I smile to think how fond the Italians are,
To judge their
artificial
gardens rare,
When London in thy cheekes can shew them heere
Roses and Lillies growing all the yeere.
John Donne
_ I have followed the MSS.
in inserting 'th'' and taking 'braggart' as a noun. It would be
more easy to omit the article than to insert. Moreover 'braggart' is
commoner as a noun. The O.E.D. gives no example of the adjectival use
earlier than 1613. Compare:
The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, i. 2.
PAGE =165=, l. 169. _your waxen garden_ or _yon waxen garden_--it
is impossible to say which Donne wrote. The reference is to the
artificial gardens in wax exhibited apparently by Italian puppet or
'motion' exhibitors.
Compare:
I smile to think how fond the Italians are,
To judge their
artificial
gardens rare,
When London in thy cheekes can shew them heere
Roses and Lillies growing all the yeere.
Drayton, _Heroical Epistles_ (1597), _Edward IV to Jane Shore_.
l. 176. _Baloune._ A game played with a large wind-ball or football
struck to and fro with the arm or foot.
l. 179. _and I, (God pardon mee.)_ This, the reading of the _1633_
edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping
of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from _1639_ onwards, has
adopted a reading of his own:
and aye--God pardon me--
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them.
But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is not
_his_ fault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon
them!' would be the appropriate exclamation.
