Chapter XI: Part 11

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.