_ Compare:
And therefore Cynthia, as a turquoise bought,
Or stol'n, or found, is virtueless, and nought,
It must be freely given by a friend,
Whose love and bounty doth such virtue lend,
As makes it to compassionate, and tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well.
And therefore Cynthia, as a turquoise bought,
Or stol'n, or found, is virtueless, and nought,
It must be freely given by a friend,
Whose love and bounty doth such virtue lend,
As makes it to compassionate, and tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well.
John Donne
and the MS.
in the
library of the Marquess of Crewe. It is part of a poem by Rudyerd in
the debate in the volume referred to.
II. POEMS FROM THE BURLEY MS. PAGE =437=.
Of the poems here printed from the Burley-on-the-Hill MS. , none I
think is Donne's. The chief interest of the collection is that it
comes from a commonplace-book of Sir Henry Wotton, and therefore
presumably represents the work of the group of wits to which Donne,
Bacon, and Wotton belonged. I have found only one of them in other
MSS. , viz. that which I have called _Life a Play_. This occurs in
quite a number of MSS. in the British Museum, and has been published
in Hannah's _Courtly Poets_. It is generally ascribed to Sir Walter
Raleigh; and Harleian MS. 733 entitles it _Verses made by Sir Walter
Raleigh made the same morning he was executed_. I have printed it
because with the first, and another in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, it
illustrates Wotton's taste for this comparison of life to a stage, a
comparison probably derived from an epigram in the Greek Anthology,
which may be the source of Shakespeare's famous lines in _As You Like
It_. The epitaph by Jonson on Hemmings, Shakespeare's fellow-actor
and executor, is interesting. A similar epitaph on Burbage is found in
Sloane MS. 1786:
An Epitaph on Mr Richard Burbage the Player.
This life's a play groaned out by natures Arte
Where every man hath his alloted parte.
This man hath now as many men can tell
Ended his part, and he hath done it well.
The Play now ended, think his grave to bee
The retiring house of his sad Tragedie.
Where to give his fame this, be not afraid:
Here lies the best Tragedian ever plaid.
III. POEMS FROM VARIOUS MSS. PAGE =443=.
Of the miscellaneous poems here collected there is very little to be
said. The first eight or nine come from the O'Flaherty MS. (_O'F_),
which professes to be a collection of Donne's poems, and may, Mr.
Warwick Bond thinks, have been made by the younger Donne, as it
contains a poem by him. It is careless enough to be his work.
They illustrate well the kind of poem attributed to Donne in the
seventeenth century, some on the ground of their wit, others because
of their subject-matter. Donne had written some improper poems as a
young man; it was tempting therefore to assign any wandering poem
of this kind to the famous Dean of St. Paul's. The first poem, _The
Annuntiation_, has nothing to do with Donne's poem _The Annuntiation
and Passion_, but has been attached to it in a manner which is
common enough in the MSS. The poem _Love's Exchange_ is obviously an
imitation of Donne's _Lovers infinitenesse_ (p. 17). _A Paradoxe of a
Painted Face_ was attributed to Donne because he had written a prose
_Paradox_ entitled _That Women ought to paint_. The poem was not
published till 1660. In Harleian MS. it is said to be 'By my Lo: of
Cant. follower Mr. Baker'. The lines on _Black Hayre and Eyes_ (p.
460) are found in fifteen or more different MSS. in the British Museum
alone, and were printed in _Parnassus Biceps_ (1656) and Pembroke and
Ruddier's _Poems_ (1660). Two of the MSS. attribute the poem to Ben
Jonson, but others assign it to W. P. or Walton Poole. Mr. Chambers
points out that a Walton Poole has verses in _Annalia Dubrensia_
(1636), and also cites from Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_: 'Walton
Poole of Wilts arm. matr. 9. 1. 1580 at Trinity Coll. aged 15. ' These
may be the same person. The signature A. P. or W. P. at the foot of
several pages suggests that the Stowe MS. 961 of Donne's poems had
belonged to some member of this family. The fragment of an Elegy at
p. 462 occurs only in _P_, where it forms part of an Heroicall Epistle
with which it has obviously nothing to do. I have thought it worth
preserving because of its intense though mannered style. The line,
'Fortune now do thy worst' recalls _Elegie XII_, l. 67. The closing
poem,'Farewell ye guilded follies,' comes from Walton's _Complete
Angler_ (1658), where it is thus introduced: 'I will requite you with
a very good copy of verses: it is a farewell to the vanities of the
world, and some say written by Dr. D. But let they be written by
whom they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be
possest with happy thoughts of their composure. ' In the third edition
(1661) the words were changed to 'And some say written by Sir Harry
Wotton, who I told you was an excellent Angler. ' In one MS. they are
attributed to Henry King, Donne's friend and literary executor, and in
two others they are assigned to Sir Kenelm Digby, as by whom they are
printed in _Wits Interpreter_ (1655). Mr. Chambers points out that
'The closing lines of King's _The Farewell_ are curiously similar to
those of this poem. ' He quotes:
My woeful Monument shall be a cell,
The murmur of the purling brook my knell;
My lasting Epitaph the Rock shall groan;
Thus when sad lovers ask the weeping stone,
What wretched thing does in that centre lie,
The hollow echo will reply, 'twas I.
I cannot understand why Mr. Chambers, to whom I am indebted for most
of this information, was content to print so inadequate a text when
Walton was in his hand. Two of his lines completely puzzled me:
Welcome pure thoughts! welcome, ye careless groans!
These are my guests, this is that courtage tones.
'Groans' are generally the sign of care, not of its absence. However,
I find that Ashmole MS. 38, in the Bodleian, and some others read:
Welcome pure thoughts! welcome ye careless groves!
These are my guests, this is that court age loves.
This explains the mystery. But Mr. Chambers followed Grosart; and
Grosart was inclined to prefer the version of a bad MS. which he had
found to a good printed version.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
PAGES =5=, =6=. The poems of Ben Jonson are here printed just as
they stand in the 1650, 1654, 1669 editions of Donne's _Poems_.
A comparison with the 1616 edition of Jonson's _Works_ shows some
errors. The poem _To John Donne_ (p. 5) is xxiii of the _Epigrammes_.
The sixth line runs
And which no affection praise enough can give!
The absurd 'no'n' of 1650 seems to have arisen from the printing
'no'affection' of the 1640 edition of Jonson's _Works_. The 1719
editor of Donne's _Poems_ corrected this mistake. A more serious
mistake occurs in the ninth line, which in the _Works_ (1616) runs:
All which I meant to praise, and, yet I would.
The error 'mean' comes from the 1640 edition of the _Works of Ben
Jonson_, which prints 'meane'.
_To Lucy, &c. _, is xciii of the _Epigrammes_. The fourteenth line
runs:
Be of the best; and 'mongst those, best are you.
The comma makes the sense clearer. In l. 3, 1616 reads 'looke,' with
comma.
_To John Donne_ (p. 6) is xcvi. There are no errors; but 'punees' is
in _1616_ more correctly spelt 'pui'nees'.
PAGES =7=, =175=, =369=. I am indebted for the excellent copies of
the engravings here reproduced to the kind services of Mr. Laurence
Binyon. The portraits form a striking supplement to the poems along
with which they are placed. The first is the young man of the _Songs
and Sonets_, the _Elegies_ and the _Satyres_, the counterpart of Biron
and Benedick and the audacious and witty young men of Shakespeare's
Comedies. 'Neither was it possible,' says Hacket in his _Scrinia
Reserata: a Memorial of John Williams . . . Archbishop of York_ (1693),
'that a vulgar soul should dwell in such promising features. '
The engraving by Lombart is an even more lifelike portrait of the
author of the _Letters_, _Epicedes_, _Anniversaries_ and earlier
_Divine Poems_, learned and witty, worldly and pious, melancholy
yet ever and again 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness', writing at one time the serious _Pseudo-Martyr_,
at another the outrageous _Ignatius his Conclave_, and again the
strangely-mooded, self-revealing _Biathanatos_: 'mee thinks I have the
keyes of my prison in mine owne hand, and no remedy presents it selfe
so soone to my heart, as mine own sword. '
After describing the circumstances attending the execution of the last
portrait of Donne, Walton adds in the 1675 edition of the _Lives_ (the
passage is not in the earlier editions of the _Life of Donne_): 'And
now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities
of a various life: even to the gates of death and the grave; my desire
is, he may rest till I have told my Reader, that I have seen many
Pictures of him, in several habits, and at several ages, and in
several postures: And I now mention this, because, I have seen one
Picture of him, drawn by a curious hand at his age of eighteen; with
his sword and what other adornments might then suit with the present
fashions of youth, and the giddy gayeties of that age: and his Motto
then was,
How much shall I be chang'd,
Before I am chang'd.
And, if that young, and his now dying Picture, were at this time set
together, every beholder might say, _Lord! How much is_ Dr. Donne
_already chang'd, before he is chang'd! _' The change written in the
portrait is the change from the poet of the _Songs and Sonets_ to the
poet of the _Holy Sonnets_ and last _Hymns_.
The design of this last picture and of the marble monument made from
it is not very clear. He was painted, Walton says, standing on the
figure of the urn. But the painter brought with him also 'a board
of the just height of his body'. What was this for? Walton does not
explain. But Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the folds of
the drapery show the statue was modelled from a recumbent figure. Can
it be that Walton's account confuses two things? The incident of the
picture is not in the 1640 _Life_, but was added in 1658. How could
Donne, a dying man, stand on the urn, with his winding-sheet knotted
'at his head and feet'? Is it not probable that he was painted lying
in his winding-sheet on the board referred to; but that the monument,
as designed by himself, and executed by Nicholas Stone, was intended
to represent him rising at the Last Day from the urn, habited as he
had lain down--a symbolic rendering of the faith expressed in the
closing words of the inscription
Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere
Aspicit Eum
Cuius nomen est Oriens.
PAGE =37=, l. 14. The textual note should have indicated that in most
or all of the MSS. cited the whole line runs:
(Thou lovest Truth) but an Angell at first sight.
This is probably the original form of the line, corrected later to
avoid the clashing of the 'but's.
PAGE =96=, l. 6, note. The _R212_ cited here is Rawlinson Poetical
MS. 212, a miscellaneous collection of seventeenth-century prose and
poetry (e. g. Davies' _Epigrams_. See II. p. 101). I had cited it once
or twice in my first draft. The present instance escaped my eye. It
helps to show how general the reading 'tyde' was.
PAGE =115=, l. 54. _goeing on it fashions_. The correct reading is
probably 'growing on it fashions', which has the support of both _JC_,
and _1650-69_ where 'its' is a mere error. I had made my text
before _JC_ came into my hand. To 'grow on' for 'to increase' is
an Elizabethan idiom: 'And this quarrel grew on so far,' North's
_Plutarch, Life of Coriolanus, ad fin. _ See also O. E. D.
I should like in closing to express my indebtedness throughout to the
_Oxford English Dictionary_, an invaluable help and safeguard to
the editor of an English text, and also to Franz's admirable
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_ (1909), which should be translated.
PAGE =133=, l. 58. To what is said in the note on the taking of yellow
amber as a drug add: 'Divers men may walke by the Sea side, and the
same beames of the Sunne giving light to them all, one gathereth by
the benefit of that light pebles, or speckled shells, for curious
vanitie, and another gathers precious Pearle, or medicinall Ambar, by
the same light. ' _Sermons_ 80. 36. 326.
PAGES =156-7=. _Seeke true religion, &c. _ All this passage savours a
little of Montaigne: 'Tout cela, c'est un signe tres-evident que nous
ne recevons nostre religion qu'a nostre facon et par nos mains, et
non autrement que comme les autres religions se recoyvent. Nous nous
sommes rencontrez au pais ou elle estoit en usage; ou nous regardons
son anciennete ou l'authorite des hommes qui l'ont maintenue; ou
creignons les menaces qu'ell' attache aux mescreans, ou suyvons ses
promesses. Ces considerations la doivent estre employees a nostre
creance, mais comme subsidiaires: ce sont liaisons humaines. Une
autre region, d'autres tesmoings, pareilles promesses et menasses nous
pourroyent imprimer par mesme voye une croyance contraire. Nous sommes
chrestiens a mesme titre que nous sommes ou perigordins ou alemans. '
_Essais_ (1580), II. 12. _Apologie de Raimond Sebond_.
PAGE =220=, l. 46. Compare: 'One of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks
of God, is a Circle; and a Circle is endlesse; whom God loves, hee
loves to the end . . . His hailestones and his thunderbolts, and his
showres of blood (emblemes and instruments of his Judgements) fall
downe in a direct line, and affect or strike some one person, or
place: His Sun, and Moone, and Starres (Emblemes and Instruments of
his Blessings) move circularly, and communicate themselves to all. His
Church is his chariot; in that he moves more gloriously, then in the
Sun; as much more, as his begotten Son exceeds his created Sun, and
his Son of glory, and of his right hand, the Sun of the firmament;
and this Church, his chariot, moves in that communicable motion,
circularly; It began in the East, it came to us, and is passing now,
shining out now, in the farthest West. ' _Sermons_ 80. 2. 13-4.
l. 47. _Religious tipes_, is the reading of _1633_. The comma has
been accidentally dropped. There is no comma in _1635-69_, which print
'types'.
PAGE =241=, ll. 343-4. _As a compassionate Turcoyse, &c.
_ Compare:
And therefore Cynthia, as a turquoise bought,
Or stol'n, or found, is virtueless, and nought,
It must be freely given by a friend,
Whose love and bounty doth such virtue lend,
As makes it to compassionate, and tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well.
Sir Francis Kynaston, _To Cynthia_.
Saintsbury, _Caroline Poets_, ii. 161.
PAGE =251=, ll. 9-18. The source of this simile is probably Lucretius,
_De Rerum Natura_, III. 642-56.
Falciferos memorant currus abscidere membra
Saepe ita de subito permixta caede calentis,
Ut tremere in terra videatur ab artubus id quod
Decidit abscisum, cum mens tamen atque hominis vis
Mobilitate mali non quit sentire dolorem;
Et semel in pugnae studio quod dedita mens est,
Corpore reliquo pugnam caedesque petessit,
Nec tenet amissam laevam cum tegmine saepe
Inter equos abstraxe rotas falcesque rapaces,
Nec cecidisse alius dextram, cum scandit et instat.
Inde alius conatur adempto surgere crure,
Cum digitos agitat propter moribundus humi pes.
Et caput abscisum calido viventeque trunco
Servat humi voltum vitalem oculosque patentis,
Donec reliquias animai reddidit omnes.
PAGE =259=, ll. 275-6. _so that there is
(For aught thou know'st) piercing of substances. _
'Piercing of substances,' the actual penetration of one substance by
another, was the Stoic as opposed to the Aristotelian doctrine of
mixture of substance ([Greek: krasis]), what is now called chemical
combination. The Peripatetics held that, while the qualities of the
two bodies combined to produce a new quality, the substances remained
in juxtaposition. Plotinus devotes the seventh book of the _Enneades_
to the subject; and one of the arguments of the Stoics which he cites
resembles Donne's problem: 'Sweat comes out of the human body without
dividing it and without the body being pierced with holes. ' The pores
were apparently unknown. See Bouillet's _Enneades de Plotin_, I. 243
f. and 488-9, for references.
PAGE =368=. HYMNE TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.
Professor Moore Smith has at the last moment reminded me of a fact,
the significance of which should have been discussed in the note on
the _Divine Poems_, that a copy of this poem found (Gosse, _Life &c. _
ii. 279) among the papers of Sir Julius Caesar bears the statement
that the verses were written in Donne's 'great sickness in December
1623'. Professor Moore Smith is of opinion that Sir Julius Caesar may
have been right and Walton mistaken, and there is a good deal to be
said for this view. 'It seems', he says, 'more likely that Walton
should have attributed the poem wrongly to Donne's last illness, than
that the MS. copy should antedate it by seven years. ' In 1640 Walton
simply referred it to his deathbed; the precise date was given in
1658. Moreover the date 1623 seems to Professor Moore Smith confirmed
by a letter to Sir Robert Ker (later Lord Ancrum) in 1624 (Gosse,
_Life &c. _ ii. 191), in which Donne writes, 'If a flat map be but
pasted upon a round globe the farthest east and the farthest west meet
and are all one. '
On the other hand, Walton's final date is very precise, and was
probably given to him by King. If the poem was written at the same
time as that 'to God the Father', why did it not pass into wider
circulation? Stowe MS. 961 is the only collection in which I have
found it. The use of the simile in the letter to Ker is not so
conclusive as it seems. In that same letter Donne says, 'Sir, I took
up this paper to write a letter; but my imagination was full of a
sermon before, for I write but a few hours before I am to preach. ' Now
I have in my note cited this simile from an undated sermon on one
of the Penitentiary Psalms. This, not the poem, may have been the
occasion of its repetition in this letter. Donne is very prone to
repeat a favourite figure--inundation, the king's stamped face &c. It
is quite likely that the poem was the last, not the first, occasion
on which he used the flat map. Note that the other chief figure in the
poem, the straits which lead to the Pacific Sea, was used in a sermon
(see note) dated February 12, 1629.
The figure of the flat map is not used, as one might expect, in the
section of the _Devotions_ headed _The Patient takes his bed_, but the
last line of the poem is recalled by some words there: 'and therefore
am I _cast downe_, that I might not be _cast away_. '
Walton's dates are often inaccurate, but here the balance of the
evidence seems to me in his favour. As Mr. Gosse says, Sir Julius
Caesar may have confounded this hymn with 'Wilt thou forgive'. In
re-reading the _Devotions_ with Professor Moore Smith's statement in
view I have come on two other points of interest. Donne's views on the
immortality of the soul (see II. pp. 160-2) are very clearly stated:
'That light, which is the very emanation of the light of God . . . only
that bends not to this _Center_, to _Ruine_; that which was not made
of _Nothing_, is not thretned with this annihilation. All other
things are; even _Angels_, even our _soules_; they move upon the same
_Poles_, they bend to the same _Center_; and if they were not made
immortall by _preservation_, their _Nature_ could not keep them from
sinking to this _center_, _Annihilation_' (pp. 216-17).
