Izaak Walton's _Elegie_
underwent
a good deal of revision.
John Donne
He was incorporated at Oxford in 1628, where he took the degree of
D. D. in 1636. On the 8th of December, 1630, he was appointed Rector
of Deptford. He was either ejected under the Commonwealth or died, for
Mallory, his successor, was deprived in 1662. For this information
I am indebted to the _Biographical Register of Christ's College,
1505-1905, &c. , compiled by John Peile . . . Master of the College_,
1910. Of works by him the British Museum Catalogue contains _Foure
Sea-Sermons preached at the annual meeting of the Trinitie Companie in
the Parish Church of Deptford_, London, 1635, and _Private devotions,
digested into six litanies . . . Seven and twentieth edition_, London,
1706. The last was first published in 1651.
Izaak Walton's _Elegie_ underwent a good deal of revision. Besides the
variants which I have noted, _1635-69_ add the following lines:
Which as a free-will-offring, I here give
Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve,
I want abilities, fit to set forth
A monument great, as _Donnes_ matchlesse worth.
In 1658 and 1670, when the _Elegie_ was transferred to the enlarged
_Life of Donne_, it was again revised, and opens:
Our Donne is dead: and we may sighing say,
We had that man where language chose to stay
And shew her utmost power. I would not praise
That, and his great Wit, which in our vaine dayes
Makes others proud; but as these serv'd to unlocke
That Cabinet, his mind, where such a stock
Of knowledge was repos'd, that I lament
Our just and generall cause of discontent.
But the poem in its final form is included in the many reprints of
Walton's _Lives_, and it is unnecessary to note the numerous verbal
variations. The most interesting is in ll. 25-6.
Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein
Lay Loves Philosophy?
Professor Norton notes that 'the name of the author of this' (the
seventh) 'Elegy is given as Carie or Cary in all the early editions,
by mistake for Carew'. But the spelling (common in the MSS. ) simply
represents the way in which the name was pronounced. Thomas Carew
(1598? -1639? ) was sewer-in-ordinary to King Charles in 1633, and in
February 1633/4 his most elaborate work, the _Coelum Britannicum_,
was performed at Whitehall, on Shrove Tuesday. It was published
immediately afterwards, 1634. His collected _Poems_ were issued in
1640 and contained this _Elegie_.
