[1] Walton confuses this Edward Herbert with a namesake entered at
Queen’s College; and he follows the erring dates of the _Autobiography
of Lord Herbert of Cherbury_. The boy’s age is correctly given as
fourteen in the college registers.
[2] Donne had been in residence at both Universities, but took no
degree at either, as he had scruples against accepting the conditions
imposed. He was at that time, and until about 1593, like his parents, a
Catholic. His father was of Welsh descent: a fact which may have borne
its share in attracting him towards the Herberts.
[3] Anne Donne, it may be remarked, was also the name of Cowper’s
mother.
[4] Sir Richard Baker’s _Chronicle_, 1684, mentions Dr. Donne as one
of his “heroic Grecians,” and adds, in the same breath, that he was “a
great visitor of ladies.”
[5] Dr. Donne’s conceit about the ages of his friends is better handled
in the young Cartwright’s
“Chloe, why wish you that your years,”
a little later. It is not impossible that Cartwright, an Oxonian and an
observer, may have drawn upon Donne’s report of this very wedding for
his charming and ingenious lyric.
[6] This august personage was one of the Spencers of Althorp. At
this time she had been for six years the wife of her second husband,
the Lord Keeper Egerton, although retaining the magnificent title of
her widowhood. At their estate of Harefield in Middlesex, Milton’s
_Arcades_ was afterwards given, and it will be remembered what fine
compliments to the then aged countess-dowager figure in its opening
verses. Spenser’s _Teares of the Muses_ had been dedicated to her, in
her prime, and she was the Amaryllis “highest in degree” of his _Colin
Clout’s Come Home Again_.
[7] Sir James Sandelyn, Sandalo, or Sandilands (who cuts his finest
figure as Jacobus Sandilandius in _The Muses’ Welcome_) was appointed
Maistre d’Hostel to the beloved and beautiful Princess Elizabeth on
her marriage to Frederic, Count Palatine of the Rhine, afterwards
King of Bohemia, in 1612. As Sir James’s name is down on the lists of
the Exchequer for a gift in 1615, and as his little son Richard was
baptized in Deptford Church two months after the date of Lady Danvers’s
letter, we may conclude that he came back to England just when the
“ambassatore” expected him.
[8] Edward Herbert served as a volunteer in the campaign of 1614-15
in the Netherlands, under the Prince of Orange. Richard Herbert, here
mentioned, was his eldest son, a future Cavalier and captain of a troop
of horse in the Civil Wars; Edward was the baby, and “Bettye” the child
Beatrice, destined, like her sister, to a short life.
[9] This 1614-15 was an eccentric and un-English year throughout. The
winter signalized itself by the Great Snow; “_frigus intensum_,” as
Camden says, “_et nix copiosissima_.”
[10] Lord Bacon dedicated to Edward Herbert, “the father of English
deists,” his very flat translation of the Psalms! George wrote three
Latin poems in his honor, one being upon the occasion of his death.
[11] He was, in July of 1626, ordained deacon, and prebendary of Layton
Ecclesia in Huntingdonshire. Readers of Walton will remember how his
dear mother invited him to commit simony on that occasion.
[12] The standing marble figure in a winding-sheet which Dr. King had
modelled upon this strange painting on wood, may yet be seen in the
south ambulatory of the choir of St. Paul’s; almost the only relic
saved from the old cathedral which perished in the Great Fire of 1666.
It is not only of unique interest, but of considerable artistic beauty,
and “seems to breathe faintly,” as Sir Henry Wotton said of it.
[13] Dr. Donne’s papers were bequeathed to Dr. Henry King, the
poet-Bishop of Chichester, then residentiary of St. Paul’s. The “find”
were a precious one, if they yet survive.
[14] The half-romantic reference, which occurs more than once in
Donne’s poems, to his own long-dead arm which still shall keep
“The bracelet of bright hair about the bone,”—
has it nothing to do with this blond head? _Honi soit qui mal y pense._
The internal evidences in _The Relic_, with its mention of St. Mary
Magdalen, and its boast of purest friendship, and the roguery of the
closing line in _The Funeral_, are somewhat strong, nevertheless.
[15] The famous _Autobiography_, indeed, boldly assures posterity
that Lady Herbert, after 1597, “continued unmarried,” and, in brief,
“was the woman Dr. Donne hath described her.” The acknowledgment of
the accuracy of that funeral sermon, containing, as it does, its very
specific Danvers passages, is in our fearless philosopher’s best style.
[16] There was afterwards, in France, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber who
had other notions. “Gratitude,” said Thierry to his executioner in the
court-yard of the Abbaye—“gratitude has no opinions. I am leal to my
master.”
[17] An elder Charles, son of the Lady Elizabeth Danvers, was baptized
in 1632, and must have died early.
[18] Edward Herbert sided eventually with the Parliament, which
indemnified him for the burning and sacking of Montgomery Castle.
[19] The six very innocent, cheerful, pious ten-syllable stanzas,
attributed in _The Complete Angler_ to “another angler, Jo. Davors,
Esq.,” are not, it is hardly necessary to add, from our scapegrace’s
pen. He ceased to be “Jo. Davors, Esq.,” when Walton was fourteen years
old.