Canzon 20.
How often hath my pen (mine heart's Solicitor)
Instructed thee in Breviat of my case!
While Fancy-pleading eyes (thy beauty's visitor)
Have pattern'd to my quill, an angel's face.
How have my Sonnets (faithful Counsellors)
Thee without ceasing moved for Day of Hearing!
While they, my Plaintive Cause (my faith's Revealers!),
Thy long delay, my patience, in thine ear ring.
How have I stood at bar of thine own conscience
When in Requesting Court my suit I brought!
How have the long adjournments slowed the sentence
Which I (through much expense of tears) besought!
Through many difficulties have I run,
Ah sooner wert thou lost, I wis, than won.
We do not know who the author of Zepheria was, so cannot tell how far Donne is portraying an individual in what follows. It can hardly be Hoskins or Martin, unless Zepheria itself was intended to be a burlesque, which is possible. Quite possibly Donne has taken the author of Zepheria simply as a type of the young lawyer who writes bad poetry; and in the rest of the poem portrays the same type when he has abandoned poetry and devoted himself to 'Law practice for mere gain', extorting money and lands from Catholics or suspected Catholics, and drawing cozening conveyances. If Zepheria be the poems referred to, then 1594-5 would be the date of this Satire.
The third Satyre has no datable references, but its tone reflects the years in which Donne was loosening himself from the Catholic Church but had not yet conformed, the years between 1593 and 1599, and probably the earlier rather than the later of these years. On the whole 1593 is a little too early a date for these three satires. They were probably written between 1594 and 1597.
The long fourth Satyre is in the Hawthornden MS. (HN) headed Sat. 4. anno 1594. But this is a mistake either of Drummond, who transcribed the poems probably as late as 1610, or of Donne himself, whose tendency was to push these early effusions far back in his life. The reference to 'the losse of Amyens' (l. 114) shows that the poem must have been written after March 1597, probably between that date and September, when Amiens was re-taken by Henry IV. These lines may be an insertion, but there is no extant copy of the Satyre without them. It belongs to the period between the 'Calis-journey' and the 'Island-voyage', when first Donne is likely to have appeared at court in the train of Essex.
The fifth Satyre is referred by Grosart and Chambers to 1602-3 on the ground that the phrase 'the great Carricks pepper' is a reference to the expedition sent out by the East India Company under Captain James Lancaster to procure pepper, the price of which commodity was excessively high. Lancaster captured a Portuguese Carrick and sent home pepper and spice. There is no proof, however, that this ship was ever known as 'the Carrick' or 'the great Carrick'. That phrase was applied to 'that prodigious great carack called the Madre de Dios or Mother of God, one of the greatest burden belonging to the crown of Portugal', which was captured by Raleigh's expedition and brought to Dartmouth in 1592. 'This prize was reckoned the greatest and richest that had ever been brought into England' and 'daily drew vast numbers of spectators from all parts to admire at the hugeness of it' (Oldys, Life of Raleigh, 1829, pp. 154-7). Strype states that she 'was seven decks high, 165 foot long, and manned with 600 men' (Annals, iv. 177-82). That pepper formed a large part of the Carrick's cargo is clear from the following order issued by the Privy Council: A letter to Sir Francis Drake, William Killigrewe, Richard Carmarden and Thomas Midleton Commissioners appointed for the Carrique. 'Wee have received your letter of the 23rd of this presente of your proceeding in lading of other convenient barkes with the pepper out of the Carrique, and your opinion concerning the same, for answere whereunto we do thinke it meete, and so require you to take order, so soone as the goods are quite dischardged, that Sir Martin Frobisher be appointed to have the charge and conduction of those shippes laden with the pepper and other commodities out of the Carrique to be brought about to Chatham.' 27 Octobris, 1592. See also under October 1. The reference in 'the great Carricks pepper' is thus clear. The words 'You Sir, whose righteousness she loves', &c., ll. 31-3, show that the poem was written after Donne had entered Sir Thomas Egerton's service, i.e. between 1598, if not earlier, and February 1601-2 when he was dismissed, which makes the date suggested by Grosart and Chambers (1602-3) impossible. The poem was probably written in 1598-9. There is a note of enthusiasm in these lines as of one who has just entered on a service of which he is proud, and the occasion of the poem was probably Egerton's endeavour to curtail the fees claim'd by the Clerk of the Star Chamber (see note below). With Essex's return from Ireland in 1599 began a period of trouble and anxiety for Egerton, and probably for Donne too. The more sombre cast of his thought, and the modification in his feelings towards Elizabeth, after the fatal February of 1600-1, are reflected in the satirical fragment The Progresse of the Soule.
The so-called sixth and seventh Satyres (added in 1635 and 1669) I have relegated to the Appendix B, and have given elsewhere my reasons for assigning them to Sir John Roe. That Donne wrote only five regular Satyres is very definitely stated by Drummond of Hawthornden in a note prefixed to the copy of the fourth in HN: 'This Satyre (though it heere have the first place because no more was intended to this booke) was indeed the authors fourth in number and order he having written five in all to using which this caution will sufficientlie direct in the rest.'
[1] Attention was first called to this inscription by J. Payne Collier in his Poetical Decameron (1820). He uses the date to vindicate the claim for Donne's priority as a satirist to Hall. 'Dunne' is of course one of the many ways in which the poet's name is spelt, and 'Jhon' is a spelling of 'John'. The poet's own signature is generally 'Jo. Donne.' 'Jhon Don' is Drummond's spelling on the title-page of HN. In Q the first page is headed 'M^r John Dunnes Satires'.
[2] Of the forty-five which the MS. contains, some thirty-three were published in the edition referred to above. On the other hand the edition contains some which are not in the MS. Of these, one, 47, 'Meditations of a gull,' alone refers to events which are certainly later than 1594. As this is not in the MS. there is nothing to contradict the assertion that it (and the Epigrams cited above) belong to 1594. Davies' Epigrams are referred to in Sir John Harrington's Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596.
Page 145. Satyre I.
This Satyre is pretty closely imitated in the Satyra Quinta of SKIALETHEIA. or, A shadowe of Truth in certaine Epigrams and Satyres. 1598. attributed to Edward Guilpin (or Gilpin), to whom extracts from it are assigned in Englands Parnassus (1600). Who Guilpin was we do not know. Besides the work named he wrote two sonnets prefixed to Gervase Markham's Devoreux. Vertues tears for the losse of the most Christian King Henry, third of that name; and the untimely death of the most noble and heroical Gentleman, Walter Devoreux, who was slain before Roan in France. First written in French by the most excellent and learned Gentlewoman, Madame Geneuefe Petan Maulette. And paraphrastically translated into English by Jervis Markham. 1597. See Grosart's Introduction to his reprint of Skialetheia in Occasional Issues. 6. (1878). Donne addresses a letter to Mr. E. G. (p. [208]), which Gosse conjectures to be addressed to Guilpin. That Guilpin knew Donne is probable in view of this early imitation of a privately circulated MS. poem. Guilpin's poem begins:
Let me alone I prethee in thys Cell,
Entice me not into the Citties hell;
Tempt me not forth this Eden of content,
To tast of that which I shall soone repent:
Prethy excuse me, I am hot alone
Accompanied with meditation,
And calme content, whose tast more pleaseth me
Then all the Citties lushious vanity.
I had rather be encoffin'd in this chest
Amongst these bookes and papers I protest,
Then free-booting abroad purchase offence,
And scandale my calme thoughts with discontents.
Heere I converse with those diviner spirits,
Whose knowledge, and admire, the world inherits:
Heere doth the famous profound Stagarite,
With Natures mistick harmony delight
My ravish'd contemplation: I heere see
The now-old worlds youth in an history:
l. 1. Away thou fondling, &c. The reading of the majority of editions and MSS. is 'changeling', but this is a case not of a right and wrong reading but of two versions, both ascribable to the author. Which was his emendation it is impossible to say. He may have changed 'fondling' (a 'fond' or foolish person) thinking that the idea was conveyed by 'motley', which, like Shakespeare's epithet 'patch', is a synecdoche from the dress of the professional fool or jester. On the other hand the idea of 'changeling' is repeated in 'humorist', which suggests changeable and fanciful. I have, therefore, let the 1633 text stand. 'Changeling' has of course the meaning here of 'a fickle or inconstant person', not the common sense of a person or thing or child substituted for another, as 'fondling' is not here a 'pet, favourite', as in modern usage.
l. 3. Consorted. Grosart, who professes to print from H51, reads Consoled, without any authority.
l. 6. Natures Secretary: i.e. Aristotle. He is always 'the Philosopher' in Aquinas and the other schoolmen. Walton speaks of 'the great secretary of nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon'.
l. 7. jolly Statesmen. All the MSS. except O'F agree with 1633 in reading 'jolly', though 'wily' is an obvious emendation. Chambers adopts it. By 'jolly' Donne probably meant 'overweeningly self-confident ... full of presumptuous pride ... arrogant, over-bearing' (O.E.D.). 'Evilmerodach, a jolly man, without Iustyse and cruel.' Caxton (1474). 'It concerneth every one of us ... not to be too high-minded or jolly for anything that is past.' Sanderson (1648).
l. 10. Giddie fantastique Poets of each land. In a letter Donne tells Buckingham, in Spain, how his own library is filled with Spanish books 'from the mistress of my youth, Poetry, to the wife of mine age, Divinity'. This line in the Satires points to the fact, which Donne was probably tempted later to obscure a little, that his first prolonged visit to the Continent had been made before he settled in London in 1592 and probably without the permission of the Government. The other than Spanish poets would doubtless be French and Italian. Donne had read Dante. He refers to him in the fourth Satyre ('who dreamt he saw hell'), and in an unpublished letter in the Burley MS. he dilates at some length, but in no very creditable fashion, on an episode in the Divina Commedia. Of French poets he probably knew at any rate Du Bartas and Regnier.
l. 12. And follow headlong, wild uncertain thee? I have retained the 1633 punctuation instead of, with Chambers, comma-ing 'wild' as well as 'headlong'. The latter is possibly an adverb here, going with 'follow'. The use of 'headlong' as an adjective with persons was not common. The earliest example in the O.E.D. is from Hudibras:
The Friendly Rug preserv'd the ground,
And headlong Knight from bruise or wound.
Donne's line is, however, ambiguous; and the subsequent description of the humorist would justify the adjective.
l. 18. Bright parcell gilt, with forty dead mens pay. Compare: 'Captains some in guilt armour (unbatt'red) some in buffe jerkins, plated o'r with massy silver lace (raz'd out of the ashes of dead pay).' Dekker, Newes from Hell, ii. 119 (Grosart). So many 'dead pays' (i.e. men no longer on the muster roll) were among the perquisites allowed to every captain of a company, but the number was constantly exceeded: 'Moreover where' (i.e. whereas) 'there are 15 dead paies allowed ordinarily in every bande, which is paid allwaies and taken by the captaines, althogh theire nombers be greatly dyminished in soche sorte as sometimes there are not fower score or fewer in a company, her Majestys pleasure is that from hence the saide 15 dead paies shall not be allowed unlesse the companies be full and compleate, but after the rate of two dead paies for everie twenty men that shalbe in the saide bande where the companies are dyminished.' Letter to Sir John Norreyes, Knighte. Acts of the Privy Council, 1592.
Page 146, l. 27. Oh monstrous, superstitious puritan. The 'Monster' of the MSS. is of course not due to the substitution of the noun for the adjective, but is simply an older form of the adjective. Compare 'O wonder Vandermast', Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
l. 32. raise thy formall: 'raise' is probably right, but 'vaile' is a common metaphor. 'A Player? Call him, the lousie slave: what will he saile by, and not once strike or vaile to a Man of Warre.' Captain Tucca in Jonson's Poetaster, III. 3.
l. 33. That wilt consort none, &c. It is unnecessary to alter 'consort none' to 'consort with none', as some MSS. do. The construction is quite regular. 'Wilt thou consort me, bear me company?' Heywood. The 'consorted with these few books' of l. 3 is classed by the O.E.D. under a slightly different sense of the word—not 'attended on by' these books, but 'associated in a common lot with' them.
l. 39. The nakednesse and barenesse, &c. The reading 'barrennesse' of all the editions and some MSS. is due probably to similarity of pronunciation (rather than of spelling) and a superficial suggestion of appropriateness to the context. A second glance shows that 'bareness' is the correct reading. The MSS. give frequent evidence of having been written to dictation.
l. 46. The 'yet', which the later editions and Chambers drop, is quite in Donne's style. It is heavily stressed and 'he was' is slurred, 'h' was.'
Page 147, l. 58. The Infanta of London, Heire to an India. It is not necessary to suppose a reference to any person in particular. The allusion is in the first place to the wealth of the city, and the greed of patricians and courtiers to profit by that wealth. 'No one can tell who, amid the host of greedy and expectant suitors, will carry off whoever is at present the wealthiest minor (and probably the king's ward) in London, i.e. the City.' Compare the Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inn:
Daughters of London, you which be
Our Golden Mines, and furnish'd Treasury,
You which are Angels, yet still bring with you
Thousands of Angels on your marriage days
. . . . . . . .
Make her for Love fit fuel,
As gay as Flora, and as rich as Inde.
Compare also: 'I possess as much in your wish, Sir, as if I were made Lord of the Indies.' Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, II. iii.
The 'Infanta' of A25, O'F, Q is pretty certainly right, though 'Infant' can be applied, like 'Prince', to a woman. There is probably a second allusion to the claim of the Infanta of Spain to be heir to the English throne.
l. 60. heavens Scheme: 'Scheme' is certainly the right reading. The common MS. spelling, 'sceame' or 'sceames', explains the 'sceanes' which 1633 has derived from N, TCD. For the Satyres the editor did not use his best MS. See Text and Canon, &c., p. [xcv]. It is possible that a slurred definite article ('th'heavens') has been lost.
In preparing his 'theme' or horoscope the astrologer had five principal things to consider, (1) the heavenly mansions, (2) the signs of the zodiac, (3) the planets, (4) the aspects and configurations, (5) the fixed stars. With this end in view the astrologer divided the heavens into twelve parts, called mansions, to which he related the positions occupied at the same moment by the stars in each of them ('drawing the horoscope'). There were several methods of doing this. That of Ptolemy consisted in dividing the zodiac into twelve equal parts. This was called the equal manner. To represent the mansions the astrologers constructed twelve triangles between two squares placed one within the other. Each of the twelve mansions thus formed had a different name, and determined different aspects of the life and fortune of the subject of the horoscope. From the first was foretold the general character of his life, his health, his habits, morals. The second indicated his wealth; and so on. The different signs of the zodiac and the planets, in like manner, had each its special influence. But sufficient has been said to indicate what Donne means by 'drawing forth Heavens scheme'.
l. 62. subtile-witted. There is something to be said for the 'supple-witted' of H51 and some other MSS. 'Subtle-witted' means 'fantastic, ingenious'; 'supple-witted' means 'variable'. Like Fastidious Brisk in Every Man out of his Humour, they have a fresh fashion in suits every day. 'When men are willing to prefer their friends, we heare them often give these testimonies of a man; He hath good parts, and you need not be ashamed to speak for him; he understands the world, he knowes how things passe, and he hath a discreet, a supple, and an appliable disposition, and hee may make a fit instrument for all your purposes, and you need not be afraid to speake for him.' Sermons 80. 74. 750. A 'supple disposition' is one that changes easily to adapt itself to circumstances.
Page 148, l. 81. O Elephant or Ape, See Introductory Note to Satyres.
l. 89. I whispered let'us go. I have, following the example of 1633 in other cases, indicated the slurring of 'let'us' or 'let's', which is necessary metrically if we are to read the full 'whispered' which 1669 first contracts to 'whisperd'. Q shows that 'let's' is the right contraction. Donne's use of colloquial slurrings must be constantly kept in view when reading especially his satires. They are not always indicated in the editions: but note l. 52:
I shut my chamber doore, and come, lets goe.
Page 149, ll. 100-4. My punctuation of these lines is a slight modification of that indicated by W and JC, which give the proper division of the speeches. The use of inverted commas would make this clearer, but Chambers' division seems to me (if I understand it) to give the whole speech, from 'But to me' to 'So is the Pox', to Donne's companion, which is to deprive Donne of his closing repartee. The Grolier Club editor avoids this, but makes 'Why he hath travelled long?' a part of Donne's speech beginning 'Our dull comedians want him'. I divide the speeches thus:—
Donne. Why stoop'st thou so?
Companion. Why? he hath travail'd.
Donne. Long?
Companion. No: but to me (Donne interpolates
'which understand none') he doth seem to be
Perfect French and Italian.
Donne. So is the Pox.
The brackets round 'which understand none' I have taken from Q. I had thought of inserting them before I came on this MS. Of course brackets in old editions are often used where commas would be sufficient, and one can build nothing on their insertion here in one MS. But it seems to me that these words have no point unless regarded as a sarcastic comment interpolated by Donne, perhaps sotto voce. 'To you, who understand neither French nor Italian, he may seem perfect French and Italian—but to no one else.' Probably an eclectic attire was the only evidence of travel observable in the person in question. 'How oddly is he suited!' says Portia of her English wooer; 'I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.' Brackets are thus used by Jonson to indicate a remark interjected sotto voce. See the quotation from the Poetaster in the note on The Message (II. p. [37]). Modern editors substitute for the brackets the direction 'Aside', which is not in the Folio (1616).
Page 149. Satyre II.
ll. 1-4. It will be seen that H51 gives two alternative versions of these lines. The version of the printed text is that of the majority of the MSS.
Page 150, ll. 15-16. As in some Organ, &c. Chambers prints these lines with a comma after 'move', connecting them with what follows about love-poetry. Clearly they belong to what has been said about dramatic poets. It is Marlowe and his fellows who are the bellows which set the actor-puppets in motion.
ll. 19-20. Rammes and slings now, &c. The 'Rimes and songs' of P is a quaint variant due either to an accident of hearing or to an interpretation of the metaphor: 'As in war money is more effective than rams and slings, so it is more effective in love than songs.' But there is a further allusion in the condensed stroke, for 'pistolets' means also 'fire-arms'. Money is as much more effective than poetry in love as fire-arms are than rams and slings in war. Donne is Dryden's teacher in the condensed stroke, which 'cleaves to the waist', lines such as
They got a villain, and we lost a fool.
Page 151, l. 33. to out-sweare the Letanie. 'Letanie,' the reading of all the MSS., is indicated by a dash in 1633 and is omitted without any indication by 1635-39. In 1649-50 the blank was supplied, probably conjecturally, by 'the gallant'. It was not till 1669 that 'Letanie' was inserted. In 'versifying' Donne's Satyres Pope altered this to 'or Irishmen out-swear', and Warburton in a note explains the original: 'Dr. Donne's is a low allusion to a licentious quibble used at that time by the enemies of the English Liturgy, who, disliking the frequent invocations in the Litanie, called them the taking God's name in vain, which is the Scripture periphrasis for swearing.'
l. 36. tenements. Drummond in HN writes 'torments', probably a conjectural emendation. Drummond was not so well versed in Scholastic Philosophy as Donne.
l. 44. But a scarce Poet. This is the reading of the best MSS., and I have adopted it in preference to 'But scarce a Poet', which is an awkward phrase and does not express what the writer means. Donne does not say that he is barely a poet, but that he is a bad poet. Donne uses 'scarce' thus as an adjective again in Satyre IV, l. 4 (where see note) and l. 240. It seems to have puzzled copyists and editors, who amend it in various ways. By 'jollier of this state' he means 'prouder of this state', using the word as in 'jolly statesmen', I. 7.
l. 48. 'language of the Pleas and Bench.' See Introductory Note for legal diction in love-sonnets.
Page 152, ll. 62-3. but men which chuse
Law practise for meere gaine, bold soule, repute.
The unpunctuated 'for meere gaine bold soule repute' of 1633-69 and most MSS. has caused considerable trouble to the editors and copyists. One way out of the difficulty, 'bold souls repute,' appears in Chambers' edition as an emendation, and before that in Tonson's edition (1719), whence it was copied by all the editions to Chalmers' (1810). Lowell's conjecture, 'hold soules repute,' had been anticipated in some MSS. There is no real difficulty. I had comma'd the words 'bold soule' before I examined Q, which places them in brackets, a common means in old books of indicating an apostrophe. The 'bold soule' addressed, and invoked to esteem such worthless people aright, is the 'Sir' (whoever that may be) to whom the whole poem is addressed. A note in HN prefixed to this poem says that it is taken from 'C. B.'s copy', i.e. Christopher Brooke's. It is quite possible that this Satyre, like The Storme, was addressed to him.
ll. 71-4. Like a wedge in a block, wring to the barre,
Bearing-like Asses; and more shamelesse farre, &c.
These lines are printed as in 1633, except that the comma after 'Asses' is raised to a semicolon, and that I have put a hyphen between 'Bearing' and 'like'. The lines are difficult and have greatly puzzled editors. Grosart prints from H51 and reads 'wringd', which, though an admissible form of the past-participle, makes no sense here. The Grolier Club editor prints:
Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge; for ...
Chambers adopts much the same scheme:
Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge, for ...
By retaining the comma after 'bar' in a modernized text with modern punctuation these editors leave it doubtful whether they do or do not consider that 'asses' is the object to 'wring'. Further, they connect 'and more shameless far than carted whores' closely with 'asses', separating it by a semicolon from 'lie to the grave judge'. I take it that 'more shameless far' is regarded by these editors as a qualifying adjunct to 'asses'. This is surely wrong. The subject of the long sentence is 'He' (l. 65), and the infinitives throughout are complements to 'must': 'He must walk ... he must talk ... [he must] lie ... [he must] wring to the bar bearing-like asses; [he must], more shameless than carted whores, lie to the grave judge, &c.' This is the only method in which I can construe the passage, and it carries with it the assumption that 'bearing like' should be connected by a hyphen to form an adjective similar to 'Relique-like', which is the MS. form of 'Relique-ly' at l. 84. Certainly it is 'he', Coscus, who is 'more shameless, &c.,' not his victims. These are the 'bearing-like asses', the patient Catholics or suspected Catholics whom he wrings to the bar and forces to disgorge fines. Coscus, a poet in his youth, has become a Topcliffe in his maturer years. 'Bearing,' 'patient' is the regular epithet for asses in Elizabethan literature:
Asses are made to bear and so are you.
Taming of the Shrew, II. i. 200.
In Jonson's Poetaster, v. i, the ass is declared to be the hieroglyphic of
Patience, frugality, and fortitude.
Possibly, but it is not very likely, Donne refers not only to the stupid patience of the ass but to her fertility: 'They be very gainefull and profitable to their maisters, yielding more commodities than the revenues of good farmers.' Holland's Pliny, 8. 43, Of Asses.
Page 153, l. 87. In parchments. The plural is the reading of the better MSS. and seems to me to give the better sense. The final 's' is so easily overlooked or confounded with a final 'e' that one must determine the right reading by the sense of the passage.
ll. 93-6. When Luther was profest, &c. The 'power and glory clause' which is not found in the Vulgate or any of the old Latin versions of the New Testament (and is therefore not used in Catholic prayers, public or private), was taken by Erasmus (1516) from all the Greek codices, though he does not regard it as genuine. Thence it passed into Luther's (1521) and most Reformed versions. In his popular and devotional Auslegung deutsch des Vaterunsers (1519) Luther makes no reference to it.
l. 105. Whereas th'old ... In great hals. The line as I have printed it combines the versions of 1633 and the later editions. It is found in several MSS. Some of these, on the other hand, like 1633-69, read 'where'; but 'where's' with a plural subject following was quite idiomatic. Compare: 'Here needs no spies nor eunuchs,' p. [81], l. 39; 'With firmer age returns our liberties,' p. [115], l. 77.
At p. [165], l. 182, the MSS. point to 'cryes his flatterers' as the original version. See Franz, Shak.-Gram. § 672; Knecht, Die Kongruenz zwischen Subjekt und Prädikat (1911), p. 28.
Donne has other instances of irregular concord, or of the plural form in 's', and 'th':
by thy fathers wrath
By all paines which want and divorcement hath. P. [111], l. 8.
Had'st thou staid there, and look'd out at her eyes,
All had ador'd thee that now from thee flies. P. [285], l. 17.
Those unlick't beare-whelps, unfil'd pistolets
That (more than Canon shot) availes or lets. P. [97], l. 32.
The rhyme makes the form here indisputable. The MSS. point to a more frequent use of 'hath' with a plural subject than the editions have preserved. The above three instances seem all plurals. In other cases the individuals form a whole, or there is ellipsis:
All Kings, and all their favorites,
All glory of honors, beauties, wits,
The Sunne it selfe which makes times, as they passe,
Is elder by a year, now, then it was.
The Anniversarie, p. [24], ll. 1-4.
He that but tasts, he that devours,
And he that leaves all, doth as well.
Communitie, p. [33], ll. 20-1.
Page 154, l. 107. meanes blesse. The reading of 1633 has the support of the best MSS. Grosart and Chambers prefer the reading of the later editions, 'Meane's blest.' This, it would seem to me, needs the definite article. The other reading gives quite the same sense, 'in all things means (i.e. middle ways, moderate measures) bring blessings':
Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
Semper urgendo neque, dum procellas
Cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
Litus iniquum.
Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
Sobrius aula.
Horace, Odes, ii. 10.
The general tenor of the closing lines recalls Horace's treatment of the same theme in Sat. ii. 2. 88, 125, more than either Juvenal, Sat. ix, or Persius, Sat. vi.
Grosart states that 'means, then as now, meant riches, possessions, but never the mean or middle'. But see O.E.D., which quotes for the plural in this sense: 'Tempering goodly well Their contrary dislikes with loved means.' Spenser, Hymns. In the singular Bacon has, 'But to speake in a Meane.' Of Adversitie.