Izaak Walton's Elegie underwent a good deal of revision. Besides the variants which I have noted, 1635-69 add the following lines:
Which as a free-will-offring, I here give
Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve,
I want abilities, fit to set forth
A monument great, as Donnes matchlesse worth.
In 1658 and 1670, when the Elegie was transferred to the enlarged Life of Donne, it was again revised, and opens:
Our Donne is dead: and we may sighing say,
We had that man where language chose to stay
And shew her utmost power. I would not praise
That, and his great Wit, which in our vaine dayes