Chapter XXI

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written after Sir Henry had entered the service of the Earl of Bedford and before Donne's removal from Mitcham to Drury House, therefore in 1609 or 1610. The reference to "the new astronomy" is interesting. In 1609 Keppler announced his discovery of some of the laws governing planetary motion, although it was not until the following year that the Copernican System was, by the discoveries of Galileo, firmly established. Donne's mind seems to have been open to the new knowledge, when Bacon's was firmly closed against it.