On Lucy, Countess of Bedford“This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,I thought to form unto my jealous Muse,What kind of creature I could most desire,To honour, serve and love; as poets use.I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;I meant the day star should not brighter rise,Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;I meant each softest virtue there should meet,Fit in that softer bosom to reside.Only a learned, and a manly soulI purposed her; that should, with even powers,The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controlOf Destiny, and spin her own free hours.Such when I meant to feign, and wish’d to see,My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she!”
On Lucy, Countess of Bedford
“This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,I thought to form unto my jealous Muse,What kind of creature I could most desire,To honour, serve and love; as poets use.I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;I meant the day star should not brighter rise,Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;I meant each softest virtue there should meet,Fit in that softer bosom to reside.Only a learned, and a manly soulI purposed her; that should, with even powers,The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controlOf Destiny, and spin her own free hours.Such when I meant to feign, and wish’d to see,My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she!”
In spite of Donne’s opinion that “in letters, by which we deliver over our affection, and assurances of friendship ... times and daies cannot have interest,” we may note that this letter must have been written earlier than February 1614, in which month died Lady Bedford’s brother, the second Lord Harrington, to whom allusion is here made.
X
Susan, grand-daughter of William, Lord Burleigh, was the first wife of Philip, Earl of Montgomery. As Donne, on the eve of his German tour, leaves a copy of hisBiathanatosin the safe-keeping of Sir Edward Herbert, and the manuscript of his poems in the hands of Sir Robert Ker, so he commits to the appropriate custody of the Countess of Montgomery (“A new Susannah, equal to that old,” Ben Jonson called her) the manuscript of a sermon, which, when she heard him preach it, she had commended.
The corrections bracketted in the text are from a MS. copy of the original, printed by Mr. Gosse, and reproduced here by his permission.
XI
To Sir Henry Goodyer, as is sufficiently indicated by the allusion to the weekly letter which Donne was in the habit of writing to this most intimate of his friends, and written from Mitcham, therefore not later than 1610. Sir Henry Goodyer, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to James I, was the son of William Goodyer of Monks Kirby. He married his cousin Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Goodyer the elder, and on his father-in-law’s death in 1595 succeeded to the family estates at Polesworth. Sir Henry seems to have been an open-minded, open-handed, easy-going man, with the defects of his qualities. His fortune slipped through his fingers and he died (1628) in poverty. I have no doubt that it was to Goodyer that Donne made the present of which Walton writes:
“He gave an hundred pounds at one time to an old friend, whom he had known live plentifully, & by a too liberal heart then decayed in his estate: and when the receiving of it was denied by saying, he wanted not; for as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to conceal and endure a sad poverty, rather than those blushes that attend the confession of it, so there be others to whom Nature and Grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls, as to pity and prevent the distresses of mankind; which I havementioned because of Dr. Donne’s reply, whose answer was, I know you want not what will sustain nature, for a little will do that; but my desire is that you who in the dayes of your plenty have cheered the hearts of so many of your friends, would receive this from me, and use it as a cordiall for the cheering of your own: and so it was received.”
“He gave an hundred pounds at one time to an old friend, whom he had known live plentifully, & by a too liberal heart then decayed in his estate: and when the receiving of it was denied by saying, he wanted not; for as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to conceal and endure a sad poverty, rather than those blushes that attend the confession of it, so there be others to whom Nature and Grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls, as to pity and prevent the distresses of mankind; which I havementioned because of Dr. Donne’s reply, whose answer was, I know you want not what will sustain nature, for a little will do that; but my desire is that you who in the dayes of your plenty have cheered the hearts of so many of your friends, would receive this from me, and use it as a cordiall for the cheering of your own: and so it was received.”
Goodyer’s epitaph is quoted by Camden in theRemaines concerning Britain:
“To the honour of Sir Henry Goodyer of Powlesworth, a Knight memorable for his vertues, an affectionate Friend of his framed this Tetrastich:‘An ill year of a Goodyer us bereft,Who gone to God, much lack of him here left:Full of good gifts, of body and of mind,Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kind.’”
“To the honour of Sir Henry Goodyer of Powlesworth, a Knight memorable for his vertues, an affectionate Friend of his framed this Tetrastich:
‘An ill year of a Goodyer us bereft,Who gone to God, much lack of him here left:Full of good gifts, of body and of mind,Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kind.’”
XII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. This letter belongs to 1607 or 1608, and was written from Mitcham. Sick in mind and in body, poor in purse and in hopes, Donne’s thoughts dwelt on suicide, and the fruit of his meditations was the book “of not much less than three hundred pages,”Biathanatos, of which we have already heard. The “meditation in verse which I call a litany” is printed in the Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 174).
The report that Broughton had gone over to Rome was without foundation in fact, though the rumour was of periodical occurrence.
XIII
George Garet, or Gerrard, the son of Sir William Gerrard of Dorney, Bucks, was one of Donne’s closest friends, and to him are addressed many of Donne’s more personal letters.
For what importunities in his behalf Donne here makesgrateful acknowledgment we have no means of determining. The letter probably dates from 1614, when Donne was anxiously seeking profitable employment at Court.
XIV
“That good Gentlewoman,” Bridget, wife of Sir Anthony Markham, was the daughter of Lady Bedford’s brother, the second Lord Harrington of Exton, and one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. She died at Lady Bedford’s house at Twickenham, May 4th, 1609, about which time this letter was written. Donne’s Elegy is printed in his Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 86).
Sir Thomas Roe was the grandson of the Lord Mayor of the same name. He was knighted in 1604 by King James, who, ten years later, appointed him ambassador to the Great Mogul. He died in 1644. To him is addressed Ben Jonson’s Epigram, XCVIII.
XV
To George Gerrard’s sister, and belonging to the same period as XIII.
XVI
Probably written from Amiens, to which place Donne accompanied Sir Robert Drury in 1611, on that journey during which he had the vision described by Walton:
“Two days after their arrival there [in Paris], Mr.Donnewas left alone in that room in which SirRobert, and he, and some other friends had din’d together. To this place SirRobertreturn’d within half an hour, and, as he left, so he found Mr.Donnealone; but in such an Extasie, and, so alter’d as to his looks, as amaz’d SirRobertto behold him: insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr.Donneto declare what had befaln him in the short time of his absence? to which, Mr.Donnewas not able to make a present answer:but, after a long and perplext pause, did at last say,I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you; I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: This I have seen since I saw you.To which SirRobertreply’d; ‘Sure Sir, you have slept since I saw you; and, this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for, you are now awake.’ To which Mr.Donne’sreply was, ‘I cannot be surer that I now live, then, that I have not slept since I saw you: and I am as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopt, and look’d me in the face, and vanisht.’ Rest and sleep, had not alter’d Mr.Donne’sopinion the next day: for he then affirm’d this vision with a more deliberate, and so confirm’d a confidence, that he inclin’d SirRobertto a faint belief that the Vision was true.—It is truly said,that desire, and doubt, have no rest: and it prov’d so with SirRobert, for he immediately sent a servant toDrewryhouse, with a charge to hasten back, and bring him word, whether Mrs.Donnewere alive? and if alive, in what condition she was, as to her health?—The twelfth day the Messenger returned with this account—That he found and left Mrs.Donnevery sad, and sick in her bed: and, that after a long and dangerous labour, she had been deliver’d of a dead child. And upon examination, the abortion prov’d to be the same day, and about the very hour that Mr.Donneaffirm’d he saw her pass by him in his Chamber.”
XVII
This letter seems to belong to the same period as the last, and to have been intended by Donne as a sort of circular letter “to all my friends” at home.
XVIII
Written in 1608, as the reference to the sudden death of Captain Edmund Whitelocke indicates. Walton, who quotes a part of this letter, gives the date as September 7th.
Mr. Jones may have been the friend to whose custodyTobie Matthew was committed between his sentence of banishment and his departure from England. (See Note on XLV, below.) Mr. Holland was Henry Holland, the son of Philemon Holland, the translator of Suetonius and much else. The Lord of Sussex was Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex.
XIX
The postscript to this letter, written, like that which follows it, from Mitcham in the closing years of Donne’s residence there, is serious enough, but the letter itself must be understood as extravagant banter, not without a touch of bitterness. “When sadness dejects me,” says Donne in a letter (XXV) written about this time, “either I countermine it with another sadnesse, or I kindle squibs about me again, and flie into sportfulnesse.” The present letter is the fruit of such a mood.
TheAurum Reginaeis the Queen Consort’s share (one-tenth) of all fines exacted by the King, which under the old law was due to her. Mr. Hakewill was Queen Anne’s Solicitor-General.
XXI
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written after Sir Henry had entered the service of the Earl of Bedford and before Donne’s removal from Mitcham to Drury House, therefore in 1609 or 1610. The reference to “the new astronomy” is interesting. In 1609 Keppler announced his discovery of some of the laws governing planetary motion, although it was not until the following year that the Copernican System was, by the discoveries of Galileo, firmly established. Donne’s mind seems to have been open to the new knowledge, when Bacon’s was firmly closed against it.
XXII
The reference to “my day” for payment of “this duty of letters,” enables us to identify Donne’s correspondent as Sir Henry Goodyer, to whom Donne was in the habit of writing every Tuesday. (Cf. the first sentence of XVIII.) When the present letter was written Donne was employed in assisting Thomas Morton, Dean of Gloucester, and the leader of the Anglican theologians in the all but interminable controversy with the Jesuits which involved so many of the ablest churchmen of the period. The “Apology” was probably Robert Parson’s “confused and worthless work,” theTreatise tending towards Mitigation, in reply to which Sutcliffe published hisSubversionin 1606, and Morton, two years later, hisPreamble unto an Encounter, which, happily belying its name, went far toward closing the debate.
XXIII
The loss of her ladyship’s verses on Donne, which are the subject of this letter, is the more to be regretted as none of her composition survives, though verses in her honour are found in the works of Donne, Ben Jonson, Daniel, Drayton, and other poets. This letter belongs to the same period as XXI.
XXIV
The postscript enables us to date the letter near the end of Donne’s residence at Mitcham, when he was engaged in the politico-theological studies which resulted in the composition of thePseudo-Martyrin 1609.
XXV
Sir Henry Goodyer had lost both father and father-in-law long before his friend had occasion “to reduce to his thoughtsthe duties of a husband and a father, and all the incumbencies of a family.” The reference in this letter to “your father’s health and love” therefore seems to preclude the possibility that it was addressed to Goodyer. The absence of a date makes conjecture as to the identity of Donne’s correspondent the more difficult. Fortunately the interest of the letter is independent of knowledge of the correspondent to whom it was addressed, consisting as it does in the light which it throws on the mental temperament of the writer.
XXVI
The marriage of the Princess Elizabeth and the Count Palatine took place in February, 1613. This letter with its anticipations of the great event may safely be assigned to the journey on which Donne accompanied Sir Robert Drury in 1611-12. “My book of MrisDrury” is Donne’s strange poem in commemoration of the first anniversary of the death in 1610 of Sir Robert Drury’s little daughter Elizabeth.An Anatomie of the World, wherein by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and decay of this whole world is represented, was published in 1611. The extravagance of the homage here paid to a child whom Donne had never seen, and on whose father’s bounty he and his family were living, was regarded by some of his friends as savoring rather too patently of insincerity.
In commemoration of the second anniversary of Elizabeth Drury’s death, Donne published in 1612 a poemOf the Progresse of the Soule.Wherein, by occasion of the religious death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the incommodities of the soule in this life, and her exaltation in the next, are contemplated.
In 1618 Ben Jonson told Drummond “that Done’s Anniversarie was profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Done, if it had been written of the Virgin Marie, it hadbeen something; to which he answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was.” (Conversations with Drummond, III.)
XXVII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. The mention of “place and season” and the references to suffering of mind, body, and estate, enable us to date this letter from Mitcham in the spring of 1608, when Donne was in his thirty-fifth year.
XXVIII
William Fowler, to whom we have already had a jesting reference (XIX) was Secretary to Queen Anne. It is not clear whether the place to which Donne aspired was the secretaryship, which, as he was informed, Fowler was about to resign, or some other position in the Secretary’s gift which Donne was anxious to secure before Fowler went out of office. In either case, his hope was not realized.
XXIX
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in the summer of 1623 when the Prince and Buckingham were in Spain.
The current news from Bohemia must have been of especial interest to Donne in the light of his experience as the companion of Viscount Doncaster’s journey to that unhappy country six years before. (See note to VII.)
XXX
To Sir Henry Goodyer. If the allusion to the “French Prince” refers to the visit of the Prince de Joinville who was “despatched back again” in June, 1607, this letter may be assigned to the summer of that year. “These two problems” are probably part of theIuvenilia, or Certaine Paradoxes and Problems, written by I. Donneand publishedposthumously in 1633. The “ragge of verses” survives as the “Verse Letter to Sir Henry Goodyer,” printed in Donne’s Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 10). In thePoemsof 1633 there is a copy of this letter following a text so much better than that of theLettersof 1651, that it has seemed worth while to reprint it in its entirety.
“Sir,—This Teusday morning, which hath brought me to London, presents mee with all your letters. Mee thought it was a rent day, I mean such as yours, and not as mine. And yet such too, when I considered how much I ought you for them. How good a mother, how fertile and abundant the understanding is, if shee have a good father. And how well friendship performes that office. For that which is denyed in other generations is done in this of yours. For hers is superfaetation, child upon child, and, that which is more strange, twinnes at a later conception. If in my second religion, friendship, I had a conscience, eitherErrantemto mistake good and bad, and indifferent, orOpinantemto be ravished by others opinions or examples, orDubiamto adhere to neither part, orScrupulosamto encline to one, but upon reasons light in themselves or indiscussed in mee (which are almost all the diseases of conscience) I might mistake your often, long, and busie letters, and fear you did but interest me to have mercy upon you and spare you. For you know our court tooke the resolution, that it was the best way to dispatch the French Prince backe againe quickly, to receive him solemnely, ceremoniously; and expensively, when he hoped a domestique and durable entertainment. I never meant to excell you in waight nor price, but in number and bulke I thought I might: Because he may cast up a greater summe who hath but forty small moneyes, than hee with twenty Portuguesses. The memory of friends (I meane only for letters) neither enters ordinarily into busied men, because they are ever employed within, nor into men of pleasure, because they are never at home. For these wishes therefore which you wonne out of your pleasure and recreation, you were as excusable to mee if you writ seldom as SirH. Wotten [who] is under the oppression of businesse or the necessity of seeming so: Or more than hee, because I hope you have both pleasure and businesse. Only to me, who have neither, this omission were sinne. For though writing be not of the precepts of friendship, but of the counsells: yet, as in some cases to some men counsells become precepts, though not immediately from God, yet very roundly and quickly from this Church, (as selling and dividing goods in the first time, continence in the Roman Church, and order and decency in ours) so to mee who can doe nothing else, it seemes to binde my conscience to write. And it is sinne to doe against the conscience, though that erre; Yet no mans letters may be better wanted than mine, since my whole letter is nothing else but a confession that I should and would write. I ought you a letter in verse before by mine owne promise, & now that you thinke you have hedged in that debt by a greater by your letter in verse I thinke it now most seasonable and fashional for mee to breake. At least, to write presently were to accuse my selfe of not having read yours so often as such a letter deserves from you to mee. To make my debt greater (for such is the desire of all, who cannot or meane not to pay) I pray reade these two problems: for such light flashes as these have beene my hawkings in my Surry journies. I accompany them with another ragge of verses, worthy of that name for the smalnesse, and age, for it hath long lyen among my other papers, and laughs at them that have adventured to you: for I thinke till now you saw it not, and neither you, nor it should repent it. Sir, if I were any thing, my love to you might multiply it, and dignifie it: But infinite nothings are but one such: Yet since even Chymeraes have some name, and titles, I am also,“Yours,”
“Sir,—This Teusday morning, which hath brought me to London, presents mee with all your letters. Mee thought it was a rent day, I mean such as yours, and not as mine. And yet such too, when I considered how much I ought you for them. How good a mother, how fertile and abundant the understanding is, if shee have a good father. And how well friendship performes that office. For that which is denyed in other generations is done in this of yours. For hers is superfaetation, child upon child, and, that which is more strange, twinnes at a later conception. If in my second religion, friendship, I had a conscience, eitherErrantemto mistake good and bad, and indifferent, orOpinantemto be ravished by others opinions or examples, orDubiamto adhere to neither part, orScrupulosamto encline to one, but upon reasons light in themselves or indiscussed in mee (which are almost all the diseases of conscience) I might mistake your often, long, and busie letters, and fear you did but interest me to have mercy upon you and spare you. For you know our court tooke the resolution, that it was the best way to dispatch the French Prince backe againe quickly, to receive him solemnely, ceremoniously; and expensively, when he hoped a domestique and durable entertainment. I never meant to excell you in waight nor price, but in number and bulke I thought I might: Because he may cast up a greater summe who hath but forty small moneyes, than hee with twenty Portuguesses. The memory of friends (I meane only for letters) neither enters ordinarily into busied men, because they are ever employed within, nor into men of pleasure, because they are never at home. For these wishes therefore which you wonne out of your pleasure and recreation, you were as excusable to mee if you writ seldom as SirH. Wotten [who] is under the oppression of businesse or the necessity of seeming so: Or more than hee, because I hope you have both pleasure and businesse. Only to me, who have neither, this omission were sinne. For though writing be not of the precepts of friendship, but of the counsells: yet, as in some cases to some men counsells become precepts, though not immediately from God, yet very roundly and quickly from this Church, (as selling and dividing goods in the first time, continence in the Roman Church, and order and decency in ours) so to mee who can doe nothing else, it seemes to binde my conscience to write. And it is sinne to doe against the conscience, though that erre; Yet no mans letters may be better wanted than mine, since my whole letter is nothing else but a confession that I should and would write. I ought you a letter in verse before by mine owne promise, & now that you thinke you have hedged in that debt by a greater by your letter in verse I thinke it now most seasonable and fashional for mee to breake. At least, to write presently were to accuse my selfe of not having read yours so often as such a letter deserves from you to mee. To make my debt greater (for such is the desire of all, who cannot or meane not to pay) I pray reade these two problems: for such light flashes as these have beene my hawkings in my Surry journies. I accompany them with another ragge of verses, worthy of that name for the smalnesse, and age, for it hath long lyen among my other papers, and laughs at them that have adventured to you: for I thinke till now you saw it not, and neither you, nor it should repent it. Sir, if I were any thing, my love to you might multiply it, and dignifie it: But infinite nothings are but one such: Yet since even Chymeraes have some name, and titles, I am also,
“Yours,”
XXXI
That many of the letters headed “To Yourself” were addressed to George Gerrard there is ample evidence; that any of the letters so headed were addressed to anothercorrespondent there is, so far as I know, no reason for believing.
Donne writes from Spa, to which place he accompanied Sir Robert and Lady Drury in May, 1612.
By 1582, the recurring annual error of approximately eleven minutes in the Julian calendar amounted to ten days. Pope Gregory XIII accordingly ordained that ten days should be deducted from the year 1582 by reckoning what according to the old calendar would have been the 5th, as the 15th of October. Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy carried out the Pope’s instructions exactly; in France the change was deferred until December, when the 10th was reckoned as the 20th; in the Low Countries the change was from December 15th to December 25th. England did not adopt the change until 1752, when the 3d of September, old style, was reckoned as September 14th. “26 Julyhere(i.e., at Spa) 1612” would, therefore, in England be July 16th, 1612.
Lord Treasurer Salisbury died May 24th, 1612. That contemporary estimate of his abilities which is, perhaps, most in accord with modern judgments is that of Francis Bacon:
“Soon after the death of a great Officer, who was judged no advancer of the King’s Matters, the King said to his Sollicitor Bacon, who was his Kinsman: Now tell me truly, what say you of your Cousin that is gone? Mr. Bacon answered, Sir, since your Majesty doth charge me, I’ll e’ne deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of him, as if I were to write his Story. I do think he was no fit Counsellor to make your Affairs better; but yet he was fit to have kept them from growing worse. The King said, On my So’l, Man, in the first thou speakest like a True Man, and in the latter like a Kinsman.” (Baconiana, 1679, p. 55.)
“Soon after the death of a great Officer, who was judged no advancer of the King’s Matters, the King said to his Sollicitor Bacon, who was his Kinsman: Now tell me truly, what say you of your Cousin that is gone? Mr. Bacon answered, Sir, since your Majesty doth charge me, I’ll e’ne deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of him, as if I were to write his Story. I do think he was no fit Counsellor to make your Affairs better; but yet he was fit to have kept them from growing worse. The King said, On my So’l, Man, in the first thou speakest like a True Man, and in the latter like a Kinsman.” (Baconiana, 1679, p. 55.)
XXXII
This letter may conceivably have been addressed to George Hastings, Fourth Earl of Huntingdon. I think, however, that “To my Lord G. H.” is the younger Donne’s mistake for “To Sir H. G.” The reference to Lady Bedford, to whose husband’s establishment Sir Henry Goodyer was at this time attached, and the tone of the letter in general seem to me to support this supposition. As Donne left London with Sir Robert Drury late in November, 1611, this letter may be attributed with some confidence to the latter part of that year.
XXXIII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. Mr. Gosse places this letter in point of date of composition between VI (October 9th, 1607) and XLV (March 14th, 1608). Certainly the three letters have points of resemblance striking enough to serve as a basis for the inference that they belong to the same period of Donne’s life. I know of no external evidence as to date, however, and the internal evidence is of the slightest. If, as I venture to infer from some of the expressions used, the letter was written after Donne had taken orders, it cannot be of earlier date than 1615.
XXXIV
Written from Peckham, the home of Sir Thomas Grymes, the husband of Donne’s sister Jane. As the time of Donne’s ordination (January, 1615) approached, he applied to several friends, Lady Bedford (“the Countess”) and the Countess of Huntingdon (“the other Countess”) among them, to help him pay his debts before making his “valediction to the world.” Lady Bedford sent him £30; the Countess of Huntingdon responded even more liberally. Six verseletters to Lady Bedford and two to Lady Huntingdon are printed in Donne’s Poems (ed. Chambers).
XXXV
Sir George More, Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower (to whom the news of his daughter’s secret marriage to Donne (1601) was “so immeasurably unwelcome, and so transported him, that, as though his passion of anger and inconsideration might exceed theirs of love and errour,” he had procured his son-in law’s dismissal from the post of Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton), had, by the date of this letter, become “so far reconciled, as to wish their happinesse, and not to deny them his paternal blessing,” though he still “refused to contribute any means that might conduce to their livelihood.”
The Donnes had accepted the invitation of Mrs. Donne’s cousin, Sir Francis Wooley, to be his guests, on his inheritance in 1602 of the estate of Pyrford, in Surrey, “where they remained with much freedom to themselves, and equal comfort to him for many years,” says Walton. In reality their residence at Pyrford extended from some time in 1602 to the winter of 1604-5. To this period the letter belongs. The “entreaty that you let goe no copy of my Problems” may refer to some unrevised MS. of theIuvenalia. (See note to XXX.)
XXXVI
To Sir Henry Goodyer. “My custom of writing” is one of the many allusions to Donne’s weekly letter to Goodyer. I find nothing in the present letter on which to base any very accurate dating.
XXXVII
To George Gerrard. The nearest indication of the date of this letter is found in the mention of Sir Germander Pool.John Chamberlain in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated March 10th, 1612/13 writes:
“I know not whether I told you in my former, of an odd fray that happened much about that time [February 23d, 1612/13] near the Temple, ’twixt one Hutchison of Grays-Inn, and Sir German Pool; who, assaulting the other upon Advantage, and cutting off two of his Fingers, besides a Wound or two more before he could draw, the Gentleman finding himself disabled to revenge himself by the Sword, flew in upon him, and, getting him down, tore away all his Eyebrow with his Teeth, and then seizing on his Nose, tore away all of it, and carried it away in his Pockett.”
“I know not whether I told you in my former, of an odd fray that happened much about that time [February 23d, 1612/13] near the Temple, ’twixt one Hutchison of Grays-Inn, and Sir German Pool; who, assaulting the other upon Advantage, and cutting off two of his Fingers, besides a Wound or two more before he could draw, the Gentleman finding himself disabled to revenge himself by the Sword, flew in upon him, and, getting him down, tore away all his Eyebrow with his Teeth, and then seizing on his Nose, tore away all of it, and carried it away in his Pockett.”
Mr. Gosse suggests that it is not unlikely that Sir Germander’s singular disfigurement led to the resignation of which Donne speaks.
With the exception of this letter and the passage just quoted from theWinwood MemorialsI have been unable to find in print any reference to Sir Germander. Through the unwearying kindness of Mr. Gosse, however, and the researches of Lord Raglan, undertaken at his instance, I am able to give some particulars of the history of this unlucky knight. He was baptized—as German or Germaine (Germander is a corruption)—in 1573. He fought in Ireland under Montjoy in 1599; he was knighted at Dublin Castle by the Lord Deputy of Ireland on the 20th of April, 1603; and in 1625 he had so far triumphed over his misfortunes as to win the hand of Millicent, daughter of Francis Mundy, Esq., of Markeaton, who bore him a son.
XXXVIII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. More than once Donne insists on the sincerity of his letters. So he writes to Mrs. Herbert:
“If this sounds like a flattery, believe it not. I am to my letters rigid as a Puritan, as Cæsar was to his wife. I can as ill endure a suspicion and misinterpretable word as a fault.”
XXXIX
The reference to the cessation of hostilities in the Low Countries following the Truce of Bergen (April 19th, 1609) enables us to complete the date of this letter. “The best Lady,” here as elsewhere, is the Countess of Bedford. Perhaps the letter to Lady Bedford, enclosed in this letter, and presumably in verse, was written in acknowledgment of her verses on Donne, which are the subject of a letter to her already given (XXIII).
XL
To Sir John Harington, now best remembered as the translator of Ariosto, and one of the brilliant group of poets and wits which met at the Countess of Bedford’s house at Twickenham and which included Ben Jonson, Drayton, Daniel, Donne, and many lesser lights. Harington died in 1612. Donne’s daughter Lucy was born at Mitcham in 1608 and died nineteen years later at the Deanery of Saint Paul’s.
XLI
Sir Henry Wotton was in England when this letter was written early in 1612, and Donne was probably at Amiens, shortly to proceed to Paris with Sir Robert Drury. The phrase “when I was last here” is the only known evidence of an earlier visit to France.
In theLife of Wotton, Walton writes:
“I must not omit the mention of a love that was there [at Oxford] begun betwixt him and Dr. Donne, sometime Dean of St. Paul’s; a man of whose abilities I shall forbear to sayanything, because he who is of this nation, and pretends to learning or ingenuity, and is ignorant of Dr. Donne, deserves not to know him. The friendship of these two I must not omit to mention, being such a friendship as was generously elemented; and as it was begun in their youth, and in an University, and there maintained by correspondent inclinations and studies, so it lasted till age and death forced a separation.”
XLII
This letter, to Sir Henry Goodyer, was written but a few weeks later than the preceding letter to Sir Henry Wotton. Their arrangement in sequence is one of John Donne, Junior’s rare triumphs as an editor of correspondence. The two letters admirably illustrate the manysidedness of Donne’s contact with the life of his time, social, political, and ecclesiastical. For the date, see note to XXXI, above.
XLIII
There is no conclusive evidence, internal or external, as to which of Donne’s correspondents is here addressed; certainly not Sir Henry Wotton, who was not a father, and who had recently returned from an important embassy in Germany, and who, a year later, became Provost of Eton College, to Bacon’s great disappointment. The intimate tone of the letter suggests that it was addressed to Sir Henry Goodyer, who had already begun to be “encombred and distressed in his fortunes.”
XLIV
A. V[uestra]Merced, “to your worship,” is the common Spanish form of address. The allusion to the plague enables us to assign the letter to 1608, and this date in connection with the references to “My Lady” [Bedford] and to “Twicknam” suggest that Donne’s correspondent was Sir HenryGoodyer, in the service of the Earl of Bedford. “Mistress Herbert” is Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, the mother of the saintly George Herbert and his unsaintly brother Edward. Of Mrs. Herbert, after she had become Lady Danvers, Donne speaks in what is perhaps the best remembered of his poems, the lines beginning:
“No spring, nor summer beauty hath such graceAs I have seen in one autumnal face,”
and the best remembered of his sermons, exceptDeath’s Duel, is that in commemoration of her death.
“MrisMeauly” according to Dr. Jessopp (quoted by Mr. Gosse) is Mistress Meautys, one of the members of Lady Bedford’s household, and, if so, possibly a connection of Bacon’s faithful follower.
XLV
“M. Mathews” is Toby Matthew, the eldest son of Dr. Tobias Matthew, Archbishop of York. Three years before, while travelling in Italy, he had become converted to Romanism. On his return to England in the summer of 1607, his case was laid before the King, who suggested that he be required to take the oath, abjuring allegiance to Rome. This he refused to do, and was committed to the Fleet prison by Dr. Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and there visited by Bishop Andrews, Morton, then Dean of Gloucester, Sir Henry Goodyer, Donne, and others. In a letter dated 11th February 1607[8] the voluminous Chamberlain wrote to Carleton:
“Your friend, Tobie Matthew, was called before the Council-table on Sunday in the afternoon, and, after some schooling, the Earl of Salisbury told him that he was not privy to his imprisonment, which he did in no ways approve,as perceiving that so light a punishment would make him rather more proud and perverse. But in conclusion they allotted him six weeks’ space to set in order and depart the realm.”
He left England accordingly, and lived on the Continent until 1623, when he was forgiven, invited to return, and knighted by the King. Apart from his extraordinary personality his chief claim on our interest is that he was the life-long friend and correspondent of Francis Bacon.
XLVI
To Sir Henry Goodyer. Written between the death of Sir Geoffrey Fenton in October, 1608, and the performance of Ben Jonson’sMasque of Queenson February 2d, 1609. Donne was not successful in his attempt to secure the position left vacant by Fenton’s death, for all the “haste and words” of Lord Hay and other friends. James Hay was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in Scotland, and came to England with the King. In 1603 the King appointed him Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and knighted him. In 1606 he was made Lord Hay, and afterwards became Viscount Doncaster, and Earl of Carlisle. Donne accompanied him on his embassy to the Palatinate. (See note on VII, above.)
This letter gives us our earliest mention of a warm friendship that lasted as long as Donne lived. In his will he bequeathed to Carlisle “the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary which hangs in the little dining-chamber.”
XLVII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. I cannot identify the “paper” the composition of which helped Donne to pass the anxious hours that brought him a son; but as the letter was written during his residence at Mitcham, where the Donnes wentto live shortly after the birth of their son George, the birth here recorded must have been that of Francis, Donne’s fourth child and third son, who was baptized at Mitcham January 8th, 1607, and who died in infancy. John, who survived to be the first editor of these letters, was now three years old.
XLVIII
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and apparently written during the anxious weeks between Donne’s decision to enter the church and his ordination in January, 1615. (See note on XXXIV, above.) “That good lady” is, of course, the Countess of Bedford, “Mr. Villars” is George Villiers, soon to be the Duke of Buckingham, and “Mr. Karre” is a nephew of Somerset, the present favourite. The “Masque of Gentlemen” may have been Ben Jonson’sThe Golden Age Restored, in a Masque at Court, 1615, by the Lords and Gentlemen, the King’s Servants, first printed in the folio of 1616.
Sir Robert Rich, later Earl of Warwick, lived to become Lord High Admiral for the Parliament, 1643-5, 1648-9. Three years after the date of this letter we find Donne planning to meet Sir Robert at Frankfort. (XLII.) Lord Dorset (Richard, third Earl of Dorset) was one of the most generous of Donne’s patrons. To him Donne owed the reversion of St. Dunstan’s.
XLIX
To Sir Henry Goodyer and presumably of later date than the letter to Sir John Harington (XL) of August 6, 1608, which contains our earliest record of Donne’s acquaintance with “that good lady,” the Countess of Bedford, and to which allusion may be made in the last paragraph of the present letter. The Lord Harrington here mentioned must be one of the Harringtons of Exton, probably the second Lord Harrington, who was Lady Bedford’s brother.
The home of Donne’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Gryme, where the Donnes were frequent guests, was in Peckham.
L
To Sir Robert Drury, and written at the lowest ebb of Donne’s fortunes, when he was casting about for court preferment of any kind. The marriage of Somerset and Lady Frances Howard, whose marriage to Essex had at length been annulled, took place December 26, 1613. One would be glad to forget that Donne wrote the beautiful epithalamium which connects him with this unholy union, and so gives the approximate date of this letter.
LI
That this letter was written in the year 1621, and not ten years earlier, is evident from the references to contemporary events. The contrast between Donne’s circumstances as indicated in the present letter and his situation at the date of the preceding letter is striking. In less than three months from August 30th, 1621, he became Dean of Saint Paul’s; from this date until the end his fame both as preacher and as saint, continued in the ascendent.
Archbishop Abbot’s “accident” was his unfortunate killing of a game-keeper in Lord Zouch’s park. No one doubted that the killing was accidental, but it was questioned whether the homicide, even though involuntary, did not render him incapable of holding the see of Canterbury. A commission appointed to inquire into the ecclesiastical status of the Archbishop at length reported that his title was without flaw. “LadyNethersoles” is Goodyer’s daughter Lucy, the wife of Sir Francis Nethersole.
LII
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in 1609. Mr. Gosse thinks the book here discussed is the Bishop of Lincoln’sAnswer to a Catholic Englishman, but Donne’s criticism is equally applicable to a score of volumes which appeared in connection with the doctrinal controversy springing from the vexed questions arising in the King’s relations with his Catholic subjects.
During this year Donne completed hisPseudo-Martyr, Wherein out of certaine Propositions and Gradations, This Conclusion is evicted, That those which are of the Romane Religion in this Kingdome, may and ought to take the Oath of Allegeance.
LIII
As to the identity of “Sir T. H.” I have no conjecture to offer. Lord Cranfield “received his staffe” as Lord High Treasurer in September, 1621. For “my L. of Canterburies irregularity” see note to LI, above.
LIV
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in 1614 but a few months later than the letter to Sir Robert Drury already printed. (L.) The “Book of the Nullity” is apparently either the record of the legal proceedings looking to the annulment of the marriage of the Earl of Essex and Lady Frances Howard or a brief, covering the arguments in favour of the nullity, drawn up by Donne in the hope of reward in the shape of patronage from Somerset.
LV
To Sir Henry Goodyer and written five months later than the preceding letter. Donne is still seeking court employment. The Lord Chancellor is Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, whom Donne had served as Secretary fifteen years before.
LVI
Written in 1619, on the eve of Donne’s departure for the Palatinate. (See VII, note.) “My Lord” is, of course, Lord Hay. “M. Gher” is George Gerrard. “M. Martin” is presumably Donne’s friend, Richard Martin, mentioned in XIX and XLI. He died a few months before the date of this letter, and Sir Henry Goodyer has evidently been urging Donne to write a poem in his memory.
The Queen died on March 2d. “That noble Countess” is Lady Bedford.
LVII
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written three months after Donne became Dean of St. Paul’s. Lady Ruthyn was the sister-in-law of the Earl of Kent, who had promised to Donne the living of Blunham in Bedfordshire.
LVIII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. The allusions to the birth of Donne’s son Nicholas (baptized in August, 1613) and to the (erroneous) report of the death of Tobie Matthew, who was dangerously ill at Rome, give the date of this letter.
LIX
As Somerset and Lady Frances Howard were married in December, 1613, following the declaration of “the nullity” which is here in question, this letter must be assigned to January of the same year. (See notes to L and LIV, above.) I am unable to identifyG. K.Lady Bartlet seems to have acted as housekeeper for Sir Robert Drury at Drury House, where the Donnes were living when this letter was written. “That noble lady at Ashworth” was the third wife of Donne’s old friend and employer, Sir Thomas Egerton.
LX
Of this letter, and of LXVII, apparently sent to the same person, I can give no satisfactory account. An unpublished letter from Donne to Sir G. Brydges is said to be in existence, and the present letter may be addressed to him.
LXI
Evidently to Sir Henry Goodyer. “Your son SirFrancis” is Sir Francis Nethersole, who had married Goodyer’s daughter Lucy, and who had apparently been imprisoned for debt.
Poor Constance Donne, a year after “her losse” here described, was married to Edward Alleyn, the actor-manager and founder of Dulwich College, a man who was considerably older than her father, and who seems to have made her thoroughly unhappy.
LXII
Evidently misdated for 1612, and written a few weeks after the date of XXXI. (See note to XVI.)
LXIII
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in 1614, but a few days after XLVIII.
LXIV
To Sir Henry Goodyer. The references to “the good Countess” of Bedford and to Mitcham fix the date of this letter as later than August, 1608, and earlier than the spring of 1610, when Donne moved his family to Drury House. Sir Henry Goodyer was now in the service of the Earl of Bedford.
LXV
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written two days later than LXIII. Apparently Tobie Matthew had deposited a partof his fortune in Goodyer’s keeping to avoid the possibility of confiscation. (See note to XLV, above.) By 1614 Sir Henry’s affairs were in hopeless confusion. (See note to XI, above.)
No copy of Donne’s Poems in an earlier edition than that of 1633 has been discovered, and it is unlikely that he carried out the intention, here expressed, of printing them during his lifetime.
LXVI
For “my L. of Canterburies businesse” see note to LI, above. “My little book of Cases” is presumably theParadoxes and Problems.
LXVIII
Donne was presented to the living of Keyston, in Huntingdonshire, by the Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn in 1616. Wrest was the home of the Earl of Kent. (See note to LVII, above.) “My Lady Spencer,” the daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, and third wife of Sir Thomas Egerton, is “that noble lady at Ashworth” of LIX.
LXIX
To Sir Henry Goodyer. This letter appears to belong to the period of Sir Henry’s prosperity, and was written, I think, either from Mitcham, or from Donne’s lodgings in the Strand; in either case, not earlier than 1605 nor later than 1610. Parson’s Green was in the parish of Fulham, Middlesex. Ben Jonson has anEpigram(LXXXV) anent Sir Henry Goodyer’s hawks:
“Goodyere, I’m glad, and grateful to report,Myself a witness of thy few days sport;Where I both learn’d, why wise men hawking follow,And why that bird was sacred to Apollo:She doth instruct men by her gallant flight,That they to knowledge so should tower upright,And never stoop, but to strike ignorance;Which if they miss, yet they should re-advanceTo former height, and there in circle tarry,Till they be sure to make the fool their quarry.Now, in whose pleasures I have this discerned,What would his serious actions me have learned?”
And in the verses enclosed in his letter (XXX) to Goodyer, Donne writes:
“Our soule, whose country is heaven, & God her father,Into this world, corruptions sinke, is sent,Yet, so much in her travaile she doth gather,That she returnes home, wiser than she went;It pays you well, if it teach you to spareAnd make you asham’d, to make your hawks praise, yours,Which when herselfe she lessens in the aire,You then first say, that high enough she toures.”
LXX
To Sir Thomas Roe. Until 1752, when by Act of Parliament the first day of January became the first day of the year, the year began on March 25th and ended on the following March 24th. What to Donne was “the last (day) of 1607” would be to us March 24th, 1608. Since 1752 therefore it has been a common practice in referring to dates falling between January 1st and March 24th inclusive of all years previous to the year 1752 to give both years. So we would give the date of the execution of Charles I as January 30th, 1648/49.
“The Mask” is possibly Ben Jonson’sThe Hue and Cry after Cupid, “celebrating the happy marriage of John Lord Ramsey, Viscount Hadington, with the Lady ElizabethRatcliffe,” of which Rowland White wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury, “The great Maske intended for my L. Haddington’s marriage is now the only thing thought upon at Court.”
LXXI
I have not succeeded in finding a clue to the “accident” of which Donne writes. It would seem that some friend or relation of Sir Henry Goodyer’s had met with sudden, and perhaps violent, death.
LXXII
In point of date of composition, this is probably the earliest of the published letters of Donne, who in December, 1600, had been for more than three years chief secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper, from whose friendly custody the Earl of Essex was set free in July, 1600.
The identity of “G. H.” is unknown and conjecture is needless. Perhaps he was one of those followers of Essex who had been imprisoned at the time of the first trial of their unhappy leader, but who had not shared in his release.
Within the three months following the date of this letter Essex had again offended, this time beyond the possibility of pardon. He was beheaded on February 25th, 1601.
In such times, one may suppose that the Lord Keeper’s young secretary had matters in hand more pressing than the payment of that debt of “a continual tribute of letters” which he acknowledges with a gravity in which one imagines a touch of irony. Yet Donne could hardly help feeling a special interest in one whose attachment to Essex had brought him on evil days. He himself had served under Essex in the Cadiz expedition of 1596 and in the Islands Voyage of 1597, “waiting upon his Lordship,” says Walton, “and beingan eye-witnesse of those happy and unhappy employments,” a privilege which in the latter enterprise he shared with young Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper’s son.
LXXIII
This, like the other letters addressed “To Yourself” may not improbably be addressed to George Gerrard, who is known to have been a friendly critic of Donne’s poems. The translation sent with this letter is almost certainly the lines “Translated out of Gazaeus, ‘Vota Amico Facta,’ Fol. 160:”
“God grant thee thine owne wish, and grant thee mine,Thou who dost, best friend, in best things outshine;May thy soule, ever cheerful, ne’er know cares,Nor thy life, ever lively, know grey haires,Nor thy hand, ever open, know base holds,Nor thy purse, ever plump, know pleates, or folds,Nor thy tongue, ever true, know a false thing,Nor thy word, ever mild, know quarrelling,Nor thy works, ever equal, know disguise,Nor thy fame, ever pure, know contumelies,Nor thy prayers know low objects, still divine;God grant thee thine owne wish, and grant thee mine.”
An edition of Enée de Gaza’sTheophrastuswas published at Zurich in 1560.
LXXIV
Evidently addressed, not to Sir Thomas Lucy, but to Sir Henry Goodyer as the allusions to Polesworth, Sir Henry’s home, and to Bedford House sufficiently indicate. The date also must be incorrectly given as Donne’s “service at Lincoln’s Inne” did not begin until 1616, by which date, however, he had ceased to reside at Drury House, from which this letter, as printed, is dated. One is inclined to concur for themoment in Mr. Gosse’s opinion that theLettersof 1651 is “the worst edited book in the English language.”
LXXV
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and, as the record of the closing incidents of the Elector Palatine’s long struggle shows, written in 1622.
LXXVI
To Sir Henry Goodyer on the death of his wife in 1604.
LXXVII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. The quarrel between Hertford and Monteagle and the last illness of Cecil Boulstrod, here recorded, give the date of this letter as 1609. Cecil Boulstrod was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. Ben Jonson read to Drummond his “Verses on the Pucelle of the Court, Mistress Boulstred, whose Epitaph Donne made.” They are little to the credit of either the lady or the poet. Drummond records in hisConversationsthat “that piece of the Pucelle of the Court was stolen out of his (Jonson’s) pocket by a gentleman who drank him drousie, and given Mistress Boulstraid; which brought him great displeasure,” as well it might. Donne wrote two elegies in her honour, one of which, at least, seems to be inspired by genuine emotion.
LXXVIII
To Sir Henry Goodyer and written in 1615. (See note to XXXIV, above.) “This Lady” is apparently the Countess of Huntingdon, and “the Lady where you are” the Countess of Bedford.
LXXIX
This letter, written on the eve of the German tour, on which Donne attended the Earl of Doncaster (See note toVII, above), was, I feel very sure, addressed, not to Sir Thomas Lucy, but to Sir Henry Goodyer. The allusions to Tuesday as a day of writing, the reference to “an establishment in your estate,” the acknowledgment of his correspondent’s favours in “keeping me alive in the memory of the noblest Countess” (of Bedford), all point to Goodyer.
LXXX
For the date see XXIV, and note.
LXXXI
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and evidently written just prior to Donne’s appointment as Dean of Saint Paul’s (November 19th, 1621). “My Cases of Conscience” is, I suppose, theParadoxes and Problemsto which we have had frequent allusions.
LXXXII
The identity of Donne’s “worthy friend F. H.” is unknown to me. The letter evidently belongs to the closing years of Donne’s life. In printing this letter, Mr. Gosse (Life and Letters of John Donne, II, 254) quotes from Walton: