by John Donne
“I had not been long in London, when a violent burning fever seized upon me, which brought me almost to my death, though at last I did by slow degrees recover my health.”
This and the preceding letter appear to have been written on the same day.
IV
Perhaps Mistress White’s brother accompanied Sir Edward Herbert, who writes (loc. cit.),
“The occasion of my going hither was thus: hearing that a war about the title of Cleves, Juliers, and some other provinces betwixt the Low Countries and Germany, should be made, by the several pretenders to it, and that the French king [Henry IV] himself would come with a great army into those parts; it was now the year of our Lord 1610, when my Lord Chandos and myself resolved to take shipping for the Low Countries, and from thence to pass to the city of Juliers, which the Prince of Orange resolved to besiege. Making all haste thither we found the siege newly begun; the Low Country army assisted by 4000 English under the command of Sir Edward Cecil.”
Juliers surrendered on August 22, 1610.
V
Sir Henry Kingsmill died October 26th, 1624, the day on which this letter was written. If the Lady Kingsmel, or Kingsmill, to whom it is addressed, was the Bridget White of the first four letters, the difference in its tone is the more interesting. The girl to whom Donne wrote so gaily fifteen years before, is now a widow, and the poverty-stricken student of 1609 has become the great Dean of Saint Paul’s.
VI
To Sir Thomas Lucy, grandson of the Sir Thomas immortalized as Justice Shallow. Lucy was a friend of the Herberts, with whom Donne afterward became intimate, and a man of no mean intellectual power.
Donne gave up his house in Mitcham, where this letter was written, in 1610 and never returned to it. Lucy went abroad with Sir Edward Herbert in 1608. This letter may belong to the autumn of 1607.
VII
This letter, like the next, was written in 1619, and but a few months after Donne’s appointment as Divinity Reader to the Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn,
“About which time,” says Walton, “the Emperour of Germany died, and the Palsgrave, who had lately married the Lady Elizabeth, the King’s onely daughter, was elected and crowned King of Bohemia, the unhappy beginning of many miseries in that Nation.
“King James, whose Motto (Beati Pacifici) did truly speak the very thoughts of his heart, endeavoured first to prevent, and after to compose the discords of that discomposed State: and amongst other his endeavours did then send the Lord Hay Earl of Doncaster his Ambassadour to those unsetled Princes; and by a speciall command from his Majesty Dr. Donne was appointed to assist and attend that employment to the Princes of the Union: for which the Earl was most glad, who had alwayes put a great value on him, and taken a complacency in his conversation.”
On the eve of his departure Donne placed in the hands of a few friends manuscript copies of unpublished writings for whose preservation he wished to provide.
ΒΙΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ, A Declaration of that Paradoxe, or Thesis, that Selfe-Homicide is not so Naturally Sinne, that it may never be otherwise, wherein the Nature, and the extent of all these lawes, which seem to be violated by this Act, are diligently surveyed, was not published until 1644, thirteen years after Donne’s death. The manuscript of the ΒΙΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ which Donne gave to Sir Edward Herbert is now preserved in the Bodleian Library, to which Lord Herbert presented it in 1642, with the letter here printed and with the following inscription:
HUNC LIBRUM AB AUTHORE CUM EPISTOLA QUI PRAEIT ΑΥΤΟΓΡΑΦΩ DONO SIBI DATUM DUM EQUESTRIS OLIM ESSE ORDINIS EDVARDUS HERBERT, JAM BARO DE CHERBURY IN ANGLIA, ET CASTRI INSULAE DE KERRY IN HIBERNIA, E SUA BIBLIOTHECA IN BODLEIANAM TRANSTULIT MERITISS. IN ALMAN MATREM ACAD. OXON. PIETATIS ET OBSERVANTIAE ΜΝΗΜΟΣΥΝΟΝ, MDCXXII.
VIII
Sir Robert Ker (or Carr) accompanied King James from Scotland on his succession to the throne of England, and in 1603 became Groom of the Bedchamber to Henry, Prince of Wales. For many years he was Donne’s “friend at court.” In 1633 was made Earl of Ancrum. On the breaking out of the civil war he fled to Holland, where he died in 1654.
Donne’s poems remained uncollected until after his death. Poems by J. D. with Elegies on the Author’s Death appeared in 1633, and was reissued two years later.
IX
Lucy, the eldest daughter of the first Lord Harrington of Exton, and the wife of the third Earl of Bedford, was the faithful friend and generous patron not only of Donne, but of Jonson, Drayton, Daniel, and many another man of genius. One of Jonson’s Epigrams in her honour is not so well known as it deserves to be:
On Lucy, Countess of Bedford
“This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,
I thought to form unto my jealous Muse,
What kind of creature I could most desire,
To honour, serve and love; as poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside.
Only a learned, and a manly soul
I purposed her; that should, with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the sheers control
Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wish’d to see,
My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she!”
In spite of Donne’s opinion that “in letters, by which we deliver over our affection, and assurances of friendship ... times and daies cannot have interest,” we may note that this letter must have been written earlier than February 1614, in which month died Lady Bedford’s brother, the second Lord Harrington, to whom allusion is here made.
X
Susan, grand-daughter of William, Lord Burleigh, was the first wife of Philip, Earl of Montgomery. As Donne, on the eve of his German tour, leaves a copy of his Biathanatos in the safe-keeping of Sir Edward Herbert, and the manuscript of his poems in the hands of Sir Robert Ker, so he commits to the appropriate custody of the Countess of Montgomery (“A new Susannah, equal to that old,” Ben Jonson called her) the manuscript of a sermon, which, when she heard him preach it, she had commended.
The corrections bracketted in the text are from a MS. copy of the original, printed by Mr. Gosse, and reproduced here by his permission.
XI
To Sir Henry Goodyer, as is sufficiently indicated by the allusion to the weekly letter which Donne was in the habit of writing to this most intimate of his friends, and written from Mitcham, therefore not later than 1610. Sir Henry Goodyer, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to James I, was the son of William Goodyer of Monks Kirby. He married his cousin Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Goodyer the elder, and on his father-in-law’s death in 1595 succeeded to the family estates at Polesworth. Sir Henry seems to have been an open-minded, open-handed, easy-going man, with the defects of his qualities. His fortune slipped through his fingers and he died (1628) in poverty. I have no doubt that it was to Goodyer that Donne made the present of which Walton writes:
“He gave an hundred pounds at one time to an old friend, whom he had known live plentifully, & by a too liberal heart then decayed in his estate: and when the receiving of it was denied by saying, he wanted not; for as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to conceal and endure a sad poverty, rather than those blushes that attend the confession of it, so there be others to whom Nature and Grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls, as to pity and prevent the distresses of mankind; which I have mentioned because of Dr. Donne’s reply, whose answer was, I know you want not what will sustain nature, for a little will do that; but my desire is that you who in the dayes of your plenty have cheered the hearts of so many of
your friends, would receive this from me, and use it as a cordiall for the cheering of your own: and so it was received.”
Goodyer’s epitaph is quoted by Camden in the Remaines concerning Britain:
“To the honour of Sir Henry Goodyer of Powlesworth, a Knight memorable for his vertues, an affectionate Friend of his framed this Tetrastich:
‘An ill year of a Goodyer us bereft,
Who gone to God, much lack of him here left:
Full of good gifts, of body and of mind,
Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kind.’”
XII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. This letter belongs to 1607 or 1608, and was written from Mitcham. Sick in mind and in body, poor in purse and in hopes, Donne’s thoughts dwelt on suicide, and the fruit of his meditations was the book “of not much less than three hundred pages,” Biathanatos, of which we have already heard. The “meditation in verse which I call a litany” is printed in the Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 174).
