Spirits, as like soules as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtile knot, which makes us man.
'Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the Bloud, and the instrument of the soule, to perform all his actions; a common tye or medium betwixt the body and the soule, as some will have it; or as Paracelsus, a fourth soule of itselfe. Melancthon holds the fountaine of these spirits to be the Heart, begotten there; and afterward convayed to the Braine, they take another nature to them. Of these spirits there be three kindes, according to the three principall parts, Braine, Heart, Liver; Naturall, Vitall, Animall. The Naturall are begotten in the Liver, and thence dispersed through the Veines, to performe those naturall actions. The Vitall Spirits are made in the Heart, of the Naturall, which by the Arteries are transported to all the other parts: if these Spirits cease, then life ceaseth, as in a Syncope or Swowning. The Animall spirits formed of the Vitall, brought up to the Braine, and diffused by the Nerves, to the subordinate Members, give sense and motion to them all.' Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1638), p. 15. 'The spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood, and so are of a kind of middle nature, between soul and body, those spirits are able to doe, and they doe the office, to unite and apply the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body, and so there is a man.' Sermons 26. 20. 291.
Page 55. Loves Diet.
ll. 19-24. This stanza, carefully and correctly printed in the 1633 edition, which I have followed, was mangled in that of 1635, and has remained in this condition, despite conjectural emendations, in subsequent editions, including those of Grosart and Chambers. What Donne says is obvious: 'Whatever Love dictated I wrote, but burned the letters. When she wrote to me, and when (correctly resumed by 'that') that favour made him (i.e. Love) fat, I said,' &c. The 1650-54 'Whate'er might him distaste,' &c. is obviously an attempt to put right what has gone wrong. No reading but that of the 1633 edition gives any sense to 'that favour' and 'convey'd by this'.
ll. 25-7. reclaim'd ... sport. In 1633 'reclaim'd' became 'redeem'd', probably owing to the frequent misreading of 'cl' as 'd'. The mistake here increases the probability that 'sports' is an error for 'sport' or 'sporte'. It is doubtful if 'sports' was used as now.
Page 56. The Will.
ll. 19-27. This verse is omitted in most of the MSS. Probably in James's reign its references to religion were thought too outspoken and flippant. Charles admired in Donne not only the preacher but also the poet, as Huyghens testifies.
The first three lines turn on a contrast that Donne is fond of elaborating between the extreme Protestant doctrine of justification by faith only and the Catholic, especially Jesuit, doctrine of co-operant works. It divided the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The Jansenists had not yet emerged, but their precursors in the quarrel (as readers of Les Provinciales will recall) were the Dominicans, to whom Donne refers: 'So also when in the beginning of S. Augustines time, Grace had been so much advanced that mans Nature was scarce admitted to be so much as any means or instrument (not only no kind of cause) of his own good works: And soon after in S. Augustines time also mans free will (by fierce opposition and arguing against the former error) was too much overvalued, and admitted into too near degrees of fellowship with Grace; those times admitted a doctrine and form of reconciliation, which though for reverence to the time, both the Dominicans and Jesuits at this day in their great quarrell about Grace and Free Will would yet seem to maintaine, yet indifferent and dispassioned men of that Church see there is no possibility in it, and therefore accuse it of absurdity, and almost of heresie.' Letters (1651), pp. 15-16. As an Anglican preacher Donne upheld James's point of view, that the doctrine of grace and free-will was better left undiscussed: 'Resistibility, and Irresistibility of Grace, which is every Artificers wearing now, was a stuff that our Fathers wore not, a language that pure antiquity spake not.... They knew Gods law, and his Chancery: But for Gods prerogative, what he could do of his absolute power, they knew Gods pleasure, Nolumus disputari: It should scarce be disputed of in Schools, much less serv'd in every popular pulpit to curious and itching ears; least of all made table-talke, and houshold-discourse.' Sermons 26. 1. 4.