Page 369. A Hymne To God the Father.
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 the LXXX 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 in A18, N, O'F, S96, TCC, TCD. The six MSS. represent three or perhaps two different sources if O'F and S96 are 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.
S96 and O'F differ from the third group in reading, at l. 5, 'I have not done.' On the other hand, A18 and TC at 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 Harmony added 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's Dictionary of Music.
As given here it has been corrected by Mr. Barclay Squire:
Wilt thou for-give the sinnes where I be-gunne,
wch is my sinne though it weare done be-fore,
wilt thou for-give those sinnes through wch I runne,
& doe them still, though still I doe de-plore
when thou hast done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.
2 Wilt thou forgive yt sinne by wch I won
Others to sinne & made my sinne their dore
Wilt thou forgive that sinne wch I did shun
A yeare or two, but wallowed in a score
When thou hast done, thou hast not done
For I have more.
3 I have a sinne of feare yt when I 'ave spun
My last thred I shall perish one ye shore
Sweare by thy selfe yt att my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now & heartofore
And havinge done, thou hast done
I need noe more.
John: Hillton.
The music has been thus harmonized for four voices by Professor C. Sanford Terry:
Page 370, ll. 7-8.
that sinne which I have wonne
Others to sinn? &c.
In a powerful sermon on Matthew xxi. 44, Donne enumerates this among the curses that will overwhelm the sinner: 'There shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation, and those, which others have done after his provocation.' Sermons 50. 35. 319.
ELEGIES UPON THE AUTHOR.
The first and third of these Elegies, those by King and Hyde, were affixed, without any signature, to Deaths Duell, or A Consolation to the Soule, against the dying Life, and living Death of the Body.... By that late learned and Reverend Divine John Donne, Dr in Divinity, and Deane of S. Pauls, London. Being his last Sermon, and called by his Maiesties houshold The Doctors owne Fvnerall Sermon. London, Printed by Thomas Harper, for Richard Redmer and Beniamin Fisher, and are to be sold at the signe of the Talbot in Alders-gate street. 1632. The book was entered in the Stationers' Register to Beniamin Fisher and Richard Redmer on the 30th of September, 1631, and was issued with a dedicatory letter by Redmer to his sister 'Mrs Elizabeth Francis of Brumsted in Norff' and a note 'To the Reader' signed 'R'. Now we know from his own statement that King was Donne's executor and had been entrusted with his sermons which at King's 'restless importunity' Donne had prepared for the press. (Letter, dated 1664, prefixed to Walton's Lives, 1670.) The sermons and papers thus consigned to King were taken from him later at the instance apparently of Donne's son. But the presence of King's epitaph in this edition of Deaths Duell seems to show that he was responsible for, or at any rate permitted, the issue of the sermon by Redmer and Fisher. The reappearance of these Elegies signed, and accompanied by a number of others, suggests in like manner that King may have been the editor behind Marriot of the Poems in 1633. This would help to account for the general excellence of the text of that edition, for King, a poet himself as well as an intimate friend, was better fitted to edit Donne's poems than the gentle and pious Walton, who was less in sympathy with the side of Donne which his poetry reveals.
Of Henry King (1591-1669) poet, 'florid preacher', canon of Christ Church, dean of Rochester, and in 1641 Bishop of Chichester it is unnecessary to say more here. A fresh edition of his poems by Professor Saintsbury is in preparation and will show how worthy a disciple he was of Donne as love-poet, eulogist, and religious poet. Probably the finest of his poems is The Surrender.
It was to King also that Redmer was indebted for the frontispiece to Deaths Duell, the picture of Donne in his shroud, reproduced in the first volume. 'It was given', Walton says, 'to his dearest friend and Executor Dr King, who caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white Marble, as it now stands in the Cathedral Church of St. Pauls.'
The second of the Elegies in 1633 was apparently by the author of the Religio Medici and must be his earliest published work, written probably just after his return from the Continent. The lines were withdrawn after the first edition.
