No More Learning

Coleridge comments upon it in verse:

Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas!
In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees.
Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns;
Thrice-honored Fleas! I greet you all as _Dons_.
In Phoebus' archives registered are ye,
And this your patent of nobility.

It will be noticed that there are two versions of Donne's poem.


PAGE =41=. THE CURSE.

l. 3. _His only, and only his purse. _ This, the reading of all the
editions except the last, and of the MSS. , is obviously right. What
is to dispose 'some dull heart to love' is his _only_ purse and _his_
alone, no one's but his purse.
Chambers adopts the _1669_ conjecture,
'Him only for his purse,' but in that case there is no subject to 'may
dispose', or if 'some dull heart' be subject then 'itself' must be
supplied--a harsh construction. 'Dispose' is not used intransitively
in this sense.

l. 27. _Mynes. _ I have adopted the plural from the MSS. It brings it
into line with the other objects mentioned.


PAGE =43=. THE MESSAGE.

l. 11. _But if it be taught by thine. _ It seems incredible that Donne
should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which'
of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had
accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the
MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that.