Volume 1 — APPENDIX A. LATIN POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.
Reading edition
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.
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: