l. 35. If I an ordinary nothing were. 'A shadow is nothing, yet, if the rising or falling sun shines out and there be no shadow, I will pronounce there is no body in that place neither. Ceremonies are nothing; but where there are no ceremonies, order, and obedience, and at last (and quickly) religion itself will vanish.' Sermons (quoted in Selections from Donne, 1840).
l. 41. Enjoy your summer all; This is Grosart's punctuation. The old editions have a comma. Chambers, obviously quite wrongly, retains the comma, and closes the sentence in the next line. The clause 'Since she enjoys her long night's festival' explains 43 'Let me prepare towards her', &c., not 41 'Enjoy your summer all'.
Page 47. The Apparition.
ll. 1-13. The Grolier Club editor places a full stop, Chambers a colon, after 'shrinke', for the comma of the old editions. Chambers's division is better than the first, which interrupts the steady run of the thought to the climax,
A verier ghost than I.
The original punctuation preserves the rapid, crowded march of the clauses.
l. 10. This line throws light on the character of the 1669 text. The correct reading of 1633 was spoiled in 1635 by accidentally dropping 'will', and this error continued through 1639-54. The 1669 editor, detecting the metrical fault, made the line decasyllabic by interpolating 'a' and 'even'.
Page 48. The Broken Heart.
l. 8. A flaske of powder burne a day. The 'flash' of later editions is probably a conjectural emendation, for 'flaske' (1633 and many MSS.) makes good sense; and the metaphor of a burning flask of powder seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to the heart which love inflamed
but Love, alas,