The inscription ran:
{ ANNAE }
GEORGII} { MORE de } {Filiae
ROBERT} {Lothesley} {Soror.
{ ANNAE }
GEORGII} { MORE de } {Filiae
ROBERT} {Lothesley} {Soror.
John Donne
'Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament;
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. ' 2 Cor. iii. 6.
If 'thy' is to be retained, then 'spirit' must be pronounced 'sprit'.
Commentators on Shakespeare declare that this happens, but it is
very difficult to prove it. When Donne needs a monosyllable he uses
'spright'; 'spirit' he rhymes as disyllable with 'merit'.
PAGE =330=, XVII. 1. _she whom I lov'd. _ This is the reference to his
wife's death which dates these poems. Anne More, Donne's wife, died
on August 15, 1617, on the seventh day after the birth of her twelfth
child. She was buried in the church of St. Clement Danes. Her monument
disappeared when the Church was rebuilt.
The inscription ran:
{ ANNAE }
GEORGII} { MORE de } {Filiae
ROBERT} {Lothesley} {Soror.
WILIELMI} { Equitum } {Nept.
CHRISTOPHERI} { Aurator } {Pronept.
Foeminae lectissimae, dilectissimaeq'
Conjugi charissimae, castissimaeq'
Matri piissimae, indulgentissimaeq'
xv annis in conjugio transactis,
vii post xii partum (quorum vii superstant) dies
immani febre correptae
(quod hoc saxum fari jussit
Ipse prae dolore infans)
Maritus (miserrimum dictu) olim charae charus
cineribus cineres spondet suos,
novo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc loco sociandos,
JOHANNE DONNE
Sacr: Theol: Profess:
Secessit
An^o xxxiii aetat. suae et sui Jesu
CI? . DC. XVII.
Aug. xv
XVIII. It is clear enough why this sonnet was not published. It would
have revealed Donne, already three years in orders, as still conscious
of all the difficulties involved in a choice between the three
divisions of Christianity--Rome, Geneva (made to include Germany), and
England. This is the theme of his earliest serious poem, the _Satyre
III_, and the subject recurs in the letters and sermons. Donne entered
the Church of England not from a conviction that it, and it alone, was
the true Church, but because he had first reached the position that
there is salvation in each: 'You know I never fettered nor imprisoned
the word Religion; not straitening it Frierly _ad Religiones
factitias_, (as the _Romans_ call well their orders of Religion) nor
immuring it in a Rome, or a _Wittenberg_, or a _Geneva_; they are all
virtuall beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find clay hearts,
they harden them, and moulder them into dust; and they entender and
mollifie waxen. They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles;
and that they are connatural pieces of one circle. ' _Letters_, p.
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. ' 2 Cor. iii. 6.
If 'thy' is to be retained, then 'spirit' must be pronounced 'sprit'.
Commentators on Shakespeare declare that this happens, but it is
very difficult to prove it. When Donne needs a monosyllable he uses
'spright'; 'spirit' he rhymes as disyllable with 'merit'.
PAGE =330=, XVII. 1. _she whom I lov'd. _ This is the reference to his
wife's death which dates these poems. Anne More, Donne's wife, died
on August 15, 1617, on the seventh day after the birth of her twelfth
child. She was buried in the church of St. Clement Danes. Her monument
disappeared when the Church was rebuilt.
The inscription ran:
{ ANNAE }
GEORGII} { MORE de } {Filiae
ROBERT} {Lothesley} {Soror.
WILIELMI} { Equitum } {Nept.
CHRISTOPHERI} { Aurator } {Pronept.
Foeminae lectissimae, dilectissimaeq'
Conjugi charissimae, castissimaeq'
Matri piissimae, indulgentissimaeq'
xv annis in conjugio transactis,
vii post xii partum (quorum vii superstant) dies
immani febre correptae
(quod hoc saxum fari jussit
Ipse prae dolore infans)
Maritus (miserrimum dictu) olim charae charus
cineribus cineres spondet suos,
novo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc loco sociandos,
JOHANNE DONNE
Sacr: Theol: Profess:
Secessit
An^o xxxiii aetat. suae et sui Jesu
CI? . DC. XVII.
Aug. xv
XVIII. It is clear enough why this sonnet was not published. It would
have revealed Donne, already three years in orders, as still conscious
of all the difficulties involved in a choice between the three
divisions of Christianity--Rome, Geneva (made to include Germany), and
England. This is the theme of his earliest serious poem, the _Satyre
III_, and the subject recurs in the letters and sermons. Donne entered
the Church of England not from a conviction that it, and it alone, was
the true Church, but because he had first reached the position that
there is salvation in each: 'You know I never fettered nor imprisoned
the word Religion; not straitening it Frierly _ad Religiones
factitias_, (as the _Romans_ call well their orders of Religion) nor
immuring it in a Rome, or a _Wittenberg_, or a _Geneva_; they are all
virtuall beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find clay hearts,
they harden them, and moulder them into dust; and they entender and
mollifie waxen. They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles;
and that they are connatural pieces of one circle. ' _Letters_, p.
