XXIX
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in the summer of 1623 when the Prince and Buckingham were in Spain.
The current news from Bohemia must have been of especial interest to Donne in the light of his experience as the companion of Viscount Doncaster’s journey to that unhappy country six years before. (See note to VII.)
XXX
To Sir Henry Goodyer. If the allusion to the “French Prince” refers to the visit of the Prince de Joinville who was “despatched back again” in June, 1607, this letter may be assigned to the summer of that year. “These two problems” are probably part of the Iuvenilia, or Certaine Paradoxes and Problems, written by I. Donne and published posthumously in 1633. The “ragge of verses” survives as the “Verse Letter to Sir Henry Goodyer,” printed in Donne’s Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 10). In the Poems of 1633 there is a copy of this letter following a text so much better than that of the Letters of 1651, that it has seemed worth while to reprint it in its entirety.
“Sir,—This Teusday morning, which hath brought me to London, presents mee with all your letters. Mee thought it was a rent day, I mean such as yours, and not as mine. And yet such too, when I considered how much I ought you for them. How good a mother, how fertile and abundant the understanding is, if shee have a good father. And how well friendship performes that office. For that which is denyed in other generations is done in this of yours. For hers is superfaetation, child upon child, and, that which is more strange, twinnes at a later conception. If in my second religion, friendship, I had a conscience, either Errantem to mistake good and bad, and indifferent, or Opinantem to be ravished by others opinions or examples, or Dubiam to adhere to neither part, or Scrupulosam to encline to one, but upon reasons light in themselves or indiscussed in mee (which are almost all the diseases of conscience) I might mistake your often, long, and busie letters, and fear you did but interest me to have mercy upon you and spare you. For you know our court tooke the resolution, that it was the best way to dispatch the French Prince backe againe quickly, to receive him solemnely, ceremoniously; and expensively, when he hoped a domestique and durable entertainment. I never meant to excell you in waight nor price, but in number and bulke I thought I might: Because he may cast up a greater summe who hath but forty small moneyes, than hee with twenty Portuguesses. The memory of friends (I meane only for letters) neither enters ordinarily into busied men, because they are ever employed within, nor into men of pleasure, because they are never at home. For these wishes therefore which you wonne out of your pleasure and recreation, you were as excusable to mee if you writ seldom as Sir H. Wotten [who] is under the oppression of businesse or the necessity of seeming so: Or more than hee, because I hope you have both pleasure and businesse. Only to me, who have neither, this omission were sinne. For though writing be not of the precepts of friendship, but of the counsells: yet, as in some cases to some men counsells become precepts, though not immediately from God, yet very roundly and quickly from this Church, (as selling and dividing goods in the first time, continence in the Roman Church, and order and decency in ours) so to mee who can doe nothing else, it seemes to binde my conscience to write. And it is sinne to doe against the conscience, though that erre; Yet no mans letters may be better wanted than mine, since my whole letter is nothing else but a confession that I should and would write. I ought you a letter in verse before by mine owne promise, & now that you thinke you have hedged in that debt by a greater by your letter in verse I thinke it now most seasonable and fashional for mee to breake. At least, to write presently were to accuse my selfe of not having read yours so often as such a letter deserves from you to mee. To make my debt greater (for such is the desire of all, who cannot or meane not to pay) I pray reade these two problems: for such light flashes as these have beene my hawkings in my Surry journies. I accompany them with another ragge of verses, worthy of that name for the smalnesse, and age, for it hath long lyen among my other papers, and laughs at them that have adventured to you: for I thinke till now you saw it not, and neither you, nor it should repent it. Sir, if I were any thing, my love to you might multiply it, and dignifie it: But infinite nothings are but one such: Yet since even Chymeraes have some name, and titles, I am also,
“Yours,”
XXXI
That many of the letters headed “To Yourself” were addressed to George Gerrard there is ample evidence; that any of the letters so headed were addressed to another correspondent there is, so far as I know, no reason for believing.
Donne writes from Spa, to which place he accompanied Sir Robert and Lady Drury in May, 1612.