Perhaps it was the latter's
poem which suggested the use of marginal notes, giving the argument of
the poem.
poem which suggested the use of marginal notes, giving the argument of
the poem.
Donne - 2
Donne's _Elegye_: 'What [_sic_] that in Color it was like thy
haire,' his _Obsequies Upon the Lord Harrington yt last died_, and the
_Elegie of Loves progresse_. It is in Elizabethan secretary's hand,
and seems to me identical with the writing in which the same poems are
copied in C, the Cambridge University Library MS. A second hand, B,
inserts the larger number of the poems unquestionably by Donne in
close succession, but a third hand, C, transcribes several by Donne
along with poems by other wits, as Francis Beaumont. A fourth hand,
D, seems to be the latest because it is the handwriting in which the
Index was made out, and the poems inserted in this hand are inserted
in odd spaces left by the other writers. Now of the poems in question,
one, _A letter written by S^{r} H: G: and J. D. alternis vicibus_,
is copied by D, and the same hand adds immediately _An Elegie on the
Death of my never enough Lamented master King Charles the First_, by
Henry Skipwith. The poem attributed to Donne was therefore not entered
here till after 1649. But of course it may have come from an older
source, and it has quite the appearance of being genuine. Whoever made
the collection would seem to have had access to some of Goodyere's
work, for this poem is almost immediately preceded by an _Epithalamion
of the Princess Mariage_, by S^{r} H. G. , and a little earlier the
_Good Friday_ poem by Donne is headed _Mr J. Dun goeing from Sir H. G.
on good friday sent him back this Meditacon on the waye_. That reads
like a note by Goodyere himself. If this be what happened, the copyist
may have ascribed to Donne some of Goodyere's own verses. Certainly
there is nothing in the other three poems, 'O Fruitful garden,'
'Fie, fie, you sons of Pallas,' 'Why chose she black' (all in the
handwriting C) which would warrant our ascribing them to Donne. Later
in the collection a coarse poem, 'Why should not Pilgrims to thy body
come,' in a fifth hand, is signed J. D. , but _P_ assigns it to F. B. ,
and it is more in Beaumont's style. Poems by and on Beaumont occupy a
considerable space in _A25_. He is a quite possible candidate for the
authorship of some of the poems assigned to Donne in the hand C.
Mr. Hazlitt attributes to Donne (_General Index to Hazlitt's Handbook,
&c. _, p. 228) a Funeral Elegie on the death of Philip Stanhope, who
died at Christ Church in 1625. I have not been able to find the volume
in which it appears; but, as it is said to be by John Donne _Alumnus_,
the author must be the younger Donne.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Chambers has reprinted a good many of these,
but only in an Appendix and under the title of _Doubtful
Poems_. He has added a few more from _A25_, from _Coryats
Crudities_, and from some manuscripts in the Bodleian Library.
If printed at all it is a pity that these poems were not
reproduced more correctly. Textually the appendices are much
the worst part of Mr. Chambers' edition. In most cases he has,
I presume, taken the poems over as they stand from Simeon and
Grosart. ]
[Footnote 2: All three editors have also dropped the song
'Deare Love continue nice and chaste', David Laing having
pointed out (_Archaeologia Scotica_, iv. 73-6) that this poem
occurs in the Hawthornden MSS, with the signature 'J. R. '
Chambers also rejects the sonnet _On the Blessed Virgin Mary_,
probably by Henry Constable, and all three editors exclude the
lines _On the Sacrament_. ]
[Footnote 3: I have given with each poem a list of the
editions and manuscripts (known to me) in which it is
contained. A glance at these will show the weight of the
external evidence. Of internal evidence every man must be
judge for himself. ]
[Footnote 4: To these must of course be added poems already
published in Donne's name. See II. lvi. ]
[Footnote 5: In F. G. Waldron's _A Collection of Miscellaneous
Poetry_. 1802. ]
[Footnote 6: Chambers includes it in his Appendix A, _Doubtful
Poems_, but seems to lean to the view that it is by Roe. The
second is printed as Donne's by Grosart and as presumably
Donne's by Chambers. ]
[Footnote 7: In _O'F_ and _S_, where they also occur, they
are more dispersed; but these manuscripts have, like _1635_,
adopted a classification of the poems they contain which
involves their distribution as songs, elegies, letters
and satires. _A10_ is the most significant witness. This
manuscript contains very few poems by Donne. Why should it
select just this suspicious group? ]
[Footnote 8: Among the marriage licences granted by the Bishop
of London in 1601 (_Harleian Society Publications_) is the
following: 'Henry Sackford the younger, of the Charter House,
Gent; 27, father dead, and Sarah Rowe of St Johns in St John's
Street, co. Middlesex, Maiden, dau. of John Rowe of Clapham,
Beds, Esq. decd (i. e. deceas'd) about 9 years since,' &c. ]
[Footnote 9: See the genealogies given in the _Harleian
Society Publications_, vol. xiii, 1878, from the _Visitation
of Essex_ 1612 (pp. 282-3) and the _Visitation of Essex_ 1634
(p. 479). ]
[Footnote 10: The oldest was the John Rowe of Clapham, Beds.
The second, Henry, was also Mayor of London and was knighted
in 1603. The fourth, Robert, was the father of the
ambassador, and died while his son was a child. There were two
daughters--Mary, who married Thomas Randall, and Elizabeth,
who married William Garret of Dorney, co. Bucks. The son of
the latter couple was Donne's intimate friend George Gerrard
or Garrard. ]
[Footnote 11: Row, John, of Essex. arm. matric. 14 Oct. , 1597,
aged 16. (Joseph Foster, _Alumni Oxonienses_, iii, 1284). The
Provost of Queen's has kindly informed me that in the College
books his name is entered simply as 'Rowe' and as having
entered 'Ter. Mich. 1597'. He tells me further that in Andrew
Clark's edition of the University Matriculation Registers it
is stated that the date of his matriculation was between Oct.
14 and Dec. 2, 1597. There can be no doubt, I think, that
this is our Roe. There are not likely to have been two in the
County of Essex with the right to be called 'armiger'. Had his
father still lived he would have been entered as 'fil. gen. '
or 'fil. arm. ']
[Footnote 12: _Hist. MSS. Com. _: _Buccleugh MSS. _ (Montague
House), vol. i, pp. 56, 58. The letters are dated May 13, Nov.
7. ]
[Footnote 13: _Calendar of State Papers. _ Ireland, 1606-8,
p. 538. I owe this and the last reference to Mr. Murray L. R.
Beavan, University Assistant in History, Aberdeen University. ]
[Footnote 14: Other poems by Pembroke are found in the
manuscript collections of Donne's poems. A scholarly edition
of the poems of Pembroke and Rudyard would be a boon. Many
ascribed to them by the younger Donne in his edition of 1660
could be removed and others added from manuscript sources. ]
[Footnote 15: It is one of the worst printed in _1635_ and
_1669_ (where it first appeared in full), and has admitted
of many emendations from the manuscripts. Grosart has already
introduced some from the Hazlewood-Kingsborough MS. , but he
left some gross errors. In the lines,
That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
When my own thoughts I there reflected find,
all the three modern editions are content still to read,
When my own thoughts I there neglected find
--a strange reason for being enamoured. Some difficult and
perhaps corrupt lines still remain. ]
[Footnote 16: In forming this Appendix it was not my intention
to remove these poems dogmatically from under the aegis of
Donne's name. I wished rather to separate them from those
which are indubitably his and facilitate comparison. Further
evidence may show that I have erred as to one or other. This
letter is the only one about which I feel any doubt myself. I
have taken as much trouble with their text as with the rest of
the poems. ]
[Footnote 17: _H40_ has no ascription. In the poem
just discussed the ascription made correctly, at least
intelligibly, in _RP31_, was transposed in _H40_. This must be
the later collection. See II. p. cxiv. ]
[Footnote 18: _Absence_ is printed, again unsigned, in _Wit
Restored in severall Select Poems not formerly published_.
(1658. )]
* * * * *
COMMENTARY.
[Sidenote: _Metaphysical Poetry. _]
Donne is a 'metaphysical' poet. The term was perhaps first applied
by Dryden, from whom Johnson borrowed it: 'He' (Donne) 'affects the
metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where
nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with
the speculations of philosophy, where he should engage their hearts,
and entertain them with the softness of love. ' _Essay on Satire_. 'The
metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning
was their whole endeavour. ' Johnson, _Life of Cowley_. The parade of
learning, and a philosophical or abstract treatment of love had been
a strain in mediaeval poetry from the outset, manifesting itself
most fully in the Tuscan poets of the 'dolce stil nuovo', but never
altogether absent from mediaeval love-poetry. The Italian poet Testi
(1593-1646), describing his choice of classical in preference to
Italian models (he is thinking specially of Marino), says: 'poichè
lasciando quei concetti metafisici ed ideali di cui sono piene le
poesie italiane, mi sono provato di spiegare cose più domestiche, e
di maneggiarle con effetti più famigliari a imitazione d'Ovidio, di
Tibullo, di Properzio, e degli altri migliori. ' Donne's love-poetry is
often classical in spirit; his conceits are the 'concetti metafisici'
of mediaeval poetry given a character due to his own individuality and
the scientific interests of his age.
A metaphysical poet in the full sense of the word is a poet who finds
his inspiration in learning; not in the world as his own and common
sense reveal it, but in the world as science and philosophy report of
it. The two greatest metaphysical poets of Europe are Lucretius and
Dante. What the philosophy of Epicurus was to Lucretius, that of
Thomas Aquinas was to Dante. Their poetry is the product of their
learning, transfigured by the imagination, and it is not to be
understood without some study of their thought and knowledge.
Donne is not a metaphysical poet of the compass of Lucretius and
Dante. He sets forth in his poetry no ordered system of the universe.
The ordered system which Dante had set forth was breaking in pieces
while Donne lived, under the criticism of Copernicus, Galileo, and
others, and no poet was so conscious as Donne of the effect on
the imagination of that disintegration. In the two _Anniversaries_
mystical religion is made an escape from scientific scepticism.
Moreover, Donne's use of metaphysics is often frivolous and flippant,
at best simply poetical. But he is a learned poet, and he is a
philosophical poet, and without some attention to the philosophy
and science underlying his conceits and his graver thought it is
impossible to understand or appreciate either aright. Failure to do so
has led occasionally to the corruption of his text.
[Sidenote: _Donne's Learning. _]
Walton tells us that Donne's learning, in his eleventh year when he
went to Oxford, 'made one then give this censure of him, "That this
age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula; of whom story says that
he was rather born than made wise by study. "' 'In the most unsettled
days of his youth', the same authority reports, 'his bed was not able
to detain him beyond the hour of four in the morning; and it was no
common business that drew him out of his chamber till past ten; all
which time was employed in study; though he took great liberty after
it. ' 'He left the resultances of 1,400 authors, most of them abridged
and analysed with his own hand. ' The lists of authors prefixed to
his prose treatises and the allusions and definite references in the
sermons corroborate Walton's statement regarding the range of Donne's
theological and controversial reading.
[Sidenote: _Classical Literature. _]
Confining attention here to Donne's poetry, and the spontaneous
evidence of learning which it affords, one would gather that his
reading was less literary and poetic in character than was Milton's
during the years spent at Horton. It is clear that he knew the
classical poets, but there are few specific allusions. Ovid, Horace,
and Juvenal one can trace, not any other with certainty, nor in his
sermons do references to Virgil, Horace, or other poets abound.
[Sidenote: _Italian. _]
Like Milton, Donne had doubtless read the Italian romances. One
reference to Angelica and an incident in the _Orlando Furioso_
occur in the _Satyres_, and from the same source as well as from an
unpublished letter we learn that he had read Dante. Aretino is the
only other Italian to whom he makes explicit reference.
[Sidenote: _French. _]
One of Régnier's satires opens in a manner resembling the fourth of
Donne's, and in a letter written from France apparently in 1612 he
refers to 'a book of French Satires', which Mr. Gosse conjectures to
be Régnier's. The resemblance may be accidental, for Donne's _Satyres_
were written before the publication of Régnier's (1608, 1613), and
Donne makes no explicit mention of him or any other French poet.
We learn, however, from his letters that he had read Montaigne and
Rabelais; and it is improbable that he did not share the general
interest of his contemporaries in the poetry of the _Pléiade_. The
one poet to whom recent criticism has pointed as the inspiration
of Donne's metaphysical verse is the Protestant poet Du Bartas. Mr.
Alfred Horatio Upham (_The French Influence in English Literature. _
New York, 1908), and following him Sir Sidney Lee (_The French
Renaissance in England. _ Oxford, 1910), have insisted strongly on the
importance of this influence. The latter goes so far as to say that
'Donne clothed elegies, eclogues, divine poems, epicedes, obsequies,
satires, in a garb barely distinguishable from the style of Du Bartas
and Sylvester', and that the metaphysical style in English poetry is a
heritage from Du Bartas.
I confess this seems to me a somewhat exaggerated statement. When
I turn from Donne's passionate and subtle songs and elegies to
Sylvester's hum-drum and yet 'conceited' work, I find their styles
eminently distinguishable. Mr. Upham indeed allows that Donne's
genius makes 'vital and impressive' what in the original is 'vapid
and commonplace'. He pleads for no more than an 'element of French
suggestion'.
Of the most characteristic features of Du Bartas's rhetoric, his
affected antitheses, his studied alliterative effects, and especially
his double-epithets 'aime-carnage', 'charme-souci', 'blesse-honneur',
Sylvester's 'forbidden-Bit-lost-glory', 'the Act-simply-pure', &c. ,
Mr. Upham admits that Donne makes sparing use. Donne uses a fair
number of compounds but the majority of these are nouns and verbs. Of
the epithets only one or two are of the sentence-compressing
character which the French poet cultivated. The most like is
'full-on-both-side-written rolls'. The real link between Du Bartas and
Donne is that they are metaphysical poets. Following Lucretius, whom
he often translates, the Frenchman set himself to give a scientific
account of the creation of the universe as outlined in _Genesis_. He
describes with the utmost minuteness of detail, and necessarily uses
similes better fitted to elucidate and illustrate than to give poetic
pleasure, drawn from the most everyday sources as well as arts and
sciences. It was part of the programme of the _Pléiade_ thus to annex
the vocabulary of learning and the crafts. Now Donne may have read Du
Bartas in the original, or he may have seen some parts of Sylvester's
translation (it did not appear till 1598), as it was in preparation,
though to a Catholic, as Donne was, the poem would not have the
attraction it had for Protestant poets in England, Holland, and
Germany. The bent of his own mind was to metaphysics, to erudition,
and also to figures realistic and surprising rather than beautiful.
It would be rash to deny that he may have found in Du Bartas a style
which he preferred to the Italianate picturesqueness of sonneteers and
idyllists, and been encouraged to follow his bent. That he borrowed
his style from Du Bartas is _non proven_: and there are in his work
strains of feeling, thought, and learning which cannot be traced
to the French poet. Two poets more essentially unlike it would be
difficult to imagine. There are very few passages where one can trace
or conjecture echoes or borrowings (see note, II. p. 193). I agree
indeed with Mr. Upham that the poems which most strongly suggest
that Donne had been reading Du Bartas are the First and Second
_Anniversaries_, which Sir Sidney Lee inadvertently calls early
poems. Here at least he is often dealing with the same themes. One
can illustrate his thought from Du Bartas.
Perhaps it was the latter's
poem which suggested the use of marginal notes, giving the argument of
the poem.
[Sidenote: _Spanish. _]
We know from Donne's explicit statement that his library was full both
of Spanish poets and Spanish theologians, and there has been some talk
of Spanish influence in his poetry. But no one has adduced evidence.
Gongora is out of the question, for Gongora did not begin to cultivate
the extravagant conceits of his later poetry till he came under the
influence of Carillo's posthumous poems in 1611 (Fitzmaurice Kelly:
_Spanish Literature_, 283-5); nor is there much resemblance between
his high-flown Marinism and Donne's metaphysical subtleties. It is
possible that Spanish mysticism and religious eloquence have left
traces in Donne's _Divine Poems_ and sermons. The subject awaits
investigation.
[Sidenote: _Scholastic Philosophy. _]
A commentator on Donne is, therefore, not called on to trace literary
echoes in his poetry as Bishop Newton and others have done in Milton's
poems. It is reading of another kind, though a kind also traceable
in Milton, that he has to note. Donne was steeped in Scholastic
Philosophy and Theology. Often under his most playful conceits lurk
Scholastic definitions and distinctions. The question of the influence
of Plato on the poets of the Renaissance has been discussed of recent
years, but generally without a sufficient preliminary inquiry as
to the Scholastic inheritance of these poets. Doctrines that derive
ultimately, it may be, from Plato and Aristotle were familiar to Donne
and others in the first place from Aquinas and the theology of the
Schools, and, as Professor Picavet has insisted (_Esquisse d'une
histoire générale et comparée des philosophies médiévales. _ Paris,
1907), they entered the Scholastic Philosophy through Plotinus and
were modified in the passage. [1] The present editor is in no way a
specialist in Scholasticism, and such notes and extracts as are given
here concern passages where some inquiry was necessary to fix the text
and to elucidate the meaning. They are intended simply to do this
as far as possible, and to suggest the direction which further
investigation must follow. An expert will doubtless note many
allusions that have escaped notice. Whenever possible I have
endeavoured to start from Donne's own sermons and prose works.
[Footnote 1: The influence of Scholastic Philosophy and
Theology in English poetry deserves attention. When Milton
states that
They also serve who only stand and wait,
he has probably in mind the opinion of Dionysius the
Areopagite (adopted by Aquinas), that the four highest
orders of angels (Dominations, Thrones, Cherubs, and
Seraphim) never leave God's presence to bear messages. ]
[Sidenote: _The Fathers, &c. _]
Donne is as familiar with the Fathers as with the Schoolmen,
especially Tertullian and Augustine, and of them too he makes use
in poems neither serious nor edifying. His work with Morton had
familiarized him with the whole range of Catholic controversy from
Bellarmine to Spanish and German Jesuit pamphleteers and casuists.
_The Progresse of the Soule_ reveals his acquaintance with Jewish
apocryphal legends.
[Sidenote: _Law. _]
But Donne's studies were not confined to Divinity. When a Law-student
he was 'diverted by the worst voluptuousness, which is an hydroptic
immoderate desire of humane learning and languages'; but his legal
studies have left their mark in his _Songs and Sonets_. Of Medicine he
had made an extensive study, and the poems abound in allusions to both
the orthodox Galenist doctrines and the new Paracelsian medicine with
its chemical drugs and homoeopathic cures. [2] In Physics he knows,
like Milton, the older doctrines, the elements, their concentric
arrangement, the origin of winds and meteors, &c. , and at the same
time is acutely interested in the speculations of the newer science,
of Copernicus and Galileo, and the disintegrating effect of their
doctrines on the traditional views.
[Footnote 2: In the _Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, &c. _
(1651, 1654), pp. 14-15, Donne gives a short sketch of the history
of medical doctrines from Hippocrates through Galen to Paracelsus,
but declares that the new principles are attributed to the latter
'too much to his honour'. ]
[Sidenote: _Travels. _]
A special feature of Donne's imagery is the use of images drawn from
the voyages and discoveries of the age. Sir Walter Raleigh has not
included Donne among the poets whom he discusses in considering the
influence of the Voyages on Poetry and Imagination (_The English
Voyages of the Sixteenth Century. _ Glasgow, 1906, iii), but perhaps
none took a more curious interest. His mistress is 'my America,
my Newfoundland', his East and West Indies; he sees, at least in
imagination,
a Tenarif, or higher Hill
Rise so high like a Rocke, that one might thinke
The floating Moone would shipwracke there, and sinke;
he sails to heaven, the Pacific Ocean, the Fortunate Islands, by the
North-West Passage, or through the Straits of Magellan.
In attempting to illustrate these and other aspects of Donne's
erudition as displayed in his poetry it has been my endeavour not so
much to trace them to their remote sources as to discover the form
in which he was familiar with a doctrine or a theory. Next to his own
works, therefore, I have had recourse to contemporary or but slightly
later works, as Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and Browne's
_Pseudodoxia Epidemica_. I have made constant use of the _Summa
Theologiae_ of St. Thomas Aquinas, using the edition in Migne's
_Patrologiae Cursus Completus_ (1845). By Professor Picavet my
attention was called to Bouillet's translation of Plotinus's _Enneads_
with ample notes on the analogies to and developments of Neo-Platonic
thought in the Schoolmen. I have also used Zeller's _Philosophie der
Griechen_, on Plotinus, and Harnack's _History of Dogma_. Throughout,
my effort has been rather to justify, elucidate, and suggest, than to
accumulate parallels.
*** In the following notes the _LXXX Sermons &c. _ (1640), _Fifty
Sermons &c. _ (1649), and _XXVI Sermons &c. _ (1669/70) are referred to
thus:--80. 19. 189, i. e. the _LXXX Sermons_, the nineteenth sermon,
page 189. References to page and line simply of the poems are to the
first volume of this edition. References to the second are given thus,
II. p. 249.
THE PRINTER TO &c.
See _Text and Canon of Donne's Poems_, p. lix.
PAGE =1=, ll. 17-18. _it would have come to us from beyond the Seas_:
e. g. from Holland.
ll. 19-20. _My charge and pains in procuring of it_: A significant
statement as to the source of the edition.
PAGE =3=. _Hexastichon Bibliopolae. _
l. 1. _his last preach'd, and printed Booke_, i. e. _Deaths Duell or
a Consolation to the Soule against the dying Life and living Death
of the body. Delivered in a sermon at Whitehall, before the Kings
Majesty in the beginning of Lent 1630, &c. . . . Being his last Sermon
and called by his Majesties household the Doctors owne Funerall
Sermon. 1632, 1633. _
This has for frontispiece a bust of Donne in his shroud, engraved by
Martin Dr[oeshout] from the drawing from which Nicholas Stone cut the
figure on Donne's tomb (Gosse's _Life, &c. _ ii. 288). Walton's account
of the manner in which this picture was prepared is well known. See
II. p. 249.
PAGE =4=. _William, Lord Craven, &c. _ This is the younger Donne's
dedication. See _Text and Canon, &c. _, p. lxx.
William Craven (1606-1697) entered the service of Maurice, Prince of
Nassau in 1623. He served later, 1631, under Gustavus Adolphus; and
became a devoted adherent of Elizabeth of Bohemia and the cause of the
Palatine house. He lost his estates in the Rebellion, but after the
Restoration was created successively Baron Craven of Hampsted-Marsham,
Viscount Craven of Uffington, and Earl of Craven. He was an early
member of the Royal Society.
Of the younger John Donne, D. C. L. , whose life was dissolute and
poetry indecent, perhaps the most pleasing relic is the following poem
addressed to his father. It is found in _O'F_ and has been printed by
Mr. Warwick Bond:
A LETTER.
No want of duty did my mind possesse,
I through a dearth of words could not expresse
That w^{ch} I feare I doe too soone pursue
W^{ch} is to pay my duty due to you.
For, through the weaknesse of my witt, this way
I shall diminish what I hope to pay.
And this consider, T'was the sonne of May
And not Apollo that did rule the day.
Had it bin hee then somthing would have rose;
In gratefull verse or else in thankfull prose
I would have told you (father) by my hand
That I yo^r sonne am prouder of yo^r band
Then others of theyr freedome, And to pay
Thinke it good service to kneele downe and pray.
Yo^r obedient sonne
JO. DONNE.
PAGES =5, 6=. The three poems by Jonson were printed in the sheets
hastily added by the younger Donne in 1650 to the edition of Donne's
poems prepared for the press in 1649. See _Text and Canon, &c. _
They were taken from Jonson's _Epigrams_ (1616), where they are Nos.
xxiii. , xciv. , and xcvi. Of Donne as a poet Jonson uttered three
memorable criticisms in his _Conversations with Drummond_ (ed. Laing,
Shakespeare Society, 1842):
'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in the world for some things. '
'That Done for not keeping of accent deserved hanging. '
'That Done himself, for not being understood, would perish. '
SONGS AND SONETS.
Of all Donne's poems these are the most difficult to date with any
definiteness. Jonson, Drummond notes, 'affirmeth Done to have written
all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five years old,' that would be
before 1598, the year in which Donne became secretary to Sir Thomas
Egerton. This harmonizes fairly well with such indications of date as
are discoverable in the _Elegies_, poems similar in theme and tone
to the _Songs and Sonets_. Mr. Chambers pushes the more daring and
cynical of these poems in both these groups further back. He says,
'All Donne's Love-poems . . . seem to me to fall into two divisions.
There is one, marked by cynicism, ethical laxity and a somewhat
deliberate profession of inconstancy. This I believe to be his
earliest style, and ascribe the poems marked by it to the period
before 1596. About that date he became acquainted with Anne More, whom
he evidently loved devotedly and sincerely ever after. And therefore
from 1596 onwards I place the second division, with its emphasis of
the spiritual, and deep insight into the real things of love. ' This is
a little too early. Anne More was only twelve years old in 1596, and
it is unlikely that she and Donne were known to each other before
1598. Their affection probably ripened later. It almost seems from
Donne's letters to his friends as though about 1599 he was proffering
at least courtly adoration to some other lady.
Moreover, it is to conceive somewhat inadequately of Donne's complex
nature to make too sharp a temporal division between his gayer, more
cynical effusions and his graver, even religious pieces. The truth
about Donne is well stated by Professor Norton: 'Donne's "better
angel" and his "worser spirit" seem to have kept up a continual
contest, now the one, now the other, gaining the mastery in his
Poor soul, the centre of his sinful earth. '
The 'evaporations' which he allowed his wit from time to time till he
took orders showed always a certain 'ethical laxity' and 'cynicism' of
outlook on men and women. The _Elegie XIV_ (if it be Donne's, and
Mr. Chambers does not question its authenticity), the lines _Upon Mr.
Thomas Coryats Crudities_, the two frankly pagan _Epithalamia_ on the
Princess Elizabeth and the Countess of Somerset, to say nothing of
_Ignatius his Conclave_, were all written long after his marriage and
when he was already the author of moral epistles and 'divine poems'.
Even Professor Norton's statement exaggerates the 'contest' a little.
These things were evaporations of wit, and even a serious man in
the seventeenth century allowed to his wit satyric gambols which
disconcert our staider and more fastidious taste. I am quite at one
with Mr. Chambers in accepting his marriage as a turning-point in the
history of Donne's life and mind. But it would be rash to affirm that
_none_ of his wittier lyrics were written after this date.
Donne's 'songs and sonets' seem to me to fall into three rather than
two classes, though there is a good deal of overlapping. Donne's wit
is always touched with passion; his passion is always witty. In the
first class I would place those which are frankly 'evaporations'
of more or less cynical wit, the poems in which he parades his own
inconstancy or enlarges on the weaknesses of women, poems such as 'Goe
and catche', _Womans constancy_, _The Indifferent_, _Loves Vsury_,
_The Legacie_, _Communitie_, _Confined Love_, _Loves Alchymie_, _The
Flea_, _The Message_, _Witchcraft by a picture_, _The Apparition_,
_Loves Deitie_, _Loves diet_, _The Will_, _A Jeat Ring sent_,
_Negative love_, _Farewell to love_. In another group the wit in
Donne, whether gaily or passionately cynical, is subordinate to the
lover, pure and simple, singing, at times with amazing simplicity and
intensity of feeling, the joys of love and the sorrow of parting. Such
are _The good-morrow_, _The Sunne Rising_, _The Canonization_, _Lovers
infiniteness_, 'Sweetest love, I do not goe,' _A Feaver_, _Aire and
Angells_ (touched with cynical humour at the close), _Breake of day_,
_The Anniversarie_, _A Valediction: of the booke_, _Loves growth_,
_The Dreame_, _A Valediction: of weeping_, _The Baite_, _A
Valediction: forbidding mourning_, _The Extasie_, _The Prohibition_,
_The Expiration_, _Lecture upon the Shadow_. It would, of course, be
rash to say that all such poems were addressed to his wife. Some, like
_The Baite_, are purely literary in origin; others present the obverse
side of the passion portrayed in the first group, its happier moments.
But one must believe that those in which ardour is combined with
elevation and delicacy of feeling were addressed to Anne More before
and after their marriage.
In the third and smallest group, which includes, however, such fine
examples of his subtler moods as _The Funerall_, _The Blossome_, _The
Primrose_, Donne adopts the tone (as sincerely as was generally the
case) of the Petrarchian lover whose mistress's coldness has slain him
or provokes his passionate protestations. Some of these must, I think,
have been written after Donne's marriage. The titles one or two bear
connect them with Mrs. Herbert and the Countess of Bedford. The two
most enigmatical poems in the _Songs and Sonets_ are _Twicknam Garden_
and _A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day_. Yet the very names 'Twicknam
Garden' and 'S. Lucies day' suggest a reference to the Countess of
Bedford. It is possible that the last was written when Lady Bedford
was ill in December, 1612? 'My Lady Bedford last night about one of
the clock was suddenly, and has continued ever since, speechless,
and is past all hopes though yet alive,' writes the Earl of Dorset on
November 23, 1612. It is probable that on December 13 she was still in
a critical condition, supposing the illness to have been that common
complaint of an age of bad drains, namely typhoid fever, and Donne
may have written in anticipation of her death. But the suggestion is
hazardous. The third verse speaks a stronger language than that of
Petrarchian adoration. Still it is difficult for us to estimate aright
all that was allowed to a 'servant' under the accepted convention.
It is noteworthy that the poem is not included in any known MS.
collection made before 1630. The Countess died in 1627.
PAGE =7=. THE GOOD-MORROW.
The MSS. point to two distinct recensions of this poem. The one which
is given in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and in _1633_, reads,
3. countrey pleasures childishly 4. snorted 14. one world 17. better.
The other, which is the most common in the MSS. , reads, 3. childish
pleasures seelily 4. slumbred 14. our world 17. fitter. The edition of
1635 shows a contamination of the two due to the fact that the printer
'set up' from _1633_, and he or the editor corrected from a MS.
collection, probably _A18_, _N_, _TC_. In _TCD_ the second recension
is given in the collection of Donne's poems in the first part of the
MS. ; in the second part, a miscellaneous collection of poems, the poem
is given again, but according to the other version. It does not seem
to me possible to decide absolutely the relative authority of the two
versions, but to my mind that of 1633 and _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ seems the
more racy and characteristic. It probably represents the first
version of the poem, whether Donne or another be responsible for the
alterations. The only point of importance to be decided is whether
'better' or 'fitter' expresses more exactly what the poet meant to
say. The 1635 editor preferred 'fitter', thinking probably that
the idea of exact correspondence is emphasized, 'where find two
hemispheres that fit one another more exactly? ' But this is not,
I think, what Donne meant.
haire,' his _Obsequies Upon the Lord Harrington yt last died_, and the
_Elegie of Loves progresse_. It is in Elizabethan secretary's hand,
and seems to me identical with the writing in which the same poems are
copied in C, the Cambridge University Library MS. A second hand, B,
inserts the larger number of the poems unquestionably by Donne in
close succession, but a third hand, C, transcribes several by Donne
along with poems by other wits, as Francis Beaumont. A fourth hand,
D, seems to be the latest because it is the handwriting in which the
Index was made out, and the poems inserted in this hand are inserted
in odd spaces left by the other writers. Now of the poems in question,
one, _A letter written by S^{r} H: G: and J. D. alternis vicibus_,
is copied by D, and the same hand adds immediately _An Elegie on the
Death of my never enough Lamented master King Charles the First_, by
Henry Skipwith. The poem attributed to Donne was therefore not entered
here till after 1649. But of course it may have come from an older
source, and it has quite the appearance of being genuine. Whoever made
the collection would seem to have had access to some of Goodyere's
work, for this poem is almost immediately preceded by an _Epithalamion
of the Princess Mariage_, by S^{r} H. G. , and a little earlier the
_Good Friday_ poem by Donne is headed _Mr J. Dun goeing from Sir H. G.
on good friday sent him back this Meditacon on the waye_. That reads
like a note by Goodyere himself. If this be what happened, the copyist
may have ascribed to Donne some of Goodyere's own verses. Certainly
there is nothing in the other three poems, 'O Fruitful garden,'
'Fie, fie, you sons of Pallas,' 'Why chose she black' (all in the
handwriting C) which would warrant our ascribing them to Donne. Later
in the collection a coarse poem, 'Why should not Pilgrims to thy body
come,' in a fifth hand, is signed J. D. , but _P_ assigns it to F. B. ,
and it is more in Beaumont's style. Poems by and on Beaumont occupy a
considerable space in _A25_. He is a quite possible candidate for the
authorship of some of the poems assigned to Donne in the hand C.
Mr. Hazlitt attributes to Donne (_General Index to Hazlitt's Handbook,
&c. _, p. 228) a Funeral Elegie on the death of Philip Stanhope, who
died at Christ Church in 1625. I have not been able to find the volume
in which it appears; but, as it is said to be by John Donne _Alumnus_,
the author must be the younger Donne.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Chambers has reprinted a good many of these,
but only in an Appendix and under the title of _Doubtful
Poems_. He has added a few more from _A25_, from _Coryats
Crudities_, and from some manuscripts in the Bodleian Library.
If printed at all it is a pity that these poems were not
reproduced more correctly. Textually the appendices are much
the worst part of Mr. Chambers' edition. In most cases he has,
I presume, taken the poems over as they stand from Simeon and
Grosart. ]
[Footnote 2: All three editors have also dropped the song
'Deare Love continue nice and chaste', David Laing having
pointed out (_Archaeologia Scotica_, iv. 73-6) that this poem
occurs in the Hawthornden MSS, with the signature 'J. R. '
Chambers also rejects the sonnet _On the Blessed Virgin Mary_,
probably by Henry Constable, and all three editors exclude the
lines _On the Sacrament_. ]
[Footnote 3: I have given with each poem a list of the
editions and manuscripts (known to me) in which it is
contained. A glance at these will show the weight of the
external evidence. Of internal evidence every man must be
judge for himself. ]
[Footnote 4: To these must of course be added poems already
published in Donne's name. See II. lvi. ]
[Footnote 5: In F. G. Waldron's _A Collection of Miscellaneous
Poetry_. 1802. ]
[Footnote 6: Chambers includes it in his Appendix A, _Doubtful
Poems_, but seems to lean to the view that it is by Roe. The
second is printed as Donne's by Grosart and as presumably
Donne's by Chambers. ]
[Footnote 7: In _O'F_ and _S_, where they also occur, they
are more dispersed; but these manuscripts have, like _1635_,
adopted a classification of the poems they contain which
involves their distribution as songs, elegies, letters
and satires. _A10_ is the most significant witness. This
manuscript contains very few poems by Donne. Why should it
select just this suspicious group? ]
[Footnote 8: Among the marriage licences granted by the Bishop
of London in 1601 (_Harleian Society Publications_) is the
following: 'Henry Sackford the younger, of the Charter House,
Gent; 27, father dead, and Sarah Rowe of St Johns in St John's
Street, co. Middlesex, Maiden, dau. of John Rowe of Clapham,
Beds, Esq. decd (i. e. deceas'd) about 9 years since,' &c. ]
[Footnote 9: See the genealogies given in the _Harleian
Society Publications_, vol. xiii, 1878, from the _Visitation
of Essex_ 1612 (pp. 282-3) and the _Visitation of Essex_ 1634
(p. 479). ]
[Footnote 10: The oldest was the John Rowe of Clapham, Beds.
The second, Henry, was also Mayor of London and was knighted
in 1603. The fourth, Robert, was the father of the
ambassador, and died while his son was a child. There were two
daughters--Mary, who married Thomas Randall, and Elizabeth,
who married William Garret of Dorney, co. Bucks. The son of
the latter couple was Donne's intimate friend George Gerrard
or Garrard. ]
[Footnote 11: Row, John, of Essex. arm. matric. 14 Oct. , 1597,
aged 16. (Joseph Foster, _Alumni Oxonienses_, iii, 1284). The
Provost of Queen's has kindly informed me that in the College
books his name is entered simply as 'Rowe' and as having
entered 'Ter. Mich. 1597'. He tells me further that in Andrew
Clark's edition of the University Matriculation Registers it
is stated that the date of his matriculation was between Oct.
14 and Dec. 2, 1597. There can be no doubt, I think, that
this is our Roe. There are not likely to have been two in the
County of Essex with the right to be called 'armiger'. Had his
father still lived he would have been entered as 'fil. gen. '
or 'fil. arm. ']
[Footnote 12: _Hist. MSS. Com. _: _Buccleugh MSS. _ (Montague
House), vol. i, pp. 56, 58. The letters are dated May 13, Nov.
7. ]
[Footnote 13: _Calendar of State Papers. _ Ireland, 1606-8,
p. 538. I owe this and the last reference to Mr. Murray L. R.
Beavan, University Assistant in History, Aberdeen University. ]
[Footnote 14: Other poems by Pembroke are found in the
manuscript collections of Donne's poems. A scholarly edition
of the poems of Pembroke and Rudyard would be a boon. Many
ascribed to them by the younger Donne in his edition of 1660
could be removed and others added from manuscript sources. ]
[Footnote 15: It is one of the worst printed in _1635_ and
_1669_ (where it first appeared in full), and has admitted
of many emendations from the manuscripts. Grosart has already
introduced some from the Hazlewood-Kingsborough MS. , but he
left some gross errors. In the lines,
That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
When my own thoughts I there reflected find,
all the three modern editions are content still to read,
When my own thoughts I there neglected find
--a strange reason for being enamoured. Some difficult and
perhaps corrupt lines still remain. ]
[Footnote 16: In forming this Appendix it was not my intention
to remove these poems dogmatically from under the aegis of
Donne's name. I wished rather to separate them from those
which are indubitably his and facilitate comparison. Further
evidence may show that I have erred as to one or other. This
letter is the only one about which I feel any doubt myself. I
have taken as much trouble with their text as with the rest of
the poems. ]
[Footnote 17: _H40_ has no ascription. In the poem
just discussed the ascription made correctly, at least
intelligibly, in _RP31_, was transposed in _H40_. This must be
the later collection. See II. p. cxiv. ]
[Footnote 18: _Absence_ is printed, again unsigned, in _Wit
Restored in severall Select Poems not formerly published_.
(1658. )]
* * * * *
COMMENTARY.
[Sidenote: _Metaphysical Poetry. _]
Donne is a 'metaphysical' poet. The term was perhaps first applied
by Dryden, from whom Johnson borrowed it: 'He' (Donne) 'affects the
metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where
nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with
the speculations of philosophy, where he should engage their hearts,
and entertain them with the softness of love. ' _Essay on Satire_. 'The
metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning
was their whole endeavour. ' Johnson, _Life of Cowley_. The parade of
learning, and a philosophical or abstract treatment of love had been
a strain in mediaeval poetry from the outset, manifesting itself
most fully in the Tuscan poets of the 'dolce stil nuovo', but never
altogether absent from mediaeval love-poetry. The Italian poet Testi
(1593-1646), describing his choice of classical in preference to
Italian models (he is thinking specially of Marino), says: 'poichè
lasciando quei concetti metafisici ed ideali di cui sono piene le
poesie italiane, mi sono provato di spiegare cose più domestiche, e
di maneggiarle con effetti più famigliari a imitazione d'Ovidio, di
Tibullo, di Properzio, e degli altri migliori. ' Donne's love-poetry is
often classical in spirit; his conceits are the 'concetti metafisici'
of mediaeval poetry given a character due to his own individuality and
the scientific interests of his age.
A metaphysical poet in the full sense of the word is a poet who finds
his inspiration in learning; not in the world as his own and common
sense reveal it, but in the world as science and philosophy report of
it. The two greatest metaphysical poets of Europe are Lucretius and
Dante. What the philosophy of Epicurus was to Lucretius, that of
Thomas Aquinas was to Dante. Their poetry is the product of their
learning, transfigured by the imagination, and it is not to be
understood without some study of their thought and knowledge.
Donne is not a metaphysical poet of the compass of Lucretius and
Dante. He sets forth in his poetry no ordered system of the universe.
The ordered system which Dante had set forth was breaking in pieces
while Donne lived, under the criticism of Copernicus, Galileo, and
others, and no poet was so conscious as Donne of the effect on
the imagination of that disintegration. In the two _Anniversaries_
mystical religion is made an escape from scientific scepticism.
Moreover, Donne's use of metaphysics is often frivolous and flippant,
at best simply poetical. But he is a learned poet, and he is a
philosophical poet, and without some attention to the philosophy
and science underlying his conceits and his graver thought it is
impossible to understand or appreciate either aright. Failure to do so
has led occasionally to the corruption of his text.
[Sidenote: _Donne's Learning. _]
Walton tells us that Donne's learning, in his eleventh year when he
went to Oxford, 'made one then give this censure of him, "That this
age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula; of whom story says that
he was rather born than made wise by study. "' 'In the most unsettled
days of his youth', the same authority reports, 'his bed was not able
to detain him beyond the hour of four in the morning; and it was no
common business that drew him out of his chamber till past ten; all
which time was employed in study; though he took great liberty after
it. ' 'He left the resultances of 1,400 authors, most of them abridged
and analysed with his own hand. ' The lists of authors prefixed to
his prose treatises and the allusions and definite references in the
sermons corroborate Walton's statement regarding the range of Donne's
theological and controversial reading.
[Sidenote: _Classical Literature. _]
Confining attention here to Donne's poetry, and the spontaneous
evidence of learning which it affords, one would gather that his
reading was less literary and poetic in character than was Milton's
during the years spent at Horton. It is clear that he knew the
classical poets, but there are few specific allusions. Ovid, Horace,
and Juvenal one can trace, not any other with certainty, nor in his
sermons do references to Virgil, Horace, or other poets abound.
[Sidenote: _Italian. _]
Like Milton, Donne had doubtless read the Italian romances. One
reference to Angelica and an incident in the _Orlando Furioso_
occur in the _Satyres_, and from the same source as well as from an
unpublished letter we learn that he had read Dante. Aretino is the
only other Italian to whom he makes explicit reference.
[Sidenote: _French. _]
One of Régnier's satires opens in a manner resembling the fourth of
Donne's, and in a letter written from France apparently in 1612 he
refers to 'a book of French Satires', which Mr. Gosse conjectures to
be Régnier's. The resemblance may be accidental, for Donne's _Satyres_
were written before the publication of Régnier's (1608, 1613), and
Donne makes no explicit mention of him or any other French poet.
We learn, however, from his letters that he had read Montaigne and
Rabelais; and it is improbable that he did not share the general
interest of his contemporaries in the poetry of the _Pléiade_. The
one poet to whom recent criticism has pointed as the inspiration
of Donne's metaphysical verse is the Protestant poet Du Bartas. Mr.
Alfred Horatio Upham (_The French Influence in English Literature. _
New York, 1908), and following him Sir Sidney Lee (_The French
Renaissance in England. _ Oxford, 1910), have insisted strongly on the
importance of this influence. The latter goes so far as to say that
'Donne clothed elegies, eclogues, divine poems, epicedes, obsequies,
satires, in a garb barely distinguishable from the style of Du Bartas
and Sylvester', and that the metaphysical style in English poetry is a
heritage from Du Bartas.
I confess this seems to me a somewhat exaggerated statement. When
I turn from Donne's passionate and subtle songs and elegies to
Sylvester's hum-drum and yet 'conceited' work, I find their styles
eminently distinguishable. Mr. Upham indeed allows that Donne's
genius makes 'vital and impressive' what in the original is 'vapid
and commonplace'. He pleads for no more than an 'element of French
suggestion'.
Of the most characteristic features of Du Bartas's rhetoric, his
affected antitheses, his studied alliterative effects, and especially
his double-epithets 'aime-carnage', 'charme-souci', 'blesse-honneur',
Sylvester's 'forbidden-Bit-lost-glory', 'the Act-simply-pure', &c. ,
Mr. Upham admits that Donne makes sparing use. Donne uses a fair
number of compounds but the majority of these are nouns and verbs. Of
the epithets only one or two are of the sentence-compressing
character which the French poet cultivated. The most like is
'full-on-both-side-written rolls'. The real link between Du Bartas and
Donne is that they are metaphysical poets. Following Lucretius, whom
he often translates, the Frenchman set himself to give a scientific
account of the creation of the universe as outlined in _Genesis_. He
describes with the utmost minuteness of detail, and necessarily uses
similes better fitted to elucidate and illustrate than to give poetic
pleasure, drawn from the most everyday sources as well as arts and
sciences. It was part of the programme of the _Pléiade_ thus to annex
the vocabulary of learning and the crafts. Now Donne may have read Du
Bartas in the original, or he may have seen some parts of Sylvester's
translation (it did not appear till 1598), as it was in preparation,
though to a Catholic, as Donne was, the poem would not have the
attraction it had for Protestant poets in England, Holland, and
Germany. The bent of his own mind was to metaphysics, to erudition,
and also to figures realistic and surprising rather than beautiful.
It would be rash to deny that he may have found in Du Bartas a style
which he preferred to the Italianate picturesqueness of sonneteers and
idyllists, and been encouraged to follow his bent. That he borrowed
his style from Du Bartas is _non proven_: and there are in his work
strains of feeling, thought, and learning which cannot be traced
to the French poet. Two poets more essentially unlike it would be
difficult to imagine. There are very few passages where one can trace
or conjecture echoes or borrowings (see note, II. p. 193). I agree
indeed with Mr. Upham that the poems which most strongly suggest
that Donne had been reading Du Bartas are the First and Second
_Anniversaries_, which Sir Sidney Lee inadvertently calls early
poems. Here at least he is often dealing with the same themes. One
can illustrate his thought from Du Bartas.
Perhaps it was the latter's
poem which suggested the use of marginal notes, giving the argument of
the poem.
[Sidenote: _Spanish. _]
We know from Donne's explicit statement that his library was full both
of Spanish poets and Spanish theologians, and there has been some talk
of Spanish influence in his poetry. But no one has adduced evidence.
Gongora is out of the question, for Gongora did not begin to cultivate
the extravagant conceits of his later poetry till he came under the
influence of Carillo's posthumous poems in 1611 (Fitzmaurice Kelly:
_Spanish Literature_, 283-5); nor is there much resemblance between
his high-flown Marinism and Donne's metaphysical subtleties. It is
possible that Spanish mysticism and religious eloquence have left
traces in Donne's _Divine Poems_ and sermons. The subject awaits
investigation.
[Sidenote: _Scholastic Philosophy. _]
A commentator on Donne is, therefore, not called on to trace literary
echoes in his poetry as Bishop Newton and others have done in Milton's
poems. It is reading of another kind, though a kind also traceable
in Milton, that he has to note. Donne was steeped in Scholastic
Philosophy and Theology. Often under his most playful conceits lurk
Scholastic definitions and distinctions. The question of the influence
of Plato on the poets of the Renaissance has been discussed of recent
years, but generally without a sufficient preliminary inquiry as
to the Scholastic inheritance of these poets. Doctrines that derive
ultimately, it may be, from Plato and Aristotle were familiar to Donne
and others in the first place from Aquinas and the theology of the
Schools, and, as Professor Picavet has insisted (_Esquisse d'une
histoire générale et comparée des philosophies médiévales. _ Paris,
1907), they entered the Scholastic Philosophy through Plotinus and
were modified in the passage. [1] The present editor is in no way a
specialist in Scholasticism, and such notes and extracts as are given
here concern passages where some inquiry was necessary to fix the text
and to elucidate the meaning. They are intended simply to do this
as far as possible, and to suggest the direction which further
investigation must follow. An expert will doubtless note many
allusions that have escaped notice. Whenever possible I have
endeavoured to start from Donne's own sermons and prose works.
[Footnote 1: The influence of Scholastic Philosophy and
Theology in English poetry deserves attention. When Milton
states that
They also serve who only stand and wait,
he has probably in mind the opinion of Dionysius the
Areopagite (adopted by Aquinas), that the four highest
orders of angels (Dominations, Thrones, Cherubs, and
Seraphim) never leave God's presence to bear messages. ]
[Sidenote: _The Fathers, &c. _]
Donne is as familiar with the Fathers as with the Schoolmen,
especially Tertullian and Augustine, and of them too he makes use
in poems neither serious nor edifying. His work with Morton had
familiarized him with the whole range of Catholic controversy from
Bellarmine to Spanish and German Jesuit pamphleteers and casuists.
_The Progresse of the Soule_ reveals his acquaintance with Jewish
apocryphal legends.
[Sidenote: _Law. _]
But Donne's studies were not confined to Divinity. When a Law-student
he was 'diverted by the worst voluptuousness, which is an hydroptic
immoderate desire of humane learning and languages'; but his legal
studies have left their mark in his _Songs and Sonets_. Of Medicine he
had made an extensive study, and the poems abound in allusions to both
the orthodox Galenist doctrines and the new Paracelsian medicine with
its chemical drugs and homoeopathic cures. [2] In Physics he knows,
like Milton, the older doctrines, the elements, their concentric
arrangement, the origin of winds and meteors, &c. , and at the same
time is acutely interested in the speculations of the newer science,
of Copernicus and Galileo, and the disintegrating effect of their
doctrines on the traditional views.
[Footnote 2: In the _Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, &c. _
(1651, 1654), pp. 14-15, Donne gives a short sketch of the history
of medical doctrines from Hippocrates through Galen to Paracelsus,
but declares that the new principles are attributed to the latter
'too much to his honour'. ]
[Sidenote: _Travels. _]
A special feature of Donne's imagery is the use of images drawn from
the voyages and discoveries of the age. Sir Walter Raleigh has not
included Donne among the poets whom he discusses in considering the
influence of the Voyages on Poetry and Imagination (_The English
Voyages of the Sixteenth Century. _ Glasgow, 1906, iii), but perhaps
none took a more curious interest. His mistress is 'my America,
my Newfoundland', his East and West Indies; he sees, at least in
imagination,
a Tenarif, or higher Hill
Rise so high like a Rocke, that one might thinke
The floating Moone would shipwracke there, and sinke;
he sails to heaven, the Pacific Ocean, the Fortunate Islands, by the
North-West Passage, or through the Straits of Magellan.
In attempting to illustrate these and other aspects of Donne's
erudition as displayed in his poetry it has been my endeavour not so
much to trace them to their remote sources as to discover the form
in which he was familiar with a doctrine or a theory. Next to his own
works, therefore, I have had recourse to contemporary or but slightly
later works, as Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and Browne's
_Pseudodoxia Epidemica_. I have made constant use of the _Summa
Theologiae_ of St. Thomas Aquinas, using the edition in Migne's
_Patrologiae Cursus Completus_ (1845). By Professor Picavet my
attention was called to Bouillet's translation of Plotinus's _Enneads_
with ample notes on the analogies to and developments of Neo-Platonic
thought in the Schoolmen. I have also used Zeller's _Philosophie der
Griechen_, on Plotinus, and Harnack's _History of Dogma_. Throughout,
my effort has been rather to justify, elucidate, and suggest, than to
accumulate parallels.
*** In the following notes the _LXXX Sermons &c. _ (1640), _Fifty
Sermons &c. _ (1649), and _XXVI Sermons &c. _ (1669/70) are referred to
thus:--80. 19. 189, i. e. the _LXXX Sermons_, the nineteenth sermon,
page 189. References to page and line simply of the poems are to the
first volume of this edition. References to the second are given thus,
II. p. 249.
THE PRINTER TO &c.
See _Text and Canon of Donne's Poems_, p. lix.
PAGE =1=, ll. 17-18. _it would have come to us from beyond the Seas_:
e. g. from Holland.
ll. 19-20. _My charge and pains in procuring of it_: A significant
statement as to the source of the edition.
PAGE =3=. _Hexastichon Bibliopolae. _
l. 1. _his last preach'd, and printed Booke_, i. e. _Deaths Duell or
a Consolation to the Soule against the dying Life and living Death
of the body. Delivered in a sermon at Whitehall, before the Kings
Majesty in the beginning of Lent 1630, &c. . . . Being his last Sermon
and called by his Majesties household the Doctors owne Funerall
Sermon. 1632, 1633. _
This has for frontispiece a bust of Donne in his shroud, engraved by
Martin Dr[oeshout] from the drawing from which Nicholas Stone cut the
figure on Donne's tomb (Gosse's _Life, &c. _ ii. 288). Walton's account
of the manner in which this picture was prepared is well known. See
II. p. 249.
PAGE =4=. _William, Lord Craven, &c. _ This is the younger Donne's
dedication. See _Text and Canon, &c. _, p. lxx.
William Craven (1606-1697) entered the service of Maurice, Prince of
Nassau in 1623. He served later, 1631, under Gustavus Adolphus; and
became a devoted adherent of Elizabeth of Bohemia and the cause of the
Palatine house. He lost his estates in the Rebellion, but after the
Restoration was created successively Baron Craven of Hampsted-Marsham,
Viscount Craven of Uffington, and Earl of Craven. He was an early
member of the Royal Society.
Of the younger John Donne, D. C. L. , whose life was dissolute and
poetry indecent, perhaps the most pleasing relic is the following poem
addressed to his father. It is found in _O'F_ and has been printed by
Mr. Warwick Bond:
A LETTER.
No want of duty did my mind possesse,
I through a dearth of words could not expresse
That w^{ch} I feare I doe too soone pursue
W^{ch} is to pay my duty due to you.
For, through the weaknesse of my witt, this way
I shall diminish what I hope to pay.
And this consider, T'was the sonne of May
And not Apollo that did rule the day.
