l. 1. Haste thee, &c. By the lines 5-6, supplied from W, this poem is restored to the compass of a sonnet, though a very irregular one in form. The letter is evidently written from London, where the plague is prevalent. The letter is to be (l. 14) Donne's pledge of affection if he lives, his testament if he dies.
Page 206. To Mr T. W.
l. 5. hand and eye is the reading of all the MSS., including W. It is written in the latter with a contraction which could easily be mistaken for 'or'.
To Mr T. W.
l. 3. I to the Nurse, they to the child of Art. The 'Nurse of Art' is probably Leisure, 'I to my soft still walks':
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
According to Aristotle, all the higher, more intellectual arts, as distinct from those which supply necessities or add to the pleasures of life, are the fruits of leisure: 'At first he who invented any art that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to its recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure.' Met. A. 981b (translated by W. D. Ross).
l. 12. a Picture, or bare Sacrament. The last word would seem to be used in the legal sense: 'The sacramentum or pledge which each of the parties deposited or became bound for before a suit.' O.E.D. The letter is a picture of his mind or pledge of his affection.