Lucy, Countess of Bedford, occupies the central place among Donne's
noble patrons and friends. No one was more consistently his friend; to
none does he address himselfe in terms of sincerer and more respectful
eulogy.
The eldest child of John Harington, created by James first Baron
Harington of Exton, was married to Edward, third Earl of Bedford, in
1594 and was a lady in waiting under Elizabeth. She was one of the
group of noble ladies who hastened north on the death of the Queen
to welcome, and secure the favour of, James and Anne of Denmark. Her
father and mother were granted the tutorship of the young Princess
Elizabeth, and she herself was admitted at once as a Lady of the
Chamber. Her beauty and talent secured her a distinguished place
at Court, and in the years that Donne was a prisoner at Mitcham the
Countess was a brilliant figure in more than one of Ben Jonson's
masques. 'She was "the crowning rose" in that garland of English
beauty which the Spanish ambassador desired Madame Beaumont, the Lady
of the French ambassador, to bring with her to an entertainment on the
8th of December, 1603: the three others being Lady Rich, Lady Susan
Vere, and Lady Dorothy (Sidney); "and", says the Lady Arabella
Stewart, "great cheer they had."' Wiffen, _Historical Memoirs of the
House of Russell_, 1833. She figured also in Daniel's Masque, _The
Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_, which was published (1604) with an
explanatory letter addressed to her. In praising her beauty Donne
is thus echoing 'the Catholic voice'. The latest Masque in which she
figured was the _Masque of Queens_, 2nd of February, 1609-10.
In Court politics the Countess of Bedford seems to have taken some
part in the early promotion of Villiers as a rival to the Earl of
Somerset; and in 1617 she promoted the marriage of Donne's patron Lord
Hay to the youngest daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, against
the wish of the bride's father. Match-making seems to have been a
hobby of hers, for in 1625 she was an active agent in arranging the
match between James, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, and Lady
Charlotte de la Trémouille, the heroic Countess of Derby who defended
Lathom House against the Roundheads.
An active and gay life at Court was no proof of the want of a more
serious spirit. Lady Bedford was a student and a poet, and the patron
of scholars and poets. Sir Thomas Roe presented her with coins and
medals; and Drayton, Daniel, Jonson, and Donne were each in turn among
the poets whom she befriended and who sang her praises. She loved
gardens. One of Donne's finest lyrics is written in the garden of
Twickenham Park, which the Countess occupied from 1608 to 1617; and
the laying out of the garden at Moore Park in Hertfordshire, where she
lived from 1617 to her death in 1627, is commended by her successor in
that place, Sir William Temple.
Donne seems to have been recommended to Lady Bedford by Sir Henry
Goodyere, who was attached to her household. He mentions the death
of her son in a letter to Goodyere as early as 1602, but his intimacy
with the Countess probably began in 1608, and most of his verse
letters were written between that date and 1614. Donne praises her
beauty and it may be that in some of his lyrics he plays the part
of the courtly lover, but what his poems chiefly emphasize is the
religious side of her character. If my conjecture be right that she
herself wrote 'Death be not proud', her religion was probably of
a simpler, more pietistic cast than Donne's own was in its earlier
phase.
In 1612 the Countess had a serious illness which began on November
22-3 (II. p. 10). She recovered in time to take part in the ceremonies
attending the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth (Feb. 14, 1612/3),
but Chamberlain in his letters to Carleton notes a change in her
behaviour. After mentioning an accident to the Earl of Bedford he
continues: 'His lady who should have gone to the Spa but for lack of
money, shows herself again in court, though in her sickness she in a
manner vowed never to come there; but she verifies the proverb, _Nemo
ex morbo melior_. Marry, she is somewhat reformed in her attire, and
forbears painting, which, they say, makes her look somewhat strangely
among so many vizards, which together with their frizzled, powdered
hair, makes them look all alike, so that you can scant know one from
another at the first view.' Birch, _The Court and Times of James the
First_, i. 262. Donne makes no mention of this illness, but it seems
to me probable that the first two of these letters, with the emphasis
which they lay on beauty, were written before, the other more serious
and pious verses after this crisis.
See notes on _Twicknam Garden_ and the _Nocturnall on St. Lucies Day_.
PAGE =189=, ll. 4-5. _light ... faire faith._ I have retained the
'light' and 'faire faith' of the editions, but the MS. readings
'sight' and 'farr Faith' are quite possibly correct. There is not much
to choose between 'light' and 'sight', but 'farr' is an interesting
reading. Indeed at first sight 'fair' is a rather otiose epithet, a
vaguely complimentary adjective. There is, however, probably more
in it than that. 'Fair' as an epithet of 'Faith' is probably
an antithesis to the 'squint ungracious left-handedness' of
understanding. If 'farr' be the right reading, then Donne is
contrasting faith and sight: 'Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Heb. xi. 1. The use of
'far' as an adjective is not uncommon: 'Pulling far history nearer,'
Crashaw; 'His own far blood,' Tennyson; 'Far travellers may lie by
authority,' Gataker (1625), are some examples quoted in the O.E.D.
But there is no parallel to Donne's use of 'far faith' for 'faith
that lays hold on things at a distance'. 'These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off', Heb. xi.
13, is probably the source of the phrase. Such a condensed elliptical
construction is quite in Donne's manner. Compare 'Neere death', p. 28,
l. 63. Both versions may be original. The variants in l. 19 point to
some revision of the poem.
PAGE =190=, l. 22. _In every thing there naturally grows, &c._
'Every thing hath in it as, as Physicians use to call it, _Naturale
Balsamum_, a naturall Balsamum, which, if any wound or hurt which that
creature hath received, be kept clean from extrinseque putrefaction,
will heal of itself. We are so far from that naturall Balsamum, as
that we have a naturall poyson in us, Originall sin:' &c. _Sermons_
80. 32. 313.
'Now Physitians say, that man hath in his Constitution, in his
Complexion, a naturall Vertue, which they call _Balsamum suum_, his
owne Balsamum, by which, any wound which a man could receive in
his body, would cure itself, if it could be kept cleane from the
annoiances of the aire, and all extrinseque encumbrances. Something
that hath some proportion and analogy to this Balsamum of the body,
there is in the soul of man too: The soule hath _Nardum suum_, her
Spikenard, as the Spouse says, _Nardus mea dedit odorem suum_, she
hath a spikenard, a perfume, a fragrancy, a sweet savour in her
selfe. For _virtutes germanius attingunt animam, quam corpus sanitas_,
vertuous inclinations, and disposition to morall goodness, is more
naturall to the soule of man, and nearer of kin to the soule of man,
then health is to the body. And then if we consider bodily health,
_Nulla oratio, nulla doctrinae formula nos docet morbum odisse_, sayes
that Father: There needs no Art, there needs no outward Eloquence, to
persuade a man to be loath to be sick: _Ita in anima inest naturalis
et citra doctrinam mali evitatio_, sayes he: So the soule hath a
naturall and untaught hatred, and detestation of that which is evill,'
&c. _Sermons_ 80. 51. 514.
Paracelsus has a great deal to say about this natural balsam, though
he declares that 'the spirit is _most_ truly the life and balsome of
all Corporeal things'. It was to supply the want of this balsam that
mummy was used as a medicine. Of a man suddenly slain Paracelsus says:
'His whole body is profitable and good and may be prepared into a most
precious Mummie. For, although the spirit of life went out of such a
Body, yet the Balsome, in which lies the Life, remains, which doth as
Balsome preserve other mens.'
l. 27. _A methridate_: i.e. an antidote. See note to p. 255, l. 127.
ll. 31-2. _The first good Angell, &c._ 'Our first consideration
is upon the persons; and those we finde to be Angelicall women and
Evangelicall Angels: ... And to recompense that observation, that
never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman, here are good
women made Angels, that is, Messengers, publishers of the greatest
mysteries of our Religion.' _Sermons_ 80. 25. 242.
ll. 35-6. _Make your returne home gracious; and bestow
This life on that; so make one life of two._
'Make a present of this life to the next, by living now as you will
live then; and so make this life and the next one'--or, as another
poet puts it:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.
This I take to be Donne's meaning. The 'This' of _1635-69_ and
the MSS., which Chambers also has adopted, seems required by the
antithesis. If one recalls that 'this' is very commonly written
'thys', and that final 's' is little more than a tail, it is easy to
account for 'Thy' in _1633_. The meaning too is not clear at a glance,
and 'Thy' might seem to an editor to make it easier. The thought is
much the same as in the _Obsequies to the Lord Harrington_, p. 279.
And I (though with paine)
Lessen our losse, to magnifie thy gaine
Of triumph, when I say, It was more fit,
That all men should lacke thee, then thou lack it.
Compare also: 'Sir, our greatest businesse is more in our power then
the least, and we may be surer to meet in heaven than in any place
upon earth.' _Letters_, p. 188. And see the quotation in note to p.
112, l. 44, 'this and the next are not two worlds,' &c.