Chapter XV: Part 15

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.

_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.

_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.

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.

_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.

_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.

LONDON,

Printed by _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard in
Fleetestreete. 1621.

_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 _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard
in Fleetestreete. 1621.

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

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.