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.
in _Cy_'s version, which is a paraphrase rather than a version:
Wee after Gods mercy drowne our Soules againe.
Donne - 2
from which _1633_ printed this poem probably had the title as
above. It stands so in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. By a pure accident it
was changed to _Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother. To the
Countesse of Bedford. _ There was no Lord Harington after the death of
the subject of this poem.
John Harington, the first Baron of Exton and cousin of Sir John
Harington the translator of the _Orlando Furioso_, died at Worms in
1613, when returning from escorting the Princess Elizabeth to her
new home at Heidelberg. His children were John, who succeeded him as
Second Baron of Exton, and Lucy, who had become Countess of Bedford in
1594. The young Baron had been an intimate friend of Prince Henry. In
1609 he visited Venice and was presented to the Doge as likely to be
a power in England when Henry should succeed. 'He is learned',
said Wotton, 'in philosophy, has Latin and Greek to perfection, is
handsome, well-made as any man could be, at least among us. ' His fate
was as sudden and tragic as that of his patron. Travelling in France
and Italy in 1613 he grew ill, it was believed he had been poisoned
by accident or design, and died at his sister's house at Twickenham on
the 27th of February, 1614.
There is not much in Donne's ingenious, tasteless poem which evinces
affection for Harington or sorrow for his tragic end, nor is there
anything of the magnificent poetry, 'ringing and echoing with music,'
which in _Lycidas_ makes us forgetful of the personality of King.
Donne's poem was written to please Lady Bedford:
And they who write to Lords rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at dores for meat?
Apparently it served its purpose, for in a letter written a year or
two later Donne says to Goodyere: 'I am almost sorry, that an Elegy
should have been able to move her to so much compassion heretofore, as
to offer to pay my debts; and my greater wants now, and for so good
a purpose, as to come disingaged into that profession, being plainly
laid open to her, should work no farther but that she sent me £30,'
&c. _Letters, &c. _, p. 219.
Of Harington, Wiffen, in his _Historical Memoirs of the House of
Russell_, says: 'Whilst he devoted much of his time to literary study
he is reported to have uniformly begun and closed the day with prayer
. . . and to have been among the first who kept a diary wherein his
casual faults and errors were recorded, for his surer advancement in
happiness and virtue. ' Wiffen's authority is probably _The Churches
Lamentation for the losse of the Godly Delivered in a Sermon at the
funerals of that truly noble, and most hopefull young Gentleman Iohn
Lord Harington, Baron of Exton, Knight of the noble order of the Bath
etc. by R. Stock_. 1614. To this verses Latin and English by I. P. , F.
H. D. M. , and Sir Thomas Roe are appended. The preacher gives details
of Harington's religious life. The D. N. B. speaks of two memorial
sermons. This is a mistake.
l. 15. _Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest;_ Chambers
by placing a semicolon after 'midnight' makes 'now all rest' an
independent, rhetorical statement:
Thou seest me here at midnight; now all rest;
The Grolier Club editor varies it:
Thou seest me here at midnight now, all rest;
But surely as punctuated in the old editions the line means 'at
midnight, now when all rest', 'the time when all rest'. 'I watch,
while others sleep. '
Donne's description of his midnight watch recalls that of Herr
Teufelsdroeckh: 'Gay mansions, with supper rooms and dancing rooms are
full of light and music and high-swelling hearts, but in the Condemned
Cells the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes
look out through the darkness which is around and within, for the
light of a stern last morning,' &c. _Sartor Resartus_, i. 3.
PAGE =272=, l. 38. _Things, in proportion fit, by perspective. _ It is
by an accident, I imagine, that _1633_ drops the comma after 'fit',
and I have restored it. The later punctuation, which Chambers adopts,
is puzzling if not misleading:
Things, in proportion, fit by perspective.
It is with 'proportion' that 'fit' goes. Deeds of good men show us by
perspective things in a proportion fitted to our comprehension. They
bring the goodness or essence of things, which is seen aright only in
God, down to our level. The divine is most clearly revealed to _us_ in
the human.
PAGE =274=, l. 102. _Sent hither, this worlds tempests to becalme. _ I
have adopted the reading to which the MSS. point in preference to that
of the editions. Both the chief groups read 'tempests', and 'this'
(for 'the') has still more general support. Now if the 's' in
'tempests' were once dropped, 'this' would be changed to 'the', the
emphasis shifting from 'this' to 'world'. I think the sense is better.
If but one tempest is contemplated, then either so many 'lumps of
balm' are not needed, or they fail sadly in their mission. They come
rather to allay the storms with which human life is ever and again
tormented. Moreover, in Donne's cosmology 'this world' is frequently
contrasted with other and better worlds. Compare _An Anatomie of the
World_, pp. 225 et seq.
l. 110. _Which the whole world, or man the abridgment hath. _ The comma
after 'man' in _1633_ gives emphasis. The absence of a comma, however,
after 'abridgment' gives a reader to-day the impression that it is
object to 'hath'. I have, therefore, with _1635-69_, dropped the
comma after 'man'. The omission of commas in appositional phrases is
frequent. 'Man the abridgment' means of course 'Man the microcosm':
'the Macrocosme and Microcosme, the Great and the Lesser World, man
extended in the world, and the world contracted and abridged into
man. ' _Sermons_ 80. 31. 304.
ll. 111-30. _Thou knowst, &c. _ The circles running parallel to
the equator are all equally circular, but diminish in size as they
approach the poles. But the circles which cut these at right angles,
and along which we measure the distance of any spot from the equator,
from the sun, are all of equal magnitude, passing round the earth
through the poles, i. e. meridians are great circles, their planes
passing through the centre of the earth.
Harington's life would have been a Great Circle had it completed its
course, passing through the poles of youth and age. In that case we
should have had from him lessons for every phase of life, medicines to
cure every moral malady.
In _The Crosse_ Donne writes:
All the Globes frame and spheares, is nothing else
But the Meridians crossing Parallels.
And in the _Anatomie of the World_, p. 239, ll. 278-80:
For of Meridians, and Parallels,
Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net throwne
Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.
PAGE =275=, l. 133. _Whose hand, &c. _ The singular is the reading of
all the MSS. , and is pretty certainly right. The minute and second
hands were comparatively rare at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. See the illustrations in F. J. Britten's _Old Clocks and
Watches and their Makers, &c. _ (1904); and compare: 'But yet, as
he that makes a Clock, bestowes all that labour upon the severall
wheeles, that thereby the Bell might give a sound, and that thereby
the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes,' &c.
_Sermons_ 80. 55. 550.
PAGE =276=, l. 154. _And great Sun-dyall to have set us All. _ Compare:
The lives of princes should like dyals move,
Whose regular example is so strong,
They make the times by them go right or wrong.
Webster, _White Devil_, I. ii. 313.
PAGE =279=, l. 250. _French soldurii. _ The reading of the editions
is a misprint. The correct form is given in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and
is used by Donne elsewhere: 'And we may well collect that in Caesars
time, in France, for one who dyed naturally, there dyed many by
this devout violence. For hee says there were some, whom hee calls
_Devotos_, and _Clientes_ (the latter Lawes call them _Soldurios_)
which enjoying many benefits, and commodities, from men of higher
ranke, alwaies when the Lord dyed, celebrated his Funerall with their
owne. And Caesar adds, that in the memorie of man, no one was found
that ever refused it. ' _Biathanatos_, Part I, Dist. 2, Sect. 3. The
marginal note calls them 'Soldurii', and refers to Caes. , _Bell.
Gall. _ 3, and _Tholosa. Sym. _ lib. 14, cap. 10, N. 14.
PAGE =279=. ELEGIE ON THE LADY MARCKHAM.
The wife of Sir Anthony Markham, of Sedgebrook in the county of Notts.
She was the daughter of Sir James Harington, younger brother of John,
first Baron Harington of Exton. See note to last poem. She was thus
first cousin to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and died at her home at
Twickenham on May 4, 1609. On her tombstone it is recorded that she
was 'inclytae Luciae Comitissae de Bedford sanguine (quod satis) sed
et amicitia propinquissima'. It is probably to this friendship of
a great patroness of poets that she owes this and other tributes
of verse. Francis Beaumont wrote one which is found in several MS.
collections of Donne's poems, sometimes with his, sometimes with
Beaumont's initials. In it he frankly confesses that he never knew
Lady Markham. I quote a few lines:
As unthrifts grieve in strawe for their pawnd Beds,
As women weepe for their lost Maidenheads
(When both are without hope of Remedie)
Such an untimelie Griefe, have I for thee.
I never sawe thy face; nor did my hart
Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert,
But being lifted hence, that which to thee
Was Deaths sad dart, prov'd Cupids shafte to me.
The taste of Beaumont's poem is execrable. Elegies like this, and I
fear Donne's among them, were frankly addressed not so much to the
memory of the dead as to the pocket of the living.
According to two MSS. (_RP31_ and _H40_) the _Elegie_, 'Death be
not proud', was written by Lady Bedford herself on the death of
her cousin. It is much simpler and sincerer in tone than Donne's or
Beaumont's, but the tenor of the thought seems to connect it with the
_Elegie on M^{ris} Boulstred_, 'Death I recant'. The same MSS. contain
the following _Epitaph uppon the Ladye Markham_, which shows that she
was a widow when she died:
A Mayde, a Wyfe shee liv'd, a Widdowe dy'd:
Her vertue, through all womans state was varyed.
The widdowes Bodye which this vayle doth hide
Keepes in, expecting to bee justlie [highly _H40_] marryed,
When that great Bridegroome from the cloudes shall call
And ioyne, earth to his owne, himself to all.
l. 7. _Then our land waters, &c. _ 'That hand which was wont _to wipe
all teares from all our eyes_, doth now but presse and squeaze us as
so many spunges, filled one with one, another with another cause of
teares. Teares that can have no other banke to bound them, but the
declared and manifested _will of God_: For, till our teares flow to
that heighth, that they might be called a _murmuring_ against
the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is
_Disloyaltie_, to give our teares any stop, any termination, any
measure. ' _Sermons_ 50. 33. 303: _On the Death of King James_.
PAGE =280=, l. 11. _And even these teares, &c. _: i. e. the
Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall,
which are the waters _above_ our firmament as opposed to the _land_
or _earthly_ waters which are the tears of passion. The 'these' of the
MSS. seems necessary for clearness of references: 'For, _Lacrymae sunt
sudor animae maerentis_, Teares are the sweat of a labouring soule,
. . . 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.
above. It stands so in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. By a pure accident it
was changed to _Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother. To the
Countesse of Bedford. _ There was no Lord Harington after the death of
the subject of this poem.
John Harington, the first Baron of Exton and cousin of Sir John
Harington the translator of the _Orlando Furioso_, died at Worms in
1613, when returning from escorting the Princess Elizabeth to her
new home at Heidelberg. His children were John, who succeeded him as
Second Baron of Exton, and Lucy, who had become Countess of Bedford in
1594. The young Baron had been an intimate friend of Prince Henry. In
1609 he visited Venice and was presented to the Doge as likely to be
a power in England when Henry should succeed. 'He is learned',
said Wotton, 'in philosophy, has Latin and Greek to perfection, is
handsome, well-made as any man could be, at least among us. ' His fate
was as sudden and tragic as that of his patron. Travelling in France
and Italy in 1613 he grew ill, it was believed he had been poisoned
by accident or design, and died at his sister's house at Twickenham on
the 27th of February, 1614.
There is not much in Donne's ingenious, tasteless poem which evinces
affection for Harington or sorrow for his tragic end, nor is there
anything of the magnificent poetry, 'ringing and echoing with music,'
which in _Lycidas_ makes us forgetful of the personality of King.
Donne's poem was written to please Lady Bedford:
And they who write to Lords rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at dores for meat?
Apparently it served its purpose, for in a letter written a year or
two later Donne says to Goodyere: 'I am almost sorry, that an Elegy
should have been able to move her to so much compassion heretofore, as
to offer to pay my debts; and my greater wants now, and for so good
a purpose, as to come disingaged into that profession, being plainly
laid open to her, should work no farther but that she sent me £30,'
&c. _Letters, &c. _, p. 219.
Of Harington, Wiffen, in his _Historical Memoirs of the House of
Russell_, says: 'Whilst he devoted much of his time to literary study
he is reported to have uniformly begun and closed the day with prayer
. . . and to have been among the first who kept a diary wherein his
casual faults and errors were recorded, for his surer advancement in
happiness and virtue. ' Wiffen's authority is probably _The Churches
Lamentation for the losse of the Godly Delivered in a Sermon at the
funerals of that truly noble, and most hopefull young Gentleman Iohn
Lord Harington, Baron of Exton, Knight of the noble order of the Bath
etc. by R. Stock_. 1614. To this verses Latin and English by I. P. , F.
H. D. M. , and Sir Thomas Roe are appended. The preacher gives details
of Harington's religious life. The D. N. B. speaks of two memorial
sermons. This is a mistake.
l. 15. _Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest;_ Chambers
by placing a semicolon after 'midnight' makes 'now all rest' an
independent, rhetorical statement:
Thou seest me here at midnight; now all rest;
The Grolier Club editor varies it:
Thou seest me here at midnight now, all rest;
But surely as punctuated in the old editions the line means 'at
midnight, now when all rest', 'the time when all rest'. 'I watch,
while others sleep. '
Donne's description of his midnight watch recalls that of Herr
Teufelsdroeckh: 'Gay mansions, with supper rooms and dancing rooms are
full of light and music and high-swelling hearts, but in the Condemned
Cells the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes
look out through the darkness which is around and within, for the
light of a stern last morning,' &c. _Sartor Resartus_, i. 3.
PAGE =272=, l. 38. _Things, in proportion fit, by perspective. _ It is
by an accident, I imagine, that _1633_ drops the comma after 'fit',
and I have restored it. The later punctuation, which Chambers adopts,
is puzzling if not misleading:
Things, in proportion, fit by perspective.
It is with 'proportion' that 'fit' goes. Deeds of good men show us by
perspective things in a proportion fitted to our comprehension. They
bring the goodness or essence of things, which is seen aright only in
God, down to our level. The divine is most clearly revealed to _us_ in
the human.
PAGE =274=, l. 102. _Sent hither, this worlds tempests to becalme. _ I
have adopted the reading to which the MSS. point in preference to that
of the editions. Both the chief groups read 'tempests', and 'this'
(for 'the') has still more general support. Now if the 's' in
'tempests' were once dropped, 'this' would be changed to 'the', the
emphasis shifting from 'this' to 'world'. I think the sense is better.
If but one tempest is contemplated, then either so many 'lumps of
balm' are not needed, or they fail sadly in their mission. They come
rather to allay the storms with which human life is ever and again
tormented. Moreover, in Donne's cosmology 'this world' is frequently
contrasted with other and better worlds. Compare _An Anatomie of the
World_, pp. 225 et seq.
l. 110. _Which the whole world, or man the abridgment hath. _ The comma
after 'man' in _1633_ gives emphasis. The absence of a comma, however,
after 'abridgment' gives a reader to-day the impression that it is
object to 'hath'. I have, therefore, with _1635-69_, dropped the
comma after 'man'. The omission of commas in appositional phrases is
frequent. 'Man the abridgment' means of course 'Man the microcosm':
'the Macrocosme and Microcosme, the Great and the Lesser World, man
extended in the world, and the world contracted and abridged into
man. ' _Sermons_ 80. 31. 304.
ll. 111-30. _Thou knowst, &c. _ The circles running parallel to
the equator are all equally circular, but diminish in size as they
approach the poles. But the circles which cut these at right angles,
and along which we measure the distance of any spot from the equator,
from the sun, are all of equal magnitude, passing round the earth
through the poles, i. e. meridians are great circles, their planes
passing through the centre of the earth.
Harington's life would have been a Great Circle had it completed its
course, passing through the poles of youth and age. In that case we
should have had from him lessons for every phase of life, medicines to
cure every moral malady.
In _The Crosse_ Donne writes:
All the Globes frame and spheares, is nothing else
But the Meridians crossing Parallels.
And in the _Anatomie of the World_, p. 239, ll. 278-80:
For of Meridians, and Parallels,
Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net throwne
Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.
PAGE =275=, l. 133. _Whose hand, &c. _ The singular is the reading of
all the MSS. , and is pretty certainly right. The minute and second
hands were comparatively rare at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. See the illustrations in F. J. Britten's _Old Clocks and
Watches and their Makers, &c. _ (1904); and compare: 'But yet, as
he that makes a Clock, bestowes all that labour upon the severall
wheeles, that thereby the Bell might give a sound, and that thereby
the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes,' &c.
_Sermons_ 80. 55. 550.
PAGE =276=, l. 154. _And great Sun-dyall to have set us All. _ Compare:
The lives of princes should like dyals move,
Whose regular example is so strong,
They make the times by them go right or wrong.
Webster, _White Devil_, I. ii. 313.
PAGE =279=, l. 250. _French soldurii. _ The reading of the editions
is a misprint. The correct form is given in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and
is used by Donne elsewhere: 'And we may well collect that in Caesars
time, in France, for one who dyed naturally, there dyed many by
this devout violence. For hee says there were some, whom hee calls
_Devotos_, and _Clientes_ (the latter Lawes call them _Soldurios_)
which enjoying many benefits, and commodities, from men of higher
ranke, alwaies when the Lord dyed, celebrated his Funerall with their
owne. And Caesar adds, that in the memorie of man, no one was found
that ever refused it. ' _Biathanatos_, Part I, Dist. 2, Sect. 3. The
marginal note calls them 'Soldurii', and refers to Caes. , _Bell.
Gall. _ 3, and _Tholosa. Sym. _ lib. 14, cap. 10, N. 14.
PAGE =279=. ELEGIE ON THE LADY MARCKHAM.
The wife of Sir Anthony Markham, of Sedgebrook in the county of Notts.
She was the daughter of Sir James Harington, younger brother of John,
first Baron Harington of Exton. See note to last poem. She was thus
first cousin to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and died at her home at
Twickenham on May 4, 1609. On her tombstone it is recorded that she
was 'inclytae Luciae Comitissae de Bedford sanguine (quod satis) sed
et amicitia propinquissima'. It is probably to this friendship of
a great patroness of poets that she owes this and other tributes
of verse. Francis Beaumont wrote one which is found in several MS.
collections of Donne's poems, sometimes with his, sometimes with
Beaumont's initials. In it he frankly confesses that he never knew
Lady Markham. I quote a few lines:
As unthrifts grieve in strawe for their pawnd Beds,
As women weepe for their lost Maidenheads
(When both are without hope of Remedie)
Such an untimelie Griefe, have I for thee.
I never sawe thy face; nor did my hart
Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert,
But being lifted hence, that which to thee
Was Deaths sad dart, prov'd Cupids shafte to me.
The taste of Beaumont's poem is execrable. Elegies like this, and I
fear Donne's among them, were frankly addressed not so much to the
memory of the dead as to the pocket of the living.
According to two MSS. (_RP31_ and _H40_) the _Elegie_, 'Death be
not proud', was written by Lady Bedford herself on the death of
her cousin. It is much simpler and sincerer in tone than Donne's or
Beaumont's, but the tenor of the thought seems to connect it with the
_Elegie on M^{ris} Boulstred_, 'Death I recant'. The same MSS. contain
the following _Epitaph uppon the Ladye Markham_, which shows that she
was a widow when she died:
A Mayde, a Wyfe shee liv'd, a Widdowe dy'd:
Her vertue, through all womans state was varyed.
The widdowes Bodye which this vayle doth hide
Keepes in, expecting to bee justlie [highly _H40_] marryed,
When that great Bridegroome from the cloudes shall call
And ioyne, earth to his owne, himself to all.
l. 7. _Then our land waters, &c. _ 'That hand which was wont _to wipe
all teares from all our eyes_, doth now but presse and squeaze us as
so many spunges, filled one with one, another with another cause of
teares. Teares that can have no other banke to bound them, but the
declared and manifested _will of God_: For, till our teares flow to
that heighth, that they might be called a _murmuring_ against
the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is
_Disloyaltie_, to give our teares any stop, any termination, any
measure. ' _Sermons_ 50. 33. 303: _On the Death of King James_.
PAGE =280=, l. 11. _And even these teares, &c. _: i. e. the
Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall,
which are the waters _above_ our firmament as opposed to the _land_
or _earthly_ waters which are the tears of passion. The 'these' of the
MSS. seems necessary for clearness of references: 'For, _Lacrymae sunt
sudor animae maerentis_, Teares are the sweat of a labouring soule,
. . . 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.
