_O'F_ has
apparently
belonged
originally to this group but been corrected from the first.
originally to this group but been corrected from the first.
John Donne
They fall into two
groups--those written before and those written after he took orders.
Of the former the majority would seem to belong to the years of his
residence at Mitcham. The poem _On the Annunciation and Passion_ was
written on March 25, 1608/9. _The Litanie_ was written, we gather from
a letter to Sir Henry Goodyere, about the same time. _The Crosse_ we
cannot date, but I should be inclined with Mr. Gosse to connect
it rather with the earlier than the later poems. It is in the same
somewhat tormented, intellectual style. On the other hand the _Holy
Sonnets_ were composed, we know now from Sonnet XVII, first published
by Mr. Gosse, after the death of Donne's wife in 1617; and _The
Lamentations of Jeremy_ appear to have been written at the same
juncture. The first sermon which Donne preached after that event was
on the text (Lam. iii. 1): 'I am the man that hath seen affliction,'
and Walton speaks significantly of his having ended the night and
begun the day in _lamentations_.
The more difficult question is the date of the _La Corona_ group of
sonnets. It is usual to attribute them to the later period of Donne's
ministry. This is not, I think, correct. It seems to me most probable
that they too were composed at Mitcham in or before 1609.
Dr. Grosart first pointed out that one of Donne's short verse-letters,
headed in _1663_ and later editions _To E. of D. with six holy
Sonnets_, must have been sent with a copy of six of these sonnets, the
seventh being held back on account of some imperfection. It appears
with the same heading in _O'F_, but in _W_ it is entitled simply _To
L. of D. _, and is placed immediately after the letter _To Mr. T. W. _,
'Haste thee harsh verse' (p. 205), and before the next to the same
person, 'Pregnant again' (p. 206). It thus belongs to this group of
letters written apparently between 1597 and 1609-10.
Who is the E. of D. ? Dr. Grosart, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Gosse assume
that it must be Lord Doncaster, though admitting in the same breath
that the latter was not Earl of, but Viscount Doncaster, and that only
between 1618 and 1622, four short years. The title 'L. of D. ' might
indicate Doncaster because the title 'my Lord of' is apparently given
to a Viscount. In his letters from Germany Donne speaks of 'my Lord of
Doncaster'. It may, therefore, be a mistake of the printer or editor
of _1633_; which turned 'L. of D. ' into 'E. of D. '; but Hay was still
alive in 1633, and the natural thing for the printer to do would have
been to alter the title to 'E. of C. ' or 'Earl of Carlisle'. Before
1618 Donne speaks of the 'Lord Hay' or 'the L. Hay' (see _Letters_,
p. 145),[1] and this or 'the L. H. ' is the title the poem would have
borne if addressed to him in any of the years to which the other
letters in the Westmoreland MS. (_W_) seem to belong.
Moreover, there is another of Donne's noble friends who might
correctly be described as either E. of D. or L. of D. and that is
Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. Donne generally speaks of him
as 'my Lord of Dorset': 'I lack you here', he writes to Goodyere,
'for my L. of Dorset, he might make a cheap bargain with me now, and
disingage his honour, which in good faith, is a little bound, because
he admitted so many witnesses of his large disposition towards me. '
Born in 1589, the grandson of the great poet of Elizabeth's early
reign, Richard Sackville was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He
succeeded as third Earl of Dorset on February 27, 1608/9, having two
days previously married Anne, Baroness Clifford in her own right, the
daughter of George Clifford, the buccaneering Earl of Cumberland, and
Margaret, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford. The Countess of
Dorset was therefore a first cousin to Edward, third Earl of Bedford,
the husband of Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford.
The earliest date at which the letter could have been addressed to
Dorset as L. of D. or E. of D. is 1609, just after his marriage into
the circle of Donne's friends. Now in Harleian MS. 4955 (_H49_) we
find the heading,
Holy Sonnets: written 20 yeares since.
This is followed at once by 'Deign at my hands', and then the title
_La Corona_ is given to the six sonnets which ensue. Thereafter
follow, without any fresh heading, twelve of the sonnets belonging
to the second group, generally entitled _Holy Sonnets_. It will be
noticed that in the editions this last title is used twice, first for
both groups and then, in italics, for the second alone. The question
is, did the copyist of _H49_ intend that the note should apply to all
the sonnets he transcribed or only to the _La Corona_ group? If to
all, he was certainly wrong as to the second lot, which were written
later; but he was quite possibly right as to the first. Now twenty
years before 1629, which is the date given to some of Andrewes' poems
in the MS. , would bring us to 1609, the year of the Earl of Dorset's
accession and marriage, and the period when most of the letters among
which that to L. of D. in _W_ appears were written.
Note, moreover, the content of the letter _To L. of D. _ Most of the
letters in this group, to Thomas and Rowland Woodward, to S. B. , and
B. B. , are poetical replies to poetical epistles. Now that _To L. of
D. _ is in the same strain:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime,
In me, your fatherly yet lusty Ryme
(For, these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
This is in the vein of the letter _To Mr. R. W. _, 'Muse not that by
thy mind,' and of the epistle _To J. D. _ which I have cited in the
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _epistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy. ' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses. [2]
But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D. _ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9. That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D. _, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand. ' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i. e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day. '
What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:
and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?
Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven. ' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i. e. songs of
praise. Mr. Chambers suggests--it is only a suggestion--that they are
the second set, the _Holy Sonnets_. But these are not addressed to
Christ. In them Donne addresses The Trinity, the Father, Angels,
Death, his own soul, the Jews--Christ only in one (Sonnet XVIII, first
published by Mr. Gosse). On the other hand, 'Hymns to his dear name
addrest' is an exact description of the _La Corona_ sonnets.
I venture to suggest, then, that the Holy Sonnets sent to Mrs. Herbert
and to the E. of D. were one and the same group, viz. the _La Corona_
sequence. Probably they were sent to Mrs. Herbert first, and later
to the E. of D. Donne admits their imperfection in his letter to Mrs.
Herbert. One of them seems to have been criticized, and in sending the
sequence to the E. of D. he held it back for correction. If the E.
of D. be the Earl of Dorset they may have been sent to him before
he assumed that title. Any later transcript would adopt the title to
which he succeeded in 1609. We need not, however, take too literally
Donne's statement that the E. of D. 's poetical letter was 'the
only-begetter' of his sonnets.
My argument is conjectural, but the assumptions that they were written
about 1617 and sent to Lord Doncaster are equally so. The last is
untenable; the former does not harmonize so well as that of an earlier
date with the obvious fact, which I have emphasized in the essay
on Donne's poetry, that these sonnets are more in the intellectual,
tormented, wire-drawn style of his earlier religious verse (excellent
as that is in many ways) than the passionate and plangent sonnets and
hymns of the years which followed the death of his wife.
[Footnote 1: This letter was written in November or December,
1608, and seems to be the first in which Donne speaks of
Lord Hay as a friend and patron. The kindness he has shown in
forwarding a suit seems to have come somewhat as a surprise to
Donne. ]
[Footnote 2: Lord Dorset is thus described by his wife: 'He
was in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition,
and very valiant in his own person: He had a great advantage
in his breeding by the wisdom and discretion of his
grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, Lord High Treasurer of
England, who was then held one of the wisest men of that
time; by which means he was so good a scholar in all manner of
learning, that in his youth when he lived in the University
of Oxford, there was none of the young nobility then students
there, that excelled him. He was also a good patriot to his
country . . . and so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as
that with an excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of
worth that were in distress, he did much diminish his estate;
As also, with excessive prodigality in house-keeping and other
noble ways at Court, as tilting, masking, and the like; Prince
Henry being then alive, who was much addicted to these
noble exercises, and of whom he was much beloved. ' Collins's
_Peerage_, ii. 194-5. quoted in Zouch's edition of Walton's
_Lives_, 1817. ]
PAGE =317=. TO E. OF D.
ll. 3-4. _Ryme . . . their . . . have wrought. _ The concord here seems
to require the plural, the rhyme the singular. Donne, I fear, does
occasionally rhyme a word in the plural with one in the singular,
ignoring the 's'. But possibly Donne intended 'Ryme' to be taken
collectively for 'verses, poetry'. Even so the plural is the normal
use.
TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT, &c.
ll. 1-2. _whose faire inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo. _
'Mary Magdalene had her surname of magdalo a castell | and was born of
right noble lynage and parents | which were descended of the lynage
of kynges | And her fader was named Sinus and her moder eucharye | She
wyth her broder lazare and her suster martha possessed the castle
of magdalo: whiche is two myles fro nazareth and bethanye the castel
which is nygh to Iherusalem and also a gret parte of Iherusalem whiche
al thise thynges they departed amonge them in suche wyse that marye
had the castelle magdalo whereof she had her name magdalene | And
lazare had the parte of the cytee of Iherusalem: and martha had to her
parte bethanye' _Legenda Aurea_. See Ed. (1493), f. 184, ver. 80.
l. 4. _more than the Church did know_, i. e. the Resurrection. John xx.
9 and 11-18.
PAGE =318=. LA CORONA.
The MSS. of these poems fall into three well-defined groups: (1) That
on which the 1633 text is based is represented by _D_, _H49_; _Lec_
does not contain these poems. (2) A version different in several
details is presented by the group _B_, _S_, _S96_, _W_, of which
_W_ is the most important and correct.
_O'F_ has apparently belonged
originally to this group but been corrected from the first. (3) _A18_,
_N_, _TC_ agrees now with one, now with another of the two first
groups. When all the three groups unite against the printed text the
case for an emendation is a strong one.
PAGE =319=. ANNUNCIATION.
l. 10. _who is thy Sonne and Brother. _
'Maria ergo faciens voluntatem Dei, corporaliter Christi tantummodo
mater est, spiritualiter autem et soror et mater. ' August. _De Sanct.
Virg. _ i. 5. Migne 40. 399.
NATIVITIE.
l. 8. _The effect of Herods jealous generall doome_: The singular
'effect' has the support of most of the MSS. against the plural of
the editions and of _D_, _H49_, and there can be no doubt that it is
right. All the effects of Herod's doom were not prevented, but the one
aimed at, the death of Christ, was.
PAGE =320=. CRUCIFYING.
l. 8. _selfe-lifes infinity to'a span. _ The MSS. supply the 'a' which
the editions here, as elsewhere (e. g. 'a retirednesse', p. 185),
have dropped. In the present case the omission is so obvious that
the Grolier Club editor supplies the article conjecturally. In the
editions after _1633_ 'infinitie' is the spelling adopted, leading to
the misprint 'infinite' in _1669_ and _1719_, a variant which I have
omitted to note.
