Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
John Donne
It is right, on the
other hand, to point out that Donne opens one of the _Holy Sonnets_
with the exclamation used here:
Death be not proud!
I have left the question of authorship an open one. Personally I
cannot bring myself to think that it is Donne's.
The sonnet _On the Blessed Virgin Mary_ (19 on the list), 'In that
O Queene of Queenes, thy birth was free,' is included among Donne's
poems in _1635_ and in _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _S96_. There is little doubt
that it is not Donne's but Henry Constable's. It is found in a series
of Spiritual Sonnets by H. C. , in Harl. MS. 7553, f. 41, which were
first published by T. Park in _Heliconia_, ii. 1815, and unless all
of these are to be given to Donne this cannot. It is not in his style,
and Donne more than once denies the Immaculate Conception in the
full Catholic sense of the doctrine. Nothing could more expressly
contradict this sonnet than the lines in the _Second Anniversarie_:
Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid
Joy in not being that, which men have said.
Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
Of the next three poems (20, 21, 22 on the list), the second, the
_Ode_ beginning 'Vengeance will sit above our faults', seems to me
very doubtful, although on second thoughts I have re-transferred
it from the Appendix to the place among the _Divine Poems_ which
it occupies in _1635_. Against its authenticity are the following
considerations: (1) It is not at all in the style of Donne's other
specifically religious poems. The elevated, stoical tone is more like
Jonson's occasional religious pieces than Donne's personal, tormented,
Scholastic _Divine Poems_. (2) Of the manuscripts in which it appears,
_B_, _Cy_, _H40_, _RP31_, _O'F_, _P_, _S_, the best, _RP31_, assigns
it, not to Donne, but to 'Sir Edward Herbert', i. e. Lord Herbert of
Cherbury. [17] Mr. Chambers, indeed, inadvertently stated that in this
manuscript 'it is said to have been written to George Herbert'. The
name 'Sr Edw. Herbert' is written beside the poem, and that in such
cases is meant to indicate the author of the poem. It seems to me
quite possible that it was written by Lord Herbert, but until more
evidence be forthcoming I have let it stand, because (1) the letters
'I. D. ' printed after the poem show that the poem must have been
so initialled in the manuscript from which it was printed, and (2)
because, though not in the style of Donne's later religious poems, it
is somewhat in the style of the philosophical, stoical letter which
Donne addressed to Sir Edward Herbert at the siege of Juliers in 1610.
The poem was possibly composed at the same time. (3) The thought of
the last verse, our ignorance of ourselves, recurs in Donne's poems
and prose.
other hand, to point out that Donne opens one of the _Holy Sonnets_
with the exclamation used here:
Death be not proud!
I have left the question of authorship an open one. Personally I
cannot bring myself to think that it is Donne's.
The sonnet _On the Blessed Virgin Mary_ (19 on the list), 'In that
O Queene of Queenes, thy birth was free,' is included among Donne's
poems in _1635_ and in _B_, _O'F_, _S_, _S96_. There is little doubt
that it is not Donne's but Henry Constable's. It is found in a series
of Spiritual Sonnets by H. C. , in Harl. MS. 7553, f. 41, which were
first published by T. Park in _Heliconia_, ii. 1815, and unless all
of these are to be given to Donne this cannot. It is not in his style,
and Donne more than once denies the Immaculate Conception in the
full Catholic sense of the doctrine. Nothing could more expressly
contradict this sonnet than the lines in the _Second Anniversarie_:
Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid
Joy in not being that, which men have said.
Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
Of the next three poems (20, 21, 22 on the list), the second, the
_Ode_ beginning 'Vengeance will sit above our faults', seems to me
very doubtful, although on second thoughts I have re-transferred
it from the Appendix to the place among the _Divine Poems_ which
it occupies in _1635_. Against its authenticity are the following
considerations: (1) It is not at all in the style of Donne's other
specifically religious poems. The elevated, stoical tone is more like
Jonson's occasional religious pieces than Donne's personal, tormented,
Scholastic _Divine Poems_. (2) Of the manuscripts in which it appears,
_B_, _Cy_, _H40_, _RP31_, _O'F_, _P_, _S_, the best, _RP31_, assigns
it, not to Donne, but to 'Sir Edward Herbert', i. e. Lord Herbert of
Cherbury. [17] Mr. Chambers, indeed, inadvertently stated that in this
manuscript 'it is said to have been written to George Herbert'. The
name 'Sr Edw. Herbert' is written beside the poem, and that in such
cases is meant to indicate the author of the poem. It seems to me
quite possible that it was written by Lord Herbert, but until more
evidence be forthcoming I have let it stand, because (1) the letters
'I. D. ' printed after the poem show that the poem must have been
so initialled in the manuscript from which it was printed, and (2)
because, though not in the style of Donne's later religious poems, it
is somewhat in the style of the philosophical, stoical letter which
Donne addressed to Sir Edward Herbert at the siege of Juliers in 1610.
The poem was possibly composed at the same time. (3) The thought of
the last verse, our ignorance of ourselves, recurs in Donne's poems
and prose.
