In his letters to the wits at home he
sends greetings to, among others, Christopher Brooke, John Hoskins
(as 'Mr.
sends greetings to, among others, Christopher Brooke, John Hoskins
(as 'Mr.
John Donne
179.
_and I, (God pardon mee.
)_ This, the reading of the _1633_
edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping
of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from _1639_ onwards, has
adopted a reading of his own:
and aye--God pardon me--
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them.
But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is not
_his_ fault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon
them! ' would be the appropriate exclamation. What Donne asks God's
pardon for is, that he too should be found in the 'Presence' again,
after what he has already seen of Court life and 'the wretchedness
of suitors': as though Dante, who had seen Hell and escaped, should
wilfully return thither.
l. 189. _Cutchannel_: i. e. Cochineal. The ladies' painted faces
suggest the comparison. In or shortly before 1603 an English ship, the
_Margaret and John_, made a piratical attack on the Venetian ship,
_La Babiana_. An indemnity was paid, and among the stolen articles
are mentioned 54 weights of cochineal, valued at ? 50-7. Our school
Histories tell us of Turkish and Moorish pirates, not so much of
the piracy which was conducted by English merchant ships, not always
confining themselves to the ships of nations at war with their
country.
PAGE =166=, ll. 205-6. _trye . . . thighe. _ I have, with the support of
_Ash. _ 38, printed thus instead of _tryes . . . thighes_. If we retain
'tryes', then we should also, with several MSS. , read (l. 204)
'survayes'; and if 'thighes' be correct we should expect 'legges'.
The regular construction keeps the infinitive throughout, 'refine',
'lift', 'call', 'survay', 'trye'. If we suppose that Donne shifted the
construction as he got away from the governing verb, the change would
naturally begin with 'survayes'.
ll. 215-6. _A Pursevant would have ravish'd him away. _ The reading
of three independent MSS. , _Q_, _O'F_, and _JC_, of 'Topcliffe' for
'Pursevant' is a very interesting clue to the Catholic point of
view from which Donne's _Satyres_ were written. Richard Topcliffe
(1532-1609) was one of the cruellest of the creatures employed to
ferret out and examine by torture Catholics and Jesuits. It was he who
tortured Southwell the poet. In 1593 he was on the commission against
Jesuits, and in 1594-5 was in prison. John Hammond, the civilist, who
is possibly referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, sat with him on several
inquiries. See _D. N. B. _ and authorities quoted there; also Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.
PAGE =167=, ll. 233-4. _men big enough to throw
Charing Crosse for a barre. _
Of one of Harvey's pamphlets Nash writes: 'Credibly it was once
rumoured about the Court, that the Guard meant to try masteries with
it before the Queene, and, instead of throwing the sledge or the
hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end for a wager. ' _Have with
you, &c. _ (M^{c}Kerrow, iii, p. 36. )
ll. 235-6. _Queenes man, and fine
Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine. _
Compare Cowley's _Loves Riddle_, III. i:
_Apl. _ He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,
And to begin, look on that horned head.
_Aln. _ Whose is't? Jupiters?
_Apl. _ No, tis the Ram!
Next that the spacious Bull fills up the place.
_Aln. _ The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the Guard
Intend not to come thither; if they did
The Gods might chance to lose their beef.
The name 'beefeater' has, I suppose, some responsibility for the jest.
Nash refers to their size: 'The big-bodied Halbordiers that guard
her Majesty,' Nash (Grosart), i. 102; and to their capacities as
trenchermen: 'Lies as big as one of the Guardes chynes of beefe,' Nash
(M^{c}Kerrow), i. 269.
'Ascapart is a giant thirty feet high who figures in the legend of Sir
Bevis of Southampton. ' Chambers.
l. 240. _a scarce brooke_. Donne uses 'scarce' in this sense, i. e.
'scanty'. It is not common. See note to l. 4.
PAGE =168=, l. 242. _Macchabees modestie. _ 'And if I have done well,
and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired; but
if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto. ' 2
Maccabees xv. 38.
PAGE =168=. SATYRE V.
l. 9. _If all things be in all. _ 'All things are concealed in all.
One of them all is the concealer of the rest--their corporeal vessel,
external, visible and movable. ' Paracelsus, _Coelum Philosophorum: The
First Canon, Concerning the Nature and Properties of Mercury_.
PAGE =169=, l. 31. _You Sir, &c. _: i. e. Sir Thomas Egerton, whose
service Donne entered probably in 1598 and left in 1601-2. Norton says
1596 to 1600. In 1596 Egerton was made Lord Keeper. In 1597 he
was busy with the reform of some of the abuses connected with the
Clerkship of the Star Chamber, and this is probably what Donne has in
view throughout the Satyre. 'For some years the administration of this
office had given rise to complaints. In the last Parliament a bill
had been brought in . . . for the reformation of it; but by a little
management on the part of the Speaker had been thrown out on the
second reading. Upon this I suppose the complainants addressed
themselves to the Queen. For it appears that the matter was under
inquiry in 1595, when Puckering was Lord Keeper; and it is certain
that at a later period some of the fees claimed by the Clerk of
Council were by authority of the Lord Keeper Egerton restrained. '
Spedding, _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, ii. 56. In the note
Spedding refers to a MS. at Bridgewater House containing 'The humble
petition of the Clerk of the Council concerning his fees restrained
by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Keeper'. Bacon held the reversion to this
Clerkship and in a long letter to Egerton he discusses in detail the
nature of the 'claim'd fees'. The question was not settled till 1605.
It will be noticed that in several editions and MSS. the reading is
'claim'd fees'.
ll. 37-41. These lines are correctly printed in _1633_, though the old
use of the semicolon to indicate at one time a little less than a
full stop, at another just a little more than a comma, has caused
confusion. I have, therefore, ventured to alter the first (after
'farre') to a full stop, and the second (after 'duties') to a comma.
'_That_', says Donne (the italics give emphasis), 'was the iron age
when justice was sold. Now' (in this 'age of rusty iron') 'injustice
is sold dearer. Once you have allowed all the demands made on you, you
find, suitors (and suitors are gamblers), that the money you toiled
for has passed into other hands, the lands for which you urged your
rival claims has escaped you, as Angelica escaped while Ferrau and
Rinaldo fought for her. '
To the reading of the editions _1635-54_, which Chambers has adopted
(but by printing in roman letters he makes 'that' a relative pronoun,
and 'iron age' subject to 'did allow'), I can attach no meaning:
The iron Age _that_ was, when justice was sold (now
Injustice is sold dearer) did allow
All claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters anon.
How did the iron age allow fees and duties? The text of _1669_ reverts
to that of _1633_ (keeping the 'claim'd fees' of _1635-54_), but does
not improve the punctuation by changing the semicolon after 'farre' to
a comma.
Mr. Allen (_Rise of Formal Satire, &c. _) points out that the allusion
to the age of 'rusty iron', which deserves some worse name, is
obviously derived from Juvenal XIII. 28 ff. :
Nunc aetas agitur, peioraque saecula ferri
Temporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa
Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.
With Donne's
so controverted lands
Scape, like Angelica, the strivers hands
compare Chaucer's
We strive as did the houndes for the boon
Thei foughte al day and yet hir parte was noon:
Ther cam a kyte, whil that they were so wrothe,
And bar away the boon betwixt hem bothe.
And therfore at the kynges country brother
Eche man for himself, there is noon other.
_Knightes Tale_, ll. 319 ff.
ll. 45-6. _powre of the Courts below Flow. _ Grosart and Chambers
silently alter to 'Flows', but both the editions and MSS. have the
plural form. Franz notes the construction in Shakespeare:
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality.
_Hen. V_, V. ii. 18.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.
_Lear_, III. v. 4.
The last is a very close parallel. The proximity of the plural noun in
the prepositional phrase is the chief determining factor, but in
some cases the combined noun and qualifying phrase has a plural
force--'such venomous looks', 'his mental powers or faculties. '
PAGE =170=, l. 61. _heavens Courts. _ There can be no doubt that the
plural is right: 'so the Roman profession seems to exhale, and refine
our wills from earthly Drugs, and Lees, more then the Reformed, and so
seems to bring us nearer heaven, but then that carries heaven farther
from us, by making us pass so many Courts, and Offices of Saints in
this life, in all our petitions,' &c. _Letters_, 102.
ll. 65-8. Compare: 'If a Pursevant, if a Serjeant come to thee from
the King, in any Court of Justice, though he come to put thee in
trouble, to call thee to an account, yet thou receivest him, thou
entertainest him, thou paiest him fees. ' _Sermons_ 80. 52. 525.
