No More Learning

Several little details show that of
the three manuscripts _D_, _H49_, and _Lec_ the last most closely
resembles _1633_.

Following the _Elegies_ in _1633_ come a group of letters, epicedes,
and religious poems, just as in _H49_, _Lec_ (_D_ re-groups
them)--_The Storme_, _The Calme_, _To Sir Henry Wotton_, ('Sir, more
than kisses'), _The Crosse_, _Elegie on the Lady Marckham_, _Elegie
on Mris Boulstred_ ('Death I recant'), _To Sr Henry Goodyere_, _To Mr.
Rowland Woodward_, _To Sr Henry Wootton_ ('Here's no more newes'), _To
the Countesse of Bedford_ ('Reason is our Soules left hand'), _To
the Countesse of Bedford_ ('Madam, you have refin'd'), _To Sr Edward
Herbert, at Julyers_. Here _1633_ diverges. Having got into letters
to noble and other people the editor was anxious to continue them,
and accordingly from another source (which I shall discuss later)
he prints a long series of letters to the Countess of Bedford, the
Countess of Huntingdon, Mr. T. W. , and other more intimate friends
(they are 'thou', the Countesses 'you'), and Mrs. Herbert. He perhaps
returns to _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ in those to _The Lady Carey and Mrs.
Essex Riche, from Amyens_, and _To the Countesse of Salisbury_; and,
as in that manuscript, the Palatine and Essex epithalamia (to which,
however, _1633_ adds that written at Lincoln's Inn) are followed
immediately by the long _Obsequies to Lord Harrington_. Three odd
_Elegies_ follow, two of which (_The Autumnall_ and _The Picture_,
'Image of her') occur in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ in the same detached
fashion. Other manuscripts include them among the numbered _Elegies_.
_The Elegie on Prince Henry_, _Psalme 137_ (probably not by Donne),
_Resurrection, imperfect_, _An hymne to the Saints, and to Marquesse
Hamilton_, _An Epitaph upon Shakespeare_ (certainly not by Donne),
_Sapho to Philaenis_, follow in _1633_--a queerly consorted lot. The
_Elegie on Prince Henry_ is taken from the _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_ of
Joshua Sylvester (1612); the rest were possibly taken from some small
commonplace-book.
This would account for the doubtful poems, the only
doubtful poems in _1633_. These past, the close connexion with our
manuscript is resumed. _The Annuntiation_ is followed, as in _H49_,
_Lec_, by _The Litanie_. Thereafter the lyrical pieces begin, as in
these manuscripts, with the song, 'Send home my long strayd eyes
to me. ' This is followed by two pieces which are not in _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_,--the impressive, difficult, and in manuscripts comparatively
rare _Nocturnall upon S. Lucies day_, and the much commoner
_Witchcraft by a picture_. Thereafter the poems follow piece by piece
the order in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_[18] until _The Curse_ is reached. [19]
Then, in what seems to have been the editor's or printer's regular
method of proceeding in this edition, he laid aside the manuscript
from which he was printing the _Songs and Sonets_ to take up another
piece of work that had come to hand, viz. _An Anatomie of the World_
with _A Funerall Elegie_ and _Of the Progresse of the Soule_, which
he prints from the edition of 1625. Without apparent rhyme or reason
these long poems are packed in between _The Curse_ and _The Extasie_.
With the latter poem _1633_ resumes the songs and (with the exception
of _The Undertaking_) follows the order in _Lec_ to _The Dampe_, with
which the series in the manuscripts closes. It has been noted that in
_Lec_, _The Prohibition_ (which in _D_, _H49_ follows _Breake of day_
and precedes _The Anniversarie_) is omitted. This must have been the
case in the manuscript used for _1633_, for it is omitted at this
place and though printed later was probably not derived from this
source.

With _The Dampe_ the manuscript which I am supposing the editor to
have followed in the main probably came to an end. The poems which
follow in _1633_ are of a miscellaneous character and strangely
conjoined. _The Dissolution_ (p.