No More Learning

Many of
the manuscripts in this collection were the property of Henry, ninth
Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632), the friend who communicated the
news of Donne's marriage to his father-in-law.


These three manuscripts are obviously derived from one common source.
They contain the same poems, except that _D_ has one more than _H49_,
and both of these have some which are not in _Lec_. The order of the
poems is the same, except that _D_ and _Lec_ show more signs of
an attempt to group the poems than _H49_. The text, with some
divergences, especially on the part of _Lec_, is identical. One
instance seems to point to one of them being the source of the others.
In the long _Obsequies to the Ld. Harrington, Brother to the Countess
of Bedford_, the original copyist, after beginning l. 159 'Vertue
whose flood', had inadvertently finished with the second half of l.
161, 'were [_sic_] blowne in, by thy first breath. ' This error is
found in all the three manuscripts. It may, however, have come from
the common source of this poem, and there are divergences in order and
text which make me think that they are thus derived from one common
source.

A special interest attaches to this collection, apart from the
relative excellence of its text and soundness of its canon, from the
probability that a manuscript of this kind was used for a large, and
that textually the best, part of the edition of 1633. This becomes
manifest on a close examination of the order of the poems and of their
text. Mr.
Gosse has said, in speaking of the edition of 1633: 'The
poems are thrown together without any attempt at intelligent order;
neither date, nor subject, nor relation is in the least regarded. '
This is not entirely the case. Satires, Elegies, Epigrams, Songs are
grouped to some extent. The disorder which prevails is due to two
causes: (1) to the fact that the printer set up from a variety
of sources. There was no previous collected edition to guide him.
Different friends supplied collections, and of a few poems there were
earlier editions. He seems to have passed from one of these to another
as was most convenient at the moment. Perhaps some were lent him only
for a time. The differences between copies of _1633_ show that it was
prepared carefully, but emended from time to time while the printing
was actually going on. (2) The second source of the order of the poems
is their order in the manuscripts from which they were copied. Now
a comparison of the order in _1633_ with that in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_
reveals a close connexion between them, and throws light on the
composition of _1633_.

It is necessary, before instituting this comparison with _1633_, to
say a word on the order of the poems in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ themselves,
as it is not quite the same in all three. _H49_ is the most irregular,
perhaps therefore the earliest, each of the others showing efforts
to obtain a better grouping of the poems. All three begin with the
_Satyres_, of which _D_ and _Lec_ have five, _H49_ only four; but
the text of _Lec_ differs from that of the other two, agreeing
more closely with the version of _1633_ and of another group of
manuscripts. They have all, then, thirteen _Elegies_ in the same
order. After these _H49_ continues with a number of letters (_The
Storme_, _The Calme_, _To S^r Henry Wotton_, _To S^r Henry Goodyere_,
_To the Countesse of Bedford_, _To S^r Edward Herbert_, and others)
intermingled with Funeral Elegies (_Lady Markham_, _Mris Boulstred_)
and religious poems (_The Crosse_, _The Annuntiation_, _Good Friday_).