No More Learning

In the fifth elegy (_The Picture_), for example, _1633_ twice seems
to follow, not _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, but another source, another group of
manuscripts which has been preserved; and in _The Aniversarie_ ll. 23,
24, the version of _1633_ is not that of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ but of
the same second group, which will be described later. On the whole,
however, it is clear that a manuscript closely resembling that now
represented by these three manuscripts supplied the editor of _1633_
with the bulk of the shorter poems, especially the older and more
privately circulated poems, the _Songs and Sonets_ and _Elegies_. When
he is not following this manuscript he draws from miscellaneous and
occasionally inferior sources.

It would be interesting if we could tell whence this manuscript was
obtained, and whether it was _a priori_ likely to be a good one. On
this point we can only conjecture, but it seems to me a fairly tenable
conjecture (though not to be built on in any way) that the nucleus of
the collection, at any rate, may have been a commonplace-book which
had belonged to Sir Henry Goodyere. The ground for this conjecture is
the inclusion in the edition of some prose letters addressed to this
friend, one in Latin and seven in English. There is indeed also one
addressed to the Countess of Bedford; but in the preceding letter to
Goodyere Donne says, 'I send you, with this, a letter which I sent to
the Countesse. It is not my use nor duty to do so. But for your having
it, there were but two consents, and I am sure you have mine, and you
are sure you have hers. ' He goes on to refer to some verses which are
the subject of the letter to the Countesse. There can be no doubt that
the letter printed is the letter sent to Goodyere. The Burley MS. (see
Pearsall-Smith's _Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton_, Oxford, 1907)
gives us a good example of how a gentleman in the seventeenth century
dealt with his correspondence. That contains, besides various letters,
as of Sidney to Queen Elizabeth on the Anjou marriage, and other
matter which recurs in commonplace-books, a number of poems and
letters, sent to Wotton by his friends, including Donne, and
transcribed by one or other of Wotton's secretaries.
The letters have
no signatures appended, which is the case with the letters in the
1633 edition of Donne's poems. Wotton and Goodyere did not need to be
reminded of the authors, and perhaps did not wish others to know. The
reason then for the rather odd inclusion of nine prose letters in a
collection of poems is probably, that the principal manuscript used
by the printer was an 'old book'[20] which had belonged to Sir Henry
Goodyere and in which his secretaries had transcribed poems and
letters by Donne. Goodyere's collection of Donne's poems would not
necessarily be exhaustive, but it would be full; it would not like the
collections of others include poems that were none of Donne's; and its
text would be accurate, allowing for the carelessness, indifference,
and misunderstandings of secretaries and copyists.

After _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, the most carefully made collection of Donne's
poems is one represented now by four distinct manuscripts:

_A18. _ Additional MS. 18646, in the British Museum.

_N. _ The Norton MS. in Harvard College Library, Boston, of which an
account is given by Professor Norton in a note appended to the Grolier
Club edition.

_TCC. _ A manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

_TCD. _ A large manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin,
containing two apparently quite independent collections of poems--the
first a collection of Donne's poems with one or two additional poems
by Sir John Roe, Francis Beaumont, Sir Thomas Overbury, and Corbet;
the second a quite miscellaneous collection, put together some time in
the thirties of the seventeenth century, and including some of Donne's
poems. It is only the first of these which belongs to the group in
question.

These four manuscripts are closely connected with one another, but a
still more intimate relation exists between _A18_ and _TCC_ on the
one hand, _N_ and _TCD_ on the other.