Chapter XIX: Part 19

PAGE =349=, l. 38. _So well attyr'd abroad, so ill at home._ Donne has probably in mind the French versions of Clement Marot, which were the war-songs of the Huguenots.

PAGE =351=. TO MR. TILMAN.

Of Mr. Tilman I can find no trace in printed Oxford or Cambridge registers. The poem is a strange comment on the seventeenth century's estimate of the clergy:

Why do they think unfit
That Gentry should joyne families with it?

In his _Life of George Herbert_ Walton tells us of Herbert's resolution to enter the Church, and the opposition he met with: 'He did, at his return to London, acquaint a Court-friend with his resolution to enter into _Sacred Orders_, who perswaded him to alter it, as too mean an employment, and too much below his birth, and the excellent abilities and endowments of his mind. To whom he replied, '_It hath been formerly judg'd that the Domestick Servants of the King of Heaven, should be of the noblest Families on Earth: and, though the Iniquity of the late Times have made Clergy-men meanly valued, and the sacred name of Priest contemptible; yet, I will labour to make it honourable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor abilities, to advance the Glory of that God that gave them._' This estimate of the clergy must not be overlooked when considering the struggle that went on in Donne's mind too before he crossed the Rubicon.

PAGE =352=, l. 43. _As Angels out of clouds, &c._ Walton doubtless had this line in his mind when he described Donne's own preaching: 'A Preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes with them, alwayes preaching to himselfe, like an Angel from a cloud, though in none: carrying some (as S. Paul was) to heaven, in holy raptures; enticing others, by a sacred art and courtship, to amend their lives; and all this with a most particular grace, and un-imitable fashion of speaking.'

PAGE =352=. A HYMNE TO CHRIST.

PAGE =353=, ll. 9-12. Perhaps the rhetoric of these lines would be improved by shifting the semicolon from l. 10 to l. 11. 'In putting, at thy behest, the seas between my friends and me, I sacrifice them unto thee: Do thou put thy,' &c. As the verse stands the connexion between the first two lines and the next is a little vague.

l. 12. _thy sea_. I have adopted 'sea' from the MSS. in place of 'seas' _1633_. It was easy for the printer to take over 'seas' from the preceding line, but 'sea' is the more pointed word. The sea is the blood of Christ. The 1635-69 editions indeed read 'blood', which is as though a gloss had crept in from the margin. More probably 'blood' was a first version, changed by a bold metaphor to a more striking antithesis.

Miss Spearing has drawn my attention, since writing this note, to the peroration of _A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at Lincolns-Inne, April_ 18, 1619, which I had overlooked. It confirms the rightness of 'sea'. The whole passage is of interest in connexion with this poem: 'Now to make up a circle, by returning to our first word, remember: As we remember God, so for his sake, let us remember one another. In my long absence, and far distance from hence, remember me, as I shall do you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest East, and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear in one of us; we hear with both at once, and he hears in both at once; remember me, not my abilities; for when I consider my Apostleship that I was sent to you, I am in St. Pauls _quorum, quorum ego sum minimus_, the least of them that have been sent; and when I consider my infirmities, I am in his _quorum_, in another commission, another way, _Quorum ego maximus_; the greatest of them; but remember my labors, and endeavors, at least my desire, to make sure your salvation. And I shall remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, and your christianly respect towards all them that bring that word unto you, and towards myself in particular far bove my merit. And so as your eyes that stay here, and mine that must be far of, for all that distance shall meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, and meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon; so our hearts may meet morning and evening in that God, which sees and hears everywhere; that you may come thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may be of use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may be restored to you again; and may come to him with my prayer that what _Paul_ soever plant amongst you, or what _Apollos_ soever water, God himself will give us the increase: That if I never meet you again till we have all passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, I may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your Saviour, that which he said to his Father and our Father, _Of those whom thou hast given me, have I not lost one_. Remember me thus, you that stay in this Kingdome of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, where ambition on one side, and a necessary defence from unjust persecution on the other side hath drawn many swords; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his Kingdome, to which, _though we must sail through a sea, it is the sea of his blood_, where no soul suffers shipwrack; though we must be blown with strange winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it is the Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow away all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; where we shall be all Souldiers of one army, the Lord of Hostes, and Children of one Quire, the God of Harmony and consent: where all Clients shall retain but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, nor present him any other fee but his own blood, and yet every Client have a Judgment on his side, not only in a not guilty, in the remission of his sins, but in a _Venite benedicti_, in being called to the participation of an immortal Crown of glory: where there shall be no difference in affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree as fully and perfectly in our _Allelujah_, and _gloria in excelsis_, as God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost agreed in the _faciamus hominem_ at first; where we shall end, and yet begin but then; where we shall have continuall rest, and yet never grow lazie; where we shall be stronger to resist, and yet have no enemy; where we shall live and never die, where we shall meet and never part.' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 280.

l. 28. _Fame, Wit, Hopes, &c._ Compare: 'How ill husbands then of this dignity are we by _sinne_, to forfeit it by submitting our selves to inferior things? either to _gold_, then which every worme, (because a worme hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature more estimable, and more precious; Or, to that which is lesse than gold, to Beauty; for there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that; (the Father cannot diet himselfe so, nor the mother so, as to be sure of a faire child) but it is a thing that hapned by chance, wheresoever it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty. To that which is lesse then _gold_ or _Beauty_, _voice_, _opinion_, _fame_, _honour_, we sell our selves.' _Sermons_ 50. 38. 352.

PAGE =354=. THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMY.

Immanuel Tremellius was born in the Ghetto of Ferrara in 1510. His father was apparently a Jewish surgeon, a man of distinction in the Jewish community. Educated as a Jew, Tremellius became a Christian about the age of twenty, and, under the influence of the Protestant movement which was agitating Italy as well as other countries, a Calvinist. When persecution began Tremellius fled from Lucca, where he had taught Hebrew under the reformer Vermigli, to Strasburg, and thereafter his life was that of the wandering, often fugitive, scholar and reformer. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and held the Professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge until 1553. The accession of Mary drove him back to the Continent, and he was tutor to the children of the Duke of Zweibrüchen from 1554 to 1558, and rector of the Gymnasium at Hornbach from 1558 to 1560. The Duke became a Lutheran, and Tremellius was exiled, but found after a year or two a haven in the University of Heidelberg, where Duke Frederick III had rallied to the Calvinist cause. Tremellius was Professor of Theology here from 1562-77, and it was here that he issued most of his works. He had already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended for his Jewish brethren. The works issued at Heidelberg include a Chaldaic and Syriac Grammar, an edition of the Peschito (an old Syrian version of the New Testament), and the Latin translation of the Old Testament which Donne utilized for his paraphrase. In this work he was assisted by his son-in-law Francis Junius (father of the Anglo-Saxon and Antiquarian scholar), a native of Bourges, who had served as a field-preacher under William the Silent. Junius was responsible only for the Apocrypha, so that Donne rightly mentions Tremellius alone. The work was published at Frankfort in 1575-9; in London in 1580, 1581, and 1585; at Geneva in 1590 and 1617. In the Genevan editions it was coupled with Beza's translation of the New Testament. The whole was re-issued at Hanover as late as 1715.

Duke Frederick III's successor was a Lutheran, and Tremellius was driven into exile once more in 1577. His last years were spent as teacher in the Academy instituted by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, in Sedan. Here he died in 1580.

I have compared Donne's version throughout with both Tremellius' translation and the Vulgate, and wherever the collation helps to fix the text I have quoted their readings in the textual notes. I add here one or two more quotations from the originals. Tremellius' version was accompanied, it must be remembered, with an elaborate commentary.

PAGE =356=, l. 58. _accite_, the reading of _B_, _O'F_ as well as _1635-69_, I have not yet found elsewhere in Donne's works, but doubtless it occurs. Shakespeare uses it once:

He by the Senate is accited home
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.
_Tit. Andr._ I. i. 27-8.

ll. 75-6. _for they sought for meat
Which should refresh their soules, they could not get_.

Chambers has printed this poem from _1639_, noting occasionally the readings of _1635_ and _1650_, but ignoring consistently those of _1633_. Here _1633_ has the support of _N_, _TCD_; _B_ reads 'they none could get'; and _O'F_, if I may trust my collation, agrees with _1635-69;_ Grolier follows _1633_ but conjectures 'the sought-for meat'. This is unnecessary. It is quite in Donne's style to close with an abrupt 'they could not get'. Modern punctuation would change the comma to a semicolon. The version of Tremellius runs: 'Expirarunt quum quaererent escam sibi, qua reficerent se ipsos.' The Vulgate, 'consumpti sunt, quia quaesierunt cibum sibi ut refocillarent animum.'

PAGE =357=, l. 81. _Of all which heare I mourne_: i.e. 'which hear that I mourn.' The construction is harsh, and I was tempted for a moment to adopt the 'me' of _N_, but Donne is translating Tremellius, and 'me in gemitu esse' is not quite the same thing as 'me gementem'. Grosart and Chambers and the Grolier Club editor would not have followed _1639_ in changing 'heare' to 'here' had they consulted the original poem which Donne is paraphrasing in any version. The Vulgate runs: 'Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, et non est qui consoletur me.'

PAGE =359=, l. 161. _poure, for thy sinnes_. The 'poure out thy sinnes' of _1635-69_ which Grosart and Chambers follow is obviously wrong. The words 'for thy sinnes' have no counterpart in the Latin of Tremellius or the Vulgate. The latter runs: 'Effunde sicut aquam cor tuum ante conspectum Domini.'

PAGE =360=, ll. 182-3. _hath girt mee in
With hemlocke, and with labour_.

Cingit cicuta et molestia, _Tremellius_: circumdedit me felle et labore, _Vulgate_. Donne combines the two versions. He is fond of using 'hemlock' as the typical poison: and he tells Wotton in one of his letters that to him labour or business is the worst of evils: 'I professe that I hate businesse so much, as I am sometimes glad to remember, that the _Roman Church_ reads that verse _A negotio perambulante in tenebris_, which we reade from the pestilence walking by night, so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve avoiding.' _Letters_, p. 142. To Goodyere in like manner he writes, 'we who have been accustomed to one another are like in this, that we love not businesse.' _Letters_, p. 94.

PAGE =361=, l. 193. _the children of his quiver_. Donne found this phrase in the Vulgate or in the margin of Tremellius. In the text of the latter the verse runs, 'Immitit in renes meos tela pharetrae suae.' The marginal note says, '_Heb._ filios, id est, prodeuntes a pharetra.' The Vulgate reads, 'filias pharetrae suae.'

l. 197. _drunke with wormewood_: 'inebriavit me absinthio, _Tremellius and Vulgate_.

PAGE =362=, ll. 226-30. I have changed the full stop in l. 229, 'him', to a comma, for all these clauses are objective to 'the Lord allowes not this'. The construction is modelled on the original: 'Non enim affligit ex animo suo, moestitiaque afficit filios viri. 34. Conterere sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae, 35. Detorquere ius viri coram facie superioris, 36. Pervertere hominem in causa sua, Dominus non probat.' The version of the Vulgate is similar: '33. Non enim humiliavit ex corde suo, et abiecit filios hominum, 34. Ut contereret sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae; 35. Ut declinaret iudicium viri in conspectu vultus Altissimi; 36. Ut perverteret hominem in iudicio suo; Dominus ignoravit.'

