_ I have
followed
the MSS.
John Donne
so I, hearing him, might grow guilty and he
free. ' 'I should be convicted of treason; he would go free as a spy
who had spoken treason only to draw me out'. See the accounts of
trials of suspected traitors before Walsingham and others. It is on
this passage I base my view that Donne's companion is not merely a
bore, but a spy, or at any rate is ready to turn informer to earn a
crown or two.
PAGE =164=, l. 148. _complementall thankes. _ The word 'complement'
or 'compliment' had a bad sense: 'We have a word now denizened and
brought into familiar use among us, Complement; and for the most part,
in an ill sense; so it is, when the heart of the speaker doth not
answer his tongue; but God forbid but a true heart, and a faire
tongue might very well consist together: As vertue itself receives
an addition, by being in a faire body, so do good intentions of the
heart, by being expressed in faire language. That man aggravates his
condemnation that gives me good words, and meanes ill; but he gives me
a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet, he gives me precious wine,
and in a clear glasse, that intends well, and expresses his good
intentions well too. ' _Sermons_ 80. 18. 176.
l. 164. _th'huffing braggart, puft Nobility.
_ 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.
free. ' 'I should be convicted of treason; he would go free as a spy
who had spoken treason only to draw me out'. See the accounts of
trials of suspected traitors before Walsingham and others. It is on
this passage I base my view that Donne's companion is not merely a
bore, but a spy, or at any rate is ready to turn informer to earn a
crown or two.
PAGE =164=, l. 148. _complementall thankes. _ The word 'complement'
or 'compliment' had a bad sense: 'We have a word now denizened and
brought into familiar use among us, Complement; and for the most part,
in an ill sense; so it is, when the heart of the speaker doth not
answer his tongue; but God forbid but a true heart, and a faire
tongue might very well consist together: As vertue itself receives
an addition, by being in a faire body, so do good intentions of the
heart, by being expressed in faire language. That man aggravates his
condemnation that gives me good words, and meanes ill; but he gives me
a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet, he gives me precious wine,
and in a clear glasse, that intends well, and expresses his good
intentions well too. ' _Sermons_ 80. 18. 176.
l. 164. _th'huffing braggart, puft Nobility.
_ 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.
