No More Learning

The Grolier Club edition only came into my hands when I had
completed my first collation of the printed texts. Had I known
it sooner, or had the edition been more accessible, I should
probably not have ventured on the arduous task of editing
Donne. It is based on the best text, and the editors have been
happier than most in their interpretation and punctuation of
the more difficult passages.

Professor Norton made no use of the manuscripts in preparing
the text, but he added in an appendix an account of the
manuscript which, following him, I have called _N_, and
he gave a list of variants which seemed to him possible
emendations. Later, in the _Child Memorial Volume_ of _Studies
and Notes in Philology and Literature_ (1896), he gave a
somewhat fuller description of _N_ and descriptions of _S_
(the Stephens MS. ) and _Cy_ (the Carnaby MS. ). Of the readings
which Professor Norton noted, several have passed into
my edition on the authority of a wider collation of the
manuscripts. ]

[Footnote 38: _Poems of John Donne Edited By E. K. Chambers.
With An Introduction By George Saintsbury. London and New
York. 1896. _ Of the editions Mr.
Chambers says: 'Nor can it be
said that any one edition always gives the best text; even
for a single poem, sometimes one, sometimes another is to be
preferred, though, as a rule, the edition of _1633_ is the
most reliable, and the readings of _1669_ are in many cases a
return to it' (vol. i, p. xliv). A considerable portion of Mr.
Chambers' edition would seem to have been 'set up' from a copy
of the 1639 edition, the earlier and later readings being then
either incorporated or recorded. The result is that the _1633_
or _1633-35_ readings have been more than once overlooked.
This applies especially to the _Epicedes_ and the _Divine
Poems_.

As with the Grolier Club edition, so with Mr. Chambers'
edition, I have recorded and discussed the chief differences
between my text and his. I have worked with his edition
constantly beside me. I used it for my collations on account
of its convenient numbering of the lines. To Mr. Chambers'
commentary also I owe my first introduction to the wide field
of the manuscripts. His knowledge of seventeenth-century
literature and history, which even in 1896 was extensive, has
directed me in taking up most of the questions of canon and
authorship which I have investigated. It is easy to record
one's points of disagreement with a predecessor; it is more
difficult to estimate accurately how much one owes to his
labours.

Mr.