To Sir Henry Goodyer. If the allusion to the "French Prince" refers to the
visit of the Prince de Joinville who was "despatched back again" in June,
1607, this letter may be assigned to the summer of that year. "These two
problems" are probably part of the _Iuvenilia, or Certaine Paradoxes and
Problems, written by I. Donne_ and published posthumously in 1633. The
"ragge of verses" survives as the "Verse Letter to Sir Henry Goodyer,"
printed in Donne's Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 10). In the _Poems_ of
1633 there is a copy of this letter following a text so much better than
that of the _Letters_ of 1651, that it has seemed worth while to reprint
it in its entirety.
"SIR,--This Teusday morning, which hath brought me to London, presents
mee with all your letters. Mee thought it was a rent day, I mean such
as yours, and not as mine. And yet such too, when I considered how
much I ought you for them. How good a mother, how fertile and abundant
the understanding is, if shee have a good father. And how well
friendship performes that office. For that which is denyed in other
generations is done in this of yours. For hers is superfaetation,
child upon child, and, that which is more strange, twinnes at a later
conception. If in my second religion, friendship, I had a conscience,
either _Errantem_ to mistake good and bad, and indifferent, or
_Opinantem_ to be ravished by others opinions or examples, or _Dubiam_
to adhere to neither part, or _Scrupulosam_ to encline to one, but
upon reasons light in themselves or indiscussed in mee (which are
almost all the diseases of conscience) I might mistake your often,
long, and busie letters, and fear you did but interest me to have
mercy upon you and spare you. For you know our court tooke the
resolution, that it was the best way to dispatch the French Prince
backe againe quickly, to receive him solemnely, ceremoniously; and
expensively, when he hoped a domestique and durable entertainment. I
never meant to excell you in waight nor price, but in number and bulke
I thought I might: Because he may cast up a greater summe who hath but
forty small moneyes, than hee with twenty Portuguesses. The memory of
friends (I meane only for letters) neither enters ordinarily into
busied men, because they are ever employed within, nor into men of
pleasure, because they are never at home. For these wishes therefore
which you wonne out of your pleasure and recreation, you were as
excusable to mee if you writ seldom as Sir H. Wotten [who] is under
the oppression of businesse or the necessity of seeming so: Or more
than hee, because I hope you have both pleasure and businesse. Only to
me, who have neither, this omission were sinne. For though writing be
not of the precepts of friendship, but of the counsells: yet, as in
some cases to some men counsells become precepts, though not
immediately from God, yet very roundly and quickly from this Church,
(as selling and dividing goods in the first time, continence in the
Roman Church, and order and decency in ours) so to mee who can doe
nothing else, it seemes to binde my conscience to write. And it is
sinne to doe against the conscience, though that erre; Yet no mans
letters may be better wanted than mine, since my whole letter is
nothing else but a confession that I should and would write. I ought
you a letter in verse before by mine owne promise, & now that you
thinke you have hedged in that debt by a greater by your letter in
verse I thinke it now most seasonable and fashional for mee to breake.
At least, to write presently were to accuse my selfe of not having
read yours so often as such a letter deserves from you to mee. To make
my debt greater (for such is the desire of all, who cannot or meane
not to pay) I pray reade these two problems: for such light flashes as
these have beene my hawkings in my Surry journies. I accompany them
with another ragge of verses, worthy of that name for the smalnesse,
and age, for it hath long lyen among my other papers, and laughs at
them that have adventured to you: for I thinke till now you saw it
not, and neither you, nor it should repent it. Sir, if I were any
thing, my love to you might multiply it, and dignifie it: But infinite
nothings are but one such: Yet since even Chymeraes have some name,
and titles, I am also,
"Yours,"