Page 87. Elegie VI.
l. 6. Their Princes stiles, with many Realmes fulfill. This is the reading of all the best MSS. The 'which' for 'with' of the editions is due to an easy confusion of two contractions invariably used in the MSS. Grosart and Chambers accept 'with' from S and A25, but further alter 'styles' to 'style', following these generally inferior MSS. The plural is correct. Donne refers to more than one prince and style. The stock instance is
the poor king Reignier, whose large style
Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
2 Henry VI, I. i. 111-12.
But the English monarchs themselves bore in their 'style' the kingdom of France, and for some years (1558-1566) Mary, Queen of Scots, bore in her 'style' the arms of England and Ireland.
Page 88, ll. 21-34. These lines evidently suggested Carew's poem, To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side, An Eddy:
Mark how yon eddy steals away
From the rude stream into the bay;
There, locked up safe, she doth divorce
Her waters from the channel's course,
And scorns the torrent that did bring
Her headlong from her native spring, &c.
ll. 23-4.
calmely ride
Her wedded channels bosome, and then chide.
The number of MSS. and editions is in favour of 'there', but the quality (e.g. 1633 and W) of those which read 'then', and the sense of the lines, favour 'then'. The stream is at one moment in 'speechless slumber', and the next chiding. She cannot in the same place do both at once:
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. vii. 25-32.
ll. 27-8. Yet if her often gnawing kisses winne
The traiterous banke to gape, and let her in.
The 'banke' of the MSS. must, I think, be the right reading rather than the 'banks' of the editions, the 's' having arisen from the final 'e'. A river which bursts or overflows its banks does not leave its course, though it 'drowns' the 'round country', but if it breaks through a weak part in a bank it may quit its original course for another. 'The traiterous bank' I take to be equivalent to 'the weak or treacherous spot in its bank'.