It cannot be by an entire accident that these poems thus recur in manuscripts which have so far as we can see no common origin.7And as one is ascribed to Roe on indisputable(and) three on very strong evidence, it is a fair inference, if borne out by a general resemblance of thought, and style, and verse, that they are all by Roe.
To my mind they have a strong family resemblance, and very little resemblance to Donne's work. They are witty, but not with the subtle, brilliant, metaphysical wit of Donne; they are obscure at times, but not as Donne's poetry is, by too swift and subtle transitions, and ingeniously applied erudition; there are in them none of Donne's peculiar scholastic doctrines of angelic knowledge, of the microcosm, of soul and body, or of his chemical and medical allusions; they are coarse and licentious, but not as Donne's poems are, with a kind of witty depravity, Italian in origin, and reminding one of Ovid and Aretino, but like Jonson's poetry with the coarseness of the tavern and the camp. On both Jonson's and Roe's work rests the trail of what was probably the most licentious and depraving school in Europe, the professional armies serving in the Low Countries.
For a brief account of Roe's life will explain some features of his poetry, especially the vivid picture of life in London in the Satire, 'Sleep next Society,' which is strikingly different in tone, and in the aspects of that life which are presented, from anything in Donne'sSatyres. Roe has been hitherto a mere name appearing in the notes to Jonson's and to Donne's poems. No critic has taken the trouble to identify him. Gifford suggested or stated that he was the son of Sir Thomas Roe, who as Mayor of London was knighted in 1569. Mr. Chambers accepts this and when referring to Jonson,Epigram 98, on Roe the ambassador, he adds, 'there are others in the same collection to his uncles Sir John Roe and William Roe.' Who this uncle was they do not tell us, but Hunter in theChorus Vatumnotes that, if Gifford's conjecture be sound, then he must be John Roe of Clapham in Bedfordshire, the eldest son of the Lord Mayor.
It is a quaint picture we thus get of the famous ambassador's uncle (he was older than 'Dear Thom's' father)—a kind of Sir Toby Belch, taking the pleasures of the town with his nephew, and writing a satire which might make a young man blush to read. But in fact John Roe of Clapham was never Sir John, and he was dead twelve years before 1603, when these poems were written.8Sir John Roe the poet was the cousin, not the uncle, of the ambassador. He was the eldest son of William Rowe (or Roe) of Higham Hill, near Walthamstow, in the county of Essex.9William Roe was the third son of the first Lord Mayor of the name Roe.10He had two sons, John and William, the latter of whom is probably the person addressed in Jonson'sEpigrammes, cxxviii. John was born, according to a statement in Morant'sHistory of Essex(1768), on the fifth of May, 1581. This harmonizes with the fact that when the elder William Roe died in 1596 John was still a minor and thereby a cause of anxiety to his father, who in his will, proved in 1596, begs his wife and executors to 'be suiters for his wardeshipp, that his utter spoyle (as much as in them is) maie be prevented'. This probably refers to the chance of a courtier being made ward and despoiling the lad. The following year he matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford.11How long he stayed there is not known, probably not long. The career he chose was that of a soldier, and his first service was in Ireland. If he went there with Essex in 1599 he is perhaps one of that general's many knights. But he may have gone thither later, for he evidently found a patron in Mountjoy. In 1605 that nobleman, then Earl of Devonshire, wrote to Sir Ralph Winwood, Ambassador to the United Provinces, first to recommend Roe to him as one wishing to follow the wars and therein to serve the States; and then to thank him for his readiness to befriend Sir John Roe. He adds that he will be ever ready to serve the States to requite any favour Roe shall receive.12By 1608 he was dead, for a list of captains discharged in Ireland since 1603 gives the following: 'Born in England and dead in 1608—Sir John Roe.'13
Such in brief outline is the life of the man who in 1603, possibly between his Irish and Low Country campaigns, appears in London as one, with his more famous cousin Thomas, of the band of wits and poets whose leader was Jonson, whose most brilliant star was Donne. Jonson's epigrams and conversations enable us to fill in some of the colours wanting in the above outline. The most interesting of these shows Roe to have been in Russia as well as Ireland and the Low Countries, and tells us that he was, like 'Natta the new knight' in hisSatyre, a duellist:
ON SIR IOHN ROE.
What two brave perills of the private swordCould not effect, not all the furies doe,That selfe-devidedBelgiadid afford;What not the envie of the seas reach'd too,The cold ofMosco, and fatIrishayre,His often change of clime (though not of mind)What could not worke; at home in his repaireWas his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.Which shewes, where ever death doth please t' appeare,Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sicknesse, all are there.
What two brave perills of the private swordCould not effect, not all the furies doe,That selfe-devidedBelgiadid afford;What not the envie of the seas reach'd too,The cold ofMosco, and fatIrishayre,His often change of clime (though not of mind)What could not worke; at home in his repaireWas his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.Which shewes, where ever death doth please t' appeare,Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sicknesse, all are there.
What two brave perills of the private sword
Could not effect, not all the furies doe,
That selfe-devidedBelgiadid afford;
What not the envie of the seas reach'd too,
The cold ofMosco, and fatIrishayre,
His often change of clime (though not of mind)
What could not worke; at home in his repaire
Was his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.
Which shewes, where ever death doth please t' appeare,
Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sicknesse, all are there.
In his conversations with Drummond Jonson as usual gave more intimate and less complimentary details: 'Sir John Roe was an infinite spender, and used to say, when he had no more to spend he could die. He died in his (i.e. Jonson's) arms of the pest, and he furnished his charges 20lb., which was given him back,' doubtless by his brother William. Morant states that 'Sir John the eldest son, having no issue, sold this Manor (i.e. Higham-hill) to his father-in-law Sir Reginald Argall, of whom it was purchased by the second son—Sir William Rowe'.
Such a career is much more likely than Donne's to have produced the satire 'Sleep, next Society', with its lurid picture of cashiered captains, taverns, stews, duellists, hard drinkers, and parasites. It is much more like a scene out ofBartholomew Fairthan any of Donne's fiveSatyres. Nor was Donne likely at any time to have written of James I as Roe does. He moved in higher circles, and was more politic. But Roe had ability. 'Deare Love, continue nice and chaste' is not quite in the taste of to-day, but it is a good example of the paradoxical, metaphysical lyric; and there are both feeling and wit in 'Come, Fates; I feare you not', unlike as it is to Donne's subtle, erudite, intenser strain.
Returning to the list of poems open to question on pp.cxxviii-ix we have sixteen left to consider. Of some of these there is very little to say.
Nos. 1 and 14 are most probably by the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of Pembroke collaborating with Sir Benjamin Rudyard. Both were wits and poets of Donne's circle. The first song,
'Soules joy, now I am gone'
'Soules joy, now I am gone'
'Soules joy, now I am gone'
is ascribed to Donne only in1635-69, and is there inaccuratelyprinted. It is assigned to Pembroke in the younger Donne's edition of Pembroke and Ruddier'sPoems(1660), a bad witness, but also by Lansdowne MS. 777, which Mr. Chambers justly calls 'a very good authority'.14The latter, however, believes the poem to be Donne's because the central idea—the inseparableness of souls—is his, and so is the contemptuous tone of
Fooles have no meanes to meet,But by their feet.
Fooles have no meanes to meet,But by their feet.
Fooles have no meanes to meet,
But by their feet.
But both the contemptuous tone and the Platonic thought were growing common. We get it again in Lovelace's
If to be absent were to beAway from thee.
If to be absent were to beAway from thee.
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee.
The thought is Donne's, but not the airy note, the easy style, or the tripping prosody. Donne never writes of absence in this cheerful, confident strain. He consoles himself at times with the doctrine of inseparable souls, but the note of pain is never absent. He cannot cheat his passionate heart and senses with metaphysical subtleties.
The songFarewell to love, the second in the list of poems added in1635, is found only inO'FandS96. There is therefore no weighty external evidence for assigning it to Donne, but no one can read it without feeling that it is his. The cynical yet passionate strain of wit, the condensed style, and the metaphysical turn given to the argument, are all in his manner. As printed in1635the point of the third stanza is obscured. As I have ventured to amend it, an Aristotelian doctrine is referred to in a way that only Donne would have done in quite such a setting.
The threeElegies, XII, XIII, and XIV (7, 8, 9 in the list), must also be assigned to Donne, unless some more suitable candidate can be advanced on really convincing grounds. The first of the three,His parting from her, is so fine a poem that itis difficult to think any unknown poet could have written it. In sincerity and poetic quality it is one of the finest of theElegies,15and in this sincerer note, the absence of witty paradox, it differs from poems likeThe BraceletandThe Perfumeand resembles the fine elegy calledHis Pictureand two other pieces that stand somewhat apart from the general tenor of theElegies, namely, the famous elegyOn his Mistris, in which he dissuades her from travelling with him as a page:
By our first strange and fatal interview,
By our first strange and fatal interview,
By our first strange and fatal interview,
and that rather enigmatical poemThe Expostulation, which found its way into Jonson'sUnderwoods:
To make the doubt clear that no woman's true,Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?
To make the doubt clear that no woman's true,Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?
To make the doubt clear that no woman's true,
Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?
All of these poems bear the imprint of some actual experience, and to this cause we may perhaps trace the comparative rareness with whichHis parting from heris found in manuscripts, and that it finally appeared in a mutilated form. The poet may have given copies only to a few friends and desired that it should not be circulated. In the Second Collection of poems inTCDit is signed at the close, 'Sir Franc: Wryothlesse.' Who is intended by this I do not know. The ascriptions in this collection are many of them purely fanciful. Still, that the poem is Donne's rests on internal evidence alone.
Of the other two elegies,Julia, which is found in only two manuscripts,BandO'F, is quite the kind of thing Donne might have amused himself by writing in the scurrilous style of Horace's invectives against Canidia, frequently imitated byMantuan and other Humanists. The chief difficulty with regard to the second,A Tale of a Citizen and his Wife, is to find Donne writing in this vein at so late a period as 1609 or 1610, the date implied in several of the allusions. He was already the author of religious poems, including probablyLa Corona. In 1610 he wrote hisLitanie, and, as Professor Norton points out, in the same letter in which he tells of the writing of the latter he refers to some poem of a lighter nature, the name of which is lost through a mutilation of the letter, and says, 'Even at this time when (I humbly thank God) I ask and have his comfort of sadder meditations I do not condemn in myself that I have given my wit such evaporations as those, if they be free from profaneness, or obscene provocations.' Whether this would cover the elegy in question is a point on which perhaps our age and Donne's would not decide alike. Donne's nature was a complex one. Jack Donne and the grave and reverend divine existed side by side for not a little time, and even in the sermons Donne's wit is once or twice rather coarser than our generation would relish in the pulpit. But once more we must add that it is possible Donne has in this case been made responsible for what is another's. Every one wrote this occasional poetry, and sometimes wrote it well.
There is no more difficult poem to understand or to assign to or from Donne than the long letter headedTo the Countesse of Huntington, 13 on the list, which, for the time being, I have placed in the Appendix B. On internal grounds there is more to be said for ascribing it to Donne than any other single poem in this collection. Nevertheless I have resolved to let it stand, that it may challenge the attention it deserves.16The reasons which led me to doubt Donne's authorship are these:
(1) The poem was not included in the 1633 edition, nor is itfound in either of the groupsD,H49,LecandA18,N,TCC,TCD. It was added in1635with four other spurious poems, the dialogue ascribed to Donne and Wotton but assigned by the great majority of manuscripts to the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Rudyard, the two epistles to Ben Jonson, and the Elegy addressed to Sir Thomas Roe, which we have assigned, for reasons given above, to Sir John Roe. The poem is found in only two manuscript collections, viz.Pand the second, miscellaneous collection of seventeenth-century poems inTCD. In both of these it is headedSr Walter Ashton(orAston)to the Countesse of Huntingtone, and no reference whatsoever is made to Donne. I do not attach much importance to this title. Imaginary headings were quite common in the case of poems circulating in manuscript. Poems are inscribed as having been written by the Earl of Essex or Sir Walter Raleigh the night before he died, or as found in the pocket of Chidiock Tichbourne. Editors have occasionally taken these too seriously. Drayton'sHeroicall Epistlesmade it a fashion to write such letters in the case of any notorious love affair or intrigue. The manuscriptPcontains a long imaginary letter from Sir Philip Sidney to Lady Mary Rich and a fragment of her reply. In the same manuscript the poem, probably by the Earl of Pembroke, 'Victorious beauty though your eyes,' is headedThe Mar: B to the Lady Fe: Her., i.e. the Marquis of Buckingham to—I am not sure what lady is intended. The only thing which the title given to the letter in question suggests is that it was not an actual letter to the Countess but an imaginary one.
(2) Of Donne's relations with Elizabeth Stanley, who in 1603 became the Countess of Huntingdon, his biographers have not been able to tell us very much. He must have met her at the house of Sir Thomas Egerton when her mother, the dowager Countess of Derby, married that statesman in 1600. Donne says:
I was your Prophet in your yonger dayes,And now your Chaplaine, God in you to praise.(p.203, ll. 69-70.)
I was your Prophet in your yonger dayes,And now your Chaplaine, God in you to praise.(p.203, ll. 69-70.)
I was your Prophet in your yonger dayes,
And now your Chaplaine, God in you to praise.
(p.203, ll. 69-70.)
Donne's friend, Sir Henry Goodyere, seems to have had relations with her either directly or through her first cousin, the Countess of Bedford, for Donne writes to him from Mitcham, 'I remember that about this time you purpose a journey to fetch, or meet the LadyHuntington.' This fact lends support to the view of Mr. Chambers and Mr. Gosse that she is 'the Countesse' referred to in the following extract from a letter to Goodyere, which has an important bearing on the poem under consideration. Very unfortunately it is not dated, and Mr. Chambers and Mr. Gosse differ widely as to the year in which it may have been written. The latter places it in April, 1615, when Donne was on the eve of taking Orders, and was approaching his noble patronesses for help in clearing himself of debt. But Mr. Chambers points to the closing reference to 'a Christning atPeckam', and dates the letter 1605-6, when Donne was at Peckham after leaving Pyrford and before settling at Mitcham. I am not sure that this is conclusive, for in Donne's unsettled life before 1615 Mrs. Donne might at any time have gone for her lying-in or for a christening festival to the house of her sister Jane, Lady Grimes, at Peckham. But the tone of the letter, melancholy and reflective, is that of the letters to Goodyere written at Mitcham, and the general theme of the letter, a comparison of the different Churches, is that of other letters of the same period. The one in question (Letters1651, p. 100; Gosse,Life, ii. 77) seems to be almost a continuation of another (Letters, 1651, p. 26; Gosse,Life, i. 225). Whatever be its date, this is what Donne says: 'For the other part of your Letter, spent in the praise of the Countesse, I am always very apt to beleeve it of her, and can never beleeve it so well, and so reasonably, as now, when it is averred by you; but for the expressing it to her, in that sort as you seeme to counsaile, I have these two reasons to decline it. That that knowledge which she hath of me, was in the beginning of a graver course then of a Poet, into which (that I may also keep my dignity) I would not seeme to relapse. The Spanish proverb informes me, that he is a fool which cannot make one Sonnet, and he is mad which makes two.The other strong reason is my integrity to the other Countesse' (i.e. probably the Countess of Bedford. The words which follow seem to imply a more recent acquaintance than is compatible with so late a date as 1615), 'of whose worthinesse though I swallowed your words, yet I have had since an explicit faith, and now a knowledge: and for her delight (since she descends to them) I had reserved not only all the verses which I should make, but all the thoughts of womens worthinesse. But because I hope she will not disdain, that I should write well of her Picture, I have obeyed you thus far as to write; but intreat you by your friendship, that by this occasion of versifying, I be not traduced, nor esteemed light in that Tribe, and that house where I have lived. If those reasons which moved you to bid me write be not constant in you still, or if you meant not that I should write verses; or if these verses be too bad, or too good, over or under her understanding, and not fit; I pray receive them as a companion and supplement of this Letter to you,' &c. If this was written in 1615 it is incompatible with the fact (supposing the poem under consideration to be by Donne) that he had already written to the Countess of Huntingdon a letter in a very thinly disguised tone of amatory compliment. If, however, it was written, as is probable, earlier, the reference may be to this very poem. Perhaps Goodyere thought it 'over or under' the Countess's understanding and did not present it.
