William Cornwaleys.
The writer is, Mr. Gosse says, Sir William Cornwallis, the eldest son of Sir Charles Cornwallis of Beeston-in-Sprouston, Norfolk. Like Wotton, Goodyere, Roe, and others of Donne's circle he followed Essex to Ireland and was knighted at Dublin in 1599. The letter probably dates from 1600 or 1601. I have reproduced the original spelling, which is remarkable.
This letter and that to Mr. E. G. show that Donne was a frequenter of the theatre in these interesting years, 1593 to 1610, the greatest dramatic era since the age of Pericles. Sir Richard Baker, in his Chronicle of the Kings of England (1730, p. 424), recalls his 'Old Acquaintance ... Mr. John Dunne, who leaving Oxford, liv'd at the Inns of Court, not dissolute but very neat: a great Visiter of Ladies, a great Frequenter of Plays, a great Writer of conceited Verses'. But of the Elizabethan drama there is almost no echo in Donne's poetry. The theatres are an amusement for idle hours: 'Because I am drousie, I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy, or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy.' Sermons 80. 38. 383.
Page 214. To Sir H. W. at his going Ambassador to Venice.
On July 8 O.S., 1604, Wotton was knighted by James, and on the 13th sailed for Venice. 'He is a gentleman', the Venetian ambassador reported, 'of excellent condition, wise, prudent, able. Your serenity, it is to be hoped, will be very well pleased with him.' Mr. Pearsall Smith adds, 'It is worth noting that while Wotton was travelling to Venice, Shakespeare was probably engaged in writing his great Venetian tragedy, Othello, which was acted before James I in November of this year.'
Page 215, ll. 21-4. To sweare much love, &c. The meaning of this verse, accepting the 1633 text, is: 'Admit this honest paper to swear much love,—a love that will not change until with your elevation to the peerage (or increasing eminence) it must be called honour rather than love.' (We honour, not love, those who are high above us.) 'But when that time comes I shall not more honour your fortune, the rank that fortune gives you, than I have honoured your honour ["nobleness of mind, scorn of meanness, magnanimity" (Johnson)], your high character, magnanimity, without it, i.e. when yet unhonoured.' Donne plays on the word 'honour'.
Walton's version, and the slight variant of this in 1635-69, give a different thought, and this is perhaps the correct reading, more probably either another (perhaps an earlier) version of the poet or an attempt to correct due to a failure to catch the meaning of the rather fanciful phrase 'honouring your honour'. The meaning is, 'I shall not then more honour your fortune than I have your wit while it was still unhonoured, or (1635-69) unennobled.' The 1633 version seems to me the more likely to be the correct or final form of the text, because a reference to character rather than 'wit' or intellectual ability is implied by the following verse:
But 'tis an easier load (though both oppresse)
To want then governe greatnesse, &c.
This stress on character, too, and indifference to fortune, is quite in the vein of Donne's and Wotton's earlier verse correspondence and all Wotton's poetry.