then Tage a nymph shall send to Thames,
    The Eagle then shall be in flames,
  Then Rhene shall reigne, and Boeme burne,
    And Neccar shall to Nectar turne.

And of Henri IV:

  Henrie the greate, great both in peace and war
  Whom none could teach or imitate aright,
  Findes peace above, from which he here was far;
  A victor without insolence or spite,
  A Prince that reigned, without a Favorite.

Of course, Andrews may be only the transcriber of these poems.


PAGE =398=. TO MR. GEORGE HERBERT, &c.

Walton has described the incident of the seals: 'Not long before his
death he caused to be drawn the figure of the Body of Christ, extended
upon an Anchor, like those which Painters draw when they would present
us with the picture of Christ crucified on the Cross; his varying
no otherwise than to affix him not to a Cross, but to an Anchor (the
Emblem of hope); this he caused to be drawn in little, and then many
of those figures thus drawn to be ingraven very small in _Helitropian_
Stones, and set in gold, and of these he sent to many of his dearest
friends, to be used as _Seals_ or _Rings_, and kept as memorials of
him, and of his affection to them.'

These seals have been figured and described in _The Gentleman's
Magazine_, vol. lxxvii, p. 313 (1807); and _Notes and Queries_, 2nd
Series, viii. 170, 216; 6th Series, x. 426, 473.

Herbert's epistle to Donne is given in _1650_. In Walton's _Life_ the
first two and a half lines of Donne's Latin poem and the whole of
the English one are given, and so with Herbert's reply. As printed
in _1650_ Herbert's reply is apparently interrupted by the insertion
between the eighth and ninth lines of two disconnected stanzas, which
may or may not be by Herbert. The first of these ('When Love' &c.)
with some variants is given in the 1658 edition of the _Life_ of
Donne; but in the collected _Lives_ (1670, 1675) it is withdrawn. The
second I have not found elsewhere.

  Although the Crosse could not Christ here detain,
  Though nail'd unto't, but he ascends again,
  Nor yet thy eloquence here keep him still,
  But onely while thou speak'st; This Anchor will.
  Nor canst thou be content, unlesse thou to
  This certain Anchor adde a Seal, and so
  The Water, and the Earth both unto thee
  Doe owe the symbole of their certainty.
  Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure,
  This holy Cable's of all storms secure.

    When Love being weary made an end
    Of kinde Expressions to his friend,
    He writ; when's hand could write no more,
    He gave the Seale, and so left o're.

  How sweet a friend was he, who being griev'd
  His letters were broke rudely up, believ'd
  'Twas more secure in great Loves Common-weal
  (Where nothing should be broke) to adde a Seal.

      [Line 2: Though _1650_: When _Walton_]

      [Line 10: of _1650_: from _Walton_]

In the _Life of Herbert_ Walton refers again to the seals and adds,
'At Mr. Herbert's death these verses were found wrapped up with that
seal which was by the Doctor given to him.

  When my dear Friend could write no more,
  He gave this Seal, and, so gave ore.

  When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure,
  This Anchor keeps my faith, that, me secure.'


PAGE =400=, l. 22. <_Wishes_> I have ventured to change 'Works' to
'Wishes'. It corrects the metre and corresponds to the Latin.


PAGE =400=. TRANSLATED OUT OF GAZAEUS, &c.

The original runs as follows:

  Tibi quod optas et quod opto, dent Divi,
  (Sol optimorum in optimis Amicorum)
  Vt anima semper laeta nesciat curas,
  Vt vita semper viva nesciat canos,
  Vt dextra semper larga nesciat sordes,
  Vt bursa semper plena nesciat rugas,
  Vt lingua semper vera nesciat lapsum,
  Vt verba semper blanda nesciant rixas,
  Vt facta semper aequa nesciant fucum,
  Vt fama semper pura nesciat probrum,
  Vt vota semper alta nesciant terras,
  Tibi quod optas et quod opto, dent Divi.

I have taken it from:

                   PIA
              H I L A R I A
                VARIAQVE
                 CARMINA

             ANGELINI GAZÆI
     _è Societate Iesu, Atrebatis_.

        [An ornament in original.]

                DILINGAE

           _Formis Academicis
      Cum auctoritate Superiorum_.
           Apud VDALRICUM REM
            CIↃ. IↃC. XXIII.

The folios of this edition do not correspond to those of that which
Donne seems to have used.



APPENDIX B.

POEMS WHICH HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO DONNE.


For a full discussion of the authorship of these poems see _Text and
Canon of Donne's Poems_, pp. cxxix _et seq._


PAGE =401=. TO S^r NICHOLAS SMYTH.

Chambers points out that a Nicholas Smyth has a set of verses in
_Coryats Crudities_, 1611.

In the _Visitation of the County of Devon_, 1620, a long genealogy is
given, the closing portion of which shows who this Nicholas Smith or
Smyth of Exeter (l. 15) and his father were:

       Joan, d. of James Walker     =   Sir Geo. Smith of Exeter,
      who was descended of the      |      Knt., ob. 1619.
      Mathewes of Wales who         |
      were descended of Flewellyns  |
      and Herberts.                 |
      +-----------------+-----------+------+-----------------------+
      |                 |                  |                       |
  Divers children  Elizabeth,   Sir Nicholas Smith=Dorothea, d.  James,
  d. without           &c.      of Larkbeare in    of Sir Raphe    &c.
     issue.                     com. Devon, Kt.    Horsey de
                                                   com. Dorsett.

Seven children of Sir Nicholas are given, including another Nicholas
(aet. 14), and the whole is signed 'Nich Smith'.

This is doubtless Roe's friend. With Roe as a Falstaff he had probably
'heard the chimes at midnight' in London before he settled down to
raise a family in Devonshire.

l. 7. _sleeps House, &c._ Ovid xi; Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, Canto
xiv; Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, I. i.

PAGE =402=, l. 26. _Epps_. 'This afternoon a servingman of the Earl
of Northumberland fought with swaggering Eps, and ran him through the
ear.' _Manninghams Diary_, 8th April, 1603 (Camden Club, p. 165). This
is the only certain reference to Epps I have been able to find, but
Grosart declares he is the soldier described in Dekker's _Knights
Conjuring_ as behaving with great courage at the siege of Ostend
(1601-4), where he was killed. I can find no name in Dekker's work.

ll. 27-31. As printed in _1669_ these lines are not very intelligible,
and neither Grosart nor Chambers has corrected them. As given in the
MSS. (e.g. _TCD_) they are a little clearer:

              For his Body and State
  The Physick and Counsel (which came too late)
  'Gainst whores and dice, hee nowe on mee bestowes
  Most superficially: hee speakes of those,
  (I found by him) least soundly whoe most knows:

The purpose of bracketing 'which came too late' is obviously to keep
it from being taken with ''Gainst whores and dice'--the very mistake
that _1669_ has fallen into and Grosart and Chambers have preserved.
The drawback to this use of the bracket is that it disguises, at least
to modern readers, that 'which came too late' must be taken with 'For
his Body and State'. I have therefore dropped it and placed a comma
after 'late'. The meaning I take to be as follows: 'The physic and
counsel against whores and dice, which came too late for his own body
and estate, he now bestows on me in a superficial fashion; for I found
by him that of whores and dice those speak least soundly who know
most from personal experience.' A rather shrewd remark. There are some
spheres where experience does not teach, but corrupt.

l. 40. _in that or those_: 'that' the Duello, 'those' the laws of the
Duello. There is not much to choose between 'these' and 'those'.

  ll. 41-3.  _Though sober; but so never fought. I know
             What made his Valour, undubb'd, Windmill go,
             Within a Pint at most:_

The MSS. improve both the metre and the sense of the first of these
lines, which in _1669_ and Chambers runs:

  Though sober; but nere fought. I know ...

It is when he is sober that he never fights, though he may quarrel.
Roe knows exactly how much drink it would take to make this undubb'd
Don Quixote charge a windmill, or like a windmill. But the poem is too
early for an actual reference to _Don Quixote_

PAGE =403=, ll. 67-8. _and he is braver now
  Than his captain._

By 'braver' the poet means, not more courageous, but more splendidly
attired, more 'braw'.

PAGE =404=, l. 88. _Abraham France_--who wrote English hexameters. His
chief works are _The Countess of Pembrokes Ivy Church_ (1591) and _The
Countess of Pembrokes Emmanuel_ (1591). He was alive in 1633.

PAGE =405=, l. 113. _So they their weakness hide, and greatness
show._ Grosart refused the reading 'weakness', which he found in
his favourite MS. _S_, and Chambers ignored it. It has, however, the
support of _B_, _O'F_, and _L74_ (which is strong in Roe's poetry),
and seems to me to give the right edge to the sarcasm. 'By giving to
flatterers what they owe to worth, Kings and Lords think to hide their
weakness of character, and to display the greatness of their wealth
and station.' They make a double revelation of their weakness in their
credulity and their love of display.

l. 128. _Cuff._ Henry Cuff (1563-1601), secretary to Essex and an
abettor of the conspiracy.

l. 131. _that Scot._ It is incredible that Donne wrote these lines. He
found some of his best friends among the Scotch--Hay, Sir Robert Ker,
Essex, and Hamilton, to say nothing of the King.


PAGE =406=. SATYRE.

PAGE =407=, ll. 32-3. _A time to come, &c._ I have adopted Grosart's
punctuation and think his interpretation of 'beg' must be the right
one--'beg thee as an idiot or natural.' The O.E.D. gives: '†† 5a. _To
beg a person_: to petition the Court of Wards (established by Henry
VIII and suppressed under Charles II) for the custody of a minor, an
heiress, or an idiot, as feudal superior or as having interest in the
matter: hence also fig. _To beg_ (any one) _for a fool_ or _idiot_: to
take him for, set him down as. _Obs._' Among other examples is, 'He
proved a wiser man by much than he that begged him. Harington, _Met.
Ajax_ 46.' What the satirist says is, 'The time will come when she
will beg to have wardship of thee as an idiot. If you continue she
will take you for one now.'

l. 35. _Besides, her._ My reading combines the variants. I think
'here' must be wrong.


PAGE =407=. AN ELEGIE.

PAGE =408=, l. 5. _Else, if you were, and just, in equitie &c._ This
is the punctuation of _H39_, and is obviously right, 'in equitie'
going with what follows. He has denied the existence or, at least, the
influence of the Fates, and now continues, 'For if you existed or had
power, and if you were just, then, according to all equity I should
have vanquish'd her as you did me.' Grosart and the Grolier Club
editor follow _1635-54_, and read:

  Else, if you were, and just in equity, &c.

Chambers accepts the attempt of _1669_ to amend this, and prints:

  True if you were, and just in equity, &c.

But 'just in equity' is not a phrase to which any meaning can be
attached.


PAGE =412=. AN ELEGIE.

Grosart prints this very incorrectly. He does not even reproduce
correctly the MS. _S_, which he professes to follow. Chambers follows
Grosart, adopting some of the variants of the Haslewood-Kingsborough
MS. reported by Grosart. They both have the strange reading 'cut
in bands' in l. 11, which as a fact is not even in _S_, from which
Grosart professes to derive it. The reading of all the MSS., 'but in
his handes,' makes quite good sense. The Scot wants matter, except
in his hands, i.e. dirt, which is 'matter out of place'. The reading,
'writ in his hands', which Chambers reports after Grosart, is probably
a mistake of the latter's. Indeed his own note suggests that the
reading of _H-K_ is 'but in's hands'.


PAGE =417=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF HUNTINGTON.

It looks as if some lines of this poem had been lost. The first
sentence has no subject unless 'That' in the second line be a
demonstrative--a very awkward construction.

If written by Donne this poem must have been composed about the same
time as _The Storme_ and _The Calme_. He is writing apparently from
the New World, from the Azores. But it is as impossible to recover the
circumstances in which the poem was written as to be sure who wrote
it.


PAGE =422=. ELEGIE.

ll. 5-6. _denounce ... pronounce._ The reading of the MSS. seems to
me plainly the correct one. 'In others, terror, anguish and grief
announce the approach of death. Her courage, ease and joy in dying
pronounce the happiness of her state.' The reading of the printed
texts is due to the error by which _1635_ and _1639_ took 'comming'
as an epithet to 'terror' as 'happy' is to 'state'. Some MSS. read
'terrors' and 'joyes'.

l. 22. _Their spoyles, &c._ I have adopted the MS. reading here,
though with some hesitation, because (1) it is the more difficult
reading: 'Soules to thy conquest beare' seems more like a conjectural
emendation than the other reading, (2) The construction of the line
in the printed texts is harsh--one does not bear anything 'to a
conquest', (3) the meaning suits the context better. It is not souls
that are spoken of, but bodies. The bodies of the wicked become the
spoil of death, trophies of his victory over Adam; not so those of the
good, which shall rise again. See 1 Cor. xv. 54-5.


PAGE =424=. PSALME 137.

This Psalm is found in a MS. collection of metrical psalms (Rawlinson
Poetical 161), in the Bodleian Library, transcribed by a certain R.
Crane. The list of authors is Fr. Dav., Jos. Be., Rich. Cripps, Chr.
Dav., Th. Carry. That Davison is the author of this particular Psalm
is strongly suggested by the poetical _Induction_ which in style and
verse resembles the psalm. The induction is signed 'Fr. Dav.' The
first verse runs:

  Come Urania, heavenly Muse,
        and infuse
  Sacred flame to my invention;
    Sing so loud that Angells may
        heare thy lay,
    Lending to thy note attention.


PAGE =429=. SONG.

_Soules joy, now I am gone, &c._ George Herbert, in the _Temple_,
gives _A Parodie_ of this poem, opening:

  Soul's joy, when thou art gone,
                And I alone,
                Which cannot be,
  Because Thou dost abide with me,
    And I depend on Thee.

The parody does not extend beyond the first verse.

It was one of the aims of Herbert to turn the Muse from profane love
verses to sacred purposes. Mr. Chambers points to another reference
to this poem in some very bad verses by Sir Kenelm Digby in Bright's
edition of Digby's _Poems_ (p. 8), _The Roxburghe Club_.



APPENDIX C.


I. POEMS FROM ADDITIONAL MS. 25707. PAGE =433=.

The authorship of the four poems here printed from _A25_ has been
discussed in the _Text and Canon, &c._ There is not much reason to
doubt that the first is what it professes to be. The order of the
names in the heading, and the character of the verses both suggest
that the second and corresponding verses are Donne's contribution.
There is a characteristic touch in each one. I cannot find anything
eminently characteristic in any of the rest of the group. The third
poem refers to the poetical controversy on Love and Reason carried on
with much spirit between the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Rudyerd
in their _Poems_ as printed by the younger Donne in 1660. A much finer
fragment of the debate, beginning--

  And why should Love a footboy's place despise?

is attributed to Donne by the Bridgewater MS. and the MS. in the
library of the Marquess of Crewe. It is part of a poem by Rudyerd in
the debate in the volume referred to.


II. POEMS FROM THE BURLEY MS. PAGE =437=.

Of the poems here printed from the Burley-on-the-Hill MS., none I
think is Donne's. The chief interest of the collection is that it
comes from a commonplace-book of Sir Henry Wotton, and therefore
presumably represents the work of the group of wits to which Donne,
Bacon, and Wotton belonged. I have found only one of them in other
MSS., viz. that which I have called _Life a Play_. This occurs in
quite a number of MSS. in the British Museum, and has been published
in Hannah's _Courtly Poets_. It is generally ascribed to Sir Walter
Raleigh; and Harleian MS. 733 entitles it _Verses made by Sir Walter
Raleigh made the same morning he was executed_. I have printed it
because with the first, and another in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, it
illustrates Wotton's taste for this comparison of life to a stage, a
comparison probably derived from an epigram in the Greek Anthology,
which may be the source of Shakespeare's famous lines in _As You Like
It_. The epitaph by Jonson on Hemmings, Shakespeare's fellow-actor
and executor, is interesting. A similar epitaph on Burbage is found in
Sloane MS. 1786:


An Epitaph on Mr Richard Burbage the Player.

  This life's a play groaned out by natures Arte
  Where every man hath his alloted parte.
  This man hath now as many men can tell
  Ended his part, and he hath done it well.
  The Play now ended, think his grave to bee
  The retiring house of his sad Tragedie.
  Where to give his fame this, be not afraid:
  Here lies the best Tragedian ever plaid.


III. POEMS FROM VARIOUS MSS. PAGE =443=.

Of the miscellaneous poems here collected there is very little to be
said. The first eight or nine come from the O'Flaherty MS. (_O'F_),
which professes to be a collection of Donne's poems, and may, Mr.
Warwick Bond thinks, have been made by the younger Donne, as it
contains a poem by him. It is careless enough to be his work.
They illustrate well the kind of poem attributed to Donne in the
seventeenth century, some on the ground of their wit, others because
of their subject-matter. Donne had written some improper poems as a
young man; it was tempting therefore to assign any wandering poem
of this kind to the famous Dean of St. Paul's. The first poem, _The
Annuntiation_, has nothing to do with Donne's poem _The Annuntiation
and Passion_, but has been attached to it in a manner which is
common enough in the MSS. The poem _Love's Exchange_ is obviously an
imitation of Donne's _Lovers infinitenesse_ (p. 17). _A Paradoxe of a
Painted Face_ was attributed to Donne because he had written a prose
_Paradox_ entitled _That Women ought to paint_. The poem was not
published till 1660. In Harleian MS. it is said to be 'By my Lo: of
Cant. follower Mr. Baker'. The lines on _Black Hayre and Eyes_ (p.
460) are found in fifteen or more different MSS. in the British Museum
alone, and were printed in _Parnassus Biceps_ (1656) and Pembroke and
Ruddier's _Poems_ (1660). Two of the MSS. attribute the poem to Ben
Jonson, but others assign it to W. P. or Walton Poole. Mr. Chambers
points out that a Walton Poole has verses in _Annalia Dubrensia_
(1636), and also cites from Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_: 'Walton
Poole of Wilts arm. matr. 9.1.1580 at Trinity Coll. aged 15.' These
may be the same person. The signature A. P. or W. P. at the foot of
several pages suggests that the Stowe MS. 961 of Donne's poems had
belonged to some member of this family. The fragment of an Elegy at
p. 462 occurs only in _P_, where it forms part of an Heroicall Epistle
with which it has obviously nothing to do. I have thought it worth
preserving because of its intense though mannered style. The line,
'Fortune now do thy worst' recalls _Elegie XII_, l. 67. The closing
poem,'Farewell ye guilded follies,' comes from Walton's _Complete
Angler_ (1658), where it is thus introduced: 'I will requite you with
a very good copy of verses: it is a farewell to the vanities of the
world, and some say written by Dr. D. But let they be written by
whom they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be
possest with happy thoughts of their composure.' In the third edition
(1661) the words were changed to 'And some say written by Sir Harry
Wotton, who I told you was an excellent Angler.' In one MS. they are
attributed to Henry King, Donne's friend and literary executor, and in
two others they are assigned to Sir Kenelm Digby, as by whom they are
printed in _Wits Interpreter_ (1655). Mr. Chambers points out that
'The closing lines of King's _The Farewell_ are curiously similar to
those of this poem.' He quotes:

  My woeful Monument shall be a cell,
  The murmur of the purling brook my knell;
  My lasting Epitaph the Rock shall groan;
  Thus when sad lovers ask the weeping stone,
  What wretched thing does in that centre lie,
  The hollow echo will reply, 'twas I.

I cannot understand why Mr. Chambers, to whom I am indebted for most
of this information, was content to print so inadequate a text when
Walton was in his hand. Two of his lines completely puzzled me:

  Welcome pure thoughts! welcome, ye careless groans!
  These are my guests, this is that courtage tones.

'Groans' are generally the sign of care, not of its absence. However,
I find that Ashmole MS. 38, in the Bodleian, and some others read:

  Welcome pure thoughts! welcome ye careless groves!
  These are my guests, this is that court age loves.

This explains the mystery. But Mr. Chambers followed Grosart; and
Grosart was inclined to prefer the version of a bad MS. which he had
found to a good printed version.



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.

PAGES =5=, =6=. The poems of Ben Jonson are here printed just as
they stand in the 1650, 1654, 1669 editions of Donne's _Poems_.
A comparison with the 1616 edition of Jonson's _Works_ shows some
errors. The poem _To John Donne_ (p. 5) is xxiii of the _Epigrammes_.
The sixth line runs

  And which no affection praise enough can give!

The absurd 'no'n' of 1650 seems to have arisen from the printing
'no'affection' of the 1640 edition of Jonson's _Works_. The 1719
editor of Donne's _Poems_ corrected this mistake. A more serious
mistake occurs in the ninth line, which in the _Works_ (1616) runs:

  All which I meant to praise, and, yet I would.

The error 'mean' comes from the 1640 edition of the _Works of Ben
Jonson_, which prints 'meane'.

_To Lucy, &c._, is xciii of the _Epigrammes_. The fourteenth line
runs:

  Be of the best; and 'mongst those, best are you.

The comma makes the sense clearer. In l. 3, 1616 reads 'looke,' with
comma.

_To John Donne_ (p. 6) is xcvi. There are no errors; but 'punees' is
in _1616_ more correctly spelt 'pui'nees'.

PAGES =7=, =175=, =369=. I am indebted for the excellent copies of
the engravings here reproduced to the kind services of Mr. Laurence
Binyon. The portraits form a striking supplement to the poems along
with which they are placed. The first is the young man of the _Songs
and Sonets_, the _Elegies_ and the _Satyres_, the counterpart of Biron
and Benedick and the audacious and witty young men of Shakespeare's
Comedies. 'Neither was it possible,' says Hacket in his _Scrinia
Reserata: a Memorial of John Williams ... Archbishop of York_ (1693),
'that a vulgar soul should dwell in such promising features.'

The engraving by Lombart is an even more lifelike portrait of the
author of the _Letters_, _Epicedes_, _Anniversaries_ and earlier
_Divine Poems_, learned and witty, worldly and pious, melancholy
yet ever and again 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness', writing at one time the serious _Pseudo-Martyr_,
at another the outrageous _Ignatius his Conclave_, and again the
strangely-mooded, self-revealing _Biathanatos_: 'mee thinks I have the
keyes of my prison in mine owne hand, and no remedy presents it selfe
so soone to my heart, as mine own sword.'

After describing the circumstances attending the execution of the last
portrait of Donne, Walton adds in the 1675 edition of the _Lives_ (the
passage is not in the earlier editions of the _Life of Donne_): 'And
now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities
of a various life: even to the gates of death and the grave; my desire
is, he may rest till I have told my Reader, that I have seen many
Pictures of him, in several habits, and at several ages, and in
several postures: And I now mention this, because, I have seen one
Picture of him, drawn by a curious hand at his age of eighteen; with
his sword and what other adornments might then suit with the present
fashions of youth, and the giddy gayeties of that age: and his Motto
then was,

  How much shall I be chang'd,
  Before I am chang'd.

And, if that young, and his now dying Picture, were at this time set
together, every beholder might say, _Lord! How much is_ Dr. Donne
_already chang'd, before he is chang'd!_' The change written in the
portrait is the change from the poet of the _Songs and Sonets_ to the
poet of the _Holy Sonnets_ and last _Hymns_.

The design of this last picture and of the marble monument made from
it is not very clear. He was painted, Walton says, standing on the
figure of the urn. But the painter brought with him also 'a board
of the just height of his body'. What was this for? Walton does not
explain. But Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the folds of
the drapery show the statue was modelled from a recumbent figure. Can
it be that Walton's account confuses two things? The incident of the
picture is not in the 1640 _Life_, but was added in 1658. How could
Donne, a dying man, stand on the urn, with his winding-sheet knotted
'at his head and feet'? Is it not probable that he was painted lying
in his winding-sheet on the board referred to; but that the monument,
as designed by himself, and executed by Nicholas Stone, was intended
to represent him rising at the Last Day from the urn, habited as he
had lain down--a symbolic rendering of the faith expressed in the
closing words of the inscription

  Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere
          Aspicit Eum
    Cuius nomen est Oriens.

PAGE =37=, l. 14. The textual note should have indicated that in most
or all of the MSS. cited the whole line runs:

  (Thou lovest Truth) but an Angell at first sight.

This is probably the original form of the line, corrected later to
avoid the clashing of the 'but's.

PAGE =96=, l. 6, note. The _R212_ cited here is Rawlinson Poetical
MS. 212, a miscellaneous collection of seventeenth-century prose and
poetry (e.g. Davies' _Epigrams_. See II. p. 101). I had cited it once
or twice in my first draft. The present instance escaped my eye. It
helps to show how general the reading 'tyde' was.

PAGE =115=, l. 54. _goeing on it fashions_. The correct reading is
probably 'growing on it fashions', which has the support of both _JC_,
and _1650-69_ where 'its' is a mere error. I had made my text
before _JC_ came into my hand. To 'grow on' for 'to increase' is
an Elizabethan idiom: 'And this quarrel grew on so far,' North's
_Plutarch, Life of Coriolanus, ad fin._ See also O.E.D.

I should like in closing to express my indebtedness throughout to the
_Oxford English Dictionary_, an invaluable help and safeguard to
the editor of an English text, and also to Franz's admirable
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_ (1909), which should be translated.

PAGE =133=, l. 58. To what is said in the note on the taking of yellow
amber as a drug add: 'Divers men may walke by the Sea side, and the
same beames of the Sunne giving light to them all, one gathereth by
the benefit of that light pebles, or speckled shells, for curious
vanitie, and another gathers precious Pearle, or medicinall Ambar, by
the same light.' _Sermons_ 80. 36. 326.

PAGES =156-7=. _Seeke true religion, &c._ All this passage savours a
little of Montaigne: 'Tout cela, c'est un signe tres-evident que nous
ne recevons nostre religion qu'à nostre façon et par nos mains, et
non autrement que comme les autres religions se reçoyvent. Nous nous
sommes rencontrez au païs où elle estoit en usage; ou nous regardons
son ancienneté ou l'authorité des hommes qui l'ont maintenue; ou
creignons les menaces qu'ell' attache aux mescreans, ou suyvons ses
promesses. Ces considerations là doivent estre employées à nostre
creance, mais comme subsidiaires: ce sont liaisons humaines. Une
autre region, d'autres tesmoings, pareilles promesses et menasses nous
pourroyent imprimer par mesme voye une croyance contraire. Nous sommes
chrestiens à mesme titre que nous sommes ou perigordins ou alemans.'
_Essais_ (1580), II. 12. _Apologie de Raimond Sebond_.

PAGE =220=, l. 46. Compare: 'One of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks
of God, is a Circle; and a Circle is endlesse; whom God loves, hee
loves to the end ... His hailestones and his thunderbolts, and his
showres of blood (emblemes and instruments of his Judgements) fall
downe in a direct line, and affect or strike some one person, or
place: His Sun, and Moone, and Starres (Emblemes and Instruments of
his Blessings) move circularly, and communicate themselves to all. His
Church is his chariot; in that he moves more gloriously, then in the
Sun; as much more, as his begotten Son exceeds his created Sun, and
his Son of glory, and of his right hand, the Sun of the firmament;
and this Church, his chariot, moves in that communicable motion,
circularly; It began in the East, it came to us, and is passing now,
shining out now, in the farthest West.' _Sermons_ 80. 2. 13-4.

l. 47. _Religious tipes_, is the reading of _1633_. The comma has
been accidentally dropped. There is no comma in _1635-69_, which print
'types'.

PAGE =241=, ll. 343-4. _As a compassionate Turcoyse, &c._ Compare:

  And therefore Cynthia, as a turquoise bought,
  Or stol'n, or found, is virtueless, and nought,
  It must be freely given by a friend,
  Whose love and bounty doth such virtue lend,
  As makes it to compassionate, and tell
  By looking pale, the wearer is not well.
            Sir Francis Kynaston, _To Cynthia_.
                        Saintsbury, _Caroline Poets_, ii. 161.

PAGE =251=, ll. 9-18. The source of this simile is probably Lucretius,
_De Rerum Natura_, III. 642-56.

  Falciferos memorant currus abscidere membra
  Saepe ita de subito permixta caede calentis,
  Ut tremere in terra videatur ab artubus id quod
  Decidit abscisum, cum mens tamen atque hominis vis
  Mobilitate mali non quit sentire dolorem;
  Et semel in pugnae studio quod dedita mens est,
  Corpore reliquo pugnam caedesque petessit,
  Nec tenet amissam laevam cum tegmine saepe
  Inter equos abstraxe rotas falcesque rapaces,
  Nec cecidisse alius dextram, cum scandit et instat.
  Inde alius conatur adempto surgere crure,
  Cum digitos agitat propter moribundus humi pes.
  Et caput abscisum calido viventeque trunco
  Servat humi voltum vitalem oculosque patentis,
  Donec reliquias animai reddidit omnes.

  PAGE =259=, ll. 275-6.           _so that there is
    (For aught thou know'st) piercing of substances._

'Piercing of substances,' the actual penetration of one substance by
another, was the Stoic as opposed to the Aristotelian doctrine of
mixture of substance ([Greek: krasis]), what is now called chemical
combination. The Peripatetics held that, while the qualities of the
two bodies combined to produce a new quality, the substances remained
in juxtaposition. Plotinus devotes the seventh book of the _Enneades_
to the subject; and one of the arguments of the Stoics which he cites
resembles Donne's problem: 'Sweat comes out of the human body without
dividing it and without the body being pierced with holes.' The pores
were apparently unknown. See Bouillet's _Enneades de Plotin_, I. 243
f. and 488-9, for references.


PAGE =368=. HYMNE TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.

Professor Moore Smith has at the last moment reminded me of a fact,
the significance of which should have been discussed in the note on
the _Divine Poems_, that a copy of this poem found (Gosse, _Life &c._
ii. 279) among the papers of Sir Julius Caesar bears the statement
that the verses were written in Donne's 'great sickness in December
1623'. Professor Moore Smith is of opinion that Sir Julius Caesar may
have been right and Walton mistaken, and there is a good deal to be
said for this view. 'It seems', he says, 'more likely that Walton
should have attributed the poem wrongly to Donne's last illness, than
that the MS. copy should antedate it by seven years.' In 1640 Walton
simply referred it to his deathbed; the precise date was given in
1658. Moreover the date 1623 seems to Professor Moore Smith confirmed
by a letter to Sir Robert Ker (later Lord Ancrum) in 1624 (Gosse,
_Life &c._ ii. 191), in which Donne writes, 'If a flat map be but
pasted upon a round globe the farthest east and the farthest west meet
and are all one.'

On the other hand, Walton's final date is very precise, and was
probably given to him by King. If the poem was written at the same
time as that 'to God the Father', why did it not pass into wider
circulation? Stowe MS. 961 is the only collection in which I have
found it. The use of the simile in the letter to Ker is not so
conclusive as it seems. In that same letter Donne says, 'Sir, I took
up this paper to write a letter; but my imagination was full of a
sermon before, for I write but a few hours before I am to preach.' Now
I have in my note cited this simile from an undated sermon on one
of the Penitentiary Psalms. This, not the poem, may have been the
occasion of its repetition in this letter. Donne is very prone to
repeat a favourite figure--inundation, the king's stamped face &c. It
is quite likely that the poem was the last, not the first, occasion
on which he used the flat map. Note that the other chief figure in the
poem, the straits which lead to the Pacific Sea, was used in a sermon
(see note) dated February 12, 1629.

The figure of the flat map is not used, as one might expect, in the
section of the _Devotions_ headed _The Patient takes his bed_, but the
last line of the poem is recalled by some words there: 'and therefore
am I _cast downe_, that I might not be _cast away_.'

Walton's dates are often inaccurate, but here the balance of the
evidence seems to me in his favour. As Mr. Gosse says, Sir Julius
Caesar may have confounded this hymn with 'Wilt thou forgive'. In
re-reading the _Devotions_ with Professor Moore Smith's statement in
view I have come on two other points of interest. Donne's views on the
immortality of the soul (see II. pp. 160-2) are very clearly stated:
'That light, which is the very emanation of the light of God ... only
that bends not to this _Center_, to _Ruine_; that which was not made
of _Nothing_, is not thretned with this annihilation. All other
things are; even _Angels_, even our _soules_; they move upon the same
_Poles_, they bend to the same _Center_; and if they were not made
immortall by _preservation_, their _Nature_ could not keep them from
sinking to this _center_, _Annihilation_' (pp. 216-17).

The difficult line in the sonnet _Resurrection_ (p. 321, l. 8) is
perhaps illuminated by pp. 206-8, where Donne speaks of 'thy first
booke, the booke of _life_', 'thy second book, the booke of Nature,'
and closes a further list with 'to those, _the booke with seven
seals_, which only _the Lamb which was slain, was found worthy to
open_; which, I hope, it shal not disagree with the measure of thy
blessed _spirit_, to interpret, the _promulgation of their pardon,
and righteousnes, who are washed in the blood of the Lamb_'. This is
possibly the 'little booke' of the sonnet, perhaps changed by Donne to
'life-book' to simplify the reference. But the two are not the same.



ADDENDUM.


Vol. I, p. 368, l. 6. Whilst my Physitions by their love are growne
Cosmographers ... Sir Julius Caesar's MS. (Addl. MS. 34324) has
_Loer_, scil. _Lore_. This is probably the true reading.



ERRATUM.


=P. 274=, l. 28. _for_ figure-inundation _read_ figure--inundation



INDEX OF FIRST LINES.

(VOL. II.)


                                                        PAGE

  A learned Bishop of this Land                           53
  Amongst the Poets Dacus numbered is                    101
  An ill year of a Goodyere us bereft                    145
  As in tymes past the rusticke shepheards sceant        171

  Esteemed knight take triumph over death                145

  Goe catch a star that's falling from the sky            12

  Henrie the greate, greate both in peace and war        261
  How often hath my pen (mine hearts Solicitor)          103

  Loe her's a man worthy indeede to travell              129

  No want of duty did my mind possess                      7

  Stay, view this Stone, and if thou beest not such      213

  This Lifes a play groaned out by natures Arte          268
  Thou send'st me prose and rimes, I send for those      160
  Though Ister have put down the Rhene                   261
  'Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheardes Life           141
  Titus the brave and valorous young gallant             101

  Whoso termes love a fire, may like a poet               52
  Wotton the country and the country swaine              141



       *       *       *       *       *

  Oxford: Horace Hart, M.A., Printer to the University

       *       *       *       *       *



Transcriber's note:

    Although Scotland had accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1600,
    until 1752, England still followed the Julian calendar (after
    Julius Caesar, 44 B.C.), and celebrated New Year's Day on March
    25th (Annunciation Day). Most Catholic countries accepted the
    Gregorian calendar (after Pope Gregory XIII) from some time
    after 1582 (the Catholic countries of France, Spain, Portugal,
    and Italy in 1582, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland
    within a year or two, Hungary in 1587, and Scotland in 1600),
    and celebrated New Year's Day on January 1st. England finally
    changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

    This is the reason for the double dates in the early months of
    the years in some parts of this book. e.g., there is a
    statement, on page 134, that "He died February 7, 1627/8. (i.e.
    1627 in England; 1628 in Scotland). Only after March 25th
    (Julian New Years Day) was the year the same in the two
    countries. The Julian calendar was known as 'Old Style', and
    the Gregorian calendar as 'New Style' (N.S.).


    Page lxiv, Footnote 9: 'Garrard att his quarters in ??'
    Perhaps ϑermyte with U+03D1 GREEK THETA SYMBOL: thermyte ?
    perhaps meaning "(at the sign of) The Hermit"?
    (The printer, rightly or wrongly, seems to have used a
    'theta' at the beginning of the word).

    Page lxv, a facsimile of a Title Page, split a cross-page
    paragraph. One sentence was on page lxiv; the rest of the
    paragraph was on page lxvi. In the interest of a link to the
    page, it seemed beneficial to leave the paragraph as it was
    split.

    Page lxv: 'VVith' is as printed.

    Page lxxxvi: 'Lo:' retained, although 'Ld.' is printed above.
    From the context, 'Lo:' may not be a typo, as this form occurs
    elsewhere.

      "and the _Obsequies to the Lo: Harrington_."

    Page cxvi, footnote 39 (cont.: '17-8.' corrected to '17-18.'.

      "_To Sr Henry Wotton_, p. 180, ll. 17-18."

    Page cxxx: 'p. 406' corrected to 'p. 412'

      "'Dear Love, continue nice and chaste' (p. 412)"

    Pages cxxxi-cxxxii: missing word at page-turn? 'and' added in
    brackets.

      "And as one is ascribed to Roe on indisputable (and) three on
      very strong evidence,..."

    Page 23: 'll. 140-6' corrected to 'll. 440-6'

      "_The Second Anniversary_, ll. 440-6 (p. 264)"

    Page 34: 'coporales' corrected to 'corporales'.

      "'quanto subtilius huiusmodi immutationes occultas corporales
      perpendunt.'"

    Page 84: 'p. 308, ll. 27-8' corrected to p. 308, ll. 317-8

      "in the _Progresse of the Soule_, p. 308, ll. 317-8:"

    Page 187: (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
    Wotton_ (1907). is as printed.

    Page 214: p. 416 corrected to p. 422.

      "For the relation of this _Elegie_ to that beginning 'Death,
      be not proud' (p. 422) see _Text and Canon, &c._, p. cxliii."

    Page 213: 'p. 404' corrected to p. 410'

      "('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p. 410)"


    Pages 235, 263: The inscriptions have a character which
    looks like a reversed capital C, but which is actually a
    ROMAN NUMERAL REVERSED ONE HUNDRED Ↄ (U+2183 or Ↄ).

    On Page 235, the date of Anne (More) Donne's death is given as
    CIↃ. DC. XVII.
    i.e. hundreds, ten, (1000) plus 600 plus 17, or the year 1617,
    which is correct.

    On Page 263, the date given is CIↃ. IↃC. XXIII.

    CIↃ = 1000;
    IↃC =500+100 (600),
    XXIII = 23, so the date is 1623.

    (Reference for page 263: [http:// hypotheses.org/17871] ... 'Le
    latin de Locke ... Goudae apud Justum Ab Hoeve

    CIↃ IↃC LXXXIX ...
    CIↃ = 1000
    IↃC se décompose en IↃ = 500 + C = 100 soit 600
    LXXXIX = 89
    La date correspondante est 1689*.

    * 2011 serait CIↃ CIↃ XI '.)

    (So 2015 would be CIↃ CIↃ XV ').


    Page 251: _S69_ corrected to _S96_

      "_S96_ and _O'F_ differ from the third group...."

    Page 275: Erratum, p. 274.... This has been corrected.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Poems of John Donne,  Volume II (of 2) - Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.