And amber'd all.
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Custom of the Country, iii. 2.
This was the original meaning of the word 'amber', which was extended to the yellow fossil resin through some mistaken identification of the two substances. Mr. Gosse has called my attention to some passages which seem to indicate that the other amber was also eaten. Tallemant des Réaux says of the Marquise de Rambouillet, 'Elle bransle un peu la teste, et cela lui vient d'avoir trop mangé d'ambre autrefois.' This may be ambergris; but Olivier de Serres, in his Théâtre d'Agriculture (1600), speaks of persons who had formed a taste for drinking 'de l'ambre jaune subtilement pulvérisé'.
Page 134, ll. 85-6. Thou hast no such; yet here was this, and more,
An earnest lover, wise then, and before.
This is the reading of 1633 and gives, I think, Donne's meaning. Missing this, later editions placed a full stop after 'more', so that each line concludes a sentence. Mr. Chambers emends by changing the full stop after 'before' into a comma, and reading:
Thou hast no such; yet here was this and more.
An earnest lover, wise then, and before,
Our little Cupid hath sued livery.
This looks ingenious, but I confess I do not know what it means. When was Cupid wise? When had he been so before? And with what special propriety is Cupid here called 'an earnest lover'? What Donne says is: 'Here was all this,—a court such as I have described, and more—an earnest lover (viz. the Earl of Somerset), wise in love (when most men are foolish), and wise before, as is approved by the King's confidence. In being admitted to that breast Cupid has ceased to be a child, has attained his majority, and the right to administer his own affairs.' Compare: 'I love them that love me, &c.... The Person that professes love in this place is Wisdom herself ... so that sapere et amare, to be wise and to love, which perchance never met before nor since, are met in this text.' Sermons 26. 18, Dec. 14, 1617.