After the Cadiz expedition in 1596, the King of Spain began the
preparation of a second Armada. With a view to destroying this
Elizabeth fitted out a large fleet under the command of Essex, Howard,
and Raleigh. The storm described in Donne's letter so damaged the
fleet that the larger purpose was abandoned and a smaller expedition,
after visiting the Spanish coast, proceeded to the Azores, with a
view to intercepting the silver fleet returning from America. Owing to
dissensions between Raleigh and Essex, it failed of its purpose. This
was the famous 'Islands Expedition'.
The description of the departure and the storm which followed was
probably written in Plymouth, whither the ships had to put back,
and whence they sailed again about a month later; therefore in
July-August, 1597. 'We imbarked our Army, and set sayle about the
ninth of July, and for two dayes space were accompanied with a faire
leading North-easterly wind.' (Mildly it kist our sailes, &c.)......
'Wee now being in this faire course, some sixtie leagues onwards our
journey with our whole Fleet together, there suddenly arose a fierce
and tempestuous storme full in our teethe, continuing for foure dayes
with so great violence, as that now everyone was inforced rather to
looke to his own safetie, and with a low saile to serve the Seas,
then to beate it up against the stormy windes to keep together, or to
follow the directions for the places of meeting.' _A larger Relation
of the said Iland Voyage written by Sir Arthur Gorges, &c. Purchas
his Pilgrimes._ Glasg. MCMVII. While at Plymouth Donne wrote a prose
letter, to whom is not clear, preserved in the Burley Commonplace
Book. There he speaks of 'so very bad wether y^t even some of y^e
mariners have been drawen to think it were not altogether amiss to
pray, and myself heard one of them say, God help us'.
_To Mr. Christopher Brooke._ Donne's intimate friend and
chamber-fellow at Lincoln's Inn. He was Donne's chief abetter in his
secret marriage, his younger brother Samuel performing the ceremony.
They were the sons of Robert Brooke, Alderman of and once M.P. for
York, and his wife Jane Maltby. The Alderman had other sons who
followed in his footsteps and figure among the Freemen of York, but
Christopher and Samuel earned a wider reputation. At Lincoln's Inn,
Christopher wrote verses and cultivated the society of the wits. Wood
mentions as his friends and admirers Selden and Jonson, Drayton and
Browne, Wither and Davies of Hereford. Browne sings his praises in the
second song of the second book of _Britannia's Pastorals_, and in _The
Shepherds Pipe_ (1614) urges him to sing a higher strain. His poems,
which have been collected and edited by the late Dr. Grosart, include
an Elegy on Prince Henry, and a long poem of no merit, _The Ghost of
Richard the Third_ (_Miscellanies_ of the _Fuller Worthies Library_,
vol. iv, 1872). In 1614 he became a bencher and Summer Reader at
Lincoln's Inn. He died February 7, 1627/8.
l. 4. _By Hilliard drawne._ Nicholas Hilliard (1537-1619), the first
English miniature painter. He was goldsmith, carver, and limner to
Queen Elizabeth, and engraved her second great seal in 1586. He drew a
portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, at eighteen, and executed miniatures
of many contemporaries. He also wrote a treatise on miniature
painting. Mr. Laurence Binyon thinks it is quite possible that the
miniature from which Marshall, about 1635, engraved the portrait of
Donne as a young man, was by Hilliard. It is, he says, quite in his
style.
l. 13. _From out her pregnant intrailes._ The ancients attributed
winds to the effect of exhalations from the earth. Seneca,
_Quaestiones Naturales_, v. 4, discusses various causes but mentions
this first: 'Sometimes the earth herself emits a great quantity of
air, which she breathes out of her hidden recesses ... A suggestion
has been made which I cannot make up my mind to believe, and yet
I cannot pass over without mention. In our bodies food produces
flatulence, the emission of which causes great offence to ones nasal
susceptibilities; sometimes a report accompanies the relief of the
stomach, sometimes there is more polite smothering of it. In like
manner it is supposed the great frame of things when assimilating
its nourishment emits air. It is a lucky thing for us that nature's
digestion is good, else we might apprehend some less agreeable
consequences.' (_Q. N. translated by John Clarke, with notes by Sir
Archibald Geikie_, 1910.) These exhalations, according to one view,
mounting up were driven back by the violence of the stars, or
by inability to pass the frozen middle region of the air--hence
commotions. (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 38, 45, 47, 48.) This explains
Donne's 'middle marble room', where 'marble' may mean 'hard', or
_possibly_ 'blue' referring to the colour of the heavens. It is so
used by Studley in his translations of Seneca's tragedies: 'Whereas
the marble sea doth fleete,' _Hipp._ i. 25; 'When marble skies no
filthy fog doth dim,' _Herc. Oet._ ii. 8; 'The monstrous hags of
marble seas' (monstra caerulei maris), _Hipp._ v. 5, I owe this
suggestion to Miss Evelyn Spearing (_The Elizabethan 'Tenne Tragedies
of Seneca'._ _Mod. Lang. Review_, iv. 4). But the peripatetic view
was that the heavens were made of hard, solid, though transparent,
concentric spheres: 'Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven
and ayre; but to say truth, with some small modifications, they'
(i.e. Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman) 'have one and the self same
opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard
and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a _quinta
essentia_, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre itself is,
and that the planets move in it', (according to the older view each
was fixed in its sphere) 'as birds in the ayre, fishes in the sea.'
Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, part ii, sect. 2, Men. 3.
'Wind', says Donne elsewhere, 'is a mixt Meteor, to the making
whereof, diverse occasions concurre with exhalations.' _Sermons_ 80.
31. 305.
The movement which Donne has in view is described by Du Bartas:
If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, sup
Som somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,
Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble Fire
Would suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:
But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,
Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,
And felt what force their mortall Enemy
In Garrison keeps there continually;
When down again towards their Dam they bear,
Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.
But in the instant, to their aid arrives
Another new heat, which their heart revives,
Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,
Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.
Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,
More bravely they renew their enterprize:
And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,
Another-while disgracefully retreating,
Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,
As weak or strong their matter doth comport.
This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,
Equall in force and fortune, equall bold
In these assaults; to end this sudden brall,
Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:
So that this vapour, never resting stound,
Stands never still, but makes his motion round,
Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amain
From _Spain_ to _India_, and from _Inde_ to _Spain_.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, First Week, Second Day.
l. 18. _prisoners, which lye but for fees_, i.e. the fees due to the
gaoler. 'And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees; so
when,' &c.
_Deaths Duell_ (1632), p. 9. Thirty-three years after this poem was
written, Donne thus uses the same figure in the last sermon he ever
preached.
PAGE =176=, l. 38. _I, and the Sunne._ The 'Yea, and the Sunne' of _Q_
shows that 'I' here is probably the adverb, not the pronoun, though
the passage is ambiguous. Modern editors have all taken 'I' as the
pronoun.
ll. 49-50. _And do hear so
Like jealous husbands, what they would not know._
Compare:
Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;
Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.
Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;
Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.
Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:
Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.
Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;
Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.
Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:
Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.
Ovid, _Amores_, II. ii. 51-60.
PAGE =177=, l. 60. _Strive._ Later editions and Chambers read
'strives', but 'ordinance' was used as a plural: 'The goodly ordinance
which were xii great Bombardes of brasse', and 'these six small iron
ordinance.' O.E.D. The word in this sense is now spelt 'ordnance'.
l. 66. _the'Bermuda_. It is probably unnecessary to change this to
'the'Bermudas.' The singular without the article is quite regular.
l. 67. _Darknesse, lights elder brother._ The 'elder' of the MSS. is
grammatically more correct than the 'eldest' of the editions. 'We must
return again to our stronghold, faith, and end with this, that this
beginning was, and before it, nothing. It is elder than darkness,
which is elder than light; and was before confusion, which is elder
than order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and
distinctions.' _Essays in Divinity_ (ed. Jessop, 1855), p. 46.