No More Learning

onderhouden te hebben met de gedachtenisse van Doctor Donne,
tegenwoordigh Deken van St Pauls tot Londen, ende, door dit
rijckelick beroep, volgens 't Engelsch gebruyck, in hooghen
ansien, in veel hooger door den rijckdom van sijn gadeloos
vernuft ende noch onvergelijckerer welsprekentheit op stoel.
Eertijts ten dienst van de grooten ten hove gevoedt, in de
werelt gewortelt, in de studien geslepen, in de dictkonst
vermaerdt, meer als yemand. Van die groene tacken hebben veel
weelderige vruchten onder de liefhebbers leggen meucken, diese
nu bynaer verrot van ouderdom uytdeylen, my synde voor den
besten slag van mispelen ter hand geraeckt by halve vijf en
twintig, door toedoen van eenighe mijne besondere Heeren ende
vrienden van die natie. Onder de onze hebb ick geene konnen
uytkiesen, diese voor U. E. behoorden medegedeelt te werden,
slaende deze dichter ganschelijck op U. E. manieren van invall
ende uitspraeck. ]

[Footnote 16: This is not the only manuscript in which this
poem appears among the _Elegies_ following immediately on that
entitled _The Picture_, 'Here take my picture, though I bid
farewell. ' It is thus placed in _1633_. The adhesion of two
poems in a number of otherwise distinct manuscripts may mean,
I think, that they were written about the same time. ]

[Footnote 17: There are, however, grounds for the conjecture
besides the contents. The Westmoreland MS. was secured, Mr.
Gosse writes me, when the library of the Earls of Westmoreland
was disposed of, about the year 1892.
'The interest of this
library was that it had not been disturbed since the early
part of the seventeenth century. With the Westmoreland MS.
of Donne's Poems was attached a very fine copy of Donne's
_Pseudomartyr_, which contained, in what was certainly Donne's
handwriting, the words "Ex dono authoris: Row: Woodward" and
a motto in Spanish "De juegos el mejor es con la hoja". There
can be no doubt, I think, that these two books belonged to
Rowland Woodward and were given him by Donne. ' But is it
likely that after 1617 Donne would give even to a friend a
manuscript containing the most reprehensible of his earlier
_Elegies_ and the _Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inn_? It
seems to me more probable that the manuscript contains two
distinct collections, made at different times. The one is
a transcript from an early collection, quite probably
Woodward's, containing Satires, Elegies, and one Epithalamion.
To this the Divine Poems have been added. ]

[Footnote 18: With the grouping of _1635_ I have adopted
generally its order within the groups, but the reader will see
quite easily what is the order of the _Songs_ in _1633_ and
in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, if he will turn to the Contents and,
beginning at _The Message_ (p. 43), will follow down to _A
Valediction: forbidding mourning_ (p. 49). He must then turn
back to the beginning and follow the list down till he comes
to _The Curse_ (p. 41), and then resume at _The Extasie_ (p.
51). If the seven poems, _The Message_ to _A Valediction_:
_forbidding mourning_, were brought to the beginning, the
order of the _Songs and Sonets_ in _1635-69_ would be the same
as in _1633_.

The editor of _1633_ began a process, which was carried on
in _1635_, of naming poems unnamed in the manuscripts, and
re-naming some that already had titles.