The report that Broughton had gone over to Rome was without foundation in fact, though the rumour was of periodical occurrence.
XIII
George Garet, or Gerrard, the son of Sir William Gerrard of Dorney, Bucks, was one of Donne’s closest friends, and to him are addressed many of Donne’s more personal letters.
For what importunities in his behalf Donne here makes grateful acknowledgment we have no means of determining. The letter probably dates from 1614, when Donne was anxiously seeking profitable employment at Court.
XIV
“That good Gentlewoman,” Bridget, wife of Sir Anthony Markham, was the daughter of Lady Bedford’s brother, the second Lord Harrington of Exton, and one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. She died at Lady Bedford’s house at Twickenham, May 4th, 1609, about which time this letter was written. Donne’s Elegy is printed in his Poems (ed. Chambers, Vol. II, p. 86).
Sir Thomas Roe was the grandson of the Lord Mayor of the same name. He was knighted in 1604 by King James, who, ten years later, appointed him ambassador to the Great Mogul. He died in 1644. To him is addressed Ben Jonson’s Epigram, XCVIII.
XV
To George Gerrard’s sister, and belonging to the same period as XIII.
XVI
Probably written from Amiens, to which place Donne accompanied Sir Robert Drury in 1611, on that journey during which he had the vision described by Walton:
“Two days after their arrival there [in Paris], Mr. Donne was left alone in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends had din’d together. To this place Sir Robert return’d within half an hour, and, as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone; but in such an Extasie, and, so alter’d as to his looks, as amaz’d Sir Robert to behold him: insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had befaln him in the short time of his absence? to which, Mr. Donne was not able to make a present answer: but, after a long and perplext pause, did at last say, I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you; I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: This I have seen since I saw you. To which Sir Robert reply’d; ‘Sure Sir, you have slept since I saw you; and, this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for, you are now awake.’ To which Mr. Donne’s reply was, ‘I cannot be surer that I now live, then, that I have not slept since I saw you: and I am as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopt, and look’d me in the face, and vanisht.’ Rest and sleep, had not alter’d Mr. Donne’s opinion the next day: for he then affirm’d this vision with a more deliberate, and so confirm’d a confidence, that he inclin’d Sir Robert to a faint belief that the Vision was true. — It is truly said, that desire, and doubt, have no rest: and it prov’d so with Sir Robert, for he immediately sent a servant to Drewry house, with a charge to hasten back, and bring him word, whether Mrs. Donne were alive? and if alive, in what condition she was, as to her health? — The twelfth day the Messenger returned with this account — That he found and left Mrs. Donne very sad, and sick in her bed: and, that after a long and dangerous labour, she had been deliver’d of a dead child. And upon examination, the abortion prov’d to be the same day, and about the very hour that Mr. Donne affirm’d he saw her pass by him in his Chamber.”
XVII
This letter seems to belong to the same period as the last, and to have been intended by Donne as a sort of circular letter “to all my friends” at home.
XVIII
Written in 1608, as the reference to the sudden death of Captain Edmund Whitelocke indicates. Walton, who quotes a part of this letter, gives the date as September 7th.
Mr. Jones may have been the friend to whose custody Tobie Matthew was committed between his sentence of banishment and his departure from England. (See Note on XLV, below.) Mr. Holland was Henry Holland, the son of Philemon Holland, the translator of Suetonius and much else. The Lord of Sussex was Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex.
XIX
The postscript to this letter, written, like that which follows it, from Mitcham in the closing years of Donne’s residence there, is serious enough, but the letter itself must be understood as extravagant banter, not without a touch of bitterness. “When sadness dejects me,” says Donne in a letter (XXV) written about this time, “either I countermine it with another sadnesse, or I kindle squibs about me again, and flie into sportfulnesse.” The present letter is the fruit of such a mood.
The Aurum Reginae is the Queen Consort’s share (one-tenth) of all fines exacted by the King, which under the old law was due to her. Mr. Hakewill was Queen Anne’s Solicitor-General.
XXI
To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written after Sir Henry had entered the service of the Earl of Bedford and before Donne’s removal from Mitcham to Drury House, therefore in 1609 or 1610. The reference to “the new astronomy” is interesting. In 1609 Keppler announced his discovery of some of the laws governing planetary motion, although it was not until the following year that the Copernican System was, by the discoveries of Galileo, firmly established. Donne’s mind seems to have been open to the new knowledge, when Bacon’s was firmly closed against it.
XXII
The reference to “my day” for payment of “this duty of letters,” enables us to identify Donne’s correspondent as Sir Henry Goodyer, to whom Donne was in the habit of writing every Tuesday. (Cf. the first sentence of XVIII.) When the present letter was written Donne was employed in assisting Thomas Morton, Dean of Gloucester, and the leader of the Anglican theologians in the all but interminable controversy with the Jesuits which involved so many of the ablest churchmen of the period. The “Apology” was probably Robert Parson’s “confused and worthless work,” the Treatise tending towards Mitigation, in reply to which Sutcliffe published his Subversion in 1606, and Morton, two years later, his Preamble unto an Encounter, which, happily belying its name, went far toward closing the debate.
XXIII
The loss of her ladyship’s verses on Donne, which are the subject of this letter, is the more to be regretted as none of her composition survives, though verses in her honour are found in the works of Donne, Ben Jonson, Daniel, Drayton, and other poets. This letter belongs to the same period as XXI.
XXIV
The postscript enables us to date the letter near the end of Donne’s residence at Mitcham, when he was engaged in the politico-theological studies which resulted in the composition of the Pseudo-Martyr in 1609.
XXV
Sir Henry Goodyer had lost both father and father-in-law long before his friend had occasion “to reduce to his thoughts the duties of a husband and a father, and all the incumbencies of a family.” The reference in this letter to “your father’s health and love” therefore seems to preclude the possibility that it was addressed to Goodyer. The absence of a date makes conjecture as to the identity of Donne’s correspondent the more difficult. Fortunately the interest of the letter is independent of knowledge of the correspondent to whom it was a
ddressed, consisting as it does in the light which it throws on the mental temperament of the writer.
XXVI
The marriage of the Princess Elizabeth and the Count Palatine took place in February, 1613. This letter with its anticipations of the great event may safely be assigned to the journey on which Donne accompanied Sir Robert Drury in 1611-12. “My book of Mris Drury” is Donne’s strange poem in commemoration of the first anniversary of the death in 1610 of Sir Robert Drury’s little daughter Elizabeth. An Anatomie of the World, wherein by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and decay of this whole world is represented, was published in 1611. The extravagance of the homage here paid to a child whom Donne had never seen, and on whose father’s bounty he and his family were living, was regarded by some of his friends as savoring rather too patently of insincerity.
In commemoration of the second anniversary of Elizabeth Drury’s death, Donne published in 1612 a poem Of the Progresse of the Soule. Wherein, by occasion of the religious death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the incommodities of the soule in this life, and her exaltation in the next, are contemplated.
In 1618 Ben Jonson told Drummond “that Done’s Anniversarie was profane and full of blasphemies: that he told Mr. Done, if it had been written of the Virgin Marie, it had been something; to which he answered that he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was.” (Conversations with Drummond, III.)
XXVII
To Sir Henry Goodyer. The mention of “place and season” and the references to suffering of mind, body, and estate, enable us to date this letter from Mitcham in the spring of 1608, when Donne was in his thirty-fifth year.
XXVIII
William Fowler, to whom we have already had a jesting reference (XIX) was Secretary to Queen Anne. It is not clear whether the place to which Donne aspired was the secretaryship, which, as he was informed, Fowler was about to resign, or some other position in the Secretary’s gift which Donne was anxious to secure before Fowler went out of office. In either case, his hope was not realized.