[35] Affianced.
[36] Mr. Ebsworth kindly pointed out to me that this dialogue belongs to Jordan. I had taken it from Wit and Drollery, 1656. The earlier text is more correct. There is an MS. copy of it in Harleian MS. 3511 fol. 108.
[37] This poem is ascribed by the younger Donne to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. It was very popular, and is found in many MS. collections. "Go, soul, the body's guest," is ascribed by Donne to Pembroke. People must have been very credulous in the second half of the seventeenth century. (See Windsor Drollery, 1672; Add. MS. 10309, &c.).
[38] There is a printed copy of this poem, widely different from the MS. version, in the second book of The Treasury of Music, 1659. After l. 6, the printed copy reads:—
"Not lady-proud nor city-coy,
But full of freedom, full of joy;
Not wise enough to rule a state,
Nor so much fool to be laugh'd at;
Nor childish young, nor beldam old;
Not fiery hot, nor icy cold;
Not richly proud, nor basely poor;
Not chaste, yet no reputed whore.
If such a one I chance to find,
I have a mistress to my mind."
Compare the song in Ben Jonson's Poetaster, ii. 1—
"If I freely may discover
What would please me in my lover," &c.
which probably suggested the present poem.
[39] This poem is also found in The Academy of Compliments and other collections.
[40] Old ed. "And."