The emendation I have introduced
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line.
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line.
Donne - 2
.
Raine water is better then River water; The water of Heaven,
teares for offending thy God, are better then teares for worldly
losses; But yet come to teares of any kinde, and whatsoever occasion
thy teares, _Deus absterget omnem lacrymam_, there is the largeness of
his bounty, _He will wipe all teares from thine eyes_; But thou must
have teares first: first thou must come to this weeping, or else God
cannot come to this wiping; God hath not that errand to thee, to wipe
teares from thine eyes, if there be none there; If thou doe nothing
for thy selfe, God finds nothing to doe for thee. ' _Sermons_ 80. 54.
539-40.
The waters above the firmament were a subject of considerable
difficulty to mediaeval philosophy--so difficult indeed that St.
Augustine has to strengthen himself against sceptical objections by
reaffirming the authority of Scripture: _Maior est Scripturae huius
auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas. Unde quoquo modo et
qualeslibet aquae ibi sint, eas tamen ibi esse, minime dubitamus. _
Aquinas, who quotes these words from Augustine, comes to two main
conclusions, himself leaning to the last. If by the firmament be meant
either the firmament of fixed stars, or the ninth sphere, the _primum
mobile_, then, since heavenly bodies are not made of the elements of
which earthly things are made (being incorruptible, and unchangeable
except in position), the waters above the firmament are not of
the same _kind_ as those on earth (_non sunt eiusdem speciei cum
inferioribus_). If, however, by the firmament be meant only the upper
part of the air where clouds are condensed, called firmament because
of the thickness of the air in that part, then the waters above the
firmament are simply the vaporized waters of which rain is formed
(_aquae quae vaporabiliter resolutae supra aliquam partem aeris
elevantur, ex quibus pluviae generantur_). _Above_ the firmament
waters are generated, _below_ they rest. _Summa_ I. 68.
If I follow him, Donne to some extent blends or confounds these views.
Tears shed for our sins differ in _kind_ from tears shed for worldly
losses, as the waters above from those below. But the extract from
the sermon identifies the waters above the firmament with rain-water.
'Rain water is better than River-water. ' It is purer; but it does
_not_ differ from it in kind.
l. 12. _Wee, after Gods Noe, drowne our world againe. _ I think the
'our' of the majority of the MSS. must be correct. From the spelling
and punctuation both, it is clear that the source from which _1633_
printed closely resembled _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, which read 'our'. The
change to 'the' was made in the spirit which prompted the grosser
error of certain MSS. which read 'Noah'. Donne has in view the
'microcosm' rather than the 'macrocosm'. There is, of course, an
allusion to the Flood and the promise, but the immediate reference
is to Christ and the soul. 'After Christ's work of redemption and his
resurrection, which forbid despair, we yet yield to the passion of
sorrow. ' We drown not _the_ world but _our_ world, the world within
us, or which each one of us is. This sense is brought out more clearly
in _Cy_'s version, which is a paraphrase rather than a version:
Wee after Gods mercy drowne our Soules againe.
l. 22. _Porcelane, where they buried Clay. _ 'We are not thoroughly
resolved concerning _Porcelane_ or _China_ dishes, that according to
common belief they are made of Earth, which lieth in preparation about
an hundred years under ground; for the relations thereof are not only
divers, but contrary, and Authors agree not herein. ' Browne, _Vulgar
Errors_, ii. 5. Browne quotes some of the older opinions and then
points out that a true account of the manufacture of porcelain had
been furnished by Gonzales de Mendoza, Linschoten, and Alvarez the
Jesuit, and that it was confirmed by the Dutch Embassy of 1665. The
old physical theories were retained for literary purposes long after
they had been exploded.
l. 29. _They say, the sea, when it gaines, loseth too. _ 'But we passe
from the circumstance of the time, to a second, that though Christ
thus despised by the _Gergesens_, did, in his Justice, depart from
them; yet, as the sea gaines in one place, what it loses in another,
his abundant mercy builds up more in _Capernaum_, then his Justice
throwes downe among the _Gergesens_: Because they drave him away, in
Judgement he went from them, but in Mercy he went to the others, who
had not intreated him to come. ' _Sermons_ 80. 11. 103.
'They flatly say that he eateth into others dominions, as the sea doth
into the land, not knowing that in swallowing a poore Iland as big as
Lesbos he may cast up three territories thrice as big as Phrygia: for
what the sea winneth in the marshe, it looseth in the sand. ' Lyly,
_Midas_ v. 2. 17.
Compare also Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sect 2, Mem. 3.
Pope has borrowed the conceit from Donne in _An Essay on Criticism_,
ll. 54-9:
As on the land while here the ocean gains,
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
l. 34. _For, graves our trophies are, and both deaths dust. _ The
modern printing of this as given in the Grolier Club edition makes
this line clearer--'both Deaths' dust. ' 'Graves are our trophies,
their dust is not our dust but the dust of the elder and the younger
death, i. e. sin and the physical or carnal death which sin brought
in its train. ' Chambers's 'death's dust' means, I suppose, the same
thing, but one can hardly speak of 'both death'.
PAGE =281=, ll. 57-8. _this forward heresie,
That women can no parts of friendship bee. _
Montaigne refers to the same heresy in speaking of 'Marie de Gournay
le Jars, ma fille d'alliance, et certes aymée de moy beaucoup plus que
paternellement, et enveloppée en ma retraitte et solitude comme l'une
des meilleures parties de mon propre estre. Je ne regarde plus qu'elle
au monde. Si l'adolescence peut donner presage, cette ame sera quelque
jour capable des plus belles choses et entre autres de la perfection
de _cette tressaincte amitié ou nous ne lisons point que son sexe ait
pu monter encores_: la sincerité et la solidité de ses moeurs y sont
desja bastantes. ' _Essais_ (1590), ii. 17.
PAGE =282=. ELEGIE ON M^{ris} BOULSTRED.
Cecilia Boulstred, or Bulstrode, was the daughter of Hedgerley
Bulstrode, of Bucks. She was baptized at Beaconsfield, February 12,
1583/4, and died at the house of her kinswoman, Lady Bedford, at
Twickenham, on August 4, 1609. So Mr. Chambers, from Sir James
Whitelocke's _Liber Famelicus_ (Camden Society). He quotes also from
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609. ' In a letter to Goodyere Donne speaks
of her illness: 'but (by my troth) I fear earnestly that Mistresse
Bolstrod will not escape that sicknesse in which she labours at this
time. I sent this morning to aske of her passage this night, and the
return is, that she is as I left her yesternight, and then by the
strength of her understanding, and voyce, (proportionally to her
fashion, which was ever remisse) by the eavenesse and life of her
pulse, and by her temper, I could allow her long life, and impute all
her sicknesse to her minde. But the History of her sicknesse makes me
justly fear, that she will scarce last so long, as that you, when you
receive this letter, may do her any good office in praying for her. '
Poor Miss Bulstrode, whose
voice was
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,
has not lived to fame in an altogether happy fashion, as the subject
of some tortured and tasteless _Epicedes_, a coarse and brutal Epigram
by Jonson (_An Epigram on the Court Pucell_ in _Underwoods_,--Jonson
told Drummond that the person intended was Mris Boulstred), a
complimentary, not to say adulatory, _Epitaph_ from the same pen, and
a dubious _Elegy_ by Sir John Roe ('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p.
