ΒΙΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ, A Declaration of that Paradoxe, or Thesis, that Selfe-Homicide is not so Naturally Sinne, that it may never be otherwise, wherein the Nature, and the extent of all these lawes, which seem to be violated by this Act, are diligently surveyed, was not published until 1644, thirteen years after Donne’s death. The manuscript of the ΒΙΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ which Donne gave to Sir Edward Herbert is now preserved in the Bodleian Library, to which Lord Herbert presented it in 1642, with the letter here printed and with the following inscription:
HUNC LIBRUM AB AUTHORE CUM EPISTOLA QUI PRAEIT ΑΥΤΟΓΡΑΦΩ DONO SIBI DATUM DUM EQUESTRIS OLIM ESSE ORDINIS EDVARDUS HERBERT, JAM BARO DE CHERBURY IN ANGLIA, ET CASTRI INSULAE DE KERRY IN HIBERNIA, E SUA BIBLIOTHECA IN BODLEIANAM TRANSTULIT MERITISS. IN ALMAN MATREM ACAD. OXON. PIETATIS ET OBSERVANTIAE ΜΝΗΜΟΣΥΝΟΝ, MDCXXII.
VIII
Sir Robert Ker (or Carr) accompanied King James from Scotland on his succession to the throne of England, and in 1603 became Groom of the Bedchamber to Henry, Prince of Wales. For many years he was Donne’s “friend at court.” In 1633 was made Earl of Ancrum. On the breaking out of the civil war he fled to Holland, where he died in 1654.
Donne’s poems remained uncollected until after his death. Poems by J. D. with Elegies on the Author’s Death appeared in 1633, and was reissued two years later.
IX
Lucy, the eldest daughter of the first Lord Harrington of Exton, and the wife of the third Earl of Bedford, was the faithful friend and generous patron not only of Donne, but of Jonson, Drayton, Daniel, and many another man of genius. One of Jonson’s Epigrams in her honour is not so well known as it deserves to be:
On Lucy, Countess of Bedford
“This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,
I thought to form unto my jealous Muse,
What kind of creature I could most desire,
To honour, serve and love; as poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside.
Only a learned, and a manly soul
I purposed her; that should, with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the sheers control
Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wish’d to see,
My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she!”
In spite of Donne’s opinion that “in letters, by which we deliver over our affection, and assurances of friendship ... times and daies cannot have interest,” we may note that this letter must have been written earlier than February 1614, in which month died Lady Bedford’s brother, the second Lord Harrington, to whom allusion is here made.