No More Learning

You greet him with 'nobility in possession', with 'royalty in
expectation', as being already thane of Cawdor, as to be king
hereafter. Shakespeare's 'noble having' is the opposite of Donne's
'noble wanting'.

One is tempted to put, as Chambers does, an emphasizing comma after
'honour' as well as 'fortune'; but the antithesis is between 'fortune'
and 'honour wanting fortune'.

'Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he
affected was built upon true Worth, esteeming Fame more than Riches,
and Noble actions far above Nobility it self. ' Fulke Greville's _Life
of Sidney_, c. iii. p. 38 (_Tudor and Stuart Library_).


PAGE =216=. TO M^{rs} M. H.

I. e. Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, daughter of Sir Richard Newport, mother of
Sir Edward Herbert (Lord Herbert of Cherbury), and of George Herbert
the poet.
For her friendship with Donne, see Walton's _Life of Mr.
George Herbert_ (1670), Gosse's _Life and Letters of John Donne_, i.
162 f. , and what is said in the _Introduction_ to this volume and
the Introductory Note to the _Elegies_. In 1608 she married Sir John
Danvers. Her funeral sermon was preached by Donne in 1627.

PAGE =217=, l. 27. _For, speech of ill, and her, thou must abstaine. _
The O. E. D. gives no example of 'abstain' thus used without 'from'
before the object, and it is tempting with _1635-69_ and all the MSS.
to change 'For' to 'From'. But none of the MSS. has great authority
textually, and the 'For' in _1633_ is too carefully comma'd off to
suggest a mere slip.