(2) In the second class I place manuscripts which are, or aim at being, complete collections of Donne's poems. Most of these belong to the years between 1620 and 1633. They vary considerably in accuracy of text, and in the care which has been taken to include only poems that are authentic. They were made probably by professional copyists, and some of those whose calligraphy is most attractive show that the scribe must have paid the smallest attention to the meaning of what he was writing.
Of those which I have examined, two groups of manuscripts seem to me especially noteworthy, because both show that their collectors had a clear idea of what were, and what were not, Donne's poems, and because of the general accuracy with which the poems in one of them are transcribed. Taken with the edition of 1633 they form an invaluable starting-point for the determination of the canon of Donne's poems.
The first of these is represented by three manuscripts which I have examined, D (Dowden), H49 (Harleian MS. 4955), and Lec (Leconfield).
D is a small quarto manuscript, neatly written in a thin, clear hand and in ordinary script. It was formerly in the Haslewood collection, and is now in the possession of Professor Edward Dowden, Trinity College, Dublin, by whose kindness I have had it by me almost all the time that I have been at work on my edition.
H49 is a collection of Donne's poems, in the British Museum, bound up with some by Ben Jonson and others. It is a large folio written throughout apparently in the same hand. It opens with some poems and masques by Jonson. A certain Doctor Andrewes' poems occupy folios 57-87. They are signed Franc: Andrilla. London August 14. 1629. Donne's poems follow, filling folios 88 to 144b. Thereafter follow more poems by Andrewes, Jonson, and others, with some prose letters by Jonson.
Lec. This is a large quarto manuscript, beautifully transcribed, belonging to Lord Leconfield and preserved at Petworth House. Many of the manuscripts in this collection were the property of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632), the friend who communicated the news of Donne's marriage to his father-in-law.
These three manuscripts are obviously derived from one common source. They contain the same poems, except that D has one more than H49, and both of these have some which are not in Lec. The order of the poems is the same, except that D and Lec show more signs of an attempt to group the poems than H49. The text, with some divergences, especially on the part of Lec, is identical. One instance seems to point to one of them being the source of the others. In the long Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington, Brother to the Countess of Bedford, the original copyist, after beginning l. 159 'Vertue whose flood', had inadvertently finished with the second half of l. 161, 'were [sic] blowne in, by thy first breath.' This error is found in all the three manuscripts. It may, however, have come from the common source of this poem, and there are divergences in order and text which make me think that they are thus derived from one common source.
A special interest attaches to this collection, apart from the relative excellence of its text and soundness of its canon, from the probability that a manuscript of this kind was used for a large, and that textually the best, part of the edition of 1633. This becomes manifest on a close examination of the order of the poems and of their text. Mr. Gosse has said, in speaking of the edition of 1633: 'The poems are thrown together without any attempt at intelligent order; neither date, nor subject, nor relation is in the least regarded.' This is not entirely the case. Satires, Elegies, Epigrams, Songs are grouped to some extent. The disorder which prevails is due to two causes: (1) to the fact that the printer set up from a variety of sources. There was no previous collected edition to guide him. Different friends supplied collections, and of a few poems there were earlier editions. He seems to have passed from one of these to another as was most convenient at the moment. Perhaps some were lent him only for a time. The differences between copies of 1633 show that it was prepared carefully, but emended from time to time while the printing was actually going on. (2) The second source of the order of the poems is their order in the manuscripts from which they were copied. Now a comparison of the order in 1633 with that in D, H49, Lec reveals a close connexion between them, and throws light on the composition of 1633.
It is necessary, before instituting this comparison with 1633, to say a word on the order of the poems in D, H49, Lec themselves, as it is not quite the same in all three. H49 is the most irregular, perhaps therefore the earliest, each of the others showing efforts to obtain a better grouping of the poems. All three begin with the Satyres, of which D and Lec have five, H49 only four; but the text of Lec differs from that of the other two, agreeing more closely with the version of 1633 and of another group of manuscripts. They have all, then, thirteen Elegies in the same order. After these H49 continues with a number of letters (The Storme, The Calme, To Sr Henry Wotton, To Sr Henry Goodyere, To the Countesse of Bedford, To Sr Edward Herbert, and others) intermingled with Funeral Elegies (Lady Markham, Mris Boulstred) and religious poems (The Crosse, The Annuntiation, Good Friday). Then follows a long series of lyrical pieces, broken after The Funerall by A Letter to the Lady Carey, and Mrs. Essex Rich, the Epithalamion on the Palatine marriage, and an Old Letter ('At once from hence', p. [206]). The lyrical pieces are then resumed, and the collection ends with the Somerset Eclogue and Epithalamion, the Letanye, both sets of Holy Sonnets, a letter (To the Countesse of Salisbury), and the long Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington.
D makes an effort to arrange the poems following the Elegies in groups. The Funeral Elegies come first, and two blank pages are headed An Elegye on Prince Henry. The letters are then brought together, and are followed by the religious poems dispersed in H49. The lyrical poems follow piece by piece as in H49, and the whole closes with the two epithalamia and the Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington.