That is the sonnet _To the Lady
Magdalen
Herbert: of St.
John Donne
D.
_ which I have cited in the
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _epistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy. ' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses. [2]
But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D. _ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9.
That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D. _, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand. ' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i. e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day. '
What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:
and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?
Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven. ' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i. e.
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _epistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy. ' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses. [2]
But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D. _ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9.
That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D. _, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand. ' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i. e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day. '
What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:
and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?
Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven. ' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i. e.