PAGE =321=. RESURRECTION.
It will be seen there are some important differences between the text
of this sonnet given in _1633_, _D_, _H49_, on the one hand and that
of _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _S96_, _W_. The former has (l. 5) 'this death'
where the latter gives 'thy death'. It may be noted that 'this' is
always spelt 'thys' in _D_, which makes easy an error one way or the
other. But the most difficult reading in _1633_ is (l. 8) 'thy little
booke'. Oddly enough this has the support not only of _D_, _H49_ but
also of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, whose text seems to blend the two versions,
adding some features of its own. Certainly the 'life-booke' of the
second version and the later editions seems preferable. Yet this too
is an odd expression, seeing that the line might have run:
If in thy Book of Life my name thou'enroule.
Was Donne thinking vaguely or with some symbolism of his own, not of
the 'book of life' (Rev. xiii. 8, and xx. 12) but of the 'little book'
(Rev. x. 2) which John took and ate? Or does he say 'little book'
thinking of the text, 'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' (Matt. vii. 14)? The
grimmer aspects of the Christian creed were always in Donne's mind:
And though thou beest, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaim'd by God, that thou must lay
All that thou kill'st at his feet, yet doth hee
Reserve but few, and leave the most to thee.
In l. 9 'last long' is probably right. _D_, _H49_ had dropped both
adjectives, and 'long' was probably supplied by the editor _metri
causa_, 'last' disappearing. Between 'glorified' and 'purified' in l.
11 it is impossible to choose. The reading 'deaths' for 'death' I have
adopted. Here _A18_, _N_, _TC_ agree with _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _W_,
and there can be no doubt that 'sleepe' is intended to go with both
'sinne' and 'death'.
PAGE =322=. HOLY SONNETS.
The MSS. of these sonnets evidently fall into two groups: (1) _B_,
_O'F_, _S96_, _W_: of which _W_ is by far the fullest and most correct
representative. (2) _A18_, _D_, _H49_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. I have kept
the order in which they are given in the editions _1635_ to _1669_,
but indicated the order of the other groups, and added at the close
the three sonnets contained only in _W_. I cannot find a definite
significance in any order, otherwise I should have followed that of
_W_ as the fullest and presumably the most authoritative. Each sonnet
is a separate meditation or ejaculation.
PAGE =323=, III. 7. _That sufferance was my sinne; now I repent_: I
have followed the punctuation and order of _B_, _W_, because it shows
a little more clearly what is (I think) the correct construction. As
printed in _1635-69_,
That sufferance was my sinne I now repent,
the clause 'That sufferance was' &c. is a noun clause subject to
'repent'. But the two clauses are co-ordinates and 'That' is a
demonstrative pronoun. '_That_ suffering' (of which he has spoken
in the six preceding lines) 'was my sin. Now I repent. Because I did
suffer the pains of love, I must now suffer those of remorse. '
PAGE =324=, V. 11. _have burnt it heretofore. _ Donne uses 'heretofore'
not infrequently in the sense of 'hitherto', and this seems to be
implied in 'Let their flames retire'. I have therefore preferred the
perfect tense of the MSS. to the preterite of the editions. The 'hath'
of _O'F_ is a change made in the supposed interests of grammar, if not
used as a plural form, for 'their flames' implies that the fires of
lust and of envy are distinguished. In speaking of the first Donne
thinks mainly of his youth, of the latter he has in memory his years
of suitorship at Court.
VI. 7, note. _Or presently, I know not, see that Face. _ This line,
which occurs in several independent MSS. , is doubtless Donne's, but
the reading of the text is probably his own emendation. The first
form of the line suggested too distinctly a not approved, or even
heretical, doctrine to which Donne refers more than once in his
sermons: 'So _Audivimus, et ab Antiquis_, We have heard, and heard by
them of old, That in how good state soever they dye yet the souls of
the departed do not see the face of God, nor enjoy his presence, till
the day of Judgement; This we have heard, and from so many of them of
old, as that the voyce of that part is louder, then of the other. And
amongst those reverend and blessed Fathers, which straied into these
errors, some were hearers and Disciples of the Apostles themselves, as
Papias was a disciple of S. John and yet Papias was a Millenarian,
and expected his thousand yeares prosperity upon the earth after the
Resurrection: some of them were Disciples of the Apostles, and some of
them were better men then the Apostles, for they were Bishops of Rome;
_Clement_ was so: and yet _Clement_ was one of them, who denied the
fruition of the sight of God, by the Saints, till the Judgement. '
_Sermons_ 80. 73. 739-40.
There are two not strictly orthodox opinions to which Donne seems to
have leant: (1) this, perhaps a remnant of his belief in Purgatory,
the theory of a state of preparation, in this doctrine applied even
to the saints; (2) a form of the doctrine now called 'Conditional
Immortality'. See note on Letter _To the Countesse of Bedford_, p.
196, l. 58.
PAGE =325=, VII. 6. _dearth. _ This reading of the Westmoreland MS. is
surely right notwithstanding the consensus of the editions and other
MSS. in reading 'death'. The poet is enumerating various modes in
which death comes; death itself cannot be one of these. The 'death'
in l. 8 perhaps explains the error; it certainly makes the error more
obvious.
VIII. 7. _in us, not immediately. _ I have interjected a comma after
'us' in order to bring out distinctly the Scholastic doctrine of
Angelic knowledge on which this sonnet turns. See note on _The Dreame_
with the quotation from Aquinas. What Donne says here is: 'If our
minds or thoughts are known to the saints in heaven as to angels, not
immediately, but by circumstances and signs (such as blushing or a
quickened pulsation) which are apparent in us, how shall the sincerity
of my grief be known to them, since these signs are found in lovers,
conjurers and pharisees? ' 'Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae
cogitationes cordium. ' 'God alone who put grief in my heart knows its
sincerity. '
l. 10. _vile blasphemous Conjurers. _ The 'vilde' of the MSS. is
obviously the right reading. The form too is that which Donne used if
we may judge by the MSS. , and by the fact that in _Elegie XIV: Julia_
he rhymes thus:
and (which is worse than vilde)
Sticke jealousie in wedlock, her owne childe
Scapes not the showers of envie.
By printing 'vile' the old and modern editions destroy the rhyme. In
the sonnet indeed the rhyme is not affected, and accordingly, as I am
not prepared to change every 'vile' to 'vilde' in the poems, I have
printed 'vile'. _W_ writes vile. Probably one might use either form.
PAGE =326=, IX. 9-10. I have followed here the punctuation of _W_,
which takes 'O God' in close connexion with the preceding line; the
vocative case seems to be needed since God has not been directly
addressed until l. 9. The punctuation of _D_, _H49_, which has often
determined that of _1633_, is not really different from that of _W_:
But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee?
Oh God; Oh of thyne, &c.
Here, as so often, the question-mark is placed immediately after the
question, before the sentence is ended. But 'Oh God' goes with the
question. A new strain begins with the second 'Oh'. The editions, by
punctuating
But who am I that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! &c.
(which modern editors have followed), make 'O God, Oh! ' a hurried
series of exclamations introducing the prayer which follows. This
suits the style of these abrupt, passionate poems. But it leaves
the question without an address to point it; and to my own mind the
hurried, feverous effect of 'O God, Oh! ' is more than compensated for
by the weight which is thrown, by the punctuation adopted, upon the
second 'Oh',--a sigh drawn from the very depths of the heart,
so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
And end his being.
PAGE =327=, XII. 1. _Why are wee by all creatures, &c. _ The 'am I' of
the _W_ is probably what Donne first wrote, and I am strongly tempted
to restore it. Donne's usual spelling of 'am' is 'ame' in his letters.
This might have been changed to 'are', which would have brought
the change of 'I' to 'we' in its wake. On the other hand there are
evidences in this sonnet of corrections made by Donne himself (e. g. l.
9), and he may have altered the first line as being too egotistical in
sound. I have therefore retained the text of the editions.
l. 4. _Simple, and further from corruption? _ The 'simple' of _1633_
and _D_, _H49_, _W_ is preferable to the 'simpler' of the later
editions and somewhat inferior MSS. which Chambers has adopted,
inadvertently, I think, for he does not notice the earlier reading.
The dropping of an 'r' would of course be very easy; but the
simplicity of the element does not admit of comparison, and what Donne
says is, I think, 'The elements are purer than we are, and (being
simple) farther from corruption. '
PAGE =328=, XIII. 4-6. _Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Teares in his eyes quench the amazing light,
Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell. _
Chambers alters the comma after 'affright' to a full stop, the Grolier
Club editor to a semicolon. Both place a semicolon after 'fell'.
Any change of the old punctuation seems to me to disguise the close
relation in which the fifth and sixth lines stand to the third. It is
with the third line they must go, not with the seventh, with which a
slightly different thought is introduced. 'Mark the picture of Christ
in thy heart and ask, can that countenance affright thee in whose eyes
the light of anger is quenched in tears, the furrows of whose frowns
are filled with blood. ' Then, from the countenance Donne's thought
turns to the tongue. The full stop, accidentally dropped after 'fell'
in the editions of _1633_ and _1635_, was restored in _1639_.
l. 14. _assures. _ In this case the MSS. enable us to correct an
obvious error of _all_ the printed editions.
PAGE =329=, XVI. 9. _Yet such are thy laws. _ I have adopted the
reading 'thy' of the Westmoreland and some other MSS. because the
sense seems to require it. 'These' and 'those' referring to the same
antecedent make a harsh construction. 'Thy laws necessarily transcend
the limits of human capacity and therefore some doubt whether these
conditions of our salvation can be fulfilled by men. They cannot, but
grace and spirit revive what law and letter kill. '
l. 11. _None doth; but all-healing grace and spirit. _ I have dropped
the 'thy' of the editions, following all the MSS. I have no doubt
that 'thy' has been inserted: (1) It spoils the rhyme: 'spirit' has
to rhyme with 'yet', which is impossible unless the accent may fall on
the second syllable; (2) 'thy' has been inserted, as 'spirit' has been
spelt with a capital letter, under the impression that 'spirit' stands
for the Divine Spirit, the Holy Ghost. But obviously 'spirit' is
opposed to 'letter' as 'grace' is to 'law'. In _W_ both 'grace' and
'spirit' are spelt with capitals. Either both or neither must be so
treated. 'Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament;
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. ' 2 Cor. iii. 6.
If 'thy' is to be retained, then 'spirit' must be pronounced 'sprit'.
Commentators on Shakespeare declare that this happens, but it is
very difficult to prove it.
groups--those written before and those written after he took orders.
Of the former the majority would seem to belong to the years of his
residence at Mitcham. The poem _On the Annunciation and Passion_ was
written on March 25, 1608/9. _The Litanie_ was written, we gather from
a letter to Sir Henry Goodyere, about the same time. _The Crosse_ we
cannot date, but I should be inclined with Mr. Gosse to connect
it rather with the earlier than the later poems. It is in the same
somewhat tormented, intellectual style. On the other hand the _Holy
Sonnets_ were composed, we know now from Sonnet XVII, first published
by Mr. Gosse, after the death of Donne's wife in 1617; and _The
Lamentations of Jeremy_ appear to have been written at the same
juncture. The first sermon which Donne preached after that event was
on the text (Lam. iii. 1): 'I am the man that hath seen affliction,'
and Walton speaks significantly of his having ended the night and
begun the day in _lamentations_.
The more difficult question is the date of the _La Corona_ group of
sonnets. It is usual to attribute them to the later period of Donne's
ministry. This is not, I think, correct. It seems to me most probable
that they too were composed at Mitcham in or before 1609.
Dr. Grosart first pointed out that one of Donne's short verse-letters,
headed in _1663_ and later editions _To E. of D. with six holy
Sonnets_, must have been sent with a copy of six of these sonnets, the
seventh being held back on account of some imperfection. It appears
with the same heading in _O'F_, but in _W_ it is entitled simply _To
L. of D. _, and is placed immediately after the letter _To Mr. T. W. _,
'Haste thee harsh verse' (p. 205), and before the next to the same
person, 'Pregnant again' (p. 206). It thus belongs to this group of
letters written apparently between 1597 and 1609-10.
Who is the E. of D. ? Dr. Grosart, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Gosse assume
that it must be Lord Doncaster, though admitting in the same breath
that the latter was not Earl of, but Viscount Doncaster, and that only
between 1618 and 1622, four short years. The title 'L. of D. ' might
indicate Doncaster because the title 'my Lord of' is apparently given
to a Viscount. In his letters from Germany Donne speaks of 'my Lord of
Doncaster'. It may, therefore, be a mistake of the printer or editor
of _1633_; which turned 'L. of D. ' into 'E. of D. '; but Hay was still
alive in 1633, and the natural thing for the printer to do would have
been to alter the title to 'E. of C. ' or 'Earl of Carlisle'. Before
1618 Donne speaks of the 'Lord Hay' or 'the L. Hay' (see _Letters_,
p. 145),[1] and this or 'the L. H. ' is the title the poem would have
borne if addressed to him in any of the years to which the other
letters in the Westmoreland MS. (_W_) seem to belong.
Moreover, there is another of Donne's noble friends who might
correctly be described as either E. of D. or L. of D. and that is
Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. Donne generally speaks of him
as 'my Lord of Dorset': 'I lack you here', he writes to Goodyere,
'for my L. of Dorset, he might make a cheap bargain with me now, and
disingage his honour, which in good faith, is a little bound, because
he admitted so many witnesses of his large disposition towards me. '
Born in 1589, the grandson of the great poet of Elizabeth's early
reign, Richard Sackville was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He
succeeded as third Earl of Dorset on February 27, 1608/9, having two
days previously married Anne, Baroness Clifford in her own right, the
daughter of George Clifford, the buccaneering Earl of Cumberland, and
Margaret, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford. The Countess of
Dorset was therefore a first cousin to Edward, third Earl of Bedford,
the husband of Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford.
The earliest date at which the letter could have been addressed to
Dorset as L. of D. or E. of D. is 1609, just after his marriage into
the circle of Donne's friends. Now in Harleian MS. 4955 (_H49_) we
find the heading,
Holy Sonnets: written 20 yeares since.
This is followed at once by 'Deign at my hands', and then the title
_La Corona_ is given to the six sonnets which ensue. Thereafter
follow, without any fresh heading, twelve of the sonnets belonging
to the second group, generally entitled _Holy Sonnets_. It will be
noticed that in the editions this last title is used twice, first for
both groups and then, in italics, for the second alone. The question
is, did the copyist of _H49_ intend that the note should apply to all
the sonnets he transcribed or only to the _La Corona_ group? If to
all, he was certainly wrong as to the second lot, which were written
later; but he was quite possibly right as to the first. Now twenty
years before 1629, which is the date given to some of Andrewes' poems
in the MS. , would bring us to 1609, the year of the Earl of Dorset's
accession and marriage, and the period when most of the letters among
which that to L. of D. in _W_ appears were written.
Note, moreover, the content of the letter _To L. of D. _ Most of the
letters in this group, to Thomas and Rowland Woodward, to S. B. , and
B. B. , are poetical replies to poetical epistles. Now that _To L. of
D. _ is in the same strain:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime,
In me, your fatherly yet lusty Ryme
(For, these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
This is in the vein of the letter _To Mr. R. W. _, 'Muse not that by
thy mind,' and of the epistle _To J. D. _ which I have cited in the
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _epistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy. ' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses. [2]
But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D. _ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9. That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D. _, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand. ' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i. e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day. '
What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:
and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?
Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven. ' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i. e. songs of
praise. Mr. Chambers suggests--it is only a suggestion--that they are
the second set, the _Holy Sonnets_. But these are not addressed to
Christ. In them Donne addresses The Trinity, the Father, Angels,
Death, his own soul, the Jews--Christ only in one (Sonnet XVIII, first
published by Mr. Gosse). On the other hand, 'Hymns to his dear name
addrest' is an exact description of the _La Corona_ sonnets.
I venture to suggest, then, that the Holy Sonnets sent to Mrs. Herbert
and to the E. of D. were one and the same group, viz. the _La Corona_
sequence. Probably they were sent to Mrs. Herbert first, and later
to the E. of D. Donne admits their imperfection in his letter to Mrs.
Herbert. One of them seems to have been criticized, and in sending the
sequence to the E. of D. he held it back for correction. If the E.
of D. be the Earl of Dorset they may have been sent to him before
he assumed that title. Any later transcript would adopt the title to
which he succeeded in 1609. We need not, however, take too literally
Donne's statement that the E. of D. 's poetical letter was 'the
only-begetter' of his sonnets.
My argument is conjectural, but the assumptions that they were written
about 1617 and sent to Lord Doncaster are equally so. The last is
untenable; the former does not harmonize so well as that of an earlier
date with the obvious fact, which I have emphasized in the essay
on Donne's poetry, that these sonnets are more in the intellectual,
tormented, wire-drawn style of his earlier religious verse (excellent
as that is in many ways) than the passionate and plangent sonnets and
hymns of the years which followed the death of his wife.
[Footnote 1: This letter was written in November or December,
1608, and seems to be the first in which Donne speaks of
Lord Hay as a friend and patron. The kindness he has shown in
forwarding a suit seems to have come somewhat as a surprise to
Donne. ]
[Footnote 2: Lord Dorset is thus described by his wife: 'He
was in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition,
and very valiant in his own person: He had a great advantage
in his breeding by the wisdom and discretion of his
grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, Lord High Treasurer of
England, who was then held one of the wisest men of that
time; by which means he was so good a scholar in all manner of
learning, that in his youth when he lived in the University
of Oxford, there was none of the young nobility then students
there, that excelled him. He was also a good patriot to his
country . . . and so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as
that with an excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of
worth that were in distress, he did much diminish his estate;
As also, with excessive prodigality in house-keeping and other
noble ways at Court, as tilting, masking, and the like; Prince
Henry being then alive, who was much addicted to these
noble exercises, and of whom he was much beloved. ' Collins's
_Peerage_, ii. 194-5. quoted in Zouch's edition of Walton's
_Lives_, 1817. ]
PAGE =317=. TO E. OF D.
ll. 3-4. _Ryme . . . their . . . have wrought. _ The concord here seems
to require the plural, the rhyme the singular. Donne, I fear, does
occasionally rhyme a word in the plural with one in the singular,
ignoring the 's'. But possibly Donne intended 'Ryme' to be taken
collectively for 'verses, poetry'. Even so the plural is the normal
use.
TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT, &c.
ll. 1-2. _whose faire inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo. _
'Mary Magdalene had her surname of magdalo a castell | and was born of
right noble lynage and parents | which were descended of the lynage
of kynges | And her fader was named Sinus and her moder eucharye | She
wyth her broder lazare and her suster martha possessed the castle
of magdalo: whiche is two myles fro nazareth and bethanye the castel
which is nygh to Iherusalem and also a gret parte of Iherusalem whiche
al thise thynges they departed amonge them in suche wyse that marye
had the castelle magdalo whereof she had her name magdalene | And
lazare had the parte of the cytee of Iherusalem: and martha had to her
parte bethanye' _Legenda Aurea_. See Ed. (1493), f. 184, ver. 80.
l. 4. _more than the Church did know_, i. e. the Resurrection. John xx.
9 and 11-18.
PAGE =318=. LA CORONA.
The MSS. of these poems fall into three well-defined groups: (1) That
on which the 1633 text is based is represented by _D_, _H49_; _Lec_
does not contain these poems. (2) A version different in several
details is presented by the group _B_, _S_, _S96_, _W_, of which
_W_ is the most important and correct.
_O'F_ has apparently belonged
originally to this group but been corrected from the first. (3) _A18_,
_N_, _TC_ agrees now with one, now with another of the two first
groups. When all the three groups unite against the printed text the
case for an emendation is a strong one.
PAGE =319=. ANNUNCIATION.
l. 10. _who is thy Sonne and Brother. _
'Maria ergo faciens voluntatem Dei, corporaliter Christi tantummodo
mater est, spiritualiter autem et soror et mater. ' August. _De Sanct.
Virg. _ i. 5. Migne 40. 399.
NATIVITIE.
l. 8. _The effect of Herods jealous generall doome_: The singular
'effect' has the support of most of the MSS. against the plural of
the editions and of _D_, _H49_, and there can be no doubt that it is
right. All the effects of Herod's doom were not prevented, but the one
aimed at, the death of Christ, was.
PAGE =320=. CRUCIFYING.
l. 8. _selfe-lifes infinity to'a span. _ The MSS. supply the 'a' which
the editions here, as elsewhere (e. g. 'a retirednesse', p. 185),
have dropped. In the present case the omission is so obvious that
the Grolier Club editor supplies the article conjecturally. In the
editions after _1633_ 'infinitie' is the spelling adopted, leading to
the misprint 'infinite' in _1669_ and _1719_, a variant which I have
omitted to note.
PAGE =321=. RESURRECTION.
It will be seen there are some important differences between the text
of this sonnet given in _1633_, _D_, _H49_, on the one hand and that
of _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _S96_, _W_. The former has (l. 5) 'this death'
where the latter gives 'thy death'. It may be noted that 'this' is
always spelt 'thys' in _D_, which makes easy an error one way or the
other. But the most difficult reading in _1633_ is (l. 8) 'thy little
booke'. Oddly enough this has the support not only of _D_, _H49_ but
also of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, whose text seems to blend the two versions,
adding some features of its own. Certainly the 'life-booke' of the
second version and the later editions seems preferable. Yet this too
is an odd expression, seeing that the line might have run:
If in thy Book of Life my name thou'enroule.
Was Donne thinking vaguely or with some symbolism of his own, not of
the 'book of life' (Rev. xiii. 8, and xx. 12) but of the 'little book'
(Rev. x. 2) which John took and ate? Or does he say 'little book'
thinking of the text, 'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' (Matt. vii. 14)? The
grimmer aspects of the Christian creed were always in Donne's mind:
And though thou beest, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaim'd by God, that thou must lay
All that thou kill'st at his feet, yet doth hee
Reserve but few, and leave the most to thee.
In l. 9 'last long' is probably right. _D_, _H49_ had dropped both
adjectives, and 'long' was probably supplied by the editor _metri
causa_, 'last' disappearing. Between 'glorified' and 'purified' in l.
11 it is impossible to choose. The reading 'deaths' for 'death' I have
adopted. Here _A18_, _N_, _TC_ agree with _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _W_,
and there can be no doubt that 'sleepe' is intended to go with both
'sinne' and 'death'.
PAGE =322=. HOLY SONNETS.
The MSS. of these sonnets evidently fall into two groups: (1) _B_,
_O'F_, _S96_, _W_: of which _W_ is by far the fullest and most correct
representative. (2) _A18_, _D_, _H49_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. I have kept
the order in which they are given in the editions _1635_ to _1669_,
but indicated the order of the other groups, and added at the close
the three sonnets contained only in _W_. I cannot find a definite
significance in any order, otherwise I should have followed that of
_W_ as the fullest and presumably the most authoritative. Each sonnet
is a separate meditation or ejaculation.
PAGE =323=, III. 7. _That sufferance was my sinne; now I repent_: I
have followed the punctuation and order of _B_, _W_, because it shows
a little more clearly what is (I think) the correct construction. As
printed in _1635-69_,
That sufferance was my sinne I now repent,
the clause 'That sufferance was' &c. is a noun clause subject to
'repent'. But the two clauses are co-ordinates and 'That' is a
demonstrative pronoun. '_That_ suffering' (of which he has spoken
in the six preceding lines) 'was my sin. Now I repent. Because I did
suffer the pains of love, I must now suffer those of remorse. '
PAGE =324=, V. 11. _have burnt it heretofore. _ Donne uses 'heretofore'
not infrequently in the sense of 'hitherto', and this seems to be
implied in 'Let their flames retire'. I have therefore preferred the
perfect tense of the MSS. to the preterite of the editions. The 'hath'
of _O'F_ is a change made in the supposed interests of grammar, if not
used as a plural form, for 'their flames' implies that the fires of
lust and of envy are distinguished. In speaking of the first Donne
thinks mainly of his youth, of the latter he has in memory his years
of suitorship at Court.
VI. 7, note. _Or presently, I know not, see that Face. _ This line,
which occurs in several independent MSS. , is doubtless Donne's, but
the reading of the text is probably his own emendation. The first
form of the line suggested too distinctly a not approved, or even
heretical, doctrine to which Donne refers more than once in his
sermons: 'So _Audivimus, et ab Antiquis_, We have heard, and heard by
them of old, That in how good state soever they dye yet the souls of
the departed do not see the face of God, nor enjoy his presence, till
the day of Judgement; This we have heard, and from so many of them of
old, as that the voyce of that part is louder, then of the other. And
amongst those reverend and blessed Fathers, which straied into these
errors, some were hearers and Disciples of the Apostles themselves, as
Papias was a disciple of S. John and yet Papias was a Millenarian,
and expected his thousand yeares prosperity upon the earth after the
Resurrection: some of them were Disciples of the Apostles, and some of
them were better men then the Apostles, for they were Bishops of Rome;
_Clement_ was so: and yet _Clement_ was one of them, who denied the
fruition of the sight of God, by the Saints, till the Judgement. '
_Sermons_ 80. 73. 739-40.
There are two not strictly orthodox opinions to which Donne seems to
have leant: (1) this, perhaps a remnant of his belief in Purgatory,
the theory of a state of preparation, in this doctrine applied even
to the saints; (2) a form of the doctrine now called 'Conditional
Immortality'. See note on Letter _To the Countesse of Bedford_, p.
196, l. 58.
PAGE =325=, VII. 6. _dearth. _ This reading of the Westmoreland MS. is
surely right notwithstanding the consensus of the editions and other
MSS. in reading 'death'. The poet is enumerating various modes in
which death comes; death itself cannot be one of these. The 'death'
in l. 8 perhaps explains the error; it certainly makes the error more
obvious.
VIII. 7. _in us, not immediately. _ I have interjected a comma after
'us' in order to bring out distinctly the Scholastic doctrine of
Angelic knowledge on which this sonnet turns. See note on _The Dreame_
with the quotation from Aquinas. What Donne says here is: 'If our
minds or thoughts are known to the saints in heaven as to angels, not
immediately, but by circumstances and signs (such as blushing or a
quickened pulsation) which are apparent in us, how shall the sincerity
of my grief be known to them, since these signs are found in lovers,
conjurers and pharisees? ' 'Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae
cogitationes cordium. ' 'God alone who put grief in my heart knows its
sincerity. '
l. 10. _vile blasphemous Conjurers. _ The 'vilde' of the MSS. is
obviously the right reading. The form too is that which Donne used if
we may judge by the MSS. , and by the fact that in _Elegie XIV: Julia_
he rhymes thus:
and (which is worse than vilde)
Sticke jealousie in wedlock, her owne childe
Scapes not the showers of envie.
By printing 'vile' the old and modern editions destroy the rhyme. In
the sonnet indeed the rhyme is not affected, and accordingly, as I am
not prepared to change every 'vile' to 'vilde' in the poems, I have
printed 'vile'. _W_ writes vile. Probably one might use either form.
PAGE =326=, IX. 9-10. I have followed here the punctuation of _W_,
which takes 'O God' in close connexion with the preceding line; the
vocative case seems to be needed since God has not been directly
addressed until l. 9. The punctuation of _D_, _H49_, which has often
determined that of _1633_, is not really different from that of _W_:
But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee?
Oh God; Oh of thyne, &c.
Here, as so often, the question-mark is placed immediately after the
question, before the sentence is ended. But 'Oh God' goes with the
question. A new strain begins with the second 'Oh'. The editions, by
punctuating
But who am I that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! &c.
(which modern editors have followed), make 'O God, Oh! ' a hurried
series of exclamations introducing the prayer which follows. This
suits the style of these abrupt, passionate poems. But it leaves
the question without an address to point it; and to my own mind the
hurried, feverous effect of 'O God, Oh! ' is more than compensated for
by the weight which is thrown, by the punctuation adopted, upon the
second 'Oh',--a sigh drawn from the very depths of the heart,
so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
And end his being.
PAGE =327=, XII. 1. _Why are wee by all creatures, &c. _ The 'am I' of
the _W_ is probably what Donne first wrote, and I am strongly tempted
to restore it. Donne's usual spelling of 'am' is 'ame' in his letters.
This might have been changed to 'are', which would have brought
the change of 'I' to 'we' in its wake. On the other hand there are
evidences in this sonnet of corrections made by Donne himself (e. g. l.
9), and he may have altered the first line as being too egotistical in
sound. I have therefore retained the text of the editions.
l. 4. _Simple, and further from corruption? _ The 'simple' of _1633_
and _D_, _H49_, _W_ is preferable to the 'simpler' of the later
editions and somewhat inferior MSS. which Chambers has adopted,
inadvertently, I think, for he does not notice the earlier reading.
The dropping of an 'r' would of course be very easy; but the
simplicity of the element does not admit of comparison, and what Donne
says is, I think, 'The elements are purer than we are, and (being
simple) farther from corruption. '
PAGE =328=, XIII. 4-6. _Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Teares in his eyes quench the amazing light,
Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell. _
Chambers alters the comma after 'affright' to a full stop, the Grolier
Club editor to a semicolon. Both place a semicolon after 'fell'.
Any change of the old punctuation seems to me to disguise the close
relation in which the fifth and sixth lines stand to the third. It is
with the third line they must go, not with the seventh, with which a
slightly different thought is introduced. 'Mark the picture of Christ
in thy heart and ask, can that countenance affright thee in whose eyes
the light of anger is quenched in tears, the furrows of whose frowns
are filled with blood. ' Then, from the countenance Donne's thought
turns to the tongue. The full stop, accidentally dropped after 'fell'
in the editions of _1633_ and _1635_, was restored in _1639_.
l. 14. _assures. _ In this case the MSS. enable us to correct an
obvious error of _all_ the printed editions.
PAGE =329=, XVI. 9. _Yet such are thy laws. _ I have adopted the
reading 'thy' of the Westmoreland and some other MSS. because the
sense seems to require it. 'These' and 'those' referring to the same
antecedent make a harsh construction. 'Thy laws necessarily transcend
the limits of human capacity and therefore some doubt whether these
conditions of our salvation can be fulfilled by men. They cannot, but
grace and spirit revive what law and letter kill. '
l. 11. _None doth; but all-healing grace and spirit. _ I have dropped
the 'thy' of the editions, following all the MSS. I have no doubt
that 'thy' has been inserted: (1) It spoils the rhyme: 'spirit' has
to rhyme with 'yet', which is impossible unless the accent may fall on
the second syllable; (2) 'thy' has been inserted, as 'spirit' has been
spelt with a capital letter, under the impression that 'spirit' stands
for the Divine Spirit, the Holy Ghost. But obviously 'spirit' is
opposed to 'letter' as 'grace' is to 'law'. In _W_ both 'grace' and
'spirit' are spelt with capitals. Either both or neither must be so
treated. 'Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament;
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. ' 2 Cor. iii. 6.
If 'thy' is to be retained, then 'spirit' must be pronounced 'sprit'.
Commentators on Shakespeare declare that this happens, but it is
very difficult to prove it.
