Of every quality Comparison
The only measure is, and judge, Opinion.
With the sentiment regarding Courts compare: 'Beauty, in courts, is so necessary to the young, that those who are without it, seem to be there to no other purpose than to wait on the triumphs of the fair; to attend their motions in obscurity, as the moon and stars do the sun by day; or at best to be the refuge of those hearts which others have despised; and by the unworthiness of both to give and take a miserable comfort.' Dryden, Dedication of the Indian Emperor.
ll. 8-9.
(Where a transcendent height, (as lownesse mee)
Makes her not be, or not show)
I have completed the enclosure of (Where ... show) in brackets which 1633 began but forgot to carry out. The statement is parenthetical, and it is of the essence of Donne's wit to turn aside in one parenthesis to make another, dart from one distracting thought to a further, returning at the end to the main track. He has left the Countess for a moment to explain why the Court 'is not Vertues clime'. She is too transcendent to be, or at any rate to be seen there, as I (he adds, quite irrelevantly) am too low. Then taking up again the thought of the first line he continues: 'all my rhyme is claimed there by your vertues, for there rareness gives them value. I am the comment on what there is a dark text; the usher who announces one that is a stranger.'
For brackets within brackets compare: 'And yet it is imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate to sense (I dare not say to reason (though it have appearance of that too) because none may doubt but that that religion is certainly best which is reasonablest) That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation and every civill coagulation or society one other; and every man one other.' Letters, p. 43.
l. 13. To this place: i.e. Twickenham. O'F heads the poem To the Countesse of Bedford, Twitnam. The poem is written to welcome her home. See l. 70.
The development of Donne's subtle and extravagant conceits is a little difficult. The Countess is the sun which exhales the sweetness of the country when she comes thither (13-18). Apparently the Countess has returned to Twickenham in Autumn, perhaps arriving late in the evening. When she emerges from her chariot it is the breaking of a new day, the beginning of a new year or new world. Both the Julian and the Gregorian computations are thus falsified (19-22). It shows her truth to nature that she will not suffer a day which begins at a stated hour, but only one that begins with the actual appearance of the light (23-4: a momentary digression). Since she, the Sun, has thus come to Twickenham, the Court is made the Antipodes. While the 'vulgar sun' is an Autumnal one, this Sun which is in Spring, receives our sacrifices. Her priests, or instruments, we celebrate her (25-30). Then Donne draws back from the religious strain into which he is launching. He will not sing Hymns as to a Deity, but offer petitions as to a King, that he may view the beauty of this Temple, and not as Temple, but as Edifice. The rest of the argument is simpler.