The Burley Manuscript [1 ed.] 9781526104502, 9781526104489

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The Burley manuscript

The Manchester Spenser is a monograph and text series devoted to historical and textual approaches to Edmund Spenser – to his life, times, places, works and ­contemporaries. A growing body of work in Spenser and Renaissance studies, fresh with confidence and curiosity and based on solid historical research, is being written in response to a general sense that our ability to interpret texts is becoming limited without the ­excavation of further knowledge. So the importance of research in nearby disciplines is quickly being recognised, and interest renewed: history, archaeology, religious or theological history, book history, translation, lexicography, commentary and glossary – these require ­treatment for and by students of Spenser. The Manchester Spenser, to feed, foster and build on these refreshed attitudes, aims to publish reference tools, critical, historical, biographical and archaeological monographs on or related to Spenser, from several disciplines, and to publish editions of primary sources and classroom texts of a more wide-ranging scope. The Manchester Spenser consists of work with stamina, high standards of s­ cholarship and research, adroit handling of evidence, rigour of argument, exposition and  ­documentation. The series will encourage and assist research into, and develop the readership of, one  of the richest and most complex writers of the early modern period. General Editor  J.B. Lethbridge Assistant General Editor  Joshua Reid Editorial Board Helen Cooper, Thomas Herron, James C. Nohrnberg & Brian Vickers Also available Literary Ralegh and visual Ralegh  Christopher M. Armitage (ed.) A Concordance to the Rhymes of The Faerie Queene  Richard Danson Brown & J.B. Lethbridge A Supplement of the Faery Queene: By Ralph Knevet  Christopher Burlinson & Andrew Zurcher (eds) Pastoral poetry of the English Renaissance: An anthology  Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed.) Spenserian allegory and Elizabethan biblical exegesis: A context for The Faerie Queene  Margaret Christian Monsters and the poetic imagination in Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’: Most ugly shapes and horrible aspects’   Maik Goth Celebrating Mutabilitie: Essays on Edmund Spenser’s Mutabilitie Cantos Jane Grogan (ed.) Castles and Colonists: An archaeology of Elizabethan Ireland  Eric Klingelhofer Shakespeare and Spenser: Attractive opposites  J.B. Lethbridge (ed.) A Fig for Fortune: By Anthony Copley  Susannah Monta Brietz Spenser and Virgil: The pastoral poems  Syrithe Pugh Renaissance erotic romance: Philhellene Protestantism, renaissance translation and English literary politics  Victor Skretkowicz God’s only daughter: Spenser’s Una as the invisible Church  Kathryn Walls

The Burley manuscript • Edited by

PETER REDFORD

Manchester University Press

Introduction, critical apparatus, etc © Peter Redford 2017 The right of Peter Redford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 1 5261 0448 9 hardback First published 2017 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Minion by Koinonia, Manchester Printed and Bound in Great Britain by Lightning Source

Contents

List of figures and tables page vi Preface vii Editorial principles x Acknowledgements xi Abbreviations and quotations xii  1 Introduction 1  2 History 7  3 Description 11   4 William Parkhurst 19  5 Provenance 25  6 Interception 29  7 Memory 35   8 The manuscript text 61   9 Private letters: commentary and notes 313 10 English verse: commentary and notes 355 11 Conclusion 416 Bibliography Index of first lines and authors General index

419 430 446

Figures and tables

Figures Title page Sir William Parkhurst, compiler of the Burley Manuscript, 1644. Medal, cast and chased at the Oxford Mint, silver, 7.4 cm diameter, engraved by Thomas Rawlins. Inscription translation: William Parkhurst, Knight, Warden of the Exchange and Mint of all England, 1623. (Photograph courtesy of the British Museum, Coins and Medals Department) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The Burley manuscript (photograph courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland) The Burley manuscript – original binding (photograph courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland) The Burley manuscript divided by type of entry The Burley manuscript divided by language The Burley manuscript, f. 345v The Burley manuscript, f. 288Av Verses of the Burley manuscript divided by language English verses of the Burley manuscript divided by author

vii 12 16 16 38 59 357 358

Tables 1 Textual variations – Alençon letter 2 Source editions of Symmachus translations 3 Opening hand for the game of maw 

49 350 414

Preface

Something over a decade ago, when I was writing a dissertation on Sir Henry Wotton and his verse, I stumbled more or less by chance upon a heavy, leather-bound volume of manuscripts catalogued ‘Finch, DG7, Lit2’ in the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, in the little town of Wigston Magna. It took me some time to realise that I was handling the ‘Burley manuscript’, which I had read about in Logan Pearsall Smith’s monumental work on Wotton, and which I – like many others – supposed to have been reduced to ashes some ninety years earlier. Even then, turning its pages for the first time, the notion seized me

Figure 1  The Burley manuscript. (Photograph courtesy of the  Record  Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland)

viii

Preface

that to study this collection in detail would be to partake in, and perhaps to become able to share with others, a feast of poems and letters, essays and aphorisms, speeches, satires and sententiae. For the past nine years I have been enjoying this feast, and it is the work of this book to share it. In what follows, the Burley manuscript’s history is outlined, the collection as a whole is described and its contents analysed. After a life of the compiler, William Parkhurst (necessarily brief, yet the first full life to have appeared in print), some thoughts are offered on how the collection came together, and evidence is given for believing that covert surveillance of correspondence (particularly that of Donne and Wotton) has brought many of the private letters into the collection. Some of the contents of the miscellany, both prose and poetry, seem to have been transcribed from memory, rather than by copying, and a long chapter deals with this topic. The ground is thus prepared for the next chapter, Chapter 8, which is an edition of Burley’s text having complete transcriptions of all of the private letters in English, including those that are translations from those of the fourth-century Roman patrician Q. Aurelius Symmachus, and all the English verse. The texts are accompanied by textual notes and (in the case of the verse) notes of substantial variations from texts found elsewhere, where these illuminate our perception of the poem, its composition, or its promulgation. These two categories, English letters and verse, are those in which a study of Burley is most rewarding and instructive, because not only is some of the material of literary or historical importance but much of it is hitherto unpublished, and much is found in no other contemporary manuscript or printed work (the presence of verse in other manuscripts has been checked using the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Union First Line Index of Manuscript Poetry (Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, February, 2010) (http://firstlines.folger.edu/), an index that embraces many other first-line indexes, including those of the British Library and the Bodleian Library). Each entry is followed by a note of the hand in which it is written, such identifying matter (author, date, etc.) as I have been able to discover, the section of the appropriate succeeding chapter (see below) in which the relevant commentary is to be found, together with editorial notes. Not fully transcribed in Chapter 8, therefore, although sometimes referred to elsewhere, are those poems, letters, and reports that are in foreign languages, diplomatic and political matter (generally available in other collections), and essays, apologies, and confessions (also available elsewhere). For each of these, an incipit transcription is provided, as well as the note of hand and identity as for letters and poems.

Preface

ix

The two following chapters provide commentary on the letters and the verse respectively. In each, items are grouped into categories making for rational discussion. For instance, in Chapter 9, eighteen letters forming a correspondence between John Donne, Henry Wotton, and one or two other members of their circle between 1597 and 1600 are taken in (as well as I can determine it) chronological sequence in section 9.2.1, followed in section 9.2.2 by Donne’s love letters to Anne More. Similarly, in Chapter 10, seventeen lyric poems are discussed in section 10.2, three political sonnets in section 10.3.1, and so on. The book concludes with some brief closing remarks, a bibliography, and an index.

Editorial principles

In the editing of the text, the original spelling is retained, save that conventional contractions are silently expanded and u/v and i/j usage modernised. Dates are New Style, unless otherwise indicated. Each distinct item in the manuscript has been given an item number here, for ease of reference. Scribal errors and corrections are reproduced, using a single strike­ through where the scribe has scored out something lightly, and a double where the crossing out is done heavily. (This system, of course, can give only a rough approximation to what is on the manuscript page: the scribes use a wide range of weights of crossing-out; only two are available in the word-processing system used for transcription.) Scribal insertions above the line are placed within ^...^ marks. Where appropriate (and as sparingly as possible), editorial additions or emendations are offered in square brackets. In cases where the scribe has indented lines of poems, or has otherwise given the verse a particular appearance on the page (for instance, in the poems ‘A Dreame’, item 339, and ‘A Kisse’, item 552), an attempt is made to reproduce his intention. The scribe’s designation, D1, P, E, I, M, or S (these terms are explained later, on p. xii) appears at the foot of each item. Line-numbering of the verse, absent from Burley, is introduced to facilitate discussion. Line numbers are also given to the letters; these are the numbers in this edition, not those of the manuscript, and are given for ease of reference. Translations of foreign-language passages are my own, unless otherwise attributed.

Acknowledgements

My thanks are due to Cathy Shrank, who thought my work on the Burley manuscript should become an edition of that marvellous collection for a PhD thesis, to Dennis Flynn, who would not be satisfied until it became a book, and to Steve May, who showed me how such a book should work. Without the encouragement of these three scholars, and the ungrudging help of others like the late Ian McKillop, Marcus Nevitt, Philip Shaw, and Tom Lockwood, the book would never have happened. Thanks are owed, too, for their courtesy and co-operation, to the staffs of many libraries and similar institutions, to the British Museum, and in particular to Margaret Bonney and her successors at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, custodians of the Burley manuscript. I am grateful as well for the care and kindness bestowed on this project by Matthew Frost and his team at Manchester University Press, and especially Julian Lethbridge, who has ever been a source of encouragement and cheer. All these, and others too numerous to name individually, have helped me on the way; any errors in transcription, translation or other blemishes that remain are my fault entirely. Finally, it is to the assembler of the collection, William Parkhurst, that my last debt of gratitude is owed. Peter Redford

Abbreviations and quotations

The following abbreviations appear in the text: BCP – Book of Common Prayer (in quotations, the publication year of the edition used is given). BL – The British Library. Cal. S.P. Dom – Calendar of State Papers Domestic. CKS – The Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Kent. ESL – ‘Early Stuart Libels: an edition of poetry from manuscript sources’, ed. by Alastair Bellany and Andrew McRae. Early Modern Literary Studies Text Series I (2005). HMC – Historical Manuscripts Commission. IELM – Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, vol. I, Parts 1 and 2 (London and New York: Mansell Publishing Ltd, 1987 and 1989). IHR – Institute of Historical Research, (www.history.ac.uk/) inc., exp.: incipit, explicit; used respectively to indicate the opening and closing words of a text. LMA – London Metropolitan Archives, (www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/) MLQ – Modern Language Quarterly. OCD – Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. by Simon Hornblow and Antony Spawforth, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). ODNB – Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (www.oxforddnb. com/) Individual article titles and authors are quoted in the relevant text or footnote. OED – Oxford English Dictionary, (http://oed.com/) r, v – recto, verso. S.P. Dom. – State Papers, Domestic. S.P. Ven. – State Papers, Venice.

Abbreviations and quotations

xiii

Quotations from Shakespeare are taken from William Shakespeare, Com­­ plete Works, compact edn, ed. by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). Quotations from Marlowe are taken from The Plays of Christopher Marlowe, ed. by Roma Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). Scribal abbreviations: D1: The scribe so designated by Grierson and Pearsall Smith (see p.  14, n. 6, who writes a mixed (see p. 15) hand. P: William Parkhurst, who also writes a mixed hand. E: The scribe of the Spenser extracts, who writes a secretary hand. I: Other unidentified writers of italic hands. M: Other unidentified writers of mixed hands. S: Other unidentified writers of secretary hands.

1

Introduction

Here’s Miscellanies in this Book compris’d of Theologie, Law, History, Epitomis’d: and various Subjects gather’d, some Devis’d; by the Compiler, both in Prose, and verse, which he did sometimes write: sometimes Reherse: O what a pleasure tis, and Sweet Delight, to read, to Contemplate, and sometimes write.1

Peter Beal, from whose essay ‘Notions in Garrison’ I have taken that verse, went on to say that Saffin’s commonplace book (the source of his quotation) and others like it were ‘not merely ephemeral productions but were seriously valued by their owners, regarded as monuments to their own personal taste and learning and bequeathed to others as sources of both pleasure and usefulness’.2 Beal was speaking of commonplace books, which are a special case of the manuscript miscellany, tending as they do towards instruction, moral and factual, and away from the merely frivolous, and having in general some systematic organisation of their contents.3 But the true miscellany, scattered and disorganised, mixing the serious and the trivial, is just as much a monument to its compiler’s taste and learning, and a source of both pleasure and usefulness. John Donne wrote of   1 Prefatory verse to the commonplace book of Judge John Saffin, quoted from Peter Beal, ‘“Notions in Garrison”: The Seventeenth-Century Commonplace Book’ (1987), in W. Speed Hill (ed.), New Ways of Looking at Old Texts: Papers of the Renaissance English Text Society, 1985–1991 (Binghamton, NY: Renaissance English Text Society, 1993), pp. 131–147 (p. 134).   2 Ibid., p. 3.   3 This definition of ‘commonplace book’ follows broadly the description given in Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology, 1450–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 82. The later use that he describes, for ‘a jumble of snippets [...] in no particular order’ (p. 83), is to be deplored.

2

The Burley manuscript those lerned papers which your hand hath stord with notes of use & pleasure to from which safe tresury you may command fitt matter whether you will write or do4

As Victoria Burke remarks, the ‘men and women who compiled miscellanies [produced] a type of writing which can give us insight into what they read, what they chose to record from their reading, how they recorded it – in short, how they participated in their culture’.5 If miscellanies reflected the cultural participation of their owners, it is not surprising that their contents are indeed truly ‘miscellaneous’; there was, says H. R. Woudhuysen, no strict division between what might or might not be included: the private collector could copy his or her own compositions, or material from printed books or from other manuscript sources. While some texts were habitually copied together or in groups, private miscellanies were precisely that, and might mix genres and types of writing quite indiscriminately; prose, verse, sermons, even drama could appear in the same book as business accounts, medical recipes, or notes on farming.6

Woudhuysen goes on to note that ‘material from printed books was copied for a variety of reasons’, and that these reasons might be ‘more or less admirable’: on the one hand making part of a bulky book portable, or preserving a rare or suppressed work or on the other hand presenting as one’s own a work by another. He might have added, as we shall see, that the same variation in moral standards holds for material copied from manuscript sources: not all of it, in Burley’s case, seems to have been freely given or exchanged by another manuscript collector, or to have been remembered or composed by the compiler. Woudhuysen there endorses an emphasis already placed by Steven May on the great variety of entries in such collections: A Tudor gentleman’s private manuscript might also contain censored religious and political satires, unprintable verse slander of well known public figures, scripts of plays [...] and specimens of the compiler’s own poetry and correspondence. Along with lyric poetry, hand copies of poetic epitaphs, riddles, moral maxims, panegyrics and epigrams circulated widely. Prose speeches, by the Queen, members of Parliament, or such condemned   4 Verse letter to Sir Henry Wotton, ‘To Sir H: W: going into Venice:’ (item 392), ll. 9–12.   5 Victoria E. Burke, ‘Women and Early Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Culture: Four Miscellanies’, Seventeenth Century, 12 (1997), 135–150, p. 135.   6 H. R. Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts 1558–1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 146.

Introduction

3

favourites as Essex and Ralegh were very popular, as were sermons, decent and indecent jokes, and narrative accounts of almost any public ceremony [...] This enormous volume of privately transcribed works remains largely unstudied in the extant manuscripts, yet it represents a vast literary substratum with much to add to the corpus of Renaissance English Literature, and much to reveal about the tastes and thinking of the age.7

Beal, Burke, Woudhuysen, May, and many others are not wrong to speak as they do of the manuscript miscellany as if it were something like a ‘cabinet of curiosities’, a collection to be resorted to (and perhaps gloated over) when reduced to one’s own company or when wishing to interest or impress friends. But the manuscripts themselves were more than mere reflections of a culture: they were part of it. Despite the developments in printing since the fifteenth century, early modern society – and specifically the society of the apparent period of Burley’s compilation, 1597–1641 – was a society still operating in a culture of manuscripts. State papers and speeches, declarations of love and of loyalty, libels and lyrics, accusations and confessions, all were committed to manuscript, copied for safety, and reproduced and circulated in manuscript for reasons edifying and base. Manuscripts mattered; the manuscript letter was the only way of communi­­­cating with someone with whom one could not come face-to-face (and, given the difficulty of travel, that meant anyone more than a few miles away). The manuscript poem was, perhaps because of what J. W. Saunders, in a famous phrase, calls ‘the stigma of print’,8 for many poets the principal means of publication of their work. (I say ‘perhaps’, recognising Steven May’s carefully researched and witty demolition of the notion of the ‘stigma of print’ as a social or moral norm).9 It remains true that, for whatever reason, very few of the poems in the Burley manuscript were printed in their authors’ lifetimes, and that some, indeed, are printed for the first time here. Together with word of mouth, manuscripts were the usual way of transmitting news, and – littera scripta manet – the way in which news became record. It is small wonder that the care, copying, and collection of such important artefacts were so significant in the culture of the literate classes. This significance may be illustrated by an anecdote. In the early sum­­­mer of 1620, Sir Henry Wotton was at Court at Greenwich, ­gathering members for his forthcoming embassy to Vienna and other European  7 Steven W. May, Henry Stanford’s Anthology (University of Chicago PhD thesis, 1968), p. vii.   8 J. W. Saunders, ‘The Stigma of Print: A Note on the Social Bases of Tudor Poetry’, Essays on Criticism, 1 (1951), 139–164.   9 Steven W. May, ‘Tudor Aristocrats and the Mythical “Stigma of Print”’, Renaissance Papers, 10 (1980), 11–18.

4

The Burley manuscript

capitals. While there, he composed a lyric to the Queen of Bohemia, that court being one of his destinations.10 Encountering Sir Henry Mainwaring, who was about to journey to Dover, where he was Lieutenant, Wotton asked him to carry a copy to his sister-in-law, Lady Wotton, who lived at St Augustine’s Priory in Canterbury,11 a hospitable stopping point for the bearer. Mainwaring took an additional copy, and sent it as a dutiful gift to his employer and patron, Lord Zouche, Warden of the Cinque Ports. So, amid the bustle of a busy court with a major project in preparation, the project leader found time to copy out the poem, an administrator whose duties called him seventy miles away made a further copy or copies, and thus began the ‘care, copying and collection’ that resulted in so many copies of this lyric being inscribed in manuscripts of the period that more than seventy survive today.12 Such copying was valued by the authors themselves. In his ‘Epigram to my Muse, the Lady Digby, on her Husband, Sir Kenelme Digby’,13 Jonson wrote:          O! what a fame ’t will be? What reputation to my lines, and me, When hee shall read them at the Treasurers bord, The knowing Weston, and that learned Lord Allowes them? Then, what copies shall be had, What transcripts begg’d? how cry’d up, and how glad, Wilt thou be, Muse, when this shall them befall? Being sent to one, they will be read of all. (25–32)

Harold Love distinguishes three types of scribal publication: author publication, entrepreneurial publication (the copying of manuscripts for sale) and user publication, ‘the vast field of non-commercial replication whose most durable outcome was the personal miscellany or volume of “collections”’.14 In the example above, the copy sent to Lady Wotton was clearly of the first type, and that sent to Zouche of the third – unless 10 Item 543, and see also the commentary in section 10.2, pp. 364–365. 11 The Wottons also had a family seat at Boughton Malherbe, Kent, a little off the direct route to Dover. Mainwaring, though, had visited their Canterbury home in March that year (S.P. Dom. 14/113, f. 85), and it is likely that this is where he brought the poem in June. 12 IELM Pt 2, entries W62–W135. 13 Ben Jonson, Works, ed. by C H Herford and others, 11 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947, repr. 1970), VIII, 262–263. 14 Harold Love, The Culture and Commerce of Texts (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998); originally published as Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 47.

Introduction

5

one chooses to regard Mainwaring’s use of it to discharge his obligation to make a gift to his patron as entrepreneurial. Most of the contents of Burley seem to be of this third type, although the text of this particular lyric may not be: it might have been dictated by the author to his acquaintance and sometime secretary, William Parkhurst, and thus be of the first. Before discussing the reasons why Burley, of all manuscript miscellanies, is so fascinating and rewarding a collection for study, it is worth noting that the term ‘manuscript miscellany’ is used by modern commentators in two senses: some (like Love in the work just quoted) mean ‘verse miscellany’, a collection of verse not wholly devoted to the work of a single author,15 and some (like Beal in the work from which my opening quotation was taken) mean the term more generally, to refer to collections that, while they may and usually do contain verse, include also copies of other material such as letters, narratives of events, apophthegms, speeches, or official documents.16 Burley is a collection of the latter sort, and the term ‘manuscript miscellany’ is used here to denote this kind, ‘verse miscellany’ being used for the other. Burley’s interest lies first in its unusually large size (312 folios, mostly filled on recto and verso)17 and – as will be seen in Chapter 3 – its great range of material. Its size, though unusual, is not unique: Robert Commaundre’s commonplace book (BL MS Egerton 2642), compiled in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, has 393 folios, and the Starkey Transcripts (BL MS Add. 4149), of the early seventeenth century, has 349. Commaundre’s book, however, has less variety than Burley, its material – apart from verse – being mostly heraldic and historical, and the Starkey Transcripts are even less miscellaneous, being entirely of state papers and political tracts, mostly relating to royal marriages. As well, Burley has a great many entries, particularly among the letters and poems (which form more than half the contents and are the major topics of this study) that have not been found in other collections. Moreover, few of the items have any authorial attribution, or a date (either of the original artefact or the Burley copy), or any ostensible indication of who did the copying. As Arthur F. Marotti remarks: ‘The manuscript system was far less author-centred than print culture, and not at all interested in correcting, perfecting or fixing texts in authorially sanctioned forms.’18 15 Love, Culture and Commerce, for example on pp. 4 and 5. 16 Beal, ‘Notions in Garrison’, for example on p. 142. 17 The codex contains 373 folios, but 61 of these are blank. 18 Arthur F. Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 135.

6

The Burley manuscript

Some of the omitted names and dates can be repaired by the student, with degrees of certainty ranging from absolute to wild guess but, when we seek, in D. F. McKenzie’s phrase, ‘to recover, from the physical evidence of a text, its significance for all those who first made it’, we are working not with McKenzie’s brilliantly clear view of the text as ‘a locatable, describable, attributable, datable and explicable object’ but with an incomplete view, uncertainly illuminated.19 Writing of the transmission and compilation of manuscripts, Marotti observes that this whole field of investigation is vast, complex, and full of undiscovered riches. It is clear also that the history of manuscript transmission should be incorporated in a more systematic way into the histories we continue to write about the literature of the early modern period and the texts we find in this nonprint environment should be taken more seriously.20

This book was prompted by, and is intended to bring to light, the ‘vastness, complexity and undiscovered riches’ of one miscellany, the Burley manuscript. It may, too, offer some pointers towards the ‘systematic incorporation’ of such texts into the work of students of literature and social history.

19 D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (London: British Library, 1985), p. 45. 20 Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric, p. 208.

2

History

Of the manuscript’s early history, little is known. Its last inscribed folio bears a poem on the death of the Earl of Strafford (1641), which may indicate the date at which the 373 folios were assembled together. Like more than half of the volume’s contents, the epitaph is in a hand identified as that of William Parkhurst, and I accept Beal’s plausible case for the whole compilation being his.1 Parkhurst was one of Sir Henry Wotton’s secretaries in his early embassies to Venice and Turin, but their association seems to have ended in around 1615,2 and none of the material in Burley associated with Wotton postdates this, save for the poem ‘On his Mistriss, the Queen of Bohemia’, written in 1619/20 and first published in 1624. Some of the other material can be dated in terms of a terminus a quo, and much of it is later than 1628, by which time Parkhurst was a Warden of the Mint and Sir Henry was Provost of Eton. These matters are considered in more detail in Chapter 5. The next two centuries and more of the manuscript’s history are blank. Somehow it came into the hands of the Finch family, descendants of Heneage Finch, first Earl of Nottingham (Lord Chancellor 1673–82), and Daniel Finch, second Earl (Secretary of State 1689–93). The Finches, in Parkhurst’s time, had their family seat at Eastwell, Kent, a few miles from East Lenham, Parkhurst’s birthplace. Before 1623, when the matriarch Elizabeth Finch (1556–1634) was created Viscountess Maidstone, the family were country gentlemen, and the Parkhursts and the Finches would certainly have known one another. In the 1660s, when Parkhurst returned to the Wardenship of the Mint (see Chapter 4 below), Sir Heneage Finch (1621–82), later first Earl of Nottingham, was an MP and Solicitor General. They may well have known one another in London in this period.  1 IELM, p. 562.   2 Logan Pearsall Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907, repr. 1966), II, 476.

8

The Burley manuscript

The manuscript was listed as belonging to the Finch family in 1879 by the HMC, whose researcher, Alfred J. Horwood, noted that it contained ‘copies of letters seemingly by and to Sir Henry Wotton’.3 It was ‘discovered’ again by Logan Pearsall Smith, Wotton’s biographer, in or around 1903 at what was now the Finch family seat at Burley-on-the-Hill, a mansion built by the second Earl of Nottingham towards the end of the seventeenth century. Pearsall Smith caused a partial transcript to be made, which passed into the hands of the Clarendon Press, and was used by writers on Donne, among others Sir Herbert Grierson for his edition of the poems in 1912,4 and Evelyn M. Simpson for her work on the prose of 1924.5 Thence in 1940, for greater security in those dangerous times, the transcript was lodged in the Reserved section of the Bodleian Library, and was certainly available there in 1950. In a subsequent reorganisation it was mislaid, and Helen Peters for her edition of the paradoxes in 19806 was forced to use Simpson’s copy of Grierson’s collations.7 Meanwhile, the manuscript itself was believed to have returned to Burley-on-the-Hill around 1906. It was this belief that caused scholars to use the transcript, rather than the original, for Burley-on-the-Hill, one of the largest houses in England, was ‘totally destroyed’ by fire in 1908.8 George Henry Finch, the proprietor when Pearsall Smith made his discovery, had died in 1907. His executors let the mansion on a long lease to Captain Frederick Guest and Captain Henry Guest, wealthy men who put in hand repairs, improvements and extensions, and celebrated the completion of this work with a large house party. The guests, including Winston Churchill (President of the Board of Trade) and F. E. Smith (MP and later Lord Chancellor), arrived on Wednesday 5 August 1908, and in the early hours of Thursday morning a fire broke out. The destruction was not, in fact, total, but was certainly very extensive: ‘two-thirds’, according to Pevsner.9 Churchill, who had worked heroically  3 HMC – Seventh Report (1879), p. 512.  4 The Poems of John Donne, ed. by Herbert J. C. Grierson, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912).   5 Evelyn M. Simpson, A Study of the Prose Works of John Donne (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).  6 Helen Peters, ed., John Donne: Paradoxes and Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).   7 The transcript was mislaid only temporarily; it has subsequently been carefully preserved and bound, and is catalogued by the Bodleian Library as MS Eng poet.c.80.  8 The Times, 7 August 1908, p. 11.   9 Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England; ‘Leicestershire and Rutland’, rev. by Elizabeth Williamson (London: Yale University Press, 2003), p.460.

History

9

during the blaze to save what could be managed of the valuable contents, wrote on the Friday to his sweetheart Clementine Hozier to reassure her of his own safety, but lamenting ‘Alas for the archives. They soared to glory in about ten minutes [...] It is only the archives that must be mourned inconsolably.’10 Small wonder, then, that the academic world believed the Burley manuscript to have been lost, and indeed no reason for its survival has emerged. However, survive it did, and turned up in the hands of the National Register of Archives in 1960. The discovery was not broadcast to the scholarly community, but the manuscript came into the hands of Professor I. A. Shapiro of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham, who was lent it in 1963 by the HMC in order to pursue his study of Donne’s letters. It disappeared again (Shapiro apparently believing it had gone back to the HMC, they saying it hadn’t) and was ‘rediscovered’ in 1976 by Beal, in a safe at the Library of Birmingham University, where it had been for twelve years or so. It returned to Shapiro’s custody, and he was reported in 1980 as using it for an edition of Donne’s letters but this, although he seems to have been working on it spasmodically since the 1920s, was never published (he died in 2004). Beal noted in his Index of English Literary Manuscripts that the manuscript’s custodian was the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, and that it was on loan to Professor Shapiro, but gentle pressure from the Record Office secured its return in 1981.11 However, even Beal’s note (near the end of a two-volume work occupying some 1200 quarto pages) did not make every scholar immediately aware of the manuscript’s resurrection: as late as 1984 the Keeper of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, writing a memorandum about the mislaid transcript, noted: ‘The original manuscript was [...] destroyed by fire.’ This memorandum prompted the Oxford University Press to write to Shapiro about the transcript, and his reply mentioned en passant that the original was ‘of course [...] now available in the Leicestershire Record Office’. Dame Helen Gardner, the pre-eminent Donne scholar of her time, wrote to the Record Office expressing at some length her ‘absolute astonishment’ at the news that the manuscript had survived, and that Shapiro had known this for some time (in fact for twenty-odd years) and told no one. The 10 Mary Soames, Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), p. 11. 11 The Record Office holds copies of correspondence (not in the catalogued collection) between itself and Professor Shapiro between February 1976 and June 1981, which culminated in its return.

10

The Burley manuscript

customary urbane character of academic correspondence, and Dame Helen’s own normally cool and balanced style, prompt the thought that ‘absolute astonishment’ might be glossed ‘incandescent rage’.12 Even after this, the news was slow to seep into academic consciousness. Dame Helen died in 1986, having published nothing since she learned of Burley’s survival. When I was writing on Sir Henry Wotton in 2002, I found no modern reference to the manuscript and, indeed, for a time believed myself, rather than Shapiro or Beal, to have been its ‘rediscoverer’. Ted-Larry Pebworth confided that he was working on an edition of Wotton’s poems (still unpublished) that would use the manuscript but, ignorant then of the complex history above recounted, I supposed him to be using the transcript or a copy thereof. He and his associates working on the monumental Donne Variorum, whose first volume was published in 1995, are also referring to it (presumably on one of the microfilm copies that the Record Office is helpful in supplying), and Beal has noted in IELM those items whose authorship he recognised. However, despite such occasional uses of individual items in the manuscript, no one has published hitherto any account of its content, compilation, or history, or drawn attention to its value in understanding the manuscript culture of the period. This lack of attention may perhaps be due partly to its location in an obscure small town in Leicestershire rather than in one of the world’s great libraries, and partly to the very diverse nature of its contents, which defeats any conventional attempt at cataloguing. It is the purpose of this book to remedy this neglect.

12 Letter of 18 April 1984 (not in the catalogued collection).

3

Description

So much for the history of the Burley manuscript, as far as it has been determined, but what is the artefact that has had these various adventures? The volume’s original leather and parchment binding survives and is illustrated in Figure 2, although it was rebound towards the end of the twentieth century. It contains 373 folios, mostly written on both recto and verso (but 61 of them are blank). It originates from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, although some items are copies of matter of earlier date: items 211 and 212, Burghley’s Advice to a Son (1584), and Pius IV’s promulgation of the oath to be sworn by students (1564), for instance, appear here in the hand of William Parkhurst, who was not born until 1581, and whose association with the manuscript cannot be established before 1598. The manuscript collection has sometimes been called a ‘commonplace book’, but this description, although it admits of a wide range of entries, is hardly elastic enough to accommodate the variety or sheer bulk found here: 616 items, compared with fewer than one hundred in either the Commaundre miscellany or the Hoby commonplace book (BL MS Add. 38823), and including poems (satirical and serious), letters (private and official), reports, memoranda, confessions, translations, all appearing in no logical arrangement, although sometimes groups of the same category are bound adjacently.1 Burley is also much more loosely organised and less carefully written than is general for commonplace books; Hoby’s, for example, like Kytton’s (mentioned below on p. 27), is carefully written in a neat secretary hand, on pages previously and uniformly ruled for the purpose and assembled into a book before writing. Burley, by contrast, has clearly been assembled from previously written material and then   1 For instance, folios 7–14 are occupied by translated letters (items 2–40), the two Martial translations are on ff. 343v and 344r (items 553 and 554), and ff. 353r–354v contain all the poems on Felton (items 604–607).

Figure 2  Burley manuscript – original binding (above: outer; below:  inner). (Photograph courtesy of the Record Office for ­Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland)

Description

13

bound, and we have no way of knowing how far, if at all, the ordering of the assembly that we now see reflects an order in which Parkhurst kept his papers.2 It is thus difficult to know to what extent, if at all, we may use the present order to help determine the date on which an item was written, or the provenance by which it came into the collection. Most of the individual folios are approximately 12 in. by 8 in., which the binding is sized to fit, although a few are smaller, for instance, f. 40, which is 10½ in. by 8 in., and ff. 142a–e, which are 11 in. by 6 in. Ilona Bell describes the Burley manuscript as having four sections: Part 1, consisting of folios 1–121; Part 2, folios 122–234; Part 3, folios 235–316; and Part 4, folios 317–373 (the last 13 folios of which are blank).3 While it may well be the case that Burley is an aggregation of four separate collections, the divisions are not, I think, as certain as Bell represents them, nor is there the uniformity within Parts 1 and 4 that she implies. Of this uniformity, Bell says: ‘Part 4 [...] resembles Part 1 physically. The heavy, untrimmed paper is the same size, weight, and quality. The same watermark appears on both.’ But the paper in Part 1, although all of good quality, is not all of one kind: for instance, the gathering that begins with f. 41 is of discernibly heavier paper than the preceding one, and has no watermark, whereas the preceding gathering has one of several versions of the ‘Pot’ watermark that appear elsewhere in the codex. (‘Pot’ is the name given by watermark scholars to a representation of a jug or vase. The versions found in Burley are on a pedestal foot, having bubbles at its brim and usually some kind of finial rising from the bubbles. It is found in various places in Europe over a wide range of dates in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.)4 While it is true that ‘Pot’ watermarks appear in Part 4, this mark occurs frequently through the codex, in Parts 2 and 3 as well. What I have not found for certain in Part 4 is the ‘Anchor’ mark that is on two successive gatherings within Part 1 (before and after f. 83), although the very faint mark on f. 328 may be that.5   2 Although the collection was evidently bound in Parkhurst’s time (a flyleaf inscription in his hand has transferred itself to the original inside front cover), the ordering of the pages seems to have been done hurriedly; see for instance f. 318, which is misplaced, and ff. 256–269, which could have been divided so that its folios were all the same way up (see note after item 317 on pp. 120–130).   3 Ilona Bell, ‘“Under Ye Rage of a Hott Sonn & Yr Eyes”: John Donne’s Love Letters to Ann More’, in Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth, eds, The Eagle and the Dove: Reassessing John Donne (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), pp. 25–52 (p.  50).   4 See, for example, Likhachev’s Watermarks: An English-language Version, ed. by J. S. G. Simmons and Bé van Ginneken van de Kasteele, 2 vols (Amsterdam: The Paper Publications Society, 1994), II, plates 369–376.   5 Ibid., plate 4, no. 1244; ascribed by Likhachev’s editors to the first half of the seventeenth century.

14

The Burley manuscript

Of more significance, perhaps, to the question of ‘uniformity’, is the first gathering of Bell’s Part 4, ff. 317–320. This comprises some extracts from Edmund Spenser’s Complaints, the only work of Spenser in Burley and the only items in the hand of a scribe whom I shall call E. This gathering seems certain not to belong to Part 3, for its folios are significantly larger and of a heavier quality than that part’s, but I do not think that it belongs with Part 4, either, for it is trimmed to a width about a fifth of an inch less, and is not quite as heavy as the succeeding gathering. The last folio of her Part 3 seems to me also to be suspect: f. 316 is a single sheet, slightly lighter in weight than the preceding part, bearing only a Latin epigram by Katherine Killigrew, which is discussed in Chapter 5 on p. 27 below. Bell’s suggested divisions make for a tidy analysis of the contents, but these anomalies around the junction of her Parts 3 and 4 need to be dealt with. I propose to do this by designating the single folio with the epigram, f. 316, as Part X, and the gathering with the Spenser extracts, ff. 317–320, as Part Y. Part 2 is on paper of various sizes and qualities, and Part 3 is uniformly on paper lighter in weight than that of Parts 1 and 4, trimmed to approximately 11½ in. by 7½ in. All the English verse in the manuscript appears in either Parts 3, Y, or 4, and it seems likely that William Parkhurst collected this verse over two separate periods in the early seventeenth century, using in the first period some material acquired from another source, the scribe known as D1 in Part 3,6 and – probably in the second period – another scribe, E, in Part Y. Parkhurst’s hand appears in all parts except Y and, while the earliest inscriptions appear in Parts 2 and 3 and the latest in Part 4, there seem to be no precise divisions by date between the parts. The division and dating are dealt with in more detail in Chapter 5. Part 3 opens with a page in D1’s hand, beginning with a verse that might suitably head a diary or commonplace book: Who so hath leave within this booke to prye Must have a Canthars toung an Eagles eye An eye most sharp all secrets depth to pearce A toung most mute no secrets to rehearce.7   6 D1: see Simpson, Prose Works of John Donne, p. 302, who ascribes this designation to Pearsall Smith. It does not appear in his printed work, but the copy taken for the Clarendon Press (Bodleian MS Eng. poet.c.80) is so endorsed. Tom Lockwood, however (in a private communication), identifies the hand as Grierson’s.   7 ‘a Canthars toung’: perhaps ‘canter’s’, of a user of coded language; OED has canter n.2. ‘a user of thieves’ cant, or of professional or religious cant’. Alternatively, possibly ‘Cathar’s’, of a member of a heretical sect known in Europe as the Albigensians, but I have not found any suggestion that they were especially silent or cryptic in language.

Description

15

The verse is even more suitable to a compilation of covertly copied correspondence, which Part 3 appears to contain also, and to which D1 and Parkhurst contributed.8 The second entry on the opening folio (f. 235) may also be relevant to this area of their activity: Cosimo de Medici gave his son this precept: that he should forbeare to speake well or ill of great princes: for if well (sayd he) thou shalt lye; if ill, they wilbee revenged.

Something over half the contents of the whole manuscript is in Parkhurst’s hand, the remainder in other hands of a Jacobean style, in the Elizabethan secretary hand, in the italic that became fashionable around the turn of the century or in hybrids of these. The presence of Elizabethan handwriting does not prove an Elizabethan date, only that the scribe was likely to have learned his hand from a writing master of that period. It is not generally possible to date items by the paper on which they are written: watermarks of the period were seldom dated, and mostly used for many years.9 Parenthetically, it may be remarked that, although the several hands I have described as ‘secretary’ and ‘italic’ bear a fairly close relationship to those so titled in the books of the great writing masters of the period, Jehan de Beau-Chesne and Martin Billingsley,10 much the greater part of the writing in Burley is not in such hands. The most common hands, like Parkhurst’s own, correspond to no pedagogic example; they are hands formed out of the court, chancery and italic styles into swift, cursive, fairly legible but not particularly pretty writing, a tool for a working clerk or secretary rather than a calligrapher. This style is designated ‘mixed’ in the Preface. The variety of material in Burley is demonstrated in Figures 3 and 4. The categories in Figure 3 are those used in the database, of which a brief description appears below.   8 See Chapter 6.   9 Only one dated watermark has been found in Burley, a two-handled version of the widely used ‘Pot’ mark bearing the date 1598. This is on f. 217, part of a sequence of two despatches from Sir Robert Cecil, at ‘Angiers’ (Angers, in the French province of Anjou) to the Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admiral, during Cecil’s embassy to Henri IV. They are certified as copies by J. Herbert (Cecil’s secretary, later Sir John, noted lawyer and linguist) and dated 23 March 1597 (OS) and 27 March 1598 (i.e. four days later). The watermark date of 1598 would be consistent with these being Herbert’s holographs, rather than later transcriptions, supposing the mark date to be NS, which it would be if the paper is French. 10 John de Beau Chesne, A Booke containing divers sortes of hands (London, 1571); Martin Billingsley, The pen’s excellence or The secretaries delight (London, 1618).

Apology or confession 1%

Diplomatic report 6% Essay Other 3% 3%

Factual/historical memo 13%

Verse 37%

Official letter 7%

Private letter 9%

Sententia 11% Political statement 4%

Translated letter 6%

Figure 3  The Burley manuscript divided by type of entry Spanish 1%

Italian 4%

Latin 12%

French 1%

English 82%

Figure 4  The Burley manuscript divided by language

Description

17

Most of the entries are in English, but several other languages, notably Latin, appear (Figure 4). It is the range of material, of language, of author, date and handwriting, which makes it impossible to catalogue Burley by means of any simple listing; it requires a more sophisticated index, the computerised database that I have constructed. This database, from which are derived the analyses above, is a cataloguing or indexing tool for the whole manuscript collection of sixhundred-odd items. It has been invaluable to me, not only for analytical purposes but at every stage in the preparation of this book. ‘Manuscripts’, remarks Walter J. Ong, ‘can be indexed. They rarely are.’11 He goes on to give reasons why early modern collectors, and twentieth-century commentators, balked at the task, because of the crudity of the alphabetical tools available, and the ensuing difficulties of retrieval. The difficulties have since diminished, for the power of modern software makes cataloguing both less laborious to do and much more effective when done. The database contains an entry for each separate item in the manuscript, locating it by folio reference, recto or verso and, where necessary, distinguishing different items appearing on the same page. It gives the title of the item, if it has one, the first line of its text and, for verse only, by the last line, to follow the practice found elsewhere (at the British Library, for instance). Language and category are listed, using the classifications shown in the pie charts above, and the author, the addressee for letters and reports, and the date of the original composition, where that is known (not the date on which the copy in Burley was inscribed). The database also contains fields showing where other examples of the same item may be found, either in manuscripts of the period or in printed texts, the type of handwriting and a note about the scribe. It includes as well the number of pages the item occupies, if more than one; the number of stanzas, if in verse; the number of lines if in verse or if the entry takes up less than a page; the verse form, where appropriate; a note of any marginal annotations; and finally there is a field for notes. The database is written in Microsoft® Access 2000™, and the powerful search, filter and arrangement tools offered by that software are available. For example, one may list all items of Latin verse in alphabetical order of first line, or find all items attributed to William Strode, or all the private letters in Hand D1(it took only seconds to establish that everything in 11 Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy (London: Methuen, 1982), p. 124.

18

The Burley manuscript

D1’s hand was in Part 3, a task that would have been tedious by examination). Not all fields would be equally useful to all researchers, but it has been found by those who have used it (especially myself) to be a quick way of locating individual items, or items sharing some common feature or features. The usefulness of this tool emboldens me to suggest that there would be merit in having it, or something like it, replace the cataloguing arrangements presently available in libraries and other research establishments where manuscripts are held.

4

William Parkhurst

William Parkhurst, who seems to have been the compiler of Burley, and was certainly the scribe of more than half of it, rates no mention in the ODNB, and indeed the only record of his life to have appeared in print hitherto is the brief account, relating almost entirely to the period 1604– 1614, of Pearsall Smith.1 What follows, accordingly, is largely new material, based on my own researches. Parkhurst was baptised at East Lenham, Kent, on 17 December 1581, the son of James Parkhurst.2 Of his early life and education nothing is known, although his elder brother John (born c.1573) is recorded in Alumni Cantabrigienses as having matriculated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, at Easter, 1587, is noted there as ‘s[on]. and h[eir]. of James, of East Leanham, Kent’, and as admitted to Gray’s Inn in 1600. This is just the background one would suppose William to have had, in view of his later career, but no similar record has been found for him. It is, however, not unusual in this period for the University and Inns of Court records to be deficient. The earliest connection we have of Parkhurst with the Burley manuscript, with Henry Wotton, or with the covert surveillance of correspondence that is the subject of a later chapter (Chapter 6) is a copy in his hand of a letter from Wotton to John Donne of early 1598 (item 463). This seems to identify him as working already for Sir Robert Cecil in keeping an eye on potential sources of trouble, in this case Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and Wotton, his secretary. The letter was written from Essex’s country seat at Wanstead, and Parkhurst may have had some post in Essex’s entourage there. I argue later, in Chapter 6, that most (though not all) of the covert copies were made at the source, rather than the destination, of the letter, and it is again the Burley correspondence that suggests that Parkhurst went to Ireland with Essex’s expedition in 1599:   1 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 476.   2 CKS, Lenham Parish Records.

20

The Burley manuscript

there are copies in his hand of two letters from Wotton (items 296 and 297) and one from Henry Goodere (item 462), both of whom were on that unhappy campaign. The next indication we have of Parkhurst’s career is a mysterious one: on f. 40 of the manuscript a careful italic hand (almost certainly his own, judging from the three sure, but brief, examples of his use of this style),3 has inscribed the following: MDCI Germani Peregrinatores Qui vostrum proximus inviserit Westphalos Dicat queso vinco meo superstiti fratri Franciscum ABurg XXVI Jan Venetis extinctum Postridie hic fuisse humo redditum      Verse sunt vices rerum Ille me expectat in Patria, ego illum in Cælo.        Haec P. Magni Juicenis Memo        ram Guglielmus Parkhurstus Anglus        confluentibus e longinque la=        crimis ad decorandum eius funus. [1601 Fellow Travellers4 Whoever of you who next visits Westphalia Let him say, please, to my neighbour, his surviving brother5 that Francis ABurg died in Venice on the 26 Jan and the next day was laid to rest      Thus do fortunes change He looks for me at home while I look for him in Heaven.        This to Publius Magnus Juicenus        I, William Parkhurst, Englishman, write        with flowing and lasting tears,        in honour of his death.]

This may be no more than an elegant epitaph, but something about the names makes one wonder: ‘Franciscum ABurg’ is somewhat odd, although   3 Items 212, 259, and 430.   4 Philip Shaw has suggested to me that it is more likely that Parkhurst intended ‘Germania Peregrinatores’, in which case it would translate as ‘Travellers to Germany’ rather than ‘Brother Travellers’, which I have rendered as ‘Fellow Travellers’.   5 The translation of this line, and the suggestion that ‘vinco’ should be understood as ‘vicino’, ‘neighbour’, are also due to Philip Shaw.

William Parkhurst

21

it may be a Latinisation of some such name as ‘Francis Borough’,6 but I have so far identified no such person. ‘Publius Magnus Juicenus’ looks even odder, and again I have no identification to offer. Perhaps both are pseudonyms, and possibly therefore the whole message has some covert meaning. It may place the author in Venice in 1601, and imply connections with Westphalia, but there is no evidence of what he is or has been doing in either place. It may be relevant that Henry Wotton, his future employer, was in Italy at this time, but no encounter with Parkhurst is recorded, nor did Wotton on this journey visit Venice.7 In 1604, Parkhurst’s life becomes a good deal more visible. He became one of the secretaries to Sir Henry Wotton on the latter’s appointment as Ambassador to the Venetian Republic. Although I have always supposed him to have been selected by Wotton, who liked to surround himself with men of Kent,8 for the Venice embassy (1604–10), it now seems possible that he was planted by whoever organised the surveillance of the letters, probably Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State. Cecil, although he knew of it in advance, had no evident hand in the Ambassador’s appointment, which seems to have been a gift from the King as a reward for Wotton’s bringing him warning of an assassination plot in 1601,9 and it would have been characteristic of the Secretary of State to plant an adherent in the entourage of this new embassy. Parkhurst remained for the whole of Wotton’s first embassy, save that in April 1608 he was entrusted to travel back to England with letters for Cecil (now Earl of Salisbury) and the King, the latter a lengthy and extraordinary one, written without being enciphered, describing an offer from an Italian to assassinate the Earl of Tyrone.10 He was back in Venice by September, after delays due to ‘indisposition and other mischances which befell him in France’.11 On return to England, Wotton reduced his staff, and in November 1611 John Chamberlain wrote to Wotton’s successor Sir Dudley Carleton that ‘Mr. Parkhurst [is retired] into Kent’.12 He was mobilised again, however, in 1612, for Wotton’s embassy to the Duke of Savoy in Turin,   6 The A is not itself unusual: Richard Eden, in the preface to his translation of Martin Cortés’s The Arte of Navigation (London, 1584), refers to the explorer Stephen Borough as ‘Steven a Burrough’ (Sig. Ciiiir).    7 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 32–38.   8 A ‘man of Kent’ is one born east of the River Medway; one born west of it is a ‘Kentish man’. Wotton was proud of being a man of Kent, and described himself on his official arms-plate as ‘Anglo-Cantianus’ (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 193). A copy of this armsplate is at item 44 in Burley.   9 Ibid., I, 45. 10 Ibid., I, 420. 11 Ibid., I, 435, n. 12 Ibid., I, 118, n.

22

The Burley manuscript

and remained behind after it as an informal English agent, where he undertook several tasks on behalf of the Duke. Between his being sent by the Duke to the States (of Holland) in 1615, and his being dubbed knight at Theobalds on 19 July 1619,13 his career is a blank, except that, around 1616, there is a further indication that he was engaged in something covert. His name appears at the head of a list connected with an official cipher, suggesting perhaps that he was its originator, since he is by no means the most important member: others named include Secretary of State Sir Ralph Winwood, the ‘Arche Bishop’ (presumably George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury), and Dr Donne.14 It is not clear what office, if any, Parkhurst held at this time, but he certainly continued in government service, for in July 1621 Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (who had been arrested a month earlier and placed under the charge of the Lord Keeper, John Williams), was released but confined to his own seat of Titchfield, where Parkhurst had custody of him. Southampton was released six months later.15 In 1622, Parkhurst was appointed by the Crown as Bailiff (chief magistrate) of Jersey, Jean Herault having been suspended for misconduct. Such an appointment was usually for life, but was not so in Parkhurst’s case, Herault being reinstated in 1624. There is no evidence of Parkhurst having gone to the Channel Islands, and the appointment seems to have been made to assert the Crown’s prerogative rather than to administer the island, while Herault’s affairs were investigated.16 In any case, while still Bailiff, Parkhurst became Joint Warden of the Mint with Sir Edward Villiers, an office under the Crown with a salary of £100. Such grants were for life, and after Villiers’s death in 1626 Parkhurst’s tenure was renewed in conjunction with Sir Anthony St Leger.17 Some time during this period, Parkhurst must have been wed, for his daughter Mary was born at East Lenham in 1625. In 1647, then 22, she married Henry Butler of Handley, Dorset.18 13 J. Philipot, A Perfect Collection or Catalogue of All Knights Batchelaurs made by King James since his comming to the Crown of England (London: for Humphrey Moseley, 1660), p. 77. 14 The cipher, SP 106/4, f. 44, is transcribed in R. C. Bald, John Donne: A Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), pp. 569–70. It is typical of diplomatic ciphers of the period, in which numbers are assigned to letters of the alphabet, to the names of notable persons, and to words such as ‘treaty’ or ‘marriage’ that might give away the subject of a communication. SP 106/4 is a collection of such ciphers. 15 Park Honan, ‘Wriothesley, Henry, Third Earl of Southampton (1573–1624)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn Oct 2008. 16 Philip Falle and Edward Durell, An Account of Jersey (Jersey: R. Giffard, 1837), p. 410. 17 IHR ‘Officers of the Mint’ (www.history.ac.uk). 18 Wiltshire & Swindon Archives, 1641/7, 1647.

William Parkhurst

23

The Wardenship inaugurated a period of stability and modest prosperity for Parkhurst. Other appointments came to him: he became a Justice of the Peace, and was appointed with Sir George More (Donne’s father-in-law) as a collector of a royal loan in Surrey in 1625.19 He had some property: Dorothy Kempe in 1626 left in her will a house in Finsbury, Middlesex, leased from him.20 In 1634, he sat on a commission for the reform of ‘divers disordered alehouses’ in the same county,21 and in 1637 on another that licensed suitable people as maltsters.22 In 1640, his elder brother John died, and the manor of East Lenham reverted to William Parkhurst by the entail set up by their grandfather. Parkhurst cut off the entail in the following year, which may indicate that he had no sons and that his wife had died or was considered past childbearing; cutting off the entail would enable him to bequeath the property by will, or to sell it.23 In the same year, Parkhurst gave evidence to the Lords at the trial of the Earl of Strafford, who was accused (among many other counts) of having caused ‘one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, which was then in the Mint, and belonging to divers Merchants, strangers and others, to be seized on and stayed to his Majesties use’.24 Although his evidence is recorded in the House of Lords Journal as ‘concerning the Money and bullion in the Mint’,25 no transcript survives, and the summary in Cobbett’s State Trials attributes to Parkhurst only corroboration of some rather feeble evidence by a Mr Palmer that Strafford ‘spake something about the king of France; but whether with relation to England or not, he did not remember’.26 The last item in the Burley manuscript, and chronologically the latest to be datable, is the funeral ode on Strafford (item 616), of which no other copy has been found. Parkhurst’s compilation of the manuscript collection seems to have ended at about this time, no doubt because of ensuing events. The Civil War began in 1642. Parliament had immediate control of London, and Parkhurst, loyal to Charles I, lost his job at the Mint. He rallied to the King at Oxford, and was appointed Joint Warden, with 19 Surrey History Centre, ‘Correspondence of the More family of Loseley Park’, 6729/ 10/130. 20 ‘Kempe family info’, p. 2, (www.angelfire.com/tn/CarterCo/kempe.html). 21 ‘Middlesex Sessions Rolls: 1634’, Middlesex County Records, Vol. 3: 1625–67 (1888), pp. 55–57. 22 S.P. Dom., SP 17/D. 23 CKS, Knatchbull MS, CKS U951/4/80/35 and footnote. 24 Depositions and articles against Thomas Earle of Strafford, Febr. 16. 1640 (1640), Article XXVI (note: dates are OS). 25 House of Lords Journal, vol. 4, 8 Jan 1641 and 7 Apr 1641, (www.british-history.ac.uk). 26 Cobbett’s State Trials, III (London, 1809), col. 1451.

24

The Burley manuscript

Thomas Bushell, of the newly inaugurated Oxford Mint.27 Bushell had been Warden of the Aberystwyth Mint, which was briefly transferred to Shrewsbury before forming the basis of the Oxford Mint. He brought with him the dies from Aberystwyth, as well as a quantity of silver from his own Welsh mines, and he seems to have been the technical expert, although Parkhurst, as a Knight Bachelor, was his social superior, and so perhaps perceived as senior. Their main duty was to collect and convert to coin the plate requisitioned from the Colleges, but the Wardens were also instructed to provide ‘certain Badges of silver, containing our Royal image, and that of our dearest son, Prince Charles’ for soldiers who had done faithful service in the Forlorn-hope (advance guard).28 It is one of these badges that Parkhurst is depicted holding in 1644, in the title-page illustration. The war was lost, and with it Parkhurst’s source of income, but he still had outgoings, including taxation: he was assessed to pay £300 in 1648.29 In 1650, he sold East Lenham Manor to a Mr Wood,30 almost certainly Edward Wood of Middlesex, described in the London Municipal Archives’ summary of his family papers as one who ‘made his fortune during the Interregnum but did not suffer from the Restoration, when he set himself up as a wealthy landowner in Middlesex’.31 In 1655, Parkhurst was living at No. 3, Little Piazza, in Covent Garden.32 He survived the Interregnum, and at the Restoration of 1660, when he was recorded as living in the parish of St Martin in the Fields, he borrowed £10 from Edward Wood, perhaps to make an appearance at Court.33 Soon after, Parkhurst and St Leger were reinstated as Wardens of the Mint.34 William Parkhurst died in early 1667. The entry for 9 March 1666/67, in Richard Smyth’s ‘Obituary’ (not an obituary in the modern sense, but a listing of the deaths of everyone known to Smyth between 1627 and 1675) reads: ‘Old Sir Wm. Parkhurst, Kt., Master of the Mint, buried at St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower’.35 27 IHR, ‘Officers of the Mint’. 28 ‘Medals and War Decorations’, Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), (www.1911encyclopedia.org/Main_Page). 29 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 478. 30 CKS, U951/4/80/5, n. 31 LMA, ‘Wood family of Littleton (Stowe)’, ACC/0262. 32 IHR, British History Online: ‘The Piazza – Notable private residents in the Piazza’, (www.british-history.ac.uk). 33 LMA, ACC/0262/043/112. 34 IHR, ‘Officers of the Mint’. 35 Camden (1st series) No. 44 (1849).

5

Provenance

Data of the kind given in Chapter 3 enable conjectures to be made about how the material of the various parts came to be acquired and assembled. All the material of Part 1 is in William Parkhurst’s hand, and there is no item in this part that external evidence would date after 1621, the latest of certain date being Francis Bacon’s confession to the House of Lords on f. 90r, of 22 April 1621, although there is on f. 109v a set of proposals for preventing the conversion to Catholicism of English students at Padua, which may be connected with a letter of 8/18 July 1621 from Wotton to Sir George Calvert.1 Part 1 contains some items in Italian, and some diplomatic material, which accords with his employment in the early part of the seventeenth century as a secretary to Sir Henry Wotton, the British ambassador in Venice. There are also copies of some English private letters between unknown correspondents, which may have been obtained clandestinely, translations of some letters of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (a Roman patrician of the fourth century AD), and a few letters which may be translations or may be copies of seventeenth-century English letters. Part 1, it may be concluded, is a collection made by Parkhurst of copies that he wanted to keep, of documents that came his way or that he himself produced, in the period up to 1621. Part 2 contains an assortment of documents, inscribed in various hands on paper of various kinds and sizes. There are two items only (235 and 238) that may be in Parkhurst’s hand, and in each case the identification is uncertain. There is some diplomatic material, much historical record, and nothing whose presence can be explained only by its having been obtained covertly. In addition to the ‘Pot’ watermark on f. 217 (mentioned on page 13), an unusual form of ‘Cross’ watermark, not found in Likhachev or in Churchill (the other major catalogue of Euro  1 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 214.

26

The Burley manuscript

pean watermarks),2 appears on the two-sheet gathering of ff. 224-227, which is given over to a report of a House of Commons debate in 1607 on the status of Scots after Union.3 The documents of Part 2 all seem to originate from the period before about 1615, and they include four items emanating from Ireland in 1596/97, certified on the manuscript of each as being copied by Robert Parkhurst. If this be William’s brother of that name, he would have been of 12 or 13 years of age, perhaps engaged as page to some gentleman serving in Ireland. It is also possible that this is another Robert Parkhurst, perhaps of the Surrey branch of that family. The conjecture for the provenance of Part 2, therefore, is that it was put together, by Robert Parkhurst, by William, by some person unknown, or by a combination of more than one of these; that it consists of documents collected in a period overlapping that of Part 1; and that it subsequently came into William Parkhurst’s ownership, if he was not the originator, perhaps on his brother Robert’s death in 1617. Part 3, despite being apparently all on one sort of paper, lighter in weight and trimmed to a smaller size than most of the rest of the codex, is another assortment. The first 14 folios are mostly in D1’s hand, and include some historical material and sententiae of the sort that one finds often in commonplace books. There is also one private letter, inscribed by William Parkhurst. The next 30 folios are mostly in Parkhurst’s hand, and include verse (lyrics, libels, epigrams), and the extracts from Overbury’s Characters referred to in Chapter 7 below. Then there are seven folios of verse, mostly D1, and eight more, including some Latin, mostly Parkhurst. Next comes a section of covertly copied private correspondence, six folios of D1 followed by four of Parkhurst. Four folios of epigrams in Parkhurst’s hand follow, then the letter of John Donne enclosing his paradoxes, and the paradoxes themselves, all inscribed by D1. The provenance of Part 3 thus seems clear: it is a joint compilation of Parkhurst and D1, including not only material obtained covertly but also verses and commonplaces that took the fancy of either or both. Part X (see the discussion on p. 14) contains a six-line Latin epigram in Parkhurst’s hand, centred on the page, and nothing else; the verso is blank. It is unusual for Parkhurst not to fill the whole folio, and this, with the epigram’s placement after Part 3, as if to stand in some special   2 W. A. Churchill, Watermarks in Paper in Holland, England, France etc., in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1935).   3 Something not unlike this version of the ‘Cross’ mark is to be found in Zeugli’s Watermarks, ed. by E. J. Labarre (Hilversum: Paper Publications Society, 1953), fig. 1471, but it is not identical.

Provenance

27

relationship with it, creates a puzzle, for it has no apparent bearing on what has gone before or comes after. It may be relevant that this single folio (trimmed to the same size as, but of slightly lighter quality than, those preceding it) has an uncommon and elaborate watermark, again not found in Likhachev, Churchill, or Zeugli, representing Justice as a seated and crowned figure bearing a sword and a balance. Its absence from these catalogues, which concentrate their coverage on papers of northern Europe, may indicate that the paper and its inscription come from Parkhurst’s Italian period, a conclusion reinforced by its appearance in Heawood’s catalogue, where it is annotated ‘Venice, 1562’.4 The verse reads: Si mihi quem cupio cure Mildreda remitti   Tu bona tu melior tu mihi sola soror Sin per dessidium cessas aut transmare mittas   Tu mala tu peior tu mihi nulla soror. Is si Cornubiam tibi pax sit et omnia laeta   Sin mare Cecili nuntio bella: Vale. [If, Mildred, you care to return to me him whom I desire,   You are a good sister, a better sister, the only sister for me; But if contrarily you are remiss and send him overseas   You are a bad sister, a worse sister, no sister to me. If to Cornwall, may you have peace and happiness;   But if to sea, I declare war on Cecil: Farewell.]

This epigram, a nearly identical copy of which appears in Kytton’s commonplace book (Cambridge University MS Ff.5.14, f. 107), together with two contemporary translations in English verse, was written by Katherine Killigrew to her sister Mildred, Lady Cecil (later Lady Burghley), asking that she use her influence over her husband Sir William, the Secretary of State, to get Katherine’s husband sent home to Cornwall, rather than on yet another diplomatic mission abroad.5 It was written a decade or more before Parkhurst was born: why then did he accord it such prominence? Its position in the codex, and its occupation of a complete folio, may both be accidents, but it is tempting to speculate that the poem had a special significance for Parkhurst. A dozen years abroad in the service of   4 Edward Heawood, Watermarks, mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hilversum: Paper Publications Society, 1950), fig. 1355. ‘1562’ is not a date appearing on the mark itself; it is the date of the document on which Heawood found the mark. Marks were used often for many years.   5 The Kytton text, with his translation, appears in Louise Schleiner, Tudor and Stuart Women Writers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 45.

28

The Burley manuscript

Burghley’s son (supposing Parkhurst to have been a double agent when serving the Duke of Savoy)6 might well have had him hoping that the current Secretary of State would give him a home posting, and wishing that he had some supporter who could plead on his behalf in elegant and witty Latin verse. Part Y consists of the Spenser extracts (items 497–524),7 acquired I know not how (they are discussed below on pp. 40–44). Part 4 seems to belong to Parkhurst’s career in England after about 1616, and includes virtually all the material datable to this later period. It is nearly all verse, some of it of a political nature, but also lyrics, epigrams, epitaphs, satires and elegies (including Donne’s ‘Hymn to the Saints and the Marquis Hamilton’ with its covering letter to Robert Ker, Earl of Ancrum); there are as well copies of speeches and some anagrams. There seems to be no covertly obtained material, reflecting Parkhurst’s relative respectability in the 25 years or so that Part 4 embraces, and almost every item is in his own hand. We have, I think, at last reached the domain of the commonplace book; Part 4 is a collection of things that Parkhurst came across, liked, and kept.

  6 See above, in Chapter 4.   7 Bell placed these in Part 4; see p. 14 above.

6

Interception

There are in the manuscript copies of 45 or so private letters, that is to say, letters apparently from one individual to another, written without the expectation of their publication to any wider audience. Some have been identified by Simpson, by Claude Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth,1 and most recently by Dennis Flynn,2 as belonging to an exchange between Wotton and Donne, but the tally includes also those between Wotton or Donne and someone else, and as well those five or ten that are at present anonymous as to both author and recipient, and may or may not be translations of classical texts. Some of these letters I have been unable to date; of those for which a date can be presumed with some confidence, many come from before 1604, when Wotton was first made Ambassador. Most of the Wotton– Donne correspondence, on which I wish to focus attention here, seems to come from 1598–1601, when both were employed as secretaries, Wotton to the Earl of Essex and Donne to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper. It seems to me curious that none of the letters is in the hand of the originator: most are in that of the scribe D1, and the rest in William Parkhurst’s. Parkhurst, as we have seen, was one of Wotton’s secretaries in Venice, but – save for these letters – I know of no connection between them in this earlier period. It does not seem likely that, at this period of their careers, either Wotton or Donne had or could afford a secretary of his own. Nor can one think of a reason for either to keep copies of brief communications on what seem to be quotidian matters, even if there are – as Flynn argues – political and emotional currents flowing beneath their inoffensive surfaces.   1 Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth, ‘Donne’s Correspondence with Wotton’, John Donne Journal, 10 (1991), 1–36.  2 Dennis Flynn is working on the forthcoming Oxford edition of the letters of John Donne. I am grateful to him for sight of some of his work in progress.

30

The Burley manuscript

If either had wanted copies, it would have been natural for him to make such copies in his own hand; indeed either may have done so, but that is not what has survived. What we have are copies by two other people and, given the implausibility of Donne or Wotton asking for them to be made, we must suppose that D1 and Parkhurst made or acquired them for their own purposes, or at another’s behest. (I say ‘made or acquired’ because – at least in most cases – what have survived seem to be fair copies of the first raw transcriptions. These transcriptions may have been by the two scribes, or by others working on the project.) A further difficulty arises from our inability to date, not the letters, but the copies themselves. Parkhurst’s association with the manuscript collection certainly continued until 1641, as we have seen, but we do not know when it began. Similarly, D1’s connection continued until at least 1604, for a copy in his hand of ‘To Sir H.W. at his going Ambassador to Venice’ appears at item 392, but again the commencement of his involvement is undatable. It is possible, therefore, that the scribal copies are much later than the originals but, in that case (and supposing that the originals survived long enough for that to happen), one would need to find a reason why someone – the scribes or their employer(s) – should be so interested in having copies. More plausible, surely, is that the copies were taken at some point between their writing and their receipt, and that this was done as a consequence of some policy or instruction that correspondence originating from, or destined for, those appearing on some list of names, was to be intercepted and copied. If we admit this conjecture, we now have an explanation that accounts for the several peculiarities of the letters’ inclusion in the Burley manuscript: their existence at all, their being in the hands of other people than their originators, the lack of any established connection between Parkhurst and Wotton at the time of the letters, and the archiving of them, apparently by Parkhurst. D1 and Parkhurst were engaged in the systematic interception of correspondence, presumably on behalf of the authorities who – then as now – were interested in discovering all they could of the traffic between sources of potential disaffection. Wotton and Donne fit this description, the one an adherent of the volatile and dangerous Earl of Essex and the other a known Catholic sympathiser. Parkhurst, perhaps the senior of the two agents, retained the copies, presumably sending off regular summaries to his political master. Judging from what appears in the Burley manuscript, however, the conspirators seem to have gained little of use or interest from the oper-

Interception

31

ation. This was often the case: Pearsall Smith records that, a few years later, Wotton himself had a large number of agents in different European cities intercepting and copying letters of the Jesuits but that, among the great volume of such letters archived in the Venetian papers of the Record Office, ‘it cannot be said that the information contained in them is of much importance; but there was always a chance that [Wotton] might come on the traces of some plot that was being hatched’.3 And indeed, as John Michael Archer observes, the very presence of a surveillance system, whether or not it actually detected plots, was thought to be a deterrent to treasonable conspiracy.4 There was a risk, too, that the interceptors might misinterpret even innocent correspondence as treasonable. Donne himself was aware of this hazard, as he showed in the preface to Pseudo-Martyr: So that I hope either mine Innocence, or their own fellowes guiltinesse, shall defend me, from the curious malice of those men, who in this sickly decay, and declining of their cause, can spy out falsifyings in every citation: as in a jealous, and obnoxious state, a Decipherer can pick out Plots, and Treason, in any familiar letter which is intercepted.5

One can see this process at work in Burley. In one of the earliest of Donne’s letters, he wishes he could send Wotton some great news, instead of writing about trifles: Sir I would some great princes or men were dead so I might chuse them or some states or Countryes overthrown so I were not in them that I might have some news to ease this itch of writing. (Donne, probably to Wotton. Christmas season, 1597–98. Item 446)

In the margin, pointing at this sentence, D1 has drawn carefully a manicule, as if to say ‘Princes dead? Countries overthrown? Donne’s plotting something.’ Donne, indeed, had noted this danger earlier. One of the letters in his correspondence with Henry Wotton is the verse-letter ‘H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti’, transcribed by D1 at item 361, containing the lines: I aske not labored letters which should weare Long papers out: nor letters which should feare dishonest cariage: or a seers Art6   (17–19)   3 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 65.  4 John Michael Archer, Sovereignty and Intelligence: Spying and Court Culture in the English Renaissance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 126.   5 John Donne, Pseudo-Martyr (London, 1610), ‘An Advertisement to the Reader’, sig.¶ 2.   6 ‘Seer’, here a disyllable, has what OED describes as the ‘rare’ meaning of ‘one who sees’;

32

The Burley manuscript

He was not the only one to be suspicious of ‘dishonest cariage’ between England and Ireland: Sir John Harington, after returning with Essex and Wotton, wrote to his friend Sir Anthony Standen, who had remained in Ireland: It is not a lake of Lethe, that makes us forget our friends, but it is the lack of good messengers; for who will write, when his letters shall be opened by the way, and construed at pleasure, or rather displeasure? – Some used this in Ireland, that perhaps have repented it since in England.7

Neither in Harington’s case nor in that of the Donne–Wotton correspondence are there any clues to the identity of the man behind the surveillance, but an obvious candidate is the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil (described by a recent biographer as ‘reviving the intelligence work pursued by Walsingham’),8 who was certainly suspicious of Essex and Catholic plotters alike. Among the Burley letters is one from Donne to Sir Henry Goodere, datable to before 1601, beginning ‘Sir. Only in obedience’, enclosing a copy of his Paradoxes (item 485).9 The copies, both of the letter and of the Paradoxes, are all in D1’s hand. The letter asks Goodere for an assurance ‘on the religion of your friendship that no copy shall be taken’ – and yet there is a copy in Burley. It has been assumed hitherto that the addressee was forsworn but, if the interception theory is correct, the copy was made without his knowledge or consent, something consorting better with the honesty that Donne so prized in a friend. How highly he valued this quality is declared expressively in his letter (item 447) ‘In this sickly dotage of the world’: methinks I have taken a ritch prize & made a rare discoverie when I have found an honest man: & therefore whatsoever you have more then honesty is the wast & unthriftynes of nature: I know it a fault to commend a thing so much out of fashion as honesty yet since I desire infinitely to contract a frendship with you (bycause I know how far you overstripp me in all other virtues) I stand most upon honesty with which I have had most combined with ‘Art’ (that of intercepting, unsealing, copying, and resealing), it explains ‘dishonest carriage’.   7 Letter of 20 February 1600, quoted from The Letters and Epigrams of Sir John Harington, ed. by Norman Egbert McClure (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930), p. 79.   8 Pauline Croft, ‘Cecil, Robert, First Earl of Salisbury’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), online edn Oct2008.   9 Goodere, rather than Wotton, is here nominated as the addressee; in this I follow Dennis Flynn: see the commentary on the letter. The argument is, I think, unaffected by the choice of addressee: D1 was spying on Donne, not his correspondents.

Interception

33

a­ quayntance & society. I am best able to keepe wing with you in it though you sore high.

The notion that the Donne letters, in particular, are in Burley as a result of covert surveillance may help to solve another mystery. In her essay on Donne’s love letters to Anne More, Ilona Bell argues persuasively that three of the Burley letters (items 438, 442, and 450) may be so described.10 On this basis, she demonstrates that a crisis in the affair occurred between the writing of the first two of these: Between the first and the second letters Donne learns – probably from Ann herself at their reunion – that her father has been told something incriminating. As the second and third letters reveal, that has an irreparable effect on their glorious intimacy. (p. 36)

Bell’s conclusions have been broadly accepted by other scholars who have studied these letters.11 Her speculations about the probable source of this betrayal involve Christopher Brooke, John Davies, Arthur Maynwaring, and Lord Latimer. If any of these can be shown to be, or to have connections with, D1, we are a step closer to solving the problem of how Sir George More got to know of his daughter’s clandestine romance. The nature of his interceptions makes it seem likely that D1 was, like Donne, employed in the Lord Keeper’s office. Arthur Maynwaring was a steward in the Egerton household, but the letters are not in his handwriting, nor in that of Morgan Coleman, another household officer. Also, we know the names of two fellow-secretaries of John Donne: George Carew and Gregory Downall, who later took to spelling his surname Donhault. Carew we can eliminate from our enquiries: there survive several specimens of his hand and – although of the same style as D1’s – it is not his. An example of Downall’s hand would greatly help this research, but I have been unable to find one. The strength of the theory that the Burley correspondence results from surreptitious interception is that it accounts for features in the collection that are otherwise puzzling. Its weakness, I have to concede, is that we lack anything in the way of corroboration: D1 is a wholly unknown quantity, and, although other elements in the life above recounted seem to implicate Parkhurst in spying, we have not actually caught him opening letters. 10 Bell, ‘Under Ye Rage’, pp. 25–52. 11 See, for instance, John Donne’s Marriage Letters in The Folger Shakespeare Library, ed. with an Introduction by M. Thomas Hester, Robert Parker Sorlien, and Dennis Flynn (Washington, DC: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 2005), notes 20, 23, 24, 27, and 30, although note 24 expresses a doubt about Bell’s dating of one letter.

34

The Burley manuscript

There the conjecture rests, for the moment, although further research may imbue it with more substance. Even if no more facts emerge, it may give us insights not only into the Donne–Wotton correspondence but also into the other letters of their circle, and even of those whose authors or addressees cannot be traced. There can be, I think, little doubt that these letters were copied from holograph originals, but not everything in Burley seems to have been transmitted in this way. In the next chapter, I argue that another process entirely was often at work.

7

Memory

In his fascinating and valuable study of manuscript transmission in the forty years or so either side of 1600, H. R. Woudhuysen issues a warning against trusting some manuscript texts too far. ‘There is always the possibility’, he writes that some poems in miscellanies may not have been copied from written or from printed texts, but were reconstructed from memory. It is reasonable to suggest that the degree of textual corruption sometimes encountered in miscellany texts arises not simply from a failure in ability to copy words from one piece of paper to another, but as a result of the compiler’s difficulties in remembering what he read or heard, whether it was sung or spoken.1

Although in the very next sentence Woudhuysen affirms that the role of miscellany texts in the transmission of English verse of this period deserves to be more fully acknowledged, the themes of this whole section of the work seem to be that ultimate authority cannot reside in a manuscript miscellany text; that memory is always a corrupting influence, and that somewhere there may be a text more to be trusted, a text closer to the original composition. The great nineteenth-century editors of Renaissance texts mistrusted manuscript miscellanies – indeed manuscripts in general – even more thoroughly for the purpose of arriving at a ‘definitive’ text. Only with Grierson’s monumental edition of Donne in 1912, for which he searched out and collated large numbers of manuscript versions of the poems, most of which had not been printed until after Donne’s death, did manuscripts come to be seen as valuable sources, and printed versions as not necessarily to be privileged above them. This movement was given new impetus by J. B. Leishman who, from a study of five manuscript and 13 printed versions of Wotton’s ‘On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia’, concluded  1 Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney, p. 159.

36

The Burley manuscript that the author [of a poem] was not accustomed, either with his own hand or with his secretary’s, to write out copy after copy at the request of friends, each time incorporating some small revision or correction, but that, after one or two authentic versions, perhaps with not inconsiderable variants between them, had been circulated, the author’s (or the poem’s) friends got the poem by heart, unconsciously modified it in their memories, repeated it or wrote it out for their friends, and that the various versions in commonplace-books and miscellanies have, in varying degrees, a relationship to the original similar to that of the various versions of traditional ballads.2

Leishman’s theory, that much manuscript transcription of poetry was done from memory rather than from a paper copy, has never been seriously contested, and is quoted approvingly still. Arthur F. Marotti, for instance, aligns himself with Leishman and speculates further on the possibility that writers from memory also ‘improved’ what they remembered.3 Yet scholars still write of ‘copying’ and of ‘scribal errors’ as if every manuscript not in the author’s holograph were the work of a copy clerk. Woudhuysen, for example, says ‘when Jonson wanted a text of Wotton’s The Character of a Happy Life”, he had to copy it for himself ’.4 But we have the testimony of Drummond of Hawthornden that ‘Sir Henry Wottons verses of a happy lyfe, he [Jonson] hath by heart’:5 did he learn the version he had copied or write down the version he had learned? As we have seen, Woudhuysen admits the function of memorised texts, but treats them as sources of textual corruption rather than – as Pebworth and others have shown they may be – a step closer to the original than other versions, despite the ‘compiler’s difficulties in remembering what he read or heard’. 6 Distributed within the Burley manuscript, as we have seen, are copies of some 140 poems in English. In this section, I draw on some of this material to examine the possibility that several texts in Parkhurst’s collection may have been written from memory, and to offer suggestions about the possibility of regarding any of them as texts of authority. Some of the prose material will be examined also, to detect the influence of memory. I have not found anywhere else reference to the possibility of transmitting substantial, non-dramatic, prose works in this way, yet (as will appear)   2 J. B. Leishman, “‘You Meaner Beauties of the Night”: A Study in Transmission and Transmogrification’, The Library, 4th series, 26 (1945), 99–121 (p. 101).  3 Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric, pp. 143–144.  4 Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney, p. 154.   5 R. F. Patterson, ed., Ben Jonson’s Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden (London: Blackie, 1924), p. 12.   6 E.g. Ted-Larry Pebworth, ‘New Light on Sir Henry Wotton’s “The Character of a Happy Life”’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 5th series, 33 (1978), 223–228.

Memory

37

it seems to me likely that some prose items in Burley were written from memory, and this raises the possibility that other manuscript collections were similarly influenced. This enquiry has led me to investigate the role of memory training in the educational practice of the early modern period, and to consider whether a broad study of the Burley manuscript might to some degree answer the complaint of Woudhuysen that Among editors there has been an understandable inclination to examine only miscellanies for the texts of poets on which they are working, rather than look at individual collections as a whole. As a result, miscellanies have yet to receive the degree of editorial attention they deserve.7

Let us begin with an example in which memory is almost certainly at work. On f. 345v appears, under the heading ‘On the Countesse of Pembroke’, a copy of the epitaph by William Browne of Tavistock, ‘Underneath this sable hearse’. A facsimile of the entry appears as Figure 5, and it will be observed that William Parkhurst (the whole page is in his hand) has written the first stanza, underscored it, and gone on to write the (unconnected) epigrammatic couplet ‘New freinds are no freinds’. At some later time, remembering or being prompted with the second stanza of the epitaph, he has written the first line over the ornamental underscore, and squeezed the other five into the space between it and the couplet, providing a further underscore to divide the epitaph from the epigram. Perhaps I may introduce here a personal reflection on how memory (or, at any rate, one’s memory of verses) works. When I first encountered the poem in Burley, I found that I, too, remembered the first stanza, indeed had it by heart. Elegantly phrased and rising to a fine climax, its six lines can stand as a complete poem, without the addition of the second stanza: Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse: Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother: Death, ere thou hast slain another, Fair and learn’d and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee.8

Perhaps because of this self-sufficiency, I had forgotten that there was a second stanza, and had to remind myself by consulting The New Oxford  7 Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney, p. 158.   8 Quoted from The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse, ed. by Alistair Fowler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 252–253.

Figure 5  The Burley Manuscript, f. 345v

Memory

39

Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse that Parkhurst had not made it up. My experience, that is to say, paralleled what I conjecture to have been his, but why – if I am right – did we both find this second stanza less memorable? Marble piles let no man raise To her name for after days; Some kind woman born as she, Reading this, like Niobe Shall turn marble, and become Both her mourner and her tomb.

Neither here nor in the Burley variant (the poem is transcribed at item 558) is the opening couplet a strong one: ‘for after days’ makes up the second line without advancing the thought. The metaphysical image of Niobe that follows is well-wrought but not altogether well-chosen: she, though unquestionably handsome and well-born, was far from wise, and was punished for her hubris by the deaths of her fourteen children, her metamorphosis into weeping marble being something of a relief of the harsh sentence of the gods.9 Some evocation of the fair, wise, and good Hermione in The Winter’s Tale (first played a decade or so before Mary Sidney’s death) might have been more appropriate. But is it this slight lapse of taste that makes the stanza forgettable? There is no way of telling, nor of evaluating the possibility that the memory is somehow affected by the different musical qualities of the two stanzas, and that the sibilants in ‘sable hearse’ and elsewhere cut a deeper impression into memory’s intaglio than do the nasal stops in ‘marble’, ‘man’, ‘Niobe’, and ‘tomb’. Or, to follow the inexplicable with the imponderable, perhaps Parkhurst and I are agreed that the first stanza is ‘better’, and choose, subconsciously, to commit only that to memory. It should be remarked that no claim is made for the textual authority of Burley in this instance; Peter Beal lists fifty or so manuscript versions of the work,10 and for most of them, as for Burley, the date cannot be established with any certainty. Nor, indeed, would establishing the earliest text necessarily bring us closest to Browne’s original. Another trap dug for searchers after authenticity, one into which Leishman fell, is that of regarding the aesthetically preferable of two versions as the ‘better’, and concluding that it must be, therefore, closer to the poet’s original. In line 4 of the epitaph, where Burley has ‘kild’, I prefer,  9 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 6.2. 10 IELM BrW, 180–230.

40

The Burley manuscript

on musical grounds, the version in many manuscripts of the period: ‘slain’, and so, I think, would Leishman, judging that the poet’s ear, too, would register this preference.11 It is a dangerous assumption; one should rather examine all the early manuscripts and see what, if any, consensus emerges. Oxford (which also prefers ‘slain’) is no help: its text rests on a printed version, and a twentieth-century printed version at that. With these warnings in our ears, let us return to Burley’s poetry. As we have noted, it contains some extracts from Spenser’s Complaints, first published in 1591. There are 28 of these (items 497–524); 16 from ‘The Ruines of Tyme’, two from ‘Teares of the Muses’ and ten from ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’. The extracts appear in the order of the 1591 edition (allowing for the fact that f. 318 has been wrongly assembled into the volume; it should appear after f. 320), and vary in length between a single line and 44. The lines are generally accurately rendered in relation to the first edition, and there is almost always a space between entries where text is missing. ‘The Ruines of Tyme’ is a poem of 98 stanzas of rime royal, which may be divided (although the original edition did not do this) into four sections. The first part is a lament by the Genius of Verulamium for that city’s ruin, and the futility of human endeavour, and from this the scribe takes six extracts totalling 51 lines. From the next section, a lament for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, come seven extracts, in all 39 lines; from the third, in praise of poetry and its power, come two extracts, of 32 lines; and from the final section, which consists of 14 pairs of stanzas, each emblematic of one of the poem’s themes, the scribe (who has not been identified) has selected just one stanza, the first of the two-stanza envoy: Immortall spirite of Philisides, Which now art made the heavens ornament, That whilome wast the worlds chiefst riches; Give leave to him that lov’de thee to lament His losse, by lacke of thee to heaven hent, And with last duties of this broken verse, Broken with sighes, to decke thy sable Herse.12 11 Preferences in musical taste are difficult to explain; this one stems, I think, from the ease with which the mouth forms the successive sibilants in ‘hast’ and ‘slain’, the tongue staying forward and not moving back to the palate as it has to for ‘hast kild’, and also from the resonance of the long vowel of ‘slain’ with those of ‘death’, ‘fair’, ‘learn’d’, and ‘good’. But, of course, de gustibus ... 12 All Spenser texts are quoted from The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edward Spenser, ed. by William A. Oram and others (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), a text based on the 1591 edition, to which Burley adheres closely.

Memory

41

‘The Teares of the Muses’ is a poem of one hundred six-line stanzas rhyming ababcc, in ten roughly equal sections: an Introduction followed by individual complaints from each of the nine Muses. Its theme is the impoverished state of English poetry, a view of the situation in the late Elizabethan period that we might not now share. The scribe offers two stanzas from the lament of the eighth Muse, Urania (patroness of astronomy), who, finding herself scorned and banished by ignorant men, withdraws into contemplation of the heavens: How ever yet they do me despise and spight I feede on sweete contentment of my thought And please my self with myne owne self delight In contemplation of things heavenlie wrought So loathinge earth I looke up to the skie And being dryven hence I thyther flie.

(523–528)

The other extract from ‘The Teares of the Muses’ consists of three stanzas from the complaint of Polyhymnia, the Muse of mimic art, stanzas 6, 7, and 9 of that section, with a heading ‘Polyhymnia’ and (unusually for this scribe) no indication that the eighth is missing. These stanzas form a panegyric to Elizabeth, exempting her from the general condemnation of the state of poetry: One onelie lives, her ages ornament, And myrrour of her Makers majestie; That with rich bountie and deare cherishment, Supports the praise of noble Poësie: Ne onelie favours them which it professe, But is her selfe a peereless Poëtresse.

(571–6)

We cannot tell if the eighth stanza was omitted accidentally or deliberately, or – if accidentally – whether due to ‘eye-slip’ or ‘memory-slip’. If deliberately, it may be modesty on the scribe’s part, for it absolves from the general guilt those few who recognise the Queen’s genius and are ‘thereby fild with happie influence’. The scribe moves on to ‘Prosopopoia or Mother Hubberds Tale’, an allegorical satire in the medieval manner, written in rhymed couplets and totalling 1388 lines. After quoting the alternative titles in full, he begins half-way through line 133, and provides ten extracts of between one and 44 lines, in a total of 127 lines. As with the extracts from ‘The Ruines of Tyme’ and ‘The Teares of the Muses’, no perceivable theme unites the

42

The Burley manuscript

recorded extracts, or distinguishes them from those lines omitted. In the case of ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, however, two of the extracts, unlike the others, seem to speak directly rather than allegorically, and it is possible to fancy that the scribe recorded them as corresponding directly with his own view or experience. Such a correspondence is a powerful reason for learning or recalling poetry, as anyone remembering the favourite love poems of his or her youth will testify. The first of these extracts, of 21 lines, has a vigorously democratic tone reminiscent of that which inspired the Peasants’ Revolt:         sith then we are free borne, Let us all servile base subjection scorne; And as we bee sonnes of the world so wide, Let us our fathers heritage divide, And chalenge to our selves our portions dew Of all the patrimonie, which a few Now hold in hugger mugger in their hand, And all the rest doo rob of good and land (133–140)

Two centuries earlier, the hedge-priest John Ball had preached on the text: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span / Who was then the gentleman?’ According to Thomas Walsingham, the St Albans chronicler, ‘he strove to prove that from the beginning all men were created equal by nature, and that servitude had been introduced by the unjust oppression of wicked men against God’s will, for if it had pleased Him to create serfs, surely in the beginning of the world He would have decreed who was to be a serf and who a lord’.13 The other extract is of 18 lines on the miseries of suitors at Court, and it may be remarked that not only ambassadors but also their secretaries depended for their appointments and remuneration on patronage: So pitifull a thing is Sutors state. Most miserable man, whom wicked fate Hath brought to Court, to sue for had ywist, That few have found, and manie one hath mist; Full little knowest thou that hast not tride, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To wast long nights in pensive discontent; 13 T. Walsingham, Historia Anglicana (1574), II, 32; quoted from Arthur Bryant, The Age of Chivalry (London: Collins, 1963), p. 527.

Memory To speed to day, to be put back to morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; To have thy Princes grace, yet want her Peeres; To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeares; To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne. Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end, That doth his life in so long tendance spend.

43

(891–908)

So close an evocation is this of Wotton’s state at the end of his diplomatic career, or in its hiatus around 1613 (after his famous gaffe about an ambassador being ‘an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country’ came to light),14 that one is tempted to wonder if he, rather than the scribe, has chosen the passage. But it lacks Sir Henry’s characteristic optimism, confidence, and intellectual self-sufficiency (we recall that 1613 is the year of ‘A Character of a Happy Life’): How happy is hee borne or taught That serveth not anothers will Whose armor is his honest thought And simple truth his highest skill. [...] This man is free from servile bands Of hope to rise or feare to fall Lord of himself though not of lands And having nothing yet hath all.15

I think it probable that the choice was that of some other individual, who had known the misery of dependence but lacked the resources of character necessary for dealing with it. To sum up then, we have eight sides in an Elizabethan-style secretary hand, with 28 extracts from the first, second and fourth books of the 14 An amusing dinner-table remark in English, when translated into the Latin in which Wotton inscribed it in the visitors’ book of a friend in Augsburg – Legatus est Vir bonus, peregré missus ad mentiendum Reipub. causa – it loses the pun. In this form, it was found by the scurrilous controversialist Gaspar Scoppius, and published by him in 1611, in his Ecclesiasticus, an attack on the Apologia of James I. At home in England after his mission to Turin in 1612, Wotton was at a dinner at Court when the King demanded publicly an explanation of his remark, and refused to accept that it was made in jest. It was a year before Wotton was back in favour and nearly two before he held public office again (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 49, 126–132). 15 Wotton, ‘The Character of a Happy Life’, first and final stanzas, from Burley, item 357.

44

The Burley manuscript

Complaints, long, short, and diverse. No connection between them leaps to the eye, but they are in order, and I can draw no other conclusion than that we have what someone lacking the Spenser text could remember of it, turning the pages of the volume in his mind’s eye – a process that accounts for their being in the correct order.16 It is the sort of thing that lonely and comfortless people do; my late father-in-law, in a German POW camp for five years, wrote in the back of his diary all the poetry he could remember from his schooldays. As with the Browne, I make no claim for Burley as an authoritative text even for those elements that we have: despite being in an old-fashioned Elizabethan hand, the manuscript almost certainly postdates the 1591 printing. The example is included simply to suggest that memorised, rather than copied, texts may form at least part of the whole manuscript. We turn to an entry whose literary significance may be considerably greater. On f. 281r, in D1’s hand, appear – untitled and unattributed – the first 32 lines of Donne’s Elegie 8, ‘Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy’ (item 384). The last 16 lines (beginning ‘Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee’) are absent. (There is no missing page: Parkhurst’s collection continues on the verso with a sonnet by a different poet, inscribed in the same hand.) The text ends with a virgule and then a three-stroke underscore, typical of the manuscript: ‘That’s the end’ or ‘That’s all I can remember’. Teasingly, though, he leaves three inches of blank paper at the foot of the page (not something he commonly does), as if knowing there is more that might be remembered some time. ‘Remembered’: it seems almost certain that this is a remembered text, and not one of D1’s interceptions, for why else should the last third be missing? Not, I think, for reasons of prudery (although it was perhaps that which denied this elegy a licence in 1632), for a prude would surely omit the whole erotically charged poem, and in any case neither D1 nor Parkhurst evidences aversion to a little indelicacy. So it is probably a memory, but of what encounter? If, as seems likely, D1 was employed at York House with Donne, then he might have heard the text from the poet himself. If so, the manuscript gains in importance, of course, but might D1 have come across the poem in some other way? One word in the transcription offers us a clue: 16 The correction in line 32 of item 505 compromises this theory. Although the crossedout letters are not easy to read, they seem to be ‘bea’ or ‘bre’, as if E were repeating accidentally ‘beasts’, the previous word, or ‘breath’ from the following line. Such an error is more likely to be eye-slip when using a copy-text, but (particularly if ‘beasts’ was the erroneous word begun) is, I think, not impossible in a memorial reconstruction.

Memory

45

Off with your wyry coronet and show The hayry diomond which on you doth grow.

The lady is being enjoined to remove some sort of tire or headdress and to display her own admired hair. Although there are differences, mostly trivial, between the sixty-odd different seventeenth-century manuscript renderings of these lines, Burley is unique in giving ‘diomond’, where the other texts cited by the Variorum editors offer the altogether more probable ‘Diademe’.17 The unexpected and indeed surreal image of a hairy diamond seems to me to be an unlikely product of the scribe’s own memory, or of a common ‘copying’ error (the ascenders of ‘diamond’ and ‘diademe’ are in widely differing locations), but one that could have arisen easily from a momentary lapse of attention to the voice of some other person who ‘remembered’ it. So perhaps we must put away the tempting thought of a first-hand transcription by D1, and wonder from whom he might have heard it. This, given the closeness of the Donne and Wotton circle, and D1’s evident access to it, could have been someone whose own encounter with the poem was a first-hand one, either one of that circle or another member of the York House staff. The conjecture that the record is a secretary’s inscription of a firsthand memory has been built on the flimsy foundations of a single word, and the assumption, without much evidence, that D1 was in a position to hear the poem from someone with a first-hand acquaintance with it, yet it still seems to me to do a better job of accounting for the Burley version of the poem than Stringer and his colleagues of the Variorum edition, who suggest that this manuscript’s unique ‘hayry diamond’ [...] as well as other variants in lines 13, 17, and 18, indicate either that [Burley] stands at some distance from the lost prototype or that its scribe failed accurately to copy his source.18

‘Some distance’ may be, I suggest, no further than that constituted by the memory of one of Donne’s close acquaintances and the time since he committed the poem to it; the inaccuracy may be no more than the single lapse over ‘Diademe’, for none of the other differences cited by the Variorum editors (or, indeed, the difference they fail to cite, ‘softly’ in line 17, where the majority of texts have ‘safely’) is unique to Burley. Arguably, then, such readings as this last, or ‘thus’ for ‘this’ (30) gain in authority, not only over the earliest printed text of 1669, 38 years after the poet’s 17 The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, ed. by Gary A Stringer and others, 8 vols (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995 onwards), vol. 2, ‘The Elegies’ (2000). 18 Variorum, 2, 166.

46

The Burley manuscript

death, and long after the Burley record, but also over some other manuscript sources. Grierson, as we have seen, knew of the Burley manuscript, and used a transcript of some of the contents, including the Donne poems, done for the Clarendon Press. However, both Pearsall Smith and Grierson believed the manuscript to have perished in a fire, and this may have weighted Grierson against too much reliance on it, when no text derived from it could be verified. For this reason, I believe it is worth examining closely, in relation not only to Grierson but also to the Variorum texts as they appear, the Burley transcriptions of the five major Donne poems it contains, as well as the 15 short epigrams, and to reconsider their status as texts of authority. To glance briefly at one of these, item 391 is a transcript of Satire IV, beginning ‘Well: I may now receave & dy, my sinn’. The whole poem of 244 lines, a pasquinade on an affected Court scrounger, is presented, with the exception of line 7 and lines 195–196. While a copyist can easily miss a line or a couplet, he is, I think, unlikely to repair the damage in the way that D1 does. The couplet, which is a stand-alone sentence, is ignored, but the omission of line 7 is made sense of by amending line 8. The 1633 text has: I had no suit there, nor new suit to shew, Yet went to Court; But as Glaze which did goe19

Without the first line, the second makes no sense, but D1 writes: I had no suit at Court but as Glaze which did go

It lacks the pun on ‘suit’ in the original, and we are left with an unrhymed and not quite metrical odd line, but it makes grammatical sense in a way that the ordinary ‘eye-slip’ copyist’s error would not. It suggests that memory has darned its own hole. Much of the text, though, is perfectly remembered – if indeed a remembered text is what we have. Despite the reasons I have given for supposing that it is such a text, I have to concede that D1’s error (‘sight’ for ‘sigh’) in line 115 is, as the textual note to item 391 remarks, more typical of scribal copying than of memorial transcription. Other similar errors and corrections in Parkhurst’s work I am happy to accept as evidence of the use of a copytext: those in line 35 of poem item 552 or line 8 of item 596,20 for instance. 19 Text from John Donne: The Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters, ed. by W. Milgate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 14. 20 Item 552, l. 35: he first writes ‘payne’, and then – realising his eye has slipped to the following line – crosses it out and writes the correct word, ‘blush’. Item 596, l. 8: he begins to write ‘perfection’, the rhyme word from line 6, then givies the correct ‘affection’.

Memory

47

Such slips, however, are not characteristic of D1. In nearly seven hundred lines of verse of his inscription, there are only five corrections (see items 391, 361, and 397) apart from the one under consideration, and each of these is as likely to have arisen in a memorised as in a copied text. The single piece of evidence in the Satire does not, it seems to me, compromise fatally my theory, since it is not impossible to write ‘sight’ for ‘sigh’ when the copy-text is only in one’s mind’s eye. I remain of the view that this is a remembered text. This gives rise to the thought that – as with the Elegie – the differences from the received text (for Grierson, the 1633 edition, for Wesley Milgate, seven manuscript sources as well)21 may have some authority: ‘cunning’ for ‘subtle’ (100), for instance, or ‘barrels of beere’ for ‘barrels of beef ’ (236). Neither of these variants is noted by Milgate. At the beginning of this section, I remarked that it seems to me likely that a number of the prose items in Burley are also the product of memory. I was first alerted to this possibility by encountering, on f. 94r–94v, and again untitled and unattributed, extracts from Certain Precepts for the Well Ordering of a Man’s Life by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, written about 1584 and first printed in 1617 (item 211). This was the second of two published letters written by Cecil to his sons. The first, full of pious admonition, was to his son Thomas by his first wife, and seems to have failed of its effect, for Thomas became a dissolute and depraved youth, although redeeming himself in Her Majesty’s service later. This letter, to his son Robert by his second wife two decades later, is much more practical, dealing pragmatically with the choice of a wife, the upbringing of children, and the ordering of a domestic establishment. Robert, though sickly, became a brilliant scholar and statesman, was made Earl of Salisbury in 1605 by James I, and followed his father as Lord Treasurer in 1608. Parkhurst has written, for his own or someone else’s benefit, a version differing from the received text in some trivial and some important ways,22 omitting the Introduction, having Sections 1 and 2 complete, half of 3, most of 4, above half of 5, and none at all of 6 to 10. This seems to me to display all the features of something imperfectly remembered: it is selective (the writer memorised only the precepts themselves and didn’t bother with the Introduction), it is near perfect in the early part, and then gets worse, and then gives up altogether. 21 Milgate ignores Burley, believing it to have been destroyed (p. lxxvii). 22 Printed in Louis B. Wright, Advice to a Son: Precepts of Lord Burghley, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Francis Osborne (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library, 1962).

48

The Burley manuscript

How many more prose pieces might have been derived in this way, through the memory of the scribe or his master? One interesting candidate is ‘Sir Phillip Sydney to her Majestie Concerning Mounsiure’ (item 280). This is a version of the famous letter written about the end of 1579, setting out the arguments against the proposed marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the Duke of Anjou, and sometimes called the ‘Alençon letter’. In Burley, the letter is rendered in the hand of the scribe D1, who is associated with much of the Donne material, and it may be supposed that interest in Sidney’s arguments was stimulated by James I’s plan to marry Charles to the Infanta of Spain or, slightly later, the marriage that actually happened, to Henrietta Maria of France. There are numerous other manuscript copies of the letter, and the number discovered has grown: Beal recorded 27 in his index of 1980, but ‘more than three dozen’ in 1998.23 Katherine Duncan-Jones and Jan van Dorsten studied twenty of these (but not Burley, which was still locked in its safe in Birmingham, and believed by almost everyone to have been incinerated) and four printed versions of the letter, and concluded that all derived in a most complicated way, scribal copy by scribal copy, from two different ‘foundation’ copies, designated ‘X’ and ‘Y’, of an original now lost.24 It would take an equally long essay to fit Burley into their suggested stemma of the relationships between the 24 studied texts and their hypothetical ancestors, but examination of a number of variations seen as crucial by Duncan-Jones and van Dorsten yields some interesting results. In Table 1, the variations are identified by the page and line number in Duncan-Jones, and the Burley reading is tabulated under ‘B’. It is clear that, in the first six instances, B follows Y in the first two and the fourth, and X in the third and the sixth. In the case of 55.24, ‘payent’ is the only word that makes sense; in the first four cases either form yields a sensible text. In the fifth variation, on ‘Issoire’, B has a version all its own. ‘Issoire’ is correct,25 the whole phrase in Duncan-Jones being ‘did sack La Charité and utterly spoil Issoire with fire and sword’. B has ‘did take La Charite and utterly spoyled La Rossie Hoyne with fyre and sword’. I cannot find any place with a name resembling ‘La Rossie Hoyne’, nor does it seem likely that it is a visual, or aural, scribal error. I must concede, however, 23 Peter Beal, In Praise of Scribes: Manuscripts and Their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 111. 24 Miscellaneous Prose of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. by Katherine Duncan-Jones and Jan van Dorsten (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 33–43. 25 It is a town in the Auvergne, which was destroyed in the sixteenth-century religious wars.

Memory

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Table 1  Textual variations – Alençon letter Ident

X

Y

B

47.2

-

not unfitly

not unfitly

47.18

-

your subjects

your subjects

47.29

-

in hand

-

50.12

-

King

King

48.10

Issoire

Issayre

La Rossie Hoyne

55.24

payent

parlient

payent

See p. 40 Some texts have large section transposed (X2) section transposed 55.3-6

Wide variations in X and Y texts e.g. ‘such ivy in such a knot knots’, Gordian knots’, etc

50.30

Some X and Y texts have ‘likely’, some have lightly ‘rightly’

that – if it is an error of memory – it is one for which no easy explanation presents itself. The transposition, example 7, which affects some 72 lines of text as printed in Duncan-Jones, does not make nonsense, but does weaken the rhetoric’s logical development, and the editors are surely right to prefer the untransposed version. It seems unlikely that three of Duncan-Jones’s texts would independently transpose the same passage as B; there must be a connection. But what? Is B their postulated common ancestor, X2, of their three texts? Or another descendant of the same generation? Or a generation further down? And how was the transcription made, visually or from memory? While it is, I suppose, possible to drop a pile of manuscript sheets and, in picking them up, to reassemble the pile with a sheet or two (starting and ending with whole sentences) in the right order among themselves but lower down the pile, a similar disengagement of the remembered text seems to me much more probable. The B text for the phrase in 53.3–6 has at least the merit of making sense, which is more than can be said for many of the X and Y variants, but gives us no clue about whether it is a scribal improvement to an odd or indecipherable text, or another case of memory cleaning up a text imperfectly recalled. Finally, the words ‘likely’ and ‘rightly’, distributed among the X and Y texts, become, in B, ‘lightly’. The similar sounds of the three variants might indicate that dictation or memory, rather than copying, was at

50

The Burley manuscript

work, for the three words do not resemble one another closely enough for copy error to be likely. In the context, ‘rightly’ seems to me to make good sense, ‘likely’ (Duncan-Jones’s preference) to be just possible, and ‘lightly’ to be hardly believable. If the transmission of B was by memory, it would seem that the error is one of misheard dictation, and that therefore the memory involved is not the scribe’s but someone else’s. Another error in B that may be one of memory occurs on f. 238v, from which seven lines of the Duncan-Jones text (52.27–33) have been omitted. The omission is in the middle of a line on the B text, and runs from one punctuation mark to another. It may, therefore, just possibly arise from ‘eye-slip’, but the context seems to favour memory lapse as an explanation. Beal contests the details of Duncan-Jones’s stemma, and produces an even more complex one of his own,26 in which he resorts to a ‘mixed XY tradition’ to account for manuscripts that, like Burley, adopt here a reading from one possible ancestor and there from another. Even this, I think, hardly accounts for cases in which Burley’s word-pattern is derived from one tradition and the actual words from another: Duncan-Jones 47.5 ‘such a weary medicine’ (X), ‘so unsavoury a medicine’ (Harington), ‘so weary a medecine’ (Burley). What this and other examples do raise, however, is the possibility that not only B but also other texts were transmitted by memory. This would get Duncan-Jones and Beal out of some of the difficulties they find in creating their stemmata, and then forcing individual texts into them. Some texts which, they admit, agree with one another even though they are (on the stemma) differently derived, would be easier to account for on the memory theory, and memory would account for the wide variations in one text, designated RB, which Duncan-Jones describe as ‘to a large extent a paraphrase rather than a word-by-word rendering’. It is not suggested that memory was the only, or even necessarily a principal, method of transmission: Beal’s ‘Feathery Scribe’, responsible for 11 of the copies, was undoubtedly a professional copyist and worked directly from one or more copy-texts. It would be interesting, however (although this kind of what John V. Fleming calls ‘literary Darwinism’ is beyond the scope of the present enquiry),27 to examine the manuscripts to try to create a stemma representing a pattern of memory transmission. We turn to a different sort of prose, and one that offers a rich field for 26 Beal, In Praise of Scribes, p. 134. 27 John V. Fleming, ‘Historians and the Evidence of Literature’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 4, 1, The Historian and the Arts (Summer 1973), 95–105, p. 99.

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51

speculation. Pearsall Smith records 145 short sentences that he describes in the following terms: The following collection of anecdotes and sayings may be safely regarded, I think, as notes of ‘table talk’ made by some one in Wotton’s house in Venice – the frequent references to the assassination of Henry IV (Nos. 36, 39, 40, 45, 46, 75, 76) would fix the date at the summer or autumn of 1610, and there is no reference to any event of a subsequent period. While it would be unwise and perhaps unjust to attribute all the remarks to Wotton himself, a number of them are undoubtedly his.28

Of the 145 sentences, Nos 1–34 appear on ff. 255r–256r of Burley (items 300–333), and Nos 35–145 on ff. 82r–86v (items 96–206). An extended version of No. 145 is on f. 91v (item 209). Pearsall Smith’s tentativeness in attribution is justified: while no other record of Nos 35–145 has been found, Nos 1–34 seem to have been lifted from Overbury’s Characters. This was first published in 1614, and it will be observed that none of the references causing Pearsall Smith to date the collection to 1610 derives from these items. It may also be significant that they are assembled in a later (physically, and almost certainly chronologically) part of the whole manuscript collection than Nos 35–145. Overbury’s Characters, to use the short title by which it is generally known, is a miscellany of poetry, ‘characters’ (short prose pieces each descriptive of some stereotype), brief essays, paradoxes and ‘news’. Not all are by Overbury himself, and the attribution of many of them is uncertain. The first edition was published by Lawrence Lisle in 1614, the year following Overbury’s mysterious death in the Tower, and further steadily expanded editions followed as the publisher cashed in on the growing scandal, which culminated in the execution for murder of several minor characters in the drama, and the disgrace of the two major ones, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and his wife, the former Frances Howard. The so-called ‘news’ sections of Characters are some fifteen in number, and consist not of what we would think of as news items but of apophthegms, usually witty or at least so intended, related to a general heading given at the head of each section. Burley draws on only three of these sections: the first, ‘News from Court’ (attributed to Overbury); the fourth, ‘News from the Very Country’ (possibly by John Donne); and the ninth, ‘News from my Lodging’ (attributed to Benjamin Rudyard). Beal asserts that the 34 items in question were ‘copied out by Parkhurst [...] and have no connection with Wotton’,29 and Overbury’s 28 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 490. 29 IELM, I, 2, 562.

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The Burley manuscript

most recent editor, Donald Beecher, takes the same position.30 They are almost certainly wrong about the copying, and may – just possibly – be wrong about Wotton’s lack of connection. To deal first with the copying: Parkhurst was a professional secretary and an educated man. While some of the ‘copies’ are word-for-word identical with the published version, some are not, and it seems to me quite impossible that they could have been copied visually from the printed page: a man like Parkhurst might ‘improve’ what he copied, but he wouldn’t weaken it or paraphrase it if he had it before him. An illustration of the kind of variation encountered is No. 30, which Parkhurst renders (item 329): ‘Many think there are as many miseries beyond happiness, as on this side of it’, where Overbury gives: ‘It is thought here that there are as great miseries beyond happiness as on this side it, as being in love’. A more emphatic discrepancy may be seen in No. 32, where Parkhurst writes (item 331): ‘Tyme was never but a minute old’, and Overbury has: ‘That time makes everything aged, and yet itself was never more than a minute old’. Even more wild is the difference in renderings of No. 9, Parkhurst reading (item 308): ‘All woemen are for one use, though in divers tytles’, and Overbury: ‘That all women for the bodily part are but the same meaning put in divers words’. Might Parkhurst have been using a manuscript version of Overbury? It is a tempting thought, and it might account for the fact that only three of the ‘News’ sections are quoted, these being perhaps the three that had come his way on some gentlemanly circulation list. But what then was responsible for the selection Parkhurst chose from these three? For the purpose of making it clear whence come the apophthegms in this selection, let us designate the three sections ‘C’ for ‘News from Court’, ‘V’ for ‘News from the Very Country’ and ‘L’ for ‘News from my Lodging’. Numbering consecutively the individual sentences in each section, Parkhurst’s 34 sentences derive from, in order: C15, C18 V5, V7, V8, V10, V9, V11 C9 V16, V17, V20 L3, L5, L7 C6, C19 L13, L14, L17, L19, L20 (part) V2, V3, V4, V12, V13, V14, V15 C1, C2, C3, C11, C12. 30 Sir Thomas Overbury (and Others), Characters, together with Poems, News, Edicts, and Paradoxes, based on the eleventh edition of ‘A Wife now the Widow of Sir Thomas Overbury’ ed. by Donald Beecher (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 2003), p. 60n.

Memory

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There are, then, nine blocks of sentences, all the sentences in a block being drawn from a single section of Overbury, mostly in numerical order (the sole exception is in block 2, in which V9 and V10 are transposed) but owning no order between different blocks (e.g. block 2 starts with V5; block 4 with V16, block 8 with V2). Beyond this numerical arrangement, no thematic or other pattern is discernible, and no explanation offers itself for such a choice by a copyist. Memory, on the other hand, might easily yield such an ordering, the scribe remembering in a random way the first sentence of a block, and this prompting him to recall adjacent sentences. Another possibility presents itself, although it has to be regarded as highly speculative. It is thought by some scholars that the ‘News’ sections are related to, or indeed are in fact, records of a courtly game played by the circle of Cicely Bulstrode (d. 1609), a coterie which included Donne, Overbury, and Rudyerd. What we have in Burley might therefore be copies (visual or remembered) not of the text that reached Overbury’s publisher but of some of the actual entries in such games, in which Wotton may have joined. Indeed, Beecher asserts that he did so ‘by diplomatic post from Venice’,31 although the only evidence for this that I have found is that one of the news sections – headed ‘Foreign News of the Year’ – has six short sub-sections, one of which consists of four epigrams titled ‘News from Venice’. None of these appears in Burley. Schleiner, indeed, in her fascinating chapter on courtly parlour games, ascribes the whole ‘Foreign News of the Year’ section to Wotton.32 Her authority for this is, however, Savage’s edition of the News,33 in the introduction to which he makes a powerful case for Wotton as the author, and asserts that he played while in Venice, without mentioning the time taken for entries to travel back and forth.34 I think it far more likely that he played while in London at the end of 1610, and again in 1611 and in 1612. Wotton’s enemy, the gossip John Chamberlain, wrote to Dudley Carleton on 22 October of the latter year that ‘[Wotton] gives himself buon tempo, and follows good company, and plays, as familiarly and ordinarily, as if he had nothing else 31 Overbury et al., Characters, p. 57. 32 Schleiner, Tudor and Stuart Women Writers, p. 155. 33 The ‘Conceited newes’ of Sir Thomas Overbury and His Friends: a facsimile reproduction of the ninth impression of Sir Thomas Overbury his wife with a commentary and textual notes on the ‘Newes’ by James E. Savage (Gainesville, FL: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1969). 34 Savage muddles matters further by insisting that Parkhurst must have seen the Conceited newes in manuscript, so much being topical in 1610, when it was not printed until 1614. In fact, the matters topical in 1610 that Parkhurst records are not in the Conceited newes at all.

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The Burley manuscript

to do’.35 Beecher, who has an extensive passage on the subject of the game of News, says that no manuscript game texts survive, so – unless some more evidence can be found – the theory may have to remain in the realm of speculation.36 It may be relevant that, of the other 111 sentences recorded in Burley that are not in Overbury, only about twenty or thirty might qualify as ‘news’ of the type discussed; most of the others are historical facts or quotations from the wise. One speculates, yet more wildly, about the twenty or thirty being entries in a game that did not reach Overbury’s publisher, and the others belonging to another game (such as ‘Edicts’, also described by Schleiner) with different rules and objects.37 There are other candidates for examination as possible examples of remembered record: Bacon’s confession to the House of Lords about the taking of bribes (item 208), for instance, Raleigh’s justification of the action in Guiana (item 210), and Elwes’s ‘protestation’ concerning his part in the assassination of Overbury (item 207), and item 1 in the collection, Tourneur’s The Character of Robert, Late Earl of Salisbury. Although, as I have suggested, some of the verse items might be memorial transcriptions, positive evidence is difficult to find. Among the prose items, however, it seems to me unlikely – although of course possible – that any of the letters, official or private, or the diplomatic reports, has been reconstructed from memory. What can be claimed, though, is that a few of the verse texts discussed above are probably the product of memory, and that it is likely that some of the prose texts are, also. How probable is it that Parkhurst and his fellow-secretaries would have the skill and desire to memorise such long poems and – even more surprisingly to people educated in our own times – such very long pieces of prose? As to the skill, it is no great matter: the memory can be trained to learn great quantities of either verse or prose, as any actor would confirm (while probably conceding that verse is easier). It has long been thought that many of the ‘bad quartos’ of Elizabethan plays rested for their texts on what members of the company or audience could recollect, perhaps 35 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 126. 36 Overbury et al., Characters, pp. 56–73. The Glover manuscript (BL MS Egerton 2230) has, at the back, a collection of aphorisms that, like the Burley examples, could possibly be copies of such game texts. 37 Or, indeed, the whole theory of parlour games may be, as John Considine believes, the product of over-active academic imaginations: John Considine, ‘The Invention of the Literary Circle of Sir Thomas Overbury’, in Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth, eds, Literary Circles and Cultural Communication in Renaissance England (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1959), pp. 59–74.

Memory

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supported by performance notes. Even Laurie E. Maguire, who takes a generally sceptical view of this possibility, concedes that ‘a strong case can be made’ for memorial transcription of five such works, two of which (The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (1598) and The Taming of a Shrew (1594)) have substantial prose passages.38 Moreover, memory training was an intrinsic part of Renaissance education, indeed was regarded as a mark of civilisation. As the influential Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540), drawing on Quintilian, put it: Memory consists of two factors: quick comprehension and faithful retention; we quickly comprehend what we understand; we retain what we have often and carefully confided to our memory [...] this is just that art of memory which beasts are said to lack.39

Quintilian, the leading teacher of rhetoric in Rome in the first century AD, criticised the ‘artificial memory’ techniques advocated by his predecessor Cicero: Therefore Charmadas and Metrodorus of Scepsis, [...] of whom Cicero says that they used this method, may keep their systems for themselves; my precepts will be of a simpler kind.40

These precepts, says Yates, consist mainly in the advocacy of hard and intensive learning by heart, in the ordinary way, of speeches and so on, but he allows that one can sometimes help oneself by simple adaptations of some of the mnemonic usages.41

Returning to the seventeenth century, Sir Henry Wotton himself believed in memory training and in Quintilian’s approach to it: We have another [precept] from Quintilian, (whom I have ever thought, since any use of my poor judgement, both the elegantest and soundest of all the Roman Pens) That a Child will have Tantum ingenii, quantum memoriae: This, I must confess, will bear a stronger Consequence of Hope; for Memory is not only considerable as it is in it self a good Retention, but likewise it is an infallible Argument of good Attention, a point of no small value in that Age, which a fair Orange, or a red Apple will divert.42 38 Laurie E. Maguire, Shakespearean Suspect Texts: The ‘Bad’ Quartos and Their Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), see table XLIII, p. 324. 39 Vives on Education, tr. and ed. by Foster Watson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913), p. 109. 40 Quoted from Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 24. 41 Yates, Art of Memory, p. 25. 42 Sir Henry Wotton, A Philosophical Survey of Education, ed. by H. S. Kermode (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1938), p. 14.

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This advocacy of the precepts of Quintilian was written when Wotton was Provost of Eton in the last period of his life, and in it he followed the great sixteenth-century educators, Desiderius Erasmus and Philip Melanchthon.43 It seems likely that his own education at Winchester adopted this model, and thus the possession of a good memory, trained in Quintilian’s style, was probably a requirement for a position on Wotton’s staff some decades before the Philosophical Survey. Moreover, he was not disposed to accept any cheap alternative: in another work, he inveighs against the collection of précis (‘epitomes’) and other aides memoires in the commonplace books that were beginning to be popular: In brief, what I heard sometimes spoken of Ramus, I believe of those thrifty Compendiums; They show a short course to those who are contented to know a little, and a sure way to such whose care is not to understand much.44

Wotton is, perhaps, unfair in his reference to Ramus, the French philosopher and logician whose theories exerted a wide influence all over Europe after his death in the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572. His ‘epitomes’ were supposed to be an aid towards, not a substitute for, the word-for-word learning of important texts, and – particularly in the Protestant world – supplanted to a considerable extent the system of ‘memory theatres’, which derived from the Ciceronian tradition, rather than that of Quintilian.45 ‘Memory theatres’, still used today by people wishing to demonstrate phenomenal powers of recall, gave the memory training, not for texts but for facts, names, and places. Although, unlike the methods of Ramus, this training was of no direct help to the memorisation of texts, it gave the memory that practice that Vives advocated so strongly. Educators of the period stress the need for the memory to be exercised constantly, and exercised in serious matters. Richard Mulcaster, Master of the Merchant Taylors’ School founded in 1561, wrote: We finde also in them [children], as a quickenes to take, so a fastnesse to retaine: therefore their memorie would streight waye be furnished, with the verie best, seeing it is a treasurie: exercised with the most, seeing it is of receite: never suffered to be idle, seeing it spoiles so soone. For in defaulte of the better, the worse will take chaire, and bid it selfe welcome: and if idlenesse enter, it will exclude all earnest, and call in her kinsfolkes, toyes and trifles, easie for remembraunce, heavy for repentaunce.46 43 Yates, Art of Memory, p. 127. 44 Sir Henry Wotton, The Aphorisms of Education, ed. by H. S. Kermode (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1938), p. 23. 45 See Yates, Art of Memory, pp. 232–238. 46 Richard Mulcaster, Positions [...] for the Training of Children ... (London: Thomas

Memory

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John Willis, although an advocate of the ‘memory theatre’, nevertheless strongly supported the learning of texts by heart. Writing in 1618 (the translation from the original Latin given below is of later date), he says: The mind must be constantly exercised in learning some sentences by heart (yea though there be no need) that the faculty of remembring may be quickned by use and practice [...] There is nothing saith Ludovicus Vives, doth more delight in pains and labour, then Memory, nor doth sooner corrupt and perish by idleness; therefore something must be learned every day (though there be no necessity) if it be only to prevent stupidity of Memory, which of all Diseases is most pernicious to it.47

It is likely, then, that plenty of educated people from either the Ramusian or the ‘memory theatre’ tradition not only had the ability to transmit texts from memory, but also would think it a useful way of spending their time. An example may serve to show just how useful it could be: in 1629, when the Commons were quarrelling with the King over religious tolerance and the royal taxes of tonnage and poundage, Charles sent an order to the Speaker, Sir John Finch, to adjourn Parliament. When he attempted to do so, there was uproar, and Benjamin Valentine and Denzil Holles held him down in his chair. Sir John Eliot produced a protestation, trenchantly condemning as ‘a capital enemy to the kingdom’ anyone who should seek to extend Popery or Arminianism, who should counsel or advise the levying of tonnage and poundage without the authority of Parliament, or who should voluntarily pay such taxes. The Speaker refused to put it to the vote, and its author threw it into the fire. The King sent for the Serjeant to bring away the Mace, but the House refused him. Then came Black Rod, with a detachment of guards to break into the chamber, but he too was denied, whereupon Holles delivered from memory the text of Eliot’s resolution, well over a hundred words, and it was carried by acclamation.48 It must have helped Holles that Eliot’s text was logically constructed. Willis, advocating the memorisation of speeches by both speaker and hearer (the former from his written text, the latter from his notes, ‘shorthand if you have skill’), lays it down that every part of an entire Speech, and every sentence of those parts [should] be so placed, that it may give light to understand what followeth [...] for in a Vautrollier, 1581), p. 17. 47 John Willis, Mnemonica; or, The Art of Memory (London: Leonard Sowersby, 1661) [translation of the Latin edition of 1618], p. 151. 48 Details from J. R. Tanner, English Constitutional Conflicts of the Seventeenth Century, 1603–1689 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 68.

58

The Burley manuscript speech methodically digested, each sentence attracteth the next, like as one link draweth another in a Golden Chain; therefore [this] Method is called the Chain of Memory: For this cause let every former sentence so depend on the latter, that it may seem necessarily related thereunto.49

Vives, whom Willis quotes and admires, says in his Introduction to Wisdom: 142 Memory is enlarged by exercise. 180 Do not let your memory decay through idleness. 181 It rejoices above all things to be set to work and thereby to be augmented. 182 Assign it daily some worthy business. 183 The more often you commit matters to its custody, the more faithfully will it guard them. 184 When you have committed anything to its keeping, let it lie quiet for a while; then later, demand it back again, as a thing left for deposit only. 185 If you want to learn anything perfectly, read it most attentively four or five times at night – and then retire. When you rise next morning, demand from your memory what you delegated to it the night before.50

Clearly, this last precept refers to word-for-word learning of a text, and confirms the argument that this was a well-regarded capability, likely to have been widespread among educated men. It might also be observed that, interestingly, Vives treats memory as one’s servant, the duties required of it being not unlike those required of a secretary by a statesman, magnate, or ambassador. The Venetian court was a leisurely place, and time, I think, was plentiful at the British embassy. Some of this was spent in study: Wotton was wont to refer to his establishment as his ‘domestic college’, and he describes them studying together ancient authors or modern texts such as Bacon’s Novum Organum.51 There remained, though, a fair amount of time for diversions of a more or less profitable kind. The ambassador himself had a great many extra-curricular interests that he could indulge – art and architecture, music and theology, shooting and taking the air in one’s gondola – but those secretaries and attachés not selected to accompany him in these congenial pursuits were, presumably, left at the embassy to handle the day-to-day activities and attend to occasional emergencies. Once the post had been answered and filed and the agents’ reports deciphered for Sir Henry’s attention, there were hours to be filled, as William 49 Willis, Mnemonica, p. 14. 50 Vives’ Introduction to Wisdom, ed. by Marian Leona Tobriner, SNJM (New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1968), pp. 103, 107-108. 51 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 58; II, 204.

Figure 6  The Burley Manuscript, f. 288Av

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The Burley manuscript

Parkhurst’s occasional anagrammatic doodles attest (see Figure 6),52 and it was in these hours, I suggest, that he and his peers may have spent time playing their own literary games of recalling the words of others that had formed part of their training. It has been established that some texts, both verse and prose, are likely to have been transmitted by memory, and that the theory presumes neither prodigious skill nor abnormal behaviour on the part of either the scribe or the person providing the copy-text for or dictating what the scribe wrote. This has followed the shift in bibliographical interest noted by McKenzie from questions of authorial intention and textual authority to those of dissemination and readership as matters of economic and political motive and of the interaction of text and society as an important source of cultural history.53

But, as we have seen, depending on the relationship of the scribe to the author, there may be ‘questions of authorial intention and textual authority’ that these texts could illuminate as well. That some texts of the kinds dealt with in this section were transmitted by memory seems to me incontestable. However, it is not my purpose to claim that all items are rendered from memory. What I wish to do is suggest to readers of the texts here presented that what they are looking at is sometimes not the product of clerkly copying. When reading them, the question ‘How did this get here?’ should never be far from our minds, and the range of possible answers will include straightforward copying, covert acquisition, reconstruction from memory, writing from dictation (raising secondary questions about the speaker’s acquisition of the text), and invention.

52 The letters J.C.S.X.O.Q.P.V. are a mystery, but may refer to one of the embassy ciphers. 53 McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, p. ix.

8

The manuscript text

1r–2v 1 The Chara[c]ter of Robert Carr Earle of Salisbury. Hee came of a Parent, that counselled the state into pietie, honor and action. […] Hand P. 4-page essay, which a number of contemporary MSS ascribe to Cyril Tourneur (1575–1626), and which is printed as his in The Works of Cyril Tourneur, ed. by Allardyce Nicholl (London: Fanfrolico, 1930). [After 1612, Salisbury’s death.]

3r–6v Blank 7r 2 (Marginal note: 9-1.) Sir. Yf the memory of our old frendship remayne constant, not less’ned thorough oblivion, I thinke you will receave these lines willingly; sent out of that confidence in our mutuall loves: I shall returne you many thanks when you answere them with the like. Now I must intreat you for my frend oAB. whome fortune rather 5 then vice hath deprived both of the degree and of the honor of a soldier; and I pray ^you^ favor his innocence, and suffer him not to be alone excluded from the participation of this publique felicity, which groweth equall to all men: It concernes the glory of happy tymes, That, as the ayre of heaven and light 10 of the day communicate themselves to all thinges placed in life below [two half-lines and one whole line crossed out] even so a Princes ­benignyty should have its influence generall and season the good wishes and the offices and wishes of all men in some 15 measure.

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Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 9, letter 1, to Palladius, p. 235.) 1 Commentary 9.4.2. for my frend AB: in Symmachus, ‘pro amico meo Benedicto’ [for my friend Benedictus].

o

3 (Marginal note 6.69.)

Sir. You excuse your sylence I confesse with an elegant exposition, ^In^ alleaging your tender disposition in writing news of heavynesse, till some thing of more prosperous successe should happen: That those things which intermission of letters had conceal’d might bee with lesse greife discovered in a conjunc- 5 tion of happier events. But to mee those former greivances were not hidden, and yet th’other to to late came unto mee. For the suspected cessation of your writing strengthned the former rumor. Notwithstanding I cannot be angry, for the sweet authority of your present letters hath taken away all memory of 10 past considerations: Only I pray you lett the care of your future writing be placed amongst the best and first of your thoughts; lest the remembrance of this example should possesse us againe with new feares, that under the expectation of good news wee beleive some other unfortunate event may lye oconceald and 15 smothered. farwell: Hand P. Translation of same letter as item 23. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 6, letter 69, to Nichomachus Flavius the Younger, his son-in-law, p. 173.) Commentary 9.4.2. conceald and smothered: Symmachus has ‘reticeri’ [kept secret or silent]; cf. letter 2: ‘conceald’.

o

7v 4 I imagine in you, bycause I find in my self, the difference betweene us to be now passed into matter of stomach only: which reason, tyme, affinity, and ancient knowledges ought to digest. and although the authors of dissents should bee the first moovers in   1 The note following the text of translated letters shows the page number of the Latin original in the definitive modern edition, Q. Aurelii Symmachi Quae ­Supersunt,  ed. by Otto Seeck, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, Auctores A ­ ntiquissimi, 6.1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883), accessible at (https://archive.org/stream/qaureliisym ­mach00seecgoog#page/n14/mode/2up).

The manuscript text

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theire contraries, yet least such ill humor and crudity might in 5 tyme turne into disease I am content for my part to put an end to all expostulations: and will as constantly maynteyne my purpose as I shalbee discreetly used by you which I doubt not when you shall seriously re consider your owne and this only point of my dispotition. and in that opinion I rest till I find itt erroneous. 10 Hand P. Probably a translation, but P. does not give a source number, nor has an original been identified. Commentary 9.5.

5 (Marginal note: 1.43.) Sir. It is an old saying, honor increaseth Arts, and the custome of our tymes confirmes itt; for no man of merit in warre or peace hath found his industry want rewarde. When to deserving men due respects are given, there is hope prepared for such as will tread like paces. I rejoyce therefore, as well for others whome industrious courses reconcyle to fortune, as for my brother 5 o Julianus; whome I desire you would so far love as I am confident you will approve. You know amongst [men?] how rare alliances grow betweene abundance of witt and soundnes of honesty; whilst a modest ingenuity is soone checked with bashfulnes, and an eloquent tong soone growes insolent with successe: this man 10 is free from these extreames, for he looseth not his temper att an object blushing, nor att any tyme putteth on a brazen countenance, The ornaments of his language were [never]2 corrupted with rewards He never yet exchanged his truth for greatnes; nor his reputation for profit. this man into your hands or rather into 15 your bosome I deliver: my care is, your frendship should bee placed on good men: and I have found the same desires in your self: for nature rejoyceth in equalities, and all things are familiar to theire owne similitudes. But least to larg a testimony might incurre suspition of praysing him: I pray weigh him you in your 20 owne ballances, so shall you make att once ^triall^, both of his sufficiencies and my judgment. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 43, to Decimus Magnus Ausonius, poet and sometime consul, p. 22.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

Julianus: unchanged from Symmachus.

