Page331.The Crosse.

Beautie in thee takes up her placeAnd dates her letters from thy faceWhen she doth write.Herbert,The British Church.

Beautie in thee takes up her place

And dates her letters from thy face

When she doth write.

Herbert,The British Church.

Compare, however, the rest of Donne's poem with Herbert's description of Rome and Geneva, and also: 'Trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches; neither of a Church in the Lake, nor a Church upon seven hils'.Sermons80. 76. 769.

Donne has evidently in view the aversion of the Puritan to the sign of the cross used in baptism.

With the latter part of the poem compare George Herbert'sThe Crosse.

Page332, l. 27.extracted chimique medicine.Compare:

Only in this one thing, be no Galenist; To makeCourts hot ambitions wholesome, do not takeA dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not addeCorrectives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.Letters to, &c., p.182, ll. 59-62.

Only in this one thing, be no Galenist; To make

Courts hot ambitions wholesome, do not take

A dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not adde

Correctives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.

Letters to, &c., p.182, ll. 59-62.

ll. 33-4.

As perchance carvers do not faces make,But that away, which hid them there, do take.

As perchance carvers do not faces make,

But that away, which hid them there, do take.

'To make representations of men, or of other creatures, we finde two wayes; Statuaries have one way, and Painters have another: Statuaries doe it by Substraction; They take away, they pare off some parts of that stone, or that timber, which they work upon, and then that which they leave, becomes like that man, whom they would represent: Painters doe it by Addition; Whereas the cloth or table presented nothing before, they adde colours, and lights, and shadowes, and so there arises a representation.'Sermons80. 44. 440.

Norton compares Michelangelo's lines:

Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concettoCh' un marmo solo in se non circonscrivaCol suo soverchio, e solo a quello arrivaLa man che obbedisce all' intelletto.

Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concetto

Ch' un marmo solo in se non circonscriva

Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva

La man che obbedisce all' intelletto.

Page333, l. 47.So with harsh, &c.Chambers, I do not know why, punctuates this line:

So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking; cross the rest;

This disguises the connexion of 'cross' with its adverbial qualifications. The meaning is that as we cross the eye by making it contemplate 'bad objects' so we must cross the rest, i.e. the other senses, with harsh (the ear), hard (touch), sour (the taste), and stinking (the sense of smell). The asceticism of Donne in his later life is strikingly evidenced in such lines as these.

l. 48. I have made an emendation here which seems to me to combine happily the text of1633and that of the later editions. It seems to me that1633has dropped 'all',1635-69have dropped 'call'. I thought the line as I give it was inO'F, but found on inquiry I had misread the collation. I should withdraw it, but cannot find it in my heart to do so.

l. 52.Points downewards.I think the MS. reading is probably right, because (1) 'Pants' is the same as 'hath palpitation'; (2) Donne alludes to the anatomy of the heart, in the same terms, in theEssayes in Divinity, p. 74 (ed. Jessop, 1855): 'O Man, which art said to be the epilogue, and compendium of all this world, and the Hymen and matrimonial knot of eternal and mortal things ... and was made by God's hands, not His commandment; and hast thy head erected to heaven, and all others to the centre, that yet only thy heart of all others points downward, and only trembles.'

The reference in each case is to the anatomy of the day: 'The figure of it, as Hippocrates saith in his Bookede Cordeis Pyramidall, or rather turbinated and somewhat answering to the proportion of a Pine Apple, because a man is broad and short chested. For the Basis above is large and circular but not exactly round, and after it by degrees endeth in a cone or dull and blunt round point ... His lower part is called the Vertex or top,Mucroor point, the Cone, the heighth of the heart. Hippocrates calleth it the taile which Galen saith ... is the basest part, as the Basis is the noblest.' Helkiah Crooke:ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ,A Description of the Body of Man, &c.(1631), Book I, chap. ii,Of the Heart.

'The heart therefore is calledκαρδία ἀπὸ τοῦ κερδαίνεσθαι, (sic. i.e.κραδαίνεσθαι) which signifiethto beatebecause it is perpetually moved from the ingate to the outgate of life.'Ibid., Book VII,The Preface.

l. 53.dejections.Donne uses both the words given here: 'dejections of spirit,'Sermons50. 13. 102; and 'these detorsions have small force, but (as sunbeams striking obliquely, or arrows diverted with a twig by the way) they lessen their strength, being turned upon another mark than they were destined to,'Essays in Divinity(Jessop), p. 42.

l. 61.fruitfully.The improved sense, as well as the unanimity of the MSS., justifies the adoption of this reading. A preachermay deal 'faithfully' with his people. The adverb refers to his action, not its result in them. The Cross of Christ, in Donne's view, must always deal faithfully; whether its action produces fruit depends on our hearts.

The MSS. add 'falling upon one day Anno Dñi 1608'; i.e. March 25, 1608⁄9. George Herbert wrote some Latin versesIn Natales et Pascha concurrentes, and Sir John Beaumont an English poem 'Vpon the two great feasts of the Annuntiation and Resurrection falling on the same day, March 25, 1627'.

l. 2.The intelligence: i.e. the angel. Each sphere has its angel or intelligence that moves and directs it. Grosart quotes the arrangement,—the Sun, Raphael; the Moon, Gabriel; Mercury, Michael; Mars, Chemuel; Jupiter, Adahiel; Venus, Haniel; Saturn, Zaphiel.

l. 4.motions.Nothing is more easy and common than the dropping of the final 's', which in writing was indicated by little more than a stroke. The reference is to the doctrine of cycles and epicycles.

l. 13.But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall.Grosart and Chambers adopt the reading 'his Crosse' of1635-69, the former without any reference to the alternative reading. Professor Norton, in the Grolier Club edition, prints this, but in a note at the end remarks' that all editions after that of 1633 give this verse, correctly,

But that Christ on his cross did rise and fall'.

The agreement of the later editions is of little importance. They too often agree to go wrong. The balance of the MS. evidence is on the side of1633. To me 'this' seems the more vivid and pointed reading. The line must be taken in close connexion with what precedes. 'If I turned to the East,' says Donne, 'I should see Christ lifted on to his Cross to die, a Sun by rising set. And unless Christ had consented to rise and set onthisCrosse (this Crosse which I should see in vision if I turned my head), which was raised this day, Sin would have eternally benighted all.'

l. 22.turne all spheres.The 'tune all speares' of the editions and some MSS. is tempting because of (as it is doubtless due to) the Platonic doctrine of the music of the spheres. But Donne was more of a Schoolman and Aristotelian than a Platonist, and I think there can be little doubt that he is describing Christ as the 'first mover'. On the other hand 'tune' may include 'turne'. The Dutch poet translates:

Die 't Noord en Zuyder-punt bereicken,daer Sy 't spandenEr geven met een' draeg elck Hemel-rondsijn toon.

Die 't Noord en Zuyder-punt bereicken,

daer Sy 't spanden

Er geven met een' draeg elck Hemel-rond

sijn toon.

The idea that the note of each is due to the rate at which it is spun is that of Plato,The Republic, x.

In a letter to Goodyere written apparently in 1609 or 1610, Donne says: 'Since my imprisonment in my bed, I have made a meditation in verse, which I call a Litany; the word you know imports no other then supplication, but all Churches have one forme of supplication, by that name. Amongst ancient annals I mean some 800 years, I have met two Litanies in Latin verse, which gave me not the reason of my meditations, for in good faith I thought not upon them then, but they give me a defence, if any man, to a Lay man, and a private, impute it as a fault, to take such divine and publique names, to his own little thoughts. The first of these was made by Ratpertus a Monk of Suevia; and the other by S. Notker, of whom I will give you this note by the way, that he is a private Saint, for a few Parishes; they were both but monks and the Letanies poor and barbarous enough; yet Pope Nicolas the 5, valued their devotion so much, that he canonized both their Poems, and commanded them for publike service in their Churches: mine is for lesser Chappels, which are my friends, and though a copy of it were due to you, now, yet I am so unable to serve my self with writing it for you at this time (being some 30 staves of 9 lines) that I must intreat you to take a promise that you shall have the first, for a testimony of that duty which I owe to your love, and to my self, who am bound to cherish it by my best offices. That by which it will deserve best acceptation, is, that neither the Roman Church need call it defective, because it abhors not the particular mention of the blessed Triumphers in heaven; nor the Reformed can discreetly accuse it, of attributing more then a rectified devotion ought to doe.'

The Litanies referred to in Donne's letter to Goodyere may be read in Migne'sPatrologia Latina, vol. lxxxvii, col. 39 and 42. They are certainly barbarous enough. That of Ratpertus is entitledLitania Ratperti ad processionem diebus Dominicis, and begins:

Ardua spes mundi, solidator et inclyte coeliChriste, exaudi nos propitius famulos.Virgo Dei Genetrix rutilans in honore perennis,Ora pro famulis, sancta Maria, tuis.

Ardua spes mundi, solidator et inclyte coeli

Christe, exaudi nos propitius famulos.

Virgo Dei Genetrix rutilans in honore perennis,

Ora pro famulis, sancta Maria, tuis.

The other is headedNotkeri Magistri cognomento Balbuli Litania rhythmica, and opens thus:

Votis supplicibus voces super astra feramus,Trinus ut et simplex nos regat omnipotens.Sancte Pater, adiuva nos, Sancte Fili, adiuva nos,Compar his et Spiritus, ungue nos intrinsecus.

Votis supplicibus voces super astra feramus,

Trinus ut et simplex nos regat omnipotens.

Sancte Pater, adiuva nos, Sancte Fili, adiuva nos,

Compar his et Spiritus, ungue nos intrinsecus.

Michael, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, and Stephen, martyrs and virgins, are appealed to in both. There are some differences in respect of particular saints invoked.

It is interesting also to compare Donne's series of petitions with those in a Middle English Litany preserved in the Balliol Coll. MS. 354 (published by Edward Flügel inAngliaxxv. 220). The poetry is very poor and I need not quote. The interesting feature is the list of petitions 'Vnto the ffader', 'ye sonne', 'ye holy gost', 'the trinite', 'our lady', 'ye angelles'. 'ye propre angell', 'John baptist', 'ye appostiles', 'ye martires', 'the confessours', 'ye virgins', 'unto all sayntes'. Donne, it will be observed, includes the patriarchs and the prophets, but omits any reference to a guardian angel and to the saints. Other references in his poems and sermons show that he had the thought of a guardian angel often in his mind: 'As that Angel, which God hath given to protect thee, is not weary of his office, for all thy perversenesses, so, howsoever God deale with thee, be not thou weary of bearing thy part, in his Quire here in the Militant Church.'Sermons80. 44. 440.

Page339, l. 34.

a such selfe different instinctOf these;

a such selfe different instinct

Of these;

'As the three persons of the Trinity are distinguished as Power (The Father), Knowledge (The Son), Love (The Holy Ghost), and are yet identical, not three but one, may in me power, love, and knowledge be thus at once distinct and identical.' The comma after 'these' inD,H49,Lecwas accidentally dropped. In1635-69a comma was then interpolated after 'instinct' and 'Of these' was connected with what follows: 'Of these let all mee elemented bee,' 'these' being made to point forward to the next line. Chambers and the Grolier Club editor both read thus. ButD,H49,Lecshow what was the original punctuation. Without 'Of these' it is difficult to give a precise meaning to 'instinct'. It would be easy to change 'a such' to 'such a' with most of the MSS., but Donne seems to have affected this order. CompareElegie X: The Dreame, p.95, l. 17:

After a such fruition I shall wake.

Page341, l. 86.In Abel dye.Abel was to the early Church a type of Christ, as being the first martyr.

Page343, ll. 122-4. One might omit the brackets in these lines and substitute a semicolon after 'hearken too' and a comma after 'and do', and make the sense clearer. The MSS. bear evidence to their difficulty. There is certainly no call for brackets as we use them, and the 1633 edition is more sparing of them in this poem than the later editions. What Donne says is: 'While this quire' (enumerated in the previous stanzas) 'prays for us and thou hearkenest to them, let not us whose duty is to pray, to endure patiently,and to do thy will, trust in their prayers so far as to forget our duty of obedience and service.'

Page347, l. 231.Which well, if we starve, dine: 'well' has the support of all the MSS. and may be the adverb placed before its verb. 'If we starve they dine well.' In this wire-drawn and tormented poem it is hard to say what Donne may not have written. Most of the editors read 'will', and this appears in some copies of1633.

l. 243.Heare us, weake ecchoes, O thou eare, and cry.The 'cry' of the editions is surely right. God is at once the source of our prayers and their answerer. Our prayers are echoes of what His grace inspires in our hearts. The 'eye' ofSand other MSS., which also read 'wretches' for 'ecchoes', is due to a misapprehension of the condensed thought, and 'eye' with 'ecchoes' is entirely irrelevant.JCtries another emendation: 'Oh thou heare our cry.'

'Every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber, and poures out his soule in prayer to God;... though his faith assure him, that God hath granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea before he made it, (for God put that petition in to his heart and mouth, and moved him to aske it, that thereby he might be moved to grant it), yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his prayer,' &c.Sermons80. 77. 786.

But indeed we do not need to go to theSermonsto see that this is Donne's meaning. He has emphasized it already in this poem: e.g. in Stanza xxiii:

Heare us, for till thou heare us, LordWe know not what to say:Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.

Heare us, for till thou heare us, Lord

We know not what to say:

Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.

O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,

Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.

'But in things of this kind (i.e. sermons), that soul that inanimates them never departs from them. The Spirit of God that dictates them in the speaker or writer, and is present in his tongue or hand, meets him again (as we meet ourselves in a glass) in the eyes and ears and hearts of the hearers and readers.' Gosse,Life, &c., i. 123: To ... the Countess of Montgomery.

'God cannot be called a cry', Grosart says; but St. Paul so describes the work of the Spirit: 'Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.' Calvin thus closes his note on the passage: 'Atque ita locutus est Paulus quo significantius id totum tribueret Spiritus gratiae. Iubemur quidem pulsare, sed nemo sponte praemeditarivel unam syllabam poterit, nisi arcano Spiritus sui instinctu nos Deus pulset, adeoque sibi corda nostra aperiat.'

Page348, l. 246.Gaine to thy self, or us allow.If we perish neither Christ nor we have gained anything. Both have died in vain. If 'and' is substituted for 'or' in this line (1635-69and Chambers) then the next line becomes otiose.

We do not know what was the occasion of these lines. The Countess was the mother of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, and of Pembroke after his brother's death. Poems by the former are frequently found with Donne's, e.g. in the Hawthornden MS. which is made from a collection in Donne's own possession. Doubtless they were known to one another, but there is no evidence of intimacy, such as letters. To the Countess of Montgomery Donne in 1619 sent a copy of one of his sermons which she had asked for (Gosse,Life, &c., ii. 123). It may have been for her that he composed this poem.

An elaborate copy of the Psalms was prepared by John Davis of Hereford. From this they were published in 1822.

From l. 53 it is evident that Donne's poem was written after the death of the Countess of Pembroke in 1621.

Page349, l. 38.So well attyr'd abroad, so ill at home.Donne has probably in mind the French versions of Clement Marot, which were the war-songs of the Huguenots.

Of Mr. Tilman I can find no trace in printed Oxford or Cambridge registers. The poem is a strange comment on the seventeenth century's estimate of the clergy:

Why do they think unfitThat Gentry should joyne families with it?

Why do they think unfit

That Gentry should joyne families with it?

In hisLife of George HerbertWalton tells us of Herbert's resolution to enter the Church, and the opposition he met with: 'He did, at his return to London, acquaint a Court-friend with his resolution to enter intoSacred Orders, who perswaded him to alter it, as too mean an employment, and too much below his birth, and the excellent abilities and endowments of his mind. To whom he replied, 'It hath been formerly judg'd that the Domestick Servants of the King of Heaven, should be of the noblest Families on Earth: and, though the Iniquity of the late Times have made Clergy-men meanly valued, and the sacred name of Priest contemptible; yet, I will labour to make it honourable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor abilities, to advance the Glory of that God that gave them.' This estimate of the clergy must not be overlooked when considering the struggle that went on in Donne's mind too before he crossed the Rubicon.

Page352, l. 43.As Angels out of clouds, &c.Walton doubtlesshad this line in his mind when he described Donne's own preaching: 'A Preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes with them, alwayes preaching to himselfe, like an Angel from a cloud, though in none: carrying some (as S. Paul was) to heaven, in holy raptures; enticing others, by a sacred art and courtship, to amend their lives; and all this with a most particular grace, and un-imitable fashion of speaking.'

Page353, ll. 9-12. Perhaps the rhetoric of these lines would be improved by shifting the semicolon from l. 10 to l. 11. 'In putting, at thy behest, the seas between my friends and me, I sacrifice them unto thee: Do thou put thy,' &c. As the verse stands the connexion between the first two lines and the next is a little vague.

l. 12.thy sea. I have adopted 'sea' from the MSS. in place of 'seas'1633. It was easy for the printer to take over 'seas' from the preceding line, but 'sea' is the more pointed word. The sea is the blood of Christ. The 1635-69 editions indeed read 'blood', which is as though a gloss had crept in from the margin. More probably 'blood' was a first version, changed by a bold metaphor to a more striking antithesis.

Miss Spearing has drawn my attention, since writing this note, to the peroration ofA Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at Lincolns-Inne, April18, 1619, which I had overlooked. It confirms the rightness of 'sea'. The whole passage is of interest in connexion with this poem: 'Now to make up a circle, by returning to our first word, remember: As we remember God, so for his sake, let us remember one another. In my long absence, and far distance from hence, remember me, as I shall do you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest East, and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear in one of us; we hear with both at once, and he hears in both at once; remember me, not my abilities; for when I consider my Apostleship that I was sent to you, I am in St. Paulsquorum, quorum ego sum minimus, the least of them that have been sent; and when I consider my infirmities, I am in hisquorum, in another commission, another way,Quorum ego maximus; the greatest of them; but remember my labors, and endeavors, at least my desire, to make sure your salvation. And I shall remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, and your christianly respect towards all them that bring that word unto you, and towards myself in particular far bove my merit. And so as your eyes that stay here, and mine that must be far of, for all that distance shall meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, and meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon; so our hearts may meet morning and evening in that God, which sees and hears everywhere; that you may come thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may be of use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may be restoredto you again; and may come to him with my prayer that whatPaulsoever plant amongst you, or whatApollossoever water, God himself will give us the increase: That if I never meet you again till we have all passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, I may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your Saviour, that which he said to his Father and our Father,Of those whom thou hast given me, have I not lost one. Remember me thus, you that stay in this Kingdome of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, where ambition on one side, and a necessary defence from unjust persecution on the other side hath drawn many swords; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his Kingdome, to which,though we must sail through a sea, it is the sea of his blood, where no soul suffers shipwrack; though we must be blown with strange winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it is the Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow away all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; where we shall be all Souldiers of one army, the Lord of Hostes, and Children of one Quire, the God of Harmony and consent: where all Clients shall retain but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, nor present him any other fee but his own blood, and yet every Client have a Judgment on his side, not only in a not guilty, in the remission of his sins, but in aVenite benedicti, in being called to the participation of an immortal Crown of glory: where there shall be no difference in affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree as fully and perfectly in ourAllelujah, andgloria in excelsis, as God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost agreed in thefaciamus hominemat first; where we shall end, and yet begin but then; where we shall have continuall rest, and yet never grow lazie; where we shall be stronger to resist, and yet have no enemy; where we shall live and never die, where we shall meet and never part.'Sermons26. 19. 280.

l. 28.Fame, Wit, Hopes, &c.Compare: 'How ill husbands then of this dignity are we bysinne, to forfeit it by submitting our selves to inferior things? either togold, then which every worme, (because a worme hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature more estimable, and more precious; Or, to that which is lesse than gold, to Beauty; for there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that; (the Father cannot diet himselfe so, nor the mother so, as to be sure of a faire child) but it is a thing that hapned by chance, wheresoever it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty. To that which is lesse thengoldorBeauty,voice,opinion,fame,honour, we sell our selves.'Sermons50. 38. 352.

Immanuel Tremellius was born in the Ghetto of Ferrara in 1510. His father was apparently a Jewish surgeon, a man of distinction inthe Jewish community. Educated as a Jew, Tremellius became a Christian about the age of twenty, and, under the influence of the Protestant movement which was agitating Italy as well as other countries, a Calvinist. When persecution began Tremellius fled from Lucca, where he had taught Hebrew under the reformer Vermigli, to Strasburg, and thereafter his life was that of the wandering, often fugitive, scholar and reformer. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and held the Professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge until 1553. The accession of Mary drove him back to the Continent, and he was tutor to the children of the Duke of Zweibrüchen from 1554 to 1558, and rector of the Gymnasium at Hornbach from 1558 to 1560. The Duke became a Lutheran, and Tremellius was exiled, but found after a year or two a haven in the University of Heidelberg, where Duke Frederick III had rallied to the Calvinist cause. Tremellius was Professor of Theology here from 1562-77, and it was here that he issued most of his works. He had already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended for his Jewish brethren. The works issued at Heidelberg include a Chaldaic and Syriac Grammar, an edition of the Peschito (an old Syrian version of the New Testament), and the Latin translation of the Old Testament which Donne utilized for his paraphrase. In this work he was assisted by his son-in-law Francis Junius (father of the Anglo-Saxon and Antiquarian scholar), a native of Bourges, who had served as a field-preacher under William the Silent. Junius was responsible only for the Apocrypha, so that Donne rightly mentions Tremellius alone. The work was published at Frankfort in 1575-9; in London in 1580, 1581, and 1585; at Geneva in 1590 and 1617. In the Genevan editions it was coupled with Beza's translation of the New Testament. The whole was re-issued at Hanover as late as 1715.

Duke Frederick III's successor was a Lutheran, and Tremellius was driven into exile once more in 1577. His last years were spent as teacher in the Academy instituted by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, in Sedan. Here he died in 1580.

I have compared Donne's version throughout with both Tremellius' translation and the Vulgate, and wherever the collation helps to fix the text I have quoted their readings in the textual notes. I add here one or two more quotations from the originals. Tremellius' version was accompanied, it must be remembered, with an elaborate commentary.

Page356, l. 58.accite, the reading ofB,O'Fas well as1635-69, I have not yet found elsewhere in Donne's works, but doubtless it occurs. Shakespeare uses it once:

He by the Senate is accited homeFrom weary wars against the barbarous Goths.Tit. Andr.I. i. 27-8.

He by the Senate is accited home

From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.

Tit. Andr.I. i. 27-8.

ll. 75-6.for they sought for meatWhich should refresh their soules, they could not get.

ll. 75-6.for they sought for meat

Which should refresh their soules, they could not get.

Chambers has printed this poem from1639, noting occasionally the readings of1635and1650, but ignoring consistently those of1633. Here1633has the support ofN,TCD;Breads 'they none could get'; andO'F, if I may trust my collation, agrees with1635-69;Grolier follows1633but conjectures 'the sought-for meat'. This is unnecessary. It is quite in Donne's style to close with an abrupt 'they could not get'. Modern punctuation would change the comma to a semicolon. The version of Tremellius runs: 'Expirarunt quum quaererent escam sibi, qua reficerent se ipsos.' The Vulgate, 'consumpti sunt, quia quaesierunt cibum sibi ut refocillarent animum.'

Page357, l. 81.Of all which heare I mourne: i.e. 'which hear that I mourn.' The construction is harsh, and I was tempted for a moment to adopt the 'me' ofN, but Donne is translating Tremellius, and 'me in gemitu esse' is not quite the same thing as 'me gementem'. Grosart and Chambers and the Grolier Club editor would not have followed1639in changing 'heare' to 'here' had they consulted the original poem which Donne is paraphrasing in any version. The Vulgate runs: 'Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, et non est qui consoletur me.'

Page359, l. 161.poure, for thy sinnes. The 'poure out thy sinnes' of1635-69which Grosart and Chambers follow is obviously wrong. The words 'for thy sinnes' have no counterpart in the Latin of Tremellius or the Vulgate. The latter runs: 'Effunde sicut aquam cor tuum ante conspectum Domini.'

Page360, ll. 182-3.hath girt mee inWith hemlocke, and with labour.

Page360, ll. 182-3.hath girt mee in

With hemlocke, and with labour.

Cingit cicuta et molestia,Tremellius: circumdedit me felle et labore,Vulgate. Donne combines the two versions. He is fond of using 'hemlock' as the typical poison: and he tells Wotton in one of his letters that to him labour or business is the worst of evils: 'I professe that I hate businesse so much, as I am sometimes glad to remember, that theRoman Churchreads that verseA negotio perambulante in tenebris, which we reade from the pestilence walking by night, so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve avoiding.'Letters, p. 142. To Goodyere in like manner he writes, 'we who have been accustomed to one another are like in this, that we love not businesse.'Letters, p. 94.

Page361, l. 193.the children of his quiver. Donne found this phrase in the Vulgate or in the margin of Tremellius. In the text of the latter the verse runs, 'Immitit in renes meos tela pharetrae suae.' The marginal note says, 'Heb.filios, id est, prodeuntes a pharetra.' The Vulgate reads, 'filias pharetrae suae.'

l. 197.drunke with wormewood: 'inebriavit me absinthio,'Tremellius and Vulgate.

Page362, ll. 226-30. I have changed the full stop in l. 229, 'him', to a comma, for all these clauses are objective to 'the Lord allowes not this'. The construction is modelled on the original: 'Non enim affligit ex animo suo, moestitiaque afficit filios viri. 34. Conterere sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae, 35. Detorquere ius viri coram facie superioris, 36. Pervertere hominem in causa sua, Dominus non probat.' The version of the Vulgate is similar: '33. Non enim humiliavit ex corde suo, et abiecit filios hominum, 34. Ut contereret sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae; 35. Ut declinaret iudicium viri in conspectu vultus Altissimi; 36. Ut perverteret hominem in iudicio suo; Dominus ignoravit.'

Page364, l. 299.their bone. The reading of the editions is probably right: 'Concreta est cutis eorum cum osse ipsorum,'Tremellius.

l. 302.better through pierc'd then through penury. I have no doubt that the 'through penury' of the 1635-69 editions and the MSS. is what Donne wrote. The 1633 editor changed it to 'by penury'. Donne is echoing the parallelism of 'confossi gladio quam confossi fame'. The Vulgate has simply 'Melius fuit occisio gladio quam interfectio fame'.

Page366, l. 337.The annointed Lord, &c.Chambers, to judge from his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to God,—'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi, neque conditiones sibi imperatas.' 'The anointed of the Lord' is the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus.' Donne took this verse as the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king; others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and bad Kings ... are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was their caseprophetically.'Sermons50. 43. 402.

l. 355.wee drunke, and pay: 'pecunia bibimus'Tremellius and Vulgate: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized Version reads 'we have drunken'.

Page367, l. 374.children fall. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et pueri ad ligna corruunt,'Tremellius; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,'Vulgate. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite differently.

The date which Walton gives for this poem, March 23, 1630, is of course March 23, 1631, i.e. eight days before the writer's death. Donne's tense and torturing will never relaxed its hold before the final moment: Being speechlesse, he did (as Saint Stephen) look steadfastly towards heaven, till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father; And being satisfied with this blessed sight, (as his soule ascended, and his last breath departed from him) he closed his owne eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture, as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him.'Walton(1670).

