No More Learning

]

[Footnote 25: Of 128 items in the volume 99 are by Donne, and
I have excluded some that might be claimed for him. The poems
certainly not by Donne are 'Wrong not deare Empresse of my
heart', 'Good folkes for gold or hire', 'Love bred of glances
twixt amorous eyes', 'Worthy Sir, Tis not a coat of gray'
(here marked 'J. D'. ), 'Censure not sharply then' (marked 'B.
J. '), 'Whosoever seeks my love to know', 'Thou sendst me prose
and rimes' (see II. p. 166), 'An English lad long wooed
a lasse of Wales', 'Marcella now grown old hath broke her
glasse', 'Pretus of late had office borne in London', _To
his mistresse_ ('O love whose power and might'), _Her answer_
('Your letter I receaved'), _The Mar: B. to the Lady Fe.
Her. _ ('Victorious beauty though your eyes')--a poem generally
attributed to the Earl of Pembroke, _A poem_ ('Absence heare
my protestation'), 'True love findes witt but hee whom witt
doth move', Earle of Pembroke 'If her disdain', Ben Ruddier
'Till love breeds love', 'Good madam Fowler doe not truble
mee', 'Oh faithlesse world; and the most faithlesse part, A
womans hart', 'As unthrifts greeve in straw for their pawn'd
beds' (marked 'J. D. '), 'Why shuld not pilgrimes to thy body
come' (marked 'F. B. '), _On Mrs.
Bulstreed_, 'Mee thinkes
death like one laughing lies', 'When this fly liv'd shee us'd
to play' (marked 'Cary'), _The Epitaph_ ('Underneath this
sable hearse'), a couple of long heroical epistles (with notes
appended) entitled _Sir Philip Sidney to the Lady Penelope
Rich_ and _The Lady Penelope Rich to Sir Philipe Sidney_. The
latter epistle after some lines gives way quite abruptly to a
different poem, a fragment of an elegy, which I have printed
in Appendix C, p. 463. ]

[Footnote 26: The exceptions are one poor epigram:

Oh silly John surprised with joy
For Joy hath made thee silly
Joy to enjoy thy sweetest Jone
Jone whiter than the Lillie;

and two elegies, generally assigned to F. Beaumont, 'I may
forget to eate' and 'As unthrifts greive in straw'. ]

[Footnote 27: The note may point to some connexion of the MS.
with the Harington family. The MS. contains an unusually large
number of poems addressed to the Countess of Bedford, and
ascribes, quite probably, the Elegy 'Death be not proud' to
the Countess herself. ]

[Footnote 28: The poems not by Donne are _A Satire: To Sr
Nicholas Smith_, 1602 ('Sleep next society'); Sir Thomas
Overbury's 'Each woman is a Breefe of Womankind' and his
epitaph 'The spann of my daies measurd, here I rest'; a poem
headed _Bash_, beginning 'I know not how it comes to pass';
_Verses upon Bishop Fletcher who married a woman of France_
('If any aske what Tarquin ment to marrie'); _Fletcher Bishop
of London_ ('It was a question in Harroldrie'); 'Mistres
Aturney scorning long to brooke'; 'Wonder of Beautie, Goddesse
of my sence'; 'Faire eyes doe not thinke scorne to read
of Love'; two sonnets apparently by Sir Thomas Roe; six
consecutive poems by Sir John Roe (see pp. 401-6, 408-10);
'Absence heare thou,'; _To the Countess of Rutland_ ('Oh may
my verses pleasing be'); _To Sicknesse_ ('Whie disease dost
thou molest'); 'A Taylor thought a man of upright dealing';
'Unto that sparkling wit, that spirit of fier'; 'There hath
beene one that strove gainst natures power. ']

[Footnote 29: _Satyra Sexta_ ('Sleepe next Society'), _Elegia
Undecima_ ('True Love findes wit'), _Elegia Vicesima_ ('Behold
a wonder': see Grosart ii. 249), _Elegia Vicesima Secunda_
('As unthrifts mourne'), _Elegia vicesima septima_ ('Deare
Tom: Tell her'), _To Mr. Ben: Jonson_ 9? _Novembris 1603_ ('If
great men wronge me'), _To Mr. Ben: Jonson_ ('The state
and mens affairs'), 'Deare Love, continue nice and chaste',
'Wherefore peepst thou envious Daye', 'Great and good, if she
deride me', _To the Blessed Virgin Marie_ ('In that o Queene
of Queenes'), 'What if I come to my Mistresse bed', 'Thou
sentst to me a heart as sound', 'Believe your glasse', _A
Paradox of a Painted Face_ ('Not kisse!