Have not all souls thought

For many ages, that our bodies wrought

Of air, and fire, and other elements?

Grosart and Grolier editions have 'body is,' which is clearly the sense; and with elision of the 'y' the scansion is perfect.

We are pleased to note the correction of the figures in the 'List of First Lines' (vol. ii, pp. 319-326) in the reprint of Chambers, recently brought out by George Routledge & Sons, London. The outcry against the 1896 edition, on this account, will be remembered.

It is a pity that the Grolier edition was limited. Mrs. Burnett, -daughter of James Russell Lowell,—and Professor Norton, in collating the seventeenth century editions, have placed all students of Donne under obligations to them. Less than a half dozen times in the nearly 10,000 lines I noticed the use of some unaccountedfor particle, not to be found in the 1633 edition on which theirs is based. This contingency was anticipated by Professor Norton (p. ix): Though much care has been taken in the collation of the texts, and the printing of the present edition, it is possible that some variant readings and some errors may have escaped notice.'

It affords me particular pleasure to record my gratitude to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard University; Professor Martin G. Brumbaugh, of the University of Pennsylvania; Professor H. M. Belden, of the University of Missouri ; and Librarian William C. Lane, of Harvard University.

6

Professor Norton, in addition to much wise counsel, allowed me access to the Norton Collection,' in the Harvard Library, where I found and eagerly examined the three MSS. described in 'The Text of Donne's Poems'; and the following editions of the poems: 1633, 1635, 1639, 1649, 1654, 1669, and 1719.

Besides kindly sympathy and generous encouragement, Professor Brumbaugh placed at my disposal his editions of the poems, 1633 and 1650, the former of which probably belonged to Izaak Walton, and contains, either in his or in a contemporary's handwriting, marginal references of great value in determining the chronology of the poems, and other facts. I was also allowed

the privilege of reading and making extracts from his interesting work, A Study of the Poetry of John Donne, which is soon to be published.

Professor Belden, on request, promptly sent me his unpublished paper on 'Donne's Prosody,' which I have found very helpful, as subsequent quotations will show.

Mr. Lane was very courteous and attentive while I worked in the Harvard Library, and has since taken pains in gathering information for me, and in replying promptly to inquiries by mail.

CHAPTER I.

SOME OF DONNE'S CRITICS.

The Retrospective Review gives a few evidences of the estimation in which Donne was held during his life; taking them, however (in order to avoid the charge of partiality or flattery), from what was not written till after his death,' '

1

The lines there quoted are from Hyde, Porter, and others, some of whom are as visionary as Donne has been accused of being in An Anatomy.

Since the purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism of Donne's verse, and not the mystery of his life, we may very well steer clear of contemporary flattery and post-mortem extravagance. After Jonson and Drummond, whose criticisms furnish the starting point, the nearest next that will be noticed is Dryden, who was born the same year the Dean of St. Paul's died.

An effort has been made to present the criticisms in their chronological order; but, occasionally, the date of an utterance can only be approximated. Only those views that seem to demand comment will receive it.

To the close student of Donne it becomes more and more apparent that the charge of 'ruggedness' and 'harshness', which has been made against his verse for nearly three centuries, is due, (barring misprints), either to the influence of Ben Jonson's remark to Drummond (1618), or to the fact that critics have failed to compare the word-accents employed by him and by his contemporaries and successors. Since, however, Drummond's Works was not published till 1711, and since we have no evidence that all Donne's seventeenth century critics were acquainted with the manuscript (though its contents must have been the gossip of the Literati for the ninety-three years), there must be assigned a

1 Vol. viii (1828), pp. 33, 34.

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third cause for the charge: dullness of ear, or inability to appreciate delicate word-tone.

Jonson said, 'That Done, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging.'

91

In so far as word-accent is concerned, it may be shown, and will be in Chapter II, that Donne did not place a word or syllable,— proper names alone excepted,-in position to receive the ictus, that may not be matched in the verse of Shakespeare, Jonson, and other contemporaries. Furthermore, examples will be presented from Dryden, Pope, Milton, Tennyson, and other successors, showing that the critics, of three hundred years, have accepted from other poets, with explained satisfaction, the very wordaccents Donne has been severely criticised for employing.

It is difficult to understand how Jonson, even playfully, or 'over his wine cup,'2 could have said Donne 'deserved hanging' on account of 'accents' which he, himself, and his most illustrious contemporary made use of.

Gosse calls attention to the 'curious fact that Jonson alone, of those who in the first half of the seventeenth century discussed the characteristics of Donne's style, commented on the peculiarities of his metre.'

93

Another opinion, on this subject, by Gosse (ii, 331), is worthy of attention: 'Ben Jonson was not isolated in the sense that Donne was; but he too . . . desired to break away from the melody and pastoral sweetness . . . of the age into which he was born.'

Johnson (Chalmers, Eng. Poets, vii. 13) speaks of '... Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne, more in the ruggedness of the lines, than in the cast of his sentiment.'

Carpenter expresses a kindred view: The truth is that neither

1 Notes of Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, ed. by David Laing, London, 1842, p. 3.

2 Alexander B. Grosart, The Complete Poems of John Donne, etc., in two vols., London, 1872 (The Fuller Worthies' Library), ii, xlviii. Hereafter cited as Grosart.

3 Edmund Gosse, The Life and Letters of John Donne, etc., in two vols., London, 1899, ii, 333. Hereafter cited as Gosse.

Jonson nor Donne was by temperament fundamentally lyrical, and that fact was an unhappy augury for the lyrical spirit of the succeeding age.'

For the present, it may be said that Jonson evidently meant more by 'keeping' than by 'accent.'

Supposing Jonson to have meant what has been understood by so many faint warblers,—and what our examples will prove to be foundationless,—we may, at this point, present other censures which Drummond records, thereby placing the criticism of Donne in its proper setting, and determining the amount of consideration which his alleged censure of Donne would deserve.

...

That Abram Fran

That next himself,

Beginning on page 2, of the Conversations: Spenser's stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter Samuel Daniel was a good man... but no poet. That Michael Drayton's... long verses pleased him not. That Silvester's translation of Du Bartas was not well done; Nor that of Fairfax his... (p. 3) That Done for not keeping of accent deserved hanging. That Shakespeer wanted arte. (p. 4) That Sharpham, Day, Dicker were all rogues; and that Minshew was one. cis, in his English Hexameters, was a foole. only Fletcher and Chapman could make a mask... (p. 5) That Bonefonius Vigilium Veneris was excellent.. (p. 7) That [my verses] were all good especiallie my Epitaphe of the Prince, save that it smelled too much of the Schooles [Greek and Latin]; . . . yett that he wished, to please the King, that piece of Forth Feasting had been his own. (p. 8) He esteemeth John Done the first poet in the world in some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he heth by heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not stirr, all was so quiet. Sir Edward (Henry) Watton's verses of a happy lyfe, he hath by heart; and a piece of Chapman's translation of the 13 of the Iliads, which he thinketh well done. That Done said to him, he wrott that Epitaph on Prince Henry, Look to me, Faith, to match Sir Ed. Herbert in obscureness. (p. 9) He hath by heart some verses of Spenser's Calender, about wyne, between

1 Eng. Lyr. Poetry, p. lv.