  2 Parkhurst omits ‘never’, but it is presumably a slip; ‘numquam’ is present in the original.

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8r 6 (Marginal note: 1.37.) Sir. They speak not vaynely, who say mens understandings are quick and nimble in cleare weather, and grow dull in cloudy seasons. I find an example thereof I in my self; for as often as I resolve to write to you, words fall uppon me as I wish, whereas otherwise I should be but poorely furnished: content 5 is a speaking thing, and ful of andan jollity. and few there bee that have temper therein: suffer me therefore a litle to commend your worth, whome in the earth no man exceedes: who in your greatnes are content to stoope to paines and travel for my cause, in continuance of a most constant love, Yf ever there were a 10 serious fayth and frendship in any man I think itt in you: others are so in words, you in d effects. you must yet addresse favor more unto me. forgett that I oppos’d you. Love norisheth confidence and what so free as itt? in businesses opposite expostulations may often bee rise without blemish of affection. Well. It is 15 as trew now that I give you thanks as that I could not dissemble what greived mee. They are obankerout frends that flatter one another. But why do I thus repeate that which I would have you forgett? Continue as you are my waigthiest loving frend: which 20 I thinke is fitter hoped from you then requested. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 37, to Ausonius, p. 20.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

bankerout: bankrupt.

7 (Marginal note: 1.42.) Sir. You have recompensed a long sylence with a double dilligence: for I receaved both your letters att one instant: and by that I am confident you had conceaved before but wanted only a good midwife to bring forth th’effects of your respect towards mee. neither could you otherwise have deprived me thus long of thre 5 lines honor of your lines. In me the causes of observance dayly increase: for all well placed frendships gather strenght by experience: But this point requires few words: neither doth itt become me to speake of that which I rather wish you might perceave by your self. I find in your letters, how much you desire to be absolved 10 from your publique charge, and wonder, the ­administration of

The manuscript text

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such an office should be burdensome to you, which the love of all men wish might produce happy fruits unto you. Can there be any thing of higher estimation then what joynes true glory with like pleasure? Therefore receave comfort therein, and my advice 15 not to relinquish itt. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 42, to Ausonius, pp. 21–22.) Commentary 9.4.2.

8 (Marginal note: 1.20.) Sir. I very much rejoyce that you are chosen Consul for the next yeare: but my next letters shall congratulate with you for that occasion. for this present I have other busines. oPatronius being to come before you hath thought my testimony would bee oavayable to him. I think itt will litle profitt him; for to your good 5 opinion of him nothing can bee added. yet least my sylence should any way scandalize the love I owe him I y request you that he may ^find^ some favor for my sake, besydes that which out of your gratiousnes, noblenes, and curtesy will plentifully 10 flow uppon him. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 22, to Ausonius, p. 13.) Commentary 9.4.2. Patronius: Symmachus has ‘Patruinus’. avayable: Symmachus has ‘si meo testimonio niteretur’, meaning something like ‘if my testimony should thrive before you’. P presumably intends ‘avaylable’, in the sense not of ‘on offer’ but of ‘availing’ = ‘helpful’.

o o

9 (Marginal note: 1.26.) Sir. I use that confidence with you which your self hath given raise. you have lately beene very scarse in your letters, but I will not follow your example, because I know a man placed in your degree of honor whose cares are many and great may sooner fayle of leasure to expresse affection then want itt: and such is 5 the nature of love that if it be not wilfully neglected, it’s to bee pardoned. I therefore [forsware?] of yours; continue my custome and shall hold itt for a singular favor if your respect to the bearer hereof any way recompense my sedulity in writing. 10 farwell.

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The Burley manuscript

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 26, to Ausonius, p. 15.) Commentary 9.4.2.

8v 10 (Marginal note: 1.28.) Sir. you speake like a noble and worthy frend, that your honor shallbe ever my defence: a speech well becoming the integrity of your love, which no day shall argue the contrary, lett fortune only second these happy demonstrations. But I will not stick so long herein: carefull that no shaddow of flattery corrupt the dignity of truth. Whatsoever concerneth att the present omy brother will tell you. farwell.

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 28, to Ausonius, p. 15.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

my brother: Symmachus has ‘frater meus Claudius’ [my brother Claudius].

11 (Marginal note: 1.33.) Sir. They say that when ocockles thirst for ayre, and that the dew of heaven releive them not, they then are norished by their owne substances. It is now even so with mee who bereft of the foode of your letters am susteyned with myne owne thoughts. You have for a long season withheld your writing. I feare your love growes cold if opinion deceave mee lett your suddaine answere shew itt. farwell.

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 33, to Ausonius, p. 18.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

cockles: Symmachus has ‘coclea’, a snail; see commentary.

12 (Marginal note: 1.34.) Sir. I undertake a labourious buisines to offer to persuade a sylent man to write; and if I should not persevere to urge and provoke you, oblivion would follow. Whither therefore you judge mee or over dilligent or troublesome I am resolved the to maynteyne our acquaintance by letters which shall suffer no discontinuance by me: and worthily. for I never placed my affection uppon so much desert. And therefore I complaine of your sylence. Tendernes of [of]3 affection produceth aptnes unto jealousy. Love is soft

5

  3 In the MS, one ‘of ’ occurs at the end of a line, and the other at the beginning of the next.

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and prese quickly apprehends the least ^sence^ and receaves the least impression of greife in a moment. Yf wee neglect itt, itt 10 withereth as a rose, if wee handle itt roughly itt fadeth as a lilly. I remember to have redd that a ocountenance will checke and hurt a pious countenance frendship: how would that Author serious Author have checked your continued sylence? Consider itt well. I cannot conceale what greives mee. for as my thoughts are ever 15 with you, so I expect the like from you. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 34, to Ausonius, p. 19.) Commentary 9.4.2. countenance ...: Symmachus has ‘vultu saepe laedi pietatem’, a version of Cicero, Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino, 37, ‘vultu saepe laeditur pietas’ [filial duty is often violated by a look] (Marcus Tullius Cicero, Works, Loeb Classical Library, 28 vols, trans. by John Henry Freese (London: Heinemann, 1930), VI, 154).

o

9r 13 (Marginal note: 1.10.) Sir. Although I know your modesty is a neere ally to vertue, yet I desired an abundance in your highnes letters agreable to the glory of your great imployments first because frendship required that with one who so loves you, you should not feare any shaddow of ostentation, then that being equally accom- 5 plished both for action and style, you should endowe the truth of your deeds ^merits^ with the honor of your peins. Now you committ me to fame, and bid me give ease to rumor, when a worke of that dignity, required parity in the witnesses. But because you know my mind you have trusted me with your 10 deserts contented with truth for prayse. Africa is recovered of disease, our glorious Prince having beene the curing counsayle, and you the remedy. Such a[s] study phisicke when by long experience they grow masters of their art, instruct others, and without handling help to cure by precept. The glory of the tymes 15 is therefore your honor the which I should more playnely and more indulgently remember if I did not reverence your singular modesty, and withall retrench (whome your Excellence hath so lately commended) from suspition of a saying that mules mutually claw one another. To which proverbe least I should draw 20 neere I now inclose with pressed lipps the greatnes of your vertues, leaving to your owne worthy thoughts the consideration both what you have deserved being the means of my cou[n]tryes

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The Burley manuscript happines, and what I owe you, whose reputation under such a wittnes is safly protected from all envy. 25

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 10, letter 1, to Theodosius the Elder, father of Theodosius I, Emperor 379–395, pp. 276–277.) Commentary 9.4.2.

14 (Marginal note: 16.10.) Sir. oSuesse is a towne of honest inhabitants, and as I may justly say, men of the lowest degrees in fortune are to be held freest from common vices. I desire you would therefore beleeve that none of them have ventured into the trouble of law unlesse compelled in some sharpe measure. of which my letters shall 5 be sylent; for the common voyce of all mens witt, will worke greater comiseration of their greifes then any private can. By me they only desire to deserve a facility of audience for whatsoever succor belongs to oppressed and greived subjects they know your favor and the tenor of the law will supply. farwell. 10 Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 8, letter 138, addressee unknown, p. 272.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

Suesse: Suessa Aurunca (modern Sessa), a small town in the Campania.

15 (Marginal note: 17.10.) Sir. The publique magistrate to you, and a private compassion to mee recomends the oannexed allegations: therefore the help of justice from you, and words from me are required: I performe my part with earnest requesting you having heard theire heavy lamentations to be moved to favor that part which deserveth most right and comiseration. farwell.

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 8, letter 139, addressee unknown, p. 273.) Commentary 9.4.2. annexed allegations: Symmachus has ‘Suessanorum allegationes’, making it clear that this letter (which, as in Burley, follows immediately the previous one) refers to the same matter.

o

9v 16 (Marginal note: 22.10.) o Sir. Whilst I lived in sylence and was wholy removed from desires of honor, you have conferred an office, labored for by

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many, voluntarily on mee. I give God thanks for this wellwishing of good Princes towards mee: But withall I know how much more sollicitude and care that magistrate is tyed to, who is 5 chosen rather out of judgment, then favor. for the one preferred for merit must always equal the conceived hope of his worth: the other placed by favor is freed from that burthen of expectation, Great Emperor. Who shall therefore make me capable of this employment? Your Excellence whose interest it is, that I 10 prove to be not unadvisedly elected: my conscience is satisfyed in that I affected not publique charge. What I shalbee found is in the hands of our tymes. For the Princes countenance makes good magistrates, and the vertues of Judges flow from their good examples. It is your care that all men may know if officers want 15 integrity and uprightnes of conscience: that such defects are faults of men, not of our age. I am not immodest in my desires, when I recommend my honor to the authors thereof. And although I owe and give your highnes all duty and thankfulnes, yet I beseech you to rule me, as that the Common wealth may 20 likewise bee thankful and you in my behalf. f. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Relationes, 1, to Valentinian II, Emperor 371–392, p. 279.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

Superscription: see p. 342, n. 87.

17 Sir. Albeit I doubt not (by gods leave) to have a mutuall intersight betweene us within few dayes, yet methinks I ought not to absteyne from writing, because no tyme att all should accuse mee of any neglect of my due respect towards you. accept therefore of this unnecessary though observant salutation, which for good luck sake I send in writing, hoping shortly to performe itt in person. farwell

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 6, letter 68, to Nicomachus the Younger, p.  173.)4 Commentary 9.4.2.

  4 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

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10r 18 (Marginal note: 1.1.) Sir. Least intermission of writing should seeme a vice, I have choosen rather to bee over dilligent then keepe you in long expectation of answeres besydes with parents in matter of letters men must not deale by rule and measure, I should do injuriously to proceede with you in termes of strictest law: for hee 5 that requires an equall observance betweene persons of unequal degree erreth much. Your lines therefore to mee bring with them a quality of benefitts, myne to you of duties. These and the like considerations would not suffer mee to neglect this present oportunity: Wherein I am to give you accompt of the expense 10 of my tyme. my desire being you should be acquainted as well with the spending of my idle as serious howers. I am removed from oBaulos to Lucrina, not for any dislike of the place in which the longer I stand I loved the more, but that I feared least my affection thereunto should grow and gett such strenght as might 15 detayne me from other habitations &c. I have sent you some verses of myne, whereof the place and myself is argument. but I see your smiles say I over flatter myself, and it is a fitt and just reprehension, for there is no kind of ostentation free from suspicion of lying: for whatsoever is assumed is not thought our 20 owne; besydes a covetuous ambition of prayse, prejudicateth modesty. I send them you as a birth of idle howers, and to you in jest to whome my very infant thoughts have ever layene open and discovered. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 1, to his father, pp. 1–2; excerpts, omitting the verses.) Commentary 9.4.2. Baulos: accusative form of Bauli (modern Bacoli); ‘Lucrina’: (modern Lucrino); small towns in the Campania district of Italy near Naples, about four miles apart. Both places, and Baiae, which is between them, have associations with classical history, notably with Agrippina, mother of Nero (Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 3–9, describes the Emperor’s first attempt at her murder, by shipwreck off Bauli, and her later assassination at Baiae in AD 59).

o

19 (Marginal note: 1.5.) Sir. I am in [no] way guilty of sylence, who have had this caution alwayes with mee that whithersoever I removed I never kept holliday till I had saluted you. Truly your honest exaction

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of my letters is not unpleasing unto me, for those are sweet complaints that grow from tendernes and indulgency: and so I 5 hope you will acknowledg this to bee rather a loving then just expostulation. In the meane tyme you were a[t] oProstina, and sylent there, for fame only told mee so. Ô how much I longed on some sudden and att unawares to have stolne uppon you; but my country occasions here withheld mee: not from desire 10 to increase but to mayntayne by some voluntary charges the profitts of my lands. for it is thus come to passe in our tymes, that those grounds which were wont to feed us, must bee now fedd by us. but I will lay asyde this discourse, least my salutation turned into complaints should deminish the cheerfulnes of my 15 salutation. Take care of your health and of often writing. Which when I desire from you I promise to you. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 5, to his father, pp. 5–6.) Commentary 9.4.2. Prostina: Symmachus has ‘Praenestina’, Palestrina, a small town about 18 miles east of Rome.

o

10v 20 (Marginal note: 1.11.) Sir. It is my fortune that wheresoever I sett my foote some point of building streight presents it self unto me: as now the reparations of oCap: puts me into great charges. part of which is delayed thorough negligence: part lately repayred in hast and somewhat carelessly maketh itt an indecent and a weake habitation, which 5 if a present care supply not heareafter a greater expence or ruine must follow. for whosoever neglects such works, looseth them. wherefore I intend to strenghten the ^feverous^ old age of this fabricke: and so from a desired and expected tyme of leasure I am falne into a chargable buisnes. You now heare what I do. 10 lett me likewise heare of your health and imployments, that the short tyme wee shall spend oin the country may be passed over without any offence of sylence. farwel Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 10, to his father, pp. 7–8.) Commentary 9.4.2. o o

Cap: Capua; see commentary in the country: Symmachus has ‘in Campania’, the district around Naples.

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The Burley manuscript

21 (Marginal note: 1.14.) Sir. You require of me longer letters. I acknowledg therein your Love. but I who am conscious of the barrennes of my style, studdy rather to bee breife then to publish myne owne weaknes in multiplicity of lines. Neither can you marvayle att the shortnes of my phrase which hath not beene long tyme with any off influence of your letters cherished. Why then should you require letters of interest from mee, who never have trusted mee with principles? Your opoemes of the Mosel fly thorough the hands of all men, accept [sic] myne. Why will you have me only deprived thereof? Either you thinke mee ignorant, and cannot judge, or malitious and will not prayse them! And so you much derogate from my manners and understanding. I notwithstanding your interdiction have seene the secrets of your workes, and would fayne conceale my thoughts of them to bee by a just sylence revenged of you. but the admiration of your lines mittigates the sense of your injury. I should never beleeve you in this, unlesse I did not assuredly know you could not speake untruely so much as in a poem. but where found you those straung fishes in greatnes tast and color! I never found them att your table, though I have wondred there att divers others. 11r hehow came those fishes borne in your bookes that never were borne on your board? do you thinke I jest and trifle with you? (May I bee so approved of God as I thinke your verses comparable to Virgills.[)] But I will stay no longer uppon your prayses, forgettfull of myne owne greife, lest this likewise turne to your glory that I commend you though offended with you. Write therefore more verses, send them abroad, and except mee, yet I shall enjoy your labors, th[r]ough other mens curtesies. farwell.

5

10

15

20

25

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 14, to Ausonius, pp. 9–10.) Commentary 9.4.2. o

poemes: Ausonius’s Mosella poems were written at Treves in 370.

22 (Marginal note: 1.45.) Sir. I am filled with joy for the recovery of your health, for since your sicknes itt hath beene the very height of my desires. And if your regained strenght of body, have wrought like effects in

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the powers of your minde, I hope to find itt by multiplication of lines in your next letters. I have ever hated parsimonious 5 nigardrie of good words, for brevity of writing betweene frends, draweth neerer fastidiousnes, the[n] familiarity. I cannot abyde letters that dropp from the tonngs ends: I love such as know no ends, and flow from the openest vaynes of the hart. Long agoe the Spartan breifnes was in request, but wee live by Roman 10 customes, wherein plenty hath the prayse. I would say more unto you but you must be beaten with your owne rodds: And, perhaps you love not much speech; therefore I breake myne owne purpose, to obey yours. Yet hereby you may conceive you have wrought this opinion in mee, That you desire to receave 15 few lines from mee, unlesse you answere this with many. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 45, to Agorius Praetextatus, p. 23.) Commentary 9.4.2.

23 Sir. You excuse your sylence I confesse with an elegant exposi tion: you alleage a tenderness of disposition in sending news of heavynes till something of better successe should happen. that those things which intermission of letters had before concealed might bee discovered ^with lesse greife^ in conjunction of 5 happier events. But to me the former greivances were not hd hidden and yet the other came so late unto mee: for the cessation of your writing strengthned the suspected rumor. Notwithstanding I cannot bee angry with you. for the authority of your present letters hath taken away all memory of past consider- 10 ations: Only I pray amongst the best and first of your thoughts lett the care of writing bee one, lest the remembrance of this example possesse us againe with feares: whilst under the expectation of good news wee beleive that some unfortunate event 15 may lye conceald: Hand P. Translation of same letter as item 3 (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 6, letter 69, to Nichomachus Flavius the Younger, his son-in-law, p. 173).5 Commentary 9.4.2.

  5 P does not have here a marginal note indicating the letter being translated, although he did for letter 3.

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The Burley manuscript

11v 24 Sir. Men were meant to bee impatient of delayes being to receave benefitts. But it is newly seene in you that those who are truly liberall cannot endure delay in givinge: for you intytled me to your kinsmans lands, as suddenly as they befell you; your commodity came into my profitt. You have imitated fortune 5 therein but with more goodnes, for what shee bestowed with greife, you have given with gladnes: and further you have ardorned this liberality with your rich testymony of mee: which commendations I embrace beyond your guift, for hee who receaveth benefitts without them, hath rather gott a necessary 10 good then a just reward, I therefore give you many thanks for the honor receaved in both. and I beseech god that in common we may long enjoy them; and in the end that I may have judgment to bestow them according to your example. farwell: Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 6, to his father, p. 6.)6 Commentary 9.4.2.

25 Sir. Albeytt commendation of children to theire parents bee for the most part true, yet I know not how meritt seemeth to suffer wheresoever there is relation to the person. I am therefore doubtfull what words to use concerning your noble sonn in Law. if I should sparingly touch the worthynes of his carriage I should 5 be held as envious if I speake full truth I am thought a flatterer I will therefore only give this testimony. you have a sonn worthy of you, and by you of a consuls family, whose deservings fortune found bigger then her benefitts and the goodnes of his mind equal to her honors. 10 Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 25, to Ausonius, pp. 14–15.)7Commentary 9.4.2.

26 Sir. Frendships are therefore made that mutual affayres may be better governed by exchange of good offices. This sentence servs the present occasion. for I presume the suplication of omy brother shall not bee fruitlesse thorough your favor; the equity   6 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.   7 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

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of whose desires, and the usual forme of his petitioning may 5 deserve your suffrage. Now therefore no obstacle crossing his petition, add I pray you a curteous willingnes thereunto: which since it is inborne with you, itt remitteth my labor of intreating you, for hee doth open injury to liberality who earnestly desireth that which the nature of the giver freely promiseth farwell. 10 Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 7, letter 62, to Patricius, p. 194.)8 Commentary 9.4.2. o

my brother: Symmachus has ‘fratris mei Callistiani’ [my brother Callistianus].

12r 27 Sir. I love and admire your vertue: and itt so falls out that I envy you for you wholy enjoy my oHa[rry]: in few words heare what I say, all that was best in towne is removed to you. your societies yealds many mutual comforts. What joy remaynes for me? whome ^hee^ hath forsaken and you lesse desire, because one supplieth place of both.

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 58, to Ricomerus, pp. 88–89.)9 Commentary 9.4.2. o

Harry: Symmachus names ‘Flavianus’.

28 Sir. That your fortunes so abundantly prosper I holditt my advantage, being of this mind my frends prosperity is part of myne owne: and in truth how can the day be happy to him who only markes his owne profitts therein; hee enjoys more largely that is nourished att by frends good fortunes. With what gladnes 5 thinke you I was possessed when I understood that god had bestowed on you the mother of a family and on her the tymely increase of a sonn? for being separated by such distance of sea and land I had news no sooner of the one then th’other, one letter delivered both: which happinesses att severall tymes befell you 10 but entered my brest both togeather. Devided joyes must give place to those that are united, and the tardity of your letters have brought forth a fuller harvest. Wherefore I now complaine not of their slownes: it is a pleasant delay that bringeth many joyes att once. farwell. 15   8 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.   9 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

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Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 24, to Marinianus, p. 78.)10 Commentary 9.4.2.

29 Sir. You say you expected longer letters from me. I am delighted with your judgment for desire of plenty is a commendation of witt; but yet I wish abundance of words might displease you for what should speech doe; whither should itt turne or rest voyd of matter? I hate a long cloake on a short body, that garment 5 becometh well which neither stirreth dust nor discovereth the wearer.o but when you crave longer letters, yeald you something that may begett them and so I promise enlarged answeres: Although peradventure itt is my Love that deceaves mee when I say so. Notwithstanding I will see the event of your desires: 10 but conditionally that you remember that I promise plenty, not choice. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 10, to Naucellius, p. 73.)11 Commentary 9.4.2. o

Cf. the quotation from James Howell’s Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ in section 9.6.

12v

30 (Marginal note: 1.32.) Sir. It is ill conceived that fortune wanteth judgment: for shee mindfull of tymes past, dilligent in the present, and provident for the future repayeth you what shee giveth others. therefor shee is not vayne, nor giddy, from whom wee all knowe others receave guifts, but you rewards. But you say from whence comes 5 this knowledg of my new honor unto you? even from fame who is easyly beleived when shee telleth truth. Should I then attend in sylence [attends]12 your letters which your modesty differed? [deferred] No. the naturall impatience of joy forbids mee. I therefore act your part (as you see) and what I should 10 have heard from you I in a manner tell you. but I would not that this hastines of my letters should hinder yours: Dissemble rather that I know not what I write off, and send a new messenger that I congratulate with you once againe. farwell.

10 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated. 11 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated. 12 attends: thus P, but the sentence makes sense only if this word be omitted, and it is then a clear translation of the Latin.

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Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 38, to Ausonius, p. 20.) Commentary 9.4.2.

31 (Marginal note: 1.42.) Sir. Good God! now there is nothing belonging to men certayne or not unconstant. you went into the countryo for your recreation. What ill eye hath bewitched your intended pleasures. our common care your daugthero was almost dead. alas how fared you then: since her least distemper was wont to be with you as 5 mortall! whatsoever you did my mind beheld the affliction of your dayes, and great cares: Wee are borne with condition to bee tryed through such adversities. Pleasures fly from us, and the use of each good thing is as short, as the sence thereof is light and slender: But lett philosophers dispute these things. lett us 10 persuade our minds to put on a more cheerfull habit since the peace of God hath placed your daugther in her health againe. farwell. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 48, to Agorius Praetextatus, p. 24.) Commentary 9.4.2. o o

into the country: Symmachus has ‘to Baiae’. your daugther: Here, and in the final line, Symmachus has ‘Paulina’.

13r 32 Sir. After your long sylence I no lesse desired then I expected longer letters; for humane things are governed by such exchanges as make abundance succeede each dirth. Yet this opinion hath deceaved mee. your letter was shortned. twas truly sprinkled with much witt and sweet graces, but so sparing that itt rather 5 put of wearines then broke my hunger. What? If I should crave to sup with you would you sett me salletts? remember the greeke saying,o matters of small nourishment may well defend from death, but they cannot make a strong and perfect constitution. do you thinke I consider not your occupations? you are a trea- 10 surer, I remember itt: a privy counsellor. I know itt. add to these a thousand other businesses, itt can never happen that labor should spoyle your industry or cares corrupt your gentlenes, nor use wast your eloquence. if you cannot distinguish by rest your dayly occupations lett the sunrising be bestowed on your 15 frendships. but why am I so worddy with you?o I should rather

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The Burley manuscript imitate your last letters, as I do the rest of your behaviours, ad and peradventure your occasions now admitt no longer lines. I conjecture aright, for I perceave how ill you will endure to read much, by your small leasure to dictate little. farwell 20

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 1, letter 23, to Ausonius, pp. 13–14.)13 Commentary 9.4 greeke saying: Here S quotes (in Latin, of which P gives a close translation) Demosthenes, Olynthiacs, III, 33 (Seeck has, erroneously, III, 39). o with you?: Here P omits a passage from S in which he quotes Terence, Adelphi, 532: ‘quam vellem etiam noctu amicis operem mos esset dari!’ [What a pity service to friends at night isn’t an equally venerable tradition!], which A. S. Gratwick describes as ‘intentionally ambiguous’. Terence, The Brothers, ed. and trans. by A. S. Gratwick (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1987), p. 151. o

33 Sir. You understand the new honor our Prince hath conferred on my fortune. What words will equal such a guift? Joyne therefore with me I pray in rendring all humblest thanks. for since wee are all interested and singly overcome with the greatnes of the favor it is fitt ther should be many thanksgivers that theire 5 number may supply each others debt. and sure the possessor of my thoughts from whome this benefitt is sprung doth not measure the acceptance of his favors by the receavers words; but by the thankfulnes of theire minds: not ignorant his guifts are such as admitt no hope of other recompence: Therefore lett us 10 shewe ourselues gratefull by our faythfull 13v observance and lett us give our minds as pledges, by which children can only recompence the authors of theire lifes. In well ment contractloving promises are sufficient. farwell. Hand P. Probably a translation, but P does not give a source number, nor has an original been identified. Commentary 9.5.

34 Sir. The succession of frendship is to bee affected amongst other goods of deceased kingsmen [sic]: and peradventure the inheritance thereof is to be sought for with more industry. for fortune affordeth ritches, but frends are purchased by vertue and wisdome. for my part I wish the connection of our families 13 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

5

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might grow still notwithstanding our common losse and therefore I desire you to bee as free with mee in all your occasions as my love and carefulnes shalbe ready in theire execution. farwell. Hand P. Probably a translation, but P does not give a source number, nor has an original been identified. Commemtary 9.5.

35 Sir. I know you remember that the same greife with yours for losse of our frend hath enthralled me: but now it is tyme our exchange of letters should give us mutuall comfort. I therefore write to force you to answere and to reforme from the heavy cogitations of the dead to duties of the living. A religious ^sollicitous^ mind kept you from being the first in writing. you must not bee so irreligious in frendship as not to answere being provoked.

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 8, letter 28, to Romanus, p. 223.)14 Commentary 9.4.2.

36 Sir. It is for the publique good this new charge is committed to you, wherefore the confession of my joye ought ^not^ to bee enlarged lest the suspition of flattery disgrace the truth of my judgment. but I hope the whole course of this place wilbee successfull, for I cannot doubt any change in your honesty and good arts more happily prosper by the incitements of re due rewards. farwell.

5

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 8, letter 30, to Jovius, p. 224.)15 Commentary 9.4.2.

14r 37 Sir. The badnes of theire minds is manifest who brings in question cleare and decided agreements, and by theire impatience of quiett make the end of one controversy the begining of another. Imagine therefor my sorry greife who cannot enjoy his rest though purchased by prejudice of his estate, for hee is now compelled into a long suite out of which hee is not like in any reasonable tyme to escape without your just assistance; who 14 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated. 15 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

5

80

The Burley manuscript are the haven to those whome fortune distresseth. I will not bee tedious in my requests, since from the quality of the buisnes and your Justice may be derived more favor, then from any mans intercession. farwell. 10

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 7, letter 109, to Patruinus, p. 207.)16 Commentary 9.4.2.

38 Sir. You know what hath passed betweene you and mee which hath brought such effects as is to bee expected in such buisnes. To speake more playnely is needeles and to move you to take such a course as in this case is requisite is I hope unnecessary, sythence your self in that are by your self to bee advised, and it were temerity in me to take uppon me to direct a gentleman 5 what is to be done required at his hands, which as I have alwayes found and esteemed to bee most worthy, so in this lett my opinion I beseech you not bee frustrate./ What I can promise in recompence you already have,   my Love 10 Till death: Hand P. Probably a translation, but P does not give a source number, nor has an original been identified. Commentary 9.5.

39 Sir. That which I conceived in opinion and hope is now indeed effected: the first meeting of good men makes theire frendship[.] so much your judgment and theire temper before persuaded me, for honesty recommended to the arbitrators of vertue could not but quickly please but this point is fitter to be rejoyced att then dilated by mee, I had rather prayse that part if words could equal 5 the subject which sayes you still receave from mee garments most fitting your wearing, there is nothing more sincere then this point of your Love which rising 14v from single affection is likewise a vertue, but what can I returne worthy this opinion: hitherto wee have lived equals in frendship, 10 now without delay I yeld and this confession of being overcome must only serve for requital of such favors. Farwell 16 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

The manuscript text

81

Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 29, to Marinianus, p. 80.)17 Commentary 9.4.2.

40 Sir. Tis true you abound in all abilities of nature and mind, yet it is hard to cleare from this vice of sylence what can you alleage as truth or as invention? long voyages have detayned you? but oftentymes hee that stayes long comes att lenght. you have beene oppressed with publique affayres? but all buisinesses are distin- 5 guished by theire vacations. It remaynes (which I endure not) that you confesse a negligence in frendship, for the omission of writing sometymes may grow from just occasions, but the omitting itt alwayes tasteth of oblivion. In which as itt shalbe possible I willbee sylent and rather say you thus long examine 10 my patience, but withall let you know that hee is most unworthyly offended who thorough the goodnes of his minde can take no offence. and itt had beene better for you to have written since your last speech is come into my hands, for the publique opinion of which I will a while keepe you in suspence, till you intreat, 15 and deserve, and (because I esteeme your letters so much) till you write oftener to mee. Hand P. (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 18, to Gregorius, p. 76.)18 Commentary 9.4.2

15r 41 Sir. this is the fift letter that hath died in your service though out of the love I owe truth I must confesse this last written in another humor then the preceding for being now taught to beleive of men as they give cause, and not to hold fayth a traytor this is not hallowed with the thought of love, but a meere confession or 5 repentance for my former respect with a stedfast purpose never to offend in the like. I shall now learne to beware of touching at those people that have reasons of state allowed them to mistyfy even those sinns and weaknesses that can guild theire omissions and make those poore men that ^serve^ nobody but God, 10 serve like dull instruments, that have no life in them, without your dexterities. Well I would you should know that thoughts of contempt and disdaine are not derived out of fortunes but 17 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated. 18 P does not have a marginal note indicating the letter being translated.

The Burley manuscript

82

complexions of men so may wee afford them as cheape as you; only this I will for ever beware of entering frendship with you that are within compas of the [?]setary, for unto you now must 15 speake honor and keep love for such as shall hold a fitt proportion of conjunction with yr humble servant Hand P. Commentary 9.3.

15v 42 Right Honorable. I remember when Scaramella a Segretarie to the Venetian Senat was sent hither to Queene Elizabeth about a sea buisines,o shee surprized him with a question Why that Republique had never sent unto her before the world knowing that she loved Italy so well? Serenissima Madama, sayd hee, Wee have a fashion at 5 Venice when there is occasion to congratulate with any of our great senators, every one makes hast to performe that complement: But if any that should have done it sooner find him self prevented by all other: he letts him know some way that he will rather stay at home & pray for him then come in the reare. And 10 so was our case when wee were prevented in the beginning of your glorious reigne by the needenes of other Princes. This was his answere, which I hope your good Lordship will apply in some degree to myself and receave it (even before the question is asked) in as favorable part as her Majestie did from him. And 15 so knowing how pretious tyme is to your Lordship. and how litle it become to take much of it from you, I will conclude with beseeching God to give you a long enjoyment of the publique joy in your promotion, wherein is concluded my particular. Your Lordships 20 Hand P. Probably to Wotton. Commentary 9.3. [In or after 1604, Wotton’s appointment as Ambassador.] o Scaramella: Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli, Venetian secretary, sent to England in 1603 to negotiate the return of Venetian goods captured by English pirates. He had an audience with the Queen six weeks before her death (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 319n., quoting S.P. Ven. ix, p. lxvi; x, p. 126).

The manuscript text

83

16r 43 Sir. My love finding passage by so fitt a messenger could not be sylent, but hath made me rather write nothing then not write att all, and my pratling ignorance makes me like one of those, that are wont with many words to say nothing & yet to talk of every thing. The King and peake heareth sermons rides a hunting 5 and hateth puritans, the Queene ready to ly downeo The Prince Henry is so still, save that his vertues increase the 2 son is created duke of Yorke.o for the navy I can only say that a carpenter of Rochester is come to dwel in my parish and sweareth that Rochester and Chartom both will not now find worke enough for one 10 of his trade and therefore is come to seeke worke here. for union of the kingdomes I hear no more but that some preachers pray for the king of great Brittaine.o You see how I write; yet notwithstanding I have this much witt as I will not be tedious. And therefore I rest/19 15 I dare out of the country send your Lordship no wnews because nothing is so spoyld with stalenesse, yet that which I heard but yesternight I venture uppon that is cr[edible?].20 I have at this tyme no other news: for it is no news that I love you, that I pray 20 for^[wish?]^ you all inward & out[?] happines, that I will ever remayne        Your Hand P. Probably to Wotton. Commentary 9.3. [Jan–Apr 1605; see commentary.] lye downe: Queen Anne was pregnant with the Princess Mary, born on 8 April 1605, who died in the following September (Maureen M. Meikle and Helen Payne, ‘Anne (1574–1619)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). o duke of Yorke: This occurred on 5 January 1605 (NS), when Charles was just turned four years old (Cal. S.P. Dom, 1603–1610, Vol. XII, 6 Jan 1605). o Brittaine: James I proclaimed himself ‘King of Great Brittaine’ on 20 October 1604 (Cal. S.P. Dom, 1603–1610; a draft by Francis Bacon is printed in Stuart Royal Proclamations, ed. by James F. Larkin and Paul L. Hughes, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), I, 94), but the ‘union of the kingdomes’ remained a matter of debate. o

16v–39v Blank 19 P here inserts a long flourish of the kind with which he frequently ends an entry, but the following paragraph is evidently a PS closing the letter. 20 The contraction ‘cr.’ has not been met elsewhere, but seems likely to represent ‘credible’ or ‘creditable’.

The Burley manuscript

84 40r

44

Henricus Wottonius, Anglo-Cantianus, Thomae Optimi viri […] Hand P. 12-line copy of Sir Henry Wotton’s Latin arms-tablet in his role as Ambassador to the Venetian Republic (see Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 193). [Probably 1604.]

45 MDCI Germani Perigrinatores […] Hand P. 13-line Latin epitaph for one Francis ABurg. The full text, translation, and comments are in Chapter 4, pp. 20–21. 1601.

40v Blank 41r 46 Anna Dei gratia Magnae Britanniae Franciae et Hiberniae Regina. Serenissimo Principiae Duco Martino […] Hand P. 26-line Latin letter from Queen Anne to the Doge of Venice, Marino Grimani, commending Sir Henry Wotton to him. [1604.]

41v 47 Al Ser[enissi]mo R d’Inghiltierra Le lettere della Maiesta Vostra presentatea dal Signor Cavaliere Arrigo Wottoni […]21 Hand P. Seven-line Italian letter from the Republic of Venice to James I, welcoming Wotton’s appointment. [1604.]

48 AllAmbas[sadore] Molino Arrive in questa citta il Signor Cavaliere Arrigo Wottoni […] Hand P. Seven-line Italian letter from the Republic of Venice to Niccolo Molin, their Ambassador in London, informing him of Wotton’s appointment. [1604.]

21 The page has been carefully ruled so that the text of this and the following two items is ‘justified’, with wider margins than P usually employs.

The manuscript text

85

49 A sua Maiesta Aggiungeret a Serena Majesta la sadisfattione grande […] Hand P. Six-line Italian letter from the Republic of Venice, conveying further satisfaction at the appointment. [1604.]

42r 50 Trusty and well beloved We greet you well. Such and so many are your dispatches […] Hand P. 22-line letter from James I to Wotton, expressing satisfaction with his work so far. Identical with item 276, save that that has superscription and subscription. [This entry undated, but item 276 is dated 16 July 1605.]

42v Blank 43r–44v 51 Marino Grimani Duke of Venice (weakned with a double tertian and more with age it self) […] Hand P. Four-page account, from the Ambassador to the Earl of Salisbury, of the death of the Doge, and the election of his successor, Leonardo Donato.22 [S.P. Ven. copy dated 18 Feb 1606, NS.]

45r 52 Sir Tho: Parry departed hence yesterday having received from the K: a great present of Diamonds […] Hand P. 12-line diplomatic report.23 3 Mar 1605.

53 The 28 of April 1605 the K: made his entry into Paris with greater solemnity than hath beene marqued in him. […] Hand P. Nine-line diplomatic report. See note 23. 27 Apr 1606; i.e. a year after the event.

22 The narrative has many, though unimportant, detail differences from Wotton’s holograph, preserved in S.P. Venice II, suggesting that the Burley text may be a draft. 23 Items 52–63 appear to be copies of extracts from the journal of the British Embassy in Paris, where the Ambassador was Sir George Carew. Though described as ‘diplomatic reports’, these and other similar entries are sometimes more akin to gossip.

86

The Burley manuscript 54 The K: maketh great instance to restablish the Jesuits in Rochets greatly to the distast of those of the religion; […]

Hand P. 13-line diplomatic report. See note 23. Jan 1606.

55 The subject which doth here amuse us most in Paris is the magnificence of the Dolphin’s christening, […] Hand P. 23-line diplomatic report. See note 23. 27 Jun 1606.

45v (commences after line 12 of item 55) 56 The Theater of the affayres of Christendome is now changed to the place of the Sp.[anish] residence […] Hand P. 20-line diplomatic report. See note 23. 29 Jun 1606.

57 The judgments which are here made of forraine actions are these: Touching the Low Countries, […] Hand P. 20-line diplomatic report. See note 23. 24 Jan 1607.

46r 58 The Prince of Jenville [Joinville] who a little whyle since departed from the Court in the K: displeasure about some cooling of love […] Hand P. 11-line diplomatic report. See note 23. 22 May 1607.

59 The Princesse of Orang hath lately obteyned leave of the K: to make a voyag into Holland […] Hand P. 26-line diplomatic report. See note 23. [1607?]

60 The news which we have here latly out of Spaine of the meanes used to discharge the K; of (20)24 millions […] Hand P. 12-line diplomatic report. See note 23. 29 Nov 1607. 24 The opening parenthesis and the 2 are legible; the zero and the closing parenthesis are uncertain; the latter looks more like a question mark.

The manuscript text

87

46v 61 Those of the religion have latly made an end of theire Synod at Rochel, where they have for matter of doctrine added one article […] Hand P. 12-line diplomatic report. See note 23.

62 Al the matter in discourse heere, is a maske represented by the Q: with 2425 other principal Ladies; it was danced first in the Arsenal […] Hand P. 21-line diplomatic report. See note 23.

63 The maine matter which is here intended to is the treaty of Flanders which is now so far advanced as that our Ambassadors […] Hand P. 21-line diplomatic report. See note 23. [1609? A truce was negotiated at The Hague, and signed on 9 Apr 1609, that ended temporarily the conflict in the Low Countries.]

47r (commences after line 12 of item 63) 64 This last week we had executed heere a certayne Italian who named himself Bartolomeo Burghese and by cause […] Hand P. 40-line diplomatic report.26

47v (commences after line 29 of item 64) 65 Copia della Sentencia Visto per Maesei delle Requeste Ordinarie del Re Guidici soverani in queste […] Hand P. 21-line copy of the sentence of the Court in the matter of item 64 above.

48r 66 The censure lately sett forth a Rome against certayne books amongst which was an arrest against Chastel […] Hand P. Ten-line diplomatic report. See note 26. 26 Jan 1609. 25 The 4 is uncertain. 26 Items 64–70 appear to be extracts from a journal kept at the Embassy in Venice.

88

The Burley manuscript 67 The Nuns of St. Lorenzo (gentlemens daugthers) having lett great somms of mony to the fryars of St Georg: […]

Hand P. 12-line diplomatic report. See note 26.

68 The Jesuits in theire bande That unlesse the Colledg fully assemblies have all theire balls in one bussolo27 […] Hand P. Seven-line diplomatic report. See note 26.

69 A letter hath beene spread here agaynst the Citty of Verona’s inclination to a revolt to since which the Citty […] Hand P. Six-line diplomatic report. See note 26.

70 Soveriano the Inventor of and cause of the building of Palma in his death desired his bones might be buried in one of the Bulworks […] Hand P. Five-line diplomatic report. See note 26.

48v–50v Blank 51r 71 The Lord of Arundel that commandeth the regiment of the En:[lish] which serveth here passed over lately hither in company […] Hand P. 17-line diplomatic report, apparently from Paris. See note 23.

72 Your Lordship hath reason to say that the imposterous straw miracle28 deserveth to be despised for the grossenes thereof, […] Hand P. 27-line copy or draft of an official letter. Conjecturally by Sir Thomas Edmondes, since it seems to have been written in Brussels, where Edmondes was Ambassador; it refers to ‘the Archduke’ (the Archduke Albert was co-ruler). 19 27 Bussolo: ‘Bussolotto’ is a dice-box. The phrase sounds proverbial. 28 The ‘straw miracle’ was said to have occurred at the execution of Henry Garnet, Gunpowder Plot conspirator, on 3 May 1606, his face, crowned with a halo, appearing on the straw used to mop up the blood.

The manuscript text

89

M[ay] 1609; although this date is in the text, it seems very soon after the event to which it refers, since it is apparently a reply to a letter telling of it (see note).

51v 73 Now at lenght after almost 5 months deliberation, answere is come out of Spain that they cannot satisfy his Ma:[jesty’s] demand […] Hand P. 46-line diplomatic report. Reads as if written from London. [8] Apr 1606.

52r 74 The English Jesuits for the special favor which is borne them have lately obtained permission to plant […] Hand P. 11-line diplomatic report. Reads as if written from Paris.

75 Heere hath beene this week a solemne professing of 5 Eng:[lish] women to be Nuns, at the which ceremony the Princes did them the honor to assist […] Hand P. 13-line diplomatic report, apparently from Paris. See note 23. 8 Jul 1609.

76 There fell out an accident here a few dayes since which hath moved great speech in respect of the discontent […] Hand P. 20-line diplomatic report, apparently from Paris. See note 23. 8 Jul 1609.

52v 77 Macguire the Vaut courier of Tyrones company passed this way 5 or 6 months since and from hence went into Brittain where he disguised himelf as a Marchant […] Hand P. Nine-line diplomatic report, apparently from Paris. See note 23.

78 One document29 I have learn’d in Lucca not to medle in busines which concerns the State though in my sleepe. […] Hand P. 17-line official letter.

29 Although inscribed as recorded, the first two words should probably be regarded as a marginal annotation.

The Burley manuscript

90

79 A fayre & ready one of your hand, musick for [**ing] &: will prove but the instrumental parts of your travayle. […] Hand P. 16-line official letter.

53r–53v Blank 54r 80 Such is ower extreame want of raynes in these parts that if presently it please not God to releive us this Kingdome likely to suffer a dearth […] Hand P. 27-line official letter, written from Spain.30

81 Concerning the enterteyment given to our Irish Earles in Milan I long since expostulated here, and was answered that they had not then heard […] Hand P. 32-line official letter, enclosing items 82 and 83, evidently written in Spain. [1608; see date of first enclosure.]

54v (commences after line 14 of item 81) 82 Copy of the said letters He recibido la carta di V[ostr]a S[erenissim]a Ill[ustrissi]ma por lo qual y la copia que con ella vino, he intendido […] Hand P. 49-line letter in Spanish, with marginal annotation in English ‘The Secretarie of Estate to my Lord Ambassador’. 12 Jul 1608.

55r (commences after line 25 of item 82) – 56v 83 Si Dios ne habiera dado a las al cuerpo conform […] Hand P. Four-page response in Spanish to item 82, with marginal annotation in English ‘My Lord Ambassador’s answere to the former letter’.

57r–57v 84 The discourses which are made uppon the four great marriages that are in speech. 30 It refers to the Duke of Lerma, Philip III’s favourite.

The manuscript text

91

    The marriages are these: 1. The Prince of Mantua with Princesse of Savoy. 2. The Prince of Modena with the second of Savoy. 3. The Prince of Tuscany with the ArchD:[uke] Ferd:[inand]   his sister. 4. The Prince of Savoy with the Princesse of Tuscany. Hand P. Two-page discussion of these marriages, with various items of news, and has a curious last line: ‘Alla Catolica Madama &.’

58r 85 Nuntius Papalis questus est superiori (septimana?) in Collegio de con­­cionibus Fulgentiae servitae. […] Hand P. One-page report in Latin, relating to Fulgentio the Servite (Fulgenzio Micanzio (1570–1654), who was suspected by the Papal Nuncio of being a Trojan horse for Protestantism in Venice).

58v–59r 86 My Lord, That smale service which your Lordship left in my hand is now come to a kind of conclusion. Don Francesco di Castro having signified hither […] Hand P. Two-page official letter from Sir Henry Wotton, probably to the Marquis of Hamilton, dissuading him from visiting Rome. 20 Mar 1610.

59v 87 Ecc[ellentissi]mo et Ill[ustrissi]mo sig[no]r Il signor Giacobo Lyndsay [qualunque?] normale mi ha fatto sapere d’all sua […] Hand P. One-page official letter from Wotton to Philippe de Fresnes-Canaye, French Ambassador to Venice, rebutting rumours that Wotton was not well affected towards France. [1604.]

60r 88 Ill[ustrissi]mo et Ecc[ellentissi]mo Sig[no]r La poca pratica che lo nel scrivere bono in questa vulgare […] Hand P. One-page reply to 87. [1604.]

92

The Burley manuscript

60v–61r 89 Don Francesco Count di Castro lay from Saturday after his arrival here till Tuesday following in the house of the ordinary Ambassador for the King of Spaine […] Hand P. Two-page report by Wotton, relating to the special embassy of de Castro to improve relations between Spain and Venice. [Dec 1604.]

61v Blank 62r–65v 90 Some 3 weeks before the arrival of his Majesties book in Venice, the Pope had expressly commanded this state not to accept itt: […] Hand P. Eight-page account of the events surrounding Wotton’s presentation of James I’s Premonition to the Doge, evidently from Wotton to Salisbury. [1609.]

66r (commences with last three lines of item 90) 91 To the Princes Highnes. The Memorial of the most humble thankfulness and acknowledgment of his Majesties Catholic and Roman subjects. Humbly shew, That wee cast our selves att his Majesties feet by your Highnes meanes for the great ease and grace which your Highnes hath […] Hand P. 20-line petition, affirming loyalty of Catholic subjects.

66v Blank 67r–68r 92 Summarium articulares a Cardinalibus iuratis permissisque ingreduntum in Conclave. 1. Pacem servare inter Principes Christianes Hand P. Three-page document containing 24 numbered articles. Appears to be ‘Heads of Agreement’, including at Article 3 the leading back to the Catholic faith of the King and Queen of the English and Scots.

68v Blank

The manuscript text

93

69r–70v 93 Being not able yet to make any final judgment uppon the event of these troubles (which delude our fantasies from weeke to weeke) […] Hand P. Four-page report, which reviews in detail the state of affairs of Venice; clearly from Wotton to James I. [1606–7.]

71r–72r 94 Sir, Having formerly given you a generall accompt of the conclusion of this great buisines, It shalbee now fit for me in divers respects […] Hand P. Three-page letter outlining the settlement of the dispute between Venice and the Pope. Essentially identical with the letter from Wotton to Sir Thomas Edmondes, Ambassador in Brussels, a copy of which, with holograph signature and postscript, appears in MS Stowe 169, f. 40, there dated 18 May 1607 NS, and is printed in Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 389–391. There is the possibility that Wotton addressed identical letters to more than one fellow ambassador.

72v–76v Blank 77r–78v 95 The treaty of peace in the Low countries having so great a reflection (as I may call itt) upon your Majesties kingdoms, Itt seemed part of my duty […] Hand P. Four-page summary of Venetian opinion of Spain’s intentions following the ‘treaty of peace in the Low Countries’, presumably that of 1609. [1609.]

79r–81v Blank 82r Commences a sequence (items 96–206) of 111 sententiae, factual or historical memoranda and witty remarks, all in Hand P, that are discussed at some length in Chapter 7, pp. 51–54. They are printed in full with appropriate notes in Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, appendix IV, nos 35–145, and are here presented only in abbreviated form.

96 Leagues and contracts of Princes last no longer then the causes for which […] 97 The Prince of Parma; of Orange; Sixtus Vs; Leo XI another Pope; […]

94

The Burley manuscript 98 All states are ungratefull: & so theire ministers. 99 The Spanish Ambassador in Venice hearing of the French K: death: […] 100 Mounsieur Moulin in Orleans being demanding what he thought […] 101 The murtherer must be wrought to the fact: 1st by great promises […] 102 The 16. of May the Bishop of Feltre was made Vescovo della Signoria […] 103 The Prince Donato very often used to Ambassadors this complement […] 104 Sixtus 4th built the bordello in Rome which yieldeth 4000£ per annum. […] 105 The Camarieri of Contarini at his retorne ^to Venice^ being asked […]

82v 106 Pere Cotton receaving the Kings hart (who built a Colledg for that purpose) […] 107 It was written from Bologna that the Image there of St Denis wept […]

The manuscript text 108 The Queene proceeded against the Erle of Essex by his owne Uncle […] 109 Christning a ceremony of the church: for witness the Jews have none: […] 110 The Queen’s farwell to my Lord of Essex in a voyage to Cales […] 111 The Duke in Florence seldome came where his brethren were for avoiding […] 112 A Preist near St. Hieronimo in Venice sent for a spie into Germany […] 113 Dio mi guardi dell’entrata d’un francese et dall’uscita d’un spagnuolo. 114 An objection being made against the acting of a Tragedie in Christmas […] 115 A King should use his prerogative as rarely as God miracles, for his laws […] 116 A prisoner in Venice rejoiced when he heard Sixtus Vs was made Pope […] 83r (commences after line 3 of item 116) 117 Pasquin. He died Spanish and lived French.

95

96

The Burley manuscript 118 The French King by his Ambassador signifieth to the state of Venice in theire […] 119 Contareno in Senate Voleuamo dar il rosto cio e l’entrata et non la volute […] 120 My Lord of Essex after being made counsellor lost the Queen’s favour […] 121 The Queen was wont to cal Sir R. C[ecil] the register of her remembrances. 122 Dux Venetis ordinatium non potestatium capit principatum. 123 Errors like rivers the further they run the more they increase. 124 In things we know wee should not do as those that fall into waters […] 125 Out of Arithmetike sprong musicke which is but figures put into sounds […] 126 L’affetto et l’obligo non admetto dilatione ma solo interesse […] 127 About a picture of my Lord of Essex which Brassadonna had was written […]

The manuscript text 128 A preacher begging almes told the audience that if they would have new matter […] 129 A Venetian Ambassador when he saw Phillip the 2d wore covers over his sleeves […] 83v 130 Leo V. offered in the Venetian troubles 3000 loaves a month for a year […] 131 It was unlikely that the Venetians would apprehend the Prince of Condé […] 132 Discourse with ^all^ men as nere as you can in theire owne faculties: for so you may […] 133 A soldier should draw the platforme of battayles he meets with, plant the squadrons […] 134 The French King after he is dead for certayne dayes hath all regal ceremonies done […] 135 By the Turks law all contracts written in Latin may be broken. 136 A partie in Senat presently after the death of the French King: that many of […] 137 Presently uppon the King of France his death a miracle noysed in Venice […]

97

98

The Burley manuscript 138 Any Friar may quit his monasterie that pretendeth his father unable to live […] 139 Masters of houses like false pillars which seeme to hold upp the house when indeed […]

84r 140 The Turk hath a close grate with a curtayne in a rome where he may heare […] 141 The officers of the Turk in theire prayers call on Mahomet that they may receave [..] 142 A gentleman of Naples begging a pension of Charles V. and amongst other services […] 143 At Luca every houre is rung an Ave Maria bell and the answere to what a clocke […] 144 Signor Hercule de Salice: that when the league was made between the 17 […] 145 Illustrissimo Nani ^Venetian Ambassador^ when the Pope told him that he […] 146 Cavaliere Guar[di?]: The Court of Rome is like the sea in all things, […] 147 The Jesuits after vespers say always divers ave maria’s ad intentionem rectoris.

The manuscript text 148 Charles V. That the Diets of Germany were like parti di vipere, […] 149 In Naples the general of the Camp permitteth a banke-Master for all kind of […] 84v 150 The Count Olivares Spanish Ambassador to Sixtus V.s who sayd to him […] 151 The Pope Paulus V. when Fulgentio preached at Venice told Contareni […] 152 The Bishop of Filadelphia in Venice being asked whether he had received […] 153 A Courtier to the French King: that his eares receaved truths as his chequers […] 154 The King of Swethlands son being feasted with a dance a gentle woman […] 155 An Advertisement was brought from Rome by a preist concerning the French King […] 156 Maximilian I. was wont to say that he was King of Kings the King of Spaine the […] 157 In ^the^ banishment of the Jesuits from Venice there was sent authority from the […]

99

100

The Burley manuscript 158 Before men leap into great businesses they must see to have a good foundation […] 159 Sometymes flashes are flung abroad ^of purpose^ that happily lying still would […]

85r 160 The Sposa of Florence on the way had her meat served into her first by men […] 161 Causabong to Rhony presenting his Athaneus: being greeke he sayd he would none […] 162 Don Pedro in 88 being asked why he did not runne away when he might […] 163 The Duke of Nevers to Villeroy that if he ceased not complaining of him his […] 164 The Pope by executing Fulgenzio sheweth to the world how hee would use […] 165 Sir F. Bacon in parlament I sh after a very fayre speech made sayd I should willingly […] 166 In difficult tymes States send into the eares of the people toyes miracles &c […] 167 Boterg a Jesuit of the Cittie of Bene of whome it is said that he was the only […]

The manuscript text 168 Fulgentio burned at Rome in July 1610 for denying the pope to be head of the […] 169 Since the example of Alexander 6. and then Bianca Capella the use of poysoning […] 170 Sir Robert Cecil accused to his Majestie by Udal & the King telling him of it […] 171 My Lord Montjoy reprehended by the King for taking tobacco answered by that […] 85v 172 The Signoria of Venice farmeth 2/3 of theire datii: the other part they keepe […] 173 The Spanish Ambassador needed no spectacles in Venice for sure states represent […] 174 The night heats in Venice for your grosse bodies retayne heat longer […] 175 fatali inavertenze. The League of Cambray against the Venetians. The Spanish […] 176 Anteus when he touched the earth recovered his strenght so will you when those […] 177 The Duke of Ferrara preceded in Italie accept [except] with Venice they take […]

101

102

The Burley manuscript 178 Molin to Sir H. W. of the death of the French King O Monsieur c’est à nous de […] 179 My Lord Treasurer to Sir H. W. concerning his following the King that he must not […] 180 Deodati of Padre Paulo: huomo cubiculare on what syde soever hee fell hee stood still. 181 The Prince of Venice in this like the sun doth effect all his purposes in radio oblique […] 182 The religion of Malta is to destroy the Turks and infidels yet the Ro[man] cannons […] 183 The Lord Threasurer Burleigh speaking of a kings authority in parlament sayth […] 184 Cheri yelded to the Duke of Savoy with condition that they should hold the 1. 2. & 3 […]

86r 185 Jurea called Stallabium, for a collony of horse the Romans kept there. The castel […] 186 Thebe a Queene of Lombardy had Corduba for her dowry: being 2 myles from Jurea […] 187 The fertility of Piemont may be imagined by the neerenes of Collonies Jurea, Turin […]

The manuscript text 188 Too great benefitts from Princes to subjects are dangerous: they make the mind […] 189 Consilia senum hastas iuvenum esse. 190 Princes must choose instruments par negotiis not supra that are only theirs […] 191 Acts that fill Princes coffers are often the ruine of theire first inventors. 192 Princes minds & favors more transitory then others sooner cloyed, and larger […] 193 Denials from Princes must be supplemented with gratious usage that though […] 194 Great must be the art of that man, that keeps himself afloate the streame of Princes […] 86v 195 Henry 3. A famine so violent that the king was enforced to direct writs to all the […] 196 Henry 3. was complaynd off for his private electing cheife Justice, Chancellor […] 197 The Bishop of Winchester denied delivery of the great seale but in Parliament […]

103

104

The Burley manuscript 198 Miles literatii or clericus militarii. Sir priest. 199 Experience is deerely bought, when itt never learns to do but by undoing: […] 200 No mans bounty is much loved that is not merely future. 201 Henry 3. for want & rather then call a parliament, pawneth Gasconie, his imperial […] 202 Henry 3. A parliament at Oxford chose 24 ^comites^ to governe the kingdome: […] 203 Men must beware of running downe steepe hills with waigthy bodyes: they once […] 204 A gratious kind of pardoning not to take notice of offences. 205 Tyrants shed blood for pleasure, kings for necessity. 206 Immoderate liberality is a weake meanes to win love, for it looseth more in the […]

87r–89v 207 Sir Garvis Helwisse protestation touching the death of Sir Thomas Overburuii I heare myself diversly censured for the discovery of Sir Thomas Overbury his death; And desirous that those that love mee might rightly understand […] Hand P. Six-page copy of account by Sir Gervase Elwes of his part in the events leading to the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. [Autumn 1615.]

The manuscript text

105

90r–91v 208 The Lord Chancellor his confession It may please your Lordshipps, I shall humbly crave att your Lordshipps hands a benigne interpretation of that which I shall now write […] Hand P. Three-and-a-half-page copy of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam’s speech to the House of Lords on 21 Apr 1621, differing little from that in James Spedding, Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, 7 vols (London: Longmans, 1869–74), VII (1874), 292–295.

209 Immoderate liberality is a weake meanes to win […] Hand P. 11-line extended version of item 206.

92r–93v 210 Sir Walter Raleighs Apologie for his last action att Guiana. Because I know not whither I shall live to come before the Lords I have for his Majesties satisfaction sett downe as much as I can […] Hand P. Four-page copy of Raleigh’s justification for the failed Orinoco expedition of 1617–18. There are differences from MS BL Cotton Vitellius C xvii ff. 439–440, and Burley provides a complete text where the BL MS is damaged. [1618.]

94r–94v 211 When it shall please God to bring thee to mans estate, use great provindence and circumspection of the choice of thy wife […] Hand P. Two pages of extracts from Certain Precepts for the Well Ordering of a Man’s Life by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, written about 1584 and first printed in 1617. Discussed in Chapter 7, p. 47.

95r–101v Blank 102r 212 Pius IIII Episcopus Romae Ad perpetuam rei memoriam Idibus Novemb: Anno 1564. Pontificatus sui Ano 5o In Sacrosancta B. Petri principis Nego Doctores ipsi aut Universitatarum seu Gymnasiorum eamque Rectores Cancellaris et alis superiors […]

106

The Burley manuscript

Hand P. 21-line announcement promulgating the oath to be sworn in universities following the Papal Bulls constituting the Profession of the Tridentine Faith in 1564.

213 In Theologia Canonica vel Civili Censura Medrima Philosophia Gramatica et aliis liberalibus artibus Articulus 13

Sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Romanam ecclesiam omniae Ecclesiarum Matrem et Magistram agnosco. […] Heading Hand P. Five-line text in a careful Italic, but probably also P. The first of the ‘additional articles’ to the Profession, forming part of the university oath, which was greatly troubling Wotton 50 years later, because it had to be sworn by English medical students at Padua (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 214). It translates: ‘I acknowledge the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church as the mother and mistress of all churches, and I promise and swear (spondeo ac juro) true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, and as the vicar of Jesus Christ.’

102v 214 Andarete al Nuncio da mia parte et gli direte punctualissimo cosi. Monsignore Illustrissimo Io son venuto a V. S. Illustrissimo da part del signor Ambassador della Magestia di gran Britagna […] Hand P. 13-line letter to the Papal Nuncio, written on behalf of Wotton, who could not have direct relations with him because of the Pope’s claim to precedence over kings, which extended to their representatives (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 60n.).

103r 215 Serenissimo Gran Duca. Having expounded here unto your Highnes Resident those waighty occasions which as a servant of his Majestie I felt myself to have […] Hand P. One-page letter from Wotton to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, complaining of the treasonable activities of an English priest at Leghorn. 23 May 1605.

103v 216 My Lord: Out of the love I beare to some of your frends I have a care of your preservation: therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life […]

The manuscript text

107

Hand P. One-page copy of the letter sent by Francis Tresham to Lord Mounteagle which gave away the Gunpowder Plot. [1605.]

104r–105v 217 Serenissimo Principe Illustrissimi et Eccelentissimi Signori. Se ben Io son comparso qua spose voleo senza molta promeditatione no gia per alcun marcanito de quella reverential […] Hand P. Four-page copy of a speech of Wotton’s to the Doge and Consilio of Venice. This is in Cal. S.P Ven. 1603–7, pp. 286–287. [10 Nov 1605.]

106r–109r 218 Eccelentissimo Re Serenissimo et potentissimo signor Gia che i segni della misericordia del signor Dio si secco prono in Italia et che il lume della vera fede n’a da poco tempo […] Hand P. Seven-page copy of letter from Giovanni Francisco Biondi to James I, advocating a Protestant league against the Pope; see Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 93–5. [Mar 1609.]

109v 219   1. To demande heere the liberty of burial for his Majesties subjects in some one of theire Churches or cloysters without use of any ryte sythen theirs or owre […] Hand P. Five numbered clauses of suggestions for preventing conversions to Catholicism by Englishmen in Italy, clearly from Wotton, probably to Sir George Calvert, Secretary of State. [Probably 1619.]

110r 220 Serenissimo Signorio Ossequissimo Ha tel opinione N. Sig. Della bonta di V. A. et del suo [?]elo verso la regilione [sic] Catholica; che si persuade […] Hand P. 16-line copy of letter from Cardinal Borghese written from Rome. 15 Aug 1609.

110v 221 In libro Regis Angliorum manifeste hereses con= sinenti inter alias. Pag: 42 Negate intercessionem sanctori […]

108

The Burley manuscript

Hand P. List of 11 ‘heresies’, with page numbers, to be found in James I’s Premonition. [1609.]

111r–112r 222 Serenissimo Principe Per essere hora mai a veria informata la Serenissima Vostra che’l Monasterio della Vangadizza nel Polesine è della […] Hand P. Three-page letter, apparently from Paul V to the Doge of Venice, referring to the dispute over the Abbacy of Vangadizza. [1621.]

112v 223 Honoratissimi Viri, Significatium mihi est quid in ma[**]tam urbe vostram 27 Junii accidit T: S: [...] Hand P. 19-line letter, perhaps from Wotton to the Consilio.

113r–113v 224 Cum verum presentium deplorata statio perdita casi pone Hungaria et [...] Hand P. Two-page copy of statement signed by Archdukes Matthias and Maximilian, relating to the Treaty of Vienna, 1606.

114r 225 Cum Serenissimus Archidux Mathias frater noster carissimus [...] Hand P. One-page copy of statement signed by Archduke Albertus, relating to item 224. 24 Nov 1606.

114v 226 J. Rex to Sir H. W. Trusty and welbeloved such and so many are youre dispatches with which our secretary doth acquaint us being directed unto him [...] Hand P. One-page letter of commendation to Wotton from James I, identical with item 50, although that lacks heading and valediction. 16 July 1606.

115r–116v 227 Salutem eisque boni incrementio tibi ex animo procon Perillustri et Nobilissime [...]

The manuscript text

109

Hand P. Four-page official letter in Latin, full of references to European nobility. 2 Feb 1610.

117r 228 Relacion de la muerte de Francesco Ravaillart que matò el Rey de Francia a 14 de Mayo deste presente Año 1610 Es de prossoponem que el dictio Francesco: Ravaillart primieramente [...] Hand P. One-and-a-half-page account in Spanish of the execution of Ravaillac, the assassin of Henri IV of France.

117v (Carries final 10 lines of item 228) 229 Uppon arrival of the news of the French King’s death the Princes and all the great ones of the Court put on mo[u]rning habit. [...] Hand P. Eight-line account of the ceremonial mourning in Spain for Henri IV, despite a general feeling among the wise that it was ‘one of the greatest fortunes that in many yeares hath hapened to this State’. Madrid, 4 July 1610.

118r–120r 230 Sir. I cannot att this tyme sett my penn to paper, without resolving to make itt the first part of my letter to excuse my sylence [...] Hand P. Five-page official despatch from the Earl of Salisbury, presumably to Wotton. 2 Jan 1608 [presumably OS].

120v 231 My Lord. I have besydes this place of my charge in divers other, dependentes hamos. and men to whome I give provision. [...] Hand P. One-page letter from Wotton to Salisbury, appealing for more funds. There are detail differences from the holograph copy in S.P. Ven. III (printed in Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 367, suggesting that the Burley text may be a draft. [3 Nov 1606 (date of S.P. Ven. copy).]

121r–121v Blank 122r–123r 232 The State of the present Treaty in the United Provinces

110

The Burley manuscript Upon the breaking of the Treaty of Peace, the Archdukes Comissioners being yet at the Haghe dealt with the Ambassadors of the Kings [...]

Hand S. Three-page report on the state of affairs after the Treaty of Antwerp, [1608.]

123v 233 29 December 1608 The State of the Treaty in Holland Hand I. This is the whole text; presumably a wrapper for item 232. The treaty was negotiated in 1608, although not actually ratified until 9 Apr 1609.

124r & v, 124ar & v, 125r & v 234 Serenissime Archidux Fratississime Princeps ac Duc. Ad Ser[...] Hand I. Six-page Latin letter that has been bound backwards into the codex; the correct order is 125v, 125r, 124av, 124ar, 124v, 124r.

126r–126v 235 I A. B. do truly, and syncerely acknowledge, professe, testifie, and declare in my confidence before God, and the world, That our Soveraigne [...] Hand I. Two-page copy of the oath required under the ‘Act for the better discovering and repressing of popish recusants’, 1606.

127r–127v 236 After my very heartie Commendacions, His Majesty having long synce, out of his gracious disposition towards the good of his subjects [...] Hand M. Two-page letter from Cranbourne to the English merchants of Pisa and Leghorn, instructing them to report to Wotton any cases of ‘wracks, Piracies, attempts, Sales of Shipps’. 23 Jan 1604 [OS, since Wotton was not in post in Jan 1604 NS].

128r–128v 237 My very good Lord. Sir Henry Wooten his Majesties Embassador at Venice having of late acquainted his Majesty with many complaints [...] Hand M. Two-page letter describing the arrangement for reducing piracy negotiated by Wotton in 1605 (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 74).

The manuscript text

111

129r, 129v, 129ar, 129av 238 Lettre du Duc de Saxe au Roy Mathias Mons. Mon Cousin votre lettre de Vienne du vi Septembre devant nous a este vendue et voyans par cielle [...] Hand M. Four-page letter relating to the affairs of central Europe in 1608. 6 Oct 1608.

130r 239 The proposition made by Monsieur de Horst in the assemblie of the states generall the 13th of January 1607 new style~ My wordes your highnesses having been long and greatly [...] Hand S. Translation of one of the proposals, signed ‘Walrave of Wittenhurst’.

130v (Carries final 6 lines of item 239) –131v 240 The ansuere of the states generall to the former proposition The states generall of the Unyted Provinces of the Low Countries [...] Hand S. Three- page response to item 239. 27 Jan 1607 NS.

132r–135r 241 The Question is whether it were behoofull for her majestie to put the Scottish Queene to deathe or to keepe her in pryson These reasons may be gathered dissuadinge thexecution Her qualities and sexe of like callinge to her majesties from which may be drawen arguments of commisseration and compassion. [...] Hand S. Seven-page summary of arguments against and for the proposed execution. Possibly compiled by or for Burghley. [1586-87.]

135v–138v 242 Commissioners The L: Chancellor / The L: Treasurer / Earle of Oxforde ... [42 names altogether] So farre as the Lordes here assyned 3 houres after the Commission from her majestie [...] Hand S. Seven-page account of the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. [1586.]

The Burley manuscript

112

243 (commences after final 14 lines of item 242)

Moste gracious Soveraigne if either bitter teares, a pensyve ^contrite^ herte, or any doleful sight [...] Hand S. 15-line confession of Anthony Babington. [1586.]

139r 244 E. manus Amias my most faithfull and carefull servante, god rewarde thee treblefolde in the double for thy most troublesome chardge so well dischardged. [...] Hand S. One-page copy of Queen Elizabeth’s letter to Sir Amyas Paulet, thanking him for faithful service as the jailer of Mary, Queen of Scots. [1586.]

139v 245 The sense: to let the ‘Quene’ understand of matters aswell touching him self as Realme and people & to be advised [...] Hand S. One-page, apparently incomplete, political note on some projected marriage, possibly that of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou.

140r–141v 246 A relation of what passed at Derry concerning the buryall of the Wydow Adams. On Tewsday the xth of February, the [?] of the Citty of Derrye sent one of the Sherriffs of the said Cittie to the Deane of Derrye [...] Hand S. Four-page account.

142r–142ev 247 Articles of the League betwixt James the First King of England and Philip the Third King of Spayne: and the Archduke Albertus; and Isabella Clara Eugenia 18 of August 1604 according to the computation of the ‘old Style’ First it was and is concluded, established, and agreed, that from this day forward there shalbe good, sincere, true, firme, and perfect amytie and confederation, [...]

The manuscript text

113

Hand S. 12-page English-language version of the Treaty of London, inscribed on very narrow paper, separately foliated 1–6.

143r 248 After my harty commendacions unto your good Lordships. whereas I have heretofore for speciall good causes graunted unto Robert Pyne [...] Hand S. One-page letter from Sir Robert Dillon, Chief Justice of Ireland, to Sir John Popham, LCJ, and Sir Edmond Anderson, CJ, seeking confirmation of his right to appoint a ‘philazar’, an officer of the higher courts. Certified copy by Robert Parkhurst. 27 Feb 1596, OS.

143v–144r 249 After our ^very^ harty commendacions, wee received youre letters of the seaven and twentiith of Februarii laste by this bearer Robert Pyne [...] Hand S. Two-page response to item 248, also certified by R. Parkhurst. 6 May 1597.

144v Blank 145r–145v 250 Wheare^as^ it is the pleasure of Sir John Popham knight, lord Cheife justice of her majesties [...] Hand S. Two-page legal note on the office of philazar. Not certified, but clearly in Robert Parkhurst’s hand. 4 May 1597.

146r–146v 251 Whereas yt is the pleasure of Sir John Popham knight, lord Cheife justice of her majestie being heare in England, and of Sir Edmond Anderson knight [...] Hand S. Two-page legal instruction, aimed at unifying the law in England and Ireland, also certified by Robert Parkhurst. 4 May 1597.

147r–152v 252 Copie of a letter sent to the Right Hono[r]able th’erle of Leicester from the Lord Deputie Bearinge date the first & fifte of Marche 1569 My dearest Lord and brother I humbly beseche you, though yt be to your payne to reade throughe these ragged lines [...]

114

The Burley manuscript

Hand S. 12-page letter from Sir Henry Sidney to Leicester, his brother-in-law. 1 Mar 1569, postscript 5 Mar 1569.

153r–159v 253 Coppie of a lettre sent to the Queenes moste Excellent Majestie from the Deputie & Councell Bearinge date seconde of November 1566. Our moste bounden duties and fortunes moste humblye remembred to your most excellent Majestie. It may please the same that are in former lettres [...] Hand S. 14-page letter from Sir Henry Sidney and his newly established Council, from Drogheda. 2 Nov 1566.

160r–172r 254 Copie of a lettre sent to the Queenes most Excellent Majestie from the Deputie, Bearinge date the xxth of Aprill 1567 Albeyt in my letter of the last of February addressed unto your most excellent majestie from the Cittie of Waterforde, I [?privelie] advertised your highness [...] Hand S. 25-page letter from Sir Henry Sidney, from ‘Killmayneham’ (Kilmainham, Co. Meath). 20 Apr 1567.

172v Blank 173r–173v 255 If Ariana ymperit be not onlie for knowledge and speculation but also for Practyse and that in apt place good use may be made of opining and unfoulding [...] Hand S. One-page (plus two lines) essay in the style of Sir Francis Bacon. 2 May 1603.

174r–179v 256 De Studijs Jesuitarum abstru= tioribus Quod M. Cato olim dixit Mirabile si aruspix aruspicem videns non videat, idem quis non incommode de Jesuitis pronunciet. [...] Hand M. 12-page note on the aims and activities of the Jesuits. 21 Mar 1608.

The manuscript text

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180r–183v 257 Exercitij spiritualis ratio progressus et finis. Cap: tertius Abirrant iam novem dies ex quo Roma: ad veneram, et ibi quod movis est in xenodochis desentiis, squallorum [...] Hand M. Eight-page Latin essay, evidently the third chapter of some work, in the manner of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.

184r–185r 258 Observanda quidam circa superiores subordinationes et studiores in [?] Sunt in hoc Collegio, quae prius erat Anglorum hospitale, quam Greg: 13 in seminario [...] Hand M. Three-page report.

185v Blank 186r–191r 259 PAVLVS PAPA V. Venerabilibus fratribus Patriarchis, Archiepiscopis et Episcopis per uni= versum dominium Reipublica Vene torum constitutis, et dilectis filiis [...] Superioribus mensibus ad nostram et Apostolica sedis audientiam pervenit, Ducem et Senatum Reipublicae Venetorum [...] Hand P (heading Hand I, but probably also P). 11-page copy of Papal Bull of Interdict and Excommunication of the city of Venice. 17 Apr 1606.

191v Blank 192r–193v 260 Quam apposite Reipublicam Venetiae Tiberius Imperator ad obiturem Octavij Augusti Imeratoris testatum reliquerit: [...] Hand M. Four-page letter in Latin about Venetian history, signed Michaël Louis Germanii. 26 Jan 1610.

194r–194v Blank

The Burley manuscript

116

195r–196v 261 Discorso breve et veile scritto da un Gentilhuomo Italiano All’Italia a benefitio, salutis et conservationis di tutti i Stati di quella. Se L’Italia volese, come prio ben considerarium diligentemente quale sia quella pace di che ella forte si vanta [...] Hand M. Four-page essay.

197r–200v 262 Articles, accordes entre les Ambasadeures des Royes, Princes, et potentates sous signees sur les differentz [survenier?] entre les tre illustres [...] Hand M. Eight-page copy in French of the Treaty of Xanten, which Sir Henry Wotton negotiated. [Nov 1614.]

201r–201v 263 James R Trustie and right welbeloved Counsellors, and Trustie & Welbeloved wee greete you well. sithence wee dyd of late for the ease of our Counsell [...] Hand S. Two-page copy of letter from James I to Sir John Herbert, Sir Julius Caesar et al. 16 Nov 1609.

202r 264 After my hartie comendacions his Majestie hath understanding from Sir Henry Wootton his ambassador resident in Venice [...] Hand S. One-page letter promulgating the agreement on behaviour of English merchant ships in Venetian waters, negotiated by Sir Henry Wotton in May. See Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 73–74. 26 Jul 1605.

202 Blank 203r 265 Wee the Commons assembled in Parliament doe clayme professe and avowe for truthe that sense of the Articles of Religion which were established [...] Hand I. Affirms the 39 Articles established in 1571, and rejects Jesuit and Arminian interpretations.

203v Blank

The manuscript text

117

204r–211r31 266 Maie it please your lordship. Beinge arrived at Angiers on Fridaie nyght last we thinke it fitt to give your Lordship present knowledge [...] Hand S. 17-page report, the first of a sequence of two despatches from Sir Robert Cecil, at ‘Angiers’ (Angers, in the French province of Anjou) to the Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admiral, during Cecil’s embassy to Henri IV. They are certified as copies by J. Herbert (Cecil’s secretary, later Sir John, noted lawyer and linguist) and dated 23 March 1597 (OS) and 27 March 1598 (i.e. four days later).

211v–217v 267 Maie it please your Lordship. Havinge had this daie & yesterdaie our [reinforcement?] of the Castell of Angiers [...] Hand S. 13-page report, the successor to item 266. 27 Mar 1598.

218r–223r 268 The Lord Treasuror his speeche I am enjoyned ii things by the Lords, The first to saye the nature of the contention they have perceived in their meetinge [...] Hand S. 11-page speech, evidently by Salisbury, since it refers on f. 219r to ‘the statute of 27.11.8’; Salisbury was Lord Treasurer from 1608 until his death in 1612. [1608–12.]

223v 269 Excuse the infinite faultes in the writing being written in extreame haste and by my illiterate man. Hand I. This is the full text, perhaps a cover for some other item.

224r–227r 270 Sir Edwin Sands: No difference conceaved from and betweene the Antenati and Postnati but to be naturalized alike. [...] Hand I (identified by Shapiro as that of Rowland Woodward (1573–1636/37), and indeed very like his hand as seen in the Westmoreland MS). Woodward was in London at this time, recovering from injuries sustained while travelling there from Venice with despatches from Sir Henry Wotton (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 481). Seven-page report of debate in House of Commons on the status of Scots after Union, introduced and summarised by Sands, with seven other speakers. [Feb 1607.] 31 Includes an unnumbered folio between f. 205 and f. 206.

118

The Burley manuscript

227v Blank 228r–230av 271 A memoryall of sure Resolvement at his Majestie [...] Hand S. Eight-page document in a difficult hand, apparently dealing with customs matters.

231r–232v 272 A Speech used by the King to the Lower Howse uppon Saturdaye the Seconde of Maye 1607 My Lordes and you Gentlemen of this lower Chamber unto whome my speache att this tyme is in a mannor only to be directed [...] Hand S (heading I). Four-page copy of James I’s speech on Union. 2 May 1607.

233r–234v 273 Most mightie kinge, my not lesse deare ^dread^ then deare sovraigne lord, when I recount myne owne so expert intentions in my sermon [...] Hand S. Four-page plea for pardon, signed ‘Your majesties most loyall subject and poore prisoner in the fleete’.

235r 27432 Who so hath leave within this booke to prye Must have a oCanthars toung an Eagles eye An eye most sharp all secrets depth to pearce A toung most mute no secrets to rehearce. Hand D1. Commentary 10.9.2. o a Canthars toung: perhaps ‘canter’s’, of a user of coded language; OED has canter n.2. ‘a user of thieves’ cant, or of professional or religious cant’. Alternatively, possibly ‘Cathar’s’, of a member of an heretical sect known in Europe as the Albigensians, but I have not found any suggestion that they were especially silent or cryptic in language.

275 Cosimo de Medici gave his son this precept: that he should forbeare to speake well or ill of great princes: for if well (sayd he) thou shalt lye; if ill, they wilbee revenged. Hand D1. The complete text. Referred to in Chapter 3, pp. 14–15. 32 This is the first entry on what seems to be a new section of the whole codex, and the first entry in D1’s hand. See Chapter 3, p. 18.

The manuscript text

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276 Nimia Lectio effecit stultitiam [...] Hand D1. Three-line epigram.

277 Christiani son gente senza legge: Hebrei legge e ne gente: [...] Hand D1. Three-line epigram.

278 Unus [...] pro populo, et populus pro uno. Hand I. Motto; complete text.

235v Blank 236r 279 Illust[re] ornat[e] dom[ine] Hen[rice] Mirabene fortassio (vir insignissime) qua confidentia [...] Hand D1. One-page letter, perhaps to Wotton.

236v Blank 237r–241r 280 Sir Phillip Sydney to her Majestie. Concerning Mounsiure. Most feared & beloved most sweet & gratious soveraigne. To seeke out excuses for this my boldnes & to arme the acknowledging of a fault with reason [...] Hand D1. Nine-page copy of the ‘Alençon letter’. Discussed in Chapter 7. [Copy made after 13 Jan 1582/83, when Sidney was knighted.]

241v–242v 281 The Erle of Essex to the Erle of Southampton My Lord: As neither nature nor custome hath mad me a man of complement, so now I shall less then heretofore use such ceremonies [...] Hand D1. Two-and-a-half-page copy of letter to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, signed by ‘Your Lordship’s Cosin & true frend whome no worldly cause can divide from you, Robert Deavrex [Devereux]’. [Possibly written during their incarceration in the Tower following the ‘Essex Rebellion’.]

120

The Burley manuscript

242v–243v (Commences after last half-page of item 281) 282 The Lady Riches letter to her Majestie Early did I hope this morning to have had myne eyes blessed with your Majestie’s beauty: but seing the sun depart into a cloud [...] Hand D1. Two-page copy of a letter from Penelope, Lady Rich, pleading for her brother, the Earl of Essex.[1601.]

243v (commences with last half-page of item 282) 283 Henry Cuffe I am adjudged to dy for a plott plotted but not acted; for an act acted but never plotted Justice will have her course, Accusers willbee heard, Greatnes will have the victory [...] Hand P. 15-line copy of Cuffe’s ‘last words on the scaffold’; differs only in detail from the record in S.P. Dom. Elizabeth Vol. CCLXXIX, 26.

244r 284 I have receaved a very kind letter from you, which promiseth more hereafter when this is such as I never shall demerit: Howbeit I am very covetuous of them as some men that love so borrow mony, yet know not how to repay. I pray God my estate deceave you not, that when I thinke but to ****33 lend you 5 in effect do give, but howsoever so, you cannot chuse but loose much by the bargaine receaving empty lines for letters fraught with intelligence & matter, Yours shall serve for as so many obligations wherein I stand bound to you, and the most that myne can serve is confess acknowledgment of the debt; which I shall 10 then imagine you demande att my hands whensoever you give over that which you have now boegun. Hand P. Perhaps by Donne, although the absence of Donne-related material in this part of the manuscript may make this less likely. Almost identical to, but differing in detail from, item 461. Commentary 9.2.3.

33 The word crossed out is illegible.

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285 I pray you bestow my commendations uppon [those] of my frends as are with you as farr as they will goe and if they want any lay itt out for me and I will pay itt here to your frends by exchange. Hand P. Almost certainly a PS to item 284. Both passages are in Hand P, but the writing is not as carefully formed as usual, rather as if Parkhurst were in great haste. The use of frequent abbreviations, including a malformed contraction for ‘com’ in the first line of item 285, strengthens this belief.

244v Blank 245r–246r 286 An Advertisement to Robert Deavrex Erle of Essex: sent by his Squire the 17. of November. 39.o Eliza. By the Lord Cicell. Squire my advice to thy master shalbee as a token wrapped up in words, but then it will shew it self fayre, when it is unfolded in his actions: [...] Hand D1. Two-and-a-half-page copy of the Statesman’s speech from the Earl of Essex’s Accession Day entertainment, 17 Nov 1595. It advises giving more weight to head, less to heart, and, while studying matters of state, not going too deeply into them: ‘avoyd all tedious reaches of state’. In the recorded text of the entertainment (see John Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 3vols (London, 1823, repr. 1977), III, 375–376), the names of Essex and Burleigh do not appear, although doubtless these attributions would have been understood by the audience. ‘39.o’ is an error for ‘38.o’.

246v–247v 287 Instructions which Sir Frauncis Walsingham gave his Nephew when he sent him into forayne parts to travell. first that God may blisse your travell you must principally apoint some time of the daye for prayer & reading of the Scriptures [...] Hand D1. Three-page advice on reading, learning, association, and experience in order to develop as a useful member of society. Possibly to Thomas Walsingham, Sir Francis’s second cousin, who carried government letters between London and Paris in the early 1580s.34

248r Blank 34 See John Cooper, The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), p. 179.

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248v 288 Certayne principall Causes & grounds of civill dycen= sion & private grudges among men. The extortion that is in the mighty, the oppression that is in the well by the insatiable desyre of having, the unreasonable practise in getting the same [...] Hand D1. Six paragraphs of ‘causes’, mostly stemming from greed, pride, and misuse of the law.

289 The estate of the world: The King he governeth all. The souldier he defends all. The minister he prayes for all. The husbandman he laboreth for all. The lawier he devoureth all. Hand D1. Complete text.

249r–249v 290 To resume therefore, the conclusion of my last, Surveigh often thyne owne mynde: and this is an act of introspection as I may call it [...] Hand P. Two-page letter, evidently the conclusion of some previous letter of advice, counselling care with choice of acquaintance.

250r 291 Sir Walter Rawligh to Sir R. Carr Sir. After many great losses, and many yeares sorrowes, of both which I have cause to feare that I was mistaken in theire ends [...] Hand P. One-page letter, pleading with Carr to return his estates in order to support Raleigh’s family (1609).

250v–251v 292 S.P.D.35 Superacti me pronititudine, Illustris ac Generosissime Domine, et quod ego prior debedam, permisso nempe obstrictus [...] 35 Salutem plurimam dicit (many greetings), a conventional salutation

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Hand P. Two-and-a-half-page letter, signed ‘Amandus Polang à Polansdorf ’ (Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (1561–1610), Swiss Protestant theologian and author).

293 Generosissimo Domino Virtute, ingenio, et stemmatu antique splendo= re illustri [...] Hand P. Eight-line Latin epitaph for Sir John Harington, Baron Exton (1532– 1613).

