is but a continuation of a great feast: where the first
course (that which we begin to serve in now) is Manna, food of
Angels,--plentiful, frequent preaching; but the second course is the
very body and blood of Christ Jesus, shed for us and given to us, in
that Blessed Sacrament, of which himself makes us worthy
receivers
at
that time.
John Donne
of Err_. IV. i. 46, where Rowe corrects to
'stay'; 'Both man and master is possessed,' _ibid._ IV. iv. 89.
l. 10. _Eating the best first, well preserv'd to last._ The 'fruite'
or 'fruites' of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, which is as old as _P_ (1623), is
probably a genuine variant. The reference is to the elaborate dainties
of the second course at Elizabethan banquets, the dessert. Sleep, in
Macbeth's famous speech, is
great Nature's second course,
and Donne uses the same metaphor of the Eucharist: 'This fasting then
...
is but a continuation of a great feast: where the first
course (that which we begin to serve in now) is Manna, food of
Angels,--plentiful, frequent preaching; but the second course is the
very body and blood of Christ Jesus, shed for us and given to us, in
that Blessed Sacrament, of which himself makes us worthy
receivers
at
that time.
' _Sermons_. 'The most precious and costly dishes are always
reserved for the last services, but yet there is wholesome meat before
too.' _Ibid._
l. 18. _In birds, &c._: 'birds' is here in the possessive case,
'birds' organic throats'. I have modified the punctuation so as to
make this clearer.
l. 24. _All the foure Monarchies_: i.e. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and
Rome. John Sleidan, mentioned in a note on the _Satyres_, wrote _The
Key of Historie: Or, A most Methodicall Abridgement of the foure
chiefe Monarchies &c._, to quote its title in the English translation.
