Volume 1 — LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONAGES. (continued 2)

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:

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

Compare also:

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.

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:—

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:

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':

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:

Here 'wrought' should be 'wrote', used, as frequently, for 'written'. In Professor Saintsbury's Patrick Carey (Caroline Poets, II.) we read:

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:

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:

ll. 19-22. As punctuated in the old editions these lines are somewhat ambiguous:

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:

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:

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,

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:

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:

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.

Grosart and the Grolier Club editor punctuate these lines so as to connect 'But one' with what precedes.

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:

Donne has used 'through-shine' already in 'A Valediction: of my name in the window':

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:

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.