Volume 1 — POEMS,
Reading edition
By J. D.
WITH
ELEGIES
ON
THE AUTHORS
DEATH.
LONDON.
Printed by M. F. for John Marriot, and are to be sold at his Shop in St Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street. 1635.
Title Page
The Poems by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death were reprinted by M. F. for John Harriot in 1635 (the title-page is here reproduced), but with very considerable alterations. The introductory material remained unchanged except that to the Hexastichon Bibliopolae was added a Hexastichon ad Bibliopolam. Incerti. (See p. 3.) To the title-page was prefixed a portrait in an oval frame. Outside the frame is engraved, to the left top, ANNO DNI. 1591. ÆTATIS SVÆ. 18.; to the right top, on a band ending in a coat of arms, ANTES MVERTO QUE MVDADO. Underneath the engraved portrait and background is the following poem:
This was for youth, Strength, Mirth, and wit that Time Most count their golden Age; but t'was not thine. Thine was thy later yeares, so much refind From youths Drosse, Mirth, & wit; as thy pure mind Thought (like the Angels) nothing but the Praise Of thy Creator, in those last, best Dayes. Witnes this Booke, (thy Embleme) which begins With Love; but endes, with Sighes, & Teares for sins. IZ: WA:
The Printer to the Understanders is still followed immediately by the dedication, Infinitati Sacrum, of The Progresse of the Soule, although the poem itself is removed to another part of the volume. The printer noticed this mistake, and at the end of the Elegies upon the Author adds this note:
Errata.6
Cvrteous Reader, know, that that Epistle intituled, Infinitati Sacrum, 16. of August, 1601. which is printed in the beginning of the Booke, is misplaced; it should have beene printed before the Progresse of the Soule, in Page 301. before which it was written by the Author; if any other in the Impression doe fall out, which I know not of, hold me excused for I have endeavoured thy satisfaction.
Thine, I. M.
Songs and Sonets.
Epigrams.
Elegies.
Epithalamions, or, Marriage Songs.
Satyres.
Letters to Severall Personages.
Funerall Elegies, (including An Anatomie of the World with A Funerall Elegie, Of the Progresse of the Soule, and Epicedes and Obsequies upon the deaths of sundry Personages.)
The Progresse of the Soule.
Divine Poems.
While the poems were thus rearranged, the canon also underwent some alteration. One poem, viz. Basse's Epitaph on Shakespeare ('Renowned Chaucer lie a thought more nigh To rare Beaumont'), which had found its way into 1633, was dropped; but quite a number were added, twenty-eight, or twenty-nine if the epitaph On Himselfe be reckoned (as it appears) twice. Professor Norton, in the bibliographical note in the Grolier Club edition (which I occasionally call Grolier for convenience), has inadvertently given the Elegie on the L. C. as one of the poems first printed in 1635. This is an error. The poem was included in 1633 as the sixth in a group of Elegies, the rest of which are love poems. The editor of 1635 merely transferred it to its proper place among the Funerall Elegies, just as modern editors have transferred the Elegie on his Mistris ('By our first strange and fatall interview') from the funeral to the love Elegies.
The authenticity of the poems added in 1635 will be fully discussed later. The conclusion of the present editor is that of the English poems fifteen are certainly Donne's; three or four are probably or possibly his; the remaining eleven are pretty certainly not by Donne. There is no reason to think that 1635 is in any way a more authoritative edition than 1633. It has fewer signs of competent editing of the text, and it begins the process of sweeping in poems from every quarter, which was continued by Waldron, Simeon, and Grosart.
The third edition of Donne's poems appeared in 1639. This is identical in form, contents, and paging with that of 1635. The dedication and introduction to The Progresse of the Soule are removed to their right place and the Errata dropped, and there are a considerable number of minor alterations of the text.