No More Learning

an Elegie, _1633_: one Elegy, _1640_;

91-2.

Though every pen should share a distinct part,
Yet art thou Theme enough to tyre all Art;
_1633_: _omit 1640_.

Some of these differences are trifling, but in several instances (3,
8, 50, 59, 66, 91-2) the 1633 text is so much better that it seems
probable that the poem was printed in 1640 from an early, unrevised
version. In 87. 'the' _1633_, _1640_ should be 'thee'.

Sir Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), was a young man
of twenty-one when Donne died, and succeeded his father in the year
in which this poem was published. He had been educated at Trinity
College, Dublin. 'His first years of reason', Wood says, 'were spent
in poetry and polite learning, into the first of which he made divers
plausible sallies, which caused him therefore to be admired by the
poets of those times, particularly by Ben Jonson . . . by Edm. Waller of
Beaconsfield . . . and by Sir John Suckling, who afterwards brought him
into his poem called _The Session of Poets_ thus,

He was of late so gone with divinity,
That he had almost forgot his poetry,
Though to say the truth (and Apollo did know it)
He might have been both his priest and his poet.
'

But Falkland is best known through his friendship with Clarendon,
whose account of him is classical: 'With these advantages' (of birth
and fortune) 'he had one great disadvantage (which in the first
entrance into the world is attended with too much prejudice) in his
person and presence, which was in no degree attractive or promising.
His stature was low, and smaller than most men; his motion not
graceful; and his aspect so far from inviting, that it had somewhat
in it of simplicity; and his voice the worst of the three, and so
untuned, that instead of reconciling, it offended the ear, so that
nobody would have expected music from that tongue; and sure no man
was less beholden to nature for its recommendation into the world:
but then no man sooner or more disappointed this general and customary
prejudice: that little person and small stature was quickly found to
contain a great heart, a courage so keen, and a nature so fearless,
that no composition of the strongest limbs, and most harmonious and
proportioned presence and strength, ever more disposed any man to
the greatest enterprise; it being his greatest weakness to be too
solicitous for such adventures: and that untuned voice and tongue
easily discovered itself to be supplied and governed by a mind and
understanding so excellent that the wit and weight of all he said
carried another kind of lustre and admiration in it, and even another
kind of acceptation from the persons present, than any ornament of
delivery could reasonably promise itself, or is usually attended with;
and his disposition and nature was so gentle and obliging, so much
delighted in courtesy, kindness, and generosity, that all mankind
could not but admire and love him. ' _The Life of Edward Earl of
Clarendon_ (Oxford, 1827) i. 42-50. Coming from him, Falkland's
poem is an interesting testimony to the influence of Donne's poetry,
presence, and character.

Jaspar Mayne (1604-72), author of _The City Match_, was a student and
graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, a poet, dramatist, and divine. He
wrote complimentary verses on the Earl of Pembroke, Charles I, Queen
Henrietta, Cartwright, and Ben Jonson--all, like those on Donne,
very bad. He was the translator of the Epigrams ascribed to Donne and
published with some of his _Paradoxes, Problemes, Essays, Characters_
in 1651.

Arthur Wilson (1595-1652), historian and dramatist, author of _The
Inconstant Lady_ and _The Swisser_, had in 1633 just completed a
rather belated course at Trinity College, Oxford, whither he had gone
after leaving the service of the third Earl of Essex. For Wilson's
_Life_ see D. N. B. and Feuillerat: _The Swisser . . . avec une
Introduction et des Notes_, Paris, 1904.