' Bacon, _New
Atlantis_
(1658), 22 (O.
John Donne
ll. 71-2. _Who hath seene one, &c. _ 'Who hath seen one, e. g.
Twickenham, which your dwelling there makes a Paradise, would fain see
you too, as whoever had been in Paradise would not have failed to seek
out the Cherubim. ' The construction is elliptical. Compare:
Wee'had had a Saint, have now a holiday.
P. 286, l. 44.
The Cherubim are specially mentioned (although the Seraphim are the
highest order) because they are traditionally the beautiful angels:
'The Spirit of Chastity . . . in the likenesse of a faire beautifull
Cherubine.
' Bacon, _New Atlantis_ (1658), 22 (O. E. D. ).
PAGE =193=. TO S^r EDWARD HERBERT. AT IULYERS.
Edward Herbert, first Baron of Cherbury (1563-1648), the eldest son of
Donne's friend Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, had not long returned from his
first visit to France when he set out again in 1610 with Lord Chandos
'to pass to the city of Juliers which the Prince of Orange resolved to
besiege. Making all haste thither we found the siege newly begun; the
Low Country army assisted by 4,000 English under the command of
Sir Edward Cecil. We had not long been there when the Marquis de
la Chartre, instead of Henry IV, who was killed by that villain
Ravaillac, came with a brave French army thither'. _Autobiography_,
ed. Sidney Lee. The city was held by the Archduke Leopold for the
Emperor. The Dutch, French, and English were besieging the town in the
interest of the Protestant candidates, the Elector of Brandenburg, and
the Palatine of Neuburg. The siege marked the beginning of the Thirty
Years' War.
