Page 274, l. 102. Sent hither, this worlds tempests to becalme. I have adopted the reading to which the MSS. point in preference to that of the editions. Both the chief groups read 'tempests', and 'this' (for 'the') has still more general support. Now if the 's' in 'tempests' were once dropped, 'this' would be changed to 'the', the emphasis shifting from 'this' to 'world'. I think the sense is better. If but one tempest is contemplated, then either so many 'lumps of balm' are not needed, or they fail sadly in their mission. They come rather to allay the storms with which human life is ever and again tormented. Moreover, in Donne's cosmology 'this world' is frequently contrasted with other and better worlds. Compare An Anatomie of the World, pp. [225] et seq.
l. 110. Which the whole world, or man the abridgment hath. The comma after 'man' in 1633 gives emphasis. The absence of a comma, however, after 'abridgment' gives a reader to-day the impression that it is object to 'hath'. I have, therefore, with 1635-69, dropped the comma after 'man'. The omission of commas in appositional phrases is frequent. 'Man the abridgment' means of course 'Man the microcosm': 'the Macrocosme and Microcosme, the Great and the Lesser World, man extended in the world, and the world contracted and abridged into man.' Sermons 80. 31. 304.
ll. 111-30. Thou knowst, &c. The circles running parallel to the equator are all equally circular, but diminish in size as they approach the poles. But the circles which cut these at right angles, and along which we measure the distance of any spot from the equator, from the sun, are all of equal magnitude, passing round the earth through the poles, i.e. meridians are great circles, their planes passing through the centre of the earth.
Harington's life would have been a Great Circle had it completed its course, passing through the poles of youth and age. In that case we should have had from him lessons for every phase of life, medicines to cure every moral malady.
In The Crosse Donne writes:
All the Globes frame and spheares, is nothing else
But the Meridians crossing Parallels.
And in the Anatomie of the World, p. [239], ll. 278-80:
For of Meridians, and Parallels,