410). It was an ugly place, the Court of James I, as full of cruel
libels as of gross flattery, a fit subject for Milton's scorn. The
epitaph which Jonson wrote is found in more than one MS. , and in some
where Donne's poems are in the majority. Chambers very tentatively
suggested that it might be by Donne himself, and I was inclined for a
time to accept this conjecture, finding it in other MSS. besides those
he mentioned, and because the sentiment of the closing lines is quite
Donnean. But in the Farmer-Chetham MS. (ed. Grosart) it is signed B.
J. , and Mr. Percy Simpson tells me that a letter is extant from Jonson
to George Gerrard which indicates that the epitaph was written by
Jonson while Gerrard's man waited at the door. I quote it from _B_:
_On the death of M^{rs} Boulstred. _
Stay, view this Stone, and if thou beest not such
Reade here a little, that thou mayest know much.
It covers first a Virgin, and then one
That durst be so in Court; a Virtue alone
To fill an Epitaph; but shee hath more:
Shee might have claym'd to have made the Graces foure,
Taught Pallas language, Cynthia modesty;
As fit to have encreas'd the harmonye
Of Spheares, as light of Starres; she was Earths eye,
The sole religious house and votary
Not bound by rites but Conscience; wouldst thou all?
She was Sil. Boulstred, in which name I call
Up so much truth, as could I here pursue,
Might make the fable of good Woemen true.
The name is given as 'Sal', but corrected to 'Sil' in the margin.
Other MSS. have 'Sell'. It is doubtless 'Cil', a contraction for
'Cecilia'. Chambers inadvertently printed 'still'.
The language of Jonson's _Epitaph_ harmonizes ill with that of his
_Epigram_. Of all titles Jonson loved best that of 'honest', but
'honest', in a man, meant with Jonson having the courage to tell
people disagreeable truths, not to conceal your dislikes. He was a
candid friend to the living; after death--_nil nisi bonum_.
For the relation of this _Elegie_ to that beginning 'Death, be not
proud' (p. 416) see _Text and Canon, &c. _, p. cxliii.
The _1633_ text of this poem is practically identical with that of
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_. With these MSS. it reads in l. 27 'life' for the
'lives' of other MSS. and editions, and 'but' for 'though' in the last
line. The only variant in _1633_ is 'worke' for 'workes' in l. 45. The
latter reading has the support of other MSS. and is very probably what
Donne wrote. Such use of a plural verb after two singular subjects of
closely allied import was common. See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_,
§ 673, and the examples quoted there, e. g. 'Both wind and tide stays
for this gentleman,' _Com. of Err_. IV. i. 46, where Rowe corrects to
'stay'; 'Both man and master is possessed,' _ibid. _ IV. iv. 89.
l. 10. _Eating the best first, well preserv'd to last. _ The 'fruite'
or 'fruites' of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, which is as old as _P_ (1623), is
probably a genuine variant. The reference is to the elaborate dainties
of the second course at Elizabethan banquets, the dessert. Sleep, in
Macbeth's famous speech, is
great Nature's second course,
and Donne uses the same metaphor of the Eucharist: 'This fasting then
. . . is but a continuation of a great feast: where the first
course (that which we begin to serve in now) is Manna, food of
Angels,--plentiful, frequent preaching; but the second course is the
very body and blood of Christ Jesus, shed for us and given to us, in
that Blessed Sacrament, of which himself makes us worthy receivers at
that time. ' _Sermons_. 'The most precious and costly dishes are always
reserved for the last services, but yet there is wholesome meat before
too. ' _Ibid. _
l. 18. _In birds, &c. _: 'birds' is here in the possessive case,
'birds' organic throats'. I have modified the punctuation so as to
make this clearer.
l. 24. _All the foure Monarchies_: i. e. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and
Rome. John Sleidan, mentioned in a note on the _Satyres_, wrote _The
Key of Historie: Or, A most Methodicall Abridgement of the foure
chiefe Monarchies &c. _, to quote its title in the English translation.
l. 27. _Our births and lives, &c. _ _1633_ and the two groups of MSS.
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_, _L74_, _N_, _TC_ read 'life'. If this be
correct, then 'births' would surely need to be 'birth'. _HN_ shows, I
think, what has happened. The voiced 'f' was not always distinguished
from the breathed sound by a different spelling ('v' for 'f'), and
'lifes' would very easily become 'life'. On the other hand 'v' was
frequently written where we now have 'f', and sometimes misleads.
Peele's _The Old Wives Tale_ is not necessarily, as usually printed,
_Wives'_. It is just an _Old Woman's Tale_.
PAGE =284=. ELEGIE.
PAGE =285=, l. 34. _The Ethicks speake, &c. _ A rather strange
expression for 'Ethics tell'. The article is rare. Donne says, 'No
booke of Ethicks. ' _Sermons_ 80. 55. 550. In _HN_ Drummond has altered
to 'Ethnicks' a word Donne uses elsewhere: 'Of all nations the Jews
have most chastely preserved that ceremony of abstaining from Ethnic
names. ' _Essays in Divinity. _ It does not, however, seem appropriate
here, unless Donne means to say that she had all the cardinal virtues
of the heathen with the superhuman, theological virtues which are
superinduced by grace:
Her soul was Paradise, &c.
But this is not at all clear. Apparently there is no more in the line
than a somewhat vaguely expressed hyperbole: 'she had all the cardinal
virtues of which we hear in Ethics'.
PAGE =286=, l. 44. _Wee'had had a Saint, have now a holiday_: i. e.
'We should have had a saint and should have now a holiday'--her
anniversary. The MS. form of the line is probably correct:
We hád had á Saint, nów a hólidáy.
l. 48. _That what we turne to_ feast, _she turn'd to_ pray. As printed
in the old editions this line, if it be correctly given, is one of the
worst Donne ever wrote:
That what we turne to feast, she turn'd to pray,
i. e. apparently 'That, the day which we turn into a feast or festival
she turned into a day of prayer, a fast'. But 'she turn'd to pray'
in such a sense is a hideously elliptical construction and cannot,
I think, be what Donne meant to write. Two emendations suggest
themselves. One occurs in _HN_:
That when we turn'd to feast, she turn'd to pray.
When we turn'd aside from the routine of life's work to keep holiday,
she did so also, but it was to pray. This is better, but it is
difficult to understand how, if this be the correct reading, the error
arose, and only _HN_ reads 'when'.
The emendation I have introduced
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line. I take it that Donne meant 'feast' and 'pray' to be
imperatives, and that the line would be printed, if modernized, thus:
That what we turn to 'feast! ' she turn'd to 'pray! '
That the command to keep the Sabbath day holy, which we, especially
Roman Catholics and Anglicans of the Catholic school, interpret as
to the Christian Church a command to feast, to keep holiday, she
interpreted as a command to fast and pray. Probably both Lady Markham
and Lady Bedford belonged to the more Calvinist wing of the Church.
There is a distinctly Calvinist flavour about Lady Bedford's own
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death. See p. 422, and especially:
Goe then to people curst before they were,
Their spoyles in triumph of thy conquest weare.
l. 58. _will be a Lemnia. _ All the MSS. read 'Lemnia' without the
article, probably rightly, 'Lemnia' being used shortly for 'terra
Lemnia', or 'Lemnian earth'--a red clay found in Lemnos and reputed
an antidote to poison (Pliny, _N. H. _ xxv. 13). It was one of
the constituents of the theriaca. It may be here thought of as an
antiseptic preserving from putrefaction. But Norton points out that by
some of the alchemists the name was given to the essential component
of the Philosopher's stone, and that what Donne was thinking of was
transmuting power, changing crystal into diamond. The alchemists,
however, dealt more in metals than in stones. The thought in Donne's
mind is perhaps rather that which he expresses at p. 280, l. 21. As
in some earths clay is turned to porcelain, so in this Lemnian earth
crystal will turn to diamond.
The words 'Tombe' and 'diamond' afford so bad a rhyme that G. L. Craik
conjectured, not very happily,'a wooden round'. Craik's criticism of
Donne, written in 1847, _Sketches of the History of Literature and
Learning in England_, is wonderfully just and appreciative.
PAGE =287=. ELEGIE ON THE L. C.
Whoever may be the subject of this _Elegie_, Donne speaks as though he
were a member of his household. In 1617 Donne had long ceased to be
in any way attached to the Lord Chancellor's retinue. The reference to
his 'children' also without any special reference to his son the new
earl, soon to be Earl of Bridgewater, is very unlike Donne. Moreover,
Sir Thomas Egerton never had more than two sons, one of whom was
killed in Ireland in 1599.
ll. 13-16. _As we for him dead: though, &c. _ Both Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor connect the clause 'though no family . . . with him
in joy to share' with the next, as its principal clause, 'We lose
what all friends lov'd, &c. ' To me it seems that it must go with the
preceding clause, 'As we [must wither] for him dead'. I take it as a
clause of concession. 'With him we, his family, must die (as the briar
does with the tree on which it grows); but no family could die with
a more certain hope of sharing the joy into which their head has
entered; with none would so many be willing to "venture estates" in
that great voyage of discovery. ' With the next lines,'We lose,' &c. ,
begins a fresh argument. The thought is forced and obscure, but the
figure, taken from voyages of discovery, is characteristic of Donne.
PAGE =288=. AN HYMNE TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUESSE HAMYLTON.
In the old editions this is placed among the _Divine Poems_, and Donne
meant it to bear that character. For it was rather unwillingly that
Donne, now in Orders, wrote this poem at the instance of his friend
and patron Sir Robert Ker, or Carr, later (1633) Earl of Ancrum.
James Hamilton, b. 1584, succeeded his father in 1604 as Marquis of
Hamilton, and his uncle in 1609 as Duke of Chatelherault and Earl of
Arran. He was made a Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber and held other posts
in Scotland. On the occasion of James I's visit to Scotland in 1617 he
played a leading part, and thereafter became a favourite courtier,
his name figuring in all the great functions described in Nichol's
_Progresses_. In 1617 Chamberlain writes: 'I have not heard a man
generally better spoken of than the Marquis, even by all the English;
insomuch that he is every way held as the gallantest gentleman of
both the nations. ' He was High Commissioner to the Parliament held at
Edinburgh in 1624, where he secured the passing of the Five Articles
of Perth. In 1624 he opposed the French War policy of Buckingham, and
when he died on March 2, 1624/5, it was maintained that the latter had
poisoned him.
The rhetoric and rhythm of this poem depend a good deal on getting
the right punctuation and a clear view of what are the periods. I have
ventured to make a few emendations in the arrangement of _1633_. The
first sentence ends with the emphatic 'wee doe not so' (l. 8), where
'wee' might be printed in italics. The next closes with 'all lost a
limbe' (l. 18), and the effect is marred if, with Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor, one places a full stop after 'Music lacks a
song', though a colon might be most appropriate. The last two lines
clinch the detailed statement which has preceded. The next sentence
again is not completed till l. 30, 'in the form thereof his bodie's
there', but, though _1633_ has only a semicolon here, a full stop
is preferable, or at least a colon. Chambers's full stops at l. 22,
'none', and l. 28, 'a resurrection', have again the effect of
breaking the logical and rhythmical structure. Lines 23-4 are entirely
parenthetical and would be better enclosed in brackets. Four sustained
periods compose the elegy.
PAGE =289=, ll. 6-7. _If every severall Angell bee A kind alone. _ Ea
enim quae conveniunt specie, et differunt numero, conveniunt in formâ
sed distinguuntur materialiter. Si ergo Angeli non sunt compositi ex
materiâ et formâ . . . sequitur quod _impossibile sit esse duos Angelos
unius speciei_: sicut etiam impossibile esset dicere quod essent
plures albedines (whitenesses) separatae aut plures humanitates: . . .
Si tamen Angeli haberent materiam nec sic possent esse plures Angeli
unius speciei. Sic enim opporteret quod principium distinctionis unius
ab alio esset materia, non quidem secundum divisionem quantitatis, cum
sint incorporei, sed secundum diversitatem potentiarum: quae quidem
diversitas materiae causat diversitatem non solum speciei sed generis.
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. l. 4.
PAGE =293=. INFINITATI SACRUM, _&c. _
PAGE =294=, l. 11. _a Mucheron_: i. e. a mushroom, here equivalent to
a fungus. Chambers adopts without note the reading of the later
editions, 'Maceron', but spells it 'Macaron'. Grosart prints
'Macheron', taking 'Mucheron' as a mis-spelling. Captain Shirley
Harris first pointed out, in _Notes and Queries_, that 'Mucheron'
must be correct, for Donne has in view, as so often elsewhere, the
threefold division of the soul--vegetal, sensitive, rational. Captain
Harris quoted the very apt parallel from Burton, where, speaking
of metempsychosis, he says: 'Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a
captain:
Ille ego (nam memini Troiani tempore belli)
Panthoides Euphorbus eram,
a horse, a man, a spunge. ' _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 1, Sect. 1,
Mem. 2, Subs. 10. Donne's order is, a man, a horse, a fungus. But
to Burton a sponge was a fungus. The word fungus is cognate with or
derived from the Greek [Greek: spongos].
As for the form 'mucheron' (n. b. 'mushrome' in _G_) the O. E. D.
gives it among different spellings but cites no example of this exact
spelling. From the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ it quotes, 'Muscheron,
toodys hatte, _boletus_, _fungus_. ' Captain Harris has supplied me
with the following delightful instance of the word in use as late as
1808. It is from a catalogue of Maggs Bros. (No. 263, 1910):
'THE DISAPPOINTED KING OF SPAIN, or the downfall of the Mucheron King
Joe Bonaparte, late Pettifogging Attorney's Clerk. Between two stools
the Breech comes to the Ground. '
The caricature is etched by G. Cruikshank and is dated 1808.
The 'Maceron' which was inserted in _1635_ is not a misprint, but a
pseudo-correction by some one who did not recognize 'mucheron' and
knew that Donne had elsewhere used 'maceron' for a fop or puppy (see
p. 163, l. 117).
'Mushrome', the spelling of the word in _G_, is found also in the
_Sermons_ (80. 73. 748).
l. 22. _which Eve eate_: 'eate' is of course the past tense, and
should be 'ate' in modernized editions, not 'eat' as in Chambers's and
the Grolier Club editions.
THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE.
The strange poem _The Progresse of the Soule_, or _Metempsychosis_, is
dated by Donne himself, 16 Augusti 1601. The different use of the
same title which Donne made later to describe the progress of the
soul heavenward, after its release from the body, shows that he had no
intention of publishing the poem. How widely it circulated in MS. we
do not know, but I know of three copies only which are extant, viz.
_G_, _O'F_, and that given in the group _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_.
It was from the last that the text of _1633_ was printed, the editor
supplying the punctuation, which in the MS. is scanty. In some copies
of _1633_ the same omissions of words occur as in the MS. but the poem
was corrected in several places as it passed through the press.
_G_, though not without mistakes itself, supplies some important
emendations.
The sole light from without which has been thrown upon the poem comes
from Ben Jonson's conversations with Drummond: 'The conceit of Dones
Transformation or [Greek: Metempsychôsis] was that he sought the soule
of that aple which Eve pulled and thereafter made it the soule of a
bitch, then of a shee wolf, and so of a woman; his generall purpose
was to have brought in all the bodies of the Hereticks from the soule
of Cain, and at last left in the bodie of Calvin. Of this he never
wrotte but one sheet, and now, since he was made Doctor, repenteth
highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems. '
Jonson was clearly recalling the poem somewhat inaccurately, and
at the same time giving the substance of what Donne had told him.
Probably Donne mystified him on purpose, for it is evident from the
poem that in his first intention Queen Elizabeth herself was to be the
soul's last host. It is impossible to attach any other meaning to the
seventh stanza; and that intention also explains the bitter tone in
which women are satirized in the fragment. Women and courtiers are
the chief subject of Donne's sardonic satire in this poem, as of
Shakespeare's in _Hamlet_.
I have indicated elsewhere what I think is the most probable motive
of the poem. It reflects the mood of mind into which Donne, like many
others, was thrown by the tragic fate of Essex in the spring of the
year. In _Cynthia's Revels_, acted in the same year as Donne's poem
was composed, Jonson speaks of 'some black and envious slanders
breath'd against her' (i. e. Diana, who is Elizabeth) 'for her divine
justice on Actaeon', and it is well known that she incurred both
odium and the pangs of remorse. Donne, who was still a Catholic in
the sympathies that come of education and association, seems to
have contemplated a satirical history of the great heretic in lineal
descent from the wife of Cain to Elizabeth--for private circulation.
See _The Poetry of John Donne_, II. pp. xvii-xx.
PAGE =295=, l. 9. _Seths pillars. _ Norton's note on this runs: 'Seth,
the son of Adam, left children who imitated his virtues. 'They were
the discoverers of the wisdom which relates to the heavenly bodies and
their order, and that their inventions might not be lost they made
two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone, and inscribed their
discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be
destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain and exhibit
these discoveries to mankind. . . . Now this remains in the land of
Siriad to this day. ' Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_ (Whiston's
translation), I. 2, §3.
PAGE =296=, l. 21. _holy Ianus. _ 'Janus, whom Annius of Viterbo and
the chorographers of Italy do make to be the same with Noah. ' Browne,
_Vulgar Errors_, vi. 6. The work referred to is the _Antiquitatum
variarum volumina XVII_ (1498, reprinted and re-arranged 1511), by
Annius of Viterbo (1432-1502), a Dominican friar, Fra Giovanni
Nanni. Each of the books, after the first, consists of a digest
with commentary of various works on ancient history, the aim being
apparently to reconcile Biblical and heathen chronology and to
establish the genealogy of Christ. _Liber XIIII_ is a digest, or
'defloratio', of Philo (of whom later); _Liber XV_ of Berosus,
a reputed Chaldaean historian ('patria Babylonicus; et dignitate
Chaldaeus'), cited by Josephus. From him Annius derives this
identification of Janus with Noah: 'Hoc vltimo loco Berosus de tribus
cognominibus rationes tradit: Noa: Cam & Tythea. De Noa dicit quod
fuit illi tributum cognomen Ianus a Iain: quod apud Aramaeos et
Hebraeos sonat vinum: a quo Ianus id est vinifer et vinosus: quia
primus vinum invenit et inebriatus est: vt dicit Berosus: et supra
insinuavit Propertius: et item Moyses Genesis cap ix. vbi etiam Iain
vinum Iani nominat: vbi nos habemus: Cum Noa evigilasset a vino. Cato
etiam in fragmentis originum; et Fabius Pictor in de origine vrbis
Romae dicunt Ianum dictum priscum Oenotrium: quia invenit vinum et
far ad religionem magis quam ad vsum,' &c. , XV, Fo. cxv. Elsewhere
the identity is based not on this common interest in wine but on
their priestly office, they being the first to offer 'sacrificia et
holocausta', VII, Fo. lviii. Again, 'Ex his probatur irrevincibiliter
a tempore demonstrato a Solino et propriis Epithetis Iani: eundem
fuisse Ogygem: Ianum et Noam . . . Sed Noa fuit proprium: Ogyges verum
Ianus et Proteus id est Vertumnus sunt solum praenomina ejus,' XV, Fo.
cv. No mention of the ark as a link occurs, but a ship figured on the
copper coins distributed at Rome on New Year's day, which was sacred
to Janus. The original connexion is probably found in Macrobius'
statement (_Saturn. _ I. 9) that among other titles Janus was invoked
as 'Consivius . . . a conserendo id est a propagine generis humani quae
Iano auctore conseritur'. Noah is the father of the extant human race.
PAGE =299=, ll. 114-17. There can be no doubt, I think, that the 1633
text is here correct, though for clearness a comma must be inserted
after 'reasons'. The emendation of the 1635 editor which modern
editors have followed gives an awkward and, at the close, an absurdly
tautological sentence. It is not the reason, the rational faculty,
of sceptics which is like the bubbles blown by boys, that stretch too
thin, 'break and do themselves spill.
teares for offending thy God, are better then teares for worldly
losses; But yet come to teares of any kinde, and whatsoever occasion
thy teares, _Deus absterget omnem lacrymam_, there is the largeness of
his bounty, _He will wipe all teares from thine eyes_; But thou must
have teares first: first thou must come to this weeping, or else God
cannot come to this wiping; God hath not that errand to thee, to wipe
teares from thine eyes, if there be none there; If thou doe nothing
for thy selfe, God finds nothing to doe for thee. ' _Sermons_ 80. 54.
539-40.
The waters above the firmament were a subject of considerable
difficulty to mediaeval philosophy--so difficult indeed that St.
Augustine has to strengthen himself against sceptical objections by
reaffirming the authority of Scripture: _Maior est Scripturae huius
auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas. Unde quoquo modo et
qualeslibet aquae ibi sint, eas tamen ibi esse, minime dubitamus. _
Aquinas, who quotes these words from Augustine, comes to two main
conclusions, himself leaning to the last. If by the firmament be meant
either the firmament of fixed stars, or the ninth sphere, the _primum
mobile_, then, since heavenly bodies are not made of the elements of
which earthly things are made (being incorruptible, and unchangeable
except in position), the waters above the firmament are not of
the same _kind_ as those on earth (_non sunt eiusdem speciei cum
inferioribus_). If, however, by the firmament be meant only the upper
part of the air where clouds are condensed, called firmament because
of the thickness of the air in that part, then the waters above the
firmament are simply the vaporized waters of which rain is formed
(_aquae quae vaporabiliter resolutae supra aliquam partem aeris
elevantur, ex quibus pluviae generantur_). _Above_ the firmament
waters are generated, _below_ they rest. _Summa_ I. 68.
If I follow him, Donne to some extent blends or confounds these views.
Tears shed for our sins differ in _kind_ from tears shed for worldly
losses, as the waters above from those below. But the extract from
the sermon identifies the waters above the firmament with rain-water.
'Rain water is better than River-water. ' It is purer; but it does
_not_ differ from it in kind.
l. 12. _Wee, after Gods Noe, drowne our world againe. _ I think the
'our' of the majority of the MSS. must be correct. From the spelling
and punctuation both, it is clear that the source from which _1633_
printed closely resembled _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, which read 'our'. The
change to 'the' was made in the spirit which prompted the grosser
error of certain MSS. which read 'Noah'. Donne has in view the
'microcosm' rather than the 'macrocosm'. There is, of course, an
allusion to the Flood and the promise, but the immediate reference
is to Christ and the soul. 'After Christ's work of redemption and his
resurrection, which forbid despair, we yet yield to the passion of
sorrow. ' We drown not _the_ world but _our_ world, the world within
us, or which each one of us is. This sense is brought out more clearly
in _Cy_'s version, which is a paraphrase rather than a version:
Wee after Gods mercy drowne our Soules againe.
l. 22. _Porcelane, where they buried Clay. _ 'We are not thoroughly
resolved concerning _Porcelane_ or _China_ dishes, that according to
common belief they are made of Earth, which lieth in preparation about
an hundred years under ground; for the relations thereof are not only
divers, but contrary, and Authors agree not herein. ' Browne, _Vulgar
Errors_, ii. 5. Browne quotes some of the older opinions and then
points out that a true account of the manufacture of porcelain had
been furnished by Gonzales de Mendoza, Linschoten, and Alvarez the
Jesuit, and that it was confirmed by the Dutch Embassy of 1665. The
old physical theories were retained for literary purposes long after
they had been exploded.
l. 29. _They say, the sea, when it gaines, loseth too. _ 'But we passe
from the circumstance of the time, to a second, that though Christ
thus despised by the _Gergesens_, did, in his Justice, depart from
them; yet, as the sea gaines in one place, what it loses in another,
his abundant mercy builds up more in _Capernaum_, then his Justice
throwes downe among the _Gergesens_: Because they drave him away, in
Judgement he went from them, but in Mercy he went to the others, who
had not intreated him to come. ' _Sermons_ 80. 11. 103.
'They flatly say that he eateth into others dominions, as the sea doth
into the land, not knowing that in swallowing a poore Iland as big as
Lesbos he may cast up three territories thrice as big as Phrygia: for
what the sea winneth in the marshe, it looseth in the sand. ' Lyly,
_Midas_ v. 2. 17.
Compare also Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sect 2, Mem. 3.
Pope has borrowed the conceit from Donne in _An Essay on Criticism_,
ll. 54-9:
As on the land while here the ocean gains,
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
l. 34. _For, graves our trophies are, and both deaths dust. _ The
modern printing of this as given in the Grolier Club edition makes
this line clearer--'both Deaths' dust. ' 'Graves are our trophies,
their dust is not our dust but the dust of the elder and the younger
death, i. e. sin and the physical or carnal death which sin brought
in its train. ' Chambers's 'death's dust' means, I suppose, the same
thing, but one can hardly speak of 'both death'.
PAGE =281=, ll. 57-8. _this forward heresie,
That women can no parts of friendship bee. _
Montaigne refers to the same heresy in speaking of 'Marie de Gournay
le Jars, ma fille d'alliance, et certes aymée de moy beaucoup plus que
paternellement, et enveloppée en ma retraitte et solitude comme l'une
des meilleures parties de mon propre estre. Je ne regarde plus qu'elle
au monde. Si l'adolescence peut donner presage, cette ame sera quelque
jour capable des plus belles choses et entre autres de la perfection
de _cette tressaincte amitié ou nous ne lisons point que son sexe ait
pu monter encores_: la sincerité et la solidité de ses moeurs y sont
desja bastantes. ' _Essais_ (1590), ii. 17.
PAGE =282=. ELEGIE ON M^{ris} BOULSTRED.
Cecilia Boulstred, or Bulstrode, was the daughter of Hedgerley
Bulstrode, of Bucks. She was baptized at Beaconsfield, February 12,
1583/4, and died at the house of her kinswoman, Lady Bedford, at
Twickenham, on August 4, 1609. So Mr. Chambers, from Sir James
Whitelocke's _Liber Famelicus_ (Camden Society). He quotes also from
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609. ' In a letter to Goodyere Donne speaks
of her illness: 'but (by my troth) I fear earnestly that Mistresse
Bolstrod will not escape that sicknesse in which she labours at this
time. I sent this morning to aske of her passage this night, and the
return is, that she is as I left her yesternight, and then by the
strength of her understanding, and voyce, (proportionally to her
fashion, which was ever remisse) by the eavenesse and life of her
pulse, and by her temper, I could allow her long life, and impute all
her sicknesse to her minde. But the History of her sicknesse makes me
justly fear, that she will scarce last so long, as that you, when you
receive this letter, may do her any good office in praying for her. '
Poor Miss Bulstrode, whose
voice was
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,
has not lived to fame in an altogether happy fashion, as the subject
of some tortured and tasteless _Epicedes_, a coarse and brutal Epigram
by Jonson (_An Epigram on the Court Pucell_ in _Underwoods_,--Jonson
told Drummond that the person intended was Mris Boulstred), a
complimentary, not to say adulatory, _Epitaph_ from the same pen, and
a dubious _Elegy_ by Sir John Roe ('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p.
410). It was an ugly place, the Court of James I, as full of cruel
libels as of gross flattery, a fit subject for Milton's scorn. The
epitaph which Jonson wrote is found in more than one MS. , and in some
where Donne's poems are in the majority. Chambers very tentatively
suggested that it might be by Donne himself, and I was inclined for a
time to accept this conjecture, finding it in other MSS. besides those
he mentioned, and because the sentiment of the closing lines is quite
Donnean. But in the Farmer-Chetham MS. (ed. Grosart) it is signed B.
J. , and Mr. Percy Simpson tells me that a letter is extant from Jonson
to George Gerrard which indicates that the epitaph was written by
Jonson while Gerrard's man waited at the door. I quote it from _B_:
_On the death of M^{rs} Boulstred. _
Stay, view this Stone, and if thou beest not such
Reade here a little, that thou mayest know much.
It covers first a Virgin, and then one
That durst be so in Court; a Virtue alone
To fill an Epitaph; but shee hath more:
Shee might have claym'd to have made the Graces foure,
Taught Pallas language, Cynthia modesty;
As fit to have encreas'd the harmonye
Of Spheares, as light of Starres; she was Earths eye,
The sole religious house and votary
Not bound by rites but Conscience; wouldst thou all?
She was Sil. Boulstred, in which name I call
Up so much truth, as could I here pursue,
Might make the fable of good Woemen true.
The name is given as 'Sal', but corrected to 'Sil' in the margin.
Other MSS. have 'Sell'. It is doubtless 'Cil', a contraction for
'Cecilia'. Chambers inadvertently printed 'still'.
The language of Jonson's _Epitaph_ harmonizes ill with that of his
_Epigram_. Of all titles Jonson loved best that of 'honest', but
'honest', in a man, meant with Jonson having the courage to tell
people disagreeable truths, not to conceal your dislikes. He was a
candid friend to the living; after death--_nil nisi bonum_.
For the relation of this _Elegie_ to that beginning 'Death, be not
proud' (p. 416) see _Text and Canon, &c. _, p. cxliii.
The _1633_ text of this poem is practically identical with that of
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_. With these MSS. it reads in l. 27 'life' for the
'lives' of other MSS. and editions, and 'but' for 'though' in the last
line. The only variant in _1633_ is 'worke' for 'workes' in l. 45. The
latter reading has the support of other MSS. and is very probably what
Donne wrote. Such use of a plural verb after two singular subjects of
closely allied import was common. See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_,
§ 673, and the examples quoted there, e. g. 'Both wind and tide stays
for this gentleman,' _Com. of Err_. IV. i. 46, where Rowe corrects to
'stay'; 'Both man and master is possessed,' _ibid. _ IV. iv. 89.
l. 10. _Eating the best first, well preserv'd to last. _ The 'fruite'
or 'fruites' of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, which is as old as _P_ (1623), is
probably a genuine variant. The reference is to the elaborate dainties
of the second course at Elizabethan banquets, the dessert. Sleep, in
Macbeth's famous speech, is
great Nature's second course,
and Donne uses the same metaphor of the Eucharist: 'This fasting then
. . . is but a continuation of a great feast: where the first
course (that which we begin to serve in now) is Manna, food of
Angels,--plentiful, frequent preaching; but the second course is the
very body and blood of Christ Jesus, shed for us and given to us, in
that Blessed Sacrament, of which himself makes us worthy receivers at
that time. ' _Sermons_. 'The most precious and costly dishes are always
reserved for the last services, but yet there is wholesome meat before
too. ' _Ibid. _
l. 18. _In birds, &c. _: 'birds' is here in the possessive case,
'birds' organic throats'. I have modified the punctuation so as to
make this clearer.
l. 24. _All the foure Monarchies_: i. e. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and
Rome. John Sleidan, mentioned in a note on the _Satyres_, wrote _The
Key of Historie: Or, A most Methodicall Abridgement of the foure
chiefe Monarchies &c. _, to quote its title in the English translation.
l. 27. _Our births and lives, &c. _ _1633_ and the two groups of MSS.
_D_, _H49_, _Lec_ and _A18_, _L74_, _N_, _TC_ read 'life'. If this be
correct, then 'births' would surely need to be 'birth'. _HN_ shows, I
think, what has happened. The voiced 'f' was not always distinguished
from the breathed sound by a different spelling ('v' for 'f'), and
'lifes' would very easily become 'life'. On the other hand 'v' was
frequently written where we now have 'f', and sometimes misleads.
Peele's _The Old Wives Tale_ is not necessarily, as usually printed,
_Wives'_. It is just an _Old Woman's Tale_.
PAGE =284=. ELEGIE.
PAGE =285=, l. 34. _The Ethicks speake, &c. _ A rather strange
expression for 'Ethics tell'. The article is rare. Donne says, 'No
booke of Ethicks. ' _Sermons_ 80. 55. 550. In _HN_ Drummond has altered
to 'Ethnicks' a word Donne uses elsewhere: 'Of all nations the Jews
have most chastely preserved that ceremony of abstaining from Ethnic
names. ' _Essays in Divinity. _ It does not, however, seem appropriate
here, unless Donne means to say that she had all the cardinal virtues
of the heathen with the superhuman, theological virtues which are
superinduced by grace:
Her soul was Paradise, &c.
But this is not at all clear. Apparently there is no more in the line
than a somewhat vaguely expressed hyperbole: 'she had all the cardinal
virtues of which we hear in Ethics'.
PAGE =286=, l. 44. _Wee'had had a Saint, have now a holiday_: i. e.
'We should have had a saint and should have now a holiday'--her
anniversary. The MS. form of the line is probably correct:
We hád had á Saint, nów a hólidáy.
l. 48. _That what we turne to_ feast, _she turn'd to_ pray. As printed
in the old editions this line, if it be correctly given, is one of the
worst Donne ever wrote:
That what we turne to feast, she turn'd to pray,
i. e. apparently 'That, the day which we turn into a feast or festival
she turned into a day of prayer, a fast'. But 'she turn'd to pray'
in such a sense is a hideously elliptical construction and cannot,
I think, be what Donne meant to write. Two emendations suggest
themselves. One occurs in _HN_:
That when we turn'd to feast, she turn'd to pray.
When we turn'd aside from the routine of life's work to keep holiday,
she did so also, but it was to pray. This is better, but it is
difficult to understand how, if this be the correct reading, the error
arose, and only _HN_ reads 'when'.
