Compare
_Negative
Love_, l.
John Donne
Love and
statesmanship both alike depend upon what we might call the art of
"bluffing". Neither will bear too curious examination. The statesman
and the lover must impose for the moment, disguising weakness or
inspiring fear in those who descry it. '
l. 53. _In this thy booke, such will their nothing see. _ After some
hesitation I have adopted the 1635-54 reading in preference to that of
1633 and 1669, 'there something. ' I do so because (1) the MSS. support
it. Their uncertainty as to 'their' and 'there' is of no importance;
(2) 'there' is a weak repetition of 'in this thy book', an emphatic
enough indication of place; (3) 'their nothing' is both the more
difficult reading and the more characteristic of Donne. The art of a
statesman is a 'nothing'. He uses the word in the same way of his own
Paradoxes and Problems when sending some of them to Sir Henry Wotton,
and with the same emphatic stress on the first syllable: 'having
this advantage to escape from being called ill things that they are
nothings' (An unpublished letter, quoted in the _Cambridge History of
Literature_, vol. iv, p. 218). The word was pronounced with a fully
rounded 'no'.
Compare _Negative Love_, l. 16.
With the sentiment compare: 'And as our Alchymists can finde their
whole art and worke of Alchymy, not only in Virgil and Ovid, but in
Moses and Solomon; so these men can find such a transmutation
into golde, such a foundation of profit, in extorting a sense for
Purgatory, or other profitable Doctrines, out of any Scripture. '
_Sermons_ 80. 78. 791.
'Un personnage de grande dignite, me voulant approuver par authorite
cette queste de la pierre philosophale ou il est tout plonge,
m'allegua dernierement cinq ou six passages de la Bible, sur
lesquels il disoit s'estre premierement fonde pour la descharge de sa
conscience (car il est de profession ecclesiastique); et, a la verite,
l'invention n'en estoit pas seulement plaisante, mais encore bien
proprement accommodee a la defence de cette belle science. ' Montaigne,
_Apologie de Raimond Sebond_ (_Les Essais_, ii. 12).
PAGE =32=, ll. 59-61. _To take a latitude, &c. _ The latitude of a spot
may always be found by measuring the distance from the zenith of a
star whose altitude, i. e. distance from the equator, is known. The
words 'At their brightest' are only used to point the antithesis with
the 'dark eclipses' used to measure longitude.
statesmanship both alike depend upon what we might call the art of
"bluffing". Neither will bear too curious examination. The statesman
and the lover must impose for the moment, disguising weakness or
inspiring fear in those who descry it. '
l. 53. _In this thy booke, such will their nothing see. _ After some
hesitation I have adopted the 1635-54 reading in preference to that of
1633 and 1669, 'there something. ' I do so because (1) the MSS. support
it. Their uncertainty as to 'their' and 'there' is of no importance;
(2) 'there' is a weak repetition of 'in this thy book', an emphatic
enough indication of place; (3) 'their nothing' is both the more
difficult reading and the more characteristic of Donne. The art of a
statesman is a 'nothing'. He uses the word in the same way of his own
Paradoxes and Problems when sending some of them to Sir Henry Wotton,
and with the same emphatic stress on the first syllable: 'having
this advantage to escape from being called ill things that they are
nothings' (An unpublished letter, quoted in the _Cambridge History of
Literature_, vol. iv, p. 218). The word was pronounced with a fully
rounded 'no'.
Compare _Negative Love_, l. 16.
With the sentiment compare: 'And as our Alchymists can finde their
whole art and worke of Alchymy, not only in Virgil and Ovid, but in
Moses and Solomon; so these men can find such a transmutation
into golde, such a foundation of profit, in extorting a sense for
Purgatory, or other profitable Doctrines, out of any Scripture. '
_Sermons_ 80. 78. 791.
'Un personnage de grande dignite, me voulant approuver par authorite
cette queste de la pierre philosophale ou il est tout plonge,
m'allegua dernierement cinq ou six passages de la Bible, sur
lesquels il disoit s'estre premierement fonde pour la descharge de sa
conscience (car il est de profession ecclesiastique); et, a la verite,
l'invention n'en estoit pas seulement plaisante, mais encore bien
proprement accommodee a la defence de cette belle science. ' Montaigne,
_Apologie de Raimond Sebond_ (_Les Essais_, ii. 12).
PAGE =32=, ll. 59-61. _To take a latitude, &c. _ The latitude of a spot
may always be found by measuring the distance from the zenith of a
star whose altitude, i. e. distance from the equator, is known. The
words 'At their brightest' are only used to point the antithesis with
the 'dark eclipses' used to measure longitude.
