When one turns from the poems attributed to Donne in the old editions to those which some of the more recent editors have added, one launches into a sea which I have no intention of attempting to navigate in its entirety. Both Sir John Simeon and Dr. Grosart were disposed to cry 'Eureka' too readily, and assigned to Donne a number of poems culled from various manuscripts for the genuineness of which there is no evidence external or internal. I shall confine my remarks to the few poems I have myself incorporated for the first time in an edition of Donne's poems; to the Song 'Absence hear my protestation', which it is now the fashion to ascribe to Donne absolutely, letting evidence 'go hang'; and to the four poems which Mr. Chambers printed from A25. I have added some more in my Appendix C, because they are interesting ἀδέσποτα illustrative of the influence in seventeenth-century poetry of Donne's realistic passion and his paradoxical wit.
Of the poems which appear here for the first time in a collected edition, it is not necessary to say much of those which are taken from W, the Westmoreland MS. now in the possession of Mr. Gosse, who with the greatest and most spontaneous kindness has permitted me to print them all. These include two Epigrams, four additional Letters, and three Holy Sonnets. The Epigrams, the Holy Sonnets, and two of the Letters have been already printed by Mr. Gosse in his Life of John Donne, 1899. There can be no doubt of their genuineness. They enlarge a series of Letters and a series of Sonnets which appear in 1633 and in all the best manuscript collections. In their arrangement I have followed W in preference to 1633, which is based on A18, N, TC. Of the letter taken from the Burley MS. there may be greater doubt in some minds. To me it seems unquestionably Donne's (aut Donne aut Diabolus), an addition to the series of letters which he wrote to Sir Henry Wotton between the return of the Islands Expedition and Essex's return from Ireland. The Burley MS. is a commonplace-book of Wotton's and includes poems which we know as Donne's, e.g. 'Come, Madam, come'; some of his Paradoxes with a covering letter; other letters which from their substance and style seem to be Donne's; and a number of poems, including this which alone of all the doubtful poems in the manuscript is initialled 'J. D.' The manuscript contains work by Donne. Does this come under that head? Only internal evidence can decide. Of the other poems in the manuscript, most of which I print in Appendix C, none are certainly Donne's.
'Absence heare my protestation' was printed in Donne's lifetime in Davison's A Poetical Rhapsody (1602, 1608, 1621), but with no reference to Donne's authorship, although his name was yearly growing a more popular hostel for wandering, unclaimed poems.[18] It was not printed in any edition of his poems from 1633 to 1719. It is not found in either of the most trustworthy manuscript collections, D, H49, Lec, or A18, N, TC. It is found in B, Cy, L74, O'F, P, S96, but none of these can be counted an authority. In 1711 it was for the first time ascribed to Donne in The Grove, a miscellaneous collection of poems, on the authority of 'an old Manuscript of Sir John Cotton's of Stratton in Huntington-Shire'. On the other hand, in one well authenticated manuscript, HN, it is transcribed by William Drummond of Hawthornden from what he describes as a collection of poems 'belonging to John Don' (not 'by Donne'), and, with another poem, is initialled 'J. H.' That other poem called
His Melancholy.
Love is a foolish melancholy, &c.,
is by a Manchester manuscript (Farmer-Chetham MS., ed. Grosart, Chetham Society Publications, lxxxix, xc) assigned to 'Mr. Hoskins', and in another manuscript (A10) it is signed 'H' with the left leg of H so written as to suggest JH run together. Clearly at any rate the onus probandi lies with those who say the poem is by Donne. Internally it has never seemed to me so since I came to know Donne well. The metaphysical, subtle strain is like Donne, as it is in Soules Joy, but here as there (though there is more feeling in Absence, the closing line has a very Donne-like note of sudden anguish, 'and so miss her') the tone is airier, the prosody more tripping. The stressed syllables are less weighted emotionally and vocally. Compare
Sweetest love, I do not goe,
For wearinesse of thee
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for me;