No More Learning

Shirley Harris, Oxford. On the cover of brown leather is stamped the
royal arms of James I. On p. 1 is written, '1623 me possidet Hen.
Champernowne de Dartington in Devonia, generosus. ' Two other members
of this old, and still extant, Devonshire family have owned the
volume, as also Sir Edward Seymour (Knight Baronett) and Bridgett
Brookbrige. The poems are written in a small, clear hand, and in
Elizabethan character. Captain Harris has had a careful transcript of
the poems made, and he allowed me after collating the original with
the transcript to keep the latter by me for a long time.

The collection is in the nature of a commonplace-book, and includes
a prose letter to Raleigh, and a good many poems by other poets than
Donne, but the bulk of the volume is occupied with his poems,[25] and
most of the poems are signed 'J. D. Finis. ' The date of the collection
is between 1619, when the poem _When he went with the Lo Doncaster_
was written, and 1623, the date on the title-page. Neither for text
nor for canon is _P_ an authority, but the very carelessness
with which it is written makes its testimony to certain readings
indisputable. It makes no suggestion of conscious editing. In certain
poems its text is identical with that of _Cy_, even to absurd errors.
It sometimes, however, supports readings which are otherwise confined
to _O'F_ and the later editions of the poem, showing that these may be
older than 1632-5.


_Cy. _ The Carnaby MS. consists of one hundred folio pages bound in
flexible vellum, and is now in the Harvard College Library, Boston.
It is by no means an exhaustive collection; the poems are chaotically
arranged; the text seems to be careless, and the spelling unusually
erratic; but most of the poems it contains are genuine. [26] This
manuscript is not as a whole identical with _P_, but some of the poems
it contains must have come from that or from a common source.


_JC. _ The John Cave MS. is a small collection of Donne's poems now
in the possession of Mr. Elkin Matthews, who has kindly allowed me
to collate it. It was formerly in Mr. O'Flaherty's possession. The
original possessor had been a certain John Cave, and the volume opens
with the following poem, written, it will be seen, while Donne was
still alive:

Oh how it joys me that this quick brain'd Age
can nere reach thee (Donn) though it should engage
at once all its whole stock of witt to finde
out of thy well plac'd words thy more pure minde.
Noe, wee are bastard Aeglets all; our eyes
could not endure the splendor that would rise
from hence like rays from out a cloud. That Man
who first found out the Perspective which can
make starrs at midday plainly seen, did more
then could the whole Chaos of Arte<s> before
or since; If I might have my wish 't shuld bee
That Man might be reviv'd againe to see
If hee could such another frame, whereby
the minde might bee made see as farr as th' eye.
Then might we hope to finde thy sense, till then
The Age of Ignorance I'le still condemn.