The death of Prince Henry (1594-1612) evoked more elegiac poetry Latin
and English than the death of any single man has probably ever done.
See Nichols's _Progresses of James I_, pp. 504-12. He was the hope of
that party, the great majority of the nation, which would fain have
taken a more active part in the defence of the Protestant cause in
Europe than James was willing to venture upon. Donne's own _Elegie_
appeared in a collection edited by Sylvester: '_Lachrymae Lachrymarum,
or The Spirit of Teares distilled from the untimely Death of the
Incomparable Prince Panaretus_. By Joshua Sylvester. The Third
Edition, with Additions of His Owne and Elegies. 1613. Printed by
Humphrey Lownes.' Sylvester's own poem is followed by poems in Latin,
Italian, and English by Joseph Hall and others, and then by a
separate title-page: _Sundry Funerall Elegies ... Composed by severall
Authors_. The authors are G. G. (probably George Gerrard), Sir P. O.,
Mr. Holland, Mr. Donne, Sir William Cornwallis, Sir Edward Herbert,
Sir Henry Goodyere, and Henry Burton. Jonson told Drummond 'That Done
said to him, he wrott that Epitaph on Prince Henry _Look to me, Faith_
to match Sir Ed: Herbert in obscurenesse' (Drummond's _Conversations_,
ed. Laing). Donne's elegy was printed with some carelessness in
the _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_. The editor of _1633_ has improved the
punctuation in places.
The obscurity of the poem is not so obvious as its tasteless
extravagance: 'The death of Prince Henry has shaken in me both Faith
and Reason, concentric circles or nearly so (l. 18), for Faith does
not contradict Reason but transcend it.' See _Sermons_ 50. 36.
'Our Faith is shaken because, contemplating his greatnesse and its
influence on other nations, we believed that with him was to begin the
age of peace:
Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas,
Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
But by his death this faith becomes heresy. Reason is shaken because
reason passes from cause to effect. Miracle interrupts this progress,
and the loss of him is such a miracle as brings all our argument to
a standstill. We can predict nothing with confidence.' In his
over-subtle, extravagant way Donne describes the shattering of men's
hopes and expectations.
At the end he turns to her whom the Prince loved,
The she-Intelligence which mov'd this sphere.
Could he but tell who she was he would be as blissful in singing her
praises as they were in one another's love.
A short epitaph on Prince Henry by Henry King (1592-1669), the friend
and disciple of Donne, bears marks of being inspired by this poem. It
is indeed ascribed to 'J. D.' in _Le Prince d'Amour_ (1660), but is
contained in King's _Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes and Sonnets_ (1657).
PAGE =269=, ll. 71-6. These lines are printed as follows in the
_Lachrymae Lachrymarum_:
If faith have such a chaine, whose diverse links
Industrious man discerneth, as hee thinks
When Miracle doth joine; and to steal-in
A new link Man knowes not where to begin:
At a much deader fault must reason bee,
Death having broke-off such a linke as hee.
But compare _The Second Anniversary_, p. 255, ll. 143-6.
PAGE =271=. OBSEQUIES TO THE LORD HARRINGTON, &c.
The MS. from which _1633_ printed this poem probably had the title as
above. It stands so in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. By a pure accident it
was changed to _Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother. To the
Countesse of Bedford._ There was no Lord Harington after the death of
the subject of this poem.
John Harington, the first Baron of Exton and cousin of Sir John
Harington the translator of the _Orlando Furioso_, died at Worms in
1613, when returning from escorting the Princess Elizabeth to her
new home at Heidelberg. His children were John, who succeeded him as
Second Baron of Exton, and Lucy, who had become Countess of Bedford in
1594. The young Baron had been an intimate friend of Prince Henry. In
1609 he visited Venice and was presented to the Doge as likely to be
a power in England when Henry should succeed. 'He is learned',
said Wotton, 'in philosophy, has Latin and Greek to perfection, is
handsome, well-made as any man could be, at least among us.' His fate
was as sudden and tragic as that of his patron. Travelling in France
and Italy in 1613 he grew ill, it was believed he had been poisoned
by accident or design, and died at his sister's house at Twickenham on
the 27th of February, 1614.
There is not much in Donne's ingenious, tasteless poem which evinces
affection for Harington or sorrow for his tragic end, nor is there
anything of the magnificent poetry, 'ringing and echoing with music,'
which in _Lycidas_ makes us forgetful of the personality of King.
Donne's poem was written to please Lady Bedford:
And they who write to Lords rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at dores for meat?
Apparently it served its purpose, for in a letter written a year or
two later Donne says to Goodyere: 'I am almost sorry, that an Elegy
should have been able to move her to so much compassion heretofore, as
to offer to pay my debts; and my greater wants now, and for so good
a purpose, as to come disingaged into that profession, being plainly
laid open to her, should work no farther but that she sent me £30,'
&c. _Letters, &c._, p. 219.
Of Harington, Wiffen, in his _Historical Memoirs of the House of
Russell_, says: 'Whilst he devoted much of his time to literary study
he is reported to have uniformly begun and closed the day with prayer
... and to have been among the first who kept a diary wherein his
casual faults and errors were recorded, for his surer advancement in
happiness and virtue.' Wiffen's authority is probably _The Churches
Lamentation for the losse of the Godly Delivered in a Sermon at the
funerals of that truly noble, and most hopefull young Gentleman Iohn
Lord Harington, Baron of Exton, Knight of the noble order of the Bath
etc. by R. Stock_. 1614. To this verses Latin and English by I. P., F.
