Page 188, l. 24. dull Moralls of a game at Chests. The comparison of life and especially politics to a game of chess is probably an old one. Sancho Panza develops it with considerable eloquence.
Page 188. H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti.
This poem is taken from the Burley MS., where it is found along with a number of poems some of which are by Donne, viz.: the Satyres, one of the Elegies, and several of the Epigrams. Of the others this alone has the initials 'J. D.' added in the margin. There can be little doubt that it is by Donne,—a continuation of the correspondence of the years 1597-9 to which the last letter and 'Letters more than kisses' belong. In Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton Mr. Pearsall Smith prints what he takes to be a reply to this letter and the charge of indolence. 'Sir, It is worth my wondering that you can complain of my seldom writing, when your own letters come so fearfully as if they tread all the way upon a bog. I have received from you a few, and almost every one hath a commission to speak of divers others of their fellows, like you know who in the old comedy that asks for the rest of his servants. But you make no mention of any of mine, yet it is not long since I ventured much of my experience unto you in a long piece of paper, and perhaps not of my credit; it is that which I sent you by A. R., whereof till you advertise me I shall live in fits or agues.' After referring to the malicious reports in circulation regarding the Irish expedition he concludes in the style of the previous letters: 'These be the wise rules of policy, and of courts, which are upon earth the vainest places.'
l. 11. yong death: i.e. early death, death that comes to you while young.
ll. 13-15. These lines are enough of themselves to prove Donne's authorship of this poem. Compare To Sr Henry Goodyere, p. [183], ll. 17-20.
Page 189. To the Countesse of Bedford.
Lucy, Countess of Bedford, occupies the central place among Donne's noble patrons and friends. No one was more consistently his friend; to none does he address himselfe in terms of sincerer and more respectful eulogy.
The eldest child of John Harington, created by James first Baron Harington of Exton, was married to Edward, third Earl of Bedford, in 1594 and was a lady in waiting under Elizabeth. She was one of the group of noble ladies who hastened north on the death of the Queen to welcome, and secure the favour of, James and Anne of Denmark. Her father and mother were granted the tutorship of the young Princess Elizabeth, and she herself was admitted at once as a Lady of the Chamber. Her beauty and talent secured her a distinguished place at Court, and in the years that Donne was a prisoner at Mitcham the Countess was a brilliant figure in more than one of Ben Jonson's masques. 'She was "the crowning rose" in that garland of English beauty which the Spanish ambassador desired Madame Beaumont, the Lady of the French ambassador, to bring with her to an entertainment on the 8th of December, 1603: the three others being Lady Rich, Lady Susan Vere, and Lady Dorothy (Sidney); "and", says the Lady Arabella Stewart, "great cheer they had."' Wiffen, Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell, 1833. She figured also in Daniel's Masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, which was published (1604) with an explanatory letter addressed to her. In praising her beauty Donne is thus echoing 'the Catholic voice'. The latest Masque in which she figured was the Masque of Queens, 2nd of February, 1609-10.
In Court politics the Countess of Bedford seems to have taken some part in the early promotion of Villiers as a rival to the Earl of Somerset; and in 1617 she promoted the marriage of Donne's patron Lord Hay to the youngest daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, against the wish of the bride's father. Match-making seems to have been a hobby of hers, for in 1625 she was an active agent in arranging the match between James, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, and Lady Charlotte de la Trémouille, the heroic Countess of Derby who defended Lathom House against the Roundheads.