PAGE =364=, l. 299. _their bone_. The reading of the editions is probably right: 'Concreta est cutis eorum cum osse ipsorum,' _Tremellius_.

l. 302. _better through pierc'd then through penury_. I have no doubt that the 'through penury' of the 1635-69 editions and the MSS. is what Donne wrote. The 1633 editor changed it to 'by penury'. Donne is echoing the parallelism of 'confossi gladio quam confossi fame'. The Vulgate has simply 'Melius fuit occisio gladio quam interfectio fame'.

PAGE =366=, l. 337. _The annointed Lord, &c._ Chambers, to judge from his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to God,--'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi, neque conditiones sibi imperatas.' 'The anointed of the Lord' is the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus.' Donne took this verse as the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king; others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and bad Kings ... are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was their case _prophetically_.' _Sermons_ 50. 43. 402.

l. 355. _wee drunke, and pay_: 'pecunia bibimus' _Tremellius and Vulgate_: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized Version reads 'we have drunken'.

PAGE =367=, l. 374. _children fall_. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et pueri ad ligna corruunt,' _Tremellius_; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,' _Vulgate_. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite differently.

PAGE =368=. HYMN TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.

The date which Walton gives for this poem, March 23, 1630, is of course March 23, 1631, i.e. eight days before the writer's death. Donne's tense and torturing will never relaxed its hold before the final moment: Being speechlesse, he did (as Saint Stephen) look steadfastly towards heaven, till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father; And being satisfied with this blessed sight, (as his soule ascended, and his last breath departed from him) he closed his owne eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture, as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him.' _Walton_ (1670).

Donne's monument had been designed by himself and shows him thus shrouded. The epitaph too is his own composition and is the natural supplement to this hymn:

JOHANNES DONNE
SAC. THEOL. PROFESS.
POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNIS
TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER
INCVBVIT;
INSTINCTV ET IMPVLSV SP. SANCTI, MONITV
ET HORTATV
REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXVS
ANNO SVI JESV MDCXIV. ET SVÆ ÆTATIS XLII
DECANATV HVJVS ECCLESIÆ INDVTVS
XXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI.
EXVTVS MORTE VLTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI.
HIC LICET IN OCCIDVO CINERE ASPICIT EVM
CVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.

The reference in the last line of the epitaph, and the figure of the map with which he plays in the second and third stanzas of the _Hymne_ are both illustrated by a passage in a sermon on Psalm vi. 8-10: 'In a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West East, though they be distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon a round body, and then West and East are all one. In a flat soule, in a dejected conscience, in a troubled spirit, there goes no more to the making of that trouble, peace, then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits, to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and conforme thee to him, and thy West is East, thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit. The name of Christ is _Oriens_, _The East_; And yet Lucifer himself is called _Filius Orientis_, _The Son of the East_. If thou beest fallen by _Lucifer_, fallen to _Lucifer_, and not fallen as _Lucifer_, to a senselessnesse of thy fall, and an impenitiblenesse therein, but to a troubled spirit, still thy prospect is the East, still thy Climate is heaven, still thy Haven is Jerusalem; for, in our lowest dejection of all, even in the dust of the grave, we are so composed, so layed down, as that we look to the East: If I could beleeve that _Trajan_, or _Tecla_, could look Eastward, that is, towards Christ, in Hell, I could beleeve with them of Rome, that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell.' _Sermons_ 80. 55. 558.

For 'the name of Christ is Oriens'. Donne refers in the margin to _Zachariae_ vi. 12: 'Et loqueris ad eum dicens: Haec ait Dominus exercituum, dicens: ECCE VIR ORIENS NOMEN EJUS; et subter eum orietur, et aedificabit templum Domino.' In the English versions, Genevan and Authorized, the words run 'whose name is the Branch', but to Donne the Vulgate was the form in which he knew the Scriptures most intimately. At the same time he consulted and refers to the English versions frequently: 'that which we call the _Bishops Bible_, nor that which we call the _Geneva Bible_, and that which we may call the _Kings_.' _Sermons_ 80. 50. 506.

The difference between the two versions is due, I understand, to the fact that the Hebrew participle 'rising' and the Hebrew word for 'branch' contain the same consonants. In unpointed Hebrew it was, therefore, possible to confound them. The Septuagint version is [Greek: Anatolê onoma autou].

In describing the preparations for making Donne's tomb Walton says: 'Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside, as might show his lean, pale, and deathlike face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus.' Walton says that he stood, but Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the drapery by its folds reveals that it was modelled from a recumbent figure. Gosse, _Life, &c_., ii. 288.

ll. 18-20. _Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,
All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them._

Grosart and Chambers have boggled unnecessarily at these lines. The former inserts an unnecessary and unmetrical 'are' after 'Gibraltare'. The latter interpolates a mark of interrogation after 'Gibraltare', putting 'Anyan, and Magellan and Gibraltare' on a level with the Pacific, the 'eastern riches' and Jerusalem, i.e. _six_ possible homes instead of _three_. What the poet says is simply, 'Be my home in the Pacific, or in the rich east, or in Jerusalem, to each I must sail through a strait, viz. Anyan (i.e. Behring Strait) if I go west by the North-West passage, or Magellan, or Gibraltar. These, all of which are straits, are ways to them, and none but straits are ways to them.' A condensed construction makes 'are ways to them' predicate to two subjects. For 'the straight of Anian' see Hakluyt's _Principal Navigations_, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1904, esp. the map at p. 256, which shows very distinctly how the 'Straight of Anian' was conceived to separate America from 'Cathaia in Asia' and to lead right on to Japan and the 'Ilandes of Moluccae', 'the eastern riches.' The _Mare Pacificum_ lies further to the south and east, entered by the 'Straight of Magellanes' between Peru and the 'Terra del Fuego', which latter is not an island but part of the great 'Terra Australis'. Thus 'none but straights' lead to the 'eastern riches' or the Pacific. 'Outre ce que les navigations des modernes ont des-jà presque descouvert que ce n'est point une isle, ains terre ferme et continente avec l'Inde orientale d'un costé, et avec les terres qui sont soubs les deux poles d'autre part; ou, si elle en est separée, que c'est d'un si petit destroit et intervalle, qu'elle ne merite pas d'estre nommé isle pour cela.' Montaigne, _Essais_, i. 31: _Des Cannibales_.

The conceit about the 'straits' Donne had already used: 'a narrower way but to a better Land; thorow Straits; 'tis true; but to the _Pacifique_ Sea, The consideration of the treasure of the Godly Man in this World, and God's treasure towards him, both in this, and the next.' _Sermons_ 26. 5. 71.

'Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the Moluccaes, or to China, then by the Promontory of _Good Hope_? Yet another way opened itself to _Magellan_; a Straite; it is true; but yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a North-East, and a North-West way thither, besides?' _Sermons_ 80. 24. 241.

Nevertheless by the time Donne wrote his hymn the sea to the south of Terra del Fuego had recently been discovered. He is using the language of a slightly earlier date, of his own youth, when travels and far countries were much in his imagination. In 1617 George, Lord Carew, writing to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul, says: 'The Hollanders have discovered to the southward of the Strayghts of Magellen an open sea and free passage to the south sea.' _Letters of George, Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe_, Camden Society, 1860. For the 'Straight of Anyan' compare also:

This makes the foisting traveller to sweare,
And face out many a lie within the yeere.
And if he have beene an howre or two aboarde
To spew a little gall: then by the Lord,
He hath beene in both th'Indias, East and West,
Talks of Guiana, China, and the rest,
The straights of Gibraltare, and Ænian
Are but hard by; no, nor the Magellane:
Mandeville, Candish, sea-experienst Drake
Came never neere him, if he truly crake.
Gilpin, _Skialetheia_, Satyre I.

For 'Ænian' in this passage Grosart conjectures 'Aegean'! I have put a semicolon for a comma in the third last line quoted. I take it and the preceding to be a quotation from the traveller's talk.

PAGE =369=. A HYMNE TO GOD THE FATHER.

The text of the 1633 edition, which is, with one trifling exception, that of the other printed editions, is followed by Walton in the first short life of Donne prefixed to the _LXXX Sermons_ (1640). Walton probably took it from one of the 1633, 1635, or 1639 editions; but he may have had a copy of the poem. The MSS. which contain the hymn have some important differences, and instead of noting these as variants or making a patchwork text I have thought it best to print the poem as given in _A18_, _N_, _O'F_, _S96_, _TCC_, _TCD_. The six MSS. represent three or perhaps two different sources if _O'F_ and _S96_ are derived from a common original--(1) _A18_, _N_, _TC_, (2) _S96_, (3) _O'F_. It is not likely, therefore, that their variants are simply editorial emendations. In some respects their text seems to me to improve on that of the printed editions.

_S96_ and _O'F_ differ from the third group in reading, at l. 5, 'I have not done.' On the other hand, _A18_ and _TC_ at l. 4 read 'do them', and at l. 15 'this sunne' (probably a misreading of 'thie'). It seems to me that the readings of l. 2 ('is'), l. 3 ('those sinnes'), l. 7 ('by which I won'), and l. 15 ('Sweare by thyself') are undoubtedly improvements, and in a text constructed on the principle adopted by Mr. Bullen in his anthologies I should adopt them. Some of the other readings, e.g. l. 18 ('I have no more'), probably belong to a first version of the poem and were altered by the poet himself. _O'F_, which was prepared in 1632, strikes out 'have' and writes 'fear' above. But in a seventeenth-century poem, circulating in MS. and transcribed in commonplace-books, who can say which emendations are due to the author, which to transcribers? Moreover, the line 'I have no more', i.e. no more to ask, emphasizes the play upon his own name which runs through the poem. 'I have no more' is equivalent to 'I am Donne'.

Walton in citing this hymn adds: 'I have the rather mentioned this Hymn for that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune and to be often sung to the Organ by the Choristers of St. Pauls Church, in his own hearing, especially at the Evening Service; and at his Customary Devotions in that place, did occasionally say to a friend, The words of this Hymne have restored me to the same thoughts of joy that possest my Soul in my sicknesse when I composed it. And, O the power of Church-music! that Harmony added to it has raised the Affections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe, that I always return from paying this publick duty of Prayer and Praise to God, with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the world.'

Walton does not tell us who composed the music he refers to, but the following setting has been preserved in Egerton MS. 2013. The composer is John Hillton (d. 1657), organist to St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. See Grove's _Dictionary of Music_.

As given here it has been corrected by Mr. Barclay Squire:

Wilt thou for-give the sinnes where I be-gunne,
w^{c}h is my sinne though it weare done be-fore,
wilt thou for-give those sinnes through w^{c}h I
runne, & doe them still, though still I doe de-plore
when thou hast done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.]

2 Wilt thou forgive y^t sinne by w^{ch} I won
Others to sinne & made my sinne their dore
Wilt thou forgive that sinne w^{ch} I did shun
A yeare or two, but wallowed in a score
When thou hast done, thou hast not done
For I have more.

3 I have a sinne of feare y^t when I 'ave spun
My last thred I shall perish one y^e shore
Sweare by thy selfe y^t att my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now & heartofore
And havinge done, thou hast done
I need noe more.

John: Hillton.

The music has been thus harmonized for four voices by Professor C. Sanford Terry:

A - - - men.]

PAGE =370=, ll. 7-8. _that sinne which I have wonne
Others to sinn? &c._

In a powerful sermon on Matthew xxi. 44, Donne enumerates this among the curses that will overwhelm the sinner: 'There shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation, and those, which others have done after his provocation.' _Sermons_ 50. 35. 319.

ELEGIES UPON THE AUTHOR.

The first and third of these _Elegies_, those by King and Hyde, were affixed, without any signature, to _Deaths Duell, or A Consolation to the Soule, against the dying Life, and living Death of the Body.... By that late learned and Reverend Divine John Donne, D^r in Divinity, and Deane of S. Pauls, London. Being his last Sermon, and called by his Maiesties houshold_ THE DOCTORS OWNE FVNERALL SERMON. _London, Printed by Thomas Harper, for Richard Redmer and Beniamin Fisher, and are to be sold at the signe of the Talbot in Alders-gate street._ 1632. The book was entered in the Stationers' Register to Beniamin Fisher and Richard Redmer on the 30th of September, 1631, and was issued with a dedicatory letter by Redmer to his sister 'M^{rs} Elizabeth Francis of Brumsted in Norff' and a note 'To the Reader' signed 'R'. Now we know from his own statement that King was Donne's executor and had been entrusted with his sermons which at King's 'restless importunity' Donne had prepared for the press. (Letter, dated 1664, prefixed to Walton's _Lives_, 1670.) The sermons and papers thus consigned to King were taken from him later at the instance apparently of Donne's son. But the presence of King's epitaph in this edition of _Deaths Duell_ seems to show that he was responsible for, or at any rate permitted, the issue of the sermon by Redmer and Fisher. The reappearance of these Elegies signed, and accompanied by a number of others, suggests in like manner that King _may_ have been the editor behind Marriot of the _Poems_ in 1633. This would help to account for the general excellence of the text of that edition, for King, a poet himself as well as an intimate friend, was better fitted to edit Donne's poems than the gentle and pious Walton, who was less in sympathy with the side of Donne which his poetry reveals.

Of Henry King (1591-1669) poet, 'florid preacher', canon of Christ Church, dean of Rochester, and in 1641 Bishop of Chichester it is unnecessary to say more here. A fresh edition of his poems by Professor Saintsbury is in preparation and will show how worthy a disciple he was of Donne as love-poet, eulogist, and religious poet. Probably the finest of his poems is _The Surrender_.

It was to King also that Redmer was indebted for the frontispiece to _Deaths Duell_, the picture of Donne in his shroud, reproduced in the first volume. 'It was given', Walton says, 'to his dearest friend and Executor D^r King, who caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white Marble, as it now stands in the Cathedral Church of St. Pauls.'

The second of the _Elegies_ in 1633 was apparently by the author of the _Religio Medici_ and must be his earliest published work, written probably just after his return from the Continent. The lines were withdrawn after the first edition.

The Edw. Hyde responsible for the third Elegy, 'On the death of Dr. Donne,' is said by Professor Norton to be Edward Hyde, D.D. (1607-59), son of Sir Lawrence Hyde of Salisbury. Educated at Westminster School and Cambridge he became a notable Royalist divine; had trouble with Parliament; and wrote various sermons and treatises (see D.N.B.). 'A Latin poem by Hyde is prefixed to Dean Duport's translation of Job into Greek verse (1637) and he contributed to the "Cambridge Poems" some verses in celebration of the birth of Princess Elizabeth.'

It would be interesting to think that the author of the lines on Donne was not the divine but his kinsman the subsequent Lord Chancellor. There is this to be said for the hypothesis, that among those who contribute to the collection of complimentary verses are some of Clarendon's most intimate friends about this time, viz. Thomas Carew, Sir Lucius Carie or Lord Falkland, and (but his elegy appears first in 1635) Sidney Godolphin. The John Vaughan also, whose MS. lines to Donne I have printed in the introduction (_Text and Canon, &c._, p. lxiv, note), is enrolled by Clarendon among his intimates at this time. If his friends, legal and literary, were thus eulogizing Donne, why should Hyde not have tried his hand too? However, we know of no other poetical effusions by the historian, and as these verses were first affixed with King's to _Deaths Duell_ it is most probable that their author was a divine.

The author of the fourth elegy, Dr. C. B. of O., is Dr. Corbet, Bishop of Oxford (1582-1635). Walton reprinted the poem in the _Lives_ (1670) as 'by Dr. Corbet ... on his Friend Dr. Donne'. We have no particulars regarding this friendship, but they were both 'wits' and their poems figure together in MS. collections. Ben Jonson was an intimate of Corbet's, who was on familiar terms with all the Jacobean wits and poets. For Corbet's life see D.N.B. His poems are in Chalmers' collection.

The Hen. Valentine of the next Elegy matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, in December, 1616, and proceeded B.A. in 1620/1, M.A. 1624. He was incorporated at Oxford in 1628, where he took the degree of D.D. in 1636. On the 8th of December, 1630, he was appointed Rector of Deptford. He was either ejected under the Commonwealth or died, for Mallory, his successor, was deprived in 1662. For this information I am indebted to the _Biographical Register of Christ's College, 1505-1905, &c., compiled by John Peile ... Master of the College_, 1910. Of works by him the British Museum Catalogue contains _Foure Sea-Sermons preached at the annual meeting of the Trinitie Companie in the Parish Church of Deptford_, London, 1635, and _Private devotions, digested into six litanies ... Seven and twentieth edition_, London, 1706. The last was first published in 1651.

Izaak Walton's _Elegie_ underwent a good deal of revision. Besides the variants which I have noted, _1635-69_ add the following lines:

Which as a free-will-offring, I here give
Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve,
I want abilities, fit to set forth
A monument great, as _Donnes_ matchlesse worth.

In 1658 and 1670, when the _Elegie_ was transferred to the enlarged _Life of Donne_, it was again revised, and opens:

Our Donne is dead: and we may sighing say,
We had that man where language chose to stay
And shew her utmost power. I would not praise
That, and his great Wit, which in our vaine dayes
Makes others proud; but as these serv'd to unlocke
That Cabinet, his mind, where such a stock
Of knowledge was repos'd, that I lament
Our just and generall cause of discontent.

But the poem in its final form is included in the many reprints of Walton's _Lives_, and it is unnecessary to note the numerous verbal variations. The most interesting is in ll. 25-6.

Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein
Lay Loves Philosophy?

Professor Norton notes that 'the name of the author of this' (the seventh) 'Elegy is given as Carie or Cary in all the early editions, by mistake for Carew'. But the spelling (common in the MSS.) simply represents the way in which the name was pronounced. Thomas Carew (1598?-1639?) was sewer-in-ordinary to King Charles in 1633, and in February 1633/4 his most elaborate work, the _Coelum Britannicum_, was performed at Whitehall, on Shrove Tuesday. It was published immediately afterwards, 1634. His collected _Poems_ were issued in 1640 and contained this _Elegie_. I note the following variants from the text of 1640 as reproduced by Arthur Vincent (_Muses Library_, 1899):

3. dare we not trust _1633_: did we not trust _1640_; 5. Churchman _1633_: lecturer _1640_; 8. thy Ashes _1633_: the ashes _1640_; 9. no voice, no tune? _1633_: nor tune, nor voice? _1640_; 17. our Will, _1633_: the will, _1640_; 44. dust _1633_: dung _1640_; rak'd _1633_: search'd _1640_; 50. stubborne language _1633_: troublesome language _1640_; 58. is purely thine _1633_: was only thine _1640_; 59. thy smallest worke _1633_: their smallest work _1640_; 63. repeale _1633_: recall _1640_; 65. Were banish'd _1633_: Was banish'd _1640_; 66. o'th'Metamorphoses _1633_: i'th'Metamorphoses _1640_;

68-9.

Till verse refin'd by thee, in this last Age,
Turne ballad rime _1633_:

Till verse, refin'd by thee in this last age,
Turn ballad-rhyme _1640_ (_Vincent_):

Surely 'in this last Age' goes with 'Turne ballad rime'; 73. awfull solemne _1633_; solemn awful _1640_; 74. faint lines _1633_: rude lines _1640_; 81. maintaine _1633_: retain _1640_; 88. our losse _1633_: the loss _1640_; 89. an Elegie, _1633_: one Elegy, _1640_;

91-2.

Though every pen should share a distinct part,
Yet art thou Theme enough to tyre all Art;
_1633_: _omit 1640_.

Some of these differences are trifling, but in several instances (3, 8, 50, 59, 66, 91-2) the 1633 text is so much better that it seems probable that the poem was printed in 1640 from an early, unrevised version. In 87. 'the' _1633_, _1640_ should be 'thee'.

Sir Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), was a young man of twenty-one when Donne died, and succeeded his father in the year in which this poem was published. He had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin. 'His first years of reason', Wood says, 'were spent in poetry and polite learning, into the first of which he made divers plausible sallies, which caused him therefore to be admired by the poets of those times, particularly by Ben Jonson ... by Edm. Waller of Beaconsfield ... and by Sir John Suckling, who afterwards brought him into his poem called _The Session of Poets_ thus,

He was of late so gone with divinity,
That he had almost forgot his poetry,
Though to say the truth (and Apollo did know it)
He might have been both his priest and his poet.'

But Falkland is best known through his friendship with Clarendon, whose account of him is classical: 'With these advantages' (of birth and fortune) 'he had one great disadvantage (which in the first entrance into the world is attended with too much prejudice) in his person and presence, which was in no degree attractive or promising. His stature was low, and smaller than most men; his motion not graceful; and his aspect so far from inviting, that it had somewhat in it of simplicity; and his voice the worst of the three, and so untuned, that instead of reconciling, it offended the ear, so that nobody would have expected music from that tongue; and sure no man was less beholden to nature for its recommendation into the world: but then no man sooner or more disappointed this general and customary prejudice: that little person and small stature was quickly found to contain a great heart, a courage so keen, and a nature so fearless, that no composition of the strongest limbs, and most harmonious and proportioned presence and strength, ever more disposed any man to the greatest enterprise; it being his greatest weakness to be too solicitous for such adventures: and that untuned voice and tongue easily discovered itself to be supplied and governed by a mind and understanding so excellent that the wit and weight of all he said carried another kind of lustre and admiration in it, and even another kind of acceptation from the persons present, than any ornament of delivery could reasonably promise itself, or is usually attended with; and his disposition and nature was so gentle and obliging, so much delighted in courtesy, kindness, and generosity, that all mankind could not but admire and love him.' _The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon_ (Oxford, 1827) i. 42-50. Coming from him, Falkland's poem is an interesting testimony to the influence of Donne's poetry, presence, and character.

Jaspar Mayne (1604-72), author of _The City Match_, was a student and graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, a poet, dramatist, and divine. He wrote complimentary verses on the Earl of Pembroke, Charles I, Queen Henrietta, Cartwright, and Ben Jonson--all, like those on Donne, very bad. He was the translator of the Epigrams ascribed to Donne and published with some of his _Paradoxes, Problemes, Essays, Characters_ in 1651.

Arthur Wilson (1595-1652), historian and dramatist, author of _The Inconstant Lady_ and _The Swisser_, had in 1633 just completed a rather belated course at Trinity College, Oxford, whither he had gone after leaving the service of the third Earl of Essex. For Wilson's _Life_ see D.N.B. and Feuillerat: _The Swisser ... avec une Introduction et des Notes_, Paris, 1904.

The 'Mr. R. B.' who wrote these lines is said by Mr. Gosse to be the voluminous versifier Richard Brathwaite (1588-1673), author of _A Strappado for the Divell_ and other works, satirical and pious. He is perhaps the most likely candidate for the initials, which are all we have to go by. At the same time it is a little surprising that a poet whose name was so well known should have concealed himself under initials, the device generally of a young man venturing among more experienced poets. If he had not been too young in 1633, I should have ventured to suggest that the author was Ralph Brideoak, who proceeded B.A. at Oxford 1634, and in 1638 contributed lines to _Jonsonus Virbius_. He was afterwards chaplain to Speaker Lenthall, and died Bishop of Chichester. In the lines on Jonson, Brideoak describes the reception of Jonson's plays with something of the vividness with which the poet here describes the reception of Donne's sermons. He also refers to Donne:

Had learned Donne, Beaumont, and Randolph, all
Surviv'd thy fate, and sung thy funeral,
Their notes had been too low: take this from me
None but thyself could write a verse for thee.

This last line echoes Donne (p. 204, l. 24). Most of Donne's eulogists were young men.

Brathwaite's wife died in 1633, and, perhaps following Donne, he for some years wrote _Anniversaries upon his Panarete_. W. C. Hazlitt suggests Brome as the author of the lines on Donne, which is not likely.

The Epitaph which follows R. B.'s poem is presumably by him also.

Endymion Porter (1587-1649) may have had a common interest with Donne in the Spanish language and literature, for the former owed his early success as an ambassador and courtier to his Spanish descent and upbringing. He owes his reputation now mainly to his patronage of art and poetry and to the songs of Herrick. For his life see D.N.B. and E. B. de Fonblanque's _Lives of the Lords Strangford_, 1877.

Daniel Darnelly, the author of the long Latin elegy added to the collection in 1635, was, according to Foster (_Alumni Oxonienses_, vol. i. 1891), the son of a Londoner, and matriculated at Oxford on Nov. 14, 1623, at the age of nineteen. He proceeded B.A. in 1627, M.A. 1629/30, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1634. He is described in Musgrave's _Obituary_ as of Trinity Hall. In 1632 he was appointed rector of Curry Mallet, Somersetshire, and of Walden St. Paul, Herts., 1634. This would bring him into closer touch with London, and probably explains his writing an elegy for the forthcoming second edition of Donne's _Poems_. He was rector of Teversham, Cambridgeshire, from 1635 to 1645, when his living was sequestered. He died on the 23rd of November, 1659.

The heading of this poem shows that it was written at the request of some one, probably King. In l. 35 _Nilusque minus strepuisset_ the reference is to the great cataract. See Macrobius, _Somn. Scip._ ii. 4.

Of Sidney Godolphin (1610-43) Clarendon says, 'There was never so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room; so large an understanding and so unrestrained a fancy in so very small a body: so that the Lord Falkland used to say merrily, that he was pleased to be found in his company, where he was the properer man; and it may be the very remarkableness of his little person made the sharpness of his wit, and the composed quickness of his judgement and understanding the more notable.' _The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, i. 51-2. He was killed at Chagford in the civil war. Professor Saintsbury has not included this poem in his collection of Godolphin's poems, _Caroline Poets_, ii. pp. 227-61.

John Chudleigh's name appears in MSS. occasionally at the end of different poems. In the second collection in the Trinity College, Dublin MS. G. 2. 21 (_TCD_ Second Collection) he is credited with the authorship of Donne's lyric _A Feaver_, but two other poems are also ascribed to him. He is the author of another in Addl. MS. 33998. f. 62 b. Who he was, I am not sure, but probably he may be identified with John Chudleigh described in 1620 (_Visitation of Devonshire_) as son and heir of George Chudley of Asheriston, or Ashton, in the county of Devon, and then aged fourteen. On the 1st of June, 1621, aged 15, he matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford. He proceeded B.A. 1623-4, being described as 'equ. aur. fil.' for his father, a member of Parliament, had been created a baronet on the 1st of August, 1622. He took his M.A. in 1626, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1629 (Foster, _Alumni Oxonienses_, i. 276). Just before taking his M.A. he was elected to represent East Looe. He died, however, before May 10, 1634, which is difficult to reconcile with his being the author of these verses in 1635, unless they were written some time before.

APPENDIX A.

LATIN POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.

Who the Dr. Andrews referred to was we do not know. Dr. Grosart identifies him with the Andrews whose poems are transcribed in _H49_, but this is purely conjectural.

The lines which I have taken out and made into a separate Epigram are printed in the old editions as the third and fourth lines of the letter. As Professor Norton pointed out, they have no connexion with it. They seem to be addressed to some one who had travelled to Paris from Frankfort, on an Embassy to the King of France, and had returned. 'The Maine passed to the Seine, into the house of the Victor, and with your return comes to Frankfort.'

If Grosart's conjecture be correct, the author of the epigram may be the Francis Andrews whose poems appear along with Donne's in _H49_, for among these are some political poems in somewhat the same vein:

Though Ister have put down the Rhene
And from his channel thrust him quite;
Though Prage again repayre her losses,
And Idol-berge doth set up crosses,
Yet we a change shall shortly feele
When English smiths work Spanish steele;
Then Tage a nymph shall send to Thames,
The Eagle then shall be in flames,
Then Rhene shall reigne, and Boeme burne,
And Neccar shall to Nectar turne.

And of Henri IV:

Henrie the greate, great both in peace and war
Whom none could teach or imitate aright,
Findes peace above, from which he here was far;
A victor without insolence or spite,
A Prince that reigned, without a Favorite.

Of course, Andrews may be only the transcriber of these poems.

PAGE =398=. TO MR. GEORGE HERBERT, &c.

Walton has described the incident of the seals: 'Not long before his death he caused to be drawn the figure of the Body of Christ, extended upon an Anchor, like those which Painters draw when they would present us with the picture of Christ crucified on the Cross; his varying no otherwise than to affix him not to a Cross, but to an Anchor (the Emblem of hope); this he caused to be drawn in little, and then many of those figures thus drawn to be ingraven very small in _Helitropian_ Stones, and set in gold, and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends, to be used as _Seals_ or _Rings_, and kept as memorials of him, and of his affection to them.'

These seals have been figured and described in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. lxxvii, p. 313 (1807); and _Notes and Queries_, 2nd Series, viii. 170, 216; 6th Series, x. 426, 473.

Herbert's epistle to Donne is given in _1650_. In Walton's _Life_ the first two and a half lines of Donne's Latin poem and the whole of the English one are given, and so with Herbert's reply. As printed in _1650_ Herbert's reply is apparently interrupted by the insertion between the eighth and ninth lines of two disconnected stanzas, which may or may not be by Herbert. The first of these ('When Love' &c.) with some variants is given in the 1658 edition of the _Life_ of Donne; but in the collected _Lives_ (1670, 1675) it is withdrawn. The second I have not found elsewhere.

Although the Crosse could not Christ here detain,
Though nail'd unto't, but he ascends again,
Nor yet thy eloquence here keep him still,
But onely while thou speak'st; This Anchor will.
Nor canst thou be content, unlesse thou to
This certain Anchor adde a Seal, and so
The Water, and the Earth both unto thee
Doe owe the symbole of their certainty.
Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure,
This holy Cable's of all storms secure.

When Love being weary made an end
Of kinde Expressions to his friend,
He writ; when's hand could write no more,
He gave the Seale, and so left o're.

How sweet a friend was he, who being griev'd
His letters were broke rudely up, believ'd
'Twas more secure in great Loves Common-weal
(Where nothing should be broke) to adde a Seal.

[Line 2: Though _1650_: When _Walton_]

[Line 10: of _1650_: from _Walton_]

In the _Life of Herbert_ Walton refers again to the seals and adds, 'At Mr. Herbert's death these verses were found wrapped up with that seal which was by the Doctor given to him.

When my dear Friend could write no more,
He gave this Seal, and, so gave ore.

When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure,
This Anchor keeps my faith, that, me secure.'

PAGE =400=, l. 22. <_Wishes_> I have ventured to change 'Works' to 'Wishes'. It corrects the metre and corresponds to the Latin.

PAGE =400=. TRANSLATED OUT OF GAZAEUS, &c.

The original runs as follows:

Tibi quod optas et quod opto, dent Divi,
(Sol optimorum in optimis Amicorum)
Vt anima semper laeta nesciat curas,
Vt vita semper viva nesciat canos,
Vt dextra semper larga nesciat sordes,
Vt bursa semper plena nesciat rugas,
Vt lingua semper vera nesciat lapsum,
Vt verba semper blanda nesciant rixas,
Vt facta semper aequa nesciant fucum,
Vt fama semper pura nesciat probrum,
Vt vota semper alta nesciant terras,
Tibi quod optas et quod opto, dent Divi.

I have taken it from:

PIA
H I L A R I A
VARIAQVE
CARMINA

ANGELINI GAZÆI
_è Societate Iesu, Atrebatis_.

[An ornament in original.]

DILINGAE

_Formis Academicis
Cum auctoritate Superiorum_.
Apud VDALRICUM REM
CIↃ. IↃC. XXIII.

The folios of this edition do not correspond to those of that which Donne seems to have used.

APPENDIX B.

POEMS WHICH HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO DONNE.

For a full discussion of the authorship of these poems see _Text and Canon of Donne's Poems_, pp. cxxix _et seq._

PAGE =401=. TO S^r NICHOLAS SMYTH.

Chambers points out that a Nicholas Smyth has a set of verses in _Coryats Crudities_, 1611.

In the _Visitation of the County of Devon_, 1620, a long genealogy is given, the closing portion of which shows who this Nicholas Smith or Smyth of Exeter (l. 15) and his father were:

Joan, d. of James Walker = Sir Geo. Smith of Exeter,
who was descended of the | Knt., ob. 1619.
Mathewes of Wales who |
were descended of Flewellyns |
and Herberts. |
+-----------------+-----------+------+-----------------------+
| | | |
Divers children Elizabeth, Sir Nicholas Smith=Dorothea, d. James,
d. without &c. of Larkbeare in of Sir Raphe &c.
issue. com. Devon, Kt. Horsey de
com. Dorsett.

Seven children of Sir Nicholas are given, including another Nicholas (aet. 14), and the whole is signed 'Nich Smith'.