No More Learning

In 1616 Ben Jonson's _Epigrammes_ were published in the first (folio)
edition of his works, and they contain the Epigram, printed in this
edition, _To Lucy, Countesse of Bedford, with Mr. Donnes Satyres_. In
these and similar cases the 'bookes' referred to are not printed but
manuscript works. Mr. Chambers has pointed out (_Poems of John Donne_,
i, pp. xxxviii-ix) an interesting reference in Drayton's _Epistle to
Reynolds_ to poems circulating thus 'by transcription'; and Anthony
Wood speaks of Hoskins having left a 'book of poems neatly written'.
In Donne's own letters we find references to his poems, his paradoxes
and problems, and even a long treatise like the [Greek: BIATHANATOS],
being sent to his friends with injunctions of secrecy, and in the case
of the last with an express statement that it had not been, and was
not to be, printed. Sometimes the manuscript collection seems to have
been made by Donne himself, or on his instruction, for a special
friend and patron like Lord Ancrum; but after he had become a
distinguished Churchman who, as Jonson told Drummond, 'repenteth
highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems,' it was his friends and
admirers who collected and copied them. An instructive reference to
the interest awakened in Donne's early poems by his fame as a preacher
comes to us from Holland. Constantine Huyghens, the Dutch poet, and
father of the more famous scientist, Christian, was a member of the
Dutch embassy in 1618, 1621-23, and again in 1624. He moved in the
best circles, and made the acquaintance of Donne ('great preacher and
great conversationalist', he calls him) at the house probably of Sir
Robert Killigrew. Writing to his friend and fellow-poet Hooft, in
1630, he says:[13]

'I think I have often entertained you with reminiscences of
Dr. Donne, now Dean of St. Pauls in London, and on account
of this remunerative post (such is the custom of the English)
held in high esteem, in still higher for the wealth of his
unequalled wit, and yet more incomparable eloquence in the
pulpit. Educated early at Court in the service of the great;
experienced in the ways of the world; sharpened by study; in
poetry, he is more famous than anyone.
Many rich fruits from
the green branches of his wit[14] have lain mellowing among
the lovers of art, which now, when _nearly rotten with age_,
they _are distributing_. Into my hands have fallen, by the
help of my special friends among the gentlemen of that nation,
some five and twenty of the best sort of medlars. Among
our people, I cannot select anyone to whom they ought to be
communicated sooner than to you,[15] as this poets manner of
conceit and expression are exactly yours, Sir. '

This is a very interesting piece of evidence as to the manner in which
Donne's poems had been preserved by his friends, and the form in which
they were being distributed. There is no reference to publication. It
is doubtless due to this activity in collecting and transcribing the
poems of the now famous preacher that we owe the number of manuscript
collections dating from the years before and immediately after 1630.

Had Donne undertaken the publication of his own poems, such of these
manuscript collections as have been preserved--none of which
are autograph, and few or none of which have a now traceable
history--would have little importance for a modern editor. The most
that they could do would be to show us occasionally what changes a
poem had undergone between its earliest and its latest appearance.
But Donne's poems were not published in this way, and the manuscripts
cannot be ignored. They must have for his editor at least the
same interest and importance as the Quartos have for the editor
of Shakespeare. Whatever opinion he may hold, on _a priori_ or _a
posteriori_ grounds, regarding the superior authority of the First
Folio of Shakespeare's plays, no editor, not 'thirled to' a theory,
will deny that a right reading has been preserved for us often by the
Quartos and the Quartos only. No wise man will neglect the assistance
even of the more imperfect of them. Before therefore discussing the
relative value of the different editions, and the use that may be made
of the manuscripts, it will be well to give a short description of the
manuscripts which the present editor has consulted and used, of their
relation to one another, their comparative value, and the relation of
_some_ of them to the editions. It is, of course, possible that there
are manuscripts of Donne's poems which have not yet come to light; and
among them may be some more correctly transcribed than any which
has come into the present editor's hands. He has, however, examined
between twenty and thirty, and with the feeling recently of moving
in a circle--that new manuscripts were in part or whole duplicates of
those which had been already examined, and confirmed readings already
noted but did not suggest anything fresh.

I will divide the manuscripts into four classes, of which the first
two, it will be seen at a glance, are likely to be the most important
for the textual critic.