l. 76. To adore, or scorne an image, &c. Compare: 'I should violate my own arm rather than a Church, nor willingly deface the name of Saint or Martyr. At the sight of a Cross or Crucifix I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour: I cannot laugh at, but rather pity the fruitless journeys of Pilgrims, or contemn the miserable condition of Friars; for though misplaced in circumstances, there is something in it of Devotion. I could never hear the Ave-Mary Bell without an elevation, or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me to err in all, that is in silence and dumb contempt.... At a solemn Procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts blind with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter.' Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, sect. 3. Compare also Donne's letter To Sir H. R. (probably to Goodyere), (Letters, p. 29), 'You know I have never imprisoned the word Religion; not straightning it Friarly ad religiones factitias, (as the Romans call well their orders of Religion), nor immuring it in a Rome, or a Geneva; they are all virtual beams of one Sun.... They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles; and they are connaturall pieces of one circle. Religion is Christianity, which being too spirituall to be seen by us, doth therefore take an apparent body of good life and works, so salvation requires an honest Christian.'
l. 80. Cragged and steep. The three epithets, 'cragged', 'ragged', and 'rugged', found in the MSS., are all legitimate and appropriate. The second has the support of the best MSS. and is used by Donne elsewhere: 'He shall shine upon thee in all dark wayes, and rectifie thee in all ragged ways.' Sermons 80. 52. 526. Shakespeare uses it repeatedly: 'A ragged, fearful, hanging rock,' Gent. of Ver. I. ii. 121; 'My ragged prison walls,' Rich. II, V. v. 21; and metaphorically, 'Winter's ragged hand,' Sonn. VI. i.
ll. 85-7. To will implyes delay, &c. I have changed the 'to' of 1633 to 'too'. It is a mere change of spelling and has the support of both H51 and W. Grosart and Chambers take it as the preposition following the noun it governs, 'hard knowledge to'—an unexampled construction in the case of a monosyllabic preposition. Franz (Shak.-Gram. § 544) gives cases of inversion for metrical purposes, but only with 'mehrsilbigen Präpositionen', e.g. 'For fear lest day should look their shapes upon.' Mid. N. Dream, III. ii. 385.
Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers have all, I think, been misled by the accidental omission in 1633 of the full stop or colon after 'doe', l. 85. Chambers prints:
To will implies delay, therefore now do
Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge to
The mind's endeavours reach.
The Grolier Club version is:
To will implies delay, therefore now do
Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge too