The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.Sylvester,Du Bartas, i. 2.
The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.Sylvester,Du Bartas, i. 2.
The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.
Sylvester,Du Bartas, i. 2.
Page165, l. 169.your waxen gardenoryon waxen garden—it is impossible to say which Donne wrote. The reference is to the artificial gardens in wax exhibited apparently by Italian puppet or 'motion' exhibitors. Compare:
I smile to think how fond the Italians are,To judge their artificial gardens rare,When London in thy cheekes can shew them heereRoses and Lillies growing all the yeere.Drayton,Heroical Epistles(1597),Edward IV to Jane Shore.
I smile to think how fond the Italians are,To judge their artificial gardens rare,When London in thy cheekes can shew them heereRoses and Lillies growing all the yeere.Drayton,Heroical Epistles(1597),Edward IV to Jane Shore.
I smile to think how fond the Italians are,
To judge their artificial gardens rare,
When London in thy cheekes can shew them heere
Roses and Lillies growing all the yeere.
Drayton,Heroical Epistles(1597),Edward IV to Jane Shore.
l. 176.Baloune.A game played with a large wind-ball or football struck to and fro with the arm or foot.
l. 179.and I, (God pardon mee.)This, the reading of the1633edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from1639onwards, has adopted a reading of his own:
and aye—God pardon me—As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as beThe fields they sold to buy them.
and aye—God pardon me—As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as beThe fields they sold to buy them.
and aye—God pardon me—
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them.
But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is nothisfault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon them!' would be the appropriate exclamation. What Donne asks God's pardon for is, that he too should be found in the 'Presence' again, after what he has already seen of Court life and 'the wretchedness of suitors': as though Dante, who had seen Hell and escaped, should wilfully return thither.
l. 189.Cutchannel: i.e. Cochineal. The ladies' painted faces suggest the comparison. In or shortly before 1603 an English ship, theMargaret and John, made a piratical attack on the Venetian ship,La Babiana. An indemnity was paid, and among the stolen articles are mentioned 54 weights of cochineal, valued at £50-7. Our school Histories tell us of Turkish and Moorish pirates, not so much of the piracy which was conducted by English merchant ships, not always confining themselves to the ships of nations at war with their country.
Page166, ll. 205-6.trye ... thighe.I have, with the support ofAsh.38, printed thus instead oftryes ... thighes. If we retain 'tryes', then we should also, with several MSS., read (l. 204) 'survayes'; and if 'thighes' be correct we should expect 'legges'. The regular construction keeps the infinitive throughout, 'refine', 'lift', 'call', 'survay', 'trye'. If we suppose that Donne shifted the construction as he got away from the governing verb, the change would naturally begin with 'survayes'.
ll. 215-6.A Pursevant would have ravish'd him away.The reading of three independent MSS.,Q,O'F, andJC, of 'Topcliffe' for 'Pursevant' is a very interesting clue to the Catholic point of view from which Donne'sSatyreswere written. Richard Topcliffe (1532-1609) was one of the cruellest of the creatures employed to ferret out and examine by torture Catholics and Jesuits. It was he who tortured Southwell the poet. In 1593 he was on the commission against Jesuits, and in 1594-5 was in prison. John Hammond, the civilist, who is possibly referred to inSatyre V, l. 87, sat with him on several inquiries. SeeD.N.B.and authorities quoted there; also Meyer,Die Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth, 1910.
Page167, ll. 233-4.men big enough to throwCharing Crosse for a barre.
Page167, ll. 233-4.men big enough to throwCharing Crosse for a barre.
Page167, ll. 233-4.men big enough to throw
Charing Crosse for a barre.
Of one of Harvey's pamphlets Nash writes: 'Credibly it was once rumoured about the Court, that the Guard meant to try masteries with it before the Queene, and, instead of throwing the sledge or the hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end for a wager.'Have with you, &c.(McKerrow, iii, p. 36.)
ll. 235-6.Queenes man, and fineLiving, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine.
ll. 235-6.Queenes man, and fineLiving, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine.
ll. 235-6.
Queenes man, and fine
Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine.
Compare Cowley'sLoves Riddle,III.i:
Apl.He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,And to begin, look on that horned head.Aln.Whose is't? Jupiters?Apl.No, tis the Ram!Next that the spacious Bull fills up the place.Aln.The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the GuardIntend not to come thither; if they didThe Gods might chance to lose their beef.
Apl.He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,And to begin, look on that horned head.
Apl.He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,
And to begin, look on that horned head.
Aln.Whose is't? Jupiters?
Aln.Whose is't? Jupiters?
Apl.No, tis the Ram!Next that the spacious Bull fills up the place.
Apl.No, tis the Ram!
Next that the spacious Bull fills up the place.
Aln.The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the GuardIntend not to come thither; if they didThe Gods might chance to lose their beef.
Aln.The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the Guard
Intend not to come thither; if they did
The Gods might chance to lose their beef.
The name 'beefeater' has, I suppose, some responsibility for the jest. Nash refers to their size: 'The big-bodied Halbordiers that guard her Majesty,' Nash (Grosart), i. 102; and to their capacities as trenchermen: 'Lies as big as one of the Guardes chynes of beefe,' Nash (McKerrow), i. 269.
'Ascapart is a giant thirty feet high who figures in the legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton.' Chambers.
l. 240.a scarce brooke. Donne uses 'scarce' in this sense, i.e. 'scanty'. It is not common. See note to l. 4.
Page168, l. 242.Macchabees modestie.'And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.' 2 Maccabees xv. 38.
l. 9.If all things be in all.'All things are concealed in all. One of them all is the concealer of the rest—their corporeal vessel, external, visible and movable.' Paracelsus,Coelum Philosophorum: The First Canon, Concerning the Nature and Properties of Mercury.
Page169, l. 31.You Sir, &c.: i.e. Sir Thomas Egerton, whose service Donne entered probably in 1598 and left in 1601-2. Norton says 1596 to 1600. In 1596 Egerton was made Lord Keeper. In 1597 he was busy with the reform of some of the abuses connected with the Clerkship of the Star Chamber, and this is probably what Donne has in view throughout the Satyre. 'For some years the administration of this office had given rise to complaints. In the last Parliament a bill had been brought in ... for the reformation of it; but by a little management on the part of the Speaker had been thrown out on the second reading. Upon this I suppose the complainants addressed themselves to the Queen. For it appears that the matter was under inquiry in 1595, when Puckering was Lord Keeper; and it is certain that at a later period some of the fees claimed by the Clerk of Council were by authority of the Lord Keeper Egerton restrained.' Spedding,Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, ii. 56. In the note Spedding refers to a MS. at Bridgewater House containing 'The humble petition of the Clerk of the Council concerning his fees restrained by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Keeper'. Bacon held the reversion to this Clerkship and in a long letter to Egerton he discusses in detail the nature of the 'claim'd fees'. The question was not settled till 1605. It will be noticed that in several editions and MSS. the reading is 'claim'd fees'.
ll. 37-41. These lines are correctly printed in1633, though the old use of the semicolon to indicate at one time a little less than a full stop, at another just a little more than a comma, has caused confusion. I have, therefore, ventured to alter the first (after 'farre') to a full stop, and the second (after 'duties') to a comma. 'That', says Donne (the italics give emphasis), 'was the iron age when justice was sold. Now' (in this 'age of rusty iron') 'injustice is sold dearer. Once you have allowed all the demands made on you, you find, suitors (and suitors are gamblers), that the money you toiled for has passed into other hands, the lands for which you urged your rival claims has escaped you, as Angelica escaped while Ferrau and Rinaldo fought for her.'
To the reading of the editions1635-54, which Chambers hasadopted (but by printing in roman letters he makes 'that' a relative pronoun, and 'iron age' subject to 'did allow'), I can attach no meaning:
The iron Agethatwas, when justice was sold (nowInjustice is sold dearer) did allowAll claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters anon.
The iron Agethatwas, when justice was sold (nowInjustice is sold dearer) did allowAll claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters anon.
The iron Agethatwas, when justice was sold (now
Injustice is sold dearer) did allow
All claim'd fees and duties. Gamesters anon.
How did the iron age allow fees and duties? The text of1669reverts to that of1633(keeping the 'claim'd fees' of1635-54), but does not improve the punctuation by changing the semicolon after 'farre' to a comma.
Mr. Allen (Rise of Formal Satire, &c.) points out that the allusion to the age of 'rusty iron', which deserves some worse name, is obviously derived from Juvenal XIII. 28 ff.:
Nunc aetas agitur, peioraque saecula ferriTemporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsaNomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.
Nunc aetas agitur, peioraque saecula ferriTemporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsaNomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.
Nunc aetas agitur, peioraque saecula ferri
Temporibus: quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa
Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.
With Donne's
so controverted landsScape, like Angelica, the strivers hands
so controverted landsScape, like Angelica, the strivers hands
so controverted lands
Scape, like Angelica, the strivers hands
compare Chaucer's
We strive as did the houndes for the boonThei foughte al day and yet hir parte was noon:Ther cam a kyte, whil that they were so wrothe,And bar away the boon betwixt hem bothe.And therfore at the kynges country brotherEche man for himself, there is noon other.Knightes Tale, ll. 319 ff.
We strive as did the houndes for the boonThei foughte al day and yet hir parte was noon:Ther cam a kyte, whil that they were so wrothe,And bar away the boon betwixt hem bothe.And therfore at the kynges country brotherEche man for himself, there is noon other.Knightes Tale, ll. 319 ff.
We strive as did the houndes for the boon
Thei foughte al day and yet hir parte was noon:
Ther cam a kyte, whil that they were so wrothe,
And bar away the boon betwixt hem bothe.
And therfore at the kynges country brother
Eche man for himself, there is noon other.
Knightes Tale, ll. 319 ff.
ll. 45-6.powre of the Courts below Flow.Grosart and Chambers silently alter to 'Flows', but both the editions and MSS. have the plural form. Franz notes the construction in Shakespeare:
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,Have lost their quality.Hen. V,V.ii. 18.
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,Have lost their quality.Hen. V,V.ii. 18.
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality.
Hen. V,V.ii. 18.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.Lear,III.v. 4.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.Lear,III.v. 4.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.
Lear,III.v. 4.
The last is a very close parallel. The proximity of the plural noun in the prepositional phrase is the chief determining factor, but in some cases the combined noun and qualifying phrase has a plural force—'such venomous looks', 'his mental powers or faculties.'
Page170, l. 61.heavens Courts.There can be no doubt that the plural is right: 'so the Roman profession seems to exhale, and refine our wills from earthly Drugs, and Lees, more then the Reformed, and so seems to bring us nearer heaven, but then that carries heaven farther from us, by making us pass so many Courts, and Offices of Saints in this life, in all our petitions,' &c.Letters, 102.
ll. 65-8. Compare: 'If a Pursevant, if a Serjeant come to thee from the King, in any Court of Justice, though he come to put thee in trouble, to call thee to an account, yet thou receivest him, thou entertainest him, thou paiest him fees.'Sermons80. 52. 525. Gardiner, writing of the treatment of Catholics under Elizabeth, says: 'Hard as this treatment was, it was made worse by the misconduct of the constables and pursevants whose business it was to search for the priests who took refuge in the secret chambers which were always to be found in the mansions of the Catholic gentry. These wretches, under pretence of discovering the concealed fugitives, were in the habit of wantonly destroying the furniture or of carrying off valuable property.'Hist. of England, i. 97.
Page171, l. 91. The right reading of this line must be either (a) that which we have taken fromNandTCD, which differs only by a letter from that of1633-69; or (b) that ofA25,B, and other MSS.:
And div'd neare drowning, for what vanished.
And div'd neare drowning, for what vanished.
And div'd neare drowning, for what vanished.
The first refers to the suitor. He, like the dog, dives for whathasvanished; goes to law for what is irrecoverable. The second reading would refer to the dog and continue the illustration: 'Thou art the dog whom shadows cozened and who div'd for what vanish'd.' The ambiguity accounts for the vacillation of the MSS. and editions. The reading of1669is a conjectural emendation. The 'div'd'st' of some MSS. is an endeavour to get an agreement of tenses after 'what's' had become 'what'.
These verses were first published in 1611 with a mass of witty and scurrilous verses by all the 'wits' of the day, prefixed to CoryatsCrudities hastily gobbled up in five months travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhaetia ... Newly digested in the hungry aire of Odcombe, in the County of Somerset, and now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling members of this Kingdom. Coryat was an eccentric and a favourite butt of the wits, but was not without ability as well as enterprise. In 1612 he set out on a journey through the East which took him to Constantinople, Jerusalem, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India. In his letters to the wits at home he sends greetings to, among others, Christopher Brooke, John Hoskins (as 'Mr. Ecquinoctial Pasticrust of the Middle Temple'), Ben Jonson, George Garrat, and 'M. John Donne, the author of two most elegant Latine Bookes,PseudomartyrandIgnatius Conclave' He died at Surat in 1617.
l. 2.leavened spirit.This is the reading of1611. It was altered in1649to 'learned', and modern editors have neglected to correct the error. A glance at the first line shows that 'leavened' is right. It is leaven which raises bread. A 'leavened spirit' is one easilypuffed up by the 'love of greatness'. There is much more of satire in such an epithet than in 'learned'.
l. 17.great Lunatique, i.e. probably 'great humourist', whose moods and whims are governed by the changeful moon. See O.E.D., which quotes:
Ther (i.e. women's) hertys chaunge never ...Ther sect ys no thing lunatyke.Lydgate.
Ther (i.e. women's) hertys chaunge never ...Ther sect ys no thing lunatyke.Lydgate.
Ther (i.e. women's) hertys chaunge never ...
Ther sect ys no thing lunatyke.
Lydgate.
'By nativitie they be lunaticke ... as borne under the influence of Luna, and therefore as firme ... as melting waxe.' Greene,Mamillia.
l. 22.Munster.TheCosmographia Universalis(1541) of Sebastian Munster (1489-1552).
l. 22.Gesner.TheBibliotheca Universalis, siue Catalogus Omnium Scriptorum in Linguis Latina, Graeca, et Hebraica, 1545, by Conrad von Gesner of Zurich (1516-1565). Norton quotes from Morhof'sPolyhistor: 'Conradus Gesner inter universales et perpetuos Catalogorum scriptores principatum obtinet'; and from Dr. Johnson: 'The book upon which all my fame was originally founded.'
l. 23.Gallo-belgicus.SeeEpigrams.
Page173, l. 56.Which casts at Portescues.Grosart offers the only intelligible explanation of this phrase. He identifies the 'Portescue' with the 'Portaque' or 'Portegue', the great crusado of Portugal, worth £3 12s., and quotes from Harrington,On Playe: 'Where lords and great men have been disposed to play deep play, and not having money about them, have cut cards instead of counters, with asseverance (on their honours) to pay for every piece of card so lost a portegue.' Donne's reference to the use which is to be made of Coryat's books shows clearly that he is speaking of some such custom as this. Chambers asks pertinently, would the phrase not be 'for Portescues'? but 'to cast at Portescues' may have been a term, perhaps translated. A greater difficulty is that 'Portescue' is not given as a form of 'Portague' by the O.E.D., but a false etymology connecting it with 'escus', crowns, may have produced it.
The following poem is also found among the poems prefixed to Coryat'sCrudities. It may be by Donne, but was not printed in any edition of his poems:
LOE her's a Man, worthy indeede to trauell;Fat Libian plaines, strangest Chinas grauell.For Europe well hath scene him stirre his stumpes:Turning his double shoes to simple pumpes.And for relation, looke he doth affordAlmost for euery step he tooke a word;What had he done had he ere hug'd th'OceanWith swimmingDrakeor famousMagelan?And kis'd thatvnturn'd1cheekeof our old mother,Since so our Europes world he can discouer?It's not thatFrench2which made hisGyant3seeThose vncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee,Till by the thaw next yeare they'r voic't againe;WhosePapagauts,Andoüelets, and that traineShould be such matter for a Pope to curseAs he would make; make! makes ten times worse,And yet so pleasing as shall laughter moue:And be his vaine, his game, his praise, his loue.Sit not still then, keeping fames trump vnblowne:But get theeCoryateto some land vnknowne.From whẽce proclaime thy wisdom with those wõders,Rarer then sommers snowes, or winters thunders.And take this praise of that th'ast done alreadie:T'is pitty ere theyflowshould haue aneddie.Explicit Ioannes Dones.
LOE her's a Man, worthy indeede to trauell;Fat Libian plaines, strangest Chinas grauell.For Europe well hath scene him stirre his stumpes:Turning his double shoes to simple pumpes.And for relation, looke he doth affordAlmost for euery step he tooke a word;What had he done had he ere hug'd th'OceanWith swimmingDrakeor famousMagelan?And kis'd thatvnturn'd1cheekeof our old mother,Since so our Europes world he can discouer?It's not thatFrench2which made hisGyant3seeThose vncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee,Till by the thaw next yeare they'r voic't againe;WhosePapagauts,Andoüelets, and that traineShould be such matter for a Pope to curseAs he would make; make! makes ten times worse,And yet so pleasing as shall laughter moue:And be his vaine, his game, his praise, his loue.Sit not still then, keeping fames trump vnblowne:But get theeCoryateto some land vnknowne.From whẽce proclaime thy wisdom with those wõders,Rarer then sommers snowes, or winters thunders.And take this praise of that th'ast done alreadie:T'is pitty ere theyflowshould haue aneddie.Explicit Ioannes Dones.
LOE her's a Man, worthy indeede to trauell;
Fat Libian plaines, strangest Chinas grauell.
For Europe well hath scene him stirre his stumpes:
Turning his double shoes to simple pumpes.
And for relation, looke he doth afford
Almost for euery step he tooke a word;
What had he done had he ere hug'd th'Ocean
With swimmingDrakeor famousMagelan?
And kis'd thatvnturn'd1cheekeof our old mother,
Since so our Europes world he can discouer?
It's not thatFrench2which made hisGyant3see
Those vncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee,
Till by the thaw next yeare they'r voic't againe;
WhosePapagauts,Andoüelets, and that traine
Should be such matter for a Pope to curse
As he would make; make! makes ten times worse,
And yet so pleasing as shall laughter moue:
And be his vaine, his game, his praise, his loue.
Sit not still then, keeping fames trump vnblowne:
But get theeCoryateto some land vnknowne.
From whẽce proclaime thy wisdom with those wõders,
Rarer then sommers snowes, or winters thunders.
And take this praise of that th'ast done alreadie:
T'is pitty ere theyflowshould haue aneddie.
Explicit Ioannes Dones.
A writer inNotes and Queries, 3rd Series, vii, 1865, gives the following translation of these lines:
As many perfect linguists as these two distichs make,So many prudent statesmen will this book of yours produce.To me the honour is sufficient of being understood: for I leaveTo you the honour of being believed by no one.
As many perfect linguists as these two distichs make,So many prudent statesmen will this book of yours produce.To me the honour is sufficient of being understood: for I leaveTo you the honour of being believed by no one.
As many perfect linguists as these two distichs make,
So many prudent statesmen will this book of yours produce.
To me the honour is sufficient of being understood: for I leave
To you the honour of being believed by no one.
1Terra incognita.
2Rablais.
3Pantagruel.
(These notes are given in the margin of the original, opposite the words explained.)
Of Donne'sLettersthe earliest are theStormsandCalmewhich were written in 1597. The two letters to Sir Henry Wotton, 'Sir, More then kisses' and 'Heres no more newes, then vertue', belong to 1597-8. The fresh letter here published,H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti(p.188), was sent to Wotton in 1599. ThatTo Mr Rowland Woodward(p.185) was probably written about the same time, and to these years—1598 to about 1608—belong also, I am inclined to think, the group of short letters beginning withTo Mr T. W.at p.205. There are very few indications of date. In that to Mr. R. W. (pp.209-10) an allusion is made to the disappointment of hopes in connexion with Guiana:
Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales soAs with the Jewes guide God did; he did showHim the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.
Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales soAs with the Jewes guide God did; he did showHim the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.
Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,
I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales so
As with the Jewes guide God did; he did show
Him the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:
Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.
Grosart and Chambers refer this, and 'the Spanish businesse' below,to 1613-14. The more probable reference is to the disappointment of Raleigh's hopes, in 1596 and the years immediately following, that the Government might be persuaded to make a settlement in Guiana, both on account of its wealth and as a strategic point to be used in harassing the King of Spain. Coolly received by Burleigh, Raleigh's scheme excited considerable enthusiasm, and Chapman wrote hisDe Guiana: Carmen Epicum, prefixed to Lawrence Keymis'sA Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana(1596), to celebrate Raleigh's achievement and to promote his scheme. The 'Spanish businesse', i.e. businesses, which, Donne complains,
as the Earth between the Moone and SunEclipse the light which Guiana would give,
as the Earth between the Moone and SunEclipse the light which Guiana would give,
as the Earth between the Moone and Sun
Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,
are probably the efforts in the direction of peace made by the party in the Government opposed to Essex. Guiana is referred to in theSatyreswhich certainly belong to these years, and inElegie XX: Loves War, which cannot be dated so late as 1613-14. In 1598 Chamberlain writes to Carleton: 'Sir John Gilbert, with six or seven saile, one and other, is gone for Guiana, and I heare that Sir Walter Raleigh should be so deeply discontented because he thrives no better, that he is not far off from making that way himself'. Chamberlain'sLetters, Camd. Soc. 1861. Compare also: 'The Queene seemede troubled to-daye; Hatton came out from her presence with ill countenance, and pulled me aside by the gyrdle and saide in a secrete waie; If you have any suite to-day praie you put it aside, The sunne doth not shine. Tisthis accursede Spanish businesse; so will I not adventure her Highnesse choler, lest she should collar me also.' Sir John Harington'sNugae Antiquae, i. 176. (Note dated 1598.) All these letters are found in the Westmoreland MS. (W), whose order I have adopted, and the titles they bear—'To Mr H. W.', 'To Mr C. B.'—suggest that they belong to a period before either Wotton or Brooke was well known, at least before Wotton had been knighted. The tone throughout points to their belonging to the same time. They are full of allusions now difficult or impossible to explain. They are written to intimate friends. 'Thou' is the pronoun used throughout, whereas 'You' is the formula in the letters to noble ladies. Wotton, Christopher and Samuel Brooke, Rowland and Thomas Woodward are among the names which can be identified, and they are the names of Donne's most intimate friends in his earlier years. Probably there were answers to Donne's letters. He refers to poems which have called forth his poems. One of these has been preserved in the Westmoreland MS., though we cannot tell who wrote it. A Bodleian MS. contains another verse letter written to Donne in the same style as these letters, a little crabbed and enigmatical, and it is addressed to him as Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. This whole correspondence, then, I should be inclined to date from 1597 to about 1607-8. The last is probably the date of the letterTo E. of D.orTo L. of D.(so inW), beginning:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flameBegets strange creatures on Niles durty slime.
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flameBegets strange creatures on Niles durty slime.
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime.
This I have transferred to theDivine Poems, and shall give reasons later for ascribing it to about this year, and for questioning the identification of its recipient with Viscount Doncaster, later Earl of Carlisle.
Of the remainingLetterssome date themselves pretty definitely. Donne formed the acquaintance of Lady Bedford about 1607-8 when she came to Twickenham, and the two letters to her—'Reason is our Soules left hand' (p.189) and 'You have refin'd mee' (p.191)—probably belong to the early years of their friendship. The second suggests that the poet is himself at Mitcham. The long, difficult letter, 'T'have written then' (p.195), belongs probably to some year following 1609. There is an allusion to Virginia, in which there was a quickening of interest in 1609 (seeElegie XIV, Note), and the 'two new starres' sent 'lately to the firmament' may be Lady Markham (died May 4, 1609) and Mris Boulstred (died Aug. 4, 1609). This is Chambers's conjecture; but Norton identifies them with Prince Henry (died Nov. 6, 1612) and the Countess's brother, Lord Harington, who died early in 1614. Public characters like these are more fittingly described as stars, so that the poem probably belongs to 1614, to which year certainly belongs the letterTo the Countesse of Salisbury(p.224). What New Year called forth the letter to Lady Bedford, beginning 'This twilight of two years' (p.198), we do not know, nor the date of the long letter in triplets, 'Honour is so sublime perfection' (p.218). But the latter was most probably written from France in 1611-12, like the fragmentary letter which follows, and the letter, similar in verse and in 'metaphysics',To the Lady Carey and Mrs Essex Riche(p.221). Donne had a little shocked his noble lady friends by the extravagance of his adulation of the dead child Mrs. Elizabeth Drury, in 1611, and these letters are written to make his peace and to show the pitch he is capable of soaring to in praise of their maturer virtues.
To Sir Henry Wotton (p.214), Donne wrote in a somewhat more elevated and respectful strain than that of his earlier letters, when the former set out on his embassy to Venice in 1604. The letter to Sir Henry Goodyere (p.183) belongs to the Mitcham days, 1605-8. To Sir Edward Herbert (p.193) he wrote 'at Julyers', therefore in 1610. The letterTo the Countesse of Huntingdon(p.201) was probably written just before Donne took orders, 1614-15. The date of the letterTo Mris M. H.(p.216), that is, to Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, not yet Lady Danvers, must have been earlier than her second marriage in 1608—the exact day of that marriage I do not know—probably in 1604, as the verse, style and tone closely resemble that of the letter to Wotton of that year. This suits the tenor of the letter, which implies that she had not yet married Sir John Danvers.
The last in the collection of the letters to Lady Bedford, 'You that are she and you' (p.227), seems from its position in1633and severalMSS. to have been sent to her with the elegy calledDeath, and to have been evoked by the death of Lady Markham or Mrs. Boulstred in 1609.
The majority of the letters thus belong to the years 1596-7 to 1607-8, the remainder to the next six years. With theFunerall Elegiesand the earlier of theDivine Poemsthey represent the middle and on the whole least attractive period of Donne's life and work. TheSongs and SonetsandElegiesare the expression of his brilliant and stormy youth, theHoly Sonnetsand the hymns are the utterance of his ascetic and penitent last years. In the interval between the two, the wit, the courtier, the man of the world, and the divine jostle each other in Donne's works in a way that is not a little disconcerting to readers of an age and temper less habituated to strong contrasts.
After the Cadiz expedition in 1596, the King of Spain began the preparation of a second Armada. With a view to destroying this Elizabeth fitted out a large fleet under the command of Essex, Howard, and Raleigh. The storm described in Donne's letter so damaged the fleet that the larger purpose was abandoned and a smaller expedition, after visiting the Spanish coast, proceeded to the Azores, with a view to intercepting the silver fleet returning from America. Owing to dissensions between Raleigh and Essex, it failed of its purpose. This was the famous 'Islands Expedition'.
The description of the departure and the storm which followed was probably written in Plymouth, whither the ships had to put back, and whence they sailed again about a month later; therefore in July-August, 1597. 'We imbarked our Army, and set sayle about the ninth of July, and for two dayes space were accompanied with a faire leading North-easterly wind.' (Mildly it kist our sailes, &c.)...... 'Wee now being in this faire course, some sixtie leagues onwards our journey with our whole Fleet together, there suddenly arose a fierce and tempestuous storme full in our teethe, continuing for foure dayes with so great violence, as that now everyone was inforced rather to looke to his own safetie, and with a low saile to serve the Seas, then to beate it up against the stormy windes to keep together, or to follow the directions for the places of meeting.'A larger Relation of the said Iland Voyage written by Sir Arthur Gorges, &c. Purchas his Pilgrimes.Glasg.mcmvii. While at Plymouth Donne wrote a prose letter, to whom is not clear, preserved in the Burley Commonplace Book. There he speaks of 'so very bad wether yteven some of yemariners have been drawen to think it were not altogether amiss to pray, and myself heard one of them say, God help us'.
To Mr. Christopher Brooke.Donne's intimate friend and chamber-fellow at Lincoln's Inn. He was Donne's chief abetter in his secret marriage, his younger brother Samuel performing the ceremony. They were the sons of Robert Brooke, Alderman of and once M.P.for York, and his wife Jane Maltby. The Alderman had other sons who followed in his footsteps and figure among the Freemen of York, but Christopher and Samuel earned a wider reputation. At Lincoln's Inn, Christopher wrote verses and cultivated the society of the wits. Wood mentions as his friends and admirers Selden and Jonson, Drayton and Browne, Wither and Davies of Hereford. Browne sings his praises in the second song of the second book ofBritannia's Pastorals, and inThe Shepherds Pipe(1614) urges him to sing a higher strain. His poems, which have been collected and edited by the late Dr. Grosart, include an Elegy on Prince Henry, and a long poem of no merit,The Ghost of Richard the Third(Miscellaniesof theFuller Worthies Library, vol. iv, 1872). In 1614 he became a bencher and Summer Reader at Lincoln's Inn. He died February 7, 162⅞.
l. 4.By Hilliard drawne.Nicholas Hilliard (1537-1619), the first English miniature painter. He was goldsmith, carver, and limner to Queen Elizabeth, and engraved her second great seal in 1586. He drew a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, at eighteen, and executed miniatures of many contemporaries. He also wrote a treatise on miniature painting. Mr. Laurence Binyon thinks it is quite possible that the miniature from which Marshall, about 1635, engraved the portrait of Donne as a young man, was by Hilliard. It is, he says, quite in his style.
l. 13.From out her pregnant intrailes.The ancients attributed winds to the effect of exhalations from the earth. Seneca,Quaestiones Naturales, v. 4, discusses various causes but mentions this first: 'Sometimes the earth herself emits a great quantity of air, which she breathes out of her hidden recesses ... A suggestion has been made which I cannot make up my mind to believe, and yet I cannot pass over without mention. In our bodies food produces flatulence, the emission of which causes great offence to ones nasal susceptibilities; sometimes a report accompanies the relief of the stomach, sometimes there is more polite smothering of it. In like manner it is supposed the great frame of things when assimilating its nourishment emits air. It is a lucky thing for us that nature's digestion is good, else we might apprehend some less agreeable consequences.' (Q. N. translated by John Clarke, with notes by Sir Archibald Geikie, 1910.) These exhalations, according to one view, mounting up were driven back by the violence of the stars, or by inability to pass the frozen middle region of the air—hence commotions. (Pliny,Nat. Hist.ii. 38, 45, 47, 48.) This explains Donne's 'middle marble room', where 'marble' may mean 'hard', orpossibly'blue' referring to the colour of the heavens. It is so used by Studley in his translations of Seneca's tragedies: 'Whereas the marble sea doth fleete,'Hipp.i. 25; 'When marble skies no filthy fog doth dim,'Herc. Oet.ii. 8; 'The monstrous hags of marble seas' (monstra caerulei maris),Hipp.v. 5, I owe this suggestion to Miss Evelyn Spearing (The Elizabethan 'Tenne Tragedies of Seneca'.Mod. Lang. Review, iv. 4). But theperipatetic view was that the heavens were made of hard, solid, though transparent, concentric spheres: 'Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven and ayre; but to say truth, with some small modifications, they' (i.e. Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman) 'have one and the self same opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of aquinta essentia, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre itself is, and that the planets move in it', (according to the older view each was fixed in its sphere) 'as birds in the ayre, fishes in the sea.' Burton,Anat. of Melancholy, part ii, sect. 2, Men. 3.
'Wind', says Donne elsewhere, 'is a mixt Meteor, to the making whereof, diverse occasions concurre with exhalations.'Sermons80. 31. 305.
The movement which Donne has in view is described by Du Bartas:
If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, supSom somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble FireWould suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,And felt what force their mortall EnemyIn Garrison keeps there continually;When down again towards their Dam they bear,Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.But in the instant, to their aid arrivesAnother new heat, which their heart revives,Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,More bravely they renew their enterprize:And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,Another-while disgracefully retreating,Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,As weak or strong their matter doth comport.This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,Equall in force and fortune, equall boldIn these assaults; to end this sudden brall,Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:So that this vapour, never resting stound,Stands never still, but makes his motion round,Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amainFromSpaintoIndia, and fromIndetoSpain.Sylvester,Du Bartas, First Week, Second Day.
If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, supSom somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble FireWould suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,And felt what force their mortall EnemyIn Garrison keeps there continually;When down again towards their Dam they bear,Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.But in the instant, to their aid arrivesAnother new heat, which their heart revives,Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,More bravely they renew their enterprize:And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,Another-while disgracefully retreating,Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,As weak or strong their matter doth comport.This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,Equall in force and fortune, equall boldIn these assaults; to end this sudden brall,Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:So that this vapour, never resting stound,Stands never still, but makes his motion round,Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amainFromSpaintoIndia, and fromIndetoSpain.Sylvester,Du Bartas, First Week, Second Day.
If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, sup
Som somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,
Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble Fire
Would suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:
But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,
Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,
And felt what force their mortall Enemy
In Garrison keeps there continually;
When down again towards their Dam they bear,
Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.
But in the instant, to their aid arrives
Another new heat, which their heart revives,
Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,
Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.
Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,
More bravely they renew their enterprize:
And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,
Another-while disgracefully retreating,
Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,
As weak or strong their matter doth comport.
This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,
Equall in force and fortune, equall bold
In these assaults; to end this sudden brall,
Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:
So that this vapour, never resting stound,
Stands never still, but makes his motion round,
Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amain
FromSpaintoIndia, and fromIndetoSpain.
Sylvester,Du Bartas, First Week, Second Day.
l. 18.prisoners, which lye but for fees, i.e. the fees due to the gaoler. 'And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees; so when,' &c.
Deaths Duell(1632), p.9. Thirty-three years after this poem was written, Donne thus uses the same figure in the last sermon he ever preached.
Page176, l. 38.I, and the Sunne.The 'Yea, and the Sunne' ofQshows that 'I' here is probably the adverb, not the pronoun, though the passage is ambiguous. Modern editors have all taken 'I' as the pronoun.
ll. 49-50.
And do hear soLike jealous husbands, what they would not know.
And do hear soLike jealous husbands, what they would not know.
And do hear so
Like jealous husbands, what they would not know.
Compare:
Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.Ovid,Amores, II. ii. 51-60.
Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.Ovid,Amores, II. ii. 51-60.
Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;
Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.
Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;
Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.
Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:
Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.
Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;
Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.
Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:
Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.
Ovid,Amores, II. ii. 51-60.
Page177, l. 60.Strive.Later editions and Chambers read 'strives', but 'ordinance' was used as a plural: 'The goodly ordinance which were xii great Bombardes of brasse', and 'these six small iron ordinance.' O.E.D. The word in this sense is now spelt 'ordnance'.
l. 66.the'Bermuda. It is probably unnecessary to change this to 'the'Bermudas.' The singular without the article is quite regular.
l. 67.Darknesse, lights elder brother.The 'elder' of the MSS. is grammatically more correct than the 'eldest' of the editions. 'We must return again to our stronghold, faith, and end with this, that this beginning was, and before it, nothing. It is elder than darkness, which is elder than light; and was before confusion, which is elder than order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and distinctions.'Essays in Divinity(ed. Jessop, 1855), p. 46.
l. 4.A blocke afflicts, &c.Aesop'sFables. Sir Thomas Rowe recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck.'The Embassy, &c.(Hakl. Soc.), i. 82.
l. 8.thy mistresse glasse.This poem, like the last, isprobablyaddressed to Christopher Brooke, but it is not so headed in anyedition or MS. The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to both.
l. 14.or like ended playes.This suggests that the Elizabethan stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture and decorations.
l. 16.a frippery, i.e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold', O.E.D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery.'Tempest,IV.i. 225. Here the rigging has the appearance of an old-clothes shop.
l. 17.No use of lanthornes.The reference is to the lanterns in the high sterns of the ships, used to keep the fleet together. 'There is no fear now of our losing one another.' Each squadron of a fleet followed the light of its Admiral. Essex speaks of having lost, or missing, 'Sir Walter Raleigh with thirty sailes that in the night followed his light.'Purchas, xx. 24-5.
l. 18.Feathers and dust.'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in the world for some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not stirre, all was soe quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written all his best peeces ere he was twenty-five yeares old.'Jonson's Conversations with Drummond.When Donne wroteThe Calmehe was in his twenty-fifth year.
l. 21.lost friends.Raleigh and his squadron lost the main fleet while off the coast of Spain, before they set sail definitely for the Azores. He rejoined the fleet at the Islands. Donne's poem was probably written in the interval.
The reading of some MSS., 'lefte friends,' is quite a possible one. Carleton, writing from Venice to Chamberlain, says: 'Let me tell you, for your comfort (for I imagine what is mine is yours) that my last news from the left island ... took knowledge of my vigilancy and diligency.' The 'left island' is Great Britain, and Donne may mean no more than that 'we can neither get back to our friends nor on to our enemies.' There may be no allusion to Raleigh's ships.
l. 23.the Calenture.'A disease incident to sailors within the tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said, fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it.' O.E.D. Theobald had the Calenture in mind when he conjectured that Falstaff 'babbled o' green fields'.
Page179, l. 33.Like Bajazet encaged, &c.: an echo of Marlowe'sTamburlaine:
There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:. . . . . . . .This is my mind, and I will have it so.Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,If they would lay their crowns before my feet,Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.
There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:. . . . . . . .This is my mind, and I will have it so.Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,If they would lay their crowns before my feet,Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.
There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;
And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:
. . . . . . . .
This is my mind, and I will have it so.
Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:
The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,
Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,
Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.
There are frequent references to this scene in contemporary literature.
ll. 35-6.a Miriade Of Ants, &c.'Erat ei' (i.e. Tiberius) 'in oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus, cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis caveret.' Suetonius,Tib.72.
l. 37.Sea-goales, i.e. sea-gaols. 'goale' was a common spelling. See next poem, l. 52, 'the worlds thy goale.' Strangely enough, neither the Grolier Club editor nor Chambers seems to have recognized the word here, inThe Calme, though in the next poem they change 'goale' to 'gaol' without comment. The Grolier Club editor retains 'goales' and Chambers adopts the reading of the later editions, 'sea-gulls.' A gull would have no difficulty in overtaking the swiftest ship which ever sailed. Grosart takes the passage correctly. 'Sea-goales' is an accurate definition of the galleys.' Finny-chips' is a vivid description of their appearance. Compare:
One of these small bodies fitted so,This soul inform'd, and abled it to rowItselfe with finnie oars.Progresse of the Soule, I. 23.
One of these small bodies fitted so,This soul inform'd, and abled it to rowItselfe with finnie oars.Progresse of the Soule, I. 23.
One of these small bodies fitted so,
This soul inform'd, and abled it to row
Itselfe with finnie oars.
Progresse of the Soule, I. 23.