The Edw. Hyde responsible for the third Elegy, 'On the death of Dr. Donne,' is said by Professor Norton to be Edward Hyde, D.D. (1607-59), son of Sir Lawrence Hyde of Salisbury. Educated at Westminster School and Cambridge he became a notable Royalist divine; had trouble with Parliament; and wrote various sermons and treatises (see D.N.B.). 'A Latin poem by Hyde is prefixed to Dean Duport's translation of Job into Greek verse (1637) and he contributed to the "Cambridge Poems" some verses in celebration of the birth of Princess Elizabeth.'
It would be interesting to think that the author of the lines on Donne was not the divine but his kinsman the subsequent Lord Chancellor. There is this to be said for the hypothesis, that among those who contribute to the collection of complimentary verses are some of Clarendon's most intimate friends about this time, viz. Thomas Carew, Sir Lucius Carie or Lord Falkland, and (but his elegy appears first in 1635) Sidney Godolphin. The John Vaughan also, whose MS. lines to Donne I have printed in the introduction (Text and Canon, &c., p. [lxiv], note (9)), is enrolled by Clarendon among his intimates at this time. If his friends, legal and literary, were thus eulogizing Donne, why should Hyde not have tried his hand too? However, we know of no other poetical effusions by the historian, and as these verses were first affixed with King's to Deaths Duell it is most probable that their author was a divine.
The author of the fourth elegy, Dr. C. B. of O., is Dr. Corbet, Bishop of Oxford (1582-1635). Walton reprinted the poem in the Lives (1670) as 'by Dr. Corbet ... on his Friend Dr. Donne'. We have no particulars regarding this friendship, but they were both 'wits' and their poems figure together in MS. collections. Ben Jonson was an intimate of Corbet's, who was on familiar terms with all the Jacobean wits and poets. For Corbet's life see D.N.B. His poems are in Chalmers' collection.
The Hen. Valentine of the next Elegy matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, in December, 1616, and proceeded B.A. in 1620/1, M.A. 1624. He was incorporated at Oxford in 1628, where he took the degree of D.D. in 1636. On the 8th of December, 1630, he was appointed Rector of Deptford. He was either ejected under the Commonwealth or died, for Mallory, his successor, was deprived in 1662. For this information I am indebted to the Biographical Register of Christ's College, 1505-1905, &c., compiled by John Peile ... Master of the College, 1910. Of works by him the British Museum Catalogue contains Foure Sea-Sermons preached at the annual meeting of the Trinitie Companie in the Parish Church of Deptford, London, 1635, and Private devotions, digested into six litanies ... Seven and twentieth edition, London, 1706. The last was first published in 1651.
Izaak Walton's Elegie underwent a good deal of revision. Besides the variants which I have noted, 1635-69 add the following lines:
Which as a free-will-offring, I here give
Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve,
I want abilities, fit to set forth
A monument great, as Donnes matchlesse worth.
In 1658 and 1670, when the Elegie was transferred to the enlarged Life of Donne, it was again revised, and opens:
Our Donne is dead: and we may sighing say,
We had that man where language chose to stay
And shew her utmost power. I would not praise
That, and his great Wit, which in our vaine dayes
Makes others proud; but as these serv'd to unlocke
That Cabinet, his mind, where such a stock
Of knowledge was repos'd, that I lament
Our just and generall cause of discontent.
But the poem in its final form is included in the many reprints of Walton's Lives, and it is unnecessary to note the numerous verbal variations. The most interesting is in ll. 25-6.
Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein
Lay Loves Philosophy?
Professor Norton notes that 'the name of the author of this' (the seventh) 'Elegy is given as Carie or Cary in all the early editions, by mistake for Carew'. But the spelling (common in the MSS.) simply represents the way in which the name was pronounced. Thomas Carew (1598?-1639?) was sewer-in-ordinary to King Charles in 1633, and in February 163¾ his most elaborate work, the Coelum Britannicum, was performed at Whitehall, on Shrove Tuesday. It was published immediately afterwards, 1634. His collected Poems were issued in 1640 and contained this Elegie. I note the following variants from the text of 1640 as reproduced by Arthur Vincent (Muses Library, 1899):
3. dare we not trust 1633: did we not trust 1640; 5. Churchman 1633: lecturer 1640; 8. thy Ashes 1633: the ashes 1640; 9. no voice, no tune? 1633: nor tune, nor voice? 1640; 17. our Will, 1633: the will, 1640; 44. dust 1633: dung 1640; rak'd 1633: search'd 1640; 50. stubborne language 1633: troublesome language 1640; 58. is purely thine 1633: was only thine 1640; 59. thy smallest worke 1633: their smallest work 1640; 63. repeale 1633: recall 1640; 65. Were banish'd 1633: Was banish'd 1640; 66. o'th'Metamorphoses 1633: i'th'Metamorphoses 1640;
68-9.
Till verse refin'd by thee, in this last Age,
Turne ballad rime 1633:
Till verse, refin'd by thee in this last age,
Turn ballad-rhyme 1640 (Vincent):
Surely 'in this last Age' goes with 'Turne ballad rime'; 73. awfull solemne 1633; solemn awful 1640; 74. faint lines 1633: rude lines 1640; 81. maintaine 1633: retain 1640; 88. our losse 1633: the loss 1640; 89. an Elegie, 1633: one Elegy, 1640;
91-2.
Though every pen should share a distinct part,
Yet art thou Theme enough to tyre all Art;
1633: omit 1640.
Some of these differences are trifling, but in several instances (3, 8, 50, 59, 66, 91-2) the 1633 text is so much better that it seems probable that the poem was printed in 1640 from an early, unrevised version. In 87. 'the' 1633, 1640 should be 'thee'.
Sir Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), was a young man of twenty-one when Donne died, and succeeded his father in the year in which this poem was published. He had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin. 'His first years of reason', Wood says, 'were spent in poetry and polite learning, into the first of which he made divers plausible sallies, which caused him therefore to be admired by the poets of those times, particularly by Ben Jonson ... by Edm. Waller of Beaconsfield ... and by Sir John Suckling, who afterwards brought him into his poem called The Session of Poets thus,
He was of late so gone with divinity,
That he had almost forgot his poetry,
Though to say the truth (and Apollo did know it)
He might have been both his priest and his poet.'
But Falkland is best known through his friendship with Clarendon, whose account of him is classical: 'With these advantages' (of birth and fortune) 'he had one great disadvantage (which in the first entrance into the world is attended with too much prejudice) in his person and presence, which was in no degree attractive or promising. His stature was low, and smaller than most men; his motion not graceful; and his aspect so far from inviting, that it had somewhat in it of simplicity; and his voice the worst of the three, and so untuned, that instead of reconciling, it offended the ear, so that nobody would have expected music from that tongue; and sure no man was less beholden to nature for its recommendation into the world: but then no man sooner or more disappointed this general and customary prejudice: that little person and small stature was quickly found to contain a great heart, a courage so keen, and a nature so fearless, that no composition of the strongest limbs, and most harmonious and proportioned presence and strength, ever more disposed any man to the greatest enterprise; it being his greatest weakness to be too solicitous for such adventures: and that untuned voice and tongue easily discovered itself to be supplied and governed by a mind and understanding so excellent that the wit and weight of all he said carried another kind of lustre and admiration in it, and even another kind of acceptation from the persons present, than any ornament of delivery could reasonably promise itself, or is usually attended with; and his disposition and nature was so gentle and obliging, so much delighted in courtesy, kindness, and generosity, that all mankind could not but admire and love him.' The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon (Oxford, 1827) i. 42-50. Coming from him, Falkland's poem is an interesting testimony to the influence of Donne's poetry, presence, and character.
Jaspar Mayne (1604-72), author of The City Match, was a student and graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, a poet, dramatist, and divine. He wrote complimentary verses on the Earl of Pembroke, Charles I, Queen Henrietta, Cartwright, and Ben Jonson—all, like those on Donne, very bad. He was the translator of the Epigrams ascribed to Donne and published with some of his Paradoxes, Problemes, Essays, Characters in 1651.
Arthur Wilson (1595-1652), historian and dramatist, author of The Inconstant Lady and The Swisser, had in 1633 just completed a rather belated course at Trinity College, Oxford, whither he had gone after leaving the service of the third Earl of Essex. For Wilson's Life see D.N.B. and Feuillerat: The Swisser ... avec une Introduction et des Notes, Paris, 1904.
The 'Mr. R. B.' who wrote these lines is said by Mr. Gosse to be the voluminous versifier Richard Brathwaite (1588-1673), author of A Strappado for the Divell and other works, satirical and pious. He is perhaps the most likely candidate for the initials, which are all we have to go by. At the same time it is a little surprising that a poet whose name was so well known should have concealed himself under initials, the device generally of a young man venturing among more experienced poets. If he had not been too young in 1633, I should have ventured to suggest that the author was Ralph Brideoak, who proceeded B.A. at Oxford 1634, and in 1638 contributed lines to Jonsonus Virbius. He was afterwards chaplain to Speaker Lenthall, and died Bishop of Chichester. In the lines on Jonson, Brideoak describes the reception of Jonson's plays with something of the vividness with which the poet here describes the reception of Donne's sermons. He also refers to Donne:
Had learned Donne, Beaumont, and Randolph, all
Surviv'd thy fate, and sung thy funeral,
Their notes had been too low: take this from me
None but thyself could write a verse for thee.
This last line echoes Donne (p. [204], l. 24). Most of Donne's eulogists were young men.
Brathwaite's wife died in 1633, and, perhaps following Donne, he for some years wrote Anniversaries upon his Panarete. W. C. Hazlitt suggests Brome as the author of the lines on Donne, which is not likely.
The Epitaph which follows R. B.'s poem is presumably by him also.
Endymion Porter (1587-1649) may have had a common interest with Donne in the Spanish language and literature, for the former owed his early success as an ambassador and courtier to his Spanish descent and upbringing. He owes his reputation now mainly to his patronage of art and poetry and to the songs of Herrick. For his life see D.N.B. and E. B. de Fonblanque's Lives of the Lords Strangford, 1877.
Daniel Darnelly, the author of the long Latin elegy added to the collection in 1635, was, according to Foster (Alumni Oxonienses, vol. i. 1891), the son of a Londoner, and matriculated at Oxford on Nov. 14, 1623, at the age of nineteen. He proceeded B.A. in 1627, M.A. 1629⁄30, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1634. He is described in Musgrave's Obituary as of Trinity Hall. In 1632 he was appointed rector of Curry Mallet, Somersetshire, and of Walden St. Paul, Herts., 1634. This would bring him into closer touch with London, and probably explains his writing an elegy for the forthcoming second edition of Donne's Poems. He was rector of Teversham, Cambridgeshire, from 1635 to 1645, when his living was sequestered. He died on the 23rd of November, 1659.
The heading of this poem shows that it was written at the request of some one, probably King. In l. 35 Nilusque minus strepuisset the reference is to the great cataract. See Macrobius, Somn. Scip. ii. 4.
Of Sidney Godolphin (1610-43) Clarendon says, 'There was never so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room; so large an understanding and so unrestrained a fancy in so very small a body: so that the Lord Falkland used to say merrily, that he was pleased to be found in his company, where he was the properer man; and it may be the very remarkableness of his little person made the sharpness of his wit, and the composed quickness of his judgement and understanding the more notable.' The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, i. 51-2. He was killed at Chagford in the civil war. Professor Saintsbury has not included this poem in his collection of Godolphin's poems, Caroline Poets, ii. pp. 227-61.
John Chudleigh's name appears in MSS. occasionally at the end of different poems. In the second collection in the Trinity College, Dublin MS. G. 2. 21 (TCD Second Collection) he is credited with the authorship of Donne's lyric A Feaver, but two other poems are also ascribed to him. He is the author of another in Addl. MS. 33998. f. 62 b. Who he was, I am not sure, but probably he may be identified with John Chudleigh described in 1620 (Visitation of Devonshire) as son and heir of George Chudley of Asheriston, or Ashton, in the county of Devon, and then aged fourteen. On the 1st of June, 1621, aged 15, he matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford. He proceeded B.A. 1623-4, being described as 'equ. aur. fil.' for his father, a member of Parliament, had been created a baronet on the 1st of August, 1622. He took his M.A. in 1626, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1629 (Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, i. 276). Just before taking his M.A. he was elected to represent East Looe. He died, however, before May 10, 1634, which is difficult to reconcile with his being the author of these verses in 1635, unless they were written some time before.
APPENDIX A.
LATIN POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.
Who the Dr. Andrews referred to was we do not know. Dr. Grosart identifies him with the Andrews whose poems are transcribed in H49, but this is purely conjectural.
The lines which I have taken out and made into a separate Epigram are printed in the old editions as the third and fourth lines of the letter. As Professor Norton pointed out, they have no connexion with it. They seem to be addressed to some one who had travelled to Paris from Frankfort, on an Embassy to the King of France, and had returned. 'The Maine passed to the Seine, into the house of the Victor, and with your return comes to Frankfort.'
If Grosart's conjecture be correct, the author of the epigram may be the Francis Andrews whose poems appear along with Donne's in H49, for among these are some political poems in somewhat the same vein:
Though Ister have put down the Rhene
And from his channel thrust him quite;
Though Prage again repayre her losses,
And Idol-berge doth set up crosses,
Yet we a change shall shortly feele
When English smiths work Spanish steele;
Then Tage a nymph shall send to Thames,
The Eagle then shall be in flames,
Then Rhene shall reigne, and Boeme burne,
And Neccar shall to Nectar turne.
And of Henri IV:
Henrie the greate, great both in peace and war
Whom none could teach or imitate aright,
Findes peace above, from which he here was far;
A victor without insolence or spite,
A Prince that reigned, without a Favorite.
Of course, Andrews may be only the transcriber of these poems.
Page 398. To Mr. George Herbert, &c.
Walton has described the incident of the seals: 'Not long before his death he caused to be drawn the figure of the Body of Christ, extended upon an Anchor, like those which Painters draw when they would present us with the picture of Christ crucified on the Cross; his varying no otherwise than to affix him not to a Cross, but to an Anchor (the Emblem of hope); this he caused to be drawn in little, and then many of those figures thus drawn to be ingraven very small in Helitropian Stones, and set in gold, and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends, to be used as Seals or Rings, and kept as memorials of him, and of his affection to them.'
These seals have been figured and described in The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxvii, p. 313 (1807); and Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, viii. 170, 216; 6th Series, x. 426, 473.
Herbert's epistle to Donne is given in 1650. In Walton's Life the first two and a half lines of Donne's Latin poem and the whole of the English one are given, and so with Herbert's reply. As printed in 1650 Herbert's reply is apparently interrupted by the insertion between the eighth and ninth lines of two disconnected stanzas, which may or may not be by Herbert. The first of these ('When Love' &c.) with some variants is given in the 1658 edition of the Life of Donne; but in the collected Lives (1670, 1675) it is withdrawn. The second I have not found elsewhere.
Although the Crosse could not Christ here detain,
Though nail'd unto't, but he ascends again,
Nor yet thy eloquence here keep him still,
But onely while thou speak'st; This Anchor will.
Nor canst thou be content, unlesse thou to
This certain Anchor adde a Seal, and so
The Water, and the Earth both unto thee
Doe owe the symbole of their certainty.
Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure,
This holy Cable's of all storms secure.
When Love being weary made an end
Of kinde Expressions to his friend,
He writ; when's hand could write no more,
He gave the Seale, and so left o're.
How sweet a friend was he, who being griev'd
His letters were broke rudely up, believ'd
'Twas more secure in great Loves Common-weal
(Where nothing should be broke) to adde a Seal.
Line 2: Though 1650: When Walton
Line 10: of 1650: from Walton
In the Life of Herbert Walton refers again to the seals and adds, 'At Mr. Herbert's death these verses were found wrapped up with that seal which was by the Doctor given to him.
When my dear Friend could write no more,
He gave this Seal, and, so gave ore.
When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure,
This Anchor keeps my faith, that, me secure.'
Page 400, l. 22. 〈Wishes〉 I have ventured to change 'Works' to 'Wishes'. It corrects the metre and corresponds to the Latin.
Page 400. Translated out of Gazaeus, &c.
The original runs as follows:
Tibi quod optas et quod opto, dent Divi,
(Sol optimorum in optimis Amicorum)
Vt anima semper laeta nesciat curas,
Vt vita semper viva nesciat canos,
Vt dextra semper larga nesciat sordes,
Vt bursa semper plena nesciat rugas,
Vt lingua semper vera nesciat lapsum,
Vt verba semper blanda nesciant rixas,
Vt facta semper aequa nesciant fucum,
Vt fama semper pura nesciat probrum,
Vt vota semper alta nesciant terras,
Tibi quod optas et quod opto, dent Divi.
I have taken it from:
PIA
H I L A R I A
VARIAQVE
CARMINA
Angelini Gazæi
è Societate Iesu, Atrebatis.
[An ornament in original.]
DILINGAE
Formis Academicis
Cum auctoritate Superiorum.
Apud Vdalricum Rem
CIↃ. IↃC. XXIII.
The folios of this edition do not correspond to those of that which Donne seems to have used.
APPENDIX B.
POEMS WHICH HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO DONNE.
For a full discussion of the authorship of these poems see Text and Canon of Donne's Poems, pp. [cxxix] et seq.
Page 401. To Sr Nicholas Smyth.
Chambers points out that a Nicholas Smyth has a set of verses in Coryats Crudities, 1611.
In the Visitation of the County of Devon, 1620, a long genealogy is given, the closing portion of which shows who this Nicholas Smith or Smyth of Exeter (l. 15) and his father were:
Seven children of Sir Nicholas are given, including another Nicholas (aet. 14), and the whole is signed 'Nich Smith'.
This is doubtless Roe's friend. With Roe as a Falstaff he had probably 'heard the chimes at midnight' in London before he settled down to raise a family in Devonshire.
l. 7. sleeps House, &c. Ovid xi; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, Canto xiv; Spenser, Faerie Queene, I. i.
Page 402, l. 26. Epps. 'This afternoon a servingman of the Earl of Northumberland fought with swaggering Eps, and ran him through the ear.' Manninghams Diary, 8th April, 1603 (Camden Club, p. 165). This is the only certain reference to Epps I have been able to find, but Grosart declares he is the soldier described in Dekker's Knights Conjuring as behaving with great courage at the siege of Ostend (1601-4), where he was killed. I can find no name in Dekker's work.
ll. 27-31. As printed in 1669 these lines are not very intelligible, and neither Grosart nor Chambers has corrected them. As given in the MSS. (e.g. TCD) they are a little clearer:
For his Body and State
The Physick and Counsel (which came too late)
'Gainst whores and dice, hee nowe on mee bestowes
Most superficially: hee speakes of those,
(I found by him) least soundly whoe most knows:
The purpose of bracketing 'which came too late' is obviously to keep it from being taken with ''Gainst whores and dice'—the very mistake that 1669 has fallen into and Grosart and Chambers have preserved. The drawback to this use of the bracket is that it disguises, at least to modern readers, that 'which came too late' must be taken with 'For his Body and State'. I have therefore dropped it and placed a comma after 'late'. The meaning I take to be as follows: 'The physic and counsel against whores and dice, which came too late for his own body and estate, he now bestows on me in a superficial fashion; for I found by him that of whores and dice those speak least soundly who know most from personal experience.' A rather shrewd remark. There are some spheres where experience does not teach, but corrupt.
l. 40. in that or those: 'that' the Duello, 'those' the laws of the Duello. There is not much to choose between 'these' and 'those'.
ll. 41-3. Though sober; but so never fought. I know
What made his Valour, undubb'd, Windmill go,
Within a Pint at most:
The MSS. improve both the metre and the sense of the first of these lines, which in 1669 and Chambers runs:
Though sober; but nere fought. I know ...
It is when he is sober that he never fights, though he may quarrel. Roe knows exactly how much drink it would take to make this undubb'd Don Quixote charge a windmill, or like a windmill. But the poem is too early for an actual reference to Don Quixote.
Page 403, ll. 67-8. and he is braver now
Than his captain.
By 'braver' the poet means, not more courageous, but more splendidly attired, more 'braw'.
Page 404, l. 88. Abraham France—who wrote English hexameters. His chief works are The Countess of Pembrokes Ivy Church (1591) and The Countess of Pembrokes Emmanuel (1591). He was alive in 1633.
Page 405, l. 113. So they their weakness hide, and greatness show. Grosart refused the reading 'weakness', which he found in his favourite MS. S, and Chambers ignored it. It has, however, the support of B, O'F, and L74 (which is strong in Roe's poetry), and seems to me to give the right edge to the sarcasm. 'By giving to flatterers what they owe to worth, Kings and Lords think to hide their weakness of character, and to display the greatness of their wealth and station.' They make a double revelation of their weakness in their credulity and their love of display.
l. 128. Cuff. Henry Cuff (1563-1601), secretary to Essex and an abettor of the conspiracy.
l. 131. that Scot. It is incredible that Donne wrote these lines. He found some of his best friends among the Scotch—Hay, Sir Robert Ker, Essex, and Hamilton, to say nothing of the King.
Page 406. Satyre.
Page 407, ll. 32-3. A time to come, &c. I have adopted Grosart's punctuation and think his interpretation of 'beg' must be the right one—'beg thee as an idiot or natural.' The O.E.D. gives: '†5a. To beg a person: to petition the Court of Wards (established by Henry VIII and suppressed under Charles II) for the custody of a minor, an heiress, or an idiot, as feudal superior or as having interest in the matter: hence also fig. To beg (any one) for a fool or idiot: to take him for, set him down as. Obs.' Among other examples is, 'He proved a wiser man by much than he that begged him. Harington, Met. Ajax 46.' What the satirist says is, 'The time will come when she will beg to have wardship of thee as an idiot. If you continue she will take you for one now.'
l. 35. Besides, her〈s〉. My reading combines the variants. I think 'here' must be wrong.
Page 407. An Elegie.
Page 408, l. 5. Else, if you were, and just, in equitie &c. This is the punctuation of H39, and is obviously right, 'in equitie' going with what follows. He has denied the existence or, at least, the influence of the Fates, and now continues, 'For if you existed or had power, and if you were just, then, according to all equity I should have vanquish'd her as you did me.' Grosart and the Grolier Club editor follow 1635-54, and read:
Else, if you were, and just in equity, &c.
Chambers accepts the attempt of 1669 to amend this, and prints:
True if you were, and just in equity, &c.
But 'just in equity' is not a phrase to which any meaning can be attached.