Had it bin hee then somthing would have rose;
In gratefull verse or else in thankfull prose
I would have told you (father) by my hand
That I yo^r sonne am prouder of yo^r band
Then others of theyr freedome, And to pay
Thinke it good service to kneele downe and pray.
Yo^r obedient sonne
JO. DONNE.
PAGES =5, 6=. The three poems by Jonson were printed in the sheets
hastily added by the younger Donne in 1650 to the edition of Donne's
poems prepared for the press in 1649. See _Text and Canon, &c. _
They were taken from Jonson's _Epigrams_ (1616), where they are Nos.
xxiii. , xciv. , and xcvi. Of Donne as a poet Jonson uttered three
memorable criticisms in his _Conversations with Drummond_ (ed. Laing,
Shakespeare Society, 1842):
'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in the world for some things. '
'That Done for not keeping of accent deserved hanging. '
'That Done himself, for not being understood, would perish. '
SONGS AND SONETS.
Of all Donne's poems these are the most difficult to date with any
definiteness. Jonson, Drummond notes, 'affirmeth Done to have written
all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five years old,' that would be
before 1598, the year in which Donne became secretary to Sir Thomas
Egerton. This harmonizes fairly well with such indications of date as
are discoverable in the _Elegies_, poems similar in theme and tone
to the _Songs and Sonets_. Mr. Chambers pushes the more daring and
cynical of these poems in both these groups further back. He says,
'All Donne's Love-poems . . . seem to me to fall into two divisions.
There is one, marked by cynicism, ethical laxity and a somewhat
deliberate profession of inconstancy. This I believe to be his
earliest style, and ascribe the poems marked by it to the period
before 1596. About that date he became acquainted with Anne More, whom
he evidently loved devotedly and sincerely ever after. And therefore
from 1596 onwards I place the second division, with its emphasis of
the spiritual, and deep insight into the real things of love. ' This is
a little too early. Anne More was only twelve years old in 1596, and
it is unlikely that she and Donne were known to each other before
1598. Their affection probably ripened later. It almost seems from
Donne's letters to his friends as though about 1599 he was proffering
at least courtly adoration to some other lady.
Moreover, it is to conceive somewhat inadequately of Donne's complex
nature to make too sharp a temporal division between his gayer, more
cynical effusions and his graver, even religious pieces. The truth
about Donne is well stated by Professor Norton: 'Donne's "better
angel" and his "worser spirit" seem to have kept up a continual
contest, now the one, now the other, gaining the mastery in his
Poor soul, the centre of his sinful earth. '
The 'evaporations' which he allowed his wit from time to time till he
took orders showed always a certain 'ethical laxity' and 'cynicism' of
outlook on men and women. The _Elegie XIV_ (if it be Donne's, and
Mr. Chambers does not question its authenticity), the lines _Upon Mr.
Thomas Coryats Crudities_, the two frankly pagan _Epithalamia_ on the
Princess Elizabeth and the Countess of Somerset, to say nothing of
_Ignatius his Conclave_, were all written long after his marriage and
when he was already the author of moral epistles and 'divine poems'.
Even Professor Norton's statement exaggerates the 'contest' a little.
These things were evaporations of wit, and even a serious man in
the seventeenth century allowed to his wit satyric gambols which
disconcert our staider and more fastidious taste. I am quite at one
with Mr. Chambers in accepting his marriage as a turning-point in the
history of Donne's life and mind. But it would be rash to affirm that
_none_ of his wittier lyrics were written after this date.
Donne's 'songs and sonets' seem to me to fall into three rather than
two classes, though there is a good deal of overlapping. Donne's wit
is always touched with passion; his passion is always witty. In the
first class I would place those which are frankly 'evaporations'
of more or less cynical wit, the poems in which he parades his own
inconstancy or enlarges on the weaknesses of women, poems such as 'Goe
and catche', _Womans constancy_, _The Indifferent_, _Loves Vsury_,
_The Legacie_, _Communitie_, _Confined Love_, _Loves Alchymie_, _The
Flea_, _The Message_, _Witchcraft by a picture_, _The Apparition_,
_Loves Deitie_, _Loves diet_, _The Will_, _A Jeat Ring sent_,
_Negative love_, _Farewell to love_. In another group the wit in
Donne, whether gaily or passionately cynical, is subordinate to the
lover, pure and simple, singing, at times with amazing simplicity and
intensity of feeling, the joys of love and the sorrow of parting. Such
are _The good-morrow_, _The Sunne Rising_, _The Canonization_, _Lovers
infiniteness_, 'Sweetest love, I do not goe,' _A Feaver_, _Aire and
Angells_ (touched with cynical humour at the close), _Breake of day_,
_The Anniversarie_, _A Valediction: of the booke_, _Loves growth_,
_The Dreame_, _A Valediction: of weeping_, _The Baite_, _A
Valediction: forbidding mourning_, _The Extasie_, _The Prohibition_,
_The Expiration_, _Lecture upon the Shadow_. It would, of course, be
rash to say that all such poems were addressed to his wife. Some, like
_The Baite_, are purely literary in origin; others present the obverse
side of the passion portrayed in the first group, its happier moments.
But one must believe that those in which ardour is combined with
elevation and delicacy of feeling were addressed to Anne More before
and after their marriage.
In the third and smallest group, which includes, however, such fine
examples of his subtler moods as _The Funerall_, _The Blossome_, _The
Primrose_, Donne adopts the tone (as sincerely as was generally the
case) of the Petrarchian lover whose mistress's coldness has slain him
or provokes his passionate protestations. Some of these must, I think,
have been written after Donne's marriage. The titles one or two bear
connect them with Mrs. Herbert and the Countess of Bedford. The two
most enigmatical poems in the _Songs and Sonets_ are _Twicknam Garden_
and _A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day_. Yet the very names 'Twicknam
Garden' and 'S. Lucies day' suggest a reference to the Countess of
Bedford. It is possible that the last was written when Lady Bedford
was ill in December, 1612? 'My Lady Bedford last night about one of
the clock was suddenly, and has continued ever since, speechless,
and is past all hopes though yet alive,' writes the Earl of Dorset on
November 23, 1612. It is probable that on December 13 she was still in
a critical condition, supposing the illness to have been that common
complaint of an age of bad drains, namely typhoid fever, and Donne
may have written in anticipation of her death. But the suggestion is
hazardous. The third verse speaks a stronger language than that of
Petrarchian adoration. Still it is difficult for us to estimate aright
all that was allowed to a 'servant' under the accepted convention.
It is noteworthy that the poem is not included in any known MS.
collection made before 1630. The Countess died in 1627.
PAGE =7=. THE GOOD-MORROW.
The MSS. point to two distinct recensions of this poem. The one which
is given in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and in _1633_, reads,
3. countrey pleasures childishly 4. snorted 14. one world 17. better.
The other, which is the most common in the MSS. , reads, 3. childish
pleasures seelily 4. slumbred 14. our world 17. fitter. The edition of
1635 shows a contamination of the two due to the fact that the printer
'set up' from _1633_, and he or the editor corrected from a MS.
collection, probably _A18_, _N_, _TC_. In _TCD_ the second recension
is given in the collection of Donne's poems in the first part of the
MS. ; in the second part, a miscellaneous collection of poems, the poem
is given again, but according to the other version. It does not seem
to me possible to decide absolutely the relative authority of the two
versions, but to my mind that of 1633 and _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ seems the
more racy and characteristic. It probably represents the first
version of the poem, whether Donne or another be responsible for the
alterations. The only point of importance to be decided is whether
'better' or 'fitter' expresses more exactly what the poet meant to
say. The 1635 editor preferred 'fitter', thinking probably that
the idea of exact correspondence is emphasized, 'where find two
hemispheres that fit one another more exactly? ' But this is not,
I think, what Donne meant.
