No More Learning

PAGE =212=. TO M^r J. L.

Of the J. L. of this and the letter which follows the next, nothing
has been unearthed. He clearly belonged to the North of England,
beyond the Trent.


TO M^r B. B.

Grosart conjectures that this was Basil Brooke (1576-1646? ), a
Catholic, who was knighted in 1604. In 1644 he was committed to the
Tower by Parliament and in 1646 imprisoned in the King's Bench. He
translated _Entertainments for Lent_ from the French. He was not
a brother of Christopher and Samuel. The identification is only a
conjecture.
The tenor of the poem is very similar to that addressed to
Mr. S. B.

PAGE =213=, l. 18. _widowhed. _ _W_ here clearly gives us the form
which Donne used. The rhyme requires it and the poet has used it
elsewhere:

And call chast widowhead Virginitie.
_The Litanie_, xii. 108.

ll. 19-22. As punctuated in the old editions these lines are somewhat
ambiguous:

My Muse, (for I had one) because I'am cold,
Divorc'd her self, the cause being in me,
That I can take no new in Bigamye,
Not my will only but power doth withhold.

Chambers and the Grolier Club editor, by putting a full stop or
semi-colon after 'the cause being in me', connect these words with
what precedes. This makes the first two lines verbose ('the cause
being in me' repeating 'because I'am cold') and the last two obscure.
I regard 'the cause being in me' as an explanatory participial phrase
qualifying what follows.