H. D. M., and Sir Thomas Roe are appended. The preacher gives details
of Harington's religious life. The D. N. B. speaks of two memorial
sermons. This is a mistake.
l. 15. _Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest;_ Chambers
by placing a semicolon after 'midnight' makes 'now all rest' an
independent, rhetorical statement:
Thou seest me here at midnight; now all rest;
The Grolier Club editor varies it:
Thou seest me here at midnight now, all rest;
But surely as punctuated in the old editions the line means 'at
midnight, now when all rest', 'the time when all rest'. 'I watch,
while others sleep.'
Donne's description of his midnight watch recalls that of Herr
Teufelsdroeckh: 'Gay mansions, with supper rooms and dancing rooms are
full of light and music and high-swelling hearts, but in the Condemned
Cells the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes
look out through the darkness which is around and within, for the
light of a stern last morning,' &c. _Sartor Resartus_, i. 3.
PAGE =272=, l. 38. _Things, in proportion fit, by perspective._ It is
by an accident, I imagine, that _1633_ drops the comma after 'fit',
and I have restored it. The later punctuation, which Chambers adopts,
is puzzling if not misleading:
Things, in proportion, fit by perspective.
It is with 'proportion' that 'fit' goes. Deeds of good men show us by
perspective things in a proportion fitted to our comprehension. They
bring the goodness or essence of things, which is seen aright only in
God, down to our level. The divine is most clearly revealed to _us_ in
the human.
PAGE =274=, l. 102. _Sent hither, this worlds tempests to becalme._ I
have adopted the reading to which the MSS. point in preference to that
of the editions. Both the chief groups read 'tempests', and 'this'
(for 'the') has still more general support. Now if the 's' in
'tempests' were once dropped, 'this' would be changed to 'the', the
emphasis shifting from 'this' to 'world'. I think the sense is better.
If but one tempest is contemplated, then either so many 'lumps of
balm' are not needed, or they fail sadly in their mission. They come
rather to allay the storms with which human life is ever and again
tormented. Moreover, in Donne's cosmology 'this world' is frequently
contrasted with other and better worlds. Compare _An Anatomie of the
World_, pp. 225 et seq.
l. 110. _Which the whole world, or man the abridgment hath._ The comma
after 'man' in _1633_ gives emphasis. The absence of a comma, however,
after 'abridgment' gives a reader to-day the impression that it is
object to 'hath'. I have, therefore, with _1635-69_, dropped the
comma after 'man'. The omission of commas in appositional phrases is
frequent. 'Man the abridgment' means of course 'Man the microcosm':
'the Macrocosme and Microcosme, the Great and the Lesser World, man
extended in the world, and the world contracted and abridged into
man.' _Sermons_ 80. 31. 304.
ll. 111-30. _Thou knowst, &c._ The circles running parallel to
the equator are all equally circular, but diminish in size as they
approach the poles. But the circles which cut these at right angles,
and along which we measure the distance of any spot from the equator,
from the sun, are all of equal magnitude, passing round the earth
through the poles, i.e. meridians are great circles, their planes
passing through the centre of the earth.
Harington's life would have been a Great Circle had it completed its
course, passing through the poles of youth and age. In that case we
should have had from him lessons for every phase of life, medicines to
cure every moral malady.
In _The Crosse_ Donne writes:
All the Globes frame and spheares, is nothing else
But the Meridians crossing Parallels.
And in the _Anatomie of the World_, p. 239, ll. 278-80:
For of Meridians, and Parallels,
Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net throwne
Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.
PAGE =275=, l. 133. _Whose hand, &c._ The singular is the reading of
all the MSS., and is pretty certainly right. The minute and second
hands were comparatively rare at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. See the illustrations in F. J. Britten's _Old Clocks and
Watches and their Makers, &c._ (1904); and compare: 'But yet, as
he that makes a Clock, bestowes all that labour upon the severall
wheeles, that thereby the Bell might give a sound, and that thereby
the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes,' &c.
_Sermons_ 80. 55. 550.
PAGE =276=, l. 154. _And great Sun-dyall to have set us All._ Compare:
The lives of princes should like dyals move,
Whose regular example is so strong,
They make the times by them go right or wrong.
Webster, _White Devil_, I. ii. 313.
PAGE =279=, l. 250. _French soldurii._ The reading of the editions
is a misprint. The correct form is given in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and
is used by Donne elsewhere: 'And we may well collect that in Caesars
time, in France, for one who dyed naturally, there dyed many by
this devout violence. For hee says there were some, whom hee calls
_Devotos_, and _Clientes_ (the latter Lawes call them _Soldurios_)
which enjoying many benefits, and commodities, from men of higher
ranke, alwaies when the Lord dyed, celebrated his Funerall with their
owne. And Caesar adds, that in the memorie of man, no one was found
that ever refused it.' _Biathanatos_, Part I, Dist. 2, Sect. 3. The
marginal note calls them 'Soldurii', and refers to Caes., _Bell.
Gall._ 3, and _Tholosa. Sym._ lib. 14, cap. 10, N. 14.