Possibly
the 'a' has crept in
and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands.
and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands.
John Donne
l. 8. _these meanes, as I,_ It is difficult to say whether the 'these'
of the editions and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ or the 'those' of the rest of
the MSS. is preferable. The construction with either in the sense of
'the same as', 'such as', was not uncommon:
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes. _ I. ii. 174.
l. 17. _Who hath a plow-land, &c. _ This has nothing to do, as Grosart
seems to think, with the name for a certain measurement of land in the
north of England corresponding to a hide in the south. A 'plow-land'
here is an arable or cultivated field.
Possibly the 'a' has crept in
and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands. '
Otherwise 'Who hath' is to be slurred in reading the line. The meaning
of the passage seems to be that though a man puts all his own seed
into his land, he is quite willing to reap the corn which has sprung
from others' seed, brought thither, it may be, by wind or birds.
l. 30. _To runne all countries, a wild roguery. _ The Oxford English
Dictionary quotes this line, giving to 'roguery' the meaning of 'a
knavish, rascally act'. But Grosart is certainly right in explaining
it as 'vagrancy'. In love, Donne does not wish to be a captive bound
to one, but he does not wish on the other hand to be a vagrant with
no settled abode. The O. E. D. dates the poem c. 1620, which is much too
late. Donne was not writing in this manner after he took orders. It
cannot be later than 1601, and is probably earlier.
