No More Learning

THE SECOND ANNIVERSARIE.

PAGE =252=, l. 43.

_These Hymnes thy issue, may encrease so long,
As till Gods great Venite change the song_.

This is the punctuation of the editions _1612_ to _1633_. Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor follow the later editions,
_1635-69_, in dropping the comma after 'issue', which thus becomes
object to 'encrease'. 'These hymns may encrease thy issue so long,
&c. ' This does not seem to me to harmonize so well with l. 44 as the
older punctuation of l. 43. 'These Hymns, which are thy issue,
may encrease'(used intransitively, as in the phrase 'increase and
multiply') 'so long as till, &c. ' This suggests that the Hymns
themselves will live and sound in men's ears, quickening in them
virtue and religion, till they are drowned in the greater music of
God's _Venite_. The modern version is compatible with the death of the
hymns, but the survival of their issue.

l. 48.
_To th'only Health, to be Hydroptique so. _ Here again Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor have agreed in following the
editions _1625-69_ against the earlier ones, _1612_ and _1621_. These
have connected 'to be Hydroptic so' with what follows:

to be hydroptic so,
Forget this rotten world . . .

But surely the full stop after 'so' in _1612_ is right, and 'to be
Hydroptique so' is Donne's definition of 'th'only Health'. 'Thirst is
the symptom of dropsy; and a continual thirst for God's safe-sealing
bowl is the best symptom of man's spiritual health. '

'Gods safe-sealing bowl' is of course the Eucharist: 'When thou
commest to this seal of thy peace, the Sacrament, pray that God will
give thee that light, that may direct and establish thee, in necessary
and fundamentall things: that is the light of faith to see, that the
Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action; But
for the manner, how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there, wait his
leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee. ' _Sermons, &c. _

PAGE =253=, l. 72. _Because shee was the forme, that made it live_:
i. e. the soul of the world. Aquinas, after discussion, accepts the
Aristotelian view that the soul is united to the body as its form,
that in virtue of which the body lives and functions. 'Illud enim quo
primo aliquid operatur, est forma eius cui operatio attribuitur .