He and Donne may already have been acquainted through
Wotton, who was closely related by friendship and marriage with Sir
Edmund Bacon.
Wotton, who was closely related by friendship and marriage with Sir
Edmund Bacon.
Donne - 2
' Lady
Rich abandoned her husband after five years' marriage and declared
that the true father of her children was Charles Blount, Earl of
Devonshire, to whom, after her divorce in 1605, she was married by
Laud. Lettice, the eldest daughter, married Sir George Carey, of
Cockington, Devon. Essex, the younger, was married, subsequently to
this letter, to Sir Thomas Cheeke, of Pirgo, Essex.
ll. 10-12. _Where, because Faith is in too low degree, &c. _ Donne
refers to the Catholic doctrine of good works as necessary to
salvation in opposition to the Protestant doctrine of Justification by
Faith. He is fond of the antithesis. Compare:
My faith I give to Roman Catholiques;
All my good workes unto the Schismaticks
Of Amsterdam;. . .
Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
_The Will_, p. 57.
PAGE =222=, l. 14. _where no one is growne or spent. _ Like the stars
in the firmament your virtues neither grow nor decay. According to
Aquinas the heavenly bodies are neither temporal nor eternal; not
temporal because they are subject neither to growth nor decay; not
eternal because they change their position. They are 'Aeonical', their
life is measured by ages.
l. 19. _humilitie_ has such general support that the 'humidity' of
_1669_ seems to be merely a conjecture.
PAGE =224=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF SALISBURY. 1614.
Catharine Howard, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Suffolk, married
in 1608 William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, son of the greater
earl and grandson of Burghley, 'whose wisdom and virtues died with
them, and their children only inherited their titles'. Clarendon.
It is not impossible, considering the date of this letter, that the
Countess of Salisbury may be 'the Countesse' referred to in Donne's
letter to Goodyere quoted in my introduction on the canon of Donne's
poems. There is a difficulty in applying to the Countess of Huntingdon
the words 'that knowledge which she hath of me, was in the beginning
of a graver course, then of a Poet'. _Letters, &c. _, p. 103. Donne
made the acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth Stanley when he was Sir Thomas
Egerton's secretary. She must have known him as a wit before his
graver days. Nor would he have apologized for writing to such an old
friend whose prophet he had been in her younger days.
The punctuation of this poem repays careful study. The whole is a
fine example of that periodic style, drawn out from line to line, and
forming sonorous and impressive verse-paragraphs, in which Donne more
than any other poet anticipated Milton. The first sentence closes only
at the thirty-sixth line. The various clauses which lead up to the
close are separated from one another by the full-stop (ll. 8, 24),
the colon (ll. 2, 7 (sonnets:), 34), and the semicolon (ll. 18, 21, 30
where the old edition had a colon), all with distinct values. The only
change I have made (and recorded) is at l. 30 (fantasticall), where
a careful consideration of the punctuation throughout shows that a
semicolon is more appropriate than a colon. The clause which begins
with 'Since' in l. 25 does not close till l. 34, 'understood'.
In the rest of the poem the punctuation is also careful. The only
changes I have made are--ll. 42 'that day;' and 46 'yesterday;' (a
semi-colon for a colon in each case), 61 'mee:' (a colon for a full
stop), and 63 'good;' (a semicolon for a comma).
PAGE =227=. TO THE LADY BEDFORD.
l. 1. _You that are she and you, that's double shee_: The old
punctuation suggests absurdly that the clause 'and you that's double
she' is an independent co-ordinate clause.
l. 7. _Cusco. _ I note in a catalogue, 'South America, a very early
Map, with view of Cusco, the capital of Peru'.
l. 44. _of Iudith. _ 'There is not such a woman from one end of the
earth to the other, both for beauty of face and wisdom of words. '
Judith xi. 21.
AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD.
The _Anatomie of the World_ and _Of The Progresse of the Soule_ were
the first poems published in Donne's lifetime. The former was
issued in 1611. It is exceedingly rare. The copy preserved in Lord
Ellesmere's library at Bridgewater House is a small octavo volume
of 26 pages (_Praise of the Dead, &c. _ 3 pp. , _Anatomy_ 19 pp. , and
_Funerall Elegie_ 4 pp. , all unnumbered), with title-page as given on
the page opposite.
In 1612 the poem was reissued along with the _Second Anniversary_. A
copy of this rare volume was sold at the Huth sale on the thirteenth
of June this year. With the kind permission of Mr. Edward Huth and
Messrs. Sotheby, Mr. Godfrey Keynes made a careful collation for
me, the results of which are embodied in my notes. The separate
title-pages of the two poems which the volume contains are here
reproduced.
Mr. Keynes supplies the following description of the volume: _A_ first
title, _A-A4 To the praise of the Dead_ (in italics), _A5-D2_ (pp.
1-44) _The First Anniversary_ (in roman), _D3-D7_ (pp. 45-54) _A
funerall Elegie_ (in italics), _D8_ blank except for rules in margins;
_E1_ second title, _E2-E4_ recto _The Harbinger_ (in italics), _E4_
verso blank, _E5-H5_ recto (pp. 1-49) _The Second Anniversarie_ (in
roman), _H5_ verso--_H6_ blank except for rules in margins. A fresh
title-page introduces the second poem.
In 1611 the introductory verses entitled _To the praise of the Dead,
and the Anatomy_, and the _Anatomy_ itself, are printed in italic, _A
Funerall Elegie_ following in roman type. This latter arrangement
was reversed in 1612. In the second part, only the poem entitled _The
Harbinger to the Progresse_ is printed throughout in italic. Donne's
own poem is in roman type.
The reason of the variety of arrangement is, I suppose, this: The
_Funerall Elegie_ was probably, as Chambers suggests, the first part
of the poem, composed probably in 1610. When it was published in
1611 with the _Anatomie_, the latter was regarded as introductory and
subordinate to the _Elegie_, and accordingly was printed in italic.
Later, when the idea of the Anniversary poems emerged, and _Of The
Progresse of the Soule_ was written as a complement to _An Anatomy
of the World_, these became the prominent parts of the whole work in
honour of Elizabeth Drury, and the _Funerall Elegie_ fell into the
subordinate position.
The edition of 1612 does not strike one as a very careful piece of
printing. It was probably printed while Donne was on the Continent. It
supplies only two certain emendations of the later text.
The reprints of this volume made in 1621 and 1625 show increasing
carelessness. They were issued after Donne took orders and probably
without his sanction. The title-pages of the editions are here
reproduced.
[Illustration: title encapsulated in Doric frame:]
_AN_
ANATOMY
of the World.
WHEREIN,
BY OCCASION OF
the vntimely death of Mistris
ELIZABETH DRVRY
the frailty and the decay
of this whole world
is represented.
LONDON,
Printed for _Samuel Macham_.
and are to be solde at his shop in
Paules Church-yard, at the
signe of the Bul-head.
AN. DOM.
1611.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The First Anniuersarie. _
AN
ANATOMIE
of the VVorld.
_Wherein_,
BY OCCASION OF
_the vntimely death of Mistris_
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the frailtie and the decay of
this whole World is
represented.
[Illustration]
LONDON,
Printed by _M. Bradwood_ for _S. Macham_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the
signe of the Bull-head. 1612.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The Second Anniuersarie. _
OF
THE PROGRES
of the Soule.
_Wherein_:
By Occasion Of The
Religious Death of Mistris
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the incommodities of the Soule
_in this life and her exaltation in_
the next, are Contem-
_plated_.
LONDON,
Printed by M. _Bradwood_ for _S. Macham_, and are
to be sould at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at
the signe of the Bull-head.
1612.
The above title is not an exact facsimile.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The First Anniuersarie. _
AN
ANATOMIE
of the World.
_Wherein_,
BY OCCASION OF
_the vntimely death of Mistris_
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the frailtie and the decay of
this whole World is
represented.
[Illustration]
LONDON,
Printed by _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard in
Fleetestreete. 1621.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The Second Anniuersarie. _
OF
THE PROGRES
of the Soule.
_Wherein_,
BY OCCASION OF
_the Religious death of Mistris_
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the incommodities of the Soule
_in this life, and her exaltation in_
the next, are Contem-
_plated_.
[Illustration]
LONDON,
Printed by _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard
in Fleetestreete. 1621.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
AN
ANATOMIE
OF THE
_World. _
WHEREIN,
_By occasion of the vn_-
timely death of Mistris
Elizabeth Drvry,
_the frailtie and the decay_
of this whole World is
_represented_.
The first Anniuersarie.
LONDON
Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
Church-yard. 1625
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
OF
THE PROGRES
of the
_SOVLE_
WHEREIN,
_By occasion of the_ Re-
ligious death of Mistris
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the incommodities of the _Soule_ in
this life, and her exaltation in the
_next, are Contemplated_.
The second Anniuersarie.
LONDON
Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
Church-yard. 1625.
The symbolic figures in the title-pages of 1625 probably represent the
seven Liberal Arts. A feature of the editions of _1611_, _1612,_ and
_1625_ is the marginal notes. These are reproduced in _1633_, but a
little carelessly, for some copies do not contain them all. They are
omitted in the subsequent editions.
The text of the _Anniversaries_ in _1633_ has been on the whole
carefully edited. It is probable, judging from several small
circumstances (e. g. the omission of the first marginal note even in
copies where all the rest are given), that _1633_ was printed from
_1625_, but it is clear that the editor compared this with earlier
editions, probably those of _1611-12_, and corrected or amended
the punctuation throughout. My collation of _1633_ with _1611_ has
throughout vindicated the former as against _1621-5_ on the one hand
and the later editions on the other. [1] Of mistakes other than of
punctuation I have noted only three: l. 181, thoughts _1611-12_;
thought _1621-33_. This was corrected, from the obvious sense, in
later editions (_1635-69_), and Grosart, Chambers, and Grolier make
no note of the error in _1621-33_. l. 318, proportions _1611-12_;
proportion _1621_ and all subsequent editions without comment. l. 415,
Impressions _1611_; Impression _1612-25_: impression _1633_ and all
subsequent editions. All three cases are examples of the same error,
the dropping of final 's'.
In typographical respects _1611_ shows the hand of the author more
clearly than the later editions. Donne was fastidious in matters of
punctuation and the use of italics and capital letters, witness the
_LXXX Sermons_ (1640), printed from MSS. prepared for the press by the
author. But the printer had to be reckoned with, and perfection was
not obtainable. In a note to one of the separately published sermons
Donne says: 'Those Errors which are committed in mispointing, or
in changing the form of the Character, will soone be discernd, and
corrected by the Eye of any deliberate Reader'. The _1611_ text shows
a more consistent use in certain passages of emphasizing capitals,
and at places its punctuation is better than that of _1633_. My
text reproduces _1633_, corrected where necessary from the earlier
editions; and I have occasionally followed the typography of _1611_.
But every case in which _1633_ is modified is recorded.
Of the _Second Anniversarie_, in like manner, my text is that of
_1633_, corrected in a few details, and with a few typographical
features borrowed, from the edition of _1612_. The editor of _1633_
had rather definite views of his own on punctuation, notably a
predilection for semicolons in place of full stops. The only certain
emendations which _1612_ supplies are in the marginal note at p.
234 and in l. 421 of the _Second Anniversarie_ 'this' for 'his'. The
spelling is less ambiguous in ll. 27 and 326.
[Footnote 1: _1621-25_ abound in misplaced full stops which
are not in _1611_ and are generally corrected in _1633_. The
punctuation of the later editions (_1635-69_) is the work of
the printer. Occasionally a comma is dropped or introduced
with advantage to the sense, but in general the punctuation
grows increasingly careless. Often the correction of one error
leads to another. ]
The subject of the _Anniversaries_ was the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth
Drury, who died in 1610. Her father, Sir Robert Drury, of Hawsted in
the county of Suffolk, was a man of some note on account of his great
wealth. He was knighted by Essex when about seventeen years old, at
the siege of Rouen (1591-2). He served in the Low Countries, and at
the battle of Nieuport (1600) brought off Sir Francis Vere when
his horse was shot under him. He was courtier, traveller, member of
Parliament, and in 1613 would have been glad to go as Ambassador to
Paris when Sir Thomas Overbury refused the proffered honour and was
sent to the Tower. Lady Drury was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper. She and her brother,
Sir Edmund Bacon, were friends and patrons of Joseph Hall, Donne's
rival as an early satirist. From 1600 to 1608 Hall was rector of
Hawsted, and though he was not very kindly treated by Sir Robert
he dedicated to him his _Meditations Morall and Divine_. This tie
explains the fact, which we learn from Jonson's conversations with
Drummond, that Hall is the author of the _Harbinger to the Progresse_.
As he wrote this we may infer that he is also responsible for _To the
praise of the dead, and the Anatomie_.
Readers of Donne's _Life_ by Walton are aware of the munificence with
which Sir Robert rewarded Donne for his poems, how he opened his
house to him, and took him abroad. Donne's letters, on the other hand,
reveal that the poem gave considerable offence to the Countess of
Bedford and other older patrons and friends. In his letters to Gerrard
he endeavoured to explain away his eulogies. In verse-letters to the
Countess of Bedford and others he atoned for his inconstancy by subtle
and erudite compliments.
_The Funerall Elegie_ was doubtless written in 1610 and sent to Sir
Robert Drury.
He and Donne may already have been acquainted through
Wotton, who was closely related by friendship and marriage with Sir
Edmund Bacon. (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ (1907). _The Anatomie of the World_ was composed in 1611, _Of
the Progresse of the Soule_ in France in 1612, at some time prior to
the 14th of April, when he refers to his _Anniversaries_ in a letter
to George Gerrard.
Ben Jonson declared to Drummond 'That Donnes Anniversaries were
profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Done if it had
been written of the Virgin Marie it had been something; to which he
answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was'.
This is a better defence of Donne's poems than any which he advances
in his letters, but it is not a complete description of his work.
Rather, he interwove with a rapt and extravagantly conceited laudation
of an ideal woman two topics familiar to his catholic and mediaeval
learning, and developed each in a characteristically subtle and
ingenious strain, a strain whose occasional sceptical, disintegrating
reflections belong as obviously to the seventeenth century as the
general content of the thought is mediaeval.
The burden of the whole is an impassioned and exalted _meditatio
mortis_ based on two themes common enough in mediaeval devotional
literature--a _De Contemptu Mundi_, and a contemplation of the Glories
of Paradise. A very brief analysis of the two poems, omitting the
laudatory portions, may help a reader who cannot at once see the wood
for the trees, and be better than detailed notes.
_The Anatomie of the World. _
_l. 1. _ The world which suffered in her death is now fallen into the
worse lethargy of oblivion. _l. 60. _ I will anatomize the world for
the benefit of those who still, by the influence of her virtue, lead a
kind of glimmering life. _l. 91. _ There is no health in the world. We
are still under the curse of woman. _l. 111. _ How short is our life
compared with that of the patriarchs! _l. 134. _ How small is our
stature compared with that of the giants of old! _l. 147. _ How
shrunken of soul we are, especially since her death! _l. 191. _ And
as man, so is the whole world. The new learning or philosophy has
shattered in fragments that complete scheme of the universe in which
we rested so confidently, and (_l. 211_) in human society the same
disorder prevails. _l. 250. _ There is no beauty in the world, for,
first, the beauty of proportion is lost, alike in the movements of the
heavenly bodies, and (_l. 285_) in the earth with its mountains and
hollows, and (_l. 302_) in the administration of justice in society.
_l. 339. _ So is Beauty's other element, Colour and Lustre. _l. 377. _
Heaven and earth are at variance. We can no longer read terrestrial
fortunes in the stars. But (_l. 435_) an Anatomy can be pushed too
far.
_The Progresse of the Soule. _
_l. 1. _ The world's life is the life that breeds in corruption. Let
me, forgetting the rotten world, meditate on death. _l. 85. _ Think,
my soul, that thou art on thy death-bed, and consider death a release.
_l. 157. _ Think how the body poisoned the soul, tainting it with
original sin. Set free, thou art in Heaven in a moment. _l. 250. _ Here
all our knowledge is ignorance. The new learning has thrown all in
doubt. We sweat to learn trifles. In Heaven we know all we need to
know. _l. 321. _ Here, our converse is evil and corrupting. There our
converse will be with Mary; the Patriarchs; Apostles, Martyrs and
Virgins (compare _A Litany_). Here in the perpetual flux of things is
no essential joy. Essential joy is to see God. And even the accidental
joys of heaven surpass the essential joys of earth, were there such
joys here where all is casual:
Only in Heaven joys strength is never spent,
And accidental things are permanent.
One of the most interesting strands of thought common to the twin
poems is the reflection on the disintegrating effect of the New
Learning. Copernicus' displacement of the earth, and the consequent
disturbance of the accepted mediaeval cosmology with its concentric
arrangement of elements and heavenly bodies, arrests and disturbs
Donne's imagination much as the later geology with its revelation
of vanished species and first suggestion of a doctrine of evolution
absorbed and perturbed Tennyson when he wrote _In Memoriam_ and
throughout his life. No other poet of the seventeenth century known
to me shows the same sensitiveness to the consequences of the new
discoveries of traveller, astronomer, physiologist and physician as
Donne.
TO THE PRAISE OF THE DEAD.
PAGE =231=, l. 43. _What high part thou bearest in those best songs. _
The contraction of 'bearest' to 'bear'st' in the earliest editions
(_1611-25_) led to the insertion of 'of' after 'best' in the later
ones (_1633-69_).
AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD.
PAGE =235=, ll. 133-6. Chambers alters the punctuation of these lines
in such a way as to connect them more closely:
So short is life, that every peasant strives,
In a torn house, or field, to have three lives;
And as in lasting, so in length is man,
Contracted to an inch, who was a span.
But the punctuation of _1633_ is careful and correct. A new paragraph
begins with 'And as in lasting, so, &c. ' From length of years Donne
passes to physical stature. The full stop is at 'lives', the semicolon
at 'span'. Grosart and the Grolier Club editor punctuate correctly.
l. 144. _We'are scarce our Fathers shadowes cast at noone_: Compare:
But now the sun is just above our head,
We doe those shadowes tread;
And to brave clearnesse all things are reduc'd.
_A Lecture upon the Shadowe. _
PAGE =236=, l. 160. _And with new Physicke_: i. e. the new mineral
drugs of the Paracelsians.
PAGE =237=, l. 190. _Be more then man, or thou'rt lesse then an Ant. _
Compare _To M^r Rowland Woodward_, p. 185, ll. 16-18 and note.
l. 205. _The new Philosophy calls all in doubt, &c. _ The philosophy
of Galileo and Copernicus has displaced the earth and discredited
the concentric arrangement of the elements,--earth, water, air,
fire. Norton quotes: 'The fire is an element most hot and dry, pure,
subtill, and so clear as it doth not hinder our sight looking through
the same towards the stars, and is placed next to the Spheare of the
Moon, under the which it is turned about like a celestial Spheare'.
_M. Blundeville His Exercises_, 1594.
When the world was formed from Chaos, then--
Earth as the Lees, and heavie dross of All
(After his kinde) did to the bottom fall:
Contrariwise, the light and nimble Fire
Did through the crannies of th'old Heap aspire
Unto the top; and by his nature, light
No less than hot, mounted in sparks upright:
But, lest the Fire (which all the rest imbraces)
Being too near, should burn the Earth to ashes;
As Chosen Umpires, the great All-Creator
Between these Foes placed the Aire and Water:
For, one suffiz'd not their stern strife to end.
Water, as Cozen did the Earth befriend:
Aire for his Kinsman Fire, as firmly deals &c.
Du Bartas, _The second Day of the first Week_
(trans. Joshua Sylvester).
Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sect. 2, Mem. 3,
tells how the new Astronomers Tycho, Rotman, Kepler, &c. by their new
doctrine of the heavens are 'exploding in the meantime that element of
fire, those fictitious, first watry movers, those heavens I mean above
the firmament, which Delrio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius and many of
the fathers affirm'. They have abolished, that is to say, the fire
which surrounded the air, as that air surrounded the water and
the earth (all below the moon); and they have also abolished the
Crystalline Sphere and the Primum Mobile which were supposed to
surround the sphere of the fixed stars, or the firmament.
PAGE =238=, l. 215. _Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne are things
forgot. _ Donne has probably in mind the effect of the religious wars
in Germany, France, the Low Countries, &c.
l. 217. _that then can be. _ This is the reading of all the editions
before _1669_, and there is no reason to change 'then' to 'there':
'Every man thinks he has come to be a Phoenix (preferring private
judgement to authority) and that then comparison ceases, for there
is nothing of the same kind with which to compare himself. There is
nothing left to reverence. '
PAGE =239=, l. 258. _It teares
The Firmament in eight and forty sheires. _
Norton says that in the catalogue of Hipparchus, preserved in
the Almagest of Ptolemy, the stars were divided into forty-eight
constellations.
l. 260. _New starres. _ Norton says: 'It was the apparition of a new
star in 1572, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, that turned Tycho
Brahe to astronomy: and a new bright star in Ophiuchus, in 1604, had
excited general wonder, and afforded Galileo a text for an attack on
the Ptolemaic system'.
At p. 247, l. 70, Donne notes that the 'new starres' went out again.
PAGE =240=, l. 286. _a Tenarif, or higher hill. _ 'Tenarif' is
the _1611_ spelling, 'Tenarus' that of _1633-69_. Donne speaks of
'Tenarus' elsewhere, but it is not the same place.
It is not probable that Donne ever saw the Peak of Teneriffe, although
biographers speak of this line as a descriptive touch drawn from
memory. The Canary Isles are below the 30th degree of latitude.
The fleet that made the Islands Exhibition was never much if at all
further south than 43 degrees. After coasting off Corunna 43° N. 8°
W. , and some leagues south of that port, the fleet struck straight
across to the Azores, 37° N. 25° W. Donne was somewhat nearer in the
previous year when he was at Cadiz, 36° N. 6° W. , but too far off to
descry the Peak. His description, though vivid, is 'metaphysical',
like that of Hell which follows: 'The Pike of Teneriff, how high is
it? 79 miles or 52, as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius demonstrates
in his Eratosthenes'. Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sec. 2,
Mem. 3.
On the other side, Satan, alarm'd,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremov'd.
Milton, _Par. Lost_, iv. 985-7.
ll. 295 f. _If under all, a Vault infernall bee, &c. _ Hell, according
to mediaeval philosophy, was in the middle of the earth. 'If this
be true,' says Donne, 'and if at the same time the Sea is in places
bottomless, then the earth is neither solid nor round. We use these
words only approximately. But you may hold, on the other hand, that
the deepest seas we know are but pock-holes, the highest hills but
warts, on the face of the solid earth. Well, even in that case you
must admit that in the moral sphere at any rate the world's proportion
is disfigured by the want of all proportioning of reward and
punishment to conduct. ' The sudden transition from the physical to the
moral sphere is very disconcerting. Compare: 'Or is it the place of
hell, as Virgil in his Aeneides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others
poetically describe it, and as many of our divines think. In good
earnest, Antony Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian college in
Millan, in his great volume _de Inferno_, lib. i, cap. 47, is stiffe
in this tenent. . . . Whatsoever philosophers write (saith Surius) there
be certaine mouthes of Hell, and places appointed for the punishment
of mens souls, as at Hecla in Island, where the ghosts of dead men are
familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living. God would have
such visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that
there be such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God,'
&c. Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sec. 2, Mem. 3.
ll. 296-8. _Which sure is spacious, &c. _ 'Franciscus Ribera will
have hell a materiall and locall fire in the centre of the earth, 200
Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those words _Exivit
sanguis de terra . . . per stadia mille sexcenta, &c. _ But Lessius
(lib. 13, _de moribus divinis_, cap. 24) will have this locall
hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and
brimstone; because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically
multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand
millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square); which
will abundantly suffice, '_cum certum sit, inquit, facta subductione,
non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum_. ' Burton, _Anat. of
Melancholy_, _ut sup. _ Eschatology was the 'dismal science' of those
days and was studied with astonishing gusto and acumen. 'For as one
Author, who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the
Earth, lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid, pronounces
that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse,
(and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng, for their
bodies must be there in their dimensions, as well as their soules) so
when the Schoole-men come to measure the house in heaven (as they will
measure it, and the Master, God, and all his Attributes, and tell us
how Allmighty, and how Infinite he is) they pronounce that every soule
in that house shall have more roome to it selfe, then all this world
is.
Rich abandoned her husband after five years' marriage and declared
that the true father of her children was Charles Blount, Earl of
Devonshire, to whom, after her divorce in 1605, she was married by
Laud. Lettice, the eldest daughter, married Sir George Carey, of
Cockington, Devon. Essex, the younger, was married, subsequently to
this letter, to Sir Thomas Cheeke, of Pirgo, Essex.
ll. 10-12. _Where, because Faith is in too low degree, &c. _ Donne
refers to the Catholic doctrine of good works as necessary to
salvation in opposition to the Protestant doctrine of Justification by
Faith. He is fond of the antithesis. Compare:
My faith I give to Roman Catholiques;
All my good workes unto the Schismaticks
Of Amsterdam;. . .
Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
_The Will_, p. 57.
PAGE =222=, l. 14. _where no one is growne or spent. _ Like the stars
in the firmament your virtues neither grow nor decay. According to
Aquinas the heavenly bodies are neither temporal nor eternal; not
temporal because they are subject neither to growth nor decay; not
eternal because they change their position. They are 'Aeonical', their
life is measured by ages.
l. 19. _humilitie_ has such general support that the 'humidity' of
_1669_ seems to be merely a conjecture.
PAGE =224=. TO THE COUNTESSE OF SALISBURY. 1614.
Catharine Howard, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Suffolk, married
in 1608 William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, son of the greater
earl and grandson of Burghley, 'whose wisdom and virtues died with
them, and their children only inherited their titles'. Clarendon.
It is not impossible, considering the date of this letter, that the
Countess of Salisbury may be 'the Countesse' referred to in Donne's
letter to Goodyere quoted in my introduction on the canon of Donne's
poems. There is a difficulty in applying to the Countess of Huntingdon
the words 'that knowledge which she hath of me, was in the beginning
of a graver course, then of a Poet'. _Letters, &c. _, p. 103. Donne
made the acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth Stanley when he was Sir Thomas
Egerton's secretary. She must have known him as a wit before his
graver days. Nor would he have apologized for writing to such an old
friend whose prophet he had been in her younger days.
The punctuation of this poem repays careful study. The whole is a
fine example of that periodic style, drawn out from line to line, and
forming sonorous and impressive verse-paragraphs, in which Donne more
than any other poet anticipated Milton. The first sentence closes only
at the thirty-sixth line. The various clauses which lead up to the
close are separated from one another by the full-stop (ll. 8, 24),
the colon (ll. 2, 7 (sonnets:), 34), and the semicolon (ll. 18, 21, 30
where the old edition had a colon), all with distinct values. The only
change I have made (and recorded) is at l. 30 (fantasticall), where
a careful consideration of the punctuation throughout shows that a
semicolon is more appropriate than a colon. The clause which begins
with 'Since' in l. 25 does not close till l. 34, 'understood'.
In the rest of the poem the punctuation is also careful. The only
changes I have made are--ll. 42 'that day;' and 46 'yesterday;' (a
semi-colon for a colon in each case), 61 'mee:' (a colon for a full
stop), and 63 'good;' (a semicolon for a comma).
PAGE =227=. TO THE LADY BEDFORD.
l. 1. _You that are she and you, that's double shee_: The old
punctuation suggests absurdly that the clause 'and you that's double
she' is an independent co-ordinate clause.
l. 7. _Cusco. _ I note in a catalogue, 'South America, a very early
Map, with view of Cusco, the capital of Peru'.
l. 44. _of Iudith. _ 'There is not such a woman from one end of the
earth to the other, both for beauty of face and wisdom of words. '
Judith xi. 21.
AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD.
The _Anatomie of the World_ and _Of The Progresse of the Soule_ were
the first poems published in Donne's lifetime. The former was
issued in 1611. It is exceedingly rare. The copy preserved in Lord
Ellesmere's library at Bridgewater House is a small octavo volume
of 26 pages (_Praise of the Dead, &c. _ 3 pp. , _Anatomy_ 19 pp. , and
_Funerall Elegie_ 4 pp. , all unnumbered), with title-page as given on
the page opposite.
In 1612 the poem was reissued along with the _Second Anniversary_. A
copy of this rare volume was sold at the Huth sale on the thirteenth
of June this year. With the kind permission of Mr. Edward Huth and
Messrs. Sotheby, Mr. Godfrey Keynes made a careful collation for
me, the results of which are embodied in my notes. The separate
title-pages of the two poems which the volume contains are here
reproduced.
Mr. Keynes supplies the following description of the volume: _A_ first
title, _A-A4 To the praise of the Dead_ (in italics), _A5-D2_ (pp.
1-44) _The First Anniversary_ (in roman), _D3-D7_ (pp. 45-54) _A
funerall Elegie_ (in italics), _D8_ blank except for rules in margins;
_E1_ second title, _E2-E4_ recto _The Harbinger_ (in italics), _E4_
verso blank, _E5-H5_ recto (pp. 1-49) _The Second Anniversarie_ (in
roman), _H5_ verso--_H6_ blank except for rules in margins. A fresh
title-page introduces the second poem.
In 1611 the introductory verses entitled _To the praise of the Dead,
and the Anatomy_, and the _Anatomy_ itself, are printed in italic, _A
Funerall Elegie_ following in roman type. This latter arrangement
was reversed in 1612. In the second part, only the poem entitled _The
Harbinger to the Progresse_ is printed throughout in italic. Donne's
own poem is in roman type.
The reason of the variety of arrangement is, I suppose, this: The
_Funerall Elegie_ was probably, as Chambers suggests, the first part
of the poem, composed probably in 1610. When it was published in
1611 with the _Anatomie_, the latter was regarded as introductory and
subordinate to the _Elegie_, and accordingly was printed in italic.
Later, when the idea of the Anniversary poems emerged, and _Of The
Progresse of the Soule_ was written as a complement to _An Anatomy
of the World_, these became the prominent parts of the whole work in
honour of Elizabeth Drury, and the _Funerall Elegie_ fell into the
subordinate position.
The edition of 1612 does not strike one as a very careful piece of
printing. It was probably printed while Donne was on the Continent. It
supplies only two certain emendations of the later text.
The reprints of this volume made in 1621 and 1625 show increasing
carelessness. They were issued after Donne took orders and probably
without his sanction. The title-pages of the editions are here
reproduced.
[Illustration: title encapsulated in Doric frame:]
_AN_
ANATOMY
of the World.
WHEREIN,
BY OCCASION OF
the vntimely death of Mistris
ELIZABETH DRVRY
the frailty and the decay
of this whole world
is represented.
LONDON,
Printed for _Samuel Macham_.
and are to be solde at his shop in
Paules Church-yard, at the
signe of the Bul-head.
AN. DOM.
1611.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The First Anniuersarie. _
AN
ANATOMIE
of the VVorld.
_Wherein_,
BY OCCASION OF
_the vntimely death of Mistris_
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the frailtie and the decay of
this whole World is
represented.
[Illustration]
LONDON,
Printed by _M. Bradwood_ for _S. Macham_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the
signe of the Bull-head. 1612.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The Second Anniuersarie. _
OF
THE PROGRES
of the Soule.
_Wherein_:
By Occasion Of The
Religious Death of Mistris
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the incommodities of the Soule
_in this life and her exaltation in_
the next, are Contem-
_plated_.
LONDON,
Printed by M. _Bradwood_ for _S. Macham_, and are
to be sould at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at
the signe of the Bull-head.
1612.
The above title is not an exact facsimile.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The First Anniuersarie. _
AN
ANATOMIE
of the World.
_Wherein_,
BY OCCASION OF
_the vntimely death of Mistris_
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the frailtie and the decay of
this whole World is
represented.
[Illustration]
LONDON,
Printed by _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard in
Fleetestreete. 1621.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
_The Second Anniuersarie. _
OF
THE PROGRES
of the Soule.
_Wherein_,
BY OCCASION OF
_the Religious death of Mistris_
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the incommodities of the Soule
_in this life, and her exaltation in_
the next, are Contem-
_plated_.
[Illustration]
LONDON,
Printed by _A. Mathewes_ for _Tho: Dewe_, and are
to be sold at his shop in Saint _Dunstons_ Church-yard
in Fleetestreete. 1621.
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
AN
ANATOMIE
OF THE
_World. _
WHEREIN,
_By occasion of the vn_-
timely death of Mistris
Elizabeth Drvry,
_the frailtie and the decay_
of this whole World is
_represented_.
The first Anniuersarie.
LONDON
Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
Church-yard. 1625
[Illustration of title page, containing:]
OF
THE PROGRES
of the
_SOVLE_
WHEREIN,
_By occasion of the_ Re-
ligious death of Mistris
ELIZABETH DRVRY,
the incommodities of the _Soule_ in
this life, and her exaltation in the
_next, are Contemplated_.
The second Anniuersarie.
LONDON
Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
Church-yard. 1625.
The symbolic figures in the title-pages of 1625 probably represent the
seven Liberal Arts. A feature of the editions of _1611_, _1612,_ and
_1625_ is the marginal notes. These are reproduced in _1633_, but a
little carelessly, for some copies do not contain them all. They are
omitted in the subsequent editions.
The text of the _Anniversaries_ in _1633_ has been on the whole
carefully edited. It is probable, judging from several small
circumstances (e. g. the omission of the first marginal note even in
copies where all the rest are given), that _1633_ was printed from
_1625_, but it is clear that the editor compared this with earlier
editions, probably those of _1611-12_, and corrected or amended
the punctuation throughout. My collation of _1633_ with _1611_ has
throughout vindicated the former as against _1621-5_ on the one hand
and the later editions on the other. [1] Of mistakes other than of
punctuation I have noted only three: l. 181, thoughts _1611-12_;
thought _1621-33_. This was corrected, from the obvious sense, in
later editions (_1635-69_), and Grosart, Chambers, and Grolier make
no note of the error in _1621-33_. l. 318, proportions _1611-12_;
proportion _1621_ and all subsequent editions without comment. l. 415,
Impressions _1611_; Impression _1612-25_: impression _1633_ and all
subsequent editions. All three cases are examples of the same error,
the dropping of final 's'.
In typographical respects _1611_ shows the hand of the author more
clearly than the later editions. Donne was fastidious in matters of
punctuation and the use of italics and capital letters, witness the
_LXXX Sermons_ (1640), printed from MSS. prepared for the press by the
author. But the printer had to be reckoned with, and perfection was
not obtainable. In a note to one of the separately published sermons
Donne says: 'Those Errors which are committed in mispointing, or
in changing the form of the Character, will soone be discernd, and
corrected by the Eye of any deliberate Reader'. The _1611_ text shows
a more consistent use in certain passages of emphasizing capitals,
and at places its punctuation is better than that of _1633_. My
text reproduces _1633_, corrected where necessary from the earlier
editions; and I have occasionally followed the typography of _1611_.
But every case in which _1633_ is modified is recorded.
Of the _Second Anniversarie_, in like manner, my text is that of
_1633_, corrected in a few details, and with a few typographical
features borrowed, from the edition of _1612_. The editor of _1633_
had rather definite views of his own on punctuation, notably a
predilection for semicolons in place of full stops. The only certain
emendations which _1612_ supplies are in the marginal note at p.
234 and in l. 421 of the _Second Anniversarie_ 'this' for 'his'. The
spelling is less ambiguous in ll. 27 and 326.
[Footnote 1: _1621-25_ abound in misplaced full stops which
are not in _1611_ and are generally corrected in _1633_. The
punctuation of the later editions (_1635-69_) is the work of
the printer. Occasionally a comma is dropped or introduced
with advantage to the sense, but in general the punctuation
grows increasingly careless. Often the correction of one error
leads to another. ]
The subject of the _Anniversaries_ was the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth
Drury, who died in 1610. Her father, Sir Robert Drury, of Hawsted in
the county of Suffolk, was a man of some note on account of his great
wealth. He was knighted by Essex when about seventeen years old, at
the siege of Rouen (1591-2). He served in the Low Countries, and at
the battle of Nieuport (1600) brought off Sir Francis Vere when
his horse was shot under him. He was courtier, traveller, member of
Parliament, and in 1613 would have been glad to go as Ambassador to
Paris when Sir Thomas Overbury refused the proffered honour and was
sent to the Tower. Lady Drury was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper. She and her brother,
Sir Edmund Bacon, were friends and patrons of Joseph Hall, Donne's
rival as an early satirist. From 1600 to 1608 Hall was rector of
Hawsted, and though he was not very kindly treated by Sir Robert
he dedicated to him his _Meditations Morall and Divine_. This tie
explains the fact, which we learn from Jonson's conversations with
Drummond, that Hall is the author of the _Harbinger to the Progresse_.
As he wrote this we may infer that he is also responsible for _To the
praise of the dead, and the Anatomie_.
Readers of Donne's _Life_ by Walton are aware of the munificence with
which Sir Robert rewarded Donne for his poems, how he opened his
house to him, and took him abroad. Donne's letters, on the other hand,
reveal that the poem gave considerable offence to the Countess of
Bedford and other older patrons and friends. In his letters to Gerrard
he endeavoured to explain away his eulogies. In verse-letters to the
Countess of Bedford and others he atoned for his inconstancy by subtle
and erudite compliments.
_The Funerall Elegie_ was doubtless written in 1610 and sent to Sir
Robert Drury.
He and Donne may already have been acquainted through
Wotton, who was closely related by friendship and marriage with Sir
Edmund Bacon. (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ (1907). _The Anatomie of the World_ was composed in 1611, _Of
the Progresse of the Soule_ in France in 1612, at some time prior to
the 14th of April, when he refers to his _Anniversaries_ in a letter
to George Gerrard.
Ben Jonson declared to Drummond 'That Donnes Anniversaries were
profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Done if it had
been written of the Virgin Marie it had been something; to which he
answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was'.
This is a better defence of Donne's poems than any which he advances
in his letters, but it is not a complete description of his work.
Rather, he interwove with a rapt and extravagantly conceited laudation
of an ideal woman two topics familiar to his catholic and mediaeval
learning, and developed each in a characteristically subtle and
ingenious strain, a strain whose occasional sceptical, disintegrating
reflections belong as obviously to the seventeenth century as the
general content of the thought is mediaeval.
The burden of the whole is an impassioned and exalted _meditatio
mortis_ based on two themes common enough in mediaeval devotional
literature--a _De Contemptu Mundi_, and a contemplation of the Glories
of Paradise. A very brief analysis of the two poems, omitting the
laudatory portions, may help a reader who cannot at once see the wood
for the trees, and be better than detailed notes.
_The Anatomie of the World. _
_l. 1. _ The world which suffered in her death is now fallen into the
worse lethargy of oblivion. _l. 60. _ I will anatomize the world for
the benefit of those who still, by the influence of her virtue, lead a
kind of glimmering life. _l. 91. _ There is no health in the world. We
are still under the curse of woman. _l. 111. _ How short is our life
compared with that of the patriarchs! _l. 134. _ How small is our
stature compared with that of the giants of old! _l. 147. _ How
shrunken of soul we are, especially since her death! _l. 191. _ And
as man, so is the whole world. The new learning or philosophy has
shattered in fragments that complete scheme of the universe in which
we rested so confidently, and (_l. 211_) in human society the same
disorder prevails. _l. 250. _ There is no beauty in the world, for,
first, the beauty of proportion is lost, alike in the movements of the
heavenly bodies, and (_l. 285_) in the earth with its mountains and
hollows, and (_l. 302_) in the administration of justice in society.
_l. 339. _ So is Beauty's other element, Colour and Lustre. _l. 377. _
Heaven and earth are at variance. We can no longer read terrestrial
fortunes in the stars. But (_l. 435_) an Anatomy can be pushed too
far.
_The Progresse of the Soule. _
_l. 1. _ The world's life is the life that breeds in corruption. Let
me, forgetting the rotten world, meditate on death. _l. 85. _ Think,
my soul, that thou art on thy death-bed, and consider death a release.
_l. 157. _ Think how the body poisoned the soul, tainting it with
original sin. Set free, thou art in Heaven in a moment. _l. 250. _ Here
all our knowledge is ignorance. The new learning has thrown all in
doubt. We sweat to learn trifles. In Heaven we know all we need to
know. _l. 321. _ Here, our converse is evil and corrupting. There our
converse will be with Mary; the Patriarchs; Apostles, Martyrs and
Virgins (compare _A Litany_). Here in the perpetual flux of things is
no essential joy. Essential joy is to see God. And even the accidental
joys of heaven surpass the essential joys of earth, were there such
joys here where all is casual:
Only in Heaven joys strength is never spent,
And accidental things are permanent.
One of the most interesting strands of thought common to the twin
poems is the reflection on the disintegrating effect of the New
Learning. Copernicus' displacement of the earth, and the consequent
disturbance of the accepted mediaeval cosmology with its concentric
arrangement of elements and heavenly bodies, arrests and disturbs
Donne's imagination much as the later geology with its revelation
of vanished species and first suggestion of a doctrine of evolution
absorbed and perturbed Tennyson when he wrote _In Memoriam_ and
throughout his life. No other poet of the seventeenth century known
to me shows the same sensitiveness to the consequences of the new
discoveries of traveller, astronomer, physiologist and physician as
Donne.
TO THE PRAISE OF THE DEAD.
PAGE =231=, l. 43. _What high part thou bearest in those best songs. _
The contraction of 'bearest' to 'bear'st' in the earliest editions
(_1611-25_) led to the insertion of 'of' after 'best' in the later
ones (_1633-69_).
AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD.
PAGE =235=, ll. 133-6. Chambers alters the punctuation of these lines
in such a way as to connect them more closely:
So short is life, that every peasant strives,
In a torn house, or field, to have three lives;
And as in lasting, so in length is man,
Contracted to an inch, who was a span.
But the punctuation of _1633_ is careful and correct. A new paragraph
begins with 'And as in lasting, so, &c. ' From length of years Donne
passes to physical stature. The full stop is at 'lives', the semicolon
at 'span'. Grosart and the Grolier Club editor punctuate correctly.
l. 144. _We'are scarce our Fathers shadowes cast at noone_: Compare:
But now the sun is just above our head,
We doe those shadowes tread;
And to brave clearnesse all things are reduc'd.
_A Lecture upon the Shadowe. _
PAGE =236=, l. 160. _And with new Physicke_: i. e. the new mineral
drugs of the Paracelsians.
PAGE =237=, l. 190. _Be more then man, or thou'rt lesse then an Ant. _
Compare _To M^r Rowland Woodward_, p. 185, ll. 16-18 and note.
l. 205. _The new Philosophy calls all in doubt, &c. _ The philosophy
of Galileo and Copernicus has displaced the earth and discredited
the concentric arrangement of the elements,--earth, water, air,
fire. Norton quotes: 'The fire is an element most hot and dry, pure,
subtill, and so clear as it doth not hinder our sight looking through
the same towards the stars, and is placed next to the Spheare of the
Moon, under the which it is turned about like a celestial Spheare'.
_M. Blundeville His Exercises_, 1594.
When the world was formed from Chaos, then--
Earth as the Lees, and heavie dross of All
(After his kinde) did to the bottom fall:
Contrariwise, the light and nimble Fire
Did through the crannies of th'old Heap aspire
Unto the top; and by his nature, light
No less than hot, mounted in sparks upright:
But, lest the Fire (which all the rest imbraces)
Being too near, should burn the Earth to ashes;
As Chosen Umpires, the great All-Creator
Between these Foes placed the Aire and Water:
For, one suffiz'd not their stern strife to end.
Water, as Cozen did the Earth befriend:
Aire for his Kinsman Fire, as firmly deals &c.
Du Bartas, _The second Day of the first Week_
(trans. Joshua Sylvester).
Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sect. 2, Mem. 3,
tells how the new Astronomers Tycho, Rotman, Kepler, &c. by their new
doctrine of the heavens are 'exploding in the meantime that element of
fire, those fictitious, first watry movers, those heavens I mean above
the firmament, which Delrio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius and many of
the fathers affirm'. They have abolished, that is to say, the fire
which surrounded the air, as that air surrounded the water and
the earth (all below the moon); and they have also abolished the
Crystalline Sphere and the Primum Mobile which were supposed to
surround the sphere of the fixed stars, or the firmament.
PAGE =238=, l. 215. _Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne are things
forgot. _ Donne has probably in mind the effect of the religious wars
in Germany, France, the Low Countries, &c.
l. 217. _that then can be. _ This is the reading of all the editions
before _1669_, and there is no reason to change 'then' to 'there':
'Every man thinks he has come to be a Phoenix (preferring private
judgement to authority) and that then comparison ceases, for there
is nothing of the same kind with which to compare himself. There is
nothing left to reverence. '
PAGE =239=, l. 258. _It teares
The Firmament in eight and forty sheires. _
Norton says that in the catalogue of Hipparchus, preserved in
the Almagest of Ptolemy, the stars were divided into forty-eight
constellations.
l. 260. _New starres. _ Norton says: 'It was the apparition of a new
star in 1572, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, that turned Tycho
Brahe to astronomy: and a new bright star in Ophiuchus, in 1604, had
excited general wonder, and afforded Galileo a text for an attack on
the Ptolemaic system'.
At p. 247, l. 70, Donne notes that the 'new starres' went out again.
PAGE =240=, l. 286. _a Tenarif, or higher hill. _ 'Tenarif' is
the _1611_ spelling, 'Tenarus' that of _1633-69_. Donne speaks of
'Tenarus' elsewhere, but it is not the same place.
It is not probable that Donne ever saw the Peak of Teneriffe, although
biographers speak of this line as a descriptive touch drawn from
memory. The Canary Isles are below the 30th degree of latitude.
The fleet that made the Islands Exhibition was never much if at all
further south than 43 degrees. After coasting off Corunna 43° N. 8°
W. , and some leagues south of that port, the fleet struck straight
across to the Azores, 37° N. 25° W. Donne was somewhat nearer in the
previous year when he was at Cadiz, 36° N. 6° W. , but too far off to
descry the Peak. His description, though vivid, is 'metaphysical',
like that of Hell which follows: 'The Pike of Teneriff, how high is
it? 79 miles or 52, as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius demonstrates
in his Eratosthenes'. Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sec. 2,
Mem. 3.
On the other side, Satan, alarm'd,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremov'd.
Milton, _Par. Lost_, iv. 985-7.
ll. 295 f. _If under all, a Vault infernall bee, &c. _ Hell, according
to mediaeval philosophy, was in the middle of the earth. 'If this
be true,' says Donne, 'and if at the same time the Sea is in places
bottomless, then the earth is neither solid nor round. We use these
words only approximately. But you may hold, on the other hand, that
the deepest seas we know are but pock-holes, the highest hills but
warts, on the face of the solid earth. Well, even in that case you
must admit that in the moral sphere at any rate the world's proportion
is disfigured by the want of all proportioning of reward and
punishment to conduct. ' The sudden transition from the physical to the
moral sphere is very disconcerting. Compare: 'Or is it the place of
hell, as Virgil in his Aeneides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others
poetically describe it, and as many of our divines think. In good
earnest, Antony Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian college in
Millan, in his great volume _de Inferno_, lib. i, cap. 47, is stiffe
in this tenent. . . . Whatsoever philosophers write (saith Surius) there
be certaine mouthes of Hell, and places appointed for the punishment
of mens souls, as at Hecla in Island, where the ghosts of dead men are
familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living. God would have
such visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that
there be such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God,'
&c. Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, Part 2, Sec. 2, Mem. 3.
ll. 296-8. _Which sure is spacious, &c. _ 'Franciscus Ribera will
have hell a materiall and locall fire in the centre of the earth, 200
Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those words _Exivit
sanguis de terra . . . per stadia mille sexcenta, &c. _ But Lessius
(lib. 13, _de moribus divinis_, cap. 24) will have this locall
hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and
brimstone; because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically
multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand
millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square); which
will abundantly suffice, '_cum certum sit, inquit, facta subductione,
non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum_. ' Burton, _Anat. of
Melancholy_, _ut sup. _ Eschatology was the 'dismal science' of those
days and was studied with astonishing gusto and acumen. 'For as one
Author, who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the
Earth, lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid, pronounces
that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse,
(and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng, for their
bodies must be there in their dimensions, as well as their soules) so
when the Schoole-men come to measure the house in heaven (as they will
measure it, and the Master, God, and all his Attributes, and tell us
how Allmighty, and how Infinite he is) they pronounce that every soule
in that house shall have more roome to it selfe, then all this world
is.