Gardiner, writing of the treatment of Catholics under Elizabeth, says:
'Hard as this treatment was, it was made worse by the misconduct of
the constables and pursevants whose business it was to search for the
priests who took refuge in the secret chambers which were always to
be found in the mansions of the Catholic gentry. These wretches, under
pretence of discovering the concealed fugitives, were in the habit
of wantonly destroying the furniture or of carrying off valuable
property. ' _Hist. of England_, i. 97.
PAGE =171=, l. 91. The right reading of this line must be either (_a_)
that which we have taken from _N_ and _TCD_, which differs only by a
letter from that of _1633-69_; or (_b_) that of _A25_, _B_, and other
MSS. :
And div'd neare drowning, for what vanished.
The first refers to the suitor. He, like the dog, dives for what _has_
vanished; goes to law for what is irrecoverable. The second reading
would refer to the dog and continue the illustration: 'Thou art
the dog whom shadows cozened and who div'd for what vanish'd. ' The
ambiguity accounts for the vacillation of the MSS. and editions. The
reading of _1669_ is a conjectural emendation. The 'div'd'st' of some
MSS. is an endeavour to get an agreement of tenses after 'what's' had
become 'what'.
PAGE =172=. VPON MR. THOMAS CORYATS CRUDITIES.
These verses were first published in 1611 with a mass of witty and
scurrilous verses by all the 'wits' of the day, prefixed to Coryats
_Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travells in France,
Savoy, Italy, Rhaetia . . . Newly digested in the hungry aire of
Odcombe, in the County of Somerset, and now dispersed to the
nourishment of the travelling members of this Kingdom_. Coryat was
an eccentric and a favourite butt of the wits, but was not without
ability as well as enterprise. In 1612 he set out on a journey
through the East which took him to Constantinople, Jerusalem, Armenia,
Mesopotamia, Persia, and India.
In his letters to the wits at home he
sends greetings to, among others, Christopher Brooke, John Hoskins
(as 'Mr. Ecquinoctial Pasticrust of the Middle Temple'), Ben Jonson,
George Garrat, and 'M. John Donne, the author of two most elegant
Latine Bookes, _Pseudomartyr_ and _Ignatius Conclave_' He died at
Surat in 1617.
l. 2. _leavened spirit. _ This is the reading of _1611_. It was altered
in _1649_ to 'learned', and modern editors have neglected to correct
the error. A glance at the first line shows that 'leavened' is right.
It is leaven which raises bread. A 'leavened spirit' is one easily
puffed up by the 'love of greatness'. There is much more of satire in
such an epithet than in 'learned'.
l. 17. _great Lunatique_, i. e. probably 'great humourist', whose
moods and whims are governed by the changeful moon. See O. E. D. , which
quotes:
Ther (i. e. women's) hertys chaunge never . . .
Ther sect ys no thing lunatyke.
Lydgate.
'By nativitie they be lunaticke . . . as borne under the influence of
Luna, and therefore as firme . . . as melting waxe. ' Greene, _Mamillia_.
l. 22. _Munster. _ The _Cosmographia Universalis_ (1541) of Sebastian
Munster (1489-1552).
l. 22. _Gesner. _ The _Bibliotheca Universalis, siue Catalogus Omnium
Scriptorum in Linguis Latina, Graeca, et Hebraica_, 1545, by Conrad
von Gesner of Zurich (1516-1565). Norton quotes from Morhof's
_Polyhistor_: 'Conradus Gesner inter universales et perpetuos
Catalogorum scriptores principatum obtinet'; and from Dr. Johnson:
'The book upon which all my fame was originally founded. '
l. 23. _Gallo-belgicus. _ See _Epigrams_.
PAGE =173=, l. 56. _Which casts at Portescues. _ Grosart offers the
only intelligible explanation of this phrase. He identifies the
'Portescue' with the 'Portaque' or 'Portegue', the great crusado of
Portugal, worth ? 3 12_s. _, and quotes from Harrington, _On Playe_:
'Where lords and great men have been disposed to play deep play, and
not having money about them, have cut cards instead of counters, with
asseverance (on their honours) to pay for every piece of card so
lost a portegue. ' Donne's reference to the use which is to be made of
Coryat's books shows clearly that he is speaking of some such custom
as this. Chambers asks pertinently, would the phrase not be 'for
Portescues'? but 'to cast at Portescues' may have been a term, perhaps
translated. A greater difficulty is that 'Portescue' is not given as a
form of 'Portague' by the O. E. D. , but a false etymology connecting it
with 'escus', crowns, may have produced it.
The following poem is also found among the poems prefixed to Coryat's
_Crudities_. It may be by Donne, but was not printed in any edition of
his poems:
_Incipit Ioannes Dones. _
Loe her's a Man, worthy indeede to trauell;
Fat Libian plaines, strangest Chinas grauell.
For Europe well hath scene him stirre his stumpes:
Turning his double shoes to simple pumpes.
And for relation, looke he doth afford
Almost for euery step he tooke a word;
What had he done had he ere hug'd th'Ocean
With swimming _Drake_ or famous _Magelan_?
And kis'd that _vnturn'd[1] cheeke_ of our old mother,
Since so our Europes world he can discouer?
It's not that _French_[2] which made his _Gyant_[3] see
Those vncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee,
Till by the thaw next yeare they'r voic't againe;
Whose _Papagauts_, _Andouelets_, and that traine
Should be such matter for a Pope to curse
As he would make; make! makes ten times worse,
And yet so pleasing as shall laughter moue:
And be his vaine, his game, his praise, his loue.
Sit not still then, keeping fames trump vnblowne:
But get thee _Coryate_ to some land vnknowne.
From wh? ce proclaime thy wisdom with those woders,
Rarer then sommers snowes, or winters thunders.
And take this praise of that th'ast done alreadie:
T'is pitty ere they _flow_ should haue an _eddie_.
_Explicit Ioannes Dones. _
PAGE =174=. IN EUNDEM MACARONICUM.
A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, vii, 1865, gives the
following translation of these lines:
As many perfect linguists as these two distichs make,
So many prudent statesmen will this book of yours produce.
To me the honour is sufficient of being understood: for I leave
To you the honour of being believed by no one.
[Footnote 1: _Terra incognita. _]
[Footnote 2: _Rablais. _]
[Footnote 3: _Pantagruel. _]
[(These notes are given in the margin of the original,
opposite the words explained. )]
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:
Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,
I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales so
As with the Jewes guide God did; he did show
Him the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:
Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.
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,
as the Earth between the Moone and Sun
Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,
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:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime.
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.
edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping
of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from _1639_ onwards, has
adopted a reading of his own:
and aye--God pardon me--
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them.
But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is not
_his_ fault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon
them! ' would be the appropriate exclamation. What Donne asks God's
pardon for is, that he too should be found in the 'Presence' again,
after what he has already seen of Court life and 'the wretchedness
of suitors': as though Dante, who had seen Hell and escaped, should
wilfully return thither.
l. 189. _Cutchannel_: i. e. Cochineal. The ladies' painted faces
suggest the comparison. In or shortly before 1603 an English ship, the
_Margaret and John_, made a piratical attack on the Venetian ship,
_La Babiana_. An indemnity was paid, and among the stolen articles
are mentioned 54 weights of cochineal, valued at ? 50-7. Our school
Histories tell us of Turkish and Moorish pirates, not so much of
the piracy which was conducted by English merchant ships, not always
confining themselves to the ships of nations at war with their
country.
PAGE =166=, ll. 205-6. _trye . . . thighe. _ I have, with the support of
_Ash. _ 38, printed thus instead of _tryes . . . thighes_. If we retain
'tryes', then we should also, with several MSS. , read (l. 204)
'survayes'; and if 'thighes' be correct we should expect 'legges'.
The regular construction keeps the infinitive throughout, 'refine',
'lift', 'call', 'survay', 'trye'. If we suppose that Donne shifted the
construction as he got away from the governing verb, the change would
naturally begin with 'survayes'.
ll. 215-6. _A Pursevant would have ravish'd him away. _ The reading
of three independent MSS. , _Q_, _O'F_, and _JC_, of 'Topcliffe' for
'Pursevant' is a very interesting clue to the Catholic point of
view from which Donne's _Satyres_ were written. Richard Topcliffe
(1532-1609) was one of the cruellest of the creatures employed to
ferret out and examine by torture Catholics and Jesuits. It was he who
tortured Southwell the poet. In 1593 he was on the commission against
Jesuits, and in 1594-5 was in prison. John Hammond, the civilist, who
is possibly referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, sat with him on several
inquiries. See _D. N. B. _ and authorities quoted there; also Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.
PAGE =167=, ll. 233-4. _men big enough to throw
Charing Crosse for a barre. _
Of one of Harvey's pamphlets Nash writes: 'Credibly it was once
rumoured about the Court, that the Guard meant to try masteries with
it before the Queene, and, instead of throwing the sledge or the
hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end for a wager. ' _Have with
you, &c. _ (M^{c}Kerrow, iii, p. 36. )
ll. 235-6. _Queenes man, and fine
Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine. _
Compare Cowley's _Loves Riddle_, III. i:
_Apl. _ He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,
And to begin, look on that horned head.
_Aln. _ Whose is't? Jupiters?
_Apl. _ No, tis the Ram!
Next that the spacious Bull fills up the place.
_Aln. _ The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the Guard
Intend not to come thither; if they did
The Gods might chance to lose their beef.
The name 'beefeater' has, I suppose, some responsibility for the jest.
Nash refers to their size: 'The big-bodied Halbordiers that guard
her Majesty,' Nash (Grosart), i. 102; and to their capacities as
trenchermen: 'Lies as big as one of the Guardes chynes of beefe,' Nash
(M^{c}Kerrow), i. 269.
'Ascapart is a giant thirty feet high who figures in the legend of Sir
Bevis of Southampton. ' Chambers.
l. 240. _a scarce brooke_. Donne uses 'scarce' in this sense, i. e.
'scanty'. It is not common. See note to l. 4.
PAGE =168=, l. 242. _Macchabees modestie. _ 'And if I have done well,
and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired; but
if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto. ' 2
Maccabees xv. 38.
PAGE =168=. SATYRE V.
l. 9. _If all things be in all. _ 'All things are concealed in all.
One of them all is the concealer of the rest--their corporeal vessel,
external, visible and movable. ' Paracelsus, _Coelum Philosophorum: The
First Canon, Concerning the Nature and Properties of Mercury_.
PAGE =169=, l. 31. _You Sir, &c. _: i. e. Sir Thomas Egerton, whose
service Donne entered probably in 1598 and left in 1601-2. Norton says
1596 to 1600. In 1596 Egerton was made Lord Keeper. In 1597 he
was busy with the reform of some of the abuses connected with the
Clerkship of the Star Chamber, and this is probably what Donne has in
view throughout the Satyre. 'For some years the administration of this
office had given rise to complaints. In the last Parliament a bill
had been brought in . . . for the reformation of it; but by a little
management on the part of the Speaker had been thrown out on the
second reading. Upon this I suppose the complainants addressed
themselves to the Queen. For it appears that the matter was under
inquiry in 1595, when Puckering was Lord Keeper; and it is certain
that at a later period some of the fees claimed by the Clerk of
Council were by authority of the Lord Keeper Egerton restrained. '
Spedding, _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, ii. 56. In the note
Spedding refers to a MS. at Bridgewater House containing 'The humble
petition of the Clerk of the Council concerning his fees restrained
by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Keeper'. Bacon held the reversion to this
Clerkship and in a long letter to Egerton he discusses in detail the
nature of the 'claim'd fees'. The question was not settled till 1605.
It will be noticed that in several editions and MSS. the reading is
'claim'd fees'.
ll. 37-41. These lines are correctly printed in _1633_, though the old
use of the semicolon to indicate at one time a little less than a
full stop, at another just a little more than a comma, has caused
confusion. I have, therefore, ventured to alter the first (after
'farre') to a full stop, and the second (after 'duties') to a comma.
'_That_', says Donne (the italics give emphasis), 'was the iron age
when justice was sold. Now' (in this 'age of rusty iron') 'injustice
is sold dearer. Once you have allowed all the demands made on you, you
find, suitors (and suitors are gamblers), that the money you toiled
for has passed into other hands, the lands for which you urged your
rival claims has escaped you, as Angelica escaped while Ferrau and
Rinaldo fought for her. '
To the reading of the editions _1635-54_, which Chambers has adopted
(but by printing in roman letters he makes 'that' a relative pronoun,
and 'iron age' subject to 'did allow'), I can attach no meaning:
The iron Age _that_ was, when justice was sold (now
Injustice is sold dearer) did allow
All claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters anon.
How did the iron age allow fees and duties? The text of _1669_ reverts
to that of _1633_ (keeping the 'claim'd fees' of _1635-54_), but does
not improve the punctuation by changing the semicolon after 'farre' to
a comma.
Mr. Allen (_Rise of Formal Satire, &c. _) points out that the allusion
to the age of 'rusty iron', which deserves some worse name, is
obviously derived from Juvenal XIII. 28 ff. :
Nunc aetas agitur, peioraque saecula ferri
Temporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa
Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.
With Donne's
so controverted lands
Scape, like Angelica, the strivers hands
compare Chaucer's
We strive as did the houndes for the boon
Thei foughte al day and yet hir parte was noon:
Ther cam a kyte, whil that they were so wrothe,
And bar away the boon betwixt hem bothe.
And therfore at the kynges country brother
Eche man for himself, there is noon other.
_Knightes Tale_, ll. 319 ff.
ll. 45-6. _powre of the Courts below Flow. _ Grosart and Chambers
silently alter to 'Flows', but both the editions and MSS. have the
plural form. Franz notes the construction in Shakespeare:
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality.
_Hen. V_, V. ii. 18.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.
_Lear_, III. v. 4.
The last is a very close parallel. The proximity of the plural noun in
the prepositional phrase is the chief determining factor, but in
some cases the combined noun and qualifying phrase has a plural
force--'such venomous looks', 'his mental powers or faculties. '
PAGE =170=, l. 61. _heavens Courts. _ There can be no doubt that the
plural is right: 'so the Roman profession seems to exhale, and refine
our wills from earthly Drugs, and Lees, more then the Reformed, and so
seems to bring us nearer heaven, but then that carries heaven farther
from us, by making us pass so many Courts, and Offices of Saints in
this life, in all our petitions,' &c. _Letters_, 102.
ll. 65-8. Compare: 'If a Pursevant, if a Serjeant come to thee from
the King, in any Court of Justice, though he come to put thee in
trouble, to call thee to an account, yet thou receivest him, thou
entertainest him, thou paiest him fees. ' _Sermons_ 80. 52. 525.
Gardiner, writing of the treatment of Catholics under Elizabeth, says:
'Hard as this treatment was, it was made worse by the misconduct of
the constables and pursevants whose business it was to search for the
priests who took refuge in the secret chambers which were always to
be found in the mansions of the Catholic gentry. These wretches, under
pretence of discovering the concealed fugitives, were in the habit
of wantonly destroying the furniture or of carrying off valuable
property. ' _Hist. of England_, i. 97.
PAGE =171=, l. 91. The right reading of this line must be either (_a_)
that which we have taken from _N_ and _TCD_, which differs only by a
letter from that of _1633-69_; or (_b_) that of _A25_, _B_, and other
MSS. :
And div'd neare drowning, for what vanished.
The first refers to the suitor. He, like the dog, dives for what _has_
vanished; goes to law for what is irrecoverable. The second reading
would refer to the dog and continue the illustration: 'Thou art
the dog whom shadows cozened and who div'd for what vanish'd. ' The
ambiguity accounts for the vacillation of the MSS. and editions. The
reading of _1669_ is a conjectural emendation. The 'div'd'st' of some
MSS. is an endeavour to get an agreement of tenses after 'what's' had
become 'what'.
PAGE =172=. VPON MR. THOMAS CORYATS CRUDITIES.
These verses were first published in 1611 with a mass of witty and
scurrilous verses by all the 'wits' of the day, prefixed to Coryats
_Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travells in France,
Savoy, Italy, Rhaetia . . . Newly digested in the hungry aire of
Odcombe, in the County of Somerset, and now dispersed to the
nourishment of the travelling members of this Kingdom_. Coryat was
an eccentric and a favourite butt of the wits, but was not without
ability as well as enterprise. In 1612 he set out on a journey
through the East which took him to Constantinople, Jerusalem, Armenia,
Mesopotamia, Persia, and India.
In his letters to the wits at home he
sends greetings to, among others, Christopher Brooke, John Hoskins
(as 'Mr. Ecquinoctial Pasticrust of the Middle Temple'), Ben Jonson,
George Garrat, and 'M. John Donne, the author of two most elegant
Latine Bookes, _Pseudomartyr_ and _Ignatius Conclave_' He died at
Surat in 1617.
l. 2. _leavened spirit. _ This is the reading of _1611_. It was altered
in _1649_ to 'learned', and modern editors have neglected to correct
the error. A glance at the first line shows that 'leavened' is right.
It is leaven which raises bread. A 'leavened spirit' is one easily
puffed up by the 'love of greatness'. There is much more of satire in
such an epithet than in 'learned'.
l. 17. _great Lunatique_, i. e. probably 'great humourist', whose
moods and whims are governed by the changeful moon. See O. E. D. , which
quotes:
Ther (i. e. women's) hertys chaunge never . . .
Ther sect ys no thing lunatyke.
Lydgate.
'By nativitie they be lunaticke . . . as borne under the influence of
Luna, and therefore as firme . . . as melting waxe. ' Greene, _Mamillia_.
l. 22. _Munster. _ The _Cosmographia Universalis_ (1541) of Sebastian
Munster (1489-1552).
l. 22. _Gesner. _ The _Bibliotheca Universalis, siue Catalogus Omnium
Scriptorum in Linguis Latina, Graeca, et Hebraica_, 1545, by Conrad
von Gesner of Zurich (1516-1565). Norton quotes from Morhof's
_Polyhistor_: 'Conradus Gesner inter universales et perpetuos
Catalogorum scriptores principatum obtinet'; and from Dr. Johnson:
'The book upon which all my fame was originally founded. '
l. 23. _Gallo-belgicus. _ See _Epigrams_.
PAGE =173=, l. 56. _Which casts at Portescues. _ Grosart offers the
only intelligible explanation of this phrase. He identifies the
'Portescue' with the 'Portaque' or 'Portegue', the great crusado of
Portugal, worth ? 3 12_s. _, and quotes from Harrington, _On Playe_:
'Where lords and great men have been disposed to play deep play, and
not having money about them, have cut cards instead of counters, with
asseverance (on their honours) to pay for every piece of card so
lost a portegue. ' Donne's reference to the use which is to be made of
Coryat's books shows clearly that he is speaking of some such custom
as this. Chambers asks pertinently, would the phrase not be 'for
Portescues'? but 'to cast at Portescues' may have been a term, perhaps
translated. A greater difficulty is that 'Portescue' is not given as a
form of 'Portague' by the O. E. D. , but a false etymology connecting it
with 'escus', crowns, may have produced it.
The following poem is also found among the poems prefixed to Coryat's
_Crudities_. It may be by Donne, but was not printed in any edition of
his poems:
_Incipit Ioannes Dones. _
Loe her's a Man, worthy indeede to trauell;
Fat Libian plaines, strangest Chinas grauell.
For Europe well hath scene him stirre his stumpes:
Turning his double shoes to simple pumpes.
And for relation, looke he doth afford
Almost for euery step he tooke a word;
What had he done had he ere hug'd th'Ocean
With swimming _Drake_ or famous _Magelan_?
And kis'd that _vnturn'd[1] cheeke_ of our old mother,
Since so our Europes world he can discouer?
It's not that _French_[2] which made his _Gyant_[3] see
Those vncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee,
Till by the thaw next yeare they'r voic't againe;
Whose _Papagauts_, _Andouelets_, and that traine
Should be such matter for a Pope to curse
As he would make; make! makes ten times worse,
And yet so pleasing as shall laughter moue:
And be his vaine, his game, his praise, his loue.
Sit not still then, keeping fames trump vnblowne:
But get thee _Coryate_ to some land vnknowne.
From wh? ce proclaime thy wisdom with those woders,
Rarer then sommers snowes, or winters thunders.
And take this praise of that th'ast done alreadie:
T'is pitty ere they _flow_ should haue an _eddie_.
_Explicit Ioannes Dones. _
PAGE =174=. IN EUNDEM MACARONICUM.
A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, vii, 1865, gives the
following translation of these lines:
As many perfect linguists as these two distichs make,
So many prudent statesmen will this book of yours produce.
To me the honour is sufficient of being understood: for I leave
To you the honour of being believed by no one.
[Footnote 1: _Terra incognita. _]
[Footnote 2: _Rablais. _]
[Footnote 3: _Pantagruel. _]
[(These notes are given in the margin of the original,
opposite the words explained. )]
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:
Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,
I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales so
As with the Jewes guide God did; he did show
Him the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:
Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.
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,
as the Earth between the Moone and Sun
Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,
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:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime.
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.
