Page 96. Elegie XI.
Donne has in this Elegy carried to its farthest extreme, as only a metaphysical or scholastic poet like himself could, the favourite Elizabethan pun on the coin called the Angel. Shakespeare is fond of the same quibble: 'She has all the rule of her husband's purse; she hath a legion of angels' (Merry Wives, I. iii. 60). But Donne knows more of the philosophy of angels than Shakespeare and can pursue the analogy into more surprising subtleties. Nor is the pun on angels the only one which he follows up in this poem: crowns, pistolets, and gold are all played with in turn. The poem was a favourite with Ben Jonson: 'his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart' (Drummond's Conversations, ed. Laing).
The text of the poem, which was first printed in 1635 (Marriot having been prohibited from including it in the edition of 1633), is based on a MS. closely resembling Cy and P, and differing in several readings from the text given in the rest of the MSS., including D, H49, Lec, and W. I have endeavoured rather to give this version correctly, while recording the variants, than either to substitute another or contaminate the two. When Cy and P go over to the side of the other MSS. it is a fair inference that the editions have gone astray. When they diverge, the question is a more open one.
Page 97, l. 24. their naturall Countreys rot: i.e. 'their native Countreys rot', the 'lues Gallica'. Compare 'the naturall people of that Countrey', Greene, News from Hell (ed. Grosart, p. 57). This is the reading of Cy, and the order of the words in the other MSS. points to its being the reading of the MS. from which 1635 was printed.
l. 26. So pale, so lame, &c. The chipping and debasement of the French crown is frequently referred to, and Shakespeare is fond of punning on the word. But two extracts from Stow's Chronicle (continued ... by Edmund Howes), 1631, will throw some light on the references to coins in this poem: In the year 1559 took place the last abasement of English money whereby testons and groats were lowered in value and called in, 'and according to the last valuation of them, she gave them fine money of cleane silver for them commonly called Sterling money, and from this time there was no manner of base money coyned or used in England ... but all English monies were made of gold and silver, which is not so in any other nation whatsoever, but have sundry sorts of copper money.'
'The 9. of November, the French crowne that went currant for six shillings foure pence, was proclaimed to be sixe shillings.'
In 1561, 'The fifteenth of November, the Queenes Maiestie published a Proclamation for divers small pieces of silver money to be currant, as the sixe pence, foure pence, three pence, 2 pence and a peny, three half-pence, and 3 farthings: and also forbad all forraigne coynes to be currant within the same Realme, as well gold as silver, calling them all into her Maiesties Mints, except two sorts of crownes of gold, the one the French crowne, the other the Flemish crowne.' The result was the bringing in of large sums in 'silver plates: and as much or more in pistolets, and other gold of Spanish coynes, and one weeke in pistolets and other Spanish gold 16000 pounds, all these to be coyned with the Queenes stamps.'
l. 29. Spanish Stamps still travelling. Grosart regards this as an allusion to the wide diffusion of Spanish coins. The reference is more pointed. It is to the prevalence of Spanish bribery, the policy of securing paid agents in every country. It was by money that Parma secured his first hold on the revolted provinces. Gardiner has shown that Lord Cranborne, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, accepted a pension from the Spanish king (Hist. of England, i, p. 215). The discovery of the number of his Court who were in Spanish pay came as a profound shock to James at a later period. The invariable charge brought by one Dutch statesman against another was of being in the pay of the Spaniard.
'It is his Indian gold,' says Raleigh, speaking of the King of Spain in 1596, 'that endangers and disturbs all the nations of Europe; it creeps into councils, purchases intelligence, and sets bound loyalty at liberty in the greatest monarchies thereof.'
ll. 40-1. Gorgeous France ruin'd, ragged and decay'd;