in his epithalamium as a few months previously he had been unfortunate in his elegy. His Marriage Song for St. Valentine's Day is, indeed, one of his happiest productions, as fresh and gay as if a youth had written it, instead of a staid, melancholy paterfamilias of forty; and it is a poem singularly little troubled by the prevailing faults of Donne's style. It has all the characteristics required for an epithalamium; and a certain levity or faint fescennine quality, which is disconcerting, perhaps, to the refined taste of to-day, detracted in no wise from its merits in the judgment of the gravest or the most exalted personages in the reign of James I. Thus it opens, in a melodious burst of garrulity— "Hail, Bishop Valentine, whose day this is; All the air is thy diocese, And all the chirping choristers Thou marriest every year The lyric lark, and the grave whispering dove, Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon; The husband-cock looks out, and straight is sped, This day more cheerfully than ever shine; This day, which might inflame thyself, old Valentine." The bird-analogy is preserved by telling the Bishop that his duty to-day is to unite two phoenixes, "Whose love and courage never shall decline, But make the whole year through, thy day, O Valentine." And in the address to the Bride, Donne rises to a great dignity and a rare music "Come forth, come forth, and as one glorious flame Meeting another grows the same, So meet thy Frederick, and so To an inseparable union go, Since separation Falls not on such things as are infinite, You're twice inseparable, great, and one." But the cleverest and perhaps the most poetical things in this delightful epithalamium are removed too far from us by nearly three centuries to be conveniently quoted here. At this period, George Gerrard seems to have been Donne's most favoured correspondent. "To Yourself. SIR, Sir Germander Pool, your noble friend and fellow in arms, hath been at this house. I find by their diligent inquiring from me that he hath assured them that he hath much advanced your proceeding by his resignation; but cooled them again with this, that the Lord Spencer pretends in his room. I never feared his nor any man's diligence in that; I feared only your remissness, because you have a fortune that can endure, and a nature that can almost be content to miss. But I had rather you exercised your philosophy and evenness in some things else. He doth not nothing which falls cleanly and harmlessly; but he wrestles better which stands. "I know you can easily forgive yourself any negligences and slacknesses, but I am glad that you are engaged to so many friends, who either by yourself or fame have knowledge of it. In all the rest of them there is a worthiness, and in me a love which deserves to be satisfied. In this therefore, as you are forward in all things else, be content to do more for your friends than you would for yourself; endeavour it, that is effect it. "Tuesday." "Your very true friend and lover, "J. DONNE. Sir Germander Pool had suffered the singular inconvenience of having his nose bitten off in a fray, in March 1613, and it is not unlikely that this disfigurement led to the resignation of which Donne speaks. 1 From the Letters of 1651. #37, p.112. "To the Honoured Knight Sir ROBERT KER.' SIR,-I amend to no purpose, nor have any use of this inchoation of health, which I find, except I preserve my room and station in you. I begin to be past hope of dying; and I feel that a little rag of Monte Mayor, which I read last time I was in your chamber, hath wrought prophetically upon me, which is, that Death came so fast towards me that the over-joy of that recovered me. Sir, I measure not my health by my appetite, but only by my ability to come to kiss your hands: which since I cannot hope in the compass of a few days, I beseech you pardon me both these intrusions of this letter and of that within it. And And though schoolmen dispute whether a married man dying and being by miracle raised again must be remarried, yet let your friendship (which is a nobler learning) be content to admit me, after this resurrection, to be still that which I was before, and shall ever continue-Your most humble and thankful servant, “20th March [1614].” "J. DONNE. "Monte Mayor" is the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemôr, who wrote, in Castilian, a pastoral romance, the Diana Enamorada, which was read in all parts of Europe, and exercised a strong influence over Sidney, and even over Shakespeare, as later over St. François de Sales. Donne was now engaged upon a study of the Oriental languages, so far as they were open in his day to a scholar. Spanish literature, too, as we know, was his constant exercise and pastime. But he still hankered after the profession of the law, and doubtless his most serious efforts at this time were made in the direction of obtaining some legal appointment. The letter which next follows' is now printed for the first time, and throws a very valuable light upon Donne's temper and avocation at this, fortunately precise, date. To whom it was addressed is not known : 1 From Letters of 1651. + 2 From the collection of J. H. Anderdon, Esq. 117, P299. "SIR,-Except demonstrations (and perchance there are very few of them) I find nothing without perplexities. I am grown more sensible of it by busying myself a little in the search of the Eastern tongues, where a perpetual perplexity in the words cannot choose but cast a perplexity upon the things. Even the least of our actions suffer and taste thereof. For this present reclusedness of mine hath thus much perplexity in it, that I should the rather write because of it, since it gives me more than ordinary leisure, and the rather forbear, because it takes from me the knowledge of things worth the writing to you. I dined yesterday on the King's side at Paul's, but where there came in so many of the Queen's kindred that the house was more troubled with them than this kingdom was with the Queen's kindred, when your ancestress the Lady Gray conquered Edward IV. There was father, mother, two brothers, four sisters, and miserable I; yet there was found time to ask me where you were, and to protest that she did not know you were gone out of town because you were so equal a stranger there, in and out of town. "I did your commandment with Mr. Johnson; both our interests in him needed not to have been employed in it. There was nothing obnoxious but the very name, and he hath changed that. If upon having read it before to divers, it should be spoken that that person was concerned in it, he sees not how Mr. Holland will be excused in it, for he protests that no hearer but Mr. Holland apprehended it so. 'My Lord of Bedford, I hear, had lately a desperate fall from his horse, and was speechless all Tuesday last; his lady rode away hastily from Twickenham to him, but I hear no more yet of him. And thus long, Sir, whilst I have been talking of others, methinks I have opened a casement to gaze upon passengers which I love not much, though it might seem a recreation to such as who have their houses, that is themselves, so narrow and ill furnished, yet I can be content to look inward upon myself, if for no other object, yet because I find your name and fortunes and contentment in the best room of me, and that no disease or impotency in my fortune nor my close imprisonment saves from me the dignity of being-Your very affectionate servant, "From my Hospital, July 17, 1613." "Jo. DONNE. The expressions here about the Queen's kindred are very cryptic. It is as well to point out that the reference cannot possibly be to Queen Anne, whose father and mother had long been dead. I suppose that "the Queen" is simply a form of sportive speech used to designate some lady so known both to Donne and to his correspondent. The next letter is addressed to George Gerrard's sister : "To Mrs. MARTHA GERRARD.1 "MADAME,-Though there be much merit in the favour your brother hath done me in a visit, yet that which doth enrich and perfect it is that he brought you with him; which he doth as well by letting me see how you do, as by giving me occasions and leave to talk with you by this letter; if you have any servant which wishes you better than I, it must be because he is able to put his wishes into a better frame and express them better, and understand proportion and greatness better than I. I am willing to confess my impotency, which is that I know no wish good enough for you; if any do, my advantage is that I can exceed his by adding mine to it. You must not think that I begin to think thus when you begin to hear it by a letter; as sometimes by the changing of the wind, you begin to hear a trumpet, which sounded long before you heard it, so are these thoughts of you familiar and ordinary in me, though they have seldom the help of this conveyance to your knowledge. I am loth to leave, for as long as in any fashion I can have your brother and you here, you make my house a kind of Dorney; but since I cannot stay you here, I will come thither to you, which I do by wrapping up in this paper the heart of-Your most affectionate servant, "J. DONNE." VOL. II. 1 From the Letters of 1651. # 40. B |