The emendation I have introduced
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line. I take it that Donne meant 'feast' and 'pray' to be
imperatives, and that the line would be printed, if modernized, thus:
That what we turn to 'feast! ' she turn'd to 'pray! '
That the command to keep the Sabbath day holy, which we, especially
Roman Catholics and Anglicans of the Catholic school, interpret as
to the Christian Church a command to feast, to keep holiday, she
interpreted as a command to fast and pray. Probably both Lady Markham
and Lady Bedford belonged to the more Calvinist wing of the Church.
There is a distinctly Calvinist flavour about Lady Bedford's own
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death. See p. 422, and especially:
Goe then to people curst before they were,
Their spoyles in triumph of thy conquest weare.
l. 58. _will be a Lemnia. _ All the MSS. read 'Lemnia' without the
article, probably rightly, 'Lemnia' being used shortly for 'terra
Lemnia', or 'Lemnian earth'--a red clay found in Lemnos and reputed
an antidote to poison (Pliny, _N. H. _ xxv. 13). It was one of
the constituents of the theriaca. It may be here thought of as an
antiseptic preserving from putrefaction. But Norton points out that by
some of the alchemists the name was given to the essential component
of the Philosopher's stone, and that what Donne was thinking of was
transmuting power, changing crystal into diamond. The alchemists,
however, dealt more in metals than in stones. The thought in Donne's
mind is perhaps rather that which he expresses at p. 280, l. 21. As
in some earths clay is turned to porcelain, so in this Lemnian earth
crystal will turn to diamond.
The words 'Tombe' and 'diamond' afford so bad a rhyme that G. L. Craik
conjectured, not very happily,'a wooden round'. Craik's criticism of
Donne, written in 1847, _Sketches of the History of Literature and
Learning in England_, is wonderfully just and appreciative.
PAGE =287=. ELEGIE ON THE L. C.
Whoever may be the subject of this _Elegie_, Donne speaks as though he
were a member of his household. In 1617 Donne had long ceased to be
in any way attached to the Lord Chancellor's retinue. The reference to
his 'children' also without any special reference to his son the new
earl, soon to be Earl of Bridgewater, is very unlike Donne. Moreover,
Sir Thomas Egerton never had more than two sons, one of whom was
killed in Ireland in 1599.
ll. 13-16. _As we for him dead: though, &c. _ Both Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor connect the clause 'though no family . . . with him
in joy to share' with the next, as its principal clause, 'We lose
what all friends lov'd, &c. ' To me it seems that it must go with the
preceding clause, 'As we [must wither] for him dead'. I take it as a
clause of concession. 'With him we, his family, must die (as the briar
does with the tree on which it grows); but no family could die with
a more certain hope of sharing the joy into which their head has
entered; with none would so many be willing to "venture estates" in
that great voyage of discovery. ' With the next lines,'We lose,' &c. ,
begins a fresh argument. The thought is forced and obscure, but the
figure, taken from voyages of discovery, is characteristic of Donne.
PAGE =288=. AN HYMNE TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUESSE HAMYLTON.
In the old editions this is placed among the _Divine Poems_, and Donne
meant it to bear that character. For it was rather unwillingly that
Donne, now in Orders, wrote this poem at the instance of his friend
and patron Sir Robert Ker, or Carr, later (1633) Earl of Ancrum.
James Hamilton, b. 1584, succeeded his father in 1604 as Marquis of
Hamilton, and his uncle in 1609 as Duke of Chatelherault and Earl of
Arran. He was made a Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber and held other posts
in Scotland. On the occasion of James I's visit to Scotland in 1617 he
played a leading part, and thereafter became a favourite courtier,
his name figuring in all the great functions described in Nichol's
_Progresses_. In 1617 Chamberlain writes: 'I have not heard a man
generally better spoken of than the Marquis, even by all the English;
insomuch that he is every way held as the gallantest gentleman of
both the nations. ' He was High Commissioner to the Parliament held at
Edinburgh in 1624, where he secured the passing of the Five Articles
of Perth. In 1624 he opposed the French War policy of Buckingham, and
when he died on March 2, 1624/5, it was maintained that the latter had
poisoned him.
The rhetoric and rhythm of this poem depend a good deal on getting
the right punctuation and a clear view of what are the periods. I have
ventured to make a few emendations in the arrangement of _1633_. The
first sentence ends with the emphatic 'wee doe not so' (l. 8), where
'wee' might be printed in italics. The next closes with 'all lost a
limbe' (l. 18), and the effect is marred if, with Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor, one places a full stop after 'Music lacks a
song', though a colon might be most appropriate. The last two lines
clinch the detailed statement which has preceded. The next sentence
again is not completed till l. 30, 'in the form thereof his bodie's
there', but, though _1633_ has only a semicolon here, a full stop
is preferable, or at least a colon. Chambers's full stops at l. 22,
'none', and l. 28, 'a resurrection', have again the effect of
breaking the logical and rhythmical structure. Lines 23-4 are entirely
parenthetical and would be better enclosed in brackets. Four sustained
periods compose the elegy.
PAGE =289=, ll. 6-7. _If every severall Angell bee A kind alone. _ Ea
enim quae conveniunt specie, et differunt numero, conveniunt in formâ
sed distinguuntur materialiter. Si ergo Angeli non sunt compositi ex
materiâ et formâ . . . sequitur quod _impossibile sit esse duos Angelos
unius speciei_: sicut etiam impossibile esset dicere quod essent
plures albedines (whitenesses) separatae aut plures humanitates: . . .
Si tamen Angeli haberent materiam nec sic possent esse plures Angeli
unius speciei. Sic enim opporteret quod principium distinctionis unius
ab alio esset materia, non quidem secundum divisionem quantitatis, cum
sint incorporei, sed secundum diversitatem potentiarum: quae quidem
diversitas materiae causat diversitatem non solum speciei sed generis.
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. l. 4.
PAGE =293=. INFINITATI SACRUM, _&c. _
PAGE =294=, l. 11. _a Mucheron_: i. e. a mushroom, here equivalent to
a fungus. Chambers adopts without note the reading of the later
editions, 'Maceron', but spells it 'Macaron'. Grosart prints
'Macheron', taking 'Mucheron' as a mis-spelling. Captain Shirley
Harris first pointed out, in _Notes and Queries_, that 'Mucheron'
must be correct, for Donne has in view, as so often elsewhere, the
threefold division of the soul--vegetal, sensitive, rational. Captain
Harris quoted the very apt parallel from Burton, where, speaking
of metempsychosis, he says: 'Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a
captain:
Ille ego (nam memini Troiani tempore belli)
Panthoides Euphorbus eram,
a horse, a man, a spunge. ' _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 1, Sect. 1,
Mem. 2, Subs. 10. Donne's order is, a man, a horse, a fungus. But
to Burton a sponge was a fungus. The word fungus is cognate with or
derived from the Greek [Greek: spongos].
As for the form 'mucheron' (n. b. 'mushrome' in _G_) the O. E. D.
gives it among different spellings but cites no example of this exact
spelling. From the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ it quotes, 'Muscheron,
toodys hatte, _boletus_, _fungus_. ' Captain Harris has supplied me
with the following delightful instance of the word in use as late as
1808. It is from a catalogue of Maggs Bros. (No. 263, 1910):
'THE DISAPPOINTED KING OF SPAIN, or the downfall of the Mucheron King
Joe Bonaparte, late Pettifogging Attorney's Clerk. Between two stools
the Breech comes to the Ground. '
The caricature is etched by G. Cruikshank and is dated 1808.
The 'Maceron' which was inserted in _1635_ is not a misprint, but a
pseudo-correction by some one who did not recognize 'mucheron' and
knew that Donne had elsewhere used 'maceron' for a fop or puppy (see
p. 163, l. 117).
'Mushrome', the spelling of the word in _G_, is found also in the
_Sermons_ (80. 73. 748).
l. 22. _which Eve eate_: 'eate' is of course the past tense, and
should be 'ate' in modernized editions, not 'eat' as in Chambers's and
the Grolier Club editions.
THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE.
The strange poem _The Progresse of the Soule_, or _Metempsychosis_, is
dated by Donne himself, 16 Augusti 1601. The different use of the
same title which Donne made later to describe the progress of the
soul heavenward, after its release from the body, shows that he had no
intention of publishing the poem. How widely it circulated in MS. we
do not know, but I know of three copies only which are extant, viz.
_G_, _O'F_, and that given in the group _A18_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_.
It was from the last that the text of _1633_ was printed, the editor
supplying the punctuation, which in the MS. is scanty. In some copies
of _1633_ the same omissions of words occur as in the MS. but the poem
was corrected in several places as it passed through the press.
_G_, though not without mistakes itself, supplies some important
emendations.
The sole light from without which has been thrown upon the poem comes
from Ben Jonson's conversations with Drummond: 'The conceit of Dones
Transformation or [Greek: Metempsychôsis] was that he sought the soule
of that aple which Eve pulled and thereafter made it the soule of a
bitch, then of a shee wolf, and so of a woman; his generall purpose
was to have brought in all the bodies of the Hereticks from the soule
of Cain, and at last left in the bodie of Calvin. Of this he never
wrotte but one sheet, and now, since he was made Doctor, repenteth
highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems. '
Jonson was clearly recalling the poem somewhat inaccurately, and
at the same time giving the substance of what Donne had told him.
Probably Donne mystified him on purpose, for it is evident from the
poem that in his first intention Queen Elizabeth herself was to be the
soul's last host. It is impossible to attach any other meaning to the
seventh stanza; and that intention also explains the bitter tone in
which women are satirized in the fragment. Women and courtiers are
the chief subject of Donne's sardonic satire in this poem, as of
Shakespeare's in _Hamlet_.
I have indicated elsewhere what I think is the most probable motive
of the poem. It reflects the mood of mind into which Donne, like many
others, was thrown by the tragic fate of Essex in the spring of the
year. In _Cynthia's Revels_, acted in the same year as Donne's poem
was composed, Jonson speaks of 'some black and envious slanders
breath'd against her' (i. e. Diana, who is Elizabeth) 'for her divine
justice on Actaeon', and it is well known that she incurred both
odium and the pangs of remorse. Donne, who was still a Catholic in
the sympathies that come of education and association, seems to
have contemplated a satirical history of the great heretic in lineal
descent from the wife of Cain to Elizabeth--for private circulation.
See _The Poetry of John Donne_, II. pp. xvii-xx.
PAGE =295=, l. 9. _Seths pillars. _ Norton's note on this runs: 'Seth,
the son of Adam, left children who imitated his virtues. 'They were
the discoverers of the wisdom which relates to the heavenly bodies and
their order, and that their inventions might not be lost they made
two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone, and inscribed their
discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be
destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain and exhibit
these discoveries to mankind. . . . Now this remains in the land of
Siriad to this day. ' Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_ (Whiston's
translation), I. 2, §3.
PAGE =296=, l. 21. _holy Ianus. _ 'Janus, whom Annius of Viterbo and
the chorographers of Italy do make to be the same with Noah. ' Browne,
_Vulgar Errors_, vi. 6. The work referred to is the _Antiquitatum
variarum volumina XVII_ (1498, reprinted and re-arranged 1511), by
Annius of Viterbo (1432-1502), a Dominican friar, Fra Giovanni
Nanni. Each of the books, after the first, consists of a digest
with commentary of various works on ancient history, the aim being
apparently to reconcile Biblical and heathen chronology and to
establish the genealogy of Christ. _Liber XIIII_ is a digest, or
'defloratio', of Philo (of whom later); _Liber XV_ of Berosus,
a reputed Chaldaean historian ('patria Babylonicus; et dignitate
Chaldaeus'), cited by Josephus. From him Annius derives this
identification of Janus with Noah: 'Hoc vltimo loco Berosus de tribus
cognominibus rationes tradit: Noa: Cam & Tythea. De Noa dicit quod
fuit illi tributum cognomen Ianus a Iain: quod apud Aramaeos et
Hebraeos sonat vinum: a quo Ianus id est vinifer et vinosus: quia
primus vinum invenit et inebriatus est: vt dicit Berosus: et supra
insinuavit Propertius: et item Moyses Genesis cap ix. vbi etiam Iain
vinum Iani nominat: vbi nos habemus: Cum Noa evigilasset a vino. Cato
etiam in fragmentis originum; et Fabius Pictor in de origine vrbis
Romae dicunt Ianum dictum priscum Oenotrium: quia invenit vinum et
far ad religionem magis quam ad vsum,' &c. , XV, Fo. cxv. Elsewhere
the identity is based not on this common interest in wine but on
their priestly office, they being the first to offer 'sacrificia et
holocausta', VII, Fo. lviii. Again, 'Ex his probatur irrevincibiliter
a tempore demonstrato a Solino et propriis Epithetis Iani: eundem
fuisse Ogygem: Ianum et Noam . . . Sed Noa fuit proprium: Ogyges verum
Ianus et Proteus id est Vertumnus sunt solum praenomina ejus,' XV, Fo.
cv. No mention of the ark as a link occurs, but a ship figured on the
copper coins distributed at Rome on New Year's day, which was sacred
to Janus. The original connexion is probably found in Macrobius'
statement (_Saturn. _ I. 9) that among other titles Janus was invoked
as 'Consivius . . . a conserendo id est a propagine generis humani quae
Iano auctore conseritur'. Noah is the father of the extant human race.
PAGE =299=, ll. 114-17. There can be no doubt, I think, that the 1633
text is here correct, though for clearness a comma must be inserted
after 'reasons'. The emendation of the 1635 editor which modern
editors have followed gives an awkward and, at the close, an absurdly
tautological sentence. It is not the reason, the rational faculty,
of sceptics which is like the bubbles blown by boys, that stretch too
thin, 'break and do themselves spill.
