(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—Will no one protest against and endeavour to check the ugly and quite unnecessary modernism of "as it does"? I give an example of a sentence, adequate and harmonious as written, which would be spoiled were the favourite journalese "as it does" inserted after the word "embracing."
"The glorious view from this spot, embracing the valley of Ville d'Avray, the slopes opposite, the great city in the distance, was a delight to Balzac."—Martin, Stones of Paris, II., 69.—Yours, etc.,
R. Owen.
Belmount Hall, Outgate, Ambleside, January 12th.
JOHN DONNE
(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—Mr. Robert Lynd in his very readable essay on Donne in your last number has inadvertently fallen into the old error of saying that Donne was in 1612 "making use of his legal knowledge in order to help the infamous Countess of Essex to secure the annulment of her first marriage." It is true that Donne wrote an Epithalamium for the Countess's second marriage, and that is mortifying enough without any further charge. But Professor Grierson pointed out some time since that it was Dr. Daniel Donne (or Dun) who drew up the paper referred to (Grierson's Donne, ii. 94). If further evidence were needed, it might be supplied from MS. Rawlinson 1386 in the Bodleian. On page 201 is the autograph Daniel Dun, and someone, probably Rawlinson, has added "Sr. Daniel Dr of Civil Lawes concern'd in Somerset's Divorce."