The difficult line in the sonnet _Resurrection_ (p. 321, l. 8) is
perhaps illuminated by pp. 206-8, where Donne speaks of 'thy first
booke, the booke of _life_', 'thy second book, the booke of Nature,'
and closes a further list with 'to those, _the booke with seven
seals_, which only _the Lamb which was slain, was found worthy to
open_; which, I hope, it shal not disagree with the measure of thy
blessed _spirit_, to interpret, the _promulgation of their pardon,
and righteousnes, who are washed in the blood of the Lamb_'. This is
possibly the 'little booke' of the sonnet, perhaps changed by Donne to
'life-book' to simplify the reference. But the two are not the same.
ADDENDUM.
Vol. I, p. 368, l. 6. Whilst my Physitions by their love are growne
Cosmographers . . . Sir Julius Caesar's MS. (Addl. MS. 34324) has
_Loer_, scil. _Lore_. This is probably the true reading.
ERRATUM.
=P. 274=, l. 28. _for_ figure-inundation _read_ figure--inundation
INDEX OF FIRST LINES.
(VOL. II. )
PAGE
A learned Bishop of this Land 53
Amongst the Poets Dacus numbered is 101
An ill year of a Goodyere us bereft 145
As in tymes past the rusticke shepheards sceant 171
Esteemed knight take triumph over death 145
Goe catch a star that's falling from the sky 12
Henrie the greate, greate both in peace and war 261
How often hath my pen (mine hearts Solicitor) 103
Loe her's a man worthy indeede to travell 129
No want of duty did my mind possess 7
Stay, view this Stone, and if thou beest not such 213
This Lifes a play groaned out by natures Arte 268
Thou send'st me prose and rimes, I send for those 160
Though Ister have put down the Rhene 261
'Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheardes Life 141
Titus the brave and valorous young gallant 101
Whoso termes love a fire, may like a poet 52
Wotton the country and the country swaine 141
* * * * *
Oxford: Horace Hart, M. A. , Printer to the University
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Although Scotland had accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1600,
until 1752, England still followed the Julian calendar (after
Julius Caesar, 44 B. C. ), and celebrated New Year's Day on March
25th (Annunciation Day). Most Catholic countries accepted the
Gregorian calendar (after Pope Gregory XIII) from some time
after 1582 (the Catholic countries of France, Spain, Portugal,
and Italy in 1582, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland
within a year or two, Hungary in 1587, and Scotland in 1600),
and celebrated New Year's Day on January 1st. England finally
changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
This is the reason for the double dates in the early months of
the years in some parts of this book. e. g. , there is a
statement, on page 134, that "He died February 7, 1627/8. (i. e.
1627 in England; 1628 in Scotland). Only after March 25th
(Julian New Years Day) was the year the same in the two
countries. The Julian calendar was known as 'Old Style', and
the Gregorian calendar as 'New Style' (N. S. ).
Page lxiv, Footnote 9: 'Garrard att his quarters in ? ? '
Perhaps ? ermyte with U+03D1 GREEK THETA SYMBOL: thermyte ?
perhaps meaning "(at the sign of) The Hermit"?
(The printer, rightly or wrongly, seems to have used a
'theta' at the beginning of the word).
Page lxv, a facsimile of a Title Page, split a cross-page
paragraph. One sentence was on page lxiv; the rest of the
paragraph was on page lxvi. In the interest of a link to the
page, it seemed beneficial to leave the paragraph as it was
split.
Page lxv: 'VVith' is as printed.
Page lxxxvi: 'Lo:' retained, although 'Ld. ' is printed above.
From the context, 'Lo:' may not be a typo, as this form occurs
elsewhere.
"and the _Obsequies to the Lo: Harrington_. "
Page cxvi, footnote 39 (cont. : '17-8. ' corrected to '17-18. '.
"_To Sr Henry Wotton_, p. 180, ll. 17-18. "
Page cxxx: 'p. 406' corrected to 'p. 412'
"'Dear Love, continue nice and chaste' (p. 412)"
Pages cxxxi-cxxxii: missing word at page-turn? 'and' added in
brackets.
"And as one is ascribed to Roe on indisputable (and) three on
very strong evidence,. . . "
Page 23: 'll. 140-6' corrected to 'll. 440-6'
"_The Second Anniversary_, ll. 440-6 (p. 264)"
Page 34: 'coporales' corrected to 'corporales'.
"'quanto subtilius huiusmodi immutationes occultas corporales
perpendunt. '"
Page 84: 'p. 308, ll. 27-8' corrected to p. 308, ll. 317-8
"in the _Progresse of the Soule_, p. 308, ll. 317-8:"
Page 187: (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ (1907). is as printed.
Page 214: p. 416 corrected to p. 422.
"For the relation of this _Elegie_ to that beginning 'Death,
be not proud' (p. 422) see _Text and Canon, &c. _, p. cxliii. "
Page 213: 'p. 404' corrected to p. 410'
"('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p. 410)"
Pages 235, 263: The inscriptions have a character which
looks like a reversed capital C, but which is actually a
ROMAN NUMERAL REVERSED ONE HUNDRED ? (U+2183 or Ↄ).
On Page 235, the date of Anne (More) Donne's death is given as
CI? . DC. XVII.
i. e. hundreds, ten, (1000) plus 600 plus 17, or the year 1617,
which is correct.
On Page 263, the date given is CI? . I? C. XXIII.
CI? = 1000;
I? C =500+100 (600),
XXIII = 23, so the date is 1623.
(Reference for page 263: [http:// hypotheses. org/17871] . . . 'Le
latin de Locke . . . Goudae apud Justum Ab Hoeve
CI? I? C LXXXIX . . .
CI? = 1000
I? C se decompose en I? = 500 + C = 100 soit 600
LXXXIX = 89
La date correspondante est 1689*.
* 2011 serait CI? CI? XI '. )
(So 2015 would be CI? CI? XV ').
Page 251: _S69_ corrected to _S96_
"_S96_ and _O'F_ differ from the third group. . . . "
Page 275: Erratum, p. 274. .
library of the Marquess of Crewe. It is part of a poem by Rudyerd in
the debate in the volume referred to.
II. POEMS FROM THE BURLEY MS. PAGE =437=.
Of the poems here printed from the Burley-on-the-Hill MS. , none I
think is Donne's. The chief interest of the collection is that it
comes from a commonplace-book of Sir Henry Wotton, and therefore
presumably represents the work of the group of wits to which Donne,
Bacon, and Wotton belonged. I have found only one of them in other
MSS. , viz. that which I have called _Life a Play_. This occurs in
quite a number of MSS. in the British Museum, and has been published
in Hannah's _Courtly Poets_. It is generally ascribed to Sir Walter
Raleigh; and Harleian MS. 733 entitles it _Verses made by Sir Walter
Raleigh made the same morning he was executed_. I have printed it
because with the first, and another in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, it
illustrates Wotton's taste for this comparison of life to a stage, a
comparison probably derived from an epigram in the Greek Anthology,
which may be the source of Shakespeare's famous lines in _As You Like
It_. The epitaph by Jonson on Hemmings, Shakespeare's fellow-actor
and executor, is interesting. A similar epitaph on Burbage is found in
Sloane MS. 1786:
An Epitaph on Mr Richard Burbage the Player.
This life's a play groaned out by natures Arte
Where every man hath his alloted parte.
This man hath now as many men can tell
Ended his part, and he hath done it well.
The Play now ended, think his grave to bee
The retiring house of his sad Tragedie.
Where to give his fame this, be not afraid:
Here lies the best Tragedian ever plaid.
III. POEMS FROM VARIOUS MSS. PAGE =443=.
Of the miscellaneous poems here collected there is very little to be
said. The first eight or nine come from the O'Flaherty MS. (_O'F_),
which professes to be a collection of Donne's poems, and may, Mr.
Warwick Bond thinks, have been made by the younger Donne, as it
contains a poem by him. It is careless enough to be his work.
They illustrate well the kind of poem attributed to Donne in the
seventeenth century, some on the ground of their wit, others because
of their subject-matter. Donne had written some improper poems as a
young man; it was tempting therefore to assign any wandering poem
of this kind to the famous Dean of St. Paul's. The first poem, _The
Annuntiation_, has nothing to do with Donne's poem _The Annuntiation
and Passion_, but has been attached to it in a manner which is
common enough in the MSS. The poem _Love's Exchange_ is obviously an
imitation of Donne's _Lovers infinitenesse_ (p. 17). _A Paradoxe of a
Painted Face_ was attributed to Donne because he had written a prose
_Paradox_ entitled _That Women ought to paint_. The poem was not
published till 1660. In Harleian MS. it is said to be 'By my Lo: of
Cant. follower Mr. Baker'. The lines on _Black Hayre and Eyes_ (p.
460) are found in fifteen or more different MSS. in the British Museum
alone, and were printed in _Parnassus Biceps_ (1656) and Pembroke and
Ruddier's _Poems_ (1660). Two of the MSS. attribute the poem to Ben
Jonson, but others assign it to W. P. or Walton Poole. Mr. Chambers
points out that a Walton Poole has verses in _Annalia Dubrensia_
(1636), and also cites from Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_: 'Walton
Poole of Wilts arm. matr. 9. 1. 1580 at Trinity Coll. aged 15. ' These
may be the same person. The signature A. P. or W. P. at the foot of
several pages suggests that the Stowe MS. 961 of Donne's poems had
belonged to some member of this family. The fragment of an Elegy at
p. 462 occurs only in _P_, where it forms part of an Heroicall Epistle
with which it has obviously nothing to do. I have thought it worth
preserving because of its intense though mannered style. The line,
'Fortune now do thy worst' recalls _Elegie XII_, l. 67. The closing
poem,'Farewell ye guilded follies,' comes from Walton's _Complete
Angler_ (1658), where it is thus introduced: 'I will requite you with
a very good copy of verses: it is a farewell to the vanities of the
world, and some say written by Dr. D. But let they be written by
whom they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be
possest with happy thoughts of their composure. ' In the third edition
(1661) the words were changed to 'And some say written by Sir Harry
Wotton, who I told you was an excellent Angler. ' In one MS. they are
attributed to Henry King, Donne's friend and literary executor, and in
two others they are assigned to Sir Kenelm Digby, as by whom they are
printed in _Wits Interpreter_ (1655). Mr. Chambers points out that
'The closing lines of King's _The Farewell_ are curiously similar to
those of this poem. ' He quotes:
My woeful Monument shall be a cell,
The murmur of the purling brook my knell;
My lasting Epitaph the Rock shall groan;
Thus when sad lovers ask the weeping stone,
What wretched thing does in that centre lie,
The hollow echo will reply, 'twas I.
I cannot understand why Mr. Chambers, to whom I am indebted for most
of this information, was content to print so inadequate a text when
Walton was in his hand. Two of his lines completely puzzled me:
Welcome pure thoughts! welcome, ye careless groans!
These are my guests, this is that courtage tones.
'Groans' are generally the sign of care, not of its absence. However,
I find that Ashmole MS. 38, in the Bodleian, and some others read:
Welcome pure thoughts! welcome ye careless groves!
These are my guests, this is that court age loves.
This explains the mystery. But Mr. Chambers followed Grosart; and
Grosart was inclined to prefer the version of a bad MS. which he had
found to a good printed version.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
PAGES =5=, =6=. The poems of Ben Jonson are here printed just as
they stand in the 1650, 1654, 1669 editions of Donne's _Poems_.
A comparison with the 1616 edition of Jonson's _Works_ shows some
errors. The poem _To John Donne_ (p. 5) is xxiii of the _Epigrammes_.
The sixth line runs
And which no affection praise enough can give!
The absurd 'no'n' of 1650 seems to have arisen from the printing
'no'affection' of the 1640 edition of Jonson's _Works_. The 1719
editor of Donne's _Poems_ corrected this mistake. A more serious
mistake occurs in the ninth line, which in the _Works_ (1616) runs:
All which I meant to praise, and, yet I would.
The error 'mean' comes from the 1640 edition of the _Works of Ben
Jonson_, which prints 'meane'.
_To Lucy, &c. _, is xciii of the _Epigrammes_. The fourteenth line
runs:
Be of the best; and 'mongst those, best are you.
The comma makes the sense clearer. In l. 3, 1616 reads 'looke,' with
comma.
_To John Donne_ (p. 6) is xcvi. There are no errors; but 'punees' is
in _1616_ more correctly spelt 'pui'nees'.
PAGES =7=, =175=, =369=. I am indebted for the excellent copies of
the engravings here reproduced to the kind services of Mr. Laurence
Binyon. The portraits form a striking supplement to the poems along
with which they are placed. The first is the young man of the _Songs
and Sonets_, the _Elegies_ and the _Satyres_, the counterpart of Biron
and Benedick and the audacious and witty young men of Shakespeare's
Comedies. 'Neither was it possible,' says Hacket in his _Scrinia
Reserata: a Memorial of John Williams . . . Archbishop of York_ (1693),
'that a vulgar soul should dwell in such promising features. '
The engraving by Lombart is an even more lifelike portrait of the
author of the _Letters_, _Epicedes_, _Anniversaries_ and earlier
_Divine Poems_, learned and witty, worldly and pious, melancholy
yet ever and again 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness', writing at one time the serious _Pseudo-Martyr_,
at another the outrageous _Ignatius his Conclave_, and again the
strangely-mooded, self-revealing _Biathanatos_: 'mee thinks I have the
keyes of my prison in mine owne hand, and no remedy presents it selfe
so soone to my heart, as mine own sword. '
After describing the circumstances attending the execution of the last
portrait of Donne, Walton adds in the 1675 edition of the _Lives_ (the
passage is not in the earlier editions of the _Life of Donne_): 'And
now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities
of a various life: even to the gates of death and the grave; my desire
is, he may rest till I have told my Reader, that I have seen many
Pictures of him, in several habits, and at several ages, and in
several postures: And I now mention this, because, I have seen one
Picture of him, drawn by a curious hand at his age of eighteen; with
his sword and what other adornments might then suit with the present
fashions of youth, and the giddy gayeties of that age: and his Motto
then was,
How much shall I be chang'd,
Before I am chang'd.
And, if that young, and his now dying Picture, were at this time set
together, every beholder might say, _Lord! How much is_ Dr. Donne
_already chang'd, before he is chang'd! _' The change written in the
portrait is the change from the poet of the _Songs and Sonets_ to the
poet of the _Holy Sonnets_ and last _Hymns_.
The design of this last picture and of the marble monument made from
it is not very clear. He was painted, Walton says, standing on the
figure of the urn. But the painter brought with him also 'a board
of the just height of his body'. What was this for? Walton does not
explain. But Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the folds of
the drapery show the statue was modelled from a recumbent figure. Can
it be that Walton's account confuses two things? The incident of the
picture is not in the 1640 _Life_, but was added in 1658. How could
Donne, a dying man, stand on the urn, with his winding-sheet knotted
'at his head and feet'? Is it not probable that he was painted lying
in his winding-sheet on the board referred to; but that the monument,
as designed by himself, and executed by Nicholas Stone, was intended
to represent him rising at the Last Day from the urn, habited as he
had lain down--a symbolic rendering of the faith expressed in the
closing words of the inscription
Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere
Aspicit Eum
Cuius nomen est Oriens.
PAGE =37=, l. 14. The textual note should have indicated that in most
or all of the MSS. cited the whole line runs:
(Thou lovest Truth) but an Angell at first sight.
This is probably the original form of the line, corrected later to
avoid the clashing of the 'but's.
PAGE =96=, l. 6, note. The _R212_ cited here is Rawlinson Poetical
MS. 212, a miscellaneous collection of seventeenth-century prose and
poetry (e. g. Davies' _Epigrams_. See II. p. 101). I had cited it once
or twice in my first draft. The present instance escaped my eye. It
helps to show how general the reading 'tyde' was.
PAGE =115=, l. 54. _goeing on it fashions_. The correct reading is
probably 'growing on it fashions', which has the support of both _JC_,
and _1650-69_ where 'its' is a mere error. I had made my text
before _JC_ came into my hand. To 'grow on' for 'to increase' is
an Elizabethan idiom: 'And this quarrel grew on so far,' North's
_Plutarch, Life of Coriolanus, ad fin. _ See also O. E. D.
I should like in closing to express my indebtedness throughout to the
_Oxford English Dictionary_, an invaluable help and safeguard to
the editor of an English text, and also to Franz's admirable
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_ (1909), which should be translated.
PAGE =133=, l. 58. To what is said in the note on the taking of yellow
amber as a drug add: 'Divers men may walke by the Sea side, and the
same beames of the Sunne giving light to them all, one gathereth by
the benefit of that light pebles, or speckled shells, for curious
vanitie, and another gathers precious Pearle, or medicinall Ambar, by
the same light. ' _Sermons_ 80. 36. 326.
PAGES =156-7=. _Seeke true religion, &c. _ All this passage savours a
little of Montaigne: 'Tout cela, c'est un signe tres-evident que nous
ne recevons nostre religion qu'a nostre facon et par nos mains, et
non autrement que comme les autres religions se recoyvent. Nous nous
sommes rencontrez au pais ou elle estoit en usage; ou nous regardons
son anciennete ou l'authorite des hommes qui l'ont maintenue; ou
creignons les menaces qu'ell' attache aux mescreans, ou suyvons ses
promesses. Ces considerations la doivent estre employees a nostre
creance, mais comme subsidiaires: ce sont liaisons humaines. Une
autre region, d'autres tesmoings, pareilles promesses et menasses nous
pourroyent imprimer par mesme voye une croyance contraire. Nous sommes
chrestiens a mesme titre que nous sommes ou perigordins ou alemans. '
_Essais_ (1580), II. 12. _Apologie de Raimond Sebond_.
