Printed by _W. Stansby_ for _Tho. Dewe_,
and are to be sold in S. _Dunstanes_
Church-yard. 1625.
The symbolic figures in the title-pages of 1625 probably represent the
seven Liberal Arts. A feature of the editions of _1611_, _1612,_ and
_1625_ is the marginal notes. These are reproduced in _1633_, but a
little carelessly, for some copies do not contain them all. They are
omitted in the subsequent editions.
The text of the _Anniversaries_ in _1633_ has been on the whole
carefully edited. It is probable, judging from several small
circumstances (e.g. the omission of the first marginal note even in
copies where all the rest are given), that _1633_ was printed from
_1625_, but it is clear that the editor compared this with earlier
editions, probably those of _1611-12_, and corrected or amended
the punctuation throughout. My collation of _1633_ with _1611_ has
throughout vindicated the former as against _1621-5_ on the one hand
and the later editions on the other.[1] Of mistakes other than of
punctuation I have noted only three: l. 181, thoughts _1611-12_;
thought _1621-33_. This was corrected, from the obvious sense, in
later editions (_1635-69_), and Grosart, Chambers, and Grolier make
no note of the error in _1621-33_. l. 318, proportions _1611-12_;
proportion _1621_ and all subsequent editions without comment. l. 415,
Impressions _1611_; Impression _1612-25_: impression _1633_ and all
subsequent editions. All three cases are examples of the same error,
the dropping of final 's'.
In typographical respects _1611_ shows the hand of the author more
clearly than the later editions. Donne was fastidious in matters of
punctuation and the use of italics and capital letters, witness the
_LXXX Sermons_ (1640), printed from MSS. prepared for the press by the
author. But the printer had to be reckoned with, and perfection was
not obtainable. In a note to one of the separately published sermons
Donne says: 'Those Errors which are committed in mispointing, or
in changing the form of the Character, will soone be discernd, and
corrected by the Eye of any deliberate Reader'. The _1611_ text shows
a more consistent use in certain passages of emphasizing capitals,
and at places its punctuation is better than that of _1633_. My
text reproduces _1633_, corrected where necessary from the earlier
editions; and I have occasionally followed the typography of _1611_.
But every case in which _1633_ is modified is recorded.
Of the _Second Anniversarie_, in like manner, my text is that of
_1633_, corrected in a few details, and with a few typographical
features borrowed, from the edition of _1612_. The editor of _1633_
had rather definite views of his own on punctuation, notably a
predilection for semicolons in place of full stops. The only certain
emendations which _1612_ supplies are in the marginal note at p.
234 and in l. 421 of the _Second Anniversarie_ 'this' for 'his'. The
spelling is less ambiguous in ll. 27 and 326.
[Footnote 1: _1621-25_ abound in misplaced full stops which
are not in _1611_ and are generally corrected in _1633_. The
punctuation of the later editions (_1635-69_) is the work of
the printer. Occasionally a comma is dropped or introduced
with advantage to the sense, but in general the punctuation
grows increasingly careless. Often the correction of one error
leads to another.]
The subject of the _Anniversaries_ was the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth
Drury, who died in 1610. Her father, Sir Robert Drury, of Hawsted in
the county of Suffolk, was a man of some note on account of his great
wealth. He was knighted by Essex when about seventeen years old, at
the siege of Rouen (1591-2). He served in the Low Countries, and at
the battle of Nieuport (1600) brought off Sir Francis Vere when
his horse was shot under him. He was courtier, traveller, member of
Parliament, and in 1613 would have been glad to go as Ambassador to
Paris when Sir Thomas Overbury refused the proffered honour and was
sent to the Tower. Lady Drury was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper. She and her brother,
Sir Edmund Bacon, were friends and patrons of Joseph Hall, Donne's
rival as an early satirist. From 1600 to 1608 Hall was rector of
Hawsted, and though he was not very kindly treated by Sir Robert
he dedicated to him his _Meditations Morall and Divine_. This tie
explains the fact, which we learn from Jonson's conversations with
Drummond, that Hall is the author of the _Harbinger to the Progresse_.
As he wrote this we may infer that he is also responsible for _To the
praise of the dead, and the Anatomie_.
