No More Learning

196, l. 58.

PAGE =325=, VII. 6. _dearth. _ This reading of the Westmoreland MS. is
surely right notwithstanding the consensus of the editions and other
MSS. in reading 'death'. The poet is enumerating various modes in
which death comes; death itself cannot be one of these. The 'death'
in l. 8 perhaps explains the error; it certainly makes the error more
obvious.

VIII. 7. _in us, not immediately. _ I have interjected a comma after
'us' in order to bring out distinctly the Scholastic doctrine of
Angelic knowledge on which this sonnet turns.
See note on _The Dreame_
with the quotation from Aquinas. What Donne says here is: 'If our
minds or thoughts are known to the saints in heaven as to angels, not
immediately, but by circumstances and signs (such as blushing or a
quickened pulsation) which are apparent in us, how shall the sincerity
of my grief be known to them, since these signs are found in lovers,
conjurers and pharisees? ' 'Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae
cogitationes cordium. ' 'God alone who put grief in my heart knows its
sincerity. '

l. 10. _vile blasphemous Conjurers. _ The 'vilde' of the MSS. is
obviously the right reading. The form too is that which Donne used if
we may judge by the MSS. , and by the fact that in _Elegie XIV: Julia_
he rhymes thus:

and (which is worse than vilde)
Sticke jealousie in wedlock, her owne childe
Scapes not the showers of envie.

By printing 'vile' the old and modern editions destroy the rhyme. In
the sonnet indeed the rhyme is not affected, and accordingly, as I am
not prepared to change every 'vile' to 'vilde' in the poems, I have
printed 'vile'. _W_ writes vile. Probably one might use either form.

PAGE =326=, IX.