The body ...
but Donne was far too learned an Aristotelian and Scholastic to make the body move the soul, or feel jolly on its own account:
thy fair goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe.
Satyre III, ll. 41-2.
'The soul is so glad to be at last able to move (having been imprisoned hitherto in plants which have the soul of growth, not of locomotion or sense), and the body is so free of its kindnesses to the soul, that it, the sparrow, forgets the duty of self-preservation.'
l. 214. hid nets. In making my first collation of the printed texts I had queried the possibility of 'hid' being the correct reading for 'his', a conjecture which the Gosse MS. confirms.
Page 305, l. 257. None scape, but few, and fit for use, to get. I have added a comma after 'use' to make the construction a little clearer; a pause is needed. 'The nets were not wrought, as now, to let none scape, but were wrought to get few and those fit for use; as, for example, a ravenous pike, &c.'
Page 306, ll. 267-8. 'To make the water thinne, and airelike faith cares not.' What Chambers understands by 'air like faith', I do not know. What Donne says is that the manner in which fishes breathe is a matter about which faith is indifferent. Each man may hold what theory he chooses. There is not much obvious relevance in this remark, but Donne has already in this poem touched on the difference between faith and knowledge: