Here where by All All Saints invoked are, &c.
EPICEDES AND OBSEQUIES, &c.,
Of all Donne's poems these are the most easy to date, at least approximately. The following are the dates of the deaths which called forth the poems, arranged in chronological order:
| Lady Markham (p. [279]), May 4, 1609. |
| Mris Boulstred (pp. [282], [284]), Aug. 4, 1609. |
| Prince Henry (p. [267]), Nov. 6, 1612. |
| Lord Harington (p. [271]), Feb. 27, 1614. |
| Marquis Hamilton (p. [288]), March 22, 1625. |
Those about whose date and subject there is uncertainty are that entitled in 1635 Elegie on the L. C. and that headed Death. If with Chambers and Norton we assume that the former poem is an Elegy on the death of the Lord Chancellor, Baron Ellesmere, it will have been written in 1617. The conjecture is a natural one and may be correct, but there are difficulties, (1) This title is affixed to Elegie in 1635 for the first time. The poem bears no such heading in 1633 or in any MS. in which I have found it. Probably 'L. C.' stands for Lord Chancellor (though this is not certain); but on what authority was the poem given this reference? (2) The position which it occupies in 1633 is due to its position in the MS. from which it was printed. Now in D, H49, Lec, and in W, it is included among the Elegies, i.e. Love Elegies. But in the last of these, W, it appears with a collection of poems (Satyres, Elegies, the Lincoln's Inn Epithalamium, and a series of letters to Donne's early friends) which has the appearance of being, or being derived from, an early collection, a collection of poems written between 1597 and 1608 to 1610 at the latest. (3) The poem is contained, but again without any title, in HN, the Hawthornden MS. in Edinburgh. Now we know that Drummond was in London in 1610, and there is no poem, of those which he transcribed from a collection of Donne's, that is demonstrably later than 1609, though the two Obsequies, 'Death, I recant' and 'Language, thou art too narrowe and too weak', must have been written in that year. Drummond may have been in London at some time between 1625 and 1630, during which years his movements are undetermined (David Masson: Drummond of Hawthornden, ch. viii), but if he had made a collection of Donne's poems at this later date it would have been more complete, and would certainly have contained some of the religious poems. At a later date he seems to have been given a copy of the Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton, for a MS. of this poem is catalogued among the books presented to the Edinburgh University Library by Drummond. Unfortunately it has disappeared or was never actually handed over. Most probably, Drummond's small collection of poems by Donne, Pembroke, Roe, Hoskins, Rudyerd, and other 'wits' of King James's reign, now in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, was made in 1610.
All this points to the Elegie in question being older than 1617. It is very unlikely that a poem on the death of his great early patron would have been allowed by him to circulate without anything to indicate in whose honour it was written. Egerton was as great a man as Lord Harington or Marquis Hamilton, and if hope of reward from the living was the efficient cause of these poems quite as much as sorrow for the dead, Lord Ellesmere too left distinguished and wealthy successors. Yet the MS. of Donne's poems which belonged to the first Earl of Bridgewater contains this poem without any indication to whom it was addressed.
In 1610 Donne sent to the Lord Chancellor a copy of his Pseudo-Martyr, and the following hitherto unpublished letter shows in what high esteem he held him:
'As Ryvers though in there Course they are content to serve publique uses, yett there end is to returne into the Sea from whence they issued. So, though I should have much Comfort that thys Booke might give contentment to others, yet my Direct end in ytt was, to make it a testimony of my gratitude towards your Lordship and an acknowledgement that those poore sparks of Vnderstandinge or Judgement which are in mee were derived and kindled from you and owe themselves to you. All good that ys in ytt, your Lordship may be pleased to accept as yours; and for the Errors I cannot despayre of your pardon since you have long since pardond greater faults in mee.'
If Donne had written an Elegie on the death of Lord Ellesmere it would have been as formally dedicated to his memory as his Elegies to Lord Harington and Lord Hamilton. But by 1617 he was in orders. His Muse had in the long poem on Lord Harington, brother to the Countess of Bedford, 'spoke, and spoke her last'. It was only at the express instance of Sir Robert Carr that he composed in 1625 his lines on the death of the Marquis of Hamilton, and he entitled it not an Elegy but A Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton.