Volume 1 — LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONAGES.

Of Donne's Letters the earliest are the Storms and Calme which were written in 1597. The two letters to Sir Henry Wotton, 'Sir, More then kisses' and 'Heres no more newes, then vertue', belong to 1597-8. The fresh letter here published, H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti (p. 188), was sent to Wotton in 1599. That To Mr Rowland Woodward (p. 185) was probably written about the same time, and to these years—1598 to about 1608—belong also, I am inclined to think, the group of short letters beginning with To Mr T. W. at p. 205. There are very few indications of date. In that to Mr. R. W. (pp. 209-10) an allusion is made to the disappointment of hopes in connexion with Guiana:

Grosart and Chambers refer this, and 'the Spanish businesse' below, to 1613-14. The more probable reference is to the disappointment of Raleigh's hopes, in 1596 and the years immediately following, that the Government might be persuaded to make a settlement in Guiana, both on account of its wealth and as a strategic point to be used in harassing the King of Spain. Coolly received by Burleigh, Raleigh's scheme excited considerable enthusiasm, and Chapman wrote his De Guiana: Carmen Epicum, prefixed to Lawrence Keymis's A Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596), to celebrate Raleigh's achievement and to promote his scheme. The 'Spanish businesse', i.e. businesses, which, Donne complains,

are probably the efforts in the direction of peace made by the party in the Government opposed to Essex. Guiana is referred to in the Satyres which certainly belong to these years, and in Elegie XX: Loves War, which cannot be dated so late as 1613-14. In 1598 Chamberlain writes to Carleton: 'Sir John Gilbert, with six or seven saile, one and other, is gone for Guiana, and I heare that Sir Walter Raleigh should be so deeply discontented because he thrives no better, that he is not far off from making that way himself'. Chamberlain's Letters, Camd. Soc. 1861. Compare also: 'The Queene seemede troubled to-daye; Hatton came out from her presence with ill countenance, and pulled me aside by the gyrdle and saide in a secrete waie; If you have any suite to-day praie you put it aside, The sunne doth not shine. Tis this accursede Spanish businesse; so will I not adventure her Highnesse choler, lest she should collar me also.' Sir John Harington's Nugae Antiquae, i. 176. (Note dated 1598.) All these letters are found in the Westmoreland MS. (W), whose order I have adopted, and the titles they bear—'To Mr H. W.', 'To Mr C. B.'—suggest that they belong to a period before either Wotton or Brooke was well known, at least before Wotton had been knighted. The tone throughout points to their belonging to the same time. They are full of allusions now difficult or impossible to explain. They are written to intimate friends. 'Thou' is the pronoun used throughout, whereas 'You' is the formula in the letters to noble ladies. Wotton, Christopher and Samuel Brooke, Rowland and Thomas Woodward are among the names which can be identified, and they are the names of Donne's most intimate friends in his earlier years. Probably there were answers to Donne's letters. He refers to poems which have called forth his poems. One of these has been preserved in the Westmoreland MS., though we cannot tell who wrote it. A Bodleian MS. contains another verse letter written to Donne in the same style as these letters, a little crabbed and enigmatical, and it is addressed to him as Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. This whole correspondence, then, I should be inclined to date from 1597 to about 1607-8. The last is probably the date of the letter To E. of D. or To L. of D. (so in W), beginning:

This I have transferred to the Divine Poems, and shall give reasons later for ascribing it to about this year, and for questioning the identification of its recipient with Viscount Doncaster, later Earl of Carlisle.

Of the remaining Letters some date themselves pretty definitely. Donne formed the acquaintance of Lady Bedford about 1607-8 when she came to Twickenham, and the two letters to her—'Reason is our Soules left hand' (p. 189) and 'You have refin'd mee' (p. 191)—probably belong to the early years of their friendship. The second suggests that the poet is himself at Mitcham. The long, difficult letter, 'T'have written then' (p. 195), belongs probably to some year following 1609. There is an allusion to Virginia, in which there was a quickening of interest in 1609 (see Elegie XIV, Note), and the 'two new starres' sent 'lately to the firmament' may be Lady Markham (died May 4, 1609) and Mris Boulstred (died Aug. 4, 1609). This is Chambers's conjecture; but Norton identifies them with Prince Henry (died Nov. 6, 1612) and the Countess's brother, Lord Harington, who died early in 1614. Public characters like these are more fittingly described as stars, so that the poem probably belongs to 1614, to which year certainly belongs the letter To the Countesse of Salisbury (p. 224). What New Year called forth the letter to Lady Bedford, beginning 'This twilight of two years' (p. 198), we do not know, nor the date of the long letter in triplets, 'Honour is so sublime perfection' (p. 218). But the latter was most probably written from France in 1611-12, like the fragmentary letter which follows, and the letter, similar in verse and in 'metaphysics', To the Lady Carey and Mrs Essex Riche (p. 221). Donne had a little shocked his noble lady friends by the extravagance of his adulation of the dead child Mrs. Elizabeth Drury, in 1611, and these letters are written to make his peace and to show the pitch he is capable of soaring to in praise of their maturer virtues.

To Sir Henry Wotton (p. 214), Donne wrote in a somewhat more elevated and respectful strain than that of his earlier letters, when the former set out on his embassy to Venice in 1604. The letter to Sir Henry Goodyere (p. 183) belongs to the Mitcham days, 1605-8. To Sir Edward Herbert (p. 193) he wrote 'at Julyers', therefore in 1610. The letter To the Countesse of Huntingdon (p. 201) was probably written just before Donne took orders, 1614-15. The date of the letter To Mris M. H. (p. 216), that is, to Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, not yet Lady Danvers, must have been earlier than her second marriage in 1608—the exact day of that marriage I do not know—probably in 1604, as the verse, style and tone closely resemble that of the letter to Wotton of that year. This suits the tenor of the letter, which implies that she had not yet married Sir John Danvers.

The last in the collection of the letters to Lady Bedford, 'You that are she and you' (p. 227), seems from its position in 1633 and several MSS. to have been sent to her with the elegy called Death, and to have been evoked by the death of Lady Markham or Mrs. Boulstred in 1609.

The majority of the letters thus belong to the years 1596-7 to 1607-8, the remainder to the next six years. With the Funerall Elegies and the earlier of the Divine Poems they represent the middle and on the whole least attractive period of Donne's life and work. The Songs and Sonets and Elegies are the expression of his brilliant and stormy youth, the Holy Sonnets and the hymns are the utterance of his ascetic and penitent last years. In the interval between the two, the wit, the courtier, the man of the world, and the divine jostle each other in Donne's works in a way that is not a little disconcerting to readers of an age and temper less habituated to strong contrasts.

Page 175. The Storme.

After the Cadiz expedition in 1596, the King of Spain began the preparation of a second Armada. With a view to destroying this Elizabeth fitted out a large fleet under the command of Essex, Howard, and Raleigh. The storm described in Donne's letter so damaged the fleet that the larger purpose was abandoned and a smaller expedition, after visiting the Spanish coast, proceeded to the Azores, with a view to intercepting the silver fleet returning from America. Owing to dissensions between Raleigh and Essex, it failed of its purpose. This was the famous 'Islands Expedition'.

The description of the departure and the storm which followed was probably written in Plymouth, whither the ships had to put back, and whence they sailed again about a month later; therefore in July-August, 1597. 'We imbarked our Army, and set sayle about the ninth of July, and for two dayes space were accompanied with a faire leading North-easterly wind.' (Mildly it kist our sailes, &c.)...... 'Wee now being in this faire course, some sixtie leagues onwards our journey with our whole Fleet together, there suddenly arose a fierce and tempestuous storme full in our teethe, continuing for foure dayes with so great violence, as that now everyone was inforced rather to looke to his own safetie, and with a low saile to serve the Seas, then to beate it up against the stormy windes to keep together, or to follow the directions for the places of meeting.' A larger Relation of the said Iland Voyage written by Sir Arthur Gorges, &c. Purchas his Pilgrimes. Glasg. mcmvii. While at Plymouth Donne wrote a prose letter, to whom is not clear, preserved in the Burley Commonplace Book. There he speaks of 'so very bad wether y^t even some of y^e mariners have been drawen to think it were not altogether amiss to pray, and myself heard one of them say, God help us'.

To Mr. Christopher Brooke. Donne's intimate friend and chamber-fellow at Lincoln's Inn. He was Donne's chief abetter in his secret marriage, his younger brother Samuel performing the ceremony. They were the sons of Robert Brooke, Alderman of and once M.P. for York, and his wife Jane Maltby. The Alderman had other sons who followed in his footsteps and figure among the Freemen of York, but Christopher and Samuel earned a wider reputation. At Lincoln's Inn, Christopher wrote verses and cultivated the society of the wits. Wood mentions as his friends and admirers Selden and Jonson, Drayton and Browne, Wither and Davies of Hereford. Browne sings his praises in the second song of the second book of Britannia's Pastorals, and in The Shepherds Pipe (1614) urges him to sing a higher strain. His poems, which have been collected and edited by the late Dr. Grosart, include an Elegy on Prince Henry, and a long poem of no merit, The Ghost of Richard the Third (Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library, vol. iv, 1872). In 1614 he became a bencher and Summer Reader at Lincoln's Inn. He died February 7, 162⅞.

l. 4. By Hilliard drawne. Nicholas Hilliard (1537-1619), the first English miniature painter. He was goldsmith, carver, and limner to Queen Elizabeth, and engraved her second great seal in 1586. He drew a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, at eighteen, and executed miniatures of many contemporaries. He also wrote a treatise on miniature painting. Mr. Laurence Binyon thinks it is quite possible that the miniature from which Marshall, about 1635, engraved the portrait of Donne as a young man, was by Hilliard. It is, he says, quite in his style.

l. 13. From out her pregnant intrailes. The ancients attributed winds to the effect of exhalations from the earth. Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, v. 4, discusses various causes but mentions this first: 'Sometimes the earth herself emits a great quantity of air, which she breathes out of her hidden recesses ... A suggestion has been made which I cannot make up my mind to believe, and yet I cannot pass over without mention. In our bodies food produces flatulence, the emission of which causes great offence to ones nasal susceptibilities; sometimes a report accompanies the relief of the stomach, sometimes there is more polite smothering of it. In like manner it is supposed the great frame of things when assimilating its nourishment emits air. It is a lucky thing for us that nature's digestion is good, else we might apprehend some less agreeable consequences.' (Q. N. translated by John Clarke, with notes by Sir Archibald Geikie, 1910.) These exhalations, according to one view, mounting up were driven back by the violence of the stars, or by inability to pass the frozen middle region of the air—hence commotions. (Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 38, 45, 47, 48.) This explains Donne's 'middle marble room', where 'marble' may mean 'hard', or possibly 'blue' referring to the colour of the heavens. It is so used by Studley in his translations of Seneca's tragedies: 'Whereas the marble sea doth fleete,' Hipp. i. 25; 'When marble skies no filthy fog doth dim,' Herc. Oet. ii. 8; 'The monstrous hags of marble seas' (monstra caerulei maris), Hipp. v. 5, I owe this suggestion to Miss Evelyn Spearing (The Elizabethan 'Tenne Tragedies of Seneca'. Mod. Lang. Review, iv. 4). But the peripatetic view was that the heavens were made of hard, solid, though transparent, concentric spheres: 'Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven and ayre; but to say truth, with some small modifications, they' (i.e. Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman) 'have one and the self same opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a quinta essentia, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre itself is, and that the planets move in it', (according to the older view each was fixed in its sphere) 'as birds in the ayre, fishes in the sea.' Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, part ii, sect. 2, Men. 3.

'Wind', says Donne elsewhere, 'is a mixt Meteor, to the making whereof, diverse occasions concurre with exhalations.' Sermons 80. 31. 305.

The movement which Donne has in view is described by Du Bartas:

l. 18. prisoners, which lye but for fees, i.e. the fees due to the gaoler. 'And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees; so when,' &c.

Deaths Duell (1632), p. 9. Thirty-three years after this poem was written, Donne thus uses the same figure in the last sermon he ever preached.

Page 176, l. 38. I, and the Sunne. The 'Yea, and the Sunne' of Q shows that 'I' here is probably the adverb, not the pronoun, though the passage is ambiguous. Modern editors have all taken 'I' as the pronoun.

ll. 49-50.

Compare:

Page 177, l. 60. Strive. Later editions and Chambers read 'strives', but 'ordinance' was used as a plural: 'The goodly ordinance which were xii great Bombardes of brasse', and 'these six small iron ordinance.' O.E.D. The word in this sense is now spelt 'ordnance'.

l. 66. the'Bermuda. It is probably unnecessary to change this to 'the'Bermudas.' The singular without the article is quite regular.

l. 67. Darknesse, lights elder brother. The 'elder' of the MSS. is grammatically more correct than the 'eldest' of the editions. 'We must return again to our stronghold, faith, and end with this, that this beginning was, and before it, nothing. It is elder than darkness, which is elder than light; and was before confusion, which is elder than order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and distinctions.' Essays in Divinity (ed. Jessop, 1855), p. 46.

Page 178. The Calme.

l. 4. A blocke afflicts, &c. Aesop's Fables. Sir Thomas Rowe recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck.' The Embassy, &c. (Hakl. Soc.), i. 82.

l. 8. thy mistresse glasse. This poem, like the last, is probably addressed to Christopher Brooke, but it is not so headed in any edition or MS. The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to both.

l. 14. or like ended playes. This suggests that the Elizabethan stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture and decorations.

l. 16. a frippery, i.e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold', O.E.D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery.' Tempest, IV. i. 225. Here the rigging has the appearance of an old-clothes shop.

l. 17. No use of lanthornes. The reference is to the lanterns in the high sterns of the ships, used to keep the fleet together. 'There is no fear now of our losing one another.' Each squadron of a fleet followed the light of its Admiral. Essex speaks of having lost, or missing, 'Sir Walter Raleigh with thirty sailes that in the night followed his light.' Purchas, xx. 24-5.

l. 18. Feathers and dust. 'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in the world for some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not stirre, all was soe quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written all his best peeces ere he was twenty-five yeares old.' Jonson's Conversations with Drummond. When Donne wrote The Calme he was in his twenty-fifth year.

l. 21. lost friends. Raleigh and his squadron lost the main fleet while off the coast of Spain, before they set sail definitely for the Azores. He rejoined the fleet at the Islands. Donne's poem was probably written in the interval.

The reading of some MSS., 'lefte friends,' is quite a possible one. Carleton, writing from Venice to Chamberlain, says: 'Let me tell you, for your comfort (for I imagine what is mine is yours) that my last news from the left island ... took knowledge of my vigilancy and diligency.' The 'left island' is Great Britain, and Donne may mean no more than that 'we can neither get back to our friends nor on to our enemies.' There may be no allusion to Raleigh's ships.

l. 23. the Calenture. 'A disease incident to sailors within the tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said, fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it.' O.E.D. Theobald had the Calenture in mind when he conjectured that Falstaff 'babbled o' green fields'.

Page 179, l. 33. Like Bajazet encaged, &c.: an echo of Marlowe's Tamburlaine:

There are frequent references to this scene in contemporary literature.

ll. 35-6. a Miriade Of Ants, &c. 'Erat ei' (i.e. Tiberius) 'in oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus, cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis caveret.' Suetonius, Tib. 72.

l. 37. Sea-goales, i.e. sea-gaols. 'goale' was a common spelling. See next poem, l. 52, 'the worlds thy goale.' Strangely enough, neither the Grolier Club editor nor Chambers seems to have recognized the word here, in The Calme, though in the next poem they change 'goale' to 'gaol' without comment. The Grolier Club editor retains 'goales' and Chambers adopts the reading of the later editions, 'sea-gulls.' A gull would have no difficulty in overtaking the swiftest ship which ever sailed. Grosart takes the passage correctly. 'Sea-goales' is an accurate definition of the galleys.' Finny-chips' is a vivid description of their appearance. Compare:

l. 38. our Pinnaces. 'Venices' is the reading of 1633 and most of the MSS., where, as in 1669, the word is often spelt 'Vinices'. But I can find no example of the word 'Venice' used for a species of ship, and Mr. W. A. Craigie of the Oxford English Dictionary tells me that he has no example recorded. The mistake probably arose in a confusion of P and V. The word 'Pinnace' is variously spelt, 'pynice', 'pinnes', 'pinace', &c., &c. The pinnaces were the small, light-rigged, quick-sailing vessels which acted as scouts for the fleet.

l. 48. A scourge, 'gainst which wee all forget to pray. The 'forgot' of 1669 and several MSS. is tempting—'a scourge against which we all in setting out forgot to pray.' I rather think, however, that what Donne means is 'a scourge against which we all at sea always forget to pray, for to pray for wind at sea is generally to pray for cold under the poles, for heat in hell'. The 'forgot' makes the reference too definite. At the same time, 'forgot' is so obvious a reading that it is difficult to account for 'forget' except on the supposition that it is right.

Donne is here playing with an antithesis which apparently he owes to the rhetoric of Tertullian. 'Canst thou choose', says the poet in one of his later sermons, 'but think God as perfect now, at least as he was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up againe of nothing, as he made thee of nothing at first? Recogita quid fueris antequam esses. Think over thyselfe; what wast thou before thou wast anything? Meminisses utique, si fuisses: if thou had'st been anything than, surely thou would'st remember it now. Qui non eras, factus es; cum iterum non eris, fies. Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this that thou art now; and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be made better then thou art yet.' Sermons 50. 14. 109. A note in the margin indicates that the quotations are from Tertullian, and Donne is echoing here the antithetical Recogita quid fueris antequam esses.

This echo is certainly made more obvious to the ear by the punctuation of 1669, which Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers all follow. The last reads:

This may be right; but after careful consideration I have retained the punctuation of 1633. In the first place, if the 1669 text be right it is not clear why the poet did not preserve the regular order:

To place 'he was' at the end of the line was in the circumstances to court ambiguity, and is not metrically requisite. In the second place, the rhetorical question asked requires an answer, and that is given most clearly by the punctuation of 1633. 'How little more, alas, is man now than [he was] before he was? He was nothing; and as for us, we are fit for nothing. Chance or ourselves still throw us out of gear with everything.' To be nothing and to be fit for nothing—there is all the difference. In the 1669 version it is not easy to see the relevance of the rhetorical question and of the line which follows: 'Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit.' This seems to introduce a new thought, a fresh antithesis. It is not quite true. A breeze would fit them very well.

The use of 'for' in 'for us', as I have taken it, is quite idiomatic:

Page 180. To S^r Henry Wotton.

The occasion of this letter was apparently (see my article, Bacon's Poem, The World: Its Date And Relation to Certain Other Poems: Mod. Lang. Rev., April, 1911) a literary débat among some of the wits of Essex's circle. The subject of the débat was 'Which kind of life is best, that of Court, Country, or City?' and the suggestion came from the two epigrams in the Greek Anthology attributed to Posidippus and Metrodorus respectively. In the first (Ποίην τις βιότοιο τάμῃ τρίβον;) each kind of life in turn is condemned; in the second each is defended. These epigrams were paraphrased in Tottel's Miscellany (1557) by Nicholas Grimald, and again in the Arte of English Poesie (1589), attributed to George Puttenham. Stimulated perhaps by the latter version, in which the Court first appears as one of the principal spheres of life, or by Ronsard's French version in which also the 'cours des Roys', unknown to the Greek poet, are introduced, Bacon wrote his well-known paraphrase:

It is just possible too that he wrote a paraphrase, similar in verse, of the second epigram, which I have printed in the article referred to. A copy of The World was found among Wotton's papers and was printed in the Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651) signed 'Fra. Lord Bacon'. It had already been published by Thomas Farnaby in his Florilegium Epigrammatum Graecorum &c. (1629). Bacon probably gave Wotton a copy and he appears to have shown it to his friends. Among these was Thomas Bastard, who, to judge by the numerous epigrams he addressed to Essex, belonged to the same circle as Bacon, Donne, and Wotton,—if we may so describe it, but probably every young man of letters looked to Essex for patronage. Bastard's poem runs:

Ad Henricum Wottonum.

Donne was one of those to whom Wotton showed Bacon's poem, and the result was the present letter which occasionally echoes Bacon's words. Wotton replied to it in some characteristic verses preserved in B (Lord Ellesmere's MS.) and P (belonging to Captain Harris). I print it from the former:

To J: D: from M^r H: W:

The date of the débat is before April 1598, when Bastard's Chrestoleros was entered on the Stationers' Register, probably 1597-8, the interval between the return of the Islands Expedition and Donne's entry into the household of Sir Thomas Egerton. Mr. Chambers has shown that during this interval Donne was occasionally employed by Cecil to carry letters to and from the Commanders of the English forces still in France. But it was not till about April 1598 that he found permanent employment.

l. 8. Remoraes; Browne doubts 'whether the story of the remora be not unreasonably amplified'. The name is given to any of the fish belonging to the family Echeneididae, which by means of a suctorial disk situated on the top of the head adhere to sharks, other large fishes, vessels, &c., letting go when they choose. The ancient naturalists reported that they could arrest a ship in full course. See Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Lib. xiii, De Aqua et ejus Ornatu.

l. 11. the even line is the reading of all the MS. copies, and must have been taken from one of these by the 1669 editor. The use of the word is archaic and therefore more probably Donne's than an editor's emendation. Compare Chaucer's 'Of his stature he was of even length', i.e. 'a just mean between extremes, of proper magnitude or degree'. The 'even line' is, as the context shows, the exact mean between the 'adverse icy poles'. I suspect that 'raging' is an editorial emendation. There are several demonstrable errors in the 1633 text of this poem. The 'other' of P, and 'over' of S, are errors which point to 'even' rather than 'raging'.

l. 12. th'adverse icy poles. The 'poles' of most MSS. is obviously necessary if we are to have two temperate regions. The expression is a condensed one for 'either of the adverse icy poles'. Compare:

One cannot be under both the poles at once. One is 'under' the pole in Donne's cosmology because the poles are not the termini of the earth's axis but of the heavens'. 'For the North and Southern Pole, are the invariable terms of that Axis whereon the Heavens do move.' Browne, Pseud. Epidem. vi. 7.

l. 17. Can dung and garlike, &c. This is the text of the 1633 edition made consistent with itself, and it has the support of several MSS. Clearly if we are to read 'or' in one line we must do so in both, and adopt the 1635-69 text. It is tempting at first sight to do so, but I believe the MSS. are right. What Donne means is, 'Can we procure a perfume, or a medicine, by blending opposite stenches or poisons?' This is his expansion of the question, 'Shall cities, built of both extremes, be chosen?' The change to 'or' obscures the exact metaphysical point. It would be an improvement perhaps to bracket the lines as parenthetical.

According to Donne's medical science the scorpion (probably its flesh) was an antidote to its own poison: 'I have as many Antidotes as the Devill hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice; There must be scorpions in the world; but the Scorpion shall cure the Scorpion; there must be tentations; but tentations shall adde to mine and to thy glory, and Eripiam, I will deliver thee.' Sermons 80. 52. 527. Obviously Donne could not ask in surprise, 'Can a Scorpion or Torpedo cure a man?' Each can; it is their combination he deprecates. In Ignatius his Conclave he writes, 'and two Poysons mingled might do no harme.'

In speaking of scent made from dung Donne has probably the statement of Paracelsus in his mind to which Sir Thomas Browne also refers: 'And yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous Essences; all that had not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear, here was a subject fit for such extractions.' Pseudodoxia Epidemica, iii. 26.

This is the punctuation of 1633 and of D, H49, Lec, and W. The later punctuation which Chambers has adopted and modernized, is not found to be an improvement if scrutinized. He reads:

The mark of interrogation after 'three' would be justifiable only if the poet were going to expatiate upon the badness of cities. 'Of all three? that is saying very little, &c., &c.' But this is not the tenor of the passage. From one thought he is led to another. 'Cities are worst of all three (i.e. Court, City, Country). Nay, each is equally the worst.' The interjected 'O knottie riddle' does not mean, 'Who is to say which is the worst?' but 'How can it come that each is worst? This is a riddle!' Donne here echoes Bacon:

ll. 25-6. The country is a desert, &c. The evidence for this reading is so overwhelming that it is impossible to reject it. I have modified the punctuation to bring out more clearly what I take it to mean. 'The country is a desert where no goodness is native, and therefore rightly understood. Goodness in the country is like a foreign language, a faculty not born with us, but acquired with pain, and never thoroughly understood and mastered.' Only Dr. Johnson could stigmatize in adequate terms so harsh a construction, but the 1635-54 emendation is not less obscure. Does it mean that any good which comes there quits it with all speed, while that which is native and must stay is not understood? This is not a lucid or just enough thought to warrant departure from the better authorized text.

l. 27. prone to more evills; The reading 'mere evils' of several MSS., including D, H49, Lec, is tempting and may be right. In that case 'meere' has the now obsolete meaning of 'pure, unadulterated', 'meere English', 'meere Irish', &c. in O.E.D., or more fully, 'absolute, entire, sheer, perfect, downright', as in 'Th'obstinacie, willfull disobedience, meere lienge and disceite of the countrie gentlemen,' Hist. MSS. Com. (1600), quoted in O.E.D.; 'the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,' Shakespeare, Othello, II. ii. 3. Such a strong adjective would however come better after 'devills' in the next line. Placed here it disturbs the climax. What Donne says here is that men in the country become beasts, and more prone to evil than beasts because of their higher faculties:

And in this same letter, ll. 41-2, he develops the thought further.

Page 182, ll. 59-62. Only in this one thing, be no Galenist, &c. The Galenists perceived in the living body four humours; hot, cold, moist, and dry, and held that in health these were present in fixed proportions. Diseases were due to disturbance of these proportions, and were to be cured by correction of the disproportion by drugs, these being used as they were themselves hot, cold, moist, or dry; to add to whichever humours were defective. The chymiques or school of Paracelsus, held that each disease had an essence which might be got rid of by being purged or driven from the body by an antagonistic remedy.

Page 183. To S^r Henry Goodyere.

Goodyere and Walton form between them the Boswell to whom we owe our fullest and most intimate knowledge of the life of Donne. To the former he wrote apparently a weekly letter in the years of his residence at Pyrford, Mitcham, and London. And Goodyere preserved his letters and his poems. Of the letters published by Donne's son in 1651-4, the greatest number, as well as the most interesting and intimate, are addressed to Goodyere. Some appeared with the first edition of the poems, and it is ultimately to Goodyere that we probably owe the generally sound text of that edition.

Sir Henry Goodyere was the son of Sir William Goodyere of Monks Kirby in Warwickshire, who was knighted by James in 1603, and was the nephew of Sir Henry Goodyere (1534-95) of Polesworth in Warwickshire. The older Sir Henry had got into trouble in connexion with one of the conspiracies on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots, but redeemed his good name by excellent service in the Low Countries, where he was knighted by Leicester. He married Frances, daughter of Hugh Lowther of Lowther, Westmoreland, and left two daughters, Frances and Anne. The latter, who succeeded the Countess of Bedford as patroness to the poet Michael Drayton and as the 'Idea' of his sonnets, married Sir Henry Raynsford. The former married her cousin, the son of Sir William, and made him proprietor of Polesworth, to which repeated allusion is made in Donne's Letters. He was knighted, in 1599, in Dublin, by Essex. He is addressed as a knight by Donne in 1601, and appears as such in the earliest years of King James. (See Nichol's Progresses of King James.)

He was a friend of wits and poets and himself wrote occasional verses in rivalry with his friends. Like Donne he wrote satirical congratulatory verses for Coryats Crudities (1611) and an elegy on Prince Henry for the second edition of Sylvester's Lachrymae Lachrymarum (1613), and there are others in MS., including an Epithalamium on Princess Elizabeth.

The estate which Goodyere inherited was apparently encumbered, and he was himself generous and extravagant. He was involved all his life in money troubles and frequently petitioned for relief and appointments. It was to him probably that Donne made a present of one hundred pounds when his own fortunes had bettered. The date of the present letter was between 1605 and 1608, when Donne was living at Mitcham. These were the years in which Goodyere was a courtier. In 1604-5 £120 was stolen from his chamber 'at Court', and in 1605 he participated in the jousting at the Barriers. Life at the dissolute and glittering Court of James I was ruinously extravagant, and the note of warning in Donne's poem is very audible. Sir Henry Goodyere died in March 1627-8.

Additional MS. 23229 (A23) contains the following:

Camden transcribes his epitaph:

The Epitaph is probably by the same author as the Verses, a nephew perhaps. Sir Henry's son predeceased him.

Page 183, l. 1. It is not necessary to change 'the past' of 1633-54 to 'last' with 1669. 'The past year' is good English for 'last year'.

Page 184, l. 27. Goe; whither? Hence; &c. My punctuation, which is that of some MSS., follows Donne's usual arrangement in dialogue, dividing the speeches by semicolons. Chambers's textual note misrepresents the earlier editions. He attributes to 1633-54 the reading, 'Go whither? hence you get'. But they have all 'Goe, whither?', and 1633 has 'hence;' 1635-54 drop this semicolon. In 1669 the text runs, 'Goe, whither. Hence you get,' &c. The semicolon, however, is better than the full stop after 'Hence', as the following clause is expansive and explanatory: 'Anywhere will do so long as it is out of this. In such cases as yours, to forget is itself a gain.'

l. 34. The modern editors, by dropping the comma after 'asham'd', have given this line the opposite meaning to what Donne intended. I have therefore, to avoid ambiguity, inserted one before. Sir Henry Goodyere is not to be asham'd to imitate his hawk, but is, through shame, to emulate that noble bird by growing more sparing of extravagant display. 'But the sporte which for that daie Basilius would principally shewe to Zelmane, was the mounting at a Hearne, which getting up on his wagling wings with paine ... was now growen to diminish the sight of himself, and to give example to greate persons, that the higher they be the lesse they should show.' Sidney's Arcadia, ii. 4.

Goodyere's fondness for hawking is referred to in one of Donne's prose letters, 'God send you Hawks and fortunes of a high pitch' (Letters, p. 204), and by Jonson in Epigram LXXXV.

l. 44. Tables, or fruit-trenchers. I have let the 'Tables' of 1633-54 stand, although 'Fables' has the support of all the MSS. T is easily confounded with F. In the very next poem 1633-54 read 'Termers' where I feel sure that 'Farmers' (spelt 'Fermers') is the correct reading. Moreover, Donne makes several references to the 'morals' of fables:

If 'Tables' is the correct reading, Donne means, I take it, not portable memorandum books such as Hamlet carried (this is Professor Norton's explanation), but simply pictures (as in 'Table-book'), probably Emblems.

Page 185. To M^r Rowland Woodward.

Rowland Woodward was a common friend of Donne and Wotton. The fullest account of Woodward is given by Mr. Pearsall Smith (The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 1907). Of his early life unfortunately he can tell us little or nothing. He seems to have gone to Venice with Wotton in 1604, at least he was there in 1605. This letter was, therefore, written probably before that date. One MS., viz. B, states that it was written 'to one that desired some of his papers'. It is quite likely that Woodward, preparing to leave England, had asked Donne for copies of his poems, and Donne, now a married man, and, if not disgraced, yet living in 'a retiredness' at Pyrford or Camberwell, was not altogether disposed to scatter his indiscretions abroad. He enjoins privacy in like manner on Wotton when he sends him some Paradoxes. Donne, it will be seen, makes no reference to Woodward's going abroad or being in Italy.

While with Wotton he was sent as a spy to Milan and imprisoned by the Inquisition. In 1607, while bringing home dispatches, he was attacked by robbers and left for dead. On Feb. 2, 1608, money was paid to his brother, Thomas Woodward (the T. W. of several of Donne's Letters), for Rowland's 'surgeons and diets'. In 1608 he entered the service of the Bishop of London. For subsequent incidents in his career see Pearsall Smith, op. cit. ii. 481. He died sometime before April 1636.

It is clear that the MSS. Cy, O'F, P, S96 have derived this poem from a common source, inferior to that from which the 1633 text is derived, which has the general support of the best MSS. These MSS. agree in the readings: 3 'holiness', but O'F corrects, 10 'to use it,' 13 'whites' Cy, O'F, 14 'Integritie', but O'F corrects, 33 'good treasure'. It is clear that a copy of this tradition fell into the hands of the 1635 editor. His text is a contamination of the better and the inferior versions. The strange corruption of 4-6 began by the mistake of 'flowne' for 'showne'. In O'F and the editions 1635-54 the sense is adjusted to this by reading, 'How long loves weeds', and making the two lines an exclamation. The 'good treasure' (l. 33) of 1635-69, which Chambers has adopted, comes from this source also. The reading at l. 10 is interesting; 'to use it', for 'to us, it', has obviously arisen from 'to use and love Poetrie' of the previous verse. In the case of 'seeme but light and thin' we have an emendation, even in the inferior version, made for the sake of the metre (which is why Chambers adopted it), for though Cy, O'F, and P have it, S96 reads:

l. 2. a retirednesse. This reading of some MSS., including W, which is a very good authority for these Letters, is quite possibly authentic. It is very like Donne to use the article; it was very easy for a copyist to drop it. Compare the dropping of 'a' before 'span' in Crucifying (p. 320), l. 8. The use of abstracts as common nouns with the article, or in the plural, is a feature of Donne's syntax. He does so in the next line: 'a chast fallownesse'. Again: 'Beloved, it is not enough to awake out of an ill sleepe of sinne, or of ignorance, or out of a good sleep, out of a retirednesse, and take some profession, if you winke, or hide your selves, when you are awake.' Sermons 50. 11. 90. 'It is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that adversary shall be able to doe him no harm, but that he should have a refreshing, a respiration, In velamento alarum, under the shadow of Gods wings.' Sermons 80. 66. 670—where also we find 'an extraordinary sadnesse, a predominant melancholy, a faintnesse of heart, a chearlessnesse, a joylessnesse of spirit' (Ibid. 672). Donne does not mean to say that he is 'tied to retirednesse', a recluse. The letter was not written after he was in orders, but probably, like the preceding, when he was at Pyrford or Mitcham (1602-8). He is tied to a degree of retirednesse (compared with his early life) or a period of retiredness. He does not compare himself to a Nun but to a widow. Even a third widowhood is not necessarily a final state. 'So all retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and insipid dulnesse of the Country.' Letters, p. 63. But the phrase here applies primarily to the Nun and the widow.

l. 3. fallownesse; I have changed the full stop of 1633-54 to a semicolon here because I take the next three lines to be an adverbial clause giving the reason why Donne's muse 'affects ... a chast fallownesse'. The full stop disguises this, and Chambers, by keeping the full stop here but changing that after 'sown' (l. 6), has thrown the reference of the clause forward to 'Omissions of good, ill, as ill deeds bee.'—not a happy arrangement.

ll. 16-18. There is no Vertue, &c. Donne refers here to the Cardinal Virtues which the Schoolmen took over from Aristotle. There are, Aquinas demonstrates, four essential virtues of human nature: 'Principium enim formale virtutis, de qua nunc loquimur, est rationis bonum. Quod quidem dupliciter potest considerari: uno modo secundum quod in ipsa consideratione consistit; et sic erit una virtus principalis, quae dicitur prudentia. Alio modo secundum quod circa aliquid ponitur rationis ordo; et hoc vel circa operationes, et sic est justitia; vel circa passiones, et sic necesse est esse duas virtutes. Ordinem enim rationis necesse est ponere circa passiones, considerata repugnantia ipsarum ad rationem. Quae quidem potest esse dupliciter: uno modo secundum quod passio impellit ad aliquid contrarium rationi; et sic necesse est quod passio reprimatur, et ab hoc denominatur temperantia; alio modo secundum quod passio retrahit ab eo quod ratio dictat, sicut timor periculorum vel laborum; et sic necesse est quod homo firmetur in eo quod est rationis, ne recedat; et ab hoc denominatur fortitudo.' Summa, Prima Secundae, 61. 2. Since the Cardinal Virtues thus cover the whole field, what place is reserved for the Theological Virtues, viz., Faith, Hope, and Charity? Aquinas's reply is quite definite: 'Virtutes theologicae sunt supra hominem ... Unde non proprie dicuntur virtutes humanae sed suprahumanae, vel divinae.' Ibid., 61. 1. Donne here exclaims that the cardinal virtues themselves are non-existent without religion. They are, isolated from religion, habits which any one can assume who has the discretion to cover his vices. Religion not only gives us higher virtues but alone gives sincerity to the natural virtues. Donne is probably echoing St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xviiii. 25: 'Quod non possint ibi verae esse virtutes, ubi non est vera religio. Quamlibet enim videatur animus corpori et ratio vitiis laudibiliter imperare, si Deo animus et ratio ipsa non servit, sicut sibi esse serviendum ipse Deus precepit, nullo modo corpori vitiisque recte imperat. Nam qualis corporis atque vitiorum potest esse mens domina veri Dei nescia nec eius imperio subjugata, sed vitiosissimis daemonibus corrumpentibus prostituta? Proinde virtutes quas habere sibi videtur per quas imperat corpori et vitiis, ad quodlibet adipiscendum vel tenendum rettulerit nisi ad Deum, etiam ipsae vitia sunt potius quam virtutes. Nam licet a quibusdam tunc verae atque honestae esse virtutes cum referentur ad se ipsas nec propter aliud expetuntur: etiam tunc inflatae et superbae sunt, et ideo non virtutes, sed vitia iudicanda sunt. Sicut enim non est a carne sed super carnem quod carnem facit vivere; sic non est ab homine sed super hominem quod hominem facit beate vivere: nec solum hominem, sed etiam quamlibet potestatem virtutemque caelestem.'

Page 186, ll. 25-7. You know, Physitians, &c. Paracelsus refers more than once to the heat of horse-dung used in 'separations', e.g. On the Separations of the Elements from Metals he enjoins that when the metal has been reduced to a liquid substance you must 'add to one part of this oil two parts of fresh aqua fortis, and when it is enclosed in glass of the best quality, set it in horse-dung for a month'.

l. 31. Wee are but farmers of our selves. The reading of 1633 is 'termers', and as in 'Tables' 'Fables' of the preceding poem it is not easy to determine which is original. 'Termer' of course, in the sense of 'one who holds for a term' (see O.E.D.), would do. It is the more general word and would include 'Farmer'. A farmer generally is a 'termer' in the land which he works. I think, however, that the rest of the verse shows that 'farmer' is used in a more positive sense than would be covered by 'termer'. The metaphor includes not only the terminal occupancy but the specific work of the farmer—stocking, manuring, uplaying.

Donne's metaphor is perhaps borrowed by Benlowes when he says of the soul:

Donne in a sermon for the 5th of November speaks of those who will have the King to be 'their Farmer of his Kingdome.' Sermons 50. 43. 403.

It must be remembered that in MS. 'Fermer' and 'Termer' would be easily interchanged.

l. 34. to thy selfe be approv'd. There is no reason to prefer the 1669 'improv'd' here. To be 'improv'd to oneself' is not a very lucid phrase. What Donne bids Woodward do is to seek the approval of his own conscience. His own conscience is contrasted with 'vaine outward things'. Donne has probably Epictetus in mind: 'How then may this be attained?—Resolve now if never before, to approve thyself to thyself; resolve to show thyself fair in God's sight; long to be pure with thine own pure self and God.' Golden Sayings, lxxvi., trans. by Crossley.

Page 187. To S^r Henry Wootton.

The date of this letter is given in two MSS. as July 20, 1598. Its tone is much the same as that of the previous letter (p. 180) and of both the fourth and fifth Satyres. The theme of them all is the Court.

l. 2. Cales or St Michaels tale. The point of this allusion was early lost and has been long in being recovered. The spelling 'Calis' is a little misleading, as it was used both for Calais and for Cadiz. In Sir Francis Vere's Commentaries (1657) he speaks of 'The Calis-journey' and the 'Island voiage'. I have taken 'Cales' from some MSS. as less ambiguous. All the modern editors have printed 'Calais', and Grosart considers the allusion to be to the Armada, Norton to the 'old wars with France'. The reference is to the Cadiz expedition and the Island voyage: 'Why should I tell you what we both know?' In speaking of 'St. Michaels tale' Donne may be referring to the attack on that particular island, which led to the loss of the opportunity to capture the plate-fleet. But the 'Islands of St. Michael' was a synonym for the Azores. 'Thus the ancient Cosmographers do place the division of the East and Western Hemispheres, that is, the first term of longitude, in the Canary or fortunate Islands; conceiving these parts the extreamest habitations Westward: But the Moderns have altered that term, and translated it unto the Azores or Islands of St Michael; and that upon a plausible conceit of the small or insensible variation of the Compass in those parts,' &c. Browne, Pseud. Epidem. vi. 7.

ll. 10-11. Fate, (Gods Commissary): i.e. God's Deputy or Delegate. Compare:

The idea that Fate or Fortune is the deputy of God in the sphere of external goods (τὰ ἐκτὸς ἀγαθά, i beni del mondo) is very clearly expressed by Dante in the Convivio, iv. 11, and in the Inferno, vi. 67 f.: '"Master," I said to him, "now tell me also: this Fortune of which thou hintest to me; what is she, that has the good things of the world thus within her clutches?" And he to me, "O foolish creatures, how great is this ignorance that falls upon ye! Now I wish thee to receive my judgement of her. He whose wisdom is transcendent over all, made the heavens" (i.e. the nine moving spheres) "and gave them guides" (Angels, Intelligences); "so that every part may shine to every part equally distributing the light. In like manner, for worldly splendours, he ordained a general minister and guide (ministro e duce); to change betimes the vain possessions, from people to people, and from one kindred to another, beyond the hindrance of human wisdom. Hence one people commands, another languishes; obeying her sentence, which is hidden like the serpent in the grass. Your knowledge cannot withstand her. She provides, judges, and maintains her kingdom, as the other gods do theirs. Her permutations have no truce. Necessity makes her be swift; so oft come things requiring change. This is she, who is so much reviled, even by those who ought to praise her, when blaming her wrongfully, and with evil words. But she is in bliss, and hears it not. With the other Primal Creatures joyful, she wheels her sphere, and tastes her blessedness."' Dante finds in this view the explanation of the want of anything like distributive justice in the assignment of wealth, power, and worldly glory. Dante speaks here of Fortune, but though in its original conception at the opposite pole from Fate, Fortune is ultimately included in the idea of Fate. 'Necessity makes her be swift.' 'Sed talia maxime videntur esse contingentia quae Fato attribuuntur.' Aquinas. The relation of Fate or Destiny to God or Divine Providence is discussed by Boethius, De Cons. Phil. IV. Prose III, whom Aquinas follows, Summa, I. cxvi. Ultimately the immovable Providence of God is the cause of all things; but viewed in the world of change and becoming, accidents or events are ascribed to Destiny. 'Uti est ad intellectum ratiocinatio; ad id quod est, id quod gignitur; ad aeternitatem, tempus; ad punctum medium, circulus; ita est fati series mobilis ad Providentiae stabilem simplicitatem.' Boethius. This is clearly what Donne has in view when he calls Destiny the Commissary of God or declares that God made but doth not control her. The idea of Fate in Greek thought which Christian Philosophy had some difficulty in adjusting to its doctrines of freedom and providence came from the astronomico-religious ideas of the Chaldaeans. The idea of Fate 'arose from the observation of the regularity of the sidereal movements'. Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, 1912, pp. 28, 69.

l. 14. wishing prayers. This may be a phrase corresponding to 'bidding prayers', but 'wishing' is comma'd off as a noun in some MSS. and 'wishes' may be the author's correction.

Page 188, l. 24. dull Moralls of a game at Chests. The comparison of life and especially politics to a game of chess is probably an old one. Sancho Panza develops it with considerable eloquence.

Page 188. H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti.

This poem is taken from the Burley MS., where it is found along with a number of poems some of which are by Donne, viz.: the Satyres, one of the Elegies, and several of the Epigrams. Of the others this alone has the initials 'J. D.' added in the margin. There can be little doubt that it is by Donne,—a continuation of the correspondence of the years 1597-9 to which the last letter and 'Letters more than kisses' belong. In Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton Mr. Pearsall Smith prints what he takes to be a reply to this letter and the charge of indolence. 'Sir, It is worth my wondering that you can complain of my seldom writing, when your own letters come so fearfully as if they tread all the way upon a bog. I have received from you a few, and almost every one hath a commission to speak of divers others of their fellows, like you know who in the old comedy that asks for the rest of his servants. But you make no mention of any of mine, yet it is not long since I ventured much of my experience unto you in a long piece of paper, and perhaps not of my credit; it is that which I sent you by A. R., whereof till you advertise me I shall live in fits or agues.' After referring to the malicious reports in circulation regarding the Irish expedition he concludes in the style of the previous letters: 'These be the wise rules of policy, and of courts, which are upon earth the vainest places.'

l. 11. yong death: i.e. early death, death that comes to you while young.

ll. 13-15. These lines are enough of themselves to prove Donne's authorship of this poem. Compare To S^r Henry Goodyere, p. 183, ll. 17-20.

Page 189. To the Countesse of Bedford.

Lucy, Countess of Bedford, occupies the central place among Donne's noble patrons and friends. No one was more consistently his friend; to none does he address himselfe in terms of sincerer and more respectful eulogy.

The eldest child of John Harington, created by James first Baron Harington of Exton, was married to Edward, third Earl of Bedford, in 1594 and was a lady in waiting under Elizabeth. She was one of the group of noble ladies who hastened north on the death of the Queen to welcome, and secure the favour of, James and Anne of Denmark. Her father and mother were granted the tutorship of the young Princess Elizabeth, and she herself was admitted at once as a Lady of the Chamber. Her beauty and talent secured her a distinguished place at Court, and in the years that Donne was a prisoner at Mitcham the Countess was a brilliant figure in more than one of Ben Jonson's masques. 'She was "the crowning rose" in that garland of English beauty which the Spanish ambassador desired Madame Beaumont, the Lady of the French ambassador, to bring with her to an entertainment on the 8th of December, 1603: the three others being Lady Rich, Lady Susan Vere, and Lady Dorothy (Sidney); "and", says the Lady Arabella Stewart, "great cheer they had."' Wiffen, Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell, 1833. She figured also in Daniel's Masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, which was published (1604) with an explanatory letter addressed to her. In praising her beauty Donne is thus echoing 'the Catholic voice'. The latest Masque in which she figured was the Masque of Queens, 2nd of February, 1609-10.

In Court politics the Countess of Bedford seems to have taken some part in the early promotion of Villiers as a rival to the Earl of Somerset; and in 1617 she promoted the marriage of Donne's patron Lord Hay to the youngest daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, against the wish of the bride's father. Match-making seems to have been a hobby of hers, for in 1625 she was an active agent in arranging the match between James, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, and Lady Charlotte de la Trémouille, the heroic Countess of Derby who defended Lathom House against the Roundheads.

An active and gay life at Court was no proof of the want of a more serious spirit. Lady Bedford was a student and a poet, and the patron of scholars and poets. Sir Thomas Roe presented her with coins and medals; and Drayton, Daniel, Jonson, and Donne were each in turn among the poets whom she befriended and who sang her praises. She loved gardens. One of Donne's finest lyrics is written in the garden of Twickenham Park, which the Countess occupied from 1608 to 1617; and the laying out of the garden at Moore Park in Hertfordshire, where she lived from 1617 to her death in 1627, is commended by her successor in that place, Sir William Temple.

Donne seems to have been recommended to Lady Bedford by Sir Henry Goodyere, who was attached to her household. He mentions the death of her son in a letter to Goodyere as early as 1602, but his intimacy with the Countess probably began in 1608, and most of his verse letters were written between that date and 1614. Donne praises her beauty and it may be that in some of his lyrics he plays the part of the courtly lover, but what his poems chiefly emphasize is the religious side of her character. If my conjecture be right that she herself wrote 'Death be not proud', her religion was probably of a simpler, more pietistic cast than Donne's own was in its earlier phase.

In 1612 the Countess had a serious illness which began on November 22-3 (II. p. 10). She recovered in time to take part in the ceremonies attending the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth (Feb. 14, 161⅔), but Chamberlain in his letters to Carleton notes a change in her behaviour. After mentioning an accident to the Earl of Bedford he continues: 'His lady who should have gone to the Spa but for lack of money, shows herself again in court, though in her sickness she in a manner vowed never to come there; but she verifies the proverb, Nemo ex morbo melior. Marry, she is somewhat reformed in her attire, and forbears painting, which, they say, makes her look somewhat strangely among so many vizards, which together with their frizzled, powdered hair, makes them look all alike, so that you can scant know one from another at the first view.' Birch, The Court and Times of James the First, i. 262. Donne makes no mention of this illness, but it seems to me probable that the first two of these letters, with the emphasis which they lay on beauty, were written before, the other more serious and pious verses after this crisis.

See notes on Twicknam Garden and the Nocturnall on St. Lucies Day.

Page 189, ll. 4-5. light ... faire faith. I have retained the 'light' and 'faire faith' of the editions, but the MS. readings 'sight' and 'farr Faith' are quite possibly correct. There is not much to choose between 'light' and 'sight', but 'farr' is an interesting reading. Indeed at first sight 'fair' is a rather otiose epithet, a vaguely complimentary adjective. There is, however, probably more in it than that. 'Fair' as an epithet of 'Faith' is probably an antithesis to the 'squint ungracious left-handedness' of understanding. If 'farr' be the right reading, then Donne is contrasting faith and sight: 'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Heb. xi. 1. The use of 'far' as an adjective is not uncommon: 'Pulling far history nearer,' Crashaw; 'His own far blood,' Tennyson; 'Far travellers may lie by authority,' Gataker (1625), are some examples quoted in the O.E.D. But there is no parallel to Donne's use of 'far faith' for 'faith that lays hold on things at a distance'. 'These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off', Heb. xi. 13, is probably the source of the phrase. Such a condensed elliptical construction is quite in Donne's manner. Compare 'Neere death', p. 28, l. 63. Both versions may be original. The variants in l. 19 point to some revision of the poem.

Page 190, l. 22. In every thing there naturally grows, &c. 'Every thing hath in it as, as Physicians use to call it, Naturale Balsamum, a naturall Balsamum, which, if any wound or hurt which that creature hath received, be kept clean from extrinseque putrefaction, will heal of itself. We are so far from that naturall Balsamum, as that we have a naturall poyson in us, Originall sin:' &c. Sermons 80. 32. 313.

'Now Physitians say, that man hath in his Constitution, in his Complexion, a naturall Vertue, which they call Balsamum suum, his owne Balsamum, by which, any wound which a man could receive in his body, would cure itself, if it could be kept cleane from the annoiances of the aire, and all extrinseque encumbrances. Something that hath some proportion and analogy to this Balsamum of the body, there is in the soul of man too: The soule hath Nardum suum, her Spikenard, as the Spouse says, Nardus mea dedit odorem suum, she hath a spikenard, a perfume, a fragrancy, a sweet savour in her selfe. For virtutes germanius attingunt animam, quam corpus sanitas, vertuous inclinations, and disposition to morall goodness, is more naturall to the soule of man, and nearer of kin to the soule of man, then health is to the body. And then if we consider bodily health, Nulla oratio, nulla doctrinae formula nos docet morbum odisse, sayes that Father: There needs no Art, there needs no outward Eloquence, to persuade a man to be loath to be sick: Ita in anima inest naturalis et citra doctrinam mali evitatio, sayes he: So the soule hath a naturall and untaught hatred, and detestation of that which is evill,' &c. Sermons 80. 51. 514.

Paracelsus has a great deal to say about this natural balsam, though he declares that 'the spirit is most truly the life and balsome of all Corporeal things'. It was to supply the want of this balsam that mummy was used as a medicine. Of a man suddenly slain Paracelsus says: 'His whole body is profitable and good and may be prepared into a most precious Mummie. For, although the spirit of life went out of such a Body, yet the Balsome, in which lies the Life, remains, which doth as Balsome preserve other mens.'

l. 27. A methridate: i.e. an antidote. See note to p. 255, l. 127.

ll. 31-2. The first good Angell, &c. 'Our first consideration is upon the persons; and those we finde to be Angelicall women and Evangelicall Angels: ... And to recompense that observation, that never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman, here are good women made Angels, that is, Messengers, publishers of the greatest mysteries of our Religion.' Sermons 80. 25. 242.

'Make a present of this life to the next, by living now as you will live then; and so make this life and the next one'—or, as another poet puts it:

This I take to be Donne's meaning. The 'This' of 1635-69 and the MSS., which Chambers also has adopted, seems required by the antithesis. If one recalls that 'this' is very commonly written 'thys', and that final 's' is little more than a tail, it is easy to account for 'Thy' in 1633. The meaning too is not clear at a glance, and 'Thy' might seem to an editor to make it easier. The thought is much the same as in the Obsequies to the Lord Harrington, p. 279.

Compare also: 'Sir, our greatest businesse is more in our power then the least, and we may be surer to meet in heaven than in any place upon earth.' Letters, p. 188. And see the quotation in note to p. 112, l. 44, 'this and the next are not two worlds,' &c.

Page 191. To the Countesse of Bedford.

ll. 1-6. The sense of this verse, carefully and correctly printed in the 1633 edition, was obscured if not corrupted by the insertion of a semicolon after 'Fortune' in the later editions. The correct punctuation was restored in 1719, which was followed in subsequent editions until Grosart returned to that of the 1635-39 editions (which the Grolier Club editor also adopts), and Chambers completed the confusion by printing the lines thus,

Even Mr. Gosse has been misled into quoting this truncated and enigmatical compliment to Lady Bedford, regarding it, I presume, as of the same nature as Shakespeare's lines,

But this has a meaning; what meaning is there in saying that a man is refined to 'beauty and fortune'? Poor Donne was not likely to boast of either at this time. What he says is something quite different, and strikes the key-note of the poem. 'You have refined and sharpened my judgement, and now I see that the worthiest things owe their value to rareness or use. Value is nothing intrinsic, but depends on circumstances.' This, the next two verses add, explains why at Court it is your virtue which transcends, in the country your beauty. To Donne the country is always dull and savage; the court the focus of wit and beauty, though not of virtue. On the relative nature of all goodness he has touched in the Progresse of the Soule, p. 316, ll. 518-20:

With the sentiment regarding Courts compare: 'Beauty, in courts, is so necessary to the young, that those who are without it, seem to be there to no other purpose than to wait on the triumphs of the fair; to attend their motions in obscurity, as the moon and stars do the sun by day; or at best to be the refuge of those hearts which others have despised; and by the unworthiness of both to give and take a miserable comfort.' Dryden, Dedication of the Indian Emperor.

ll. 8-9.

I have completed the enclosure of (Where ... show) in brackets which 1633 began but forgot to carry out. The statement is parenthetical, and it is of the essence of Donne's wit to turn aside in one parenthesis to make another, dart from one distracting thought to a further, returning at the end to the main track. He has left the Countess for a moment to explain why the Court 'is not Vertues clime'. She is too transcendent to be, or at any rate to be seen there, as I (he adds, quite irrelevantly) am too low. Then taking up again the thought of the first line he continues: 'all my rhyme is claimed there by your vertues, for there rareness gives them value. I am the comment on what there is a dark text; the usher who announces one that is a stranger.'

For brackets within brackets compare: 'And yet it is imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate to sense (I dare not say to reason (though it have appearance of that too) because none may doubt but that that religion is certainly best which is reasonablest) That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation and every civill coagulation or society one other; and every man one other.' Letters, p. 43.

l. 13. To this place: i.e. Twickenham. O'F heads the poem To the Countesse of Bedford, Twitnam. The poem is written to welcome her home. See l. 70.

The development of Donne's subtle and extravagant conceits is a little difficult. The Countess is the sun which exhales the sweetness of the country when she comes thither (13-18). Apparently the Countess has returned to Twickenham in Autumn, perhaps arriving late in the evening. When she emerges from her chariot it is the breaking of a new day, the beginning of a new year or new world. Both the Julian and the Gregorian computations are thus falsified (19-22). It shows her truth to nature that she will not suffer a day which begins at a stated hour, but only one that begins with the actual appearance of the light (23-4: a momentary digression). Since she, the Sun, has thus come to Twickenham, the Court is made the Antipodes. While the 'vulgar sun' is an Autumnal one, this Sun which is in Spring, receives our sacrifices. Her priests, or instruments, we celebrate her (25-30). Then Donne draws back from the religious strain into which he is launching. He will not sing Hymns as to a Deity, but offer petitions as to a King, that he may view the beauty of this Temple, and not as Temple, but as Edifice. The rest of the argument is simpler.

l. 60. The same thinge. The singular of the MSS. seems to be required by 'you cannot two'. The 's' of the editions is probably due to the final 'e'. But 'things' is the reading of Lec, the MS. representing most closely that from which 1633 was printed.

ll. 71-2. Who hath seene one, &c. 'Who hath seen one, e.g. Twickenham, which your dwelling there makes a Paradise, would fain see you too, as whoever had been in Paradise would not have failed to seek out the Cherubim.' The construction is elliptical. Compare:

The Cherubim are specially mentioned (although the Seraphim are the highest order) because they are traditionally the beautiful angels: 'The Spirit of Chastity ... in the likenesse of a faire beautifull Cherubine.' Bacon, New Atlantis (1658), 22 (O.E.D.).

Page 193. To S^r Edward Herbert. at Iulyers.

Edward Herbert, first Baron of Cherbury (1563-1648), the eldest son of Donne's friend Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, had not long returned from his first visit to France when he set out again in 1610 with Lord Chandos 'to pass to the city of Juliers which the Prince of Orange resolved to besiege. Making all haste thither we found the siege newly begun; the Low Country army assisted by 4,000 English under the command of Sir Edward Cecil. We had not long been there when the Marquis de la Chartre, instead of Henry IV, who was killed by that villain Ravaillac, came with a brave French army thither'. Autobiography, ed. Sidney Lee. The city was held by the Archduke Leopold for the Emperor. The Dutch, French, and English were besieging the town in the interest of the Protestant candidates, the Elector of Brandenburg, and the Palatine of Neuburg. The siege marked the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. Herbert was a man of both ability and courage but of a vanity which outweighed both. Donne's letter humours both his Philosophical pose and his love of obscurity and harshness in poetry. His own poems with a few exceptions are intolerably difficult and unmusical, and Jonson told Drummond that 'Donne said to him he wrote that Epitaph upon Prince Henry, Look to me Faith, to match Sir Ed. Herbert in obscureness'. (Jonson's Conversations, ed. Laing.) The poems have been reprinted by the late Professor Churton Collins. In 1609 when Herbert was in England he and Donne both wrote Elegies on Mistress Boulstred.

l. 1. Man is a lumpe, &c. The image of the beasts Donne has borrowed from Plato, The Republic, ix. 588 B-E.

Page 194, ll. 23-6. A food which to chickens is harmless poisons men. Our own nature contributes the factor which makes a food into a poison either corrosive or killing by intensity of heat or cold: 'Et hic nota quod tantus est ordo naturae, ut quod est venenosum et inconveniens uni est utile et conveniens alteri; sicut jusquiamus qui est cibus passeris licet homini sit venenosus; et sicut napellus interficit hominem solum portatus, et mulierem praegnantem non laesit manducatus, teste Galieno; et mus qui pascitur napello est tiriaca contra napellum.' Benvenuto on Dante, Div. Comm.: Paradiso, i. The plants here mentioned are henbane and aconite. Concerning hemlock the O.E.D. quotes Swan, Spec. M. vi. § 4 (1643), 'Hemlock ... is meat to storks and poison to men.' Donne probably uses the word 'chickens' as equivalent to 'young birds', not for the young of the domestic fowl. For the cold of the hemlock see Persius, Sat. v. 145; Ovid, Amores, iii. 7. 13; and Juvenal, Sat. vii. 206, a reference to Socrates' gift from the Athenians of 'gelidas ... cicutas'.

ll. 31-2. Thus man, that might be'his pleasure, &c. These lines are condensed and obscure. The 'his' must mean 'his own'. 'Man who in virtue of that gift of reason which makes him man might be to himself a source of joy, becomes instead, by the abuse of reason, his own rod. Reason which should be the God directing his life becomes the devil which misleads him.' Chambers prints 'His pleasure', 'His rod', referring 'his' to God—which seems hardly possible.

ll. 34-8. wee'are led awry, &c. Chambers's punctuation of this passage is clearly erroneous:

This must mean that we are led astray by those who, in their abridgement of man, still show him to us greater than he really is. But this is the opposite of what Donne says. 'Greater than due' goes with 'no form'. Compare:

'And therefore the Philosopher draws man into too narrow a table, when he says he is Microcosmos, an Abridgement of the world in little: Nazianzen gives him but his due, when he calls him Mundum Magnum, a world to which all the rest of the world is but subordinate: For all the world besides, is but God's Foot-stool; Man sits down upon his right-hand,' &c. Sermons 26. 25. 370.

'It is too little to call Man a little world; Except God, Man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doth, nay than the world is.' Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, &c. (1624), p. 64.

On the other hand the Grolier Club editor has erroneously followed 1635-69 in altering the full stop after 'chaw' to a comma; and has substituted a semicolon for the comma after 'fill' (l. 39), reading:

But 'All that is fill'd,' &c. is not object to 'can draw'. It is subject (in apposition with 'All the round world') to 'is but a pill'.

Page 195, l. 47. This makes it credible. I have changed the comma after 'credible' to a semicolon to avoid the misapprehension, into which the Grolier Club editor seems to have fallen, that what is credible is 'that you have dwelt upon all worthy books'. It is because Lord Herbert has dwelt upon all worthy books that it is credible that he knows man.

Page 195. To the Countesse of Bedford.

l. 1. T'have written then, &c. This is one of the most difficult of Donne's poems. With his usual strain of extravagant compliment Donne has interwoven some of his deepest thought and most out-of-the-way theological erudition and scientific lore. Moreover the poem is one of those for which the MS. resembling D, H49, Lec was not available. The text of 1633 was taken from a MS. belonging to the group A18, N, TCC, TCD, and contains several errors. Some of these were corrected in 1635 from O'F or a MS. resembling it, but in the most vital case what was a right but difficult reading in 1633 was changed for an apparently easier but erroneous reading.

The emendations which I have accepted from 1635 are—

l. 5. 'debt' for 'doubt'.

l. 7. 'nothings' for 'nothing'.

l. 20. 'or all It; You.' for 'or all, in you.' There is not much to choose between the two, but 'the world's best all' is not a very logical expression. But the 1633 reading may mean 'the world's best part, or the world's all,—you.' The alteration of 1635 is not necessary, but looks to me like the author's own emendation.

l. 4. Then worst of civill vices, thanklessenesse. 'Naturall and morall men are better acquainted with the duty of gratitude, of thankesgiving, before they come to the Scriptures, then they are with the other duty of repentance which belongs to Prayer; for in all Solomons bookes, you shall not finde halfe so much of the duty of thankefulnesse, as you shall in Seneca and in Plutarch. No book of Ethicks, of moral doctrine, is come to us, where there is not, almost in every leafe, some detestation, some Anathema against ingratitude.' Sermons 80. 55. 550.

Page 197, l. 54. Wee (but no forraine tyrants could) remove. Following the hint of O'F, I have bracketed all these words to show that the verb to 'Wee' is 'remove', not 'could remove'.

Here the later editions change 'not' to 'borne', and the correction has been accepted by Grosart and Chambers. But 1633 is right. If 'not' be changed, the force of the antithesis is lost. What is 'borne free' does not need to be preserved. What Donne expresses is a form of the doctrine of conditional immortality. In a sermon on the Penitential Psalms (Sermons 80. 53. 532) he says: 'We have a full cleerenesse of the state of the soule after this life, not only above those of the old Law, but above those of the Primitive Christian Church, which, in some hundreds of years, came not to a cleere understanding in that point, whether the soule were immortall by nature, or but by preservation, whether the soule could not die or only should not die,' &c. Here the antithesis between 'being preserved' and 'being naturally free' (i.e. immortal) is presented as sharply as in this line of the verse Letter. But Donne states the doctrine tentatively 'because that perchance may be without any constant cleerenesse yet'. Elsewhere he seems to accept it: 'And for the Immortality of the Soule, it is safelier said to be immortall by preservation, then immortal, by nature; That God keepes it from dying, then, that it cannot dye.' Sermons 80. 27. 269. This makes the correct reading of the line quite certain.

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:

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:

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.

What follows is ambiguous. As punctuated in 1633 the lines run:

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.