qui ob. 1637
A later hand, probably Sir John Simeon's, has added 'Chiefly in
the Autograph of Dr. Donne Dean of St. Pauls', but this is quite
erroneous. It is a miscellaneous collection of poems by Donne, Jonson,
Pembroke, Shirley, and others, with short extracts from Fletcher and
Shakespeare. Donne's are the most numerous, and their text generally
good, but such a collection can have no authority. It is important
only as supporting readings and ascriptions of other manuscripts. I
cite it seldom.
_TCD_ (_Second Collection_).[34] The large manuscript volume in
Trinity College, Dublin, contains two collections of poems (though
editors have spoken of them as one) of very different character and
value. The first I have already described. It occupies folios 1 to
292. On folio 293 a new hand begins with the song, 'Victorious Beauty
though your eyes,' and from that folio to folio 565 (but some folios
are torn out) follows a long and miscellaneous series of early
seventeenth-century poems. There are numerous references to
Buckingham, but none to the Long Parliament or the events which
followed, so that the collection was probably put together before
1640. The poems are ascribed to different authors in a very haphazard
and untrustworthy fashion. James I is credited with Jonson's epigram
on the Union of the Crowns; Donne's _The Baite_ is given to Wotton;
and Wotton's 'O Faithless World' to Robert Wisedom. Probably there
is more reliance to be put on the ascriptions of later and Caroline
poems, but for the student of Donne and early Jacobean poetry the
collection has no value. Some of Donne's poems occur, and it is
noteworthy that the version given is often a different one from that
occurring in the first part of the volume. Probably two distinct
collections have been bound up together.
Another collection frequently cited by Grosart, but of little
value for the editor of Donne, is the _Farmer-Chetham MS._, a
commonplace-book in the Chetham Library, Manchester, which has been
published by Grosart. It contains one or two of Donne's poems, but
its most interesting contents are the 'Gulling Sonnets' of Sir John
Davies, and some poems by Raleigh, Hoskins, and others. Nothing could
be more unsafe than to ascribe poems to Donne, as Grosart did, because
they occur here in conjunction with some that are certainly his.
A similar collection, which I have not seen, is the
_Hazlewood-Kingsborough MS._, as Dr. Grosart called it. To judge from
the analysis in Thorpe's Catalogue, 1831, this too is a miscellaneous
anthology of poems written by, or at any rate ascribed to,
Shakespeare, Jonson, Bacon, Raleigh, Donne, and others. There is no
end to the number of such collections, and it is absurd to base a text
upon them.
The _Burley MS._, to which I refer once or twice, and which is a
manuscript of great importance for the editor of Donne's letters,
is not a collection of poems. It is a commonplace-book of Sir Henry
Wotton's in the handwriting of his secretaries. Amid its varied
contents are some letters, unsigned but indubitably by Donne; ten of
his _Paradoxes_ with a covering letter; and a few poems of Donne's
with other poems. Of the last, one is certainly by Donne (_H. W. in
Hibernia belligeranti_), and I have incorporated it. The others seem
to me exceedingly doubtful. They are probably the work of other
wits among Wotton's friends. I have printed a selection from them in
Appendix C.[35]
Of the manuscripts of the first two classes, which alone could put
forward any claim to be treated as independent sources of the text
of an edition of Donne's poems, it would be impossible, I think, to
construct a complete genealogy. Different poems, or different groups
of poems in the same manuscript, come from different sources, and
to trace each stream to its fountain-head would be a difficult task,
perhaps impossible without further material, and would in the end
hardly repay the trouble, for the difficulties in Donne's text are
not of so insoluble a character as to demand such heroic methods.
The interval between the composition of the poems and their first
publication ranges from about forty years at the most to a year or
two. There is no case here of groping one's way back through centuries
of transmission. The surprising fact is rather that so many of the
common errors of a text preserved and transmitted in manuscript should
have appeared so soon, that the text and canon of Donne's poems should
present an editor in one form or another with all the chief problems
which confront the editor of a classical or a mediaeval author.
The manuscripts fall into three main groups (1) _D_, _H49_, _Lec_.
These with a portion of _1633_ come from a common source. (2) _A18_,
_N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. These also come from a single stream and some parts
of _1633_ follow them. _L74_ is closely connected with them, at least
in parts. (3) _A25_, _B_, _Cy_, _JC_, _O'F_, _P_, _S_, _S96_, _W_.
These cannot be traced in their entirety to a single head, but in
certain groups of poems they tend to follow a common tradition which
may or may not be that of one or other of the first two groups. Of the
_Elegies_, for example, _A25_, _JC_, _O'F_ and _W_ transcribe twelve
in the same order and with much the same text. Again, _B_, _O'F_,
_S96_, and _W_ have taken the _Holy Sonnets_ from a common source,
but _O'F_ has corrected or altered its readings by a reference to a
manuscript resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, while _W_ has a more correct
version than the others of the common tradition, and three sonnets
which none of these include. Generally, whenever _B_, _O'F_, _S96_,
and _W_ derive from the same source, _W_ is much the most reliable
witness.
Indeed, our first two groups and _W_ have the appearance of being
derived from some authoritative source, from manuscripts in the
possession of members of Donne's circle. All the others suggest, by
the headings they give to occasional poems, their misunderstanding
of the true character of some poems, their erroneous ascriptions of
poems, that they are the work of amateurs to whom Donne was not known,
or who belonged to a generation that knew Donne as a divine, only
vaguely as a wit.
These being the materials at our command, the question is, how are we
to use them to secure as accurate a text as possible of Donne's poems,
to get back as close as may be to what the poet wrote himself. The
answer is fairly obvious, though it could not be so until some effort
had been made to survey the manuscript material as a whole.
Of the three most recent editors--the first to attempt to obtain a
true text--of Donne's poems, each has pursued a different plan.
The late Dr. Grosart[36] proceeded on a principle which makes it
exceedingly difficult to determine accurately what is the source of,
or authority for, any particular reading he adopted. He printed now
from one manuscript, now from another, but corrected the errors of
the manuscript by one or other of the editions, most often by that of
1669. He made no estimate of the relative value of either manuscripts
or editions, nor used them in any systematic fashion.
The Grolier Club edition[37] was constructed on a different principle.
For all those poems which _1633_ contains, that edition was accepted
as the basis; for other poems, the first edition, whichever that
might be. The text of _1633_ is reproduced very closely, even when the
editor leans to the acceptance of a later reading as correct. Only
one or two corrections are actually incorporated in the text. But the
punctuation has been freely altered throughout, and no record of these
changes is preserved in the textual notes even when they affect the
sense. In more than one instance the words of _1633_ are retained
in this edition but are made to convey a different meaning from that
which they bear in the original.
The edition of Donne's poems prepared by Mr. E. K. Chambers[38] for
the _Muses Library_ was not based, like Dr. Grosart's, on a casual
use of individual manuscripts and editions, nor like the Grolier Club
edition on a rigid adherence to the first edition, but on an eclectic
use of all the seventeenth-century editions, supplemented by an
occasional reference to one or other of the manuscript collections,
either at first hand or through Dr. Grosart.
Of these three methods, that of the Grolier Club editor is, there can
be no doubt, the soundest. The edition of 1633 comes to us, indeed,
with no _a priori_ authority. It was not published, or (like the
sermons) prepared for the press[39] by the author; nor (as in the case
of the first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays) was it issued by
the author's executors.
But if we apply to _1633_ the _a posteriori_ tests described by
Dr. Moore in his work on the textual criticism of Dante's _Divina
Commedia_, if we select a number of test passages, passages where
the editions vary, but where one reading can be clearly shown to be
intrinsically the more probable, by certain definite tests,[40] we
shall find that _1633_ is, taken all over, far and away superior to
any other single edition, and, I may add at once, to any _single_
manuscript.
Moreover, any careful examination of the later editions, of their
variations from _1633_, and of the text of the poems which they print
for the first time, shows clearly that some method more trustworthy
than individual preference must be found if we are to distinguish
between those of their variations which have, and those which have
not, some authority behind them; those which are derived from a
fresh reference to manuscript sources, and those which are due to
carelessness, to misunderstanding, or to unwarrantable emendation.
Apart from some such sifting, an edition of Donne based, like Mr.
Chambers', on an eclectic use of the editions is exactly in the same
position as would be an edition of Shakespeare based on an eclectic
use of the Folios, helped out by a quite occasional and quite eclectic
reference to a quarto. A plain reprint of _1633_ like Alford's (of
such poems as he publishes) has fewer serious errors than an eclectic
text.
It is here that the manuscripts come to our aid. To take, indeed, any
single manuscript, as Dr. Grosart did, and select this or that reading
from it as seems to you good, is not a justifiable procedure. This is
simply to add to the editions one more possible source of error. There
is no single manuscript which could with any security be substituted
for _1633_. Our analysis of that edition has made it appear probable
that a manuscript resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ was the source of
a large part of its text. But it would be very rash to prefer _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_ as a whole to _1633_.[41] It corrects some errors in that
edition; it has others of its own. Even _W_, which has a completer
version of some poems than _1633_, in these poems makes some mistakes
which _1633_ avoids.
If the manuscripts are to help us it must be by collating them, and
establishing what one might call the agreement of the manuscripts
whether universal or partial, noting in the latter case the
comparative value of the different groups. When we do this we get at
once an interesting result. We find that in about nine cases out of
ten the agreement of the manuscripts is on the side of those readings
of _1633_ which are supported by the tests of intrinsic probability
referred to above,[42] and on the other hand we find that sometimes
the agreement of the manuscripts is on the side of the later editions,
and that in such cases there is a good deal to be said for the later
reading.[43]
The first result of a collation of the manuscripts is thus to
vindicate _1633_, and to provide us with a means of distinguishing
among later variants those which have, from those which have not,
authority. But in vindicating _1633_ the agreement of the manuscripts
vindicates itself. If _B_'s evidence is found always or most often to
support _A_, a good witness, on those points on which _A_'s evidence
is in itself most probably correct, not only is _A_'s evidence
strengthened but _B_'s own character as a witness is established, and
he may be called in when _A_, followed by _C_, an inferior witness,
has gone astray. In some cases the manuscripts _alone_ give us what
is obviously the correct reading, e.g. p. 25, l. 22, 'But wee no more'
for 'But now no more'; p. 72, l. 26, 'his first minute' for 'his short
minute'. These are exceptionally clear cases. There are some where, I
have no doubt, my preference of the reading of the manuscripts to that
of the editions will not be approved by every reader. I have adopted
no rigid rule, but considered each case on its merits. All the
circumstances already referred to have to be weighed--which reading
is most likely to have arisen from the other, what is Donne's usage
elsewhere, what Scholastic or other 'metaphysical' dogma underlies the
conceit, and what is the source of the text of a particular poem in
_1633_.
For my analysis of this edition has thrown light upon what of itself
is evident--that of some poems or groups of poems _1633_ provides a
more accurate text than of others, viz. of those for which its source
was a manuscript resembling _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, but possibly more
correct than any one of these, or revised by an editor who knew the
poems. But in printing some of the poems, e.g. _The Progresse of the
Soule_, a number of the letters to noble ladies and others,[44] the
_Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inne_, _The Prohibition_, and a few
others, for which _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ was not available, _1633_ seems
to have followed an inferior manuscript, _A18_, _N_, _TC_ or one
resembling it. In these cases it is possible to correct _1633_ by
comparing it with a better single manuscript, as _G_ or _W_, or group
of manuscripts, as _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. Sometimes even a generally
inferior manuscript like _O'F_ seems to offer a better text of an
individual poem, at least in parts, for occasionally the correct
reading has been preserved in only one or two manuscripts. Only _W_
among eleven manuscripts which I have recorded (and I have examined
others) preserves the reading in the _Epithalamion made at Lincolns
Inne_, p. 143, l. 57: