Page 218. To the Countesse of Bedford.
l. 13. Care not then, Madam,'how low your praysers lye. I cannot but think that the 'praysers' of the MSS. is preferable to the 'prayses' of the editions. It is difficult to construe or make unambiguous sense of 'how low your prayses lie'. Donne does not wish to suggest that the praise is poor in itself, but that the giver is a 'low person'. The word 'prayser' he has already used in a letter to the Countess (p. [200]), and there also it has caused some trouble to editors and copyists.
ll. 20-1. Your radiation can all clouds subdue;
But one, 'tis best light to contemplate you.
Grosart and the Grolier Club editor punctuate these lines so as to connect 'But one' with what precedes.
Your radiation can all clouds subdue
But one; 'tis best light to contemplate you.
I suppose 'death' in this reading is to be regarded as the one cloud which the radiation of the Countess cannot dispel. There is no indication, however, that this is the thought in Donne's mind. As punctuated (i.e. with a comma after 'subdue', which I have strengthened to a semicolon), 'But one' goes with what follows, and refers to God: 'Excepting God only, you are the most illuminating object we can contemplate.'
Page 219, l. 27. May in your through-shine front your hearts thoughts see. All the MSS. agree in reading 'your hearts thoughts', which is obviously correct. N, O'F, and TCD give the line otherwise exactly as in the editions. B drops the 'shine' after 'through'; and S96 reads:
May in you, through your face, your hearts thoughts see.
Donne has used 'through-shine' already in 'A Valediction: of my name in the window':
'Tis much that glasse should bee
As all confessing, and through-shine as I,
'Tis more that it shewes thee to thee,
And cleare reflects thee to thine eye.
But all such rules, loves magique can undoe,
Here you see mee, and I am you.
If there were any evidence that Donne was, as in this lyric, playing with the idea of the identity of different souls, there would be reason to retain the 'our hearts thoughts' of the editions; but there is no trace of this. He is dwelling simply on the thought of the Countess's transparency. Donne is fond of compounds with 'through'. Other examples are 'through-light', 'through-swome', 'through-vaine', 'through-pierc'd'.
ll. 36-7. They fly not, &c. Chambers and the Grolier Club editor have here injured the sense by altering the punctuation. 'Nature's first lesson' does not complete the previous statement about the relation of the different souls, but qualifies 'discretion'. 'Just as the souls of growth and sense do not claim precedence of the rational soul, so the first lesson taught us by Nature, viz. discretion, must not grudge a place to zeal.' 'Anima rationalis est perfectior quam sensibilis, et sensibilis quam vegetabilis,' Aquinas, Summa, ii. 57. 2.
Page 220, l. 46. In those poor types, &c. The use of the circle as an emblem of infinity is very old. 'To the mystically inclined the perpendicular was the emblem of unswerving rectitude and purity; but the circle, "the foremost, richest, and most perfect of curves" was the symbol of completeness and eternity, of the endless process of generation and renascence in which all things are ever becoming new.' W. B. Frankland, The Story of Euclid, p. 70. God was described by St. Bonaventura as 'a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference nowhere'. See also supplementary note.
Page 221. A Letter to the Lady Carey, and Mrs Essex Riche, from Amyens.
Probably written when Donne was abroad with Sir Robert Drury in 1611-12. 'The two ladies', Mr. Chambers says, 'were daughters of Robert, third Lord Rich, by Penelope Devereux, daughter of Walter, Earl of Essex, the Stella of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.' Lady Rich abandoned her husband after five years' marriage and declared that the true father of her children was Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire, to whom, after her divorce in 1605, she was married by Laud. Lettice, the eldest daughter, married Sir George Carey, of Cockington, Devon. Essex, the younger, was married, subsequently to this letter, to Sir Thomas Cheeke, of Pirgo, Essex.
ll. 10-12. Where, because Faith is in too low degree, &c. Donne refers to the Catholic doctrine of good works as necessary to salvation in opposition to the Protestant doctrine of Justification by Faith. He is fond of the antithesis. Compare:
My faith I give to Roman Catholiques;
All my good workes unto the Schismaticks
Of Amsterdam;...
Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
The Will, p. [57].
Page 222, l. 14. where no one is growne or spent. Like the stars in the firmament your virtues neither grow nor decay. According to Aquinas the heavenly bodies are neither temporal nor eternal; not temporal because they are subject neither to growth nor decay; not eternal because they change their position. They are 'Aeonical', their life is measured by ages.
l. 19. humilitie has such general support that the 'humidity' of 1669 seems to be merely a conjecture.