THE RHETORIC OF JOHN DONNE'S VERSE.

INTRODUCTION.

According to Goldsmith, all those 'misguided innovators' who succeeded, but did not understand Dryden, Addison, and Pope, 'are silent, and those who make out their meaning are willing to praise, to show their understanding.'1

There are so many literary historians, and writers on versification, who make no mention of John Donne, that we may take it for granted that he was either not understood, or not appreciated by them. Of those who do mention him, to praise or to condemn, it cannot be said that all, or any, fully understand him,—that praise and condemnation are sometimes offered to 'show understanding' there can be no doubt.

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Our first chapter makes no pretense to being an exhaustive study of Donne's critics, for the reason that our concern is only with the metrical side of his poetry. Even with this end in view, some important authorities may have been overlooked; but the showing is sufficient to enable one to trace the current of opinion from Ben Jonson to the present time. Occasionally when one critic quotes or refers to another, no further special mention will be made of the one so quoted or referred to.

The second chapter is merely an application, to the poetry of Donne, of the theory of 'secondary word-accent in English verse,' as advanced by Professor Bright and applied in the dissertations of his pupils, Huguenin, Brown, and Miller. The last of these has cited numerous examples from Donne; but it seems necessary, as a preliminary to our third chapter, that a more particular, or more

1 The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell, (Aldine ed.), pp. 52-3.

2 A study of the critics who are concerned specially with the style and thoughtmatter of Donne may be found in the forthcoming work of Professor Martin G. Brumbaugh (University of Pennsylvania): A Study of the Poetry of John Donne.

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extended view of Donne's accent be offered, and a comparison made of his ruggedness' with the smoothness of his contemporaries and successors, and especially of those who are his critics.

The third chapter deals with a yet practically untouched aspect of the criticism of English verse. The revelation of Donne's 'secret' came to me suddenly after three years of daily, almost hourly, entreating, caressing, and wheedling of each line of his poetry. At first the thing seemed improbable; but, at the same time, it was so real and so plain as to give one that uncanny feeling experienced by those who dare to meddle with the affairs of 'some old lover's ghost.'

In this connection, I wish to say that this discovery came to me as a result of the 'secondary word-accent' theory taught by Professor Bright, and while I was actually engaged in applying it to Donne's verse. Were this theory in need of a final, clinching argument, the poetry of Donne would supply it. Furthermore, it may be said that the man whose ear is too dull to catch the music of the ripples, and even the eddies, of rhythm, and who insists upon white-capped wave after wave, the inevitable long, (just so long and no longer),—and the inevitable short, (just so short and no shorter), can never, till he has been redeemed, appreciate the delicacy of Donne's lighter verse, or the straight thrust of his satire.

The temptation is strong to follow the line of thought suggested by Carpenter,2 and Trost,3 and add a chapter on Conceits; and even stranger to devote a chapter to Platonism in Donne; but it seems advisable, on deliberation, to confine the discussion to the purely metrical.

1 Dowden, in his chapter on 'The Poetry of John Donne,' says (p. 91): 'Some [poets] must be taken by storm, some must be entreated, caressed, wheedled into acquiescence.'-Edward Dowden, New Studies in Literature, Boston and New York, 1895, pp. 90-120.

2 Frederic Ives Carpenter, English Lyric Poetry, London, 1897, p. lxi.

3 Wilhelm Trost, Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Stils von John Donne in seinen ‘Poetical Works,' Marburg, 1904, pp. 34-38.

* For an interesting beginning on this subject, as it applies to Donne, see James Smith Harrison, Platonism in English Poetry, etc., New York, 1903, Chapter II.

The text employed for reference is Chambers' edition, which, while it is probably the best to be had, and is most accessible to the greatest number, is not enough better than the Grolier Club edition to deserve the high praise given it by Professor Norton and others. This is not meant as an adverse criticism, either of Norton or of Chambers, for the former is modest and sincere, and the latter has done the best, with some minor exceptions, that could be done,—with the text of Donne as it has come down to us, by one unacquainted with the author's peculiarity.

There are hundreds of lines that Donne himself would refuse to father if he could see them to-day. It is easy to realize why this is so copyists and printers, not understanding the meaning, or the scansion of the verse, undertook to Pope it or Parnell it, and left some lines lame, others puzzling, and yet others partially, if not absolutely, meaningless.

Professor Norton says, 'No poems require more care in printing, for the thought is often intricate, the diction often involved, so that for understanding them every help is needed that can be given by the press. Even with such help many passages remain difficult and some seem corrupt.'

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Of the few poems published in Donne's life-time (1611, 1612, 1621, 1625) Grosart cites errors occurring in the second edition that were corrected in the third and fourth,-but more in the third and fourth that were not in the second,2-showing, to adopt a phrase from van Dam and Stoffel's title, 'high-handed ways of . . . . . Jacobean printers.'

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'...

Grosart says (i, xii), . . . such collating and utilization of manuscripts, public and private, have enabled me to correct the swarming errors and bewilderments of previous editions.'

John Donne, the younger, in the dedicatory letter (ed. of 1650) to William Lord Craven (see Chambers, i, xlix), drops a bit of irony that is full of significance. Instead of quoting the letter,

1 Grolier Club ed., i, vii.

2 The ed. of 1611 contains only the first part of An Anatomy. First Anniversary. It might be better, therefore, not to refer to the ed. of 1612 as the second edition. 3 Anglistische Forschungen, Heidelberg, 1902, vol. 10, p. 1.

we may note the remark of Gosse (i, 60) on the subject: John Donne the younger . . . remarked that in previous impressions of his father's poems "the kindness of the printer" had “added something too much, lest a spark of this sacred fire might perish undiscerned." But in his own later editions he left out scarcely anything, and this phrase is perhaps merely an apology for what might seem, though genuine, trifling.'

Gosse's statement needs examples, and a goodly number of them, to sustain it. What does he mean by 'scarcely anything'? To illustrate: a fellow-student once inquired, 'Have you ever noticed how seldom Donne employs the article "a"'?

Following a suggestion, he came back next day, saying, 'I counted up to 900 and quit.'

Even in this day of printing-house facilities, and proof-reading privileges, men who write about Donne continue to make mistakes. Furst, quoting Coleridge,

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puts it down

'Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots.'

'Donne, whose muse or dromedary trots.'

which is quite a different situation. On page 25, at the beginning of a sentence, where it seems almost impossible for a mistake to evade the eye, we read, 'Hope and Parnell .. attempted the revision.'

In this study, use has been made of a number of editions of the poetry of Donne. For critical comparison the Grosart, Chambers, and Grolier Club editions have been consulted, and each is the best in its own way: Grosart for manuscript variants; Chambers for chronological and general notes; Grolier for seventeenth century (printed) variants.

Norton speaks of 'blunders [in Grosart] proceeding from carelessness and from lack of intelligence,' citing enough examples

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1 Clyde Furst, A Group of Old Authors, Philadelphia, 1899, p. 1.

2 C. E. Norton, 'The Text of Donne's Poems,' Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, Vol. v. (Harvard University Studies: Child Memorial Volume), Boston, 1896, p. 3.

seemingly to warrant the charge; but my debt to Grosart is so great that I shall ever be ready to offer a general defence in his behalf.

To be sure, it is somewhat vexing, and at the same time amusing, to read in Grosart, Good Friday, 30:

'Uppon His Mother cast mine eye.'

and turning to his note to find, 'I prefer "distress'd" [Mother], (69) to "miserable" [Mother], of our MS. (Addl. 18647).'

Such blunders are very rare and need annoy none but the careless investigator, who, as does Richter, overlooks the note, and charges Donne with 'fremde Verse... unter die Fünftakter.' 1

Of course it is to be deplored that Grosart 'silently corrected' some lines in a few of the poems. That he has no ear for rhythm is attested scores of times; and, with this serious defect, it is a marvel that he has done as well as he has. One example will suffice.

The Lamentations of Jeremy (389-390):

'For oughtest thou, O Lord, despise us thus

And to be utterly enragèd at us.'

Grosart's note:

'It will be seen that Donne in this scriptural lament affects the accented -èd, as more solemn. I also read the last line so.'

To so accent the word in this couplet is neither scriptural' nor 'solemn,' but it is extremely lamentable.

The 'minor exceptions,' in Chambers, previously referred to, may be too insignificant to deserve notice; but it is to be hoped that future editions will be consistent in accenting the -ed of participles, and in the use of either capitals or small letters in pronouns referring to the Deity.

Probably the most glaring blunder in Chambers is found in (ii, 136) The Second Anniversary, 263–5:

1 Rudolph Richter, 'Über den Vers bei Dr. John Donne,' in Beiträgen zur Neueren Philologie (Jakob Schipper Festschrift), Wien und Leipzig, 1902, p. 400.