Readers of Donne's _Life_ by Walton are aware of the munificence with
which Sir Robert rewarded Donne for his poems, how he opened his
house to him, and took him abroad. Donne's letters, on the other hand,
reveal that the poem gave considerable offence to the Countess of
Bedford and other older patrons and friends. In his letters to Gerrard
he endeavoured to explain away his eulogies. In verse-letters to the
Countess of Bedford and others he atoned for his inconstancy by subtle
and erudite compliments.
_The Funerall Elegie_ was doubtless written in 1610 and sent to Sir
Robert Drury. He and Donne may already have been acquainted through
Wotton, who was closely related by friendship and marriage with Sir
Edmund Bacon. (See Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of Sir Henry
Wotton_ (1907). _The Anatomie of the World_ was composed in 1611, _Of
the Progresse of the Soule_ in France in 1612, at some time prior to
the 14th of April, when he refers to his _Anniversaries_ in a letter
to George Gerrard.
Ben Jonson declared to Drummond 'That Donnes Anniversaries were
profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Done if it had
been written of the Virgin Marie it had been something; to which he
answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was'.
This is a better defence of Donne's poems than any which he advances
in his letters, but it is not a complete description of his work.
Rather, he interwove with a rapt and extravagantly conceited laudation
of an ideal woman two topics familiar to his catholic and mediaeval
learning, and developed each in a characteristically subtle and
ingenious strain, a strain whose occasional sceptical, disintegrating
reflections belong as obviously to the seventeenth century as the
general content of the thought is mediaeval.
The burden of the whole is an impassioned and exalted _meditatio
mortis_ based on two themes common enough in mediaeval devotional
literature--a _De Contemptu Mundi_, and a contemplation of the Glories
of Paradise. A very brief analysis of the two poems, omitting the
laudatory portions, may help a reader who cannot at once see the wood
for the trees, and be better than detailed notes.
_The Anatomie of the World._
_l. 1._ The world which suffered in her death is now fallen into the
worse lethargy of oblivion. _l. 60._ I will anatomize the world for
the benefit of those who still, by the influence of her virtue, lead a
kind of glimmering life. _l. 91._ There is no health in the world. We
are still under the curse of woman. _l. 111._ How short is our life
compared with that of the patriarchs! _l. 134._ How small is our
stature compared with that of the giants of old! _l. 147._ How
shrunken of soul we are, especially since her death! _l. 191._ And
as man, so is the whole world. The new learning or philosophy has
shattered in fragments that complete scheme of the universe in which
we rested so confidently, and (_l. 211_) in human society the same
disorder prevails. _l. 250._ There is no beauty in the world, for,
first, the beauty of proportion is lost, alike in the movements of the
heavenly bodies, and (_l. 285_) in the earth with its mountains and
hollows, and (_l. 302_) in the administration of justice in society.
_l. 339._ So is Beauty's other element, Colour and Lustre. _l. 377._
Heaven and earth are at variance. We can no longer read terrestrial
fortunes in the stars. But (_l. 435_) an Anatomy can be pushed too
far.
_The Progresse of the Soule._
_l. 1._ The world's life is the life that breeds in corruption. Let
me, forgetting the rotten world, meditate on death. _l. 85._ Think,
my soul, that thou art on thy death-bed, and consider death a release.
_l. 157._ Think how the body poisoned the soul, tainting it with
original sin. Set free, thou art in Heaven in a moment. _l. 250._ Here
all our knowledge is ignorance. The new learning has thrown all in
doubt. We sweat to learn trifles. In Heaven we know all we need to
know. _l. 321._ Here, our converse is evil and corrupting. There our
converse will be with Mary; the Patriarchs; Apostles, Martyrs and
Virgins (compare _A Litany_). Here in the perpetual flux of things is
no essential joy. Essential joy is to see God. And even the accidental
joys of heaven surpass the essential joys of earth, were there such
joys here where all is casual:
Only in Heaven joys strength is never spent,
And accidental things are permanent.
One of the most interesting strands of thought common to the twin
poems is the reflection on the disintegrating effect of the New
Learning. Copernicus' displacement of the earth, and the consequent
disturbance of the accepted mediaeval cosmology with its concentric
arrangement of elements and heavenly bodies, arrests and disturbs
Donne's imagination much as the later geology with its revelation
of vanished species and first suggestion of a doctrine of evolution
absorbed and perturbed Tennyson when he wrote _In Memoriam_ and
throughout his life. No other poet of the seventeenth century known
to me shows the same sensitiveness to the consequences of the new
discoveries of traveller, astronomer, physiologist and physician as
Donne.