POEMS,

LONDON.

Printed byM. F.forIohn Marriot,and are to be sold at his Shop in StDunstansChurch-yard inFleet-street.1649.

Title Page

What happened seems to have been this. The younger Donne intervened before the edition was issued, and either by authority or agreement took it over. Marriot remained the publisher. The title-page which in1649was identical with that of1635-39, except for the change of date and the 'W' in 'WITH', now appeared as follows:

ByJ. D.

WITH

ELEGIES

ON THE

AUTHORS DEATH.

TO WHICH

Is added divers Copies under his own handnever before in print.

LONDON.

Printed forJohn Marriot, and areto be sold byRichard Marriotat his shopbyChancerylane end over against the InnerTemple gate. 1650.

Title Page

The initials of the printer, M. F., disappear, and the name of John Marriot's son, partner, and successor, Richard, appears along with his own. There is no great distance between St. Dunstan's Churchyard and the end of Chancery Lane. With M. F. went the introductoryPrinter to the Understanders, its place being taken by a dedicatory letter in young Donne's most courtly style to William, Lord Craven, Baron of Hamsted-Marsham.

In the body of the volume as prepared in 1649 no alteration was made. The 'divers Copies ... never before in print', of which the new editor boasts, were inserted in a couple of sheets (or a sheet and a half, aa, bb incomplete) at the end. These are variously bound up in different copies, being sometimes before, sometimes at the end of theElegies upon the Author, sometimes before and among them. They contain a quite miscellaneous assortment of writings, verse and prose, Latin and English, by, or presumably by, Donne, with a few complimentary verses on Donne taken from Jonson'sEpigrams.

The text of Donne's own writings is carelessly printed. In short, Donne's son did nothing to fix either the text or the canon of his father's poems. The former, as it stands in the body of the volume in the editions of 1650-54, he took over from Marriot and M. F. As regards the latter, he speaks of the 'kindnesse of the Printer, ... adding something too much, lest any spark of this sacred fire might perish undiscerned'; but he does not condescend to tell us, if he knew, what these unauthentic poems are. He withdrew nothing.

In 1654 the poems were published once more, but printed from the same types as in 1650. The text of the poems (pp. 1-368) is identical in1649,1650,1654; of the additional matter (pp. 369-392) in1650,1654. The only change made in the last is on the title-page, where a new publisher's name appears,11as in the following facsimile:

ByJ. D.

WITH

ELEGIES

ON THE

AUTHORS DEATH.

TO WHICH

Is added divers Copies under his own handnever before in Print.

LONDON,

Printed byJ. Flesher, and are to be soldbyJohn Sweetingat the Angel inPopeshead-Alley. 1654.

Title Page

James Flesher was the son of Miles Flesher, or Fletcher, who is probably the M. F. of the earlier editions. John Sweeting was an active bookseller and publisher, first at the Crown in Cornhill, and subsequently at the Angel as above (1639-1661). He was the publisher of many plays and poems, and in 1657 the publication of Donne'sLetters to Severall Persons of Honourwas transferred to him from Richard Marriot, who issued them in 1651.

JOHN DONNE,

late Dean of St.Pauls.

WITH

ELEGIES

ON THE

AUTHORS DEATH.

To which is addedDivers Copies under his own hand,Never before Printed.

In the SAVOY,Printed byT. N.forHenry Herringman, at the sign oftheAnchor, in the lower-walk of theNew-Exchange.1669.

Title Page

The last edition of Donne's poems which bears evidence of recourse to manuscript sources, and which enlarged the canon of the poems, was that of 1669. The younger Donne died in 1662, and this edition was purely a printer's venture. Its title-page runs as opposite.

This edition added two elegies which a sense of propriety had hitherto excluded from Donne's printed works, though they are in almost all the manuscript collections, and a satire which most of the manuscripts assign not to Donne but to Sir John Roe. The introductory material remains as in1650-54and unpaged; but theElegies to the Authorare now paged, and the poems with the prose letters inserted in1633and added to in1635(see above, p.lxiii, note 8), theElegies to the Author, and the additional sheets inserted in1650, occupy pp. 1-414. The loveElegieswere numbered as in earlier editions, but the titles which some had borne were all dropped.Elegie XIIII(XII in this edition) was enlarged. Two new Elegies were added, one (Loves Progress) asElegie XVIII, the second (Going to Bed) unnumbered and simply headedTo his Mistress going to bed. The text of the poems underwent considerable alteration, some of the changes showing a reversion to the text of1633, others a reference to manuscript sources, many editorial conjecture.

The edition of 1669 is the last edition of Donne's poems which can be regarded as in any degree an authority for the text of the poems, because it is the last which affords evidence of access to independent manuscript sources. All subsequent editions, till we come to those of Grosart and Chambers, were based on these. If the editor preferred one reading to another it was on purely internal evidence, a result of his own decision as to which was the more correct or the preferable reading. In 1719, for example, a new edition was brought out by the well-known publisher Jacob Tonson. The title-page runs as over.

ON SEVERAL

OCCASIONS.

Written by the Reverend

JOHN DONNE, D.D.

Late Dean of St. PAUL'S.

WITH

Elegieson the Author's Death.

To this Edition is added,

SomeAccountof theLifeof theAuthor.

LONDON:

Printed forJ. Tonson, and Sold byW. Taylorat theShipinPater-noster-Row. 1719.

Title Page

This edition opens with the Epistle Dedicatory as in1650-69, which is followed by an abridgement of Walton'sLifeof Donne. An examination of the text of the poems shows clearly that this edition was printed from that of 1669, but is by no means a slavish reproduction. The editor has consulted earliereditions and corrected mistakes, but I have found no evidence either that he knew the editions of 1633 and 1635, or had access to manuscript collections. He very wisely dropped the Satire 'Sleep next Society', inserted for the first time by the editor of1669, and certainly not by Donne. It was reinserted by Chalmers in 1810.12

These, then, are the early editions of Donne's poems. But the printed editions are not the only form in which the poems, or the great majority of the poems, have come down to us. None of these editions, we have seen, was issued before the poet's death. None, so far as we can discover (I shall discuss this point more fully later), was printed from sources carefully prepared for the press by the author, as were for example theLXXX Sermonsissued in 1640. But Donne's poems were well known to many readers before 1633. One of the earliest published references to them occurs in 1614, ina collection of Epigrams by Thomas Freeman, calledRunne|And a great Cast|The|Second Book.

To Iohn Dunne.

TheStormedescrib'd hath set thy name afloate,ThyCalmea gale of famous winde hath got:ThySatyresshort, too soone we them o'relooke,I prethee Persius write a bigger booke.

TheStormedescrib'd hath set thy name afloate,

ThyCalmea gale of famous winde hath got:

ThySatyresshort, too soone we them o'relooke,

I prethee Persius write a bigger booke.

In 1616 Ben Jonson'sEpigrammeswere published in the first (folio) edition of his works, and they contain the Epigram, printed in this edition,To Lucy, Countesse of Bedford, with Mr. Donnes Satyres. In these and similar cases the 'bookes' referred to are not printed but manuscript works. Mr. Chambers has pointed out (Poems of John Donne, i, pp. xxxviii-ix) an interesting reference in Drayton'sEpistle to Reynoldsto poems circulating thus 'by transcription'; and Anthony Wood speaks of Hoskins having left a 'book of poems neatly written'. In Donne's own letters we find references to his poems, his paradoxes and problems, and even a long treatise like theÎ’Î™Î‘Î˜Î‘ÎÎ‘Î¤ÎŸÎ£, being sent to his friends with injunctions of secrecy, and in the case of the last with an express statement that it had not been, and was not to be, printed. Sometimes the manuscript collection seems to have been made by Donne himself, or on his instruction, for a special friend and patron like Lord Ancrum; but after he had become a distinguished Churchman who, as Jonson told Drummond, 'repenteth highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems,' it was his friends and admirers who collected and copied them. An instructive reference to the interest awakened in Donne's early poems by his fame as a preacher comes to us from Holland. Constantine Huyghens, the Dutch poet, and father of the more famous scientist, Christian, was a member of the Dutch embassy in 1618, 1621-23, and again in 1624. He moved in the best circles, and made the acquaintance of Donne ('great preacher and great conversationalist', he callshim) at the house probably of Sir Robert Killigrew. Writing to his friend and fellow-poet Hooft, in 1630, he says:13

'I think I have often entertained you with reminiscences of Dr. Donne, now Dean of St. Pauls in London, and on account of this remunerative post (such is the custom of the English) held in high esteem, in still higher for the wealth of his unequalled wit, and yet more incomparable eloquence in the pulpit. Educated early at Court in the service of the great; experienced in the ways of the world; sharpened by study; in poetry, he is more famous than anyone. Many rich fruitsfrom the green branches of his wit14have lain mellowing among the lovers of art, which now, whennearly rotten with age, theyare distributing. Into my hands have fallen, by the help of my special friends among the gentlemen of that nation, some five and twenty of the best sort of medlars. Among our people, I cannot select anyone to whom they ought to be communicated sooner than to you,15as this poets manner of conceit and expression are exactly yours, Sir.'

This is a very interesting piece of evidence as to the manner in which Donne's poems had been preserved by his friends, and the form in which they were being distributed. There is no reference to publication. It is doubtless due to this activity in collecting and transcribing the poems of the now famous preacher that we owe the number of manuscript collections dating from the years before and immediately after 1630.

Had Donne undertaken the publication of his own poems, such of these manuscript collections as have been preservedâ€”none of which are autograph, and few or none of which have a now traceable historyâ€”would have little importance for a modern editor. The most that they could do would be to show us occasionally what changes a poem had undergone between its earliest and its latest appearance. But Donne's poems were not published in this way, and the manuscripts cannot be ignored. They must have for his editor at least the same interest and importance as the Quartos have for the editor of Shakespeare. Whatever opinion he may hold, ona prioriora posteriorigrounds, regarding the superiorauthority of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, no editor, not 'thirled to' a theory, will deny that a right reading has been preserved for us often by the Quartos and the Quartos only. No wise man will neglect the assistance even of the more imperfect of them. Before therefore discussing the relative value of the different editions, and the use that may be made of the manuscripts, it will be well to give a short description of the manuscripts which the present editor has consulted and used, of their relation to one another, their comparative value, and the relation ofsomeof them to the editions. It is, of course, possible that there are manuscripts of Donne's poems which have not yet come to light; and among them may be some more correctly transcribed than any which has come into the present editor's hands. He has, however, examined between twenty and thirty, and with the feeling recently of moving in a circleâ€”that new manuscripts were in part or whole duplicates of those which had been already examined, and confirmed readings already noted but did not suggest anything fresh.

I will divide the manuscripts into four classes, of which the first two, it will be seen at a glance, are likely to be the most important for the textual critic.

(1) Manuscript collections of portions of Donne's poems, e.g. theSatyres. The 'booke' to which Freeman refers in the epigram quoted above was probably a small collection of this kind, and we have seen that Jonson sent theSatyresto Lady Bedford, and Francis Davison lent them to his brother. Of such collections I have examined the following:

Q.This is a small quarto manuscript, bound up with a number of other manuscripts, in a volume (MS. 216) in the library of Queen's College, Oxford. It is headedMr. John Dunnes Satires, and contains the five Satires (which alone I have accepted as Donne's own) followed byA Storme,A Calme, and one song,The Curse(see p.41), here headedDirae. As Mr. Chambers says (Poems of John Donne, i, p. xxxvi), this is probably just the kind of 'booke' which Freeman read.The poems it contains are probably those of Donne's poems which were first known outside the circle of his intimate friends.

What seems to be a duplicate ofQis preserved among the Dyce MSS. in the South Kensington Museum. This contains the fiveSatyres, and theStormeandCalme. The MSS. are evidently transcribed from the same source, but one is not a copy of the other. They agree in such exceptional readings as e.g.Satyres, I. 58 'Infanta of London'; 94 'goes in the way' &c.; II. 86 'In wringing each acre'; 88 'Assurances as bigge as glossie civill lawes'. The last suggests that the one is a copy of the other, but again they diverge in such cases as III. 49 'Crants'Dyce MS.; 'Crates'Q; and IV. 215-16 'a Topclief would have ravisht him quite away'Q, where theDyce MS.preserves the normal 'a Pursevant would have ravisht him quite away'.

If manuscripts likeQand theDyce MS.carry us back, as they seem to do, to the form in which theSatyrescirculated before any of the later collections of Donne's poems were made (between 1620 and 1630), they are clearly of great importance for the editor. The text of theSatyresin1633and the later editions, which closely resembles that of one of the later MS. collections, presents many variants from the older tradition. It is a difficult matter to decide how far these may be the corrections of the author himself, or of the collector and editor.

W.This, the Westmoreland MS., belonging to Mr. Edmund Gosse, is one of the most interesting and valuable manuscripts of Donne's poems which have come down to us. It is bound in its original vellum, and was written, Mr. Warner, late Egerton Librarian, British Museum, conjectured from the handwriting, 'a little later than 1625'. This date agrees with what one would gather from the contents, for the manuscript contains sonnets which must have been written after 1617, but does not contain any of the hymns written just at the close of Donne's life.

Wis a much larger 'book' thanQ. It begins with the fiveSatyres, as that does. Leaving one page blank, it then continues with a collection of theElegiesnumbered, thirteen in all, of which twelve are Love Elegies, and one, the last, a Funeral Elegy, 'Sorrow who to this house.'16These are followed by anEpithalamion(that generally called 'made at Lincolns Inn') and a number of verse letters to different friends, some of which are not contained in any of the old editions. So many of them are addressed to Rowland Woodward, or members of his family, that Mr. Gosse conjectures that the manuscript was prepared for him, but this cannot be proved.17The letters are followed by theHoly Sonnets, these byLa Corona, and the book closes (as many collections of the poems do) with a bundle of proseParadoxes, followed in this case by theEpigrams. Both theHoly Sonnetsand theEpigramscontain poems not printed in any of the old editions.

It should be noted that thoughWas a whole may have been transcribed as late as 1625, it clearly goes back in portions to an earlier date. The letters are headed e.g. To Mr. H. W., To Mr. C. B., &c. Now the custom in manuscriptsand editions is to bring these headings up to date, changing 'To Mr. H. W.' into 'To SrHenry Wotton'. That they bear headings which were correct at the date when the poems were written points to their fairly direct descent from the original copies.

IfQprobably represents the kind of manuscript which circulated pretty widely,Wis a good representative of the kind which circulated only among Donne's friends. Some of the poems escaped being transcribed into larger collections and were not published till our own day. The value ofWfor the text of Donne's poems must stand high. For some of the letters and religious poems it is our sole authority. Though a unique manuscript now, it was probably not so always, for Addl. MS. 23229 in the British Museum contains a single folio which must have been torn from a manuscript identical withW. The handwriting is slightly different, but the order of the poems and their text prove the identity.

A23.This same manuscript (Addl. MS. 23229), which is a very miscellaneous collection of fragments, presented to the Museum by John Wilson Croker, contains two other portions of what seem to have been similar small 'books' of Donne's poems. The one is a fragment of what seems to have been a carefully written copy of theEpithalamion, with introductoryEclogue, written for the marriage of the Earl of Somerset. Probably it was one of those prepared and circulated at the time. The other consists of some leaves from a collection of theSatyresfinely written on large quarto sheets.

G.This is a manuscript containing only theMetempsychosis, orProgresse of the Soule, now in the possession of Mr. Gosse, who (Life &c. of John Donne, i. 141) states that it 'belonged to a certain Bradon, and passed into the Phillipps Collection'. It is not without errors, but its text is, on the whole, more correct than that of the manuscript source from which the version of 1633 was set up in the first instance.

(2) In the second class I place manuscripts which are, oraim at being, complete collections of Donne's poems. Most of these belong to the years between 1620 and 1633. They vary considerably in accuracy of text, and in the care which has been taken to include only poems that are authentic. They were made probably by professional copyists, and some of those whose calligraphy is most attractive show that the scribe must have paid the smallest attention to the meaning of what he was writing.

Of those which I have examined, two groups of manuscripts seem to me especially noteworthy, because both show that their collectors had a clear idea of what were, and what were not, Donne's poems, and because of the general accuracy with which the poems in one of them are transcribed. Taken with the edition of 1633 they form an invaluable starting-point for the determination of the canon of Donne's poems.

The first of these is represented by three manuscripts which I have examined,D(Dowden),H49(Harleian MS. 4955), andLec(Leconfield).

Dis a small quarto manuscript, neatly written in a thin, clear hand and in ordinary script. It was formerly in the Haslewood collection, and is now in the possession of Professor Edward Dowden, Trinity College, Dublin, by whose kindness I have had it by me almost all the time that I have been at work on my edition.

H49is a collection of Donne's poems, in the British Museum, bound up with some by Ben Jonson and others. It is a large folio written throughout apparently in the same hand. It opens with some poems and masques by Jonson. A certain Doctor Andrewes' poems occupy folios 57-87. They are signedFranc: Andrilla. London August 14. 1629. Donne's poems follow, filling folios 88 to 144b. Thereafter follow more poems by Andrewes, Jonson, and others, with some prose letters by Jonson.

Lec.This is a large quarto manuscript, beautifully transcribed, belonging to Lord Leconfield and preserved atPetworth House. Many of the manuscripts in this collection were the property of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632), the friend who communicated the news of Donne's marriage to his father-in-law.

These three manuscripts are obviously derived from one common source. They contain the same poems, except thatDhas one more thanH49, and both of these have some which are not inLec. The order of the poems is the same, except thatDandLecshow more signs of an attempt to group the poems thanH49. The text, with some divergences, especially on the part ofLec, is identical. One instance seems to point to one of them being the source of the others. In the longObsequies to the Ld. Harrington, Brother to the Countess of Bedford, the original copyist, after beginning l. 159 'Vertue whose flood', had inadvertently finished with the second half of l. 161, 'were [sic] blowne in, by thy first breath.' This error is found in all the three manuscripts. It may, however, have come from the common source of this poem, and there are divergences in order and text which make me think that they are thus derived from one common source.

A special interest attaches to this collection, apart from the relative excellence of its text and soundness of its canon, from the probability that a manuscript of this kind was used for a large, and that textually the best, part of the edition of 1633. This becomes manifest on a close examination of the order of the poems and of their text. Mr. Gosse has said, in speaking of the edition of 1633: 'The poems are thrown together without any attempt at intelligent order; neither date, nor subject, nor relation is in the least regarded.' This is not entirely the case. Satires, Elegies, Epigrams, Songs are grouped to some extent. The disorder which prevails is due to two causes: (1) to the fact that the printer set up from a variety of sources. There was no previous collected edition to guide him. Different friends supplied collections, and of a few poems there were earlier editions. He seems to have passed from one of these to another as was most convenient atthe moment. Perhaps some were lent him only for a time. The differences between copies of1633show that it was prepared carefully, but emended from time to time while the printing was actually going on. (2) The second source of the order of the poems is their order in the manuscripts from which they were copied. Now a comparison of the order in1633with that inD,H49,Lecreveals a close connexion between them, and throws light on the composition of1633.

It is necessary, before instituting this comparison with1633, to say a word on the order of the poems inD,H49,Lecthemselves, as it is not quite the same in all three.H49is the most irregular, perhaps therefore the earliest, each of the others showing efforts to obtain a better grouping of the poems. All three begin with theSatyres, of whichDandLechave five,H49only four; but the text ofLecdiffers from that of the other two, agreeing more closely with the version of1633and of another group of manuscripts. They have all, then, thirteenElegiesin the same order. After theseH49continues with a number of letters (The Storme,The Calme,To SrHenry Wotton,To SrHenry Goodyere,To the Countesse of Bedford,To SrEdward Herbert, and others) intermingled with Funeral Elegies (Lady Markham,Mris Boulstred) and religious poems (The Crosse,The Annuntiation,Good Friday). Then follows a long series of lyrical pieces, broken afterThe FunerallbyA Letter to the Lady Carey, and Mrs. Essex Rich, theEpithalamionon the Palatine marriage, and anOld Letter('At once from hence', p.206). The lyrical pieces are then resumed, and the collection ends with the SomersetEclogueandEpithalamion, theLetanye, both sets ofHoly Sonnets, a letter (To the Countesse of Salisbury), and the longObsequies to the Ld. Harrington.

Dmakes an effort to arrange the poems following theElegiesin groups. TheFuneral Elegiescome first, and two blank pages are headedAn Elegye on Prince Henry. The letters are then brought together, and are followed by the religious poems dispersed inH49. The lyrical poems followpiece by piece as inH49, and the whole closes with the two epithalamia and theObsequies to the Ld. Harrington.

The order inLecresembles that ofH49more closely than that ofD. The mixed letters, funeral elegies, and religious poems follow theElegiesas inH49, butLecadds to them the two letters (Lady CareyandThe Countess of Salisbury) and theLetaniewhich inH49are dispersed through the lyrical pieces.Lecdoes not contain any of theHoly Sonnets, but afterThe Letanieten pages are left blank, evidently intended to receive them. Thereafter, the lyrical poems follow piece by piece as inD,H49, except thatThe Prohibition('Take heed of loving mee') is omittedâ€”a fact of some interest when we come to consider1633.Leccloses, likeD, with the epithalamia and theObsequies to the Lo: Harrington.

Turning now to1633, we shall see that, whatever other sources the editor of that edition used, one was a collection identical with, or closely resembling,D,H49,Lec, especiallyLec. That edition begins with theProgresse of the Soule, which wasnotderived from this manuscript. Thereafter follow the two sets ofHoly Sonnets, the second set containing exactly the same number of sonnets, and in the same order, as inD,H49, whereas other manuscripts, e.g.B,O'F,S,S96, which will be described later, have more sonnets and in a different order; andW, which agrees otherwise withB,O'F,S,S96, adds three that are found nowhere else. The sonnets are followed in1633by theEpigrams, which are not inD,H49,Lec, but after that the resemblance of1633toD,H49,Lecbecomes quite striking. These manuscripts, we have seen, begin with theSatyres. The edition, however, passes on at once to theElegies. Of the thirteen given inD,H49,Lec,1633prints eight, omitting the first (The Bracelet), the second (Going to Bed), the tenth (Loves Warr), the eleventh (On his Mistris), and the thirteenth (Loves Progresse). That the editor, however, had before him, and intended to print, theSatyresand the thirteenElegiesas he found them inhiscopy0 ofD,H49,Lec, is proved by the following extract which Mr. Chambers quotes from the Stationers' Register:

John Marriot. Â Â Entered for his copy under the hands of SirHenry Herbert and both the Wardens, a bookof verse and poems (the five Satires, the first,second, tenth, eleventh and thirteenth Elegiesbeing excepted) and these before excepted tobe his, when he brings lawful authority.vid.written by Doctor John Dunn

John Marriot. Â Â Entered for his copy under the hands of Sir

Henry Herbert and both the Wardens, a book

of verse and poems (the five Satires, the first,

second, tenth, eleventh and thirteenth Elegies

being excepted) and these before excepted to

be his, when he brings lawful authority.

vid.

written by Doctor John Dunn

This note is intelligible only when compared with this particular group of manuscripts. In others the order is quite different.

This barâ€”which was probably dictated by reasons of propriety, though it is difficult to see why the first and the eleventhElegiesshould have been singled outâ€”was got over later as far as theSatyreswere concerned. They are printed after all the other poems, just before the prose letters. But by this time the copy ofD,H49,Lechad perhaps passed out of Marriot's hands, for the text of theSatyresseems to show that they were printed, not from this manuscript, but from one represented by another group, which I shall describe later. This is, however, not quite certain, for inLecthe version of theSatyresgiven is not the same as inD,H49, but is that of this second group of manuscripts. Several little details show that of the three manuscriptsD,H49, andLecthe last most closely resembles1633.

Following theElegiesin1633come a group of letters, epicedes, and religious poems, just as inH49,Lec(Dre-groups them)â€”The Storme,The Calme,To Sir Henry Wotton, ('Sir, more than kisses'),The Crosse,Elegie on the Lady Marckham,Elegie on Mris Boulstred('Death I recant'),To Sr Henry Goodyere,To Mr. Rowland Woodward,To Sr Henry Wootton('Here's no more newes'),To the Countesse of Bedford('Reason is our Soules left hand'),To the Countesse of Bedford('Madam, you have refin'd'),To Sr Edward Herbert, at Julyers. Here1633diverges. Having got into letters to noble and other people the editor was anxious tocontinue them, and accordingly from another source (which I shall discuss later) he prints a long series of letters to the Countess of Bedford, the Countess of Huntingdon, Mr. T. W., and other more intimate friends (they are 'thou', the Countesses 'you'), and Mrs. Herbert. He perhaps returns toD,H49,Lecin those toThe Lady Carey and Mrs. Essex Riche, from Amyens, andTo the Countesse of Salisbury; and, as in that manuscript, the Palatine and Essex epithalamia (to which, however,1633adds that written at Lincoln's Inn) are followed immediately by the longObsequies to Lord Harrington. Three oddElegiesfollow, two of which (The AutumnallandThe Picture, 'Image of her') occur inD,H49,Lecin the same detached fashion. Other manuscripts include them among the numberedElegies.The Elegie on Prince Henry,Psalme 137(probably not by Donne),Resurrection, imperfect,An hymne to the Saints, and to Marquesse Hamilton,An Epitaph upon Shakespeare(certainly not by Donne),Sapho to Philaenis, follow in1633â€”a queerly consorted lot. TheElegie on Prince Henryis taken from theLachrymae Lachrymarumof Joshua Sylvester (1612); the rest were possibly taken from some small commonplace-book. This would account for the doubtful poems, the only doubtful poems in1633. These past, the close connexion with our manuscript is resumed.The Annuntiationis followed, as inH49,Lec, byThe Litanie. Thereafter the lyrical pieces begin, as in these manuscripts, with the song, 'Send home my long strayd eyes to me.' This is followed by two pieces which are not inD,H49,Lec,â€”the impressive, difficult, and in manuscripts comparatively rareNocturnall upon S. Lucies day, and the much commonerWitchcraft by a picture. Thereafter the poems follow piece by piece the order inD,H49,Lec18untilThe Curseis reached.19Then, in what seems to have been the editor's or printer's regular method of proceeding in this edition, he laid aside the manuscript from which he was printing theSongs and Sonetsto take up another piece of work that had come to hand, viz.An Anatomie of the WorldwithA Funerall ElegieandOf the Progresse of the Soule, which he prints from the edition of 1625. Without apparent rhyme or reason these long poems are packed in betweenThe CurseandThe Extasie. With the latter poem1633resumes the songs and (with the exception ofThe Undertaking) follows the order inLectoThe Dampe, with which the series in the manuscripts closes. It has been noted that inLec,The Prohibition(which inD,H49followsBreake of dayand precedesThe Anniversarie) is omitted. This must have been the case in the manuscript used for1633, for it is omitted at this place and though printed later was probably not derived from this source.

WithThe Dampethe manuscript which I am supposing the editor to have followed in the main probably came to an end. The poems which follow in1633are of a miscellaneous character and strangely conjoined.The Dissolution(p.64),A Ieat Ring sent(p.65),Negative Love(p.66),The Prohibition(p.67),The Expiration(p.68),The Computation(p.69), complete the tale of lyrics. A few odd elegies follow ('Language thou art,' 'You that are she,' 'To make the doubt clear') withThe Paradox.A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germanyis given a page to itself, and is followed byThe Lamentations of Jeremy,The Satyres, andA Hymne to God the Father. Thereafter come the prose letters and theElegies upon the Author.

What this comparison of the order of the poems points to is borne out by an examination of the text. The critical notes afford the materials for a further verification, and I need not tabulate the resemblances at length. InElegie IV, for example, ll. 7, 8, which occur in all the other manuscripts and editions, are omitted by1633and byD,H49,Lec. Again, when a song has no title in1633it has frequently none in the manuscript. When there are evidently two versions of a poem, as e.g. inThe Good-morrowandThe Flea, the version given in1633is generally that ofD,H49,Lec. Later editions often contaminate this with another version of the poem. At the same time there are ever and again divergences between the edition and the manuscript which are not to be ignored, and cannot always be explained. Some are due to error in one or the other, but some point either to divergence between the text of the editor's manuscript and ours, or to the use by the editor of other sources as well as this. In the fifth elegy (The Picture), for example,1633twice seems to follow, notD,H49,Lec, but another source, another group of manuscripts which has been preserved; and inThe Aniversariell. 23, 24, the version of1633is not that ofD,H49,Lecbut of the same second group, which will be described later. On the whole, however, it is clear that a manuscript closely resembling that now represented by these three manuscripts supplied the editor of1633with the bulk of the shorter poems, especially the older and more privately circulated poems, theSongs and SonetsandElegies. When he is not following this manuscript he draws from miscellaneous and occasionally inferior sources.

It would be interesting if we could tell whence this manuscript was obtained, and whether it wasa priorilikely to be a good one. On this point we can only conjecture, but it seems to me a fairly tenable conjecture (though not to be built on in any way) that the nucleus of the collection, at any rate, may have been a commonplace-book which had belonged to Sir Henry Goodyere. The ground for this conjecture is the inclusion in the edition of some prose letters addressed tothis friend, one in Latin and seven in English. There is indeed also one addressed to the Countess of Bedford; but in the preceding letter to Goodyere Donne says, 'I send you, with this, a letter which I sent to the Countesse. It is not my use nor duty to do so. But for your having it, there were but two consents, and I am sure you have mine, and you are sure you have hers.' He goes on to refer to some verses which are the subject of the letter to the Countesse. There can be no doubt that the letter printed is the letter sent to Goodyere. The Burley MS. (see Pearsall-Smith'sLife and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Oxford, 1907) gives us a good example of how a gentleman in the seventeenth century dealt with his correspondence. That contains, besides various letters, as of Sidney to Queen Elizabeth on the Anjou marriage, and other matter which recurs in commonplace-books, a number of poems and letters, sent to Wotton by his friends, including Donne, and transcribed by one or other of Wotton's secretaries. The letters have no signatures appended, which is the case with the letters in the 1633 edition of Donne's poems. Wotton and Goodyere did not need to be reminded of the authors, and perhaps did not wish others to know. The reason then for the rather odd inclusion of nine prose letters in a collection of poems is probably, that the principal manuscript used by the printer was an 'old book'20which had belonged to Sir Henry Goodyere and in which his secretaries had transcribed poems and letters by Donne. Goodyere's collection of Donne's poems would not necessarily be exhaustive, but it would be full; it would not like the collections of others include poems that were none of Donne's; and its text would be accurate, allowing for the carelessness, indifference, and misunderstandings of secretaries and copyists.

AfterD, H49, Lec, the most carefully made collection of Donne's poems is one represented now by four distinct manuscripts:

A18.Additional MS. 18646, in the British Museum.

N.The Norton MS. in Harvard College Library, Boston, of which an account is given by Professor Norton in a note appended to the Grolier Club edition.

TCC.A manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

TCD.A large manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, containing two apparently quite independent collections of poemsâ€”the first a collection of Donne's poems with one or two additional poems by Sir John Roe, Francis Beaumont, Sir Thomas Overbury, and Corbet; the second a quite miscellaneous collection, put together some time in the thirties of the seventeenth century, and including some of Donne's poems. It is only the first of these which belongs to the group in question.

These four manuscripts are closely connected with one another, but a still more intimate relation exists betweenA18andTCCon the one hand,NandTCDon the other.NandTCDare the larger collections;A18andTCCcontain each a smaller selection from the same body of poems. Indeed it would seem thatNis a copy ofTCD, A18ofTCC.

TCD, to start with it, is a beautifully written collection of Donne's poems beginning with theSatyres, passing on to an irregularly arranged series of elegies, letters, lyrics and epicedes, and closing with theMetempsychosisorProgresse of the Souleand theDivine Poems, which include the hymns written in the last years of the poet's life.Nhas the same poems, arranged in the same order, and its readings are nearly always identical with those ofTCD, so far as I can judge from the collation made for me. The handwriting, unlike that ofTCD, is in what is known as secretary hand and is somewhat difficult to read. What points to the one manuscriptbeing a copy of the other is that in 'Sweetest Love, I do not go' the scribe has accidentally dropped stanza 4, by giving its last line to stanza 3, and passing at once to the fifth stanza. Both manuscripts make this mistake, whereasA18andTCCcontain the complete poem. In other placesNandTCDagree in their readings whereA18andTCCdiverge. If the one is a copy of the other,TCDis probably the more authoritative, as it contains some marginal indications of authorship whichNomits.

TCCis a smaller manuscript thanTCD, but seems to be written in the same clear, fine hand. It does not contain theSatyres, the Elegy (XI. in this edition)The Bracelet, and the epistlesThe StormeandThe Calme, with whichNandTCDopen. It looks, however, as though the sheets containing these poems had been torn out. Besides these, however,TCComits, without any indication of their being lost, anElegie to the Lady Bedford('You that are she'), the Palatine Epithalamion, a long series of letters21which inN,TCDfollow thatTo M.M.H.and precedeSapho to Philaenis, the elegies on Prince Henry and on Lord Harington, andThe Lamentations of Jeremy. There are occasional differences in the grouping of the poems; andTCCdoes not contain some poems by Beaumont, Corbet, Sir John Roe, and Sir Thomas Overbury which are found inNandTCD. InTCDthese, with the exception of that by Beaumont, are carefully initialled, and therefore not ascribed to Donne. InNthese initials are in some cases omitted; and some of the poems have found their way into editions of Donne's poems.

PresumablyTCCis the earlier collection, and whenTCDwas made, the copyist was able to add fresh poems. It is clear, however, that in the case of even those poems which the twohave in common, the one manuscript is not simply a copy of the others. There are several divergences, and the mistake referred to above, in 'Sweetest Love, I do not go', is not made inTCC. Strangely enough, a similar mistake is made byTCCin transcribingLoves Deitieand is reproduced inA18.

A18, indeed, would seem to be a copy ofTCC. It is not in the same handwriting, but in secretary hand. It omits the openingSatyres, &c., as doesTCC, but there is no sign of excision. Presumably, then, the copy was made after these poems were, if they ever were, torn out ofTCC. WhereverTCCdiverges fromTCD,A18followsTCC.22

Whoever was responsible for this collection of Donne's poems, it was evidently made with care, at least as regards the canon. Very few poems that are not certainly by Donne are included, and they are correctly initialled. The only uninitialled doubtful poems areA Paradox, 'Whoso terms Love a fire,' which in all the four manuscripts follows 'No Lover saith, I love', and Beaumont's letter to the Countess of Bedford, which begins, 'Soe may my verses pleasing be.' InN,TCDthis follows Donne's letter to the same lady, 'You that are she and you.' It is regrettable that the text of the poems is not so good as the canon is pure. The punctuation is careless. There are numerous stupid blunders, and there are evidences of editing in the interest of more regular metre or a more obvious meaning. At times, however, it would seem that the copyist is following a different version of a poem or poems (e.g. theSatyres) from that given inD,H49, and other manuscripts, and is embodying corrections perhaps made by the author himself. It is quite credible that Donne, in sending copies of his poems at different times to different people, may have revised and amended them. It is quite clear, as my notes will show, that of certain poems more than one version (each correct in itself) was in circulation.

WasA18,N,TC, or a manuscript resembling it one of thesources of the edition of1633? In part, I think, it was. The most probable case at first sight is that of theSatyres. These, we have seen, Marriot was at first prohibited from printing. Otherwise they would have followed theEpigrams, and immediately preceded theElegies. As it is, they come after all the other poems; they are edited with some cautious dashes; and their text is almost identical with that ofN,TCD. In the first satire the only difference between1633andN,TCDoccurs in l. 70, whereN,TCD, with all the other manuscripts readâ€”

Back to Index Next