(3) Certainly, looking at the poem itself, one has difficulty in declaring it to be, or not to be, Donne's work. Its metaphysical wit and strain of high-flown, rarefied compliment suggest that only he could have written it; in parts, on the other hand, the tone does not seem to me to be his. It is certainly very different from that of the other letters to noble ladies. It carries one back to the date of theElegies. If Donne's, it is a further striking proof how much of the tone of a lover even a married poet could assume in addressing a noble patroness. Would Donne at any time of his life write to the Countess of Huntingdon in the vein of p.418, ll. 21-36, or the next paragraph, ll. 37-76? One could imagine the Earl of Pembroke,or some one on a level of equality socially with the Countess, writing so; not a dependent addressing a patroness. The only points of style and verse which might serve as clues are (1) the peculiar use of 'young', e.g. l. 84 'youngest flatteries', l. 13 'younger formes'. With which compare in theLetterto Wotton, here added, at p.188:
Ere sicknesses attack, yong death is best.
Ere sicknesses attack, yong death is best.
Ere sicknesses attack, yong death is best.
(2) A recurring pattern of line to which Sir Walter Raleigh drew my attention:
I have not found this pattern elsewhere, and indeed the versification throughout seems to me unlike that of Donne. Donne's decasyllabic couplets have two quite distinctive patterns. The one is that of theSatyres. In these the logical or rhetorical scheme runs right across the metrical scheme—that is, the sense overflows from line to line, and the pauses come regularly inside the line. A good example is the paragraph beginning at p.156, l. 65.
Graccus loves all as one, &c.
Graccus loves all as one, &c.
Graccus loves all as one, &c.
In theElegiesand in theLettersthe structure is not so irregular and unmusical, but is periodic or paragraphic, i.e. the lines do not fall into couplets but into larger groups knit together by a single sentence or some closely connected sentences, the full meaning or emphasis being well sustained to the close. Good examples areElegie I.ll. 1 to 16,Elegie IV.ll. 13 to 26,Elegie V.l. 5 to the end,Elegie VIII.ll. 1 to 34. Excellent examples are also the letterTo the Countesse of Salisburyand theHymn to the Saints and the Marquesse Hamylton. Each of these is composed of three or four paragraphs at the most. Now in the poem under consideration there are two, or three at the most, paragraphs which suggest Donne's manner, viz. ll. 1 to 10, ll. 11 to 16, andll. 37 to 46. But the rest of the poem is almost monotonously regular in its couplet structure. To my mind the poem is not unlike what Rudyard might have written. Indeed a fine piece of verse by Rudyard, belonging to the dialogue between him and the Earl of Pembroke on Love and Reason, is attributed to Donne in several manuscripts. The question is an open one, but had I realized in time the weakness of the positive external evidence I should not have moved the poem. I have been able to improve the text materially.
With regard to theElegie on Mistris Boulstred(18 on the list) I cannot expect readers to accept at once the conjecture I have ventured to put forward regarding the authorship, for I have changed my own mind regarding it. Two Elegies, both perhaps on Mris. Boulstred, Donne certainly did write, viz.
Death I recant, and say, unsaid by meeWhat ere hath slip'd, that might diminish thee;
Death I recant, and say, unsaid by meeWhat ere hath slip'd, that might diminish thee;
Death I recant, and say, unsaid by mee
What ere hath slip'd, that might diminish thee;
and another, entitledDeath, beginning
Language thou art too narrow, and too weakeTo ease us now; great sorrow cannot speake.
Language thou art too narrow, and too weakeTo ease us now; great sorrow cannot speake.
Language thou art too narrow, and too weake
To ease us now; great sorrow cannot speake.
Both of these are attributed to Donne by quite a number of manuscripts and are very characteristic of his poetry in this kind, highly charged with ingenious wit and extravagant eulogy. It is worth noting that in the Hawthornden MS. the second bears no title (it is signed 'J. D.'), and that it is not included inD,H49,Lec. It is certainly Donne's; it is not quite certain that it was written on Mris. Boulstred. Indeed, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the reference to Judith in a verse letter which seems to have been sent to Lady Bedford with the poem, and the tenor of the poem, suggest that Lady Markham is the subject of the elegy. Jonson, in speaking of Mris. Boulstred, says, 'whose Epitaph Done made,' which points to a single poem; but he may have been speaking loosely, or be loosely reported.
In contrast to these two elegies that beginning 'Death be not proud' is found in only five manuscripts,B,H40,O'F,P,RP31. Of theseH40andRP31are really one, and in themthe poem is not ascribed to Donne. In two others,O'FandP, the poem is given in a very interesting and suggestive manner, viz. as a continuation of 'Death I recant'. What this suggests is the fairly obvious fact that the second poem is to some extent a reply to the first. 'Death I recant' is answered by 'Death be not proud'. IfO'FandPare right in their arrangement, then Donne answers himself. Beginning in one mood, he closes in another; from a mood which is almost rebellious he passes to one of Christian resignation. This was the view I put forward in a note to the CambridgeHistory of Literature(iv. 216). I had hardly, however, sent off my proofs before I felt that there was more than one objection to this view. There is in the first place nothing to show that 'Death I recant' is not a poem complete in itself; there is no preparation for the recantation. In the second place, 'Death be not proud' is as a poem slighter in texture, vaguer in thought, in feeling more sentimental and pious, than Donne's ownEpicedes. Whoever wrote it had a warmer feeling for Mris. Boulstred than underlies Donne's rather frigid hyperboles. This suggested to me that the poem was indeed an answer to 'Death I recant', but by another person, another member of Lady Bedford's entourage. In this mood I came on the ascription inH40, viz. 'By C. L. of B.' This indicated no one whom I knew; but inRP31it appeared as 'By L. C. of B.,' i.e. Lucy, Countess of Bedford. We know that the Countess did write verses, for Donne refers to them. In a letter which Mr. Gosse dates 1609 (Gosse'sLife, &c., i. 217;Letters, 1651, p. 67) he speaks of some verses written to himself: 'They must needs be an excellent exercise of your wit, which speak so well of so ill.' That the Countess of Bedford could have written 'Death be not proud', we cannot prove in the absence of other examples of her work; that if she could she did, is very likely. She had probably asked Donne for some verses on the death of her friend. He replied with 'Death I recant'. The tone, which if not pagan is certainly not Christian, while it is untouched by any real feeling for thesubject of the elegy, displeased her, and she replied in lines at once more ardent and more resigned. At any rate, whether by Lady Bedford or not, the poem is not like Donne's work, and the external evidence is against its being his.Battributes it to 'F. B.', i.e. Francis Beaumont. It is right, on the other hand, to point out that Donne opens one of theHoly Sonnetswith the exclamation used here:
Death be not proud!
Death be not proud!
Death be not proud!
I have left the question of authorship an open one. Personally I cannot bring myself to think that it is Donne's.
The sonnetOn the Blessed Virgin Mary(19 on the list), 'In that O Queene of Queenes, thy birth was free,' is included among Donne's poems in1635and inB,O'F,S,S96. There is little doubt that it is not Donne's but Henry Constable's. It is found in a series of Spiritual Sonnets by H. C., in Harl. MS. 7553, f. 41, which were first published by T. Park inHeliconia, ii. 1815, and unless all of these are to be given to Donne this cannot. It is not in his style, and Donne more than once denies the Immaculate Conception in the full Catholic sense of the doctrine. Nothing could more expressly contradict this sonnet than the lines in theSecond Anniversarie:
Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maidJoy in not being that, which men have said.Where she is exalted more for being good,Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maidJoy in not being that, which men have said.Where she is exalted more for being good,Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid
Joy in not being that, which men have said.
Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
Of the next three poems (20, 21, 22 on the list), the second, theOdebeginning 'Vengeance will sit above our faults', seems to me very doubtful, although on second thoughts I have re-transferred it from the Appendix to the place among theDivine Poemswhich it occupies in1635. Against its authenticity are the following considerations: (1) It is not at all in the style of Donne's other specifically religious poems. The elevated, stoical tone is more like Jonson's occasional religious pieces than Donne's personal, tormented, ScholasticDivine Poems. (2) Of the manuscripts in which it appears,B,Cy,H40,RP31,O'F,P,S, the best,RP31, assigns it, not to Donne, but to 'Sir Edward Herbert', i.e. Lord Herbert of Cherbury.17Mr. Chambers, indeed, inadvertently stated that in this manuscript 'it is said to have been written to George Herbert'. The name 'Sr Edw. Herbert' is written beside the poem, and that in such cases is meant to indicate the author of the poem. It seems to me quite possible that it was written by Lord Herbert, but until more evidence be forthcoming I have let it stand, because (1) the letters 'I. D.' printed after the poem show that the poem must have been so initialled in the manuscript from which it was printed, and (2) because, though not in the style of Donne's later religious poems, it is somewhat in the style of the philosophical, stoical letter which Donne addressed to Sir Edward Herbert at the siege of Juliers in 1610. The poem was possibly composed at the same time. (3) The thought of the last verse, our ignorance of ourselves, recurs in Donne's poems and prose. CompareNegative Love(p.66):
If any who deciphers best,What we know not, our selves,
If any who deciphers best,What we know not, our selves,
If any who deciphers best,
What we know not, our selves,
and the passage quoted in the note to this poem.
The poemUpon the translation of the Psalmes by Sir Philip Sydney, and the Countesse of Pembroke his Sister, if by Donne, was probably written late in his life and never widely circulated. It occurred to me that the author might be John Davies of Hereford, who was a dependent of the Countess and her two sons, and who made a calligraphic copy of thePsalmsof Sidney and his sister, from which they were printed by Singer in 1823. But Professor Saintsbury considers, I think justly, that the 'wit' of the opening lines,
Eternall God (for whom who ever dareSeeke new expressions, doe the Circle square,And thrust into strait corners of poore witThee who art cornerlesse and infinite),
Eternall God (for whom who ever dareSeeke new expressions, doe the Circle square,And thrust into strait corners of poore witThee who art cornerlesse and infinite),
Eternall God (for whom who ever dare
Seeke new expressions, doe the Circle square,
And thrust into strait corners of poore wit
Thee who art cornerlesse and infinite),
is above Davies' level, and indeed the whole poem is. The linesTo Mr. Tilman after he had taken orders(22 on the list) were also probably privately communicated to the person to whom they were addressed. The best argument for their genuineness is that Walton seems to quote from them when he describes Donne's preaching.
For they doeAs Angels out of clouds, from Pulpits speake,
For they doeAs Angels out of clouds, from Pulpits speake,
For they doe
As Angels out of clouds, from Pulpits speake,
must have suggested 'always preaching to himself, like an angel from a cloud, but in none'. This does not, however, carry us very far. Walton had seen the editions of 1635 and 1639 before he wrote these lines in 1640.
The verseOn the Sacrament(23 on the list) is probably assigned to Donne by a pure conjecture. It is very frequently attributed to Queen Elizabeth.
Of the two poems added in1649the linesUpon Mr. Thomas Coryats Cruditiesare of course Donne's. They appeared with his name in his lifetime, and Donne is one of the friends mentioned by Coryat in his letters from India.The Token(4 on the list) may or may not be Donne's. It is found in several, but no very good, manuscripts. Its wit is quite in Donne's style, though not absolutely beyond the compass of another. The poems which the younger Donne added in1650are in much the same position. 'He that cannot chose but love' (5 on the list) is a trifle, whoever wrote it. 'The heavens rejoice in motion' (10 on the list) is in a much stronger strain of paradox, and if not Donne's is by an ambitious and witty disciple. If genuine, it is strange that it did not find its way into more collections. It is found inA10, where a few of Donne's poems are given with others by Roe, Hoskins, and other wits of his circle. It is also, however, given inJC, a manuscript containing in its first part few poems that are not demonstrably genuine. As things stand, the balance of evidence is in favour of Donne's authorship.
Besides theElegies XVIIIandXIX, which are Donne's, as we have seen, and theSatyre'Sleep next Society', which isnot Donne's, the edition of 1669 prefixed to the songBreake of Daya fresh stanza:
Stay, O sweet, and do not rise.
Stay, O sweet, and do not rise.
Stay, O sweet, and do not rise.
It appears in the same position inS96, but is given as a separate poem inA25,C,O'F, andP. It certainly has no connexion with Donne's poem, for the metre is entirely different and the strain of the poetry less metaphysical.
The separate stanza was a favourite one in Song-Books of the seventeenth century. It was printed apparently for the first time in 1612, inThe First Set of Madrigals and Motets of five Parts: apt for Viols and Voices. Newly composed by Orlando Gibbons. Here it begins
Ah, deare hart why doe you rise?
Ah, deare hart why doe you rise?
Ah, deare hart why doe you rise?
In the same year it was printed inA Pilgrimes Solace. Wherein is contained Musicall Harmonie of 3, 4 and 5 parts, to be sung and plaid with the Lute and Viols. By John Dowland.The stanza begins
Sweet stay awhile, why will you rise?
Sweet stay awhile, why will you rise?
Sweet stay awhile, why will you rise?
Mr. Chambers conjectures that the affixing of Dowland's initials to the verse in some collection led to Donne being credited with it, which is quite likely; but we are not sure that Dowland wrote it, and the common theme appears to have drawn the poems together. InThe Academy of Complements, Wherein Ladies, Gentlewomen, Schollers, and Strangers may accomodate their Courtly practice with gentile Ceremonies, Complemental amorous high expressions, and Formes of speaking or writing of Letters most in fashion(1650) the verse is connected with a variation of the first stanza of Donne's poem so as to make a consistent song:
Lie still, my dear, why dost thou rise?The light that shines comes from thine eyes.The day breaks not, it is my heart,Because that you and I must part.Stay or else my joys will die,And perish in their infancy.'Tis time, 'tis day, what if it be?Wilt thou therefore arise from me?Did we lie down because of night,And shall we rise for fear of light?No, since in darkness we came hither,In spight of light we'll lye together.Oh! let me dye on thy sweet breastFar sweeter than the Phœnix nest.
Lie still, my dear, why dost thou rise?The light that shines comes from thine eyes.The day breaks not, it is my heart,Because that you and I must part.Stay or else my joys will die,And perish in their infancy.'Tis time, 'tis day, what if it be?Wilt thou therefore arise from me?Did we lie down because of night,And shall we rise for fear of light?No, since in darkness we came hither,In spight of light we'll lye together.Oh! let me dye on thy sweet breastFar sweeter than the Phœnix nest.
Lie still, my dear, why dost thou rise?
The light that shines comes from thine eyes.
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay or else my joys will die,
And perish in their infancy.
'Tis time, 'tis day, what if it be?
Wilt thou therefore arise from me?
Did we lie down because of night,
And shall we rise for fear of light?
No, since in darkness we came hither,
In spight of light we'll lye together.
Oh! let me dye on thy sweet breast
Far sweeter than the Phœnix nest.
It was probably some such combination as this which suggested to the editor of1669to prefix the stanza to Donne's poem. The poem inThe Academy of Complimentswas repeated inWits Interpreter, the English Parnassus, a sure guide to those Admirable Accomplishments that compleat our English Gentry in the most acceptable Qualifications of Discourse or Writing(1655). But the first stanza is given again in this collection as a separate poem.
The translation of thePsalme 137, which was inserted in1633and never withdrawn (as theEpitaph on Shakespearewas) is pretty certainly not by Donne. The only manuscript which ascribes it to him isA25followed byC. On the other hand it is assigned to Francis Davison, editor of thePoetical Rhapsody, inRP61(Bodleian Library). In one manuscript, Addl. MS. 27407, the poem is accompanied with a letter, unsigned and undirected, which speaks of this as one out of several translations made by the author. The handwriting and style of the letter are not Donne's, but the letter explains why this one Psalm is found floating around by itself. It was, the translator says, a freer paraphrase than the others. Apparently it proved a favourite.
When one turns from the poems attributed to Donne in the old editions to those which some of the more recent editors have added, one launches into a sea which I have no intention of attempting to navigate in its entirety. Both Sir John Simeon and Dr. Grosart were disposed to cry 'Eureka' too readily, and assigned to Donne a number of poems culled from various manuscripts for the genuineness of which there is no evidence external or internal. I shall confine my remarks to the few poems I have myself incorporated for the first time inan edition of Donne's poems; to the Song 'Absence hear my protestation', which it is now the fashion to ascribe to Donne absolutely, letting evidence 'go hang'; and to the four poems which Mr. Chambers printed fromA25. I have added some more in my Appendix C, because they are interestingἀδέσποταillustrative of the influence in seventeenth-century poetry of Donne's realistic passion and his paradoxical wit.
Of the poems which appear here for the first time in a collected edition, it is not necessary to say much of those which are taken fromW, the Westmoreland MS. now in the possession of Mr. Gosse, who with the greatest and most spontaneous kindness has permitted me to print them all. These include two Epigrams, four additional Letters, and three Holy Sonnets. The Epigrams, the Holy Sonnets, and two of the Letters have been already printed by Mr. Gosse in hisLife of John Donne, 1899. There can be no doubt of their genuineness. They enlarge a series of Letters and a series of Sonnets which appear in1633and in all the best manuscript collections. In their arrangement I have followedWin preference to1633, which is based onA18,N,TC. Of the letter taken from the Burley MS. there may be greater doubt in some minds. To me it seems unquestionably Donne's (aut Donne aut Diabolus), an addition to the series of letters which he wrote to Sir Henry Wotton between the return of the Islands Expedition and Essex's return from Ireland. The Burley MS. is a commonplace-book of Wotton's and includes poems which we know as Donne's, e.g. 'Come, Madam, come'; some of his Paradoxes with a covering letter; other letters which from their substance and style seem to be Donne's; and a number of poems, including this which alone of all the doubtful poems in the manuscript is initialled 'J. D.' The manuscript contains work by Donne. Does this come under that head? Only internal evidence can decide. Of the other poems in the manuscript, most of which I print in Appendix C, none are certainly Donne's.
'Absence heare my protestation' was printed in Donne's lifetime in Davison'sA Poetical Rhapsody(1602, 1608, 1621), but with no reference to Donne's authorship, although hisname was yearly growing a more popular hostel for wandering, unclaimed poems.18It was not printed in any edition of his poems from1633to1719. It is not found in either of the most trustworthy manuscript collections,D,H49,Lec, orA18,N,TC. Itisfound inB,Cy,L74,O'F,P,S96, but none of these can be counted an authority. In 1711 it was for the first time ascribed to Donne inThe Grove, a miscellaneous collection of poems, on the authority of 'an old Manuscript of Sir John Cotton's of Stratton in Huntington-Shire'. On the other hand, in one well authenticated manuscript,HN, it is transcribed by William Drummond of Hawthornden from what he describes as a collection of poems 'belonging to John Don' (not 'byDonne'), and, with another poem, is initialled 'J. H.' That other poem called
His Melancholy.
Love is a foolish melancholy, &c.,
Love is a foolish melancholy, &c.,
Love is a foolish melancholy, &c.,
is by a Manchester manuscript (Farmer-Chetham MS., ed. Grosart,Chetham Society Publications, lxxxix, xc) assigned to 'Mr. Hoskins', and in another manuscript (A10) it is signed 'H' with the left leg of H so written as to suggest JH run together. Clearly at any rate theonus probandilies with those who say the poem is by Donne. Internally it has never seemed to me so since I came to know Donne well. The metaphysical, subtle strain is like Donne, as it is inSoules Joy, but here as there (though there is more feeling inAbsence, the closing line has a very Donne-like note of sudden anguish, 'and so miss her') the tone is airier, the prosody more tripping. The stressed syllables are less weighted emotionally and vocally. Compare
Sweetest love, I do not goe,For wearinesse of theeNor in hope the world can showA fitter Love for me;
Sweetest love, I do not goe,For wearinesse of theeNor in hope the world can showA fitter Love for me;
Sweetest love, I do not goe,
For wearinesse of thee
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for me;
or
Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,Weepe me not dead, in thine armes, but forbeareTo teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;
Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,Weepe me not dead, in thine armes, but forbeareTo teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;
Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,
Weepe me not dead, in thine armes, but forbeare
To teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;
with the more tripping measure, in which one touches the stressed syllables as with tiptoe, of
By absence this good means I gaine,That I can catch herWhere none can watch her,In some close corner of my braine.
By absence this good means I gaine,That I can catch herWhere none can watch her,In some close corner of my braine.
By absence this good means I gaine,
That I can catch her
Where none can watch her,
In some close corner of my braine.
There are more of Hoskins' poems extant, but the manuscript volume of poems which he left behind ('bigger than those of Dr. Donne') was lost in 1653.
Four poems were first printed as Donne's by Mr. Chambers (op. cit., Appendix B). They are all found in Addl. MS. 25707 (A25), and, so far as I know, there only. I have placed them first in Appendix C, as the only pieces in that Appendix which are at all likely to be by Donne.A25is a manuscript written in a number of different hands, some six within the portion that includes poems by Donne. The relative age of these it would be impossible to assign with any confidence. What looks the oldest (I may call it A) is used only for three poems, viz. Donne'sElegye: 'What [sic] that in Color it was like thy haire,' hisObsequies Upon the Lord Harrington yt last died, and theElegie of Loves progresse. It is in Elizabethan secretary's hand, and seems to me identical with the writing in which the same poems are copied in C, the Cambridge University Library MS. A second hand, B, inserts the larger number of the poems unquestionably by Donne in close succession, but a third hand, C, transcribes several by Donne along with poems by other wits, as Francis Beaumont. A fourth hand, D, seems to be the latest because it is the handwriting in which the Index was made out, and the poems inserted in this hand are inserted in odd spaces left by the other writers. Now of the poems in question, one,A letter written by SrH: G: and J. D. alternis vicibus, is copied by D, and the same hand adds immediatelyAn Elegie on the Death of my never enough Lamented master King Charles the First, by Henry Skipwith. The poem attributed to Donne was therefore not entered here till after 1649. But of course it may have come from an older source, and it has quite the appearanceof being genuine. Whoever made the collection would seem to have had access to some of Goodyere's work, for this poem is almost immediately preceded by anEpithalamion of the Princess Mariage, by SrH. G., and a little earlier theGood Fridaypoem by Donne is headedMr J. Dun goeing from Sir H. G. on good friday sent him back this Meditacon on the waye. That reads like a note by Goodyere himself. If this be what happened, the copyist may have ascribed to Donne some of Goodyere's own verses. Certainly there is nothing in the other three poems, 'O Fruitful garden,' 'Fie, fie, you sons of Pallas,' 'Why chose she black' (all in the handwriting C) which would warrant our ascribing them to Donne. Later in the collection a coarse poem, 'Why should not Pilgrims to thy body come,' in a fifth hand, is signed J. D., butPassigns it to F. B., and it is more in Beaumont's style. Poems by and on Beaumont occupy a considerable space inA25. He is a quite possible candidate for the authorship of some of the poems assigned to Donne in the hand C.
Mr. Hazlitt attributes to Donne (General Index to Hazlitt's Handbook, &c., p. 228) a Funeral Elegie on the death of Philip Stanhope, who died at Christ Church in 1625. I have not been able to find the volume in which it appears; but, as it is said to be by John DonneAlumnus, the author must be the younger Donne.
1Mr. Chambers has reprinted a good many of these, but only in an Appendix and under the title ofDoubtful Poems. He has added a few more fromA25, fromCoryats Crudities, and from some manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. If printed at all it is a pity that these poems were not reproduced more correctly. Textually the appendices are much the worst part of Mr. Chambers' edition. In most cases he has, I presume, taken the poems over as they stand from Simeon and Grosart.
2All three editors have also dropped the song 'Deare Love continue nice and chaste', David Laing having pointed out (Archaeologia Scotica, iv. 73-6) that this poem occurs in the Hawthornden MSS. with the signature 'J. R.' Chambers also rejects the sonnetOn the Blessed Virgin Mary, probably by Henry Constable, and all three editors exclude the linesOn the Sacrament.
3I have given with each poem a list of the editions and manuscripts (known to me) in which it is contained. A glance at these will show the weight of the external evidence. Of internal evidence every man must be judge for himself.
4To these must of course be added poems already published in Donne's name. See II. lvi.
5In F. G. Waldron'sA Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry. 1802.
6Chambers includes it in his Appendix A,Doubtful Poems, but seems to lean to the view that it is by Roe. The second is printed as Donne's by Grosart and as presumably Donne's by Chambers.
7InO'FandS, where they also occur, they are more dispersed; but these manuscripts have, like1635, adopted a classification of the poems they contain which involves their distribution as songs, elegies, letters and satires.A10is the most significant witness. This manuscript contains very few poems by Donne. Why should it select just this suspicious group?
8Among the marriage licences granted by the Bishop of London in 1601 (Harleian Society Publications) is the following: 'Henry Sackford the younger, of the Charter House, Gent; 27, father dead, and Sarah Rowe of St Johns in St John's Street, co. Middlesex, Maiden, dau. of John Rowe of Clapham, Beds, Esq. decd (i.e. deceas'd) about 9 years since,' &c.
9See the genealogies given in theHarleian Society Publications, vol. xiii, 1878, from theVisitation of Essex1612 (pp. 282-3) and theVisitation of Essex1634 (p. 479).
10The oldest was the John Rowe of Clapham, Beds. The second, Henry, was also Mayor of London and was knighted in 1603. The fourth, Robert, was the father of the ambassador, and died while his son was a child. There were two daughters—Mary, who married Thomas Randall, and Elizabeth, who married William Garret of Dorney, co. Bucks. The son of the latter couple was Donne's intimate friend George Gerrard or Garrard.
11Row, John, of Essex. arm. matric. 14 Oct., 1597, aged 16. (Joseph Foster,Alumni Oxonienses, iii, 1284). The Provost of Queen's has kindly informed me that in the College books his name is entered simply as 'Rowe' and as having entered 'Ter. Mich. 1597'. He tells me further that in Andrew Clark's edition of the University Matriculation Registers it is stated that the date of his matriculation was between Oct. 14 and Dec. 2, 1597. There can be no doubt, I think, that this is our Roe. There are not likely to have been two in the County of Essex with the right to be called 'armiger'. Had his father still lived he would have been entered as 'fil. gen.' or 'fil. arm.'
12Hist. MSS. Com.:Buccleugh MSS.(Montague House), vol. i, pp. 56, 58. The letters are dated May 13, Nov. 7.
13Calendar of State Papers.Ireland, 1606-8, p. 538. I owe this and the last reference to Mr. Murray L. R. Beavan, University Assistant in History, Aberdeen University.
14Other poems by Pembroke are found in the manuscript collections of Donne's poems. A scholarly edition of the poems of Pembroke and Rudyard would be a boon. Many ascribed to them by the younger Donne in his edition of 1660 could be removed and others added from manuscript sources.
15It is one of the worst printed in1635and1669(where it first appeared in full), and has admitted of many emendations from the manuscripts. Grosart has already introduced some from the Hazlewood-Kingsborough MS., but he left some gross errors. In the lines,