PAGE =220=, l. 46. Compare: 'One of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks
of God, is a Circle; and a Circle is endlesse; whom God loves, hee
loves to the end . . . His hailestones and his thunderbolts, and his
showres of blood (emblemes and instruments of his Judgements) fall
downe in a direct line, and affect or strike some one person, or
place: His Sun, and Moone, and Starres (Emblemes and Instruments of
his Blessings) move circularly, and communicate themselves to all. His
Church is his chariot; in that he moves more gloriously, then in the
Sun; as much more, as his begotten Son exceeds his created Sun, and
his Son of glory, and of his right hand, the Sun of the firmament;
and this Church, his chariot, moves in that communicable motion,
circularly; It began in the East, it came to us, and is passing now,
shining out now, in the farthest West. ' _Sermons_ 80. 2. 13-4.
l. 47. _Religious tipes_, is the reading of _1633_. The comma has
been accidentally dropped. There is no comma in _1635-69_, which print
'types'.
PAGE =241=, ll. 343-4. _As a compassionate Turcoyse, &c.
_ Compare:
And therefore Cynthia, as a turquoise bought,
Or stol'n, or found, is virtueless, and nought,
It must be freely given by a friend,
Whose love and bounty doth such virtue lend,
As makes it to compassionate, and tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well.
Sir Francis Kynaston, _To Cynthia_.
Saintsbury, _Caroline Poets_, ii. 161.
PAGE =251=, ll. 9-18. The source of this simile is probably Lucretius,
_De Rerum Natura_, III. 642-56.
Falciferos memorant currus abscidere membra
Saepe ita de subito permixta caede calentis,
Ut tremere in terra videatur ab artubus id quod
Decidit abscisum, cum mens tamen atque hominis vis
Mobilitate mali non quit sentire dolorem;
Et semel in pugnae studio quod dedita mens est,
Corpore reliquo pugnam caedesque petessit,
Nec tenet amissam laevam cum tegmine saepe
Inter equos abstraxe rotas falcesque rapaces,
Nec cecidisse alius dextram, cum scandit et instat.
Inde alius conatur adempto surgere crure,
Cum digitos agitat propter moribundus humi pes.
Et caput abscisum calido viventeque trunco
Servat humi voltum vitalem oculosque patentis,
Donec reliquias animai reddidit omnes.
PAGE =259=, ll. 275-6. _so that there is
(For aught thou know'st) piercing of substances. _
'Piercing of substances,' the actual penetration of one substance by
another, was the Stoic as opposed to the Aristotelian doctrine of
mixture of substance ([Greek: krasis]), what is now called chemical
combination. The Peripatetics held that, while the qualities of the
two bodies combined to produce a new quality, the substances remained
in juxtaposition. Plotinus devotes the seventh book of the _Enneades_
to the subject; and one of the arguments of the Stoics which he cites
resembles Donne's problem: 'Sweat comes out of the human body without
dividing it and without the body being pierced with holes. ' The pores
were apparently unknown. See Bouillet's _Enneades de Plotin_, I. 243
f. and 488-9, for references.
PAGE =368=. HYMNE TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.
Professor Moore Smith has at the last moment reminded me of a fact,
the significance of which should have been discussed in the note on
the _Divine Poems_, that a copy of this poem found (Gosse, _Life &c. _
ii. 279) among the papers of Sir Julius Caesar bears the statement
that the verses were written in Donne's 'great sickness in December
1623'. Professor Moore Smith is of opinion that Sir Julius Caesar may
have been right and Walton mistaken, and there is a good deal to be
said for this view. 'It seems', he says, 'more likely that Walton
should have attributed the poem wrongly to Donne's last illness, than
that the MS. copy should antedate it by seven years. ' In 1640 Walton
simply referred it to his deathbed; the precise date was given in
1658. Moreover the date 1623 seems to Professor Moore Smith confirmed
by a letter to Sir Robert Ker (later Lord Ancrum) in 1624 (Gosse,
_Life &c. _ ii. 191), in which Donne writes, 'If a flat map be but
pasted upon a round globe the farthest east and the farthest west meet
and are all one. '
On the other hand, Walton's final date is very precise, and was
probably given to him by King. If the poem was written at the same
time as that 'to God the Father', why did it not pass into wider
circulation? Stowe MS. 961 is the only collection in which I have
found it. The use of the simile in the letter to Ker is not so
conclusive as it seems. In that same letter Donne says, 'Sir, I took
up this paper to write a letter; but my imagination was full of a
sermon before, for I write but a few hours before I am to preach. ' Now
I have in my note cited this simile from an undated sermon on one
of the Penitentiary Psalms. This, not the poem, may have been the
occasion of its repetition in this letter. Donne is very prone to
repeat a favourite figure--inundation, the king's stamped face &c. It
is quite likely that the poem was the last, not the first, occasion
on which he used the flat map. Note that the other chief figure in the
poem, the straits which lead to the Pacific Sea, was used in a sermon
(see note) dated February 12, 1629.
The figure of the flat map is not used, as one might expect, in the
section of the _Devotions_ headed _The Patient takes his bed_, but the
last line of the poem is recalled by some words there: 'and therefore
am I _cast downe_, that I might not be _cast away_. '
Walton's dates are often inaccurate, but here the balance of the
evidence seems to me in his favour. As Mr. Gosse says, Sir Julius
Caesar may have confounded this hymn with 'Wilt thou forgive'. In
re-reading the _Devotions_ with Professor Moore Smith's statement in
view I have come on two other points of interest. Donne's views on the
immortality of the soul (see II. pp. 160-2) are very clearly stated:
'That light, which is the very emanation of the light of God . . . only
that bends not to this _Center_, to _Ruine_; that which was not made
of _Nothing_, is not thretned with this annihilation. All other
things are; even _Angels_, even our _soules_; they move upon the same
_Poles_, they bend to the same _Center_; and if they were not made
immortall by _preservation_, their _Nature_ could not keep them from
sinking to this _center_, _Annihilation_' (pp. 216-17).
The difficult line in the sonnet _Resurrection_ (p. 321, l. 8) is
perhaps illuminated by pp. 206-8, where Donne speaks of 'thy first
booke, the booke of _life_', 'thy second book, the booke of Nature,'
and closes a further list with 'to those, _the booke with seven
seals_, which only _the Lamb which was slain, was found worthy to
open_; which, I hope, it shal not disagree with the measure of thy
blessed _spirit_, to interpret, the _promulgation of their pardon,
and righteousnes, who are washed in the blood of the Lamb_'. This is
possibly the 'little booke' of the sonnet, perhaps changed by Donne to
'life-book' to simplify the reference. But the two are not the same.
ADDENDUM.
Vol. I, p. 368, l. 6. Whilst my Physitions by their love are growne
Cosmographers . . . Sir Julius Caesar's MS. (Addl. MS. 34324) has
_Loer_, scil. _Lore_. This is probably the true reading.
ERRATUM.
=P. 274=, l. 28. _for_ figure-inundation _read_ figure--inundation
INDEX OF FIRST LINES.
(VOL. II. )
PAGE
A learned Bishop of this Land 53
Amongst the Poets Dacus numbered is 101
An ill year of a Goodyere us bereft 145
As in tymes past the rusticke shepheards sceant 171
Esteemed knight take triumph over death 145
Goe catch a star that's falling from the sky 12
Henrie the greate, greate both in peace and war 261
How often hath my pen (mine hearts Solicitor) 103
Loe her's a man worthy indeede to travell 129
No want of duty did my mind possess 7
Stay, view this Stone, and if thou beest not such 213
This Lifes a play groaned out by natures Arte 268
Thou send'st me prose and rimes, I send for those 160
Though Ister have put down the Rhene 261
'Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheardes Life 141
Titus the brave and valorous young gallant 101
Whoso termes love a fire, may like a poet 52
Wotton the country and the country swaine 141
* * * * *
Oxford: Horace Hart, M. A. , Printer to the University
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Although Scotland had accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1600,
until 1752, England still followed the Julian calendar (after
Julius Caesar, 44 B. C. ), and celebrated New Year's Day on March
25th (Annunciation Day). Most Catholic countries accepted the
Gregorian calendar (after Pope Gregory XIII) from some time
after 1582 (the Catholic countries of France, Spain, Portugal,
and Italy in 1582, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland
within a year or two, Hungary in 1587, and Scotland in 1600),
and celebrated New Year's Day on January 1st. England finally
changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
This is the reason for the double dates in the early months of
the years in some parts of this book. e. g. , there is a
statement, on page 134, that "He died February 7, 1627/8. (i. e.
1627 in England; 1628 in Scotland). Only after March 25th
(Julian New Years Day) was the year the same in the two
countries. The Julian calendar was known as 'Old Style', and
the Gregorian calendar as 'New Style' (N. S. ).
Page lxiv, Footnote 9: 'Garrard att his quarters in ? ? '
Perhaps ? ermyte with U+03D1 GREEK THETA SYMBOL: thermyte ?
perhaps meaning "(at the sign of) The Hermit"?
(The printer, rightly or wrongly, seems to have used a
'theta' at the beginning of the word).
Page lxv, a facsimile of a Title Page, split a cross-page
paragraph. One sentence was on page lxiv; the rest of the
paragraph was on page lxvi. In the interest of a link to the
page, it seemed beneficial to leave the paragraph as it was
split.
Page lxv: 'VVith' is as printed.
Page lxxxvi: 'Lo:' retained, although 'Ld. ' is printed above.
From the context, 'Lo:' may not be a typo, as this form occurs
elsewhere.
"and the _Obsequies to the Lo: Harrington_. "
Page cxvi, footnote 39 (cont. : '17-8. ' corrected to '17-18. '.
"_To Sr Henry Wotton_, p. 180, ll. 17-18. "
Page cxxx: 'p. 406' corrected to 'p. 412'
"'Dear Love, continue nice and chaste' (p. 412)"
Pages cxxxi-cxxxii: missing word at page-turn? 'and' added in
brackets.
"And as one is ascribed to Roe on indisputable (and) three on
very strong evidence,. . . "
Page 23: 'll. 140-6' corrected to 'll. 440-6'
"_The Second Anniversary_, ll. 440-6 (p. 264)"
Page 34: 'coporales' corrected to 'corporales'.
"'quanto subtilius huiusmodi immutationes occultas corporales
perpendunt. '"
Page 84: 'p. 308, ll. 27-8' corrected to p. 308, ll. 317-8
"in the _Progresse of the Soule_, p. 308, ll. 317-8:"
Page 187: (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ (1907). is as printed.
Page 214: p. 416 corrected to p. 422.
"For the relation of this _Elegie_ to that beginning 'Death,
be not proud' (p. 422) see _Text and Canon, &c. _, p. cxliii. "
Page 213: 'p. 404' corrected to p. 410'
"('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p. 410)"
Pages 235, 263: The inscriptions have a character which
looks like a reversed capital C, but which is actually a
ROMAN NUMERAL REVERSED ONE HUNDRED ? (U+2183 or Ↄ).
On Page 235, the date of Anne (More) Donne's death is given as
CI? . DC. XVII.
i. e. hundreds, ten, (1000) plus 600 plus 17, or the year 1617,
which is correct.
On Page 263, the date given is CI? . I? C. XXIII.
CI? = 1000;
I? C =500+100 (600),
XXIII = 23, so the date is 1623.
(Reference for page 263: [http:// hypotheses. org/17871] . . . 'Le
latin de Locke . . . Goudae apud Justum Ab Hoeve
CI? I? C LXXXIX . . .
CI? = 1000
I? C se decompose en I? = 500 + C = 100 soit 600
LXXXIX = 89
La date correspondante est 1689*.
* 2011 serait CI? CI? XI '. )
(So 2015 would be CI? CI? XV ').
Page 251: _S69_ corrected to _S96_
"_S96_ and _O'F_ differ from the third group. . . . "
Page 275: Erratum, p. 274. .
