The _Losely
Manuscripts_
(ed.
John Donne
_ l.
7.
_a Lay Mans Genius_: i.
e.
his Guardian
Angel. The 'Lay Man' is opposed to the 'Poet'. Donne is very familiar
with the Catholic doctrine of Guardian Angels and recurs to it
repeatedly. Compare Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, III. i. 55.
l. 11. _Wright then. _ The version of this poem in _W_ is probably
made from Donne's autograph. One of his characteristic spellings is
'wright' for 'write'.
The _Losely Manuscripts_ (ed. Kempe, 1836), in
which some of Donne's letters are printed from the originals, show
this spelling on every page. It is perhaps worth noting that the
irregular past participle similarly spelt, i. e. 'wrought', has
occasionally misled editors by its identity of form with the past
participle of the verb 'work', which has 'gh' legitimately. Thus Mr.
Beeching (_A Selection from the Poetry of Samuel Daniel and Michael
Drayton_, 1899) prints:
Read in my face a volume of despairs,
The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe,
Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares,
Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.
Here 'wrought' should be 'wrote', used, as frequently, for 'written'.
In Professor Saintsbury's _Patrick Carey_ (Caroline Poets, II. ) we
read:
Who writ this song would little care
Although at the end his name were wrought.
i. e. 'wrote'.
See also Donne's _The Litanie_, i. p. 342, l.
Angel. The 'Lay Man' is opposed to the 'Poet'. Donne is very familiar
with the Catholic doctrine of Guardian Angels and recurs to it
repeatedly. Compare Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, III. i. 55.
l. 11. _Wright then. _ The version of this poem in _W_ is probably
made from Donne's autograph. One of his characteristic spellings is
'wright' for 'write'.
The _Losely Manuscripts_ (ed. Kempe, 1836), in
which some of Donne's letters are printed from the originals, show
this spelling on every page. It is perhaps worth noting that the
irregular past participle similarly spelt, i. e. 'wrought', has
occasionally misled editors by its identity of form with the past
participle of the verb 'work', which has 'gh' legitimately. Thus Mr.
Beeching (_A Selection from the Poetry of Samuel Daniel and Michael
Drayton_, 1899) prints:
Read in my face a volume of despairs,
The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe,
Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares,
Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.
Here 'wrought' should be 'wrote', used, as frequently, for 'written'.
In Professor Saintsbury's _Patrick Carey_ (Caroline Poets, II. ) we
read:
Who writ this song would little care
Although at the end his name were wrought.
i. e. 'wrote'.
See also Donne's _The Litanie_, i. p. 342, l.
