Of noble having and of royal hope.
Macbeth, I. iii. 55-7.
Some editors refer 'present grace' to the first salutation, 'Thane of Glamis'. This is unlikely as there is nothing startling in a salutation to which Macbeth was already entitled. The Clarendon Press editors refer the line, more probably, to the two prophecies, 'thane of Cawdor' and 'that shalt be King hereafter'. The word 'having' is then not quite the same as in the phrases 'my having is not great', &c., which these editors quote, but is simply opposed to 'hope'. You greet him with 'nobility in possession', with 'royalty in expectation', as being already thane of Cawdor, as to be king hereafter. Shakespeare's 'noble having' is the opposite of Donne's 'noble wanting'.
One is tempted to put, as Chambers does, an emphasizing comma after 'honour' as well as 'fortune'; but the antithesis is between 'fortune' and 'honour wanting fortune'.
'Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true Worth, esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.' Fulke Greville's Life of Sidney, c. iii. p. 38 (Tudor and Stuart Library).
Page 216. To Mrs M. H.
I.e. Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, daughter of Sir Richard Newport, mother of Sir Edward Herbert (Lord Herbert of Cherbury), and of George Herbert the poet. For her friendship with Donne, see Walton's Life of Mr. George Herbert (1670), Gosse's Life and Letters of John Donne, i. 162 f., and what is said in the Introduction to this volume and the Introductory Note to the Elegies. In 1608 she married Sir John Danvers. Her funeral sermon was preached by Donne in 1627.
Page 217, l. 27. For, speech of ill, and her, thou must abstaine. The O.E.D. gives no example of 'abstain' thus used without 'from' before the object, and it is tempting with 1635-69 and all the MSS. to change 'For' to 'From'. But none of the MSS. has great authority textually, and the 'For' in 1633 is too carefully comma'd off to suggest a mere slip. Probably Donne wrote the line as it stands. One does not miss the 'from' so much when the verb comes so long after the object. 'Abstain' acquires the sense of 'forgo'.
ll. 31-2. And since they'are but her cloathes, &c. Compare:
For he who colour loves and skinne,