No More Learning

In 1610 Donne sent to the Lord Chancellor a copy of his
_Pseudo-Martyr_, and the following hitherto unpublished letter shows
in what high esteem he held him:

'As Ryvers though in there Course they are content to serve publique
uses, yett there end is to returne into the Sea from whence they
issued. So, though I should have much Comfort that thys Booke might
give contentment to others, yet my Direct end in ytt was, to make it a
testimony of my gratitude towards your Lordship and an acknowledgement
that those poore sparks of Vnderstandinge or Judgement which are in
mee were derived and kindled from you and owe themselves to you. All
good that ys in ytt, your Lordship may be pleased to accept as yours;
and for the Errors I cannot despayre of your pardon since you have
long since pardond greater faults in mee. '

If Donne had written an _Elegie_ on the death of Lord Ellesmere it
would have been as formally dedicated to his memory as his Elegies to
Lord Harington and Lord Hamilton. But by 1617 he was in orders. His
Muse had in the long poem on Lord Harington, brother to the Countess
of Bedford, 'spoke, and spoke her last'. It was only at the express
instance of Sir Robert Carr that he composed in 1625 his lines on the
death of the Marquis of Hamilton, and he entitled it not an Elegy but
_A Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton_.

It seems to me probable that the _Elegie_, 'Sorrow, who to this
house', was an early and tentative experiment in this kind of poetry,
on the death of some one, we cannot now say whom, perhaps the father
of the Woodwards or some other of his earlier correspondents and
friends.

The _Elegie_ headed _Death_ is also printed in a somewhat puzzling
fashion. In _1633_ it follows the lyrics abruptly with the bald
title _Elegie_. It is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, nor was it in the MS.
resembling this which _1633_ used for the bulk of the poems. In _HN_
also it bears no title indicating the subject of the poem. The
other MSS. all describe it as an _Elegie upon the death of M^{ris}
Boulstred_, and from _1633_ and several MSS.
it appears that it was
sent to the Countess of Bedford with the verse _Letter_ (p. 227), 'You
that are shee and you, that's double shee'. It is possible that the
MSS. are in error and that the dead friend is not Miss Bulstrode
but Lady Markham, for the closing line of the letter compares her to
Judith:

Yet but of _Judith_ no such book as she.

But Judith was, like Lady Markham, a widow. The tone of the poem too
supports this conclusion. The Elegy on Miss Bulstrode lays stress on
her youth, her premature death. In this and the other Elegy
(whose title assigns it to Lady Markham) the stress is laid on the
saintliness and asceticism of life becoming a widow.


PAGE =267=. ELEGIE UPON . . . PRINCE HENRY.

The death of Prince Henry (1594-1612) evoked more elegiac poetry Latin
and English than the death of any single man has probably ever done.
See Nichols's _Progresses of James I_, pp. 504-12.