Donne's monument had been designed by himself and shows him thus shrouded. The epitaph too is his own composition and is the natural supplement to this hymn:

JOHANNES DONNESAC. THEOL. PROFESS.POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNISTENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITERINCVBVIT;INSTINCTV ET IMPVLSV SP. SANCTI, MONITVET HORTATVREGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXVSANNO SVI JESV MDCXIV. ET SVÆ ÆTATIS XLIIDECANATV HVJVS ECCLESIÆ INDVTVSXXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI.EXVTVS MORTE VLTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI.HIC LICET IN OCCIDVO CINERE ASPICIT EVMCVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.

SAC. THEOL. PROFESS.

POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNIS

TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER

INCVBVIT;

INSTINCTV ET IMPVLSV SP. SANCTI, MONITV

ET HORTATV

REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXVS

ANNO SVI JESV MDCXIV. ET SVÆ ÆTATIS XLII

DECANATV HVJVS ECCLESIÆ INDVTVS

XXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI.

EXVTVS MORTE VLTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI.

HIC LICET IN OCCIDVO CINERE ASPICIT EVM

CVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.

The reference in the last line of the epitaph, and the figure of the map with which he plays in the second and third stanzas of theHymneare both illustrated by a passage in a sermon on Psalm vi. 8-10: 'In a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West East, though they be distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon a round body, and then West and East are all one. In a flatsoule, in a dejected conscience, in a troubled spirit, there goes no more to the making of that trouble, peace, then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits, to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and conforme thee to him, and thy West is East, thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit. The name of Christ isOriens,The East; And yet Lucifer himself is calledFilius Orientis,The Son of the East. If thou beest fallen byLucifer, fallen toLucifer, and not fallen asLucifer, to a senselessnesse of thy fall, and an impenitiblenesse therein, but to a troubled spirit, still thy prospect is the East, still thy Climate is heaven, still thy Haven is Jerusalem; for, in our lowest dejection of all, even in the dust of the grave, we are so composed, so layed down, as that we look to the East: If I could beleeve thatTrajan, orTecla, could look Eastward, that is, towards Christ, in Hell, I could beleeve with them of Rome, that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell.'Sermons80. 55. 558.

For 'the name of Christ is Oriens'. Donne refers in the margin toZachariaevi. 12: 'Et loqueris ad eum dicens: Haec ait Dominus exercituum, dicens:ECCE VIR ORIENS NOMEN EJUS; et subter eum orietur, et aedificabit templum Domino.' In the English versions, Genevan and Authorized, the words run 'whose name is the Branch', but to Donne the Vulgate was the form in which he knew the Scriptures most intimately. At the same time he consulted and refers to the English versions frequently: 'that which we call theBishops Bible, nor that which we call theGeneva Bible, and that which we may call theKings.'Sermons80. 50. 506.

The difference between the two versions is due, I understand, to the fact that the Hebrew participle 'rising' and the Hebrew word for 'branch' contain the same consonants. In unpointed Hebrew it was, therefore, possible to confound them. The Septuagint version isἈνατολὴ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ.

In describing the preparations for making Donne's tomb Walton says: 'Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside, as might show his lean, pale, and deathlike face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus.' Walton says that he stood, but Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the drapery by its folds reveals that it was modelled from a recumbent figure. Gosse,Life, &c., ii. 288.

ll. 18-20.Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them.

ll. 18-20.Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,

All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them.

Grosart and Chambers have boggled unnecessarily at these lines. The former inserts an unnecessary and unmetrical 'are' after 'Gibraltare'. The latter interpolates a mark of interrogation after 'Gibraltare', putting 'Anyan, and Magellan and Gibraltare' on a level with the Pacific, the 'eastern riches' and Jerusalem, i.e.sixpossible homes instead ofthree. What the poet says is simply, 'Be my homein the Pacific, or in the rich east, or in Jerusalem, to each I must sail through a strait, viz. Anyan (i.e. Behring Strait) if I go west by the North-West passage, or Magellan, or Gibraltar. These, all of which are straits, are ways to them, and none but straits are ways to them.' A condensed construction makes 'are ways to them' predicate to two subjects. For 'the straight of Anian' see Hakluyt'sPrincipal Navigations, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1904, esp. the map at p. 256, which shows very distinctly how the 'Straight of Anian' was conceived to separate America from 'Cathaia in Asia' and to lead right on to Japan and the 'Ilandes of Moluccae', 'the eastern riches.' TheMare Pacificumlies further to the south and east, entered by the 'Straight of Magellanes' between Peru and the 'Terra del Fuego', which latter is not an island but part of the great 'Terra Australis'. Thus 'none but straights' lead to the 'eastern riches' or the Pacific. 'Outre ce que les navigations des modernes ont des-jà presque descouvert que ce n'est point une isle, ains terre ferme et continente avec l'Inde orientale d'un costé, et avec les terres qui sont soubs les deux poles d'autre part; ou, si elle en est separée, que c'est d'un si petit destroit et intervalle, qu'elle ne merite pas d'estre nommé isle pour cela.' Montaigne,Essais, i. 31:Des Cannibales.

The conceit about the 'straits' Donne had already used: 'a narrower way but to a better Land; thorow Straits; 'tis true; but to thePacifiqueSea, The consideration of the treasure of the Godly Man in this World, and God's treasure towards him, both in this, and the next.'Sermons26. 5. 71.

'Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the Moluccaes, or to China, then by the Promontory ofGood Hope? Yet another way opened itself toMagellan; a Straite; it is true; but yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a North-East, and a North-West way thither, besides?'Sermons80. 24. 241.

Nevertheless by the time Donne wrote his hymn the sea to the south of Terra del Fuego had recently been discovered. He is using the language of a slightly earlier date, of his own youth, when travels and far countries were much in his imagination. In 1617 George, Lord Carew, writing to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul, says: 'The Hollanders have discovered to the southward of the Strayghts of Magellen an open sea and free passage to the south sea.'Letters of George, Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe, Camden Society, 1860. For the 'Straight of Anyan' compare also:

This makes the foisting traveller to sweare,And face out many a lie within the yeere.And if he have beene an howre or two aboardeTo spew a little gall: then by the Lord,He hath beene in both th'Indias, East and West,Talks of Guiana, China, and the rest,The straights of Gibraltare, and ÆnianAre but hard by; no, nor the Magellane:Mandeville, Candish, sea-experienst DrakeCame never neere him, if he truly crake.Gilpin,Skialetheia, Satyre I.

This makes the foisting traveller to sweare,

And face out many a lie within the yeere.

And if he have beene an howre or two aboarde

To spew a little gall: then by the Lord,

He hath beene in both th'Indias, East and West,

Talks of Guiana, China, and the rest,

The straights of Gibraltare, and Ænian

Are but hard by; no, nor the Magellane:

Mandeville, Candish, sea-experienst Drake

Came never neere him, if he truly crake.

Gilpin,Skialetheia, Satyre I.

For 'Ænian' in this passage Grosart conjectures 'Aegean'! I have put a semicolon for a comma in the third last line quoted. I take it and the preceding to be a quotation from the traveller's talk.

The text of the 1633 edition, which is, with one trifling exception, that of the other printed editions, is followed by Walton in the first short life of Donne prefixed to theLXXX Sermons(1640). Walton probably took it from one of the 1633, 1635, or 1639 editions; but he may have had a copy of the poem. The MSS. which contain the hymn have some important differences, and instead of noting these as variants or making a patchwork text I have thought it best to print the poem as given inA18,N,O'F,S96,TCC,TCD. The six MSS. represent three or perhaps two different sources ifO'FandS96are derived from a common original—(1)A18,N,TC, (2)S96, (3)O'F. It is not likely, therefore, that their variants are simply editorial emendations. In some respects their text seems to me to improve on that of the printed editions.

S96andO'Fdiffer from the third group in reading, at l. 5, 'I have not done.' On the other hand,A18andTCat l. 4 read 'do them', and at l. 15 'this sunne' (probably a misreading of 'thie'). It seems to me that the readings of l. 2 ('is'), l. 3 ('those sinnes'), l. 7 ('by which I won'), and l. 15 ('Sweare by thyself') are undoubtedly improvements, and in a text constructed on the principle adopted by Mr. Bullen in his anthologies I should adopt them. Some of the other readings, e.g. l. 18 ('I have no more'), probably belong to a first version of the poem and were altered by the poet himself.O'F, which was prepared in 1632, strikes out 'have' and writes 'fear' above. But in a seventeenth-century poem, circulating in MS. and transcribed in commonplace-books, who can say which emendations are due to the author, which to transcribers? Moreover, the line 'I have no more', i.e. no more to ask, emphasizes the play upon his own name which runs through the poem. 'I have no more' is equivalent to 'I am Donne'.

Walton in citing this hymn adds: 'I have the rather mentioned this Hymn for that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune and to be often sung to the Organ by the Choristers of St. Pauls Church, in his own hearing, especially at the Evening Service; and at his Customary Devotions in that place, did occasionally say to a friend, The words of this Hymne have restored me to the same thoughts of joy that possest my Soul in my sicknesse when I composed it. And, O the power of Church-music! that Harmonyadded to it has raised the Affections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe, that I always return from paying this publick duty of Prayer and Praise to God, with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the world.'

Walton does not tell us who composed the music he refers to, but the following setting has been preserved in Egerton MS. 2013. The composer is John Hillton (d. 1657), organist to St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. See Grove'sDictionary of Music.

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