This document uses the “long s” character ſ extensively, albeit at times
inconsistently, so is best viewed with a font containing that symbol.
PARADOXES
_and_
PROBLEMES
_by_ Iohn Donne
_with two Characters
and an Essay of_
VALOUR
[Decoration]
_Now for the first time reprinted from the editions
of 1633 and 1652 with one additional =Probleme=_
SOHO
_THE NONESUCH PRESS
30 Gerrard Street_
1923
_This edition is limited to 645 copies, printed and made in
England for the Nonesuch Press in the 17th century Fell types by
Frederick Hall, printer to the University of Oxford. The type has
been distributed. This is number 9_
[Decoration]
The
CONTENTS
❧ PARADOXES
1. _A Defence of Womens Inconſtancy:_ P. 1.
2. _That Women ought to paint:_ P. 6.
3. _That by Diſcord things increase:_ P. 9.
4. _That good is more common then evill:_ P. 12.
5. _That all things kill themſelves:_ P. 15.
6. _That it is poſſible to find ſome vertue in Some Women:_ P. 17.
7. _That Old men are more fantaſtike then Young:_ P. 19.
8. _That Nature is our worſt Guide:_ P. 21.
9. _That only Cowards dare dye:_ P. 24.
10. _That a Wiſe Man is knowne by much laughing:_ P. 26.
11. _That the gifts of the Body are better then thoſe
of the Minde:_ P. 30.
12. _That Virginity is a Vertue:_ P. 34.
❧ PROBLEMES
1. _Why have Bastards beſt Fortune?_ P. 40.
2. _Why Puritanes make long Sermons?_ P. 42.
3. _Why did the Divel reſerve Jeſuites till theſe latter
dayes:_ P. 43.
4. _Why is there more variety of Green then of other
Colours?_ P. 44.
5. _Why doe young Lay-men ſo much ſtudy Divinity:_ P. 45.
6. _Why hath the common Opinion afforded Women Soules?_ P. 47.
7. _Why are the Faireſt, Falſeſt?_ P. 49.
8. _Why Venus-ſtar only doth caſt a ſhadow?_ P. 51.
9. _Why is Venus-ſtar multinominous, called both =Heſperus=
and =Veſper=:_ P. 54.
10. _Why are New Officers leaſt oppreſſing?_ P. 56.
11. _Why does the Poxe ſo much affect to undermine the Noſe?_ P. 58.
12. _Why die none for Love now?_ P. 60.
13. _Why do Women delight much in Feathers?_ P. 61.
14. _Why doth not Gold ſoyl the fingers?_ P. 62.
15. _Why do great men of all dependents, chuſe to preſerve
their little Pimps?_ P. 63.
16. _Why are Courtiers ſooner Atheiſts then men of other
conditions?_ P. 64.
17. _Why are ſtateſmen moſt incredulous?_ P. 66.
18. _Why was Sir Walter Raleigh thought the fitteſt Man, to write
the Hiſtorie of theſe Times?_ P. 68.
❧ CHARACTERS
1. _The Character of a =Scot= at the first ſight:_ P. 69.
2. _The true Character of a =Dunce=:_ P. 71.
❧ AN ESSAY OF VALOUR: P. 75.
[Decoration]
_BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE_
Donne’s Paradoxes and Problemes are clever and entertaining trifles,
which were probably written before 1600, during the more wanton period
of their author’s life. Owing to their scurrilous nature they could
not be published during his lifetime, but shortly after his death the
greater part of them were licensed to be printed, the _Imprimatur_
printed at the end both of the eleven Paradoxes and of the ten
Problemes being signed by Sir Henry Herbert and dated October 25,
1632. The volume was published under the title of _Juvenilia_ in 1633,
but already on November 14, 1632, an order of inquiry had been
delivered at the King’s command by the Bishop of London, calling upon
Sir Henry Herbert to explain before the Board of the Star Chamber his
reasons ‘why hee warrented the booke of D. Duns paradoxes to be
printed’. Perhaps Herbert’s explanations were regarded as
satisfactory, but, however this may have been, the King was not
successful in suppressing the book. The volume is a thin quarto
containing only thirty-two leaves, and was printed by Elizabeth
Purslowe for Henry Seyle, to be sold at the sign of the Tyger’s Head
in St. Paul’s Church-yard. The printer seems to have been somewhat
careless in imposing the licences, for, although most copies contain
the two, copies occur from which one or both have been omitted. It is
not known through what channels the publisher obtained possession of
the text, but it is probable that the publication was quite
unauthorized, and took place even without the knowledge of the younger
Donne, who, when he reprinted the _Juvenilia_ in 1652, made no
reference to any previous issue.
The _Juvenilia_ were at once in considerable demand, and seem to have
been bought by many of the purchasers of the _Poems_, which were also
first published in quarto in 1633. This is evident from the fact that
the two books are so often found together in contemporary bindings,
the lesser volume usually being relegated to the end. The first
edition of the _Juvenilia_ was thus soon exhausted and a second
edition was published in the same year. So ineffectual did the Star
Chamber inquiry prove to have been that in this edition the publisher
not only omitted the _Imprimaturs_ altogether and so abandoned all
pretence of having any official sanction for the publication, but even
added to the first Probleme, ‘Why have Bastards best Fortune?’, which
was particularly offensive to the Court, twenty-three lines which had
not appeared in the first edition. This edition, as before a quarto
and with the same imprint, but containing only twenty-four leaves, is
considerably rarer than its predecessor. It is unlikely, however, that
this fact is to be attributed to the King’s having had any greater
success than before in suppressing it. More probably the demand for it
was less, so that part of the edition remained unsold and was
subsequently destroyed.
In 1652 the younger Donne, in the course of his exploitation of his
father’s writings, prepared an authorized edition of the _Juvenilia_,
which was printed by Thomas Newcomb for Humphrey Moseley. The number
of the Paradoxes was now increased to twelve and of the Problemes to
seventeen, the offensive passages in the first Probleme being allowed
to remain. To these were added two ‘Characters’, ‘An Essay of Valour’,
‘A Sheaf of Miscellany Epigrams’, a reprint of _Ignatius his
Conclave_, and, finally, the _Essays in Divinity_. The Epigrams
purport to have been written by the elder Donne in Latin and to have
been translated into English by Jasper Mayne, D.D. They may have been
printed by the younger Donne in good faith, as it seems to be certain
that his father’s _Epigrammata mea Latina_ once existed; but the
epigrams attributed to him in this volume are, as Mr. Gosse has shown
(_Life and Letters of Donne, i. 16_), certainly spurious, and may well
have been composed, as well as translated, by Mayne, who was an
unprincipled, though witty, divine. The _Essays in Divinity_ had been
printed in 1651 for a different publisher, but they are very rarely
found as a separate volume in a contemporary binding, for the younger
Donne, as he made clear in his preface, sought to temper the
secularity of the _Juvenilia_ by issuing them in company with the
_Essays in Divinity_, and in this way to invest the volume with an
altogether fictitious respectability.
Even in 1652 the Paradoxes and Problemes were not printed entire.
Another Probleme concerning Sir Walter Raleigh has been preserved in
the Bodleian Library (Tanner MSS. 299, f. 32), the copier stating that
it ‘was so bitter that his son, Jack Donne, LL.D., thought fit not to
print it with the rest’. Yet another has recently been discovered in a
manuscript containing Donne’s poems.
The _Juvenilia_ have not been reprinted since 1652. In the present
edition the text follows that of the second edition of 1633, amplified
from the third edition of 1652 and with the additional Probleme from
the Bodleian manuscript, already printed by Mr. Edmund Gosse in his
_Life and Letters of Donne, 1899, ii. 52_. The spurious epigrams have
not been included.