No More Learning

These two groups of manuscripts, which have come down to us, thus seem
to represent the two principal sources of the edition of _1633_. What
other poems that edition contains were derived either from previously
printed editions (The _Anniversaries_ and the _Elegy on Prince Henry_)
or were got from more miscellaneous and less trustworthy sources.


A third manuscript collection of Donne's poems is of interest because
it seems very probable that it or a similar collection came into the
hands of the printer before the second edition of 1635 was issued. A
considerable number of the errors, or inferior readings, of the
later editions seem to be traceable to its influence. At least it is
remarkable how often when _1635_ and the subsequent editions depart
from _1633_ and the general tradition of the manuscripts they have
the support of this manuscript and this manuscript alone. This is the
manuscript which I have called

_O'F_, because it was at one time in the possession of the Rev. T. R.
O'Flaherty, of Capel, near Dorking, a great student of Donne, and
a collector. He contributed several notes on Donne to _Notes and
Queries_. I do not know of any more extensive work by him on the
subject.

This manuscript has been already described by Mr. R. Warwick Bond in
the Catalogue of Ellis and Elvey, 1903. It is a large but somewhat
indiscriminate collection, made apparently with a view to publication.
The title-page states that it contains 'The Poems of D. J. Donne (not
yet imprinted) consisting of

Divine Poems, beginning Pag. 1
Satyres 57
Elegies 113
Epicedes and Obsequies 161
Letters to severall personages 189
Songs and Sonnets 245
Epithalamions 317
Epigrams 337
With his paradoxes and problems 421
finished this 12 of October 1632. '

The reader will notice how far this arrangement agrees with, how far
it differs from, that adopted in 1635.

Of the twenty-eight new poems, genuine, doubtful, and spurious, added
in _1635_, this manuscript contains twenty, a larger number than I
have found in any other single manuscript. An examination of the text
of these does not, however, make it certain that all of them were
derived from this source or from this source only. The text, for
example, of the _Elegie XI. The Bracelet_, in _1635_, is evidently
taken from a manuscript differing in important respects from _O'F_ and
resembling closely _Cy_ and _P_. _Elegie XII_, also, _His parting
from her_, can hardly have been derived from _O'F_, as _1635_ gives
an incomplete, _O'F_ has an entire, version of the poem. In others,
however, e. g. _Elegie XIII. Julia_; _Elegie XVI. On his Mistris_;
_Satyre_, 'Men write that love and reason disagree,' it will be seen
that the text of 1635 agrees more closely with _O'F_ than with any of
the other manuscripts cited. The second of these, _On his Mistris_, is
a notable case, and so are the four _Divine Sonnets_ added in _1635_.