252r Blank 252v 294 Sopra una bella mendicante    Sciolta il crin, rotta i panni, e nuda il piede    Bellissima, piangente, e poverella    Con fiacca voce e languida favella    Mendicava per Dio poca mercede                 [...] Hand P. Petrarchan sonnet by Claudio Achillini (1574–1640).

253r 295 I Determined since the veiw that I tooke here of Mr H. W. (as far as I may presume to say) both inwardly and outwardly to write unto your Lordship [...] Hand P. One-page ‘character reference’ for Henry Wotton. [Before 1604: he is referred to as ‘Mr’.]

253v 296 Sir. It is worth my wondring that you can complayne of my seldome writing when your owne letters come so fearefully as if they treade all the waye uppon a obogg. I have receaved from you a few & almost every one hath a commission to speake of divers of theire fellowes, like you know whome in the oold comedy that asked for the rest of his servants: but you make no mention of any of mine, and yet itt is not long since I ventured much of my experience unto you in a peece of paper: and perhaps not

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The Burley manuscript of my creditt: It is that which I sent you by A.D.36 whereof till you advertise me I shall live in fitts or Agues. I do promise you not only much but all that hath hitherto passed in my next; of the future I would fayne speake now if my judgment were not dim in the present; whatsoever we have done or meane to do, wee knowe not what will become of itt, when itt comes amongst our worst enimies ^which are^ ointerpreters. I would there were more oOneales, & Macguires, & ODonnells & Macmahons & fewer of them. Itt is true that this kingdome hath ill affections & ill corruptions but they where you are have a stronger disease: you diminish all that is here done & yet you doubt (if you were neerely examined) the greatnes of itt: so as you believe that which is contrary to as much as you feare. These be the wise rules of pollicy & of Courts: which are uppon earth the vaynest things places. I will say no more & yet peradventure I have sayd a great deale unto you. God keepe you & us in those wayes & rules & kinds of wisdome that bring mortall men unto himself.

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Hand P. Printed by Pearsall Smith (I, 308). Wotton to Donne. Summer 1599. Commentary 9.2.1. bogg: an apt simile, but one which probably needed no consideration by Wotton: the Irish terrain was high among his dislikes. Cf. the reference to ‘boggs & woods’ near the end of letter 297. o the old comedy: not identified. o interpreters: not translators, but those who report on, and interpret, to the Court the progress of the war. o Oneales etc.: Irish clans. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, was the rebel leader. of them: i.e. of the interpreters. o

297 Sir. This bearer a gentleman of Germany is worthy of your acquaintance: Hee [came] out of Scotland by the north of Ireland, thorough the best of rascals of our enimies, of whome he can well discourse in most languages. I like his judgment and his desires that did lead him to looke after light of a prosperous estate uppon a miserable: for calamityes do better instruct then felicities. Especially a passenger that cannot stay long for his letters I commend him hartely unto you: & thus much farther of him he hath here found himself in some necessity of mony

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36 ‘A.D.’: Pearsall Smith transcribes as ‘A.R.’, conjecturally Sir Alexander Radcliffe, but I think his reading mistaken.

The manuscript text in which kind of buisnes either actively or passively I have alwayes to do. I stand bond for him: & intreat you within some dayes after his arrivall frame some such speech with him as find whether the mony be payd or no: but with due precaution that there be ministred no conceipt unto him of any distrust in mee: which I 254r  should be sorry for though men commonly call this wisdome. Germaines are not suspicious naturally, but they are naturally very retentive of such impressions as they receave. I will addresse him unto you and your discourse may rise from some generall questions of the security his voyage from robbing or manner of his exchange or the like heads that will bring on the rest, which knowne I expect speedy advertisement: The inclosed letter after you have read, seal & deliver itt: you must neither be ignorant of the matter nor know all; it is enough that he perceave me to expect from you or himself by your conveyghance, knowledg how that matter proceedeth, & you may know I have appointed him to receave the mony but if you desire to know more you tast the forbidden tree. I may now discourse of our condition here. oThis Towne of Dublin is rather ill inhabited then seated: the people of good naturall abilities but corrupted some with a wild, some with a loose life & indeed there is almost nothing in this contry but itt is either savage or wanton. they have hitherto wanted nothing ^more than^ kep to be kept in feare; which (by (gods grace) they shall not want hereafter.o They are inclined more then any nation I have seen to superstitions, which surely have crept in betweene ignorance and liberty. In theire hospitalities ther is fully as much unhandsomenes as plenty. for theire general parts, their bodies are active and their minds are rather secret then nimble. When I have gotten a litle authority of experience here: I intend to enlarge myself unto you in my opinion of them. For our wars I can only say we have a good cause, & the worthyest gentleman of the world to lead itt. The God of warrs & peace keepe you in his favor.

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I must not forgett wee tooke last night a towne of oOralois for our quarter, where we found infinite store of all manner country 45 provisions ducks hens geese & such like as if hee had lived in much peace of conscience: this mans guests we were a night but so ungratefull that wee left him this day not so much as oSeges ubi Troia fuit.

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The Burley manuscript We are here amongst boggs & woods that is where they would 50 have us to bee: while they are only unfortunate in this, that they scant know what is left them more to desire. Certaynely obedience & good publique ends brought us hither not our owne wisdome I dare warrant itt.

Hand P. Printed by Pearsall Smith (I, 309). Wotton to Donne. Summer 1599. Commentary 9.2.1. Dublin: This description may be compared with the Spenser extracts quoted in the commentary on item 296. o hereafter: Wotton was at this time still a close and admiring supporter of Essex. o Oralois: Pearsall Smith, Wotton (I, 310), makes several somewhat implausible suggestions for interpreting this rather French-looking word, and Simpson ignores the difficulty completely. However, if one places the accent on the second syllable, and pronounces ‘lois’ as in the English forename, it becomes clear that ‘Oralois’ is probably ‘O’Reilly’s’. The Gaelic form is O’Raghailligh, and Orely and Oreille are also found. The O’Reillys ruled Co. Cavan, just outside the English pale. o Seges ubi Troia fuit: Wotton quotes Ovid, ‘iam seges est, ubi Troia fuit’ [Now are fields of corn where Troy once was]; Ovid, Heroides, trans. by Grant Showerman, Loeb edition (London: Heinemann, 1947), I, 53. Heroides I is a verse-letter in the voice of Penelope writing to Ulysses a lament of long absence, which is perhaps what has called it to Wotton’s mind. In this line, she is speaking of the destruction of Troy, so total that only cornfields can now be seen. o

254v 298 That which I conceived in opinion, and hope, is now indeed effected: The first meeting of good men makes theire frendship. So much your judgment and theire temper persuaded mee. for honesty recomended to the arbitrators of vertue would not but quickly please: but this point is fitter to be rejoyced at then 5 dilated by mee: I had rather praise that part if words could equal the subject which sayes you still receave from mee garments most fitting your wearing: there is nothing more sincere then this point of your Love: which rising from single affection is likewise a vertue. but what can I retorne worthy this opinion. 10 hitherto we have lived equals in frendship now without delay I yeald. and this confession of being overcome must only serve for requitall of such favours.37 Tis true you abound in all a­ bilities 37 Down to this point, virtually identical to item 39 (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 29, to Marinianus, p. 80); the rest is almost identical to item 40 (Q. Aurelii Symmachi, Book 3, letter 18, to Gregorius, p. 76).

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of nature and mind yet it is hard to cleare you from ^the^ vice of sylence: for what can you alleage as truth or invention? long 15 voyages have detayned you? but oftentimes hee that stayes long comes at lengght. you have beene oppressed with publique occasions? but all buisnesses are distinguished by vacations. It remaynes (which I endure not) that you confesse a neglect in frendship for the omission of writing somtimes may grow out 20 of buisines, but, the omiting itt allwayes tasteth of oblivion. In which as it shalbee possible I willbee sylent; and rather say, you thus long examine my patience: but withall let you know that he is most unworthily offended who thorough the goodnes of his mind can take no offence: and itt had beene better for you 25 to have written since your last speech is come unto my hands for the publique opinion of which I will awhile keepe you in suspence: till you intreat, and deserve and (because I esteeme your letters so much) till you write oftener to mee. The first two sentences (down to ‘frendship’) in Hand P; the rest in a mixed secretary and italic hand not met elsewhere. Commentary 9.4.2.

255r 299 Sir. I have the honor of a letter from your Lordship and a testimony that though better than any other you know my infirmity yet you are not scandalized with my change of habitto I have Sir besydes many other internal advantages this also by itt that besydes the obligations of frendship and services towards you 5 which binde mee alwayes to commend your fortunes to God in my prayers (having never had any other way of expressing myself) I am come now to doe itt by my office.o And I may be credible to do my frend that service with much ernestnes bycause yet I have not other charge. for I do not so much as 10 enquire of myne owne hopes what the K will do with me: Hee forbad me at first and I obey him still, and forbeare so much as to remember him that hee forbadd mee. Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 32). Donne, to an unknown correspondent. 1615. Commentary 9.2.3. change of habitt: Donne was ordained on 23 Jan 1615 (Bald, Donne, p. 303). my office: As a priest, Donne was bound to pray daily, among other things, ‘That it may please thee to endue the Lords of the counsel, and all the nobilitie, with grace, wisedome, and understanding’ (BCP, 1608).

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Here commences a sequence (items 300–333) of 34 aphorisms, all in Hand P, that are printed (with appropriate notes) as ‘Table Talk’ by Pearsall Smith (Wotton, II, 490), but in fact are derived from Overbury’s Characters, and discussed in Chapter 7. In Pearsall Smith, these are printed as Nos 1–34, and Burley’s items 96–206 then follow as Nos 35–145. As with items 96–206, they are here presented in abbreviated form.

300 Every man a letter beyond himself is a foole 301 God hath made one worke of substance and man hath made another of art and opinion. 255v 302 It is the wholesomest getting a stomake by walking in your own grounds: and the thriftyest, by laying itt on another mans table. 303 Atheist in affliction like blind beggars: forced to aske but know not of whome. 304 There are not two such acres in all the country as the exchange and westminster hall. 305 Woemen are not so tender fruite, but that they beare as well uppon beds as plasht against the walls. 306 Christmas Lords only know theire ends. 307 Our carts are never worse employed then when they are wayted on by coaches: 308 All woemen are for one use though in divers tytles.

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309 Next to noe wife and children, your owne wife and children are best pastyme, anothers wife and your children worse, your wife and anothers children worst. 310 Many statesmen hunt theire owne fortunes and are often att a fault, favorites court her and are ever in veiw. 311 Court motions are upp and downe; ours circular: Theirs like squibs cannot stay att the highest nor returne to the place whence they came rose from but vanish and weare out in the ayre, ours like mill wheels, busy withat [without] changing, they peremtory fortunes, we vicissitudes. 312 A soule in a fatt body lies soft and is lost [loth?] to rise. 313 Flattery is increased from a pillow under the arme to elbow to a bed under the whole body. 314 Hee that sleepes in the cradle of security sinns without snorting. 315 Witt and a woman are two frayle things and both the frayler by concurringe. 316 That mony is nothing but a thing that art hath turnd upp trumpe. 317 That chambering is esteemed a civiller quality then playing att tables though servingmen use both. It is likely that ff. 256–269 represent a single gathering, started at the front with item 318, running to item 343 near the middle, on f. 261v. Another start comes at the other end of the gathering, f. 269v. beginning with the long Italian poem item

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483, which is inverted, and runs back to f.264r. This is followed by item 317, also inverted, on f. 263v. The two sets of entries, forward and back, do not reach one another, there being blank pages on ff. 262r, 262v, and 263r.38

256r 318 The best bedfellow for all tymes in the yeare is a bedd without a fellow. 319 Sleepe is deaths picture drawne to the life, or the twilight of life and death. 320 Often sleeping are so many trialls to dy that att the last wee may do itt perfectly. 321 Few dare write the trew news of theire chambers. 322 Justices of the Peace have the felling of the underwoods; but the Lords have the great falls. 323 Jesuits are like apricocks, heretofore, that is heere and there were succored in a great mans house and cost deare: now you may have them for nothing in every cottage. 324 Every great vice is a pike in a pond itt devoures vertues and lesse vices. 325 Sentences in authors like hayres in a horse tayle concurre in one root of beauty & strenght, but being plucked out one by one serve only for springes and snares. 38 Between f. 261 and f. 262 there is the remainder of a single leaf (foliated 261a), which has been cut out about an inch from the bound edge. On the recto at the head of the page appears ‘Que’, and below it what may be the beginning of ‘A’. About two inches below that is a ‘Q’, beneath which may be the beginning of another A. On the verso are the illegible ends of two lines and, about one-and-a-half inches lower, the word ‘without’.

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326 Want and abondance equally so singly informe a rectified mind from the world as cotton & stones are both castings for a hawk. 327 I am sure there is none of the forbidden fruite left bycause wee all dayly eate of itt. 328 Your best three piled mischeife comes from beyond sea and rides post thorough the country, but his errand is att court. 329 Many thinke there are as many miseries beyond happines, as on this syde of itt. 330 Truth is every mans by assertinge. 331 Tyme was never but a minute old. 332 The wisedome of action is discretion. The knowledg on contemplation is truth. the knowledg of action is man. 333 Hee that first considers what should bee the latter, makes use of what is. 256v 334 Hispanus Battano Religio mihi non Regis Pax publica non Rei      Propria curatur Jus colo non gero vim              [...] Hand P. Two hexametric quatrains. Second stanza headed ‘Battanus Hispano’.

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335 Encomia Militis Hispani Justos et nos segneris per multa damna christiano orbi das pacem odisti cedis amas in otiam servos [...] Hand P. 12-line prose.

336 Epi: B: Jo: Tell me who can when a player dies In which of his shapes againe he shall rise What need hee stand att the judgment throne Who hath a oheaven and a hell of his owne   Then feare not oBurbage heavens angry rodd 5   When thy fellows are oangells & old oHemmings is God. Hand P. Epigram on Burbage by Ben Jonson. Commentary 10.9.2. heaven and a hell: respectively the canopy over, and the space underneath, the Renaissance stage (C. Walter Hodges, The Globe Restored (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 19, 36).

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257r 337 Downe came grave ancient osergiant Crooke And read his message in a book Farewell quoth oSir William Morris soe But oHenry Ludlowes arse cried noe fortwith one oFuller of devotion then eloquence, sayd an ill motion.

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Not so neither sayd oSir Henry Jenkinge The motion were good but for the stinking: for ere this buisness be transacted Wee must have this fart enacted 10 And wee shall have do not abhorre itt A fart from Scotland reciprocal for itt A very good jest now by this light quoth oMr. Jeames of the Ile of Wight Well quoth oSir Henry Poole twas an audacious tricke 15 to fart in the nose of the bd body politicke. Indeed I must confesse quoth oSir Edward Grevill The matter itt self was somewhat uncivill Quoth oSir Richard Hatton noe oJustice of quorum but will otake itt in snuff t’have a fart let a forum 20 Quoth oSir Jerom the longer now by the masse This fart was enough to have broken a glasse Quoth oSir Jerom the lesser no such abuse was offered by any in oPole or in Pruse Quoth oSir Georg More moreover how beitt 25 I pray you this fart to the sergeant comitt Not so quoth othe sergeant low bent on his knees Fart will pr breake prison but never pay fees Upriseth the ozealous Sir Anthony Cope And feareth itt may be a bull from the Pope 30 Not so sayth ohis brother all words are but wind Yet no man will like of these motions behind Such a motion as this was never seene Quoth the olearned counsell of the Queene No quoth oMr Peake so have a opresident befo in store 35 for his father farted the sessions before why then quoth oNoy twas lawfully donn This fart was oentayled from father to sonn! Quoth oMr. Recorder a word for the citty o To cutt of the Aldermens right were great pitty 40 Well quoth oKitt Brooke ile give you a reason Though he had right by discent he had no olivery & siezeon Ha ha quoth Mr oEuans I smell a fee Tis a privat matter there somewhat for mee Well sayth oMr. Moore let’s this motion repeale 45 for whats good for the privat is oft ill for the weale

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The Burley manuscript No sayth Sir Tho: Holcraft with a loud shoute A fart’s hardly recald when tis once gotten out Yet quoth oLaurence Hide that wee may come by itt Letts make a proviso to limitt and ty itt Quoth oHarry the hardy looke well to each clause Else farwell Englands liberties and laws or rather sayth oEdwine Ile make a digression And fart him a oproject shall last him a session Or quoth oSir Tho: Lake if you be not able To censure this fart send to the counsell table Then gan the sage oMonsiur his sylence to breake And sayd this fart would make an image speake Gravely quoth Dunecombe uppon my salvation This gentlemans fart wants great reformation Quoth a ocountry courtier uppon my conscience It would be reformed with a litle frankinsence Quoth Sir Tho: Challoner Ile demonstrate this fart To be the voyce of his belly not thought of his hart Then quoth Sir Hugh Beeston tis a flattering speech Our mouth hath a priveledge so hath not our breech Quoth oSir Edward Hobby bring oyle with the spiggott Yf you fart at the Union remember oKitt Piggot Quoth oSir Ri: Lewknor hee hath lett go a thing The best tell tale of you go carry this to the king Quoth oSir Roger Aston yet I can tell itt Though I did not see thing yet did I smell itt. Quoth Sir Tho: Knevett I feare there may lurke Under this vault some more gunpowder worke Nay sayth Sir Jhon Parker I find by the vapor That his bombard was stopped with vile coppy paper Swooks quoth Jhon Lane was his ars in dotage He could not keepe that breath to cool his potage Quoth oSir Rob: Johnson if you would & not laugh Ile measure this fart with my oJacobs staffe No that cannot be sayd oSir Jhon Bennett Wee must have a select committee to pen itt For sooth sayth Doctor Crompton no man can draw This fart within compasse of the civill law o for well I wott being a civilian doctor This fart came into the court without a oproctor

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No sayth oSir William Paddy I dare assuram Though twas opreter modestiam twas not contra naturam No quoth Sir Roger Owen if bookes be no lyars I knew one fart divided amongst twelve fryers 90 Yet sayth Mr Dannett this youth was to bold for this priveledg of farting belongs to us ^that are^ old fy quoth Tolterberry I like not this passage An interlocutory fart in midst of a message In all your rethoricke quoth oSir Richard Martin 95 find me but out this figure of farting Then quoth Sir Ri: Gargrave by and by Why this mans arse speakes better then I It were no great greivance quoth Mr. Hare If the opurveyour now had herein his share 100 Have patience gentlemen quoth oSir Fr: Bacon There none of us all but may be thus overtaken Sylence quoth oBond it stinks the more you stir itt For naturam expellas furca licet usque recurritt This geare growes to itt quoth grave Mr. Diett 105 Lett each man here take his share and be quiett Up riseth the Speaker that noble oEuphestion And sayd gentlemen Ile put this to the question The question being made the I I itt did lose for the major part went cleere with the nose 110 o Sir Robert Cotton well read in old story Having conferenced his notes with oMas Pory Can wittnes well that these were no fables And that twas hard to put this fart in theire tables for quoth oMr. Holt I understand not his speech 115 because it was lined with the sweetnes of his breech. Hand P. Verse, probably by a number of authors, known as ‘The Parliament Fart’. Commentary 10.4.7. 1 sergiant Crooke: Sir John Crooke was King’s Serjeant in the 1604 Parliament, and thus brought messages from the Lords to the Commons. o 3 Morris, an ardent and verbose apologist for the Union of the Kingdoms, was a Welshman, and ‘Farewell’ may be an attempt to mock his pronunciation of ‘Very well’. o 4 Ludlowe: the perpetrator of the fart. o 5 Fuller: Nicholas Fuller, Puritan lawyer who more than once challenged the Royal prerogative. o

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7 Sir Henry Jenkinge: Sir Henry Jenkin, another staunch defender of the Commons. o 14 Mr. Jeames: Richard James was MP for Newport, Isle of Wight, and made a noted anti-Scots speech in 1606. o 15 Sir Henry Poole was noted as a parliamentary wit in the 1604 Parliament; he spoke in 1606 against the ruling on the post nati (persons born in Scotland after the Union with England under James I). A report of the debate on this topic, led by Sir Edwin Sandys, is in Burley at item 270, but does not include Poole’s contribution. o 19 Hatton: misspelling of Houghton. Justice of quorum: a Justice of the Peace whose presence was necessary to the constitution of a bench. o 20 take itt in snuff: take offence at it (OED: snuff, n1 II.4a). o 21 Sir Jerom the longer: Sir Jerome Horsey, who (see following line) was granted a licence to make drinking glasses in England and Ireland in 1597 for twelve years. o 23 Sir Jerom the lesser: Sir Jerome Bowes, who had been English ambassador to Russia. o 24 Poland or Prussia. o 25 Sir George More was Donne’s father-in-law, one of the most senior MPs. o 27 the sergeant: Roger Wood, Sergeant-at-Arms to the Speaker. o 29 zealous Sir Anthony Cope: Puritan MP, much interested in ecclesiastical matters. o 31 his brother: Sir Walter Cope. o 34 learned counsell of the Queene: Sir Robert Hitcham, Attorney-General. o 35 Edward Peake, who had served in eight successive Parliaments, died in 1607. president: precedent; after the Lords were outraged by a message from the Commons claiming that some of its members were barons, it was retorted that Peake had a precedent in the description of members for the Cinque Ports. o 37 Both William and Edward Noyes were in the 1604 Parliament. William was a highly regarded lawyer, which makes him the likelier candidate. He argued against increasing the King’s subsidy. o 38 entayled: of real property, settled on successive generations, usually to the eldest son; also punning on ‘tail’. o 39 Mr. Recorder: Sitague, Recorder of the City of London, who sat in Parliament for that constituency. o 40 To cutt [...] right: to deny the aldermen, the governing body of the City, their right to a voice in Parliament. o 41 Kitt Brooke: Christopher Brooke, Donne’s great friend, active in opposition to Union and impositions. o 42 livery & siezeon: livery of seisin, the delivery of property into the corporal possession of a person; in the case of a house, by giving him the ring, latch, or key of the door; in the case of land, by delivering him a twig, a piece of turf, or the like (OED, livery, n. 5c). Not, therefore, a valid action for something incorporeal. o 43 Ralph Ewens, Clerk to the Commons, who might receive a fee for a private member’s bill. o

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45 Sir Francis Moore, known (see following line) for his opposition to monopolies. 49 Lawrence Hyde was a vigorous defender of parliamentary privilege, including freedom of speech, and was opposed to government by proclamation. o 51 Harry the hardy: ESL suggests that this is a reference to Sir Henry Neville, a leading MP, and later described as ‘of a contrary faction to the courtiers’. o 53 Edwine: Sir Edwin Sandys, who served in eight successive Parliaments, was active in disputing Crown prerogative and defending Parliamentary privilege. o 54 project: practical commercial scheme, often supported by the granting of monopolies or patents; thus the kind of thing Sandys opposed. o 55 Lake, unusually for one named in the poem, was a protégé of the King; he became Latin Secretary in 1609 and Secretary of State in 1616, but fell from power soon afterwards, after corruptly involving himself in false accusations by his wife and daughter against the Countess of Exeter. o 57 According to ESL, a reference to Sir Thomas Monson, who was accused in 1615 of complicity in the Overbury poisoning, but maintained his innocence, eventually successfully. o 61 country courtier: identified in other MSS as Sir Robert Wingfield (d. 1609), who put forward in the 1604 Parliament a bill ‘for the establishment of true religion’ (see following line). o 67 Sir Edward Hoby sat in nine successive Parliaments. The reference to oil is obscure – perhaps a remedy for flatulence. The spigot (OED, ‘spigot’, 1: A small wooden peg or pin used to stop the vent-hole of a barrel or cask); having been removed to administer the oil, the suggestion might be that it should then stop Sir Henry’s own vent. o 68 Kitt Pigott: Sir Christopher Pigott, who on 13 February 1607 uttered in the House an ‘Invective against the Scotts and the Scottish Nation, using many Words of Scandal and Obloquy, ill beseeming such an Audience, not pertinent to the Matter in hand, and very unseasonable for the Time and Occasion’. The House deprived him of his seat and sent him to the Tower. (Harold Hulme, ‘The Winning of Freedom of Speech by the House of Commons’, American Historical Review, 61, 4 (July 1956), 825–853, 830–831). o 69 Sir Richard Lewknor served in a number of Elizabethan Parliaments, but is not recorded in the Jacobean era. The ESL text has an odd half-couplet at line 124 ‘As noe talebearer darrs carry to the king’, and another text, Bodleian Rawl. Poet. 26, f. 7v, has a full couplet ‘I am gladd, quoth Sam: Lewkner, wee have found a thing / Which no talebearer can carry to the king’. Burley’s source seems to have confused his Lewknors; there was another, Lewis, also in the 1604 Parliament. o 71 Aston was a friend of Donne and Henry Goodere. o 79 Sir Robert Johnson was Surveyor to the Exchequer, and active in matters of land reform. o 80 A Jacob’s staff is a surveyors’ instrument, used for calculating heights and offsets by triangulation. John Cleveland, ‘The Hecatomb to his Mistresse’ (Poems, 1657): ‘Reach then a soaring quill, that I may write / As with a Jacobs staff to take the height’ (17–18). o o

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81 Sir John Bennett was an ecclesiastical and civil lawyer and active committeeman. He served on 29 committees in the 1606–7 Parliament, and on 36 in that of 1610. o 85–86 This couplet also occurs in BL Add. MS 34218, f. 20v (ESL note 100). o 86 A proctor was one who managed causes for others in civil law, corresponding to a solicitor in equity or common law. o 87 Sir William Paddy was the King’s physician. o 88 Pr[a]eter modestiam [...] contra naturam: beyond modesty but not against nature. o 95 Sir Richard Martin was highly regarded for oratory; he delivered the welcome speech to James I on his entry into London in 1603. o 100 purveyour: official responsible for provision of necessities to the army, etc. (OED, ‘purveyor’, 1.b). The avarice and corruption among purveyors to both army and navy were notorious. o 101 Bacon was knighted in 1603, but if this version of the poem comes, as it seems to, from the 1604 Parliament, his rise to high office had not yet begun. o 103 John Bond was a classical scholar who published a carefully edited and annotated edition of Horace in 1606 (2nd edn 1608). The Latin is a version of Horace, Epistolae, I.10.24: ‘Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret’ – ‘Drive out Nature with a pitchfork, she’ll still return’, with ‘licet’ (be allowed to) for ‘tamen’ (still). o 107 The Speaker was Sir Edward Phelips. ESL suggests that ‘Euphestian’ (Ephestian in ESL’s text) ‘equates the Speaker with the classical orator’. o 111 Sir Robert Cotton was a well-known antiquary, whose hugely valuable collection of manuscripts, now in the British Library, includes Beowulf and the medieval poems Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. o 112 John Pory, scholar, cosmographer and later colonial administrator, was a fellow antiquary of Cotton’s. o 115 Mr Holt has not been traced. o

258v–260r 338 Convivius Philosophorus sentus in Clauso [...] Quilibet si sit contentus [...] Hand P. A long succession of pairs of triplets in Latin, rhyming aab ccb. Annotations identify those referred to in the verse, e.g. Donne, Hoskins, Goodere etc.

The manuscript text

139

260v 339 A Dreame Or scorne or pitty on me take I must the true relation make   I am undon to night Love in a subtile dreame disguis’d Hath both my hart and me surpris’d 5   Who never yet he durst attempt awake   Nor will he tell me for whose sake     He did me the delight       Or spight But leaves me to enquire 10 In all my wild desire   Of sleepe againe who was his ayde And sleepe’s guilty and afrayde   As since he dares not come within       My sight. 15 Hand P. Ben Jonson (1572/73–1637), from Under Woods, Poems of Devotion, Works, 1640. Commentary 10.2.

261r

340 Of the Earle of Sommersette &c From oKatherines docke was lanch’d a oPinke Which sore did oleake yet did not sinke Ere while shee lay on oEssex shore Expecting rigging oyards and store But all disasters to prevent With winde in pope she sayld to Kent At oRochester she anchor cast Which oCanterbury did distast But oWinchester with Elies help Did owhale on shore this oLions whelp She was weake syded & did heele And osom ar sett to mend her keele To stopp her leaks and mend her port And make her fitt for every Sport Because before she was not fitt Now as some say she is not yet Although she bee a oCarvell built All by her poope oall overguilt.

5

10

15

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The Burley manuscript

Hand P. First 14 lines similar to F4, but last four not in ESL. Commentary 10.4.3. Katherines docke: St Katherine Dock, in London, and notorious for brothels and taverns, but also a reference to the countess’s mother, Catherine Knyvett. o Pinke: a light sailing ship, so a woman of light morals. o leake: metaphor implying an open orifice, and thus that the countess was insatiable sexually, and lacked self-control. o Essex: her first husband. o yards: horizontal spars carrying sails, but also slang for penis (OED ‘yard,’ n2 (5) and (11)). o Rochester: Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester. o Canterbury: George Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury, voted against the annulment of the marriage; see commentary. o Winchester with Elies help: the bishops of Winchester and Ely, added to the commission by James I, voted for the annulment; see commentary. o whale = hale (OED ‘hale’, v11b: draw or pull. o Lions whelp: commonly used to describe the worthy son of a valiant father, as in Henry V, I.2.109 (the Black Prince) and 1 Henry IV, III.3.146 (Prince Hal), but OED gives ‘whelp’ as pejorative (‘whelp’, n1, 2c). Here, presumably, the Earl of Suffolk is the lion, and whelp’s less savoury meaning is intended. o som ar sett: Pun on Somerset. The following phrases all imply sexual immorality, to be curbed by her marriage. o Carvell: a light, fast ship, again a clear allusion to the countess’s morals. Whether ‘Carvel built’ has any additional implication I am not sure: OED quotes Smyth’s Sailor’s Word-bk. ‘carvel-built’ as applied to a vessel ‘the planks of which are all flush and smooth, the edges laid close to each other [...] in contradistinction to clinker-built, where they overlap each other’. But the versifier may have been drawn to the phrase by the name ‘Carr’. o all overguilt: another allusion to the countess: ‘all over guilt’. o

14 Sport: taken from ESL; blotted and undecipherable in Burley.

341 A bird did fly from oEssex cage forsooke an Earle and tooke a opage: for which some did her ocourse o’erelooke And put her dressing to a oCooke   And hee of her a feast imparts   Mortall to such as kill with farts.o

5

Hand P. First two lines close to ESL F5 (for remainder of F5, see item 566); lines 3–6 not in ESL. Commentary 10.4.3. o o

Essex: Howard’s former husband, the Earl of Essex. page: Carr, who started his courtly career in this role.

The manuscript text

141

course: corse, living body (OED, ‘corse’ n, 1). The Countess’s body was intimately examined (o’erlooked) when she applied for the annulment of her first marriage on the grounds of non-consummation; see commentary. o Cooke: Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice, who – although he sat on the later commission to consider whether the Somersets should be charged with murder – was not on that considering the annulment. o kill with farts: Sir Thomas Overbury was murdered with a poisoned enema; see commentary. o

261v 342 o Pilott or pirat thou hast lost thy Pinke And by her oleake must to the bottome sinke Thy lands are gone, alas they were not thine Thy house likewise another say’s is myne Then where’s thy owitt? Alas tis two yeares dead And where’s thy wife? Another did her wedd   Art thou a man or but some simple part   Nothing’s thine owne but thy aspiring hart o Rawly thy house oWestmorland thy lands Overbury thy witt Essex thy wife demands.

5

10

Hand P. Similar to ESL H10, which has four additional lines not in Burley. Commentary 10.4.3. This verse is addressed to Carr himself, unlike the others in this section, which are aimed at Frances Howard. Pilott or pirat: Whether lawfully or not her master. Pinke: see 340.1. o leake: as before, sexual incontinence. o witt: Sir Thomas Overbury (see line 10), the implication is that Carr’s political acuteness and clever manipulation of the king were dependent on Overbury’s intellect. o Rawly: Sir Walter Raleigh, whose estate at Sherborne had been confiscated and given to Carr by the King in 1608. o Westmorland: Earl of Westmorland, much of whose estate was similarly alienated in 1613. o

343 A page, a knight, a vicount & an Earle In England matched to a scurvy girle This match was fitt for she was likewise four: A wife a owitch a murderer & a whore Hand P. Similar to ESL H5. Commentary 10.4.3.

The Burley manuscript

142

witch: at the time of the annulment, it was suggested that the reason for Essex’s curiously selective impotence was a spell cast by his wife, although this accusation was not made in evidence to the commission.

o

261ar and v: see the note below item 317 above and note 38. 262r, 262v, 263r Blank 263v 344 In Petri Molinari Nomine Petrus du Moulin [...] Petri hostis Petrus Christi insidiate oculi [...] Hand P. Poem of 4 lines followed by a 24-line ‘Responsio’.

263v–269v [Folios 263–269 are inverted (see note at item 317). Item 345 therefore

begins on f. 269v and ends on f. 264r, and should be followed, rather than preceded, by item 344.]

345 Invitto del Cielo enamorato a Galathea Sovra a liquidi Campi Del piu tranquillo Mari, marche parta [...] Hand P. 345 irregularly rhymed trimeters.

270r 346 Trina mihi ducta est variis aetatibus armis [...] Hand P. Quatrain. 347   A nuns vow Some in hast   Vow to be chast both in word and deed If court and country force not the contrary   or else pure need An italic hand; neither P nor D1. Commentary 10.9.2.

5

The manuscript text

143

348 Epitaphe Uncivill death which wouldst not once conferr Dispute nor parlee with our Treasurer Had hee beene thee or of thy fatall tribe Hee would have sav’d thy life & taken a bribe. Hand P. Libel on Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset. Similar to the first four lines of ESL, B16, which according to ESL often circulated as a separate poem. The one notable variation is ‘Uncivill’ for ‘Immodest’ in line 1. Commentary 10.4.2.

349 Here lyeth a man like hive without honny Lived honest all his life, had little mony Yett this good gott hee: though his bones be rotten His honest life will never bee forgotten. Hand P. Commentary 10.8.2.

270v 350 At lenght by the wondrous worke of fate Here lies the porter of Winchester gate Who if he be gone to heaven as I feare Cannot be much more then a porter there Hee feared hell gate not so much for his sinns As for the oft knocking and much comming inn. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.1.

351 Te nisi solus amo peream Clorinda, vel illud   Exiguum si sit te nisi amo neque amor Non possum Clorinda mihi maiora precari   Quod si quicquam ultra est te nisi amo, neque amens. Hand P. See next item.

352 Lett me dy my deare unlesse I love thee Or if that wish be weake and cannot move thee Then lett me wish againe that I may bee Unlesse I love thee never lov’d by thee. Hand P. Free translation from Latin of item 351. Commentary 10.9.2.

5

The Burley manuscript

144

353 Wolsey thy tombs imperfect, so’s thy colledge. So is thy story oScory, or my knowledg.

o

Hand P. Commentary 10.9.2. Cardinal Wolsey (1470/71–1530) died at Leicester Abbey and is buried there. His tomb was presumably destroyed (as was the Abbey itself) at the Dissolution in 1538 (Sybil M. Jack, ‘Wolsey, Thomas (1470/71–1530)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). The college referred to is probably not Christ Church, Oxford, but his other foundation of Cardinal’s College, Ipswich, begun in 1528, but still incomplete (i.e. unperfected or ‘imperfect’) at his disgrace and death, and given by Henry VIII to a courtier for a private house (British History Online: ‘Colleges: Cardinal’s College, Ipswich’, A History of the County of Suffolk: Vol. 2 (1975), pp. 142–144. (www.british-history.ac.uk)). o I have not been able to connect John Scory (d. 1585), Bishop of Hereford, with Wolsey or the College. His ‘story’ is probably a reference to the ‘Nag’s Head Fable’, a falsehood, put about around 1604 by Catholic propagandists, stating that Matthew Parker, Elizabeth’s first Archbishop of Canterbury, had not been properly consecrated in 1559, but that Scory, then a deposed Bishop of Chichester, had performed the ceremony ­illegally. o

271r–273v 354 Testamento Amoroso Ardea, di Lidio il vago Martia la giovinetta

[...]

Hand P. Six-page poem by Marinist poet Giacomo Castellani, published in Venice in 1610.

274r–276v 355 Alla Maesta della Serenissima Reina della Gran Bretagna Stanze di Gio: Batista Marino. 1. Queste poche d’honor frondi novelle E questi fiori di Pindo et di Permesto [...] Hand P. 17 numbered stanzas of ottava rima, by the period’s leading Italian poet, Giambattista Marino (1569–1625), in praise of Anne of Denmark.

The manuscript text

145

277r Blank (and is cross-hatched all over) 277v 356 I lov’d thee once; Ile love ^no^ more Then bee thy greife, as is thy blame Thou art not what, thou wert before. What reason I should bee the same!   Hee that can love not lov’d againe   Hath greater share of love then braine.    God send my love my debts to pay    While unthrifts foole theire love away. Nothing could have my love ‘or o’rethrowne If thou haddst still continued myne Nay hadst thou still but beene thyne owne I might perhaps have yet beene thine.   But thou thy freedome di[d]st recall   That thou mig[ht]st itt elswhere enthrall    And then how could I but disdayne    A captives Captive to remayne. When new desires had conquered thee And chang’d the object of thy will It had bynn lethargy in mee Not constancy to love thee still   Nay itt had beene a sin to goe   And prostitute affection soe    Since wee are taught no prayers to say    To such as do to others pray. Then do thou glory in thy choice The choice of his great fortunes bost I ne[i]ther greive nor yet rejoyce To see him gane what I have lost   The hight of my distast shall bee   To laugh att him, to blush att thee:    To wish thee well: but goe no more    A begging to a beggers dore.

5

10

15

20

25

30

Hand P. It was published in Le Prince d’Amour (London, 1660), in a text close to this, with the title ‘To his Mistris loving another’. It is not there ascribed to any

146

The Burley manuscript

author; Adam Smyth39 and Harriet Harvey Wood,40 however, both attribute it to Sir Robert Ayton (1570–1638), presumably on the basis that a MS version (BL Add. MS 10308, p. 2, with which Burley has been collated) was found among his collected papers. In that manuscript, it is followed by a further four stanzas of the same pattern, headed ‘The answer by the /Author’. Commentary 10.2. Variations from 1660 and Add. MS 10308 2 Then … thy … thy: Thine … the … the (1660); Then … the … the (MS). 3 wert: wast (1660); was (MS). 5 not lov’d: unlov’d (1660 & MS). 11 Nay hadst thou still but beene: Nay, if thou hadst been but (1660). 14 thou mig[ht]st itt: if thou might (1660); it there might (MS). 24 do: must (1660). 29 distast: disdain (1660 & MS). 30 blush att: blush for (1660 & MS). 31 wish thee well: love thee still (1660 & MS).

278r 357 1. How happy is hee borne or taught That serveth not anothers will Whose armor is his honest thought And simple truth his highest skill 2. Whose passions not his Masters are 5 Whose soule is still prepar’d for death Not tyde unto the world with care of Princes grace or vulgar breath. 3. Who hath his life from rumors freed, Whose conscience is his strong retreat41 10 Whose state can ne[i]ther flaterers feed Nor ruine make accusers great 4. Who envies none whome chance doth rayse or vice, who never understood That deepest wounds are given with praise 15 nor rules of court but rules of good 5. Who God doth late and erly pray his graces more then guifts to lend And entertaynes the harmelesse day 39 Adam Smyth, Index of Poetry in Printed Miscellanies, 1640–1682, (http://purl.oclc.org/ emls/08-1/smyth.htm). 40 Harriet Harvey Wood, ‘Ayton, Sir Robert (1570–1638)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008. 41 ‘conscience is his strong retreat’ is written above ‘soule is still prepar’d for death’, which has been crossed out. Eye-slip by Parkhurst from stanza 2.

The manuscript text With a well chosen booke or frend 6. This man is free from servile bands Of hope to rise or feare to fall Lord of himself though not of lands And having nothing yet hath all.

147 20

Hand P. Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639), and generally known as ‘The Character of a Happy Life’. Abundant other MS copies, and printed in the fifth edition of Overbury’s Wife (1614) and in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (1651). These printed editions are referred to as (1614) and (1651) in the following notes. Commentary 10.3.3. Title: Not in Burley, but given in (1614), and generally known now under this name. 2 will: will? (1651); 4 skill: skill? (1651). Walton’s unnecessary emendations produce rhetorical questions instead of declarations. 8 Princes grace: Princely love (1614); Publick fame (1651); Princes care, Princes ear some other MSS. vulgar breath: private breath (1651). MSS Dulwich 1 (in Ben Jonson’s hand; Drummond of Hawthornden said that Jonson had this poem by heart) and Phillipps 12341* both render this line ‘Of princes grace, or vulgar breath’, which agree closely with Burley. Pebworth makes a persuasive case for regarding these two manuscripts as texts of authority.42 9 Stanzas 3 and 4: interchanged (1651 and some MSS). 12 accusers: oppressors (1651); Main (p. 273) suggests that this represents Walton conforming to Commonwealth taste. 14 or vice, who never understood: 1614 has a final colon; Nor Vice hath ever understood (1651); one cannot disagree with Pebworth (p. 225) that both readings ‘defy sense’, and Burley is to be preferred. Pebworth (pp. 224–226) argues for an amended version of the Phillipps and Dulwich manuscripts, producing a text virtually identical to Burley (at that time unavailable). 17 Who God doth late and erly pray: Who unto GOD doth late and early pray (1614), which may remove an ambiguity, but ruins the scansion. 20 well chosen: Religious, (1651), a decorous emendation by Walton, but without support in this or any other MS.

278v 358 Tumulus Ostendo Area parva Ducum; totus quem respicit Orbis Celsior una malis, et quam Lamnare ruinæ [...] Hand P. 11 hexameters. 42 Ted-Larry Pebworth, ‘New Light on Sir Henry Wotton’s “The Character of a Happy Life”’.

148

The Burley manuscript 359 Epi: Hen: Princ: Hugo. Holland. Loe now hee shineth yonder A fixed starr in heaven Whose omotion is under None of the oplanetts seaven   And if the sonn should tender   The moone his love and marry   They never could engender   So fayre a starr as Harry.

5

Hand P. Written 1612/13. Hugh Holland (1563–1633). No other MS version found; printed in Wits Recreations (1640), ‘Epitaphs’, No. 102. Commentary 10.8.2. motion: here a trisyllable. See commentary. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (now a ‘dwarf planet’) were as yet undiscovered. The ‘planetts seaven’ were the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon.

o o

3 motion: motion thence (WR). 5–6 sonn … moone his: moone … sunne her (WR).

279r 360 This Lyfe it is not life, it is a sight That wee have of the earth the earth of us It is a feild where sense & reason fight The soules & bodies quarrells to discus   It is a jorney where wee do not goe   but fly with speedy wings t’our blisse or woe It is a chaine that hath but two smale links Where[with] our grave is to our bodie joyned It is a poysned feast wherein who thinks To tast joyes cup the cup of death doth find.   It is a play presented in heavens eye   Wherein our parts are to do naught but dye.

5

10

Hand D1. Not found elsewhere, but printed by Grierson, p. 437. Commentary 10.3.3.

J.D.

361 H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti.o Went you to conquer? and have so much lost Your self, that what in you was best & most Respective frendship should so quickly dye?

The manuscript text In publique gaine my share is not such, that I Would lose your love for Ireland: better cheap I pardon death (who though hee do not reap yet gleanes hee many of our frends away) then that your waking meo mind should be a pray to Let[h]argies. Lett shotts & boggs, & oskeines with bodies deale, as fate bidds or restreynes Ere sicknesses attack yong death is best who payes before his death doth scape arest. Lett not your soule (at first) with graces filld And since & thorough crooked olymbecks, ostild In many est schooles & courts, which oquicken it). it self unto the oIrish negligence submit. I aske not labored letters which should weare Long papers out: nor letters which should feare dishonest cariage: or a seers Art Nor such as from the brayne come, but the hart.

149 5

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20

Hand D1. John Donne (1572–1631). Not found elsewhere, but printed as Donne’s by Grierson (1912). Commentary 10.6. (Title) H[enrico] W[ottoni] in Hiber[nia] belligeranti: To Henry Wotton waging war in Ireland. o skeines: bundles of thread; thus a frequent metaphor for tangles of plots or deceptions, as in Jonson, Staple of News (1626), V.2: ‘Peni-Boy jun.: Not that I see through his perplexed plots / and hidden ends, nor that my parts depend / Upon the unwinding this so knotted skeane.’ o lymbecks: chemical retorts, used for distillation. o stild: distilled. o quicken: OED has, under quicken (2), ‘stimulate’, the meaning here in relation to ‘soule’ (13); but also, 4(a), ‘To make (liquor or medecine) more sharp or stimulant’, which continues the metaphor of distillation in a limbeck. o the Irish negligence: Donne expresses a feeling, general among Englishmen, that the Irish were an uncivilised race, incapable of the mannerly conduct natural to an English gentleman. o

Marginal note: J.D. in D1 hand. 13: The closing bracket after ‘first’ is a scribal error; the true closing bracket, also present in this MS, is at the end of line 15, and the full stop after it (which cuts in half the sentence ‘Let not your soule … it self unto the Irish negligence submit’) is another error by D1.

279v Commences a sequence of 16 epigrams by John Donne (1572–1631), all in D1 hand, here printed as items 362–377. Commentary 10.9.2.

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362 Hero & Leander  Both robd of ayre wee both ly in one ground          Both whom one fyre had burnt; one water drownd. Into two lines the poet has compressed the fates of Hero and Leander (he drowned in a storm when swimming the Hellespont from Abydos to her tower at Sestos; when his body was cast ashore, she flung herself from her tower and died beside him (Ovid, Heroides, XVIII and XIX, following Musaeus Grammaticus)), and the notion of the four elements.

o

363o Pyramus & Thisbe.  Two by themselves each other love & feare slayne cruell frends by parting have joynd here. Here the compression involves expressing the story in terms of successive paradoxes.

o

Niobe. Nave arsa.

o



364 By childrens birth & death I am become So dry, that I am now made my owne tombe. 365 Out of a fyred ship which by no waye but drowning could be rescewed from the flame Some men lept forth & ever as they came nere the foes ships did by there shott decaye o all were lost which in that ship were found 5 They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drownd.

o Nave arsa: The burnt ship. Grierson, Donne (1912, II, 58–59) first proposed that this epigram described an incident witnessed by Donne in the assault on Cadiz in 1596, and Bald, Donne, pp. 82–83, even identifies the ship as the San Felipe, but other commentators disagree. The final line compresses the whole narrative into a species of antimetabole.

366o Under an undermind & shott bruisd wall A too bold captaine perished by the fall. Whose brave misfortune hapiest men envied That had a towne for tombe his corps to hyde. Another epigram attributed by many commentators to a personal experience; in particular, Bald, Donne, p. 51, argues that it refers to the death of a Captain Sydenham before La Coruña.

o

The manuscript text

Zoppo.

367 I am unable (yonder beggar creys) To stand or move: if he say true he lyes.



368 Your mistris that you follow whores still taxeth you tis stranng she should confesse it, though’t bee true.



369 Thy Sins & heyres may no man equall call for as thy Sins increase, thy heyres do fall.



370 Thou callst m’effeminate for I love womens joyes I call thee not not manly though thou follow boyes.

151

2 thee not: not thee (Var).



371 If in his study Hamon take such care To hang old strannge things, let his wife beware. 1 Hamon take: Hammon hath (Var).



372 Thy father all from thee by his last will Gave to the pore: thou hast good title still.

373 Thou in the feilds walks out thy supping howres And yet thou swearst you hast supped like a king Like oNabuchadnesor perchance with hearbes & flowers A Sallet worse then ospanish dieting. ‘Nebuchadnezzar [...] was driven from men, and did eat grasse as the oxen’; Daniel 4.30 (Geneva Bible; verse 33 in modern editions). o spanish dieting: widely believed to be poor and full of vegetables and, indeed, for many people this was the case; James Howell wrote from Spain: ‘Som of the Countrey people live no better then bruit Animals in point of food, for their ordinary commons is Grain and Water; [...] when dinner or Supper time comes, they go abroad and gather their herbs, and so cast Vinegar and Oyl upon them, and will passe thus two or three dayes without Bread or Wine’ (James Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, 2nd edn (1650), p. 38). o

3 hearbes: gras (Var).

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The Burley manuscript

280r 374 Thy flattering picture oLatrine is like thee Only in this that both you painted bee. Latrine: The choice of name sounds odd to a modern ear, but OED records no use of the word to mean privy or cesspit earlier than 1642. As an invented forename, it is perhaps connected with ‘latria’, worship.

o

1 Latrine: Phrine (Var. and most other MSS). The Burley name is unique.

375 Philo with 12 yeares study hath beene greevd To bee understood: when will hee be beleeved? 376 Rawlings so deeply hath vowed nere more to come In baudy house, that hee dares not go home. 1 Rawlings: Klockius (Var, and most other MSS). The Burley name is unique.

377 Mercurius Like oEsops fellow slave o o Mercury Gallobel:[gicus] which could do all things thy fayth is; & I    Like Esops self, which nothing: I confesse    I should have had more fayth if you had lesse    thy credit lost thy credit: tis sin to do 5    in this case as thou wouldst be done unto    To beleeve all: channg thy name thou art Like    Mercury in stealing & liest like a greeke. o

  (Title) Mercurius Gallobelgicus: Scurrilous occasional journal, published in Cologne in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. o Aesop was sold with two others as a slave. The others, asked what they could do, said ‘everything’; Aesop’s response was that, since they had already claimed all knowledge, he would claim to know nothing (Francis Barlow, Aesop’s Fables with his Life (London, 1666), pp. 6–7). o Mercury (‘prince of thieves’, Homeric Hymn, 292 (OCD)) was the patron of thieves, and Greeks were proverbially believed to be liars, a tradition probably stemming from the account (Aeneid, II.77ff.) of Sinon’s lie to the Trojans about the Wooden horse. Virgil develops from this anecdote a sense of moral superiority of the Trojans (Romans) to the Greeks. o

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378 Clara half angry with my baudy song streight told her husband shee had done with mee fy Clara I would suffer much more wrong Ere I would tell what I had done with thee. Hand D1. Henry Parrott (fl. 1601–1626). Printed in Laquei ridiculosi, or, Springes for Woodcocks (1613), No. 164. Commentary 10.9.2. 1613 has an additional couplet: But Clara, should I speake my conscience plaine, / I know thou wouldst it were to do againe.

379 Scilla is toothles yet when shee was yong she had both teeth enough & so much toung What should I then of toothles Scilla say but that her tong hath worne her teeth away. Hand D1. Printed, without attribution, in Wits Recreations (1640), No. 317. Commentary 10.9.2.

380 (3 lines, blotted and largely undecipherable, but evidently a mislineated attempt to begin item 389) Hand P.

381 Why are maydes witts then boyes of lower strayne? Eve was a daugther of the ribb, not braine. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.2.

280v 382 My love doth fly with wings of feare And doth a flame of fire resemble which mounting high and burning cleere yet ever more doth weane and tremble My love doth see and still admire Admiring breedeth humblenes blind love is bold but my desire the more it loves presumes the lesse My love seekes no reward or glory but with it self it self contenteth is never sullaine never sory

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ne’re repyneth or repenteth Ô who the osame beames can behold but hath some passion feeles some heat for though the sunn himself be cold his beames reflecting fire begett O that myne eyes ô that myne hart were both enlarged to contayne the beames and joyes shee doth impart whilst shee this bowre doth not disdayne this bowre unfit for such a gueste but since she makes it now her Inn Would god twere like her sacred breast most fayre without most rich within.

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Hand D1. Bodleian MS Don.c.54 omits final quatrain, and attributes the poem to the Earl of Clanricarde (1572–1635), addressing it to Queen Elizabeth (Katherine Duncan-Jones, ‘“Preserved Dainties”: Late Elizabethan Poems by Sir Robert Cecil and the Earl of Clanricarde’, Bodleian Library Record, 14 (1991–94), 136–144. Commentary 10.2. same: In Grierson this is amended to ‘sunne’. The scribe has written ‘same’, but the emendation (presumably due to Pearsall Smith, since Grierson does not note it, which he is scrupulous in doing) is sensible.

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383 O eyes what do you see o eares what do you heare that makes you wish to bee All eyes or else all eare I see a face as fayre As mans eye ever saw I here as sweit an ayre as that which orocks did draw I wish when in such wise I see or heare the same I had all Argus eyes or else the eare of fame.

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Hand D1. Commentary 10.2. Amphion was taught music by Hermes, who gave him a golden lyre. When Amphion and his brother Zethus came to build the walls of Thebes, the magic of Amphion’s music caused the stones to move into place of their own accord (OCD, p. 75).

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The manuscript text 281r 384 Come Madam come all rest my powers defy Untill I labor I in labor lye the foe oft tymes having the foe in sight is tyrd with standing though they never fight off with that girdle, like heavens zones glistering but a far fayrer world encompassing Unpin that spangled brestplate, which you were that the’eyes of busie fooles may be stopd there Unlace your self: for that harmonious chime tells me from you that now is your bed tyme off with that happy busk whome I envy that still can be & still can stand so nie your gowne going off such bea^u^teous state reveales as when from flowry meads th’hills shaddow steales off with your wyry coronett & shew the hayry diomond which on you doth grow now off with those shoes & then softly tread In this olove hollowed temple this soft bedd In such white roabs heavens angells usd to bee receavd by men: thou angell bringst with thee a heaven, like Mahomets paradise: & though ill spirits walk in white wee easyly know by this, those angells from an evill spright they sett our heyres but these our flesh upright. Licence my roving hands & lett them go behind, before, above, betweene, below oh my America my new found land my kingdome safest when with one man man’d my mine of pretious stones my emperie how blest am I in thus discovering thee. To enter in these bands is to bee free there where my hand is sett my seale shall bee.

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Hand D1. John Donne (1572–1631). Commentary 10.8.1. The Burley version, shared by only one other MS, retains the religious associations of ‘temple’, but juxtaposes the more secular notion of a bed hollowed by lovemaking. o

16 diomond: Diademe (1669). This variation, unique to Burley, is discussed in Chapter 7. 17 softly: safely (1669).

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18 love hollowed: Loves halowed (1669). 32 Burley ends here, omitting (because forgotten?) the last sixteen lines.

281v 385 Commend her? no. I dare not terme her fayre nor sugred sweet nor tall nor lovely browne Suffice it that she is without compare but how I dare not tell lest she should frowne but those parts lest which others make theyre pryde and feed there fancies with devised lyes give me but leave to pull my saint asyde and tell her in her eare that she is wise to write of beauties rare ther is no art for why tis common to there sex and kind but making choice of natures better part my Muse doth most desire to prayse her mind.   But as her vertue clayme a crowne of bayes   So manners makes me sylent in her prays.

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Hand D1. Commentary 10.2.

386 Those drossy heads and oirrepurged braynes Which sacred fyre of love hath not refined may grossly think my love smale worth contaynes because shee is of body smale combine’d. Not diving to the depht of natures reach Which on smale s43 things doth greatest guifts bestow Small gems and pearls do witt more truly teach Which litle are yet great in vertue grow of flowers most part the least wee sweetest see of creatures having life & sence the annt is smalst, yet great her guifts and vertues bee frugall and provident for feare of want   Wherfore who sees not natures full intent   she made her smale to make her excellent. o

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Hand D1. Commentary 10.2. drossy: impure, mixed with impurities (OED, drossy, 2).  irrepurged: OED has repurged, ppl.a., derived from repurge, to purge or cleanse again.

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43 ‘s’: a ‘long s’ is there in the MS, but is not reproduced by Grierson – see commentary.

The manuscript text 282r 387 One holy even when winters nights wax longe and oboreas blasts cold sommers wonton heat and robin redbreast leavs his chirping songe and mourns in too for cold and want of meat   at some pastyme to passe the tyme away   my love & I must needs at cards go play Shee chose the omaw & I the rough did chuse and shee at rough and I at maw seemd loath wee jard in words yet nether did refuse to play that play which did content us both   So play wee did untill we had enough   shee at her game of maw & I at rough At rough I shewd such cunning as I could and ocrost her roughs five times three told at lest I wan the sett as she best pleased I should for all this while our sport was but in jest   but when to maw I past it past my skill  to ohold her tugg shee playd with such good will I dealt the cards & dealt in to her lapp A spade was trump: I orubb, it itched belike Three pretty tricks were dealt her at a clap o t[w]o ases and a varlet with a pike.   her help was best to witt the good ofive finger   mine not so good but yet it was a stinger. This lusty game made warme my lively blood shee leads the board & first a trick to save she playes the oqueane (oh it was passing good) I came aloft & crost her with my oknave   at maw the knave may over sway the crowne   so I opaysd over her & prest her downe. Whyle wee weare further wading in this game Shuffling & cutting in this pleasant sort my mistress’ mother in displeasure came and gan to feare some opacking in our sport   when in her feare there did arise that doubt   she tooke her daugther in and I went out. Hand D1. No other complete examples found. Commentary 10.11.

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boreas: the North wind. maw [...] rough (ruff): different trick-taking card games (OED, ‘ruff ’, n3 1 and ‘maw’, n4 1.a). o crost her roughs: thwarted her leads. o hold her tugg: keep her fully occupied (OED, tug, n. 7). o rubb: the top card of the undealt pack is turned over to indicate trumps, and a player holding the ace of this suit may ‘rub’: exchange a card of lower value for this trump. o t[w]o ases and a varlet with a pike: the aces will always win if the opponent is able to follow suit; the ‘varlet with a pike’ is the knave of diamonds, which beats all but the other court cards of that suit, again if the opponent is able to follow. o five finger: the five of trumps, the highest card of all in maw. o queane: the card, but also ‘strumpet’. o knave: At maw, the knave of trumps is the second highest card, and will therefore ‘oversway the crown’ (29), that is, take any other court card, even the king or (as in this case) the queen of trumps. o paysd over: outweighed, in the hand, and with the obvious sexual allusion. o packing: fraudulent arrangement or shuffling of cards (OED, packing, a.1). o o

282v 388 Uxorem ducit qui macham in vertice cornu Unum habet, at castani qui putat [...] Hand D1. Eight lines of verse.

389 I that the higher half of Loves Round Zodiake have runne And in the signe of crabbed chaunce My Tropick have begun Am taught to teach the man is blest Whose loves lott lights so badd as his solstitium soonest makes And so growes Retrograde.

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390 When Fortune Love and Tyme bad me be happie Happy I was by fortune Love and tyme These powers at highest then began to vary and cast him downe whome they had caus’d to clyme   They prun’d their wings and took theire flight in rage   fortune to fooles, Love to gold and tyme to age.

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The manuscript text Fools gold and age o foolish golden age Witt fayth and Love must begg must brybe must dy These are the actors and the world’s the stage Desert and hope are as but standers by   True lovers sit and tune this restlesse song  Fortune false44 love and tyme have done me wrong.

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283r 391 Well: I may now oreceave & dy, my sinn indeed is great; but I have binn in a purgatory: such a feare as hell, is a recreation & scarse mapp of this. my mind nor with prides itch, nor yet hath beene poysned with love to see or to bee seene, I had no suit at Court but as oGlaze which did go to masse in jest & was faine to disburse an o100 markes (which is the statutes curse) before he scapt: so it pleasd my destyny (guilty of my sinn of going) to thinke me as prone to ill and of good as forgett= full, as proud, as lustfull, & as much in debt as vayne, as wittles, & as false as they which dwelt in Courts for once going that way. Therefore I suffred this: towards me did come a othing more strang then on Nilus slyme the sonne ere bred, or all which into oNoes Arke came a thin[g] which would have posd oAdam to name45 strannger then 7 antiquarians studies then Africk monster Guaianas rarities strannger then strannges, one who for a dane in the odanes massacre had sure beene slaine if hee had lived then. & without help dies when next othe prentises against stranngers rise. one whome the watch at noone lets scarce go by one to’whome th examining Justice sure would cry Sir by your preisthood tell me what you are 44 A letter ‘m’ appears above the ‘a’ of ‘false’. 45 ‘thin[g]’: D1 has written ‘think’.

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The Burley manuscript his cloaths were strange though course though black yet bare sleveles his jerkin was, and it had beene 30 velvet, but t’was (so much ground was seene) become otufftafata & our children shall see it playne orash a while then nought at all this thing hath travayled & sayth speakes all tonngs and also knoweth what to all states belongs 35 made of the accent & best Phrase of these hee speakes a language, if strang meat displease art can deceave or hunger force my tast but pedants motley tong soldiers bombast o moutebanks drugtong nor the termes of law 40 are strange enough preparatives to drawe me to here this: but I must bee content with his tong in his tong cald complement in which he can win widdowes & pay scores make men speak treason cosin sutlest whores 45 out flatter favorites & outlye either o Jovius or Surius or both togeather he names me & comes to me I whisper (god how have I sinned that thy wraths furious rod this fellow chaseth me!) he sayth Sir 50 I like your judgment whome do you preferr for the best linguist? and I sillyly sayd that I thought oCalepines dictionary nay but of men most sweet Sir/ oBeza then some Jesuits, & o2 reverent men 55 of our 2 academies I named: there he stopt me & sayd: nay your oapostles were good pretty linguists: & so opannurge was though a poore gentleman, all these may passe by travayle: then as if he would have sold 60 his tonng he praysd it & such wonders told that I was fayne to say; had you livd Sr tyme enough to have beene interpreter to obabells bricklayers sure the towre had stood he adds if of the court life you knew the good 65 you would leave lonenes: I sayd not alone my lonenes is! but spartans fashion to teach by paynting drunkards, I do not tast

The manuscript text

Aretines pictures have made few men chast no more can princes courts (though there bee few 70 better pictures of vice) teach me vertue. he like a high out stretcht lute string squeakd: o Sir tis sweet to talk of kings. at Westminster sayd I the man that keeps the Abbot tombs and for his penny (who ever comes) 75 of all our Henries & our Ed:[wards] talks from king to king & not a king will balke you shall have nought but kings your eyes meet kings only, & the way to it is king street hee smakt & cryed; he’is base machanik course 80 so are your Englishmen in there discourse are not oyour frenchmen neat? myne as you see I have but one now looke hee follows mee certs they are neatly cloathd: I of this mynd am your only wearing is this ogrogram 85 not so Sir I have more: ounder this pitch hee would not fly! I chafd but as itch scratch into smart, or as blunt iron ground into an edge hurts worse, so I (foole) found crossing did hurt me: to fit my sullennes 90 he to another key his style doth dresse and asks what news? I tell him of new oplayes he takes my hand and as a still which stayes a sembreif betwixt each drop, so nigardly as loath to enrich me tells he many a ly 95 more then 10 ohollinsheds or halls or stowes of triviall household trash: he knowes when the queen smild or fround & what a cunning statesman may gather by that he knows who love, whome & who by poyson 100 hasts to an offices reversion hee knows who hath sold his land & now doth beg licence old iron bootes shoos or eg= shells to transport: shortly boyes shall not play 105 at ospan counter or oblow point but they pay toll to some courtier: & wiser then all us he knows what lady is not painted, thus he with home meat tyres me: I belch, spue, spitt, o

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The Burley manuscript look pale & sickly like a patient yett hee thrusts more as if he had undertooke 110 to say oGallobelgicus without booke speaks of all states & deeds which have bene since o the spaniards came to the losse of Amience. like a big wife at sight of loathed meat ready to travayle so I sight and sweat 115 to heare this omacaron talke in vayne for yet either my humor or his owne to fitt hee like a privelidg spy whom nothing can discredit libells now against each ^great^ man he names a price for every office payd 120 how our wars thrive because they are delayd how that offices are entayld and that there are perpetuities of them lasting as far as the last day & that great officers do with the pirats share & odunkerkers 125 who wasts in meats in cloth in horse he notes who loveth whores who boyes who goates I more amazd then oCirces prisoners when they felt themselves turne beast: felt my self then becoming traytor: And my thought I saw 130 one of our giant statutes ope his jaw to suck me in for hereing him: I found that as burnt venomd letchers might grow sound by giving others there soares so I might grow guilty & hee free: therefore did I shew 135 all signes of loathing: but since I am in I must pay myne & my forefathers fine to the last farthing: therefore to my powre toughly I bare this cross but the houre of my redemption now was come he tryes to bring 140 me to pay a fine to scape his torturing and sayth Sir can you spare me I sayd willingly nay Sir can you spare me a crowne thankfuly I gave as a ransome but as fidlers still though they bee payd to be gone yet will 145 thrust some more Jeggs upon you so did hee with his complementall thanks vex me but hee is gone thanks to his needy want

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and the prerogative of my crowne: scant his thanks were ended, when I (who did see all the court fild with more strang things then hee) ran from thence with such or more hast then one who feares more actions hasts from prison at home in wholsome solitarines my piteous soule began, the wretchednes of sutors at court to mourne, & a trannce (like his owho dreamd he saw hell) did advance it self one me & such as hee saw there saw I at court and more and worse: loe feare becomes the guilty, not the accuser, why should I then (being nones slave) of high borne or raysd men fareeare frownes. and my m[ist]r[es]s. truth betray thee to the huffing braggart puft nobility no no thou which since yesterday hast beene almost about the world, hast thou seene (o sun) in all thy jou[r]ney vanity such as swells the bladder of the court? I think hee which the waxen garden brought, and transported it from Italy to stand with us at London: flouts our presence, for just such gay painted things, which no sap, nor tast have in them; ours are. and some naturall brannches of the stocke are there fruits bastard all. tis ten a clock & past: all whome the mewes o baloune tennis diet or the stewes had all the fornoone held: now the second tyme of day made ready in flocks are found in the presence & I (god pardon me) as fresh and sweet there aparralls be, as bee the fields they sold to buy them: for a king those hose are cryes those flatterers which bring them next unto the theatre to sell. wants reach all states. me thinks they do as well at stage as court: all are players. who ere looks (for them selves dares not go) in cheapside books shall find there wardrops inventory: now the Ladies come, as pirats which did know that there came weake vessells fraught with cachinell

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The Burley manuscript the men board them & praise (as they think well) there beauties, they the mens witts, oboth are bought why good witts were scarlet I thought this cause these mens witts for speeches buy and women buy all reds which scarlet dy. Would not oHeraclytus laugh to see oMacrine from hat to shoe at dore him self refine (as if the presence were a omesquite) & lift his cloake: & call his cloathes to shrift? making them confesse not only omortall great staynes & holes but also veniall feathers & dust by which they fornicate and by odures rule survaye the state of his each limb. & with strings the odds tryes from his wastneck to his wast from wast to his thies. so in imaculate cloathes & simmetry perfect as circles with such amity (as a yong preacher at his first tyme goes to preach) he enters in & a Ladies hand which owes not so mutch as good will, hee straight arests & unto her protests protests protests so much as at Rome would serve to have throwne ten cardinals into the inquisition & whispers so often by Jesu that a pursivant would have ravisht him away for saying oour Ladies psalter: but tis fitt that they each other plague, they merit it. but here comes glorious that will plague them both who in an other extreame only doth call a rough carelesnes good fashion whose cloake his spurrs teares, whome he spits on he cares not, his ill words do no harme to him: he rusheth in as if arme arme he came to cry & though his face be as ill as who in old hangings whipt Christ, still yet hee strives to looke worse & keeps all in awe jests like a licensed foole commands like lawe tyr’d I leave this place & but pleased so as men which from galley to execution go. I go through the great chamber; why is it hung

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with othe 7 deadly sins? being among those oAscaparts men big enough to throw o charing crosse for a bar: men which do know no token of worth: but queens man & fine swallowing barrells of beere flagons of wine I shoke lyke a spied spy. preachers which are great seas of witt; & art, you can then dare drowne the sins of this place: for for me who am a skant brooke it enough shall bee to wash the ^in^ staynes away. though I yett with oMachabees modesty have not the merit of my con’d lesson, yet some wise men shall (I hope) esteeme my witts canonicall.

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Hand D1. John Donne (1572–1631). Printed in Poems (1633) as Satyre IIII. Commentary 10.5.1. o 1 receave: Holy Communion, an appropriate portal to a Christian death. o 7 See textual note. ‘Glaze’ has not been identified. o 9 100 marks: £66 13s 4d, the fine prescribed for attending Mass under a statute of 1581. o 17 A common belief, derived from Pliny; cf. Shakespeare, Antony & Cleopatra, II.7.26–27. o 18 Noes Arke: It was supposed that the Ark contained, as well as all the known creatures, those of hearsay, such as basilisks and amphisbaenae (Milgate, John Donne: The Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters, p. 150, citing Benedict Pererius Valentinus, Comment. et Disput. in Genesim (1601)). o 19 Adam named all living creatures, according to Genesis 2.19–20. o 23 King Ethelred (968–1016) resolved ‘to cause all the Danes within the land to be murthered in one day [and commanded his officers] to dispatche and slea [slay] all such Danes as remayned within therr liberties, at a certaine day prefixed, being Saint Bryces daye [13 November], in the yeare, 1012’ (Raphael Holinshed, The first and second volume of Chronicles ... (London, 1587), p. 242. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the date as 1002 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. by Michael Swanton, rev. edn (London: Phoenix Press, 2002), pp. 134–135), and Holinshed corrects his error on p. 256. Milgate’s note gives the incorrect date of 1012. o 25 A projected riot against Flemings and other foreigners was suppressed by the authorities in 1597 (Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning, revised edn (London: Vantage, 1992), pp. 46–47, whose account cites John Strype, Annals of the ­Reformation, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1824), IV, 234–236) and Acts of the Privy Council, 1542–1604, ed. by J. R. Dasent, 32 vols (London: 1890–1907), 24, 200). o 32 ‘tufftafata’: tufted taffeta. o 33 rash: twilled fabric. The original velvet has been worn, in patches first to become ‘tufftafata’, and then all over to become smooth rash.

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40 moutebanks drugtong: the (deliberately obscure) language in which a quackdoctor (mountebank) would write a prescription. OED quotes Earle, Microcosm, Meer dull Physician (Arb.), 25: ‘There follows a writ to his drugger in a strange tongue.’ o 47 Jovius or Surius: Paulus Jovius (1483–1552) and Laurentius Surius (1522–78), historians of whose veracity Donne is clearly doubtful. Jovius himself admitted that he would temper his descriptions of great men according to the likely fee (Patricius Schlager, ‘Paulus Jovius’ in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910) (www.newadvent.org/cathen/08530b.htm), accessed 30 Dec 2008). Surius’s major work was his ‘Lives of the Saints’, many of whose exploits, miracles, survivals of execution, and miraculous relics would have been regarded in Protestant England as fabrications. o 53 Calepines dictionary: Ambrosius Calepine (1455–1511) wrote a Latin dictionary, which developed by 1590 into the Dictionarium undecim Linguarum, collating eleven languages. Such was its fame that Calepine became an eponym for a dictionary, especially a polyglot one (OED, ‘calepin’). o 54 Theodore Beza (1519–1605), Calvinist theologian, fluent in French, Greek, and Latin (David C. Steinmetz, Reformers in the Wings, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 114-120). o 55 The ‘2 reverent men’ are identified in the contemporary Dobell MS as ‘Dr Reinolds and Dr Andrewes’ (Milgate, Donne, p. 153). These were John Rainolds (1549–1607), who worked on the translation of the Prophets for the King James Bible (Mordechai Feingold, ‘Rainolds, John (1549–1607)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sep 2004), online edn 2006), and Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626), who also worked on the King James Bible. In his funeral sermon for Andrewes, John Buckeridge said: ‘His admirable knowledge in the learned tongues, Latine, Greeke, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriack, Arabick, besides other moderne Tongues to the number of fifteene [...] was such and so rare, that he may well be ranked [...] to be one of the rarest Linguists in Christendome’ (Lancelot Andrewes, XCVI Sermons (London, 1629), final sermon, p. 17). o 57 apostles: At Pentecost, the Apostles ‘began to speake with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance’ (Acts 2.4). o 58 pannurge: Panurge, whose skill in many languages is described in Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, ii, 9. o 64 The descendants of Noah, who spoke a single language, began to build a city with a tower intended to reach to heaven, and were punished for their hubris by being scattered over the earth, their language ‘confounde[d] [...] that everie one perceive not an others speache’, and their city abandoned incomplete (Genesis 11.1–9). o 69 Aretines pictures: Aretino added sixteen lubricious sonnets, the Sonnetti lussuriosi, to the series of pictures known as I modi (the positions) by Giulio Romano (c. 1499–1546), illustrating postures of lovemaking, and the combined work was published in 1524. o 82 your: The bore uses the word ‘with no definite meaning, or vaguely implying o

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“that you know of ”’ (OED, ‘your’, 5b), but Donne deliberately misunderstands him; the joke is repeated in ll. 85-86, where the poet, deliberately misunderstanding again, responds that he has more than one suit of clothes. o 85 grogram: A coarse fabric of silk, of mohair and wool, or of these mixed with silk (OED, quoting this example). o 86 under this pitch / hee would not fly: The ‘pitch’ is the height from which a falcon strikes. The bore is unwilling to offer himself again as a quarry. o 96 Raphael Holinshed, Edward Hall, and John Stow, sixteenth-century chroniclers. o 105 span counter: a game in which the object of one player was to throw his counters so close to those of his opponent that the distance between them could be spanned with the hand (OED). o 105 blow point: games in which ‘points’ (laces for attaching hose) are flicked out of a circle to win them (Milgate, citing no reference). OED, defining blow-point (blow- 3) simply as ‘a game’, cites a conjecture of 1801 ‘blowing an arrow through a trunk at certain numbers by way of lottery’, which sounds less likely, particularly when Sidney refers to it as a game for shepherds (Arcadia, II, 224). o 111 Gallobelgicus: Mercurius Gallobelgicus, scurrilous occasional journal, published in Cologne in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century (‘early representative of the yellow press’, C. A. Patrides (ed.), The Complete English Poems of John Donne (London: Dent, 1985), p. 171). o 113 i.e. everything that happened between 1588 and 1597. o 116 macaron: Macaroon, a fool or blockhead (OED, quoting this example). The word had not yet acquired the meaning of fop or dandy. o 125 dunkerkers: Privateers sailing from the French port of Dunkerque (OED). o 128 The sorceress Circe turned Odysseus’s crew into pigs (Homer, Odyssey, Book 10). o 157 who dreamd he saw hell: a reference to Dante’s Inferno, with which Donne was evidently familiar in the original language, although it was not much read in England at this time. Translations appeared in the sixteenth century of other authors of the Italian Renaissance, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, and Boccaccio (although Decameron not until 1620), but Dante was not translated until 1719. o 175 baloune: balloon; game in which a large inflated leather ball is struck to and fro by the arm, braced with a wooden splint (OED). o 188 cachinell: cochineal, valuable raw material for scarlet dye (OED); see lines 191–193. o 190–193: Courtiers buy their wits and court ladies their beauty; clever men sell their wit to the courtiers, and get no credit, and hence are denied the scarlet gown of a doctor; the women in any case have bought up all the scarlet dye for rouge. o 194: Heraclitus was called the ‘weeping philosopher’ (see OED: ‘Heraclitean’). o 194: Macrine has not been identified. o 196 ‘mesquite’: mesquita, a mosque (OED, quoting this example). o 197–200: The holes and stains are ‘mortal’ sins, because irreparable; the feathers and dust only ‘venial’, or pardonable.

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201 dures rule: Dürer, the artist and engraver, wrote a book on mankind’s proportions (Vier bücher von menschliker Proportion (1528)), setting out the proportional relationships of parts of the body to one another. o 214 our Ladies psalter: the rosary, a repetition 150 times of the prayer ‘Ave Maria’. o 229 Flemish tapestries depicting the seven deadly sins were part of the original decorative scheme of Wolsey for Hampton Court, and in the late Elizabethan period hung in an ante-chamber to the Presence Chamber (see John Butt’s edition of The Poems of Alexander Pope (London: Methuen, 1963), note to line 274 of Pope’s version of this satire on p. 687). o 230 Ascaparts: Ascapart was a legendary giant, vanquished by Bevis of Hampton; here representing the giant halberdiers who guarded the chamber. For the legend, see ‘Bevis of Hampton’ in Four Romances of England, ed. by Ronald B. Herzman et al. (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999), ll. 2505–2549. I do not suggest that Donne was familiar with this text, but the legend was common enough, e.g. 2 Henry VI, II.3.88: ‘as Bevis of Southampton fell upon Askapart’ (Q only; not in F). o 231: Charing Cross was the last of the Eleanor crosses marking the resting places of the coffin of Edward I’s queen on its final journey. The present cross is a Victorian replacement for the original, which was removed by order of Parliament in 1647 from its place in what is now Trafalgar Square (IHR, British History Online: ‘The Statue of Charles and the site of the Charing Cross’, (www.british-history.ac.uk). o 239 Machabees modesty: a reference to the modest disclaimer of the Apocryphal II Maccabees 15.38: ‘And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.’ Donne hopes that his work will be fully believed, that is, become ‘canonical’ rather than ‘apocryphal’. 7: 1633 has two lines: I had no suit there, nor new suite to shew, / Yet went to Court; But as Glaze which did goe This discrepancy is discussed in Chapter 7, where I observe that it seems to be a case of ‘memory darning its own hole’. 67: 1633 has a comma here, where Burley has an exclamation mark. Milgate changes it to a full stop, and remarks: ‘I have strengthened the punctuation of 1633 [...] to make clear that “‘Spartanes fashion” refers to teaching by painting drunkards and not to a virtuous solitude.’ Burley’s punctuation mark is even stronger, providing a contemporary manuscript justification for his emendation, to add to his own sound interpretative reasoning. 99 cunning: subtle (1633). Burley’s word for the forgotten ‘subtle’ is appropriate and metrical. 108 tyres: tries (1633). This could, I concede, be a scribal error of the traditional kind, but may equally be a memory failure. 115 sight: sigh (1633). More typical of a copying error, arising probably because D1’s eye caught ‘sight’ from the preceding line, than of the kind of error arising in a remembered text. This error is discussed in Chapter 7. 121 how our wars [...] delayed: He saith, our warres thrive ill, because o

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delai’d; (1633). D1’s version, though less clear of meaning, scans, suggesting the repair of a failure of memory on the part of the scribe or his informant. 139 toughly: Toughly and stubbornly (1633). The choice is between too few syllables and too many. Milgate suggests the elision ‘stubbornly’I’. 191 were scarlet: ne’r weare scarlet (1633). 1633 is to be preferred on the grounds of both sense and metre. 193: Two lines, missing here, follow this in 1633: He call’d her beauty limetwigs, her haire net; / She feares her drugs ill laid, her hair loose set. 197 cloake: skirts and hose (1633). 1633 is again metrically preferable. 205 amity: nicetie (1633). ‘Amity’ is just about possible as a scribal error for ‘nicety’, although it makes less sense here, but may also be an attempt to put in a metrically correct word for a forgotten one. 233 beere: beefe (1633). ‘beere’ feels more natural than the ‘beef ’ of all the other texts, but that does not make it correct: Donne’s habit is to use the surprising word. 240 con’d lesson: worke lessen (1633). 1633 presumably means that the poet, despite his modesty, recognises the merit of the work. D1 has heard or remembered ‘lessen’ as ‘lesson’, and has supplied a suitable epithet in ‘con[ne]d’, but it leaves one struggling for the sense.

392 To Sir H: W: going into Venice: After those reverent papers whose soule is our good & great kings loved hand & feard name by which to you he derives much [of his] and (how he may) makes you almost the same A taper of his torch a coppy writt from his originall and a fayre beame of the same warme & dazling sonne though it must in another spheare his vertue streame. After those lerned papers which your hand hath stord with notes of use & pleasure to from which safe tresury you may command fitt matter whether you will write or do After those loving papers where frends send with gladsome greife to your seaward steps farwell which thicken on you [now] as prayers ascend to heaven in troupes at a good mans passing bell. admitt this honest paper & allow it such an audience as your self would aske what you must say at Venice this means now

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and hath for nature what you have for taske to sweare much love not to bee chaing[d] before honor & love will to your fortune fitt o nor shall I then honor your fortune more then I have done your noble wanting it but tis an easier load though both oppresse to want then governe greatnes for we are in that our owne & only busines in this we must for others vices care Tis therefore well your spirits now are placd in there last furnace in activity which fitts them (schooles & courts & tents orepast) to touch & tast of any best degree. for me (if there be such a thing as I) fortune (if there be such a thing as shee) Spies that so well I beare her tyranny as nothing else shee thinks so fitt for mee. but though shee part us [to] heere my oft prayers for your encrease god is as neere me heere and to send you what I shall begg his stayres in length & ease are all alike every where.

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postscript: Sir though perchance it were never tried except in Rabelais his land of tapistry it may bee true that a pigmey upon a Giant may see further then the giant so after a long letter this postscript may see further into you then that if you will answere to 2 questions whether you have your last dispatches at court or whether you make many dayes stay there or at London, such a one as I may yett kisse your hand. Hand D1. John Donne (1572–1631). Found in several MSS, and printed in Poems (1635). Commentary 10.6. o Nor shall I then ...: The meaning of these lines has perplexed editors from the second edition onwards, and various unconvincing emendations have been proposed. In my view, the lines are clear as they stand in Burley: ‘I shall honour your good fortune just as, and no more than, I honoured your noble lack of it.’ The 1633 version, where ‘honour’ appears instead of ‘noble’, can be read in a similar, though more stilted way: ‘I shall honour your good fortune just as, and no more than, I honoured your honourable lack of it.’ But Burley seems a much superior reading. o postscript: Rabelais his land of tapistry: In Book V, chapter xxx, is described ‘l’isle de Frize, car les chemins estoient de frize. En icelle estoit le pays de Satin,

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taut renommé entre les pages de cour: duquel les arbres et herbes jamais ne perdoient fleurs ne feuilles, et estoient de damas et velours figuré. Les bestes et oiseaux estoient de tapisserie’ [the Island of Frize, for, all the ways were of Frize. In that Island is the Land of Satin, so celebrated by our Court Pages. Its Trees and shrubs never lose their Leaves or Flowers, and are all Damask and flower’d Velvet: As for the beasts and Birds, they are all of Tapestry-work] (Translation: Motteux, Rabelais). Later, referring to his sighting of fourteen phœnixes, Rabelais uses for the first time the phrase ‘land of tapestry’: ‘ceux qui en escrit n’en virent ouques ailleurs qu’au pays de tapisserie’ [those who said this, had never seen any, unless it were in the Land of Tapestry] (Translation: as before). ‘Tapestry’ is seen as a land like the world of Art or the field of the Imagination, in which anything imaginable can appear. Rabelais has no account of pygmies on giants’ shoulders; John of Salisbury (c.1120–80) records that ‘Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants ... we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature’ (The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury, ed. and trans. by Daniel D. McGarry (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1955), p. 167). No printed version of the Metalogicon is recorded earlier than 1610, however. Heading: ‘To Sir H: W: going into Venice:’ appears in the manuscript as a marginal note level with lines 2–4. The headng in 1633 and subsequent, and in many MSS with the initials expanded to the full name, is ‘To Sir H. W. at his going Ambassador to Venice’. See commentary. 3 [of his]; 15 [now]; 21 [d]; 37 [to]: All these absent from Burley, but found in 1633 and elsewhere. Each is necessary to one or more of sense, rhyme, or metre, and all seem to be, therefore, examples of D1’s (or his copy-text’s) carelessness. 10 pleasure: Thus 1635 and subsequent, also Walton and several MSS; pleasures (1633). 11 safe: rich (1633 and other editions and MSS). 13 where: Thus 1633 and several MSS; which (1635 and sub, Walton and some MSS). 24 noble wanting it: also several other MSS; honour wanting it (1633); noble-wanting-wit (1635 and sub); honour-wanting-wit (Walton). 31 tents only here; warres (elsewhere). 32 tast Also (1669 and Walton); test (elsewhere).

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The Burley manuscript 393 A remnant of a sonnett that Toby Mathew made to the Angels Gab: & Ra: which he adopted to his old father Tobias And since the glorious fether of thy wing The Angel Raphael by old Tobies eyes behold another of that name that lies sick: beleife bid him Chrismatour bring:   and cure his hart more blind then that blind face   Not with the gal of fish but oyle of grace.

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Hand P. Sir Tobie Matthew (1577–1655). The whole sonnet appears as No. 3 of 29 in Anthony G. Petti, ‘Unknown Sonnets by Sir Toby Matthew’, Recusant History, 9 (1967–68), 123–158, and this version (adapted to the i/j and u/v convention of this book) is printed in the commentary. Commentary 10.3.2.

394 Ad verginam Mariam In that o Queene of Queene[s] thy birth was free from guilt which others do of grace bereave When in their mothers wombe they life receave God as his sole borne Daugther loved thee   To mactch thee like thy births nobility 5   He thee his Spirit for thy spouse did leave   by whome thou didst his only sonn conceave   And so wast linkd to all the Trinity Cease then o worldly Queenes which crownes do weare To glory in the pompe of worldly things 10 If men such high respect unto you beare That mothers wives & daugthers are of kings   Quhat honor should unto that Q. bee done   That had our God for father Spouse & Sonn? Hand P. Henry Constable (1562–1613). The poem appears, in a text close to this one, in the seventeen ‘Spirituall sonnettes, to the honour of God: and hys saintes’ by H:C:, BL Harleian MS 7553, ff. 32–40, and is printed from that text in The Poems of Henry Constable, ed. by Joan Grundy (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960). Commentary 10.3.2.

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286v 395 Hic iacet Robertus Devreuxes Vir bonus et ama[n]dus [...] Hand P. Seven-line epitaph for Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

396 Deformior vivit. Hand P. The whole entry, presumably a comment on item 395.

287r 397 Oh that there weare a Muse that never writt but kept her cunning till this carfull howre and now alone within my hart would sitt to shew the pryde of Sorrow in her powre. and how she vawnts it in her highest towre   all builded in the torments of my thought   where helpless care consumes the hart to nought 2 but woe is me that such I see my woe as natures passion hardly can explaine and all the muses fall to singing soe as if they feard to sing upon my payne so that I see my wish is all in vayne   that some such muse as never yett did wryte   would now a litle of my death endyte. 3 then should the world bee prevy to those woes that now shee seeks with all her sleights to hyde least if conceyts her secrets should disclose shee might perhaps bee puld downe from her pryde when death should come & sitt downe by her syde   and in regard of natures pitteous case   cut of her powre or drive her out of place 4 yet shall I live as dead & bee alive & only sigh & say no more of sorrow shall not my hart with death & sorrow strive to passe the night in hope of a morrowe & no invention of destruction borrowe   from some such muse as yet doth live unknown   to sound the depth of mysery & moane.

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The Burley manuscript 5 oh no for the labor is in vayne to thinke to owash an Ethiopyan white or can the hart endure a greater payne then trie to know the lack of all delight & for the subject of no better sight   then this distress that is ordayn’d for mee   to know more sorrow then the world may see 6 and yet (mee seemes) I feele in sylent sence sorrow her self doth in my sighing speake and bids me wryte these words in her defence that when death doth into her army breake compard to hers, his forces are but weake   she breeds the paynes no passion can appease   and he but comes to give the patient ease 7 but whither runs my ruinated thought doth sorrow speake or may it bee a muse that nature hath of me love holy wrought to take such wars as all ye would refuse and on my thoughts her only pen to use   so paynt my paynes and if such one there bee   then heare a litle what she says of me

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8 There lived somtyme (oh most unhappy tyme[)]46 50 when harvast comes before the springe bee shot and carefull hope that comfort fought to clyme falls in distres by misconceit begott but when the phenix finds the form so hott   the smaler birds must derely by there flight 55   that wilbee suring[?] nere so fayre a light 9 let nature sett downe every dolefull note wherein she mournes for losse of her delight and philomela sett in tune her throat to sound the passion of her piteous plight. where cleerest day becomes as darkest night   while loves disgrace that death & sorrow grewm[?]   setts downe the soules of witt & reasons ruyne[?] 10 and yet me seems she cannot hold her peace although she byte her pen for want of skill

46 D1 provides the opening but not the closing bracket.

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but for she sees my fortunes so encrease as wounds my hart & would my spirit kill she would this far be writing of myne ill   there is no figure can that sound to fashion   when patience is beyond her self in passion.

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11 As wofull patience that must wait in payne till only death must remedy distres like ransome sent to men already slayne so is the hope that hangs on my distres and did the heavens not my pore spirit bles   surely on earth if that there be a w hell   it is my wo wherein my hart doth dwell. 12 my sighs for help must to the heavens ascend & tell in teares the torments of my hart while sylent moane must never make an end till mercy ease the rigor of my smart and to that powre I must my paynes impart   who only knows the ground of every greif   and holds the love that gives the soule reliefe

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13 A blasted tree without or leafe or fruit 85 a winter bush whose branches all are barked the losse of labor in a lingring suite the ground of greif with patience all imparked that feeds the sheep whome sorrows brand hath marked   the wounded fish that on the shoare doth dy 90   may say each one that such a man am I 14 When cleenest rivers yeld to puddle plashes and stately trees do stope to thorney bushes when diamond sparks must dwell in seacole ashes and lofty reeds must bend to litle rushes and shriking owles drive nightingales to hushes   and to the clouds the sun a place must give   then looke on me & tell me how I live. 288r

15 when cleerest day becomes as darkest night & mirth becomes a torment to the minde when forced patience is the spirits plight & witt & reason go against theire kind when leake[y] ships do sayle against the wind

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The Burley manuscript   and sorrow sucks upon a sickly breath   there see the do[or] that opens to my death 16 but for my house it is to full of harme for any muses cunning to come my neere my landlord my hart the luckles farme with sorrow fills so full of heavy cheere and poore repentance finds the rent so deere   that he may say that once hath dwelt upon it   it is his death that dares but venter on it.

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17 looke on a towne whose walls are all decayd or on a camp discomforted in fight looke on an army wickedly betrayed 115 or on the horror of the darksome night or on the wounded in his wofull plight   or of the greif that makes the spirit groan   then say my muse comes somewhat nere my moane. 18 my verses must by vertue bee composed my hart the pen my thoughts must be the words which in the lines of carfull love enclosed must shew what crosses are the cutting swords that fate and fortune to the mind affords   whome sorrow followes to the latest breath   and at the last doth leave it unto death. 19 I must not make a fixion of myne owne but symple truth must tell my tale for me what greife it is that makes the spirit groane by lack of that it most desyres to see and till which howre it cannot happy bee   thus must I write & truth must witnes beare me   what kind of torments in my hart do teare me 20 Muses ly downe & leave of all your musing that labors lost that tyme is spent in vayne your choisest humors in your sweetest chusing give frustrate hopes which yeld but litle gaine which sorrow yeldeth but repentance payne   which maks me end with that which truth begun   what can I writ when that my hart is [donn?] 21 if true affection free from treasons thought

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with constant care of reasons kindest sweet had not so much the spirit overwrought with natures horror for the hart [**]meete that tred all hopes of fortune under feet   then might there yet be left some litle sence   to shew the passion of loves patience. 22 but when disdayne doth stand at beautyes door and spurns at vertue with a spightfull eye & faythfull harts are flung upon the shore whyle craft can creep into a monarchy and love is judged by fatall doome to dye   then lett me say but as I sayd before   my hart is burst and I can say no more 23 Yet as a candle nere his going out will twinckle long before hee lose his light so death that walks my weary hart about & keeps my patience in this heavy plight in sorrows glimmering gives me such a light   as letts me write: but as I write at first   what can I write whenas my hart is burst 24 yet in the ashes still a spark there lives which keeps a heat to kindle love a fire and such a warmth this litle sparckle gives as keeps alive the comfort of desyre though as good nere a whit as nere the ni[gh]er   for so my senses are with sorrow osoken   I can write nothing but my hart is broken 25 tyme would have wrought & made his scyth as sharp as he could whet it to make smoth his way but he that hath no strings unto his harpe upon the wood hath litle joy to play so is my state at an unhapy staye   when I am forct by cruell fate to write   my hart is burst & what can I endyte.

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Hand D1. No other copy traced. Commentary 10.8.1. o 30 wash an Ethiopyan white: proverbial since classical times for futile effort; Snowden quotes an example from Lucian (c. AD 117–180): Frank M. Snowden, ‘The Negro in Ancient Greece’, American Anthropologist, n.s. 50, 1, Pt 1 (Jan 1948), 31–44 (p. 38).

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o 167 soken: OED has †2. Resort to, or visiting of, a place; habitual going or haunting. Obs. OED’s latest example is c.1440: ‘custome of haunting’. Perhaps more probably, ‘soaked’: OED quotes Breton, Miseries of Mamillia (1599): ‘Sorrow sokes long ere it slayes’.

288Ar 398 Still to be neate, still to be drest As if you were going to a feast Still to be powdred still perfumed Lady itt is to be presumed   Though arts hid causes be not found   All is not sweet & is not sound. Give me a looke, give me a face That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hayre as free Such sweet neglect more taketh mee.   Then all the adulteries of art   They strike my eyes but nor my hart.

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Hand P. Ben Jonson (1572–1637), from Epicœne, I.1, acted 1609–10, printed 1616. Commentary 10.2.

399 Uppon the Union of Scotland & England Was ever contract better driven by fate Or celebrated with more termes of State? The world the temple was, the sea the ring The maried payre two realmes the Preist a king. Hand P. Ben Jonson (1572–1637). Printed in Works (1640), Epigrammes, V, where it appears as below. Commentary 10.9.2. When was there contract better driven by Fate? / Or celebrated with more truth of State? / The World the Temple was, the Priest a King, / The spoused paire two Realmes, the Sea the ring.

288Av 400 Ad amicum alienum eundem Tu ni me ita es [...] Hand P. Two-line epigram.

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401 Annagrammata Honoria Denny Deny Haiy or none. [...] Hand P. Honoria Denny (1590–1614) married James, Lord Hay (1580–1676) in 1607. With two other equally poor anagrams, another crossed out, and a mysterious set of initials: J.C.S.X.O.Q.P.V. This page is illustrated, with comment, in Chapter 7 on p. 59.

402 Ditior reprobat, debellat [...] Hand P. Two-line epigram.

403 A. In Cratere meo Thetis est commixto Lyeo B. Tunc Dea iuncta deo. A. Sed deo maior eo. Hand P. Complete item. Opening lines of a six-line poem by Hugo Primas de Orleans (c.1092–c.1160), printed as No. 14 in Hugh Primas and the Archpoet, ed. and trans. by Fleur Adcock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

404 Uppon the great pillar before St Peter Si Lapis est unus dic qua fuit arte Levatus Quomodo fuit plures, dic ubi congenies. Hand P. ‘If the stone is one piece, say by what art it was raised. If more than one, say where the joints are.’ The final couplet from lines said to have been on the great ball on top of the Roman obelisk. Sextus V caused the obelisk to be moved to its present position and the ball replaced by a cross.

289r 405 Quod per armes vitam [Iso?] meditari Clarissime [...] Hand D1. 14 lines of verse relating to Wotton, squeezed into the top left-hand corner of the page.

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The Burley manuscript 406 Sonnetus hendecasillabus Natum nobile par treni Camoena Longum mentis iter fleam necesse:        [...]

Hand P. A Petrarchan sonnet.

407 Ad Aras Pub: Virgilis Maronis Accii sinceri Sannazzari Poetarum Principarum     [...] Hand P. Seven-line poem praising British poets.

289v 408 Dum Venus et Veneri positis Mari gratior armis Gramineo fessus dormit [...] Hand P. 26-line poem by Giovanni della Casa (1503–56) called ‘Formica’ (The Ant). Lines 7 and 8 of the 28-line original are missing.

290r 409 Del Signor Giovanni Battista Marini Napolitano Un gentilhomo ama una sua schiava– [Mora.?] Negra si, ma sei bella, o di Natura Fra le belle, d’Amor leggiadri mosto,        [...] Hand P. No. 24 in Marino’s ‘Amore’ sonnet sequence.

410 Latrai a i ladri a gli amanti tacqui Cosi a messere et a madonna piacqui. Hand P. Couplet for a dog’s headstone, attributed to Anton Francesco Grazzini (1503–84), known as ‘Il Lasca’ (the roach), followed by two English translations, of which the better is: ‘I barkd at theevs at lovers I was still / Thus was my masters this my mistres will.’

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290v 411 Beneficii il Pastori dona non vendi fama buona racogli mai non erra       [...] Hand P? Eight-line verse.

412 Panduphi Sfondrati

Uxorem fraudas tua fraudet amica maritus Consimile ambo nomine mente modis [...] Hand P. Eight-line verse on Sfondrati, sixteenth-century author.

291r 413 Ragionamento tra il Gobbo, et d’il orbo dello inchiostro intorno alla partenza de Giesinti Gob: Alla Zuecca intendo che vuol fare     Un Redentor anco pui bello        [...] Hand P. Two quatrains, one for Gobbo, the other for Orbo.

414 Jesuitae ad urbem Venetam Jesuitae cur te si quaeris post fulmania(?) primi (O sanctum exemplum) liquimus? expuleras. Hand P. Complete entry.

415 Epit[affio]

Qui giace Il Cardinale Ascan Colonna Romano nato Et delle bordelle in favora tutto spagnuolato. Hand P. This is probably ‘Pasquil’s Epitaph upon the Cardinal Ascanio Colonna’, which Wotton sent to Salisbury on 5 Jul 1608 (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 431).

291v 416 Trovandosi la madre del Cardinale di Gioiosa di lui [gra....] da viene dal timore delle guerre [...] Aethera sol peragra, tu Joiiose inclyte terras [...]

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Hand P. Six lines of verse, with long heading in Italian attributing it to Ottavio Menini (c.1550–1617).

417 Having made foure voyages to Rome & concluded the peace betwene the Pope and Venetians. Hand P. This is the complete entry.

418 When the Erle of Leycester affected marriage with the Queene hee giving the beare & the Q. the Lions Ursa quid infrendis? [...] Hand P. Two-line epigram.

292r 419 [Domine?] Marsiglio in homicid Padre Pauli Sanguis effusi imposita est hac poena Davidi   Summo et non posset Templa di care Deo [...] Hand P. Six lines of verse, presumably relating to Paulo Sarpi.

420 Sixtus V. Romanorum et F: Pontus Vene: Dux Venetijs moritates eadem tempore. Deformatus sixtus Aigias, Dux tetendit ad oras [...] Hand P. Six lines of verse.

421 Uppon Cardinal Tosco a Lombard where that phrase is ­[understood?] Non fatto Papa Tosco perche ogli e patro E nel cambio benedicti, dira catro. Hand P. Complete entry. Tosco (otherwise Toschi, 1535–1620) was almost elected instead of Paul V in 1605.

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292v 422 Uppon Mary mother of Christ Su[pe]r quae eram, nec eram quae [enim?], nunc dicor utcumque Patris Verbi, Hominis filia, sponsa, parens. Shee was att once a Virgin Wife and mother And bore att once her sonn her spouse her brother. Hand P. Complete entry.

423 Uppon a yong child dead almost as soon as borne

Within this marble cave here lies A dainty jewell of great prise Which Nature to the worlds disdaine But shew’d, & then put upp againe. Hand P. Many MSS copies, in some of which it is attributed to George Morley (1598?–1684). First printed in Stowe’s Survey of London (1618). Another version appears at item 584. Commentary 10.8.2.

424 In Donarium Sancti Clementi Stet domus haec donec fluctus formica marinos Ebibat et totum testudo perambulet orbem. Hand P. This inscription is recorded in many places, as far as Greece, Scotland, and Poland. It translates ‘May this house stand until an ant drains the flowing sea, and a tortoise walks around the whole world.’

425 Lumine Acon dextro caruit Leonella sinistro   Sed forma potuit vincere uterque Deos. Parve puer lumen quod habes sui redide sorori   Sic tu caecus Amor sic erit illa Venus. Hand P. Complete entry. Attributed elsewhere to Girolamo Amalteo, sixteenthcentury Italian painter.

426 Parve puer tibi parva vo[?], et corpore parvus   Et brevis est humilus, et breve carna habe. Hand P. Complete entry.

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293r 427 In Donarium Lipsii N.R.P.47 Lipsius ut moritum exacto frigore sensit   pellicere sibi iam non fore vestis opus: [...] Hand P. 6-line epitaph for Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), Dutch scholar and philo­ sopher.

428 Anonimi Politiorum amator ille verborum In brevia maluisset incedere et syrtes [...] Hand P. Eight-line epitaph for Lipsius; see note 47.

429 Adeste Orbilii quot estis omnes Vos paucis volo: Virgini Viritem [...] Hand P. Three-line epitaph for Lipsius; see note 47.

293v 430 Comes fuentes. Marches de las Velas Christo: Moro. Cianciari La fuente no curre La cianciari no spieida [...] Hand P. Five-line verse, looking on the page like an English limerick, though not rhyming.

431 In Petram Phil:

Petra Petrum tegit hic, animumque fovet Petra Christus Sic salutem retinet utraque Petra Petrus. Hand P. Epitaph. Complete entry. 47 This item and the next two are to be found, in reverse order, printed as three stanzas of a single work in an eighteenth-century anthology, Johann Georgi Schelhorn, Amoenitate Literariae (Frankfurt: Daniel Bartholomei, 1726), vol. V, p. 48, but with no indication of authorship.

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432 Epitaphium Hermolei Barbari Barbariem Hermoleus Latio qui dependit omnium   Barbarus hic situs est, utraque lingua geruit [...] Hand P. Four-line epitaph for Ermolao Barbaro (1454–93), Venetian scholar and philosopher.

433 In Philippe Hisp: R:

Phi nota fetoris, Lippus malus omnibus horis Phi malus et lippus, totus, malus ergo Philippus. Hand P. Complete entry. Libellous epitaph, here presumably intended for Philip II of Spain although, according to William Winstanley in Lives of the most famous English Poets (1687), it was originally written by Alexander Nequam (Neckam) (1157–1217).

434 Pauperiem vatum nemo mirabit, [Vinis?] Mons tantus est Musis omnibus, [***?] equus. Hand P. Complete entry. Latin epigram.

294r 435 Sir. In your whole fortune you have not adventured so much; nor throwne yourself into so great daungers as by descending into my frendship: there can bee none found weaker then my self; yet I have alwayes beene either so strong or stubborne against any assault of fortune, that shee hath rather pickt quarrells with my 5 frends then with my self & so in that Ireland & this England & in other corners of the world: shee hath gleaned lately many of my dearest frends as though it were fault enough to love me: but Sir my frendship cannot bee accessary to any such misfortune in you. bycause fortune saw in you many vertues & worthinesses 10 fit to bee envied by her before it pleased you to betroath your frendship to me and so hath a directer quarrell to you for being learned & valiant & otherwise vertuous then for being content to allow me a roome in your good opinion. in which as it hath pleased you to place me & give me your assuraunce under your 15 owne hand by oyour kind letter from Ireland so I intreat that I may continew your tenaunt there ever or so long till I bee slack

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The Burley manuscript in doing the offices & loving services to such a landlord. I would bee sorry you should stay long in the loathsomeness of Ireland for death & misery is in fashion there & much worne by the best men whome I feare least you should so much imitate & do as they do: dy. and so sir before I can see you I must dy to for my ernest desyre of seing you must make more hast then naturally I should how much better cheap may you see England your desirous frends & peace & poore me, by returning? I dare not doubt but that at your retorne you wilbe content that I see you & to give me some knowledg thereof if you come into our parts that I may (if in no other worthines) yet in shewing my love to you justify that conceit which throug mr. W. you disdayne not to embrace of me. which I would faine that I could tell you here in England for in Ireland tis against your discretions to beleeve any thinge. Sir amongst all your oldest frends you have none more gladder of your love then I & this youth of my frendship hath such strenght that I hope it shall grow to have experience with yours & so full of a thankfull desire to see you I rest.

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Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 2). Donne to Sir Henry Goodere. Sep 1599. Commentary 9.2.1. o

your kind letter from Ireland: item 462.

294v 436 Sir if I had remembred that I should have wanted your sight I would not have beene sick or at least I would not have beene well by so ill a meanes, as taking phisick: for I am bound by making my self loose. me thinks now that they err wittyly which teach that saints see all mens actions in god as in a mirror. for I am 5 sure that if I were but glorified with your sight I should gather many particulars of ocarieres & altibaxos (as that fryer sayes) wherein fortunes tumblers are exercised at & from the Court, for I hunger to who & why & when doth what. more then any thing else Sir never I long to see you when I have drunk one potion 10 more to my health & weakned my self I shalbee strong enough to find you at oEssex or rather then not at all at Court where you shall find me (a miracle in that place) your honest frend Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 10). Donne to Wotton. Early 1598. Commentary 9.2.1.

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carieres & altibaxos: respectively French for ‘careers’ and Spanish for ‘ups and downs’; ‘that fryer’ has not been identified. o Essex: perhaps at Essex House, or more likely at the Earl’s country residence at Wanstead, now in London E11, but then in the county of Essex, to which he retired after the inglorious Islands voyage. o

437 (Marginal note: writen from Plymouth)   The first act of that play which I sayd I would go over the water to see is done & yet the people hisse. how it will end I know not oast ego vicissim Cicero. it is true that oJonas was in a whales belly three dayes but hee came not voluntary as I did nor was troubled with the stinke of 150 land soldiers as wee. & I was there 20 dayes of so very very bad weather that even some of the marriners have beene drawen to thinke it were not altogether amisse to pray & my self heard one of them say god help us. for all our paynes wee have seene the land of promise spaine whether wee shall enter or no I guess not I think there is a oblott in there tables but perchaunce tis not on our dice to hitt it. wee are now againe at plymouth quasi ply=mouth; for wee do nothing but eate & scarce that. I think when wee came in the burghers tooke us for the spanish fleet for they have either hid or convayd all there mony. never was extreame beggery so extreamely obrave except when a company of mummers had lost theire box. I do not think that 77 oKelleys could distill o10l out of all the towne he that hath supt and hath 2 or 3s in his purse is a king; for none hath a crowne. fayth lands jerkins knighthoods are reprobate pawnes & but for the much gay cloathes (which yet are much melted) I should thinke, wee were in utopia: all are so utterly coyneles. in one bad bare word the want is so generall that the Lord generall wants & otill this day wee wanted the Lord generall: you will pardone me if I write onothing ernest. Salute all whome thou lovest in my name & love me as I would deserve./

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Hand D1(including marginal note). Printed by Simpson (No. 1). Donne, perhaps to John Egerton. Early Aug 1597. Commentary 9.2.1. Donne presumably wrote ‘ast ego vicissim risero’ [but then it will be my turn to laugh], the final line of Horace’s Epode XV, and D1, unfamiliar with the quotation, misread ‘risero’ as ‘Cicero’, or perhaps mistakenly ‘corrected’ what was before him. o Jonas: the prophet Jonah, whose disobedience of the Lord brought a storm upon the ship in which he was fleeing God’s wrath. He was thrown overboard by the o

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crew, and endured three days in the belly of a great fish (Jonah 1 and 2). Cf. ‘The Storme’, a verse-letter to Christopher Brooke, written at about this time and probably prompted by the same aborted voyage: ‘Jonas, I pitty thee, and curse those men, / Who when the storm rag’d most, did wake thee then’ (33–34). o blot: in backgammon, an exposed piece liable to be taken; to hit a blot is to take such a piece (OED). o brave: fine, showy (OED 2). o Kelleys: Edward Kelley (1555–95), alchemist and quack, employed by Emperor Rudolph II to produce the Philosopher’s Stone (Louise Schleiner, ‘Kelley, Sir Edward (1555–1597/8)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2004). Subtle, in Jonson’s The Alchemist, is described by Mammon as ‘A man the emperor / Has courted, above Kelly’ (IV.1.89). 10l: ten pounds; 2 or 3s: two or three shillings; there were twenty shillings to the pound, and a ‘crown’ was five shillings. o Essex returned from Court to Plymouth on 8 or 9 August (Bald, Donne, p. 88, quoting The Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, ed. by M. Oppenheim (Navy Records Society, 1902) ii, 54–55) which enables the precise dating of this letter. o nothing ernest: Donne, conscious that his letter may be read by others than the addressee, needs to disclaim any whiff of disaffection which might be interpreted as treason.

295r 438 Madam. I will have leave to speake like a lovor, I am not altogether one: for though I love more then any yett my love hath not the same marke & end with others. How charitably you deale with us of these parts? that at this tyme of the yeare (when the sunn forsakes us) you come to us & suffer us not [(]out of your 5 mercy) to tast the bitternes of a winter: but Madam you owe me this releif because in all that part of this sommer which I spent in your presence you doubled the heat and I loved48 under the rage of a hott sonn & your eyes. that hart which you melted then no winter shall freise but it shall ever keepe that equall temper 10 which you gave it soft enough to receave your impressions & hard enough to retayne them. it must not tast to you as a negligence or carelesnes that I have not visited your Ladyship in these dayes of your being here call it rather a devout humylyty that I thus aske leave & bee content to beleeve from him that can as 15 impossibly ly to you as hate you that by commaundment I am sodenly throwne out of the towne so dayly and diversly are wee 48 ‘loved’: both the Clarendon scribe and Bell transcribe this word as ‘lived’, but, as Dennis Flynn pointed out to me, magnification makes it clear that ‘loved’ is what D1 penned.

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tempested that are not our owne. at my retourne (which therefore I will hasten) I wilbee bold to kiss that fayre vertuous hand which doth much in receaving this letter & may do easyly much more in sending another to him whose best honor is that hee is your leiuetenant of himself./ Anonimos. Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 16) and by Bell. Donne to Anne More. Oct 1601. Commentary 9.2.2.

439 I must wonder that since my comming to London I have not many tymes heard from you from whom I expected a truer representation of those parts where you live then from any other vessell of lesse receipt and indeed besyde your love you should yeeld somwhat in this to our present humors which if 5 they have not matter of truth to worke uppon are likely to breed in themselves some monstruous imaginations. Wee are put into beamorris by the scanting of the wind upon us which to me is a preparation for oIr sts. May I after this kisse that faire & learned hand of your Mistris then whome the world doth posesse 10 nothing more vertuous farwell sodenly for if I should give way to myself I should begin againe. Sir It were not only a wrong but a kind of violence to put you in mynd of my buisnes and therefore the end of this is only to salute you. farwell you must not forgett osepties in hebdomada 15 to visit my best and dearest att oThr. Hand D1, postscript in a different hand. Printed by Pearsall Smith (I, 306) and Simpson (p. 334). Wotton to Donne. Apr 1599. Commentary 9.2.1. ‘Ir: sts’. Thus the MS. Pearsall Smith suggests ‘Irish storms’, but it is not a common abbreviation, and ‘states’, ‘struggles’, or even ‘starvations’ (related to ‘scanting’) might be hazarded. o septies in hebdomada: presumably ‘hebdomade’ [seven times weekly]. o Thr.: see commentary. o

295v 440 (Marginal note: they shake49 without flattery that which without suspicion of flattery I cannot repeate.) o Omnes omnia bona dicere et laudare fortunas meas Qui amicum haberem tali ingenio praeditum. So much of that matter. your 49 The scribe has written ‘shake’, although presumably Donne (if the note be his) wrote ‘spake’.

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The Burley manuscript last (if it were so) the 25 of Ja: was but receaved this morning so that it lost the grace in a kind of affectation of gravity. I had rather you would send your letters in your ofrench then in your spanish pace to me. I am now free from an ague though I am afrayd the state bee not so for certaynly the court hath in it much unnaturall heate & the courts & seats of princes are the harts of all realms which taking forme from theyre humors are more or lesse corrupted as they confine or enlarge theyre owne wills: when I speake of the wills of princes I speake of verie unlimited things: well what so ever our diseases are I must wish that which perhaps is ovotum melioris civis qua viri. that is that they may be contagious: my meaning is I would have other states (or neighbours) infected with them as well as our selvs least within a while there be no historie so rich of great errors nor peradventure of great vices as ours. it was an excellent brag of oLivies that the Roman state (whose actions he entended to deliver) was of all others in the world most fertill of good examples. I call it a brag & so think it for certaynly all tymes are of owne nature & all courts produce the same effects of envie & detraction of jelousy & other humane weakneses. thus it must be till we gett above the moone whose motions as some have ingeniously erred do make us variable. I can from hence requite you with no news which hath made me fill paper with the vanyty of myne owne discourse. it shall end in letting you know that in this place you are more unacquaynted, then obscure. & so I wish us a better world./

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Hand D1 (marginal note in a similar but not identical hand, possibly P). Printed by Simpson (No. 4). Donne to Wotton. Feb 1598? Commentary 9.2.1. o Omnes omnia bona dicere et laudare fortunas meas / Qui amicum haberem tali ingenio praeditum: Donne quotes from Terence, Andria, I.i.96–98, substituting ‘amicum’ (friend) for ‘gnatum’ (son) [Everyone spoke well of him and congratulated me on my good fortune in having a friend blessed with such character]. o french [...] spanish: presumably, he would rather they came nimbly than lazily. This seems so clear an expression of national stereotypes (from an English standpoint) that one is surprised not to find it in the OED. o votum melioris civis qua viri [A promise of a better subject than a man]: Donne’s subsequent explanation is unclear, but he seems to mean that, while the wish to infect other states is an unworthy one in an honourable man, it is nevertheless a patriotic one in a citizen. o Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Preface: ‘nulla unquam res publica nec maior nec sanctior nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit’ [There has never been any state greater, more moral, or richer in good examples].

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441 I will answere your letter bycause I remember I had a promyse from you of many of them which is not easy for you to make me forgive you. I understand Sir Maurice Barkly is in towne I have sent my man unto him ocum salute plurima, but dare not wish him where we shall meet at supper least I commit some exces of 5 gladnes. We are here yet not contented though the very lookes of princes be satisfactorie: but as honest minds are ^not^ apt to do wrong so no doubt they receave the deepest impresions of injuries. I am glad of your frendship for many 296r  causes & amongst the rest you shall give me leave to make this 10 use of it. that wee may sometymes togeather privately speake of the course of these word[l]y things which are governed with [with]50 much instability. I will conclude that ovirtus is in terris peregrina in cælo civis. Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 5). Donne to Wotton? 1598? Commentary 9.2.1. cum salute plurima [with many greetings]: Donne adapts the conventional salutation ‘S.P.D.’, used in Latin correspondence (see, for instance, item 292). Sir Maurice Berkeley served with Donne and Wotton on the Cadiz expedition, and Wotton, at least, probably knew him earlier (see Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 22n.). o virtus is in terris peregrina in cælo civis: [Virtue] consists in [travelling this world as a citizen of Heaven]. o

442 Madam. I am intangled in a double affliction by being accused not only to have heard (which is a forfeyture of my service & place in your favor) but to have spoken dishonorably of you. I find not my self to be so ospungy either to take in or powre out so easyly. and I am sure you would not thinke me worthy to bee 5 pardoned for any fault if I should confessingly aske a pardon for this it would move me less that the envious world should speake this, because envy (which cannot be driven from accompanying vertue) is foule spoken; & therefore naturally slaundering. but I must wonder with greife that my Lord Latmer whose discre- 10 tion & allowaunce of my love to him I should much prise one by no meanes (knowne to me) interested in your honor or com­passionate in your dishonor otherwise then generall nobility borne in him instructeth him should load Mr Davies 50 D1 has repeated the word ‘with’ at the end of one line and the beginning of another.

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The Burley manuscript with the oppression of having dishonored you & derive it from him to me. I heere your father hath taken it for good fuell of anger against Mr davis & ^perchaunce^ me to. I do easylyer forgive his anger then his credulity: for it is pitty he should have beene any instrument in the building of so fayre a pallace as you are and so furnishing it as his care hath done if he would not be angry with any defect. but (methinks) it cannot become your discretion which I think you inherit from him to unbridle his suspicion so much to the prejudice of my understanding & honesty. though my merites be not such as that they ever do works of superrogation, yet I durst upon my conscience acquit him of ever conceaving unworthyly of you. but the reverence & respect I have alwayes loved you commaunds me to employ all my force in keeping myself in your good thoughts & to leave you well assured, not that I ever spake but that I never heard ill word from any man which might be wrested to the impeachment of your honor which here I sweare to you by my love & by that fayre learned hand which I humbly kisse. & take leave./

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296v 443 Sir. That love which went with you followes & overtakes & meetes you if words seald up in letters be like owords spoken in those frosty places where they are not heard till the next thaw they have yet this advantage that where they are heard they are herd only by one or such as in his judgment they are fitt for. I am 5 no Courtier for without having lived there desirously I cannot have sin’d enough to have deserv’d that reprobate name. I may sometymes come thither & bee no courtier as well as they may sometymes go to chapell & ^yet^ are no christians. I am there now where because I must do some evill I envy your being in 10 the country not that it is a vice will make any great shew here for they live at a far greter rate & expence of wickednes. but because I will not be utterly out of fashion & unsociable. I gleane

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such vices as the greater men (whose barnes are full) scatter. yet I learne that the learnedst in vice suffer some misery for when they have reapd flattery or any other fault long there comes some other new vice in request wherein they are unpracticed. only the women are free from this charg for they are sure they cannot bee worse nor more throwne downe then they have beene: they have perchance heard that god will hasten his judgment for the rigtheous sake. & they affect not that hast & therefore seeke to lengthen out the world by theire wickednes. The Court is not great but full of jollyty & revells & playes and as merry as if it were not sick. her majestie is well disposed & very gratious in publique to my Lord oMountjoy my Lord of Essex & his trayne are no more mist here then the Aungells which were cast downe from heaven nor (for any thing I see) likelyer to retourne. he withers still in his sicknes & plods on to his end in the same place where you left us. the worst accidents of his sicknes are that he conspires with it & that it is not here beleeved. that which was sayd of Cato that his age understood him not I feare may be averted of your Lord that he understood not his age: for it is a naturall weaknes of innocency. That such men want lockes for themselves & keyse for others./ Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 6). Donne to Wotton. Christmas season 1599/1600. Commentary 9.2.1. Rabelais (IV, 55) speaks of ‘words being spoken in some Country during a hard winter are immediately congeal’d, frozen up and not heard’; and in Ch. 56 of the appearance of different sorts of words, and the sound of their unfreezing (P. Motteux, Works of Francis Rabelais, M.D. (London, 1604), IV, 218–221). o Mountjoy was made Lord Deputy of Ireland in November, although he did not depart thither until February 1600 (Christopher Maginn, ‘Blount, Charles, Eighth Baron Mountjoy and Earl of Devonshire (1563–1606)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). Essex, who had had to surrender his own appointment as Lord Lieutenant, was sick and under house arrest at York House (Paul E. J. Hammer, ‘Devereux, Robert, Second Earl of Essex (1565–1601)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). o

297r 444 Sir. Me thinks your good discretion should not call ill fortunes faults, nor threaten me with your sylence because I wanted meanes to answere your last letter. it is not an age to looke for faultlesnes in your frend it is well if wee err reasonably &

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e­ xcusably therefore if you coole not in frendship be not loath to write for letters are frendships sacraments. & wee should be in charyty to receave at all tymes. I would bee loath to find a languishing or decay in my frends affections which I feare the lesse bycause theire good opinions are not built or sustained by any my desert which would soone fayle but by theire owne judgments from which every man is loath to depart but if that should fall out it would well suite with these tymes which are arived to that height of illnes that no man dares accuse them bycause every one contributes much himself to that accesse. Wee have a new fashioned valor to suffer any thing rather then misery a new fashioned wisdome to cover imperfections: & envy (which not exceeding the limits of emulacion & desire to equall worthy men perchaunce is no fault) is now growne a perfect vice. for hereto fore is [it] was but oposed to good fortune & so men might be ^thought^ to rich now it is oposd to vertue & a man may be to good. If vices bee extremities I wonder how every day such growth & additions: but if wee complayne no otherwise then former ages, that is, if because wee see & feele our owne tymes perfectlyest wee accuse most & that prophecy of oHorace Etas parentum prior etc belongs also to our tymes, it may serve us for comfort (though a hard shift) that are already borne. and if as those which travayle to the pole call the english sothernly peoples so the world shall last to a tyme so wicked that our age shalbe thought good in respect of that as we do of former ages it is not 600 yeres nor 6000 which will bring the world to his period our wickednes is to strong & stubborne to be so soone weakened why then should wee much desire lyfe or her delights since we see much ill & feare more: since to bee out of fashion is to bee rude & barbarous & to be in fashion is to bee dishonest since poverty is dispised & hapines envyed? since vertue is not only not worne as a compleat royall garment but not as a color 297v  or a skarfe:51 no man desiring now to cover his vice with her shew. against these batteries Sir you do well to frame you an armor of that mettall which nature hath infused into you, & the love of learning hath hammered & fashioned: & being so strong against these assaults as you are why should you hyde yourself in the Cuntry when wee worse provided live here in the Court 51 D1 provides catchwords ‘or a’ at the foot of f. 297r, but begins f. 297v with ‘or skarf ’.

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& citty in continuall battayle & yet I hope keep the reputation of honest men. but for my particular I do it not of judgment or choyce as they which purpose to conquer the ohelvetians as divers others destroyed first there owne townes & burnt theire 45 ships to quench all hope of revenging, so am I in this warfare enforced to fight it out bycause I know not whether to run: I cannot therefore honestly perswade you to abandon the Country bycause if my fortunes fitted it I should perswade you to stay there by my example. yet I desyre much sometyme to see you 50 here & to have a litle trip though not fall nor stumble att ambitions or other distractions. least I seing an honest man happy should begin for your sake to love the world againe which I would be loath to do./ Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 7). Donne to Wotton. December 1599. Commentary 9.2.1. Donne quotes the final stanza of Horace’s Ode 3.6, D1 rendering ‘peior’ in line 46 as ‘prior’: ‘Damnosa quid non inminuit dies? / aetas parentum, peior avis, tulit / nos nequiores, mox daturos / progeniem vitiosiorem’ [What has injurious time not diminished? / Our parents were not the men their fathers were, / and they bore children worse than themselves, / whose children will be baser still. (Trans.: Horace, The Complete Odes and Epodes: A New Translation by David West (Oxford: Oxford University Press World’s Classics, 1997), p. 86). o A reference to Caesar, De Bello Gallico, v, where he writes that, having decided to overrun Gaul, the Helvetii ‘Ubi iam se ad eamrem paratos esse arbitrati sunt, oppida sua omnia, numero ad duodecim, vicos ad quadringentos, reliqua privata aedificia incendunt, frumentum omne, praeter quod secum portarturi erant, comburunt, ut domum reditionis spe sublata paratiores ad omnia pericula subeunda essent’ [When they thought they were at length prepared for the undertaking, they set fire to their towns, in number about twelve, to their villages, about four hundred, and to the private dwellings that remained, they burn up all the corn, except what they intend to carry with them, so that after destroying the hope of return home, they might be the more ready for undergoing all dangers]. o

445 Sir. as well in Love as in greife why should not sylence be interpreted a signe rather of store then want? so if you construe myne at this tyme you shall not be mistaken. & besydes your frendly censure of me will deserve thanks: Let me intreat you mayntayne this Love betweene us by this meanes of sylent discoursing whereby I shall hold the defect of absence half cured & made by conceit a well formed presence untill it may be so indeed.

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The Burley manuscript which I will further. And although you can never receave from me so worthy a love as may justly deserve yours yet you shall have mine what it is in the highest measure & if your gentle 10 disposition can frame it pleasing to your self I shall hold myself happy because I have my most ernest desyre satisfied in being reputed as I am           your honest frend.

Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 17). Donne to Wotton. July 1598. Commentary 9.2.1.

298r 446 Sir. I promised a jorney like godfathers which promise & vow o three things for children before they know whether it bee in the childrens destiny to bee able to keepe there vowes or no. for I am since overtaken, & mett & inwrapd in busineses which I could nether suspect nor avoyd: nothing else could have made 5 me committ this omission. for which yet I will not aske pardon bycause you cannot give it & my verie offence of not comming is my punishment I meane the want of that good company you have & are. Sir I would some great princes or men were dead so I might chuse them or some states 52or oCountryes overthrown 10 so I were not in them that I might have some news to ease this itch of writing which travayles me for in our owne or in the o d’amours Court I know nothing worth your reporting whereof I might justyfy this reprobate headlong letter. which least I heape up many sins I will here cut off. 15          alwayes & all wayes yours. Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 8). Donne, probably to Wotton. Christmas season, 1597–98. Commentary 9.2.1. At infant baptism, godparents promise that the child will ‘forsake the devill and all his workes, and constantly beleeve Gods holy worde, and obediently keepe his commandements’ (BCP, 1588). o The implication of the maniculum is discussed in Chapter 6. o d’amours Court: The Christmas revel Prince d’Amour was acted at the Middle Temple in the 1597–98 Christmas season. o

52 A maniculum appears in the left margin, pointing at the line beginning ‘or Countryes overthrowne’.

The manuscript text 447 Sir. In this sickly dotage of the world where vertue languisheth in a banishment I must be glad shee hath found so holesome a dwelling in your mind that dares not only harbor her, but avouch it by your words & deeds. for it is as dangerous to have vertue in this world as it wilbe to have wanted it in the next & I am sure to find more sinners in heaven then honest men upon the earth. yet Sir the greatest harme that honesty doth you is that it arests my judgment & suffers it not to go forward to consider your witt your learnings & other worthineses. because methinks I have taken a ritch prise & made a rare discoverie when I have found an honest man: & therefore whatsoever you have more then honesty is the wast and unthriftynes of nature: I know it a fault to commend a thing so much out of fashion as honesty yet since I desire infinitely to contract a frendship with you (bycause I know how far you overstripp me in all other vertues) I stand most upon honesty with which I have had most acquaintance & society. I am best able to keep wing with you in it though you sore high. I have now red one letter from you since I saw you & by it see I should have bee[n] glad of more: when you think my letter or me worthy of oftner salutations, write & when one of your letters perisheth without answere & thanks 298v  lett me forfeit you. I had almost condemned you of forgetting me but you are saved by oyour booke. which I will keep till it pleaseth [you] to dispose it otherwise. Sir in a long & well studied oration no man shalbee able to commend to you an honester love then this galloping letter doth: & therefore till the next commodity of sending let me here kisse your hand & vow to you the observaunces of          your servant & lover

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Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 12). Donne to Wotton. Perhaps late Oct or early Nov 1597. Commentary 9.2.1. your booke: probably a manuscript copy of The State of Christendom, written in 1594, but not published until 1657, many years after Wotton’s death.

o

448 Sir. I am no great Voyager in other mens works no swallower nor devowrer of volumes nor persuant of authors: perchance it is because I find borne in my self knowledg or apprehension

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enough for (without forfeiture or impeachment of modesty) I think I am bond to god thankfully to acknowledg it)53 to consyder him & myself: as when I have at home a convenient garden I covet not to walk in others broad medows or woods especially because it falls not within that short reach which my foresight embraceth to see how I should employ that which I already know to travayle for inquiry of more were to labor to gett a stomach & then find no meat at home. To know how to live by the book is a pedantery, & to do it is a bondage. for both hearers & players are more delighted with voluntary then with sett musike. And he that will live by precept shalbe long without the habite of honesty: as he that would every day gather one or two feathers might become brawne with hard lying before he make a featherbed of his gettings. That oErle of Arundell that last dyed (that tennis ball whome fortune tossing & obanding brikwald into the hazard) in his impriso[n]ment used more then much reading, & to him that asked him why he did so he answered he read so much lest he should remember something. I am as far from following his counsell as he was from opetruccios: but I find it true that after long reading I can only tell you how many books I have read. I do therefore more willingly blow & keep awake that smale coole which god hath pleased to kindle in me mee then farre off to gather a faggot of greene sticks which consume without flame or 299r  heat in a black smoother: yet I read something but indeed not so much as to avoyd as to enjoy idlenes. even when I begun to write these I flung away Dant the Italian, a man pert enough to bee beeloved & to much to bee beeleeved: it angred me that o Celestine a pope far from the manners of other popes that he left even there seat should by the court of Dants witt bee attached & by him throwne into his purgatory. & it angred me as much, that in the life of a pope he should spy no greater fault, then that in the affectation of a cowardly securyty ohe slipt from the great burthen layd upon him. alas? what would Dant have him do? thus wee find the story related: ohe that thought himself next in successsion by a trunke through a wall whispered in Celestines eare counsel to remove the papacy: why should not Dant be content with to thinke that Celestine tooke this for as 53 The repetition of the closing parenthesis is in the MS.

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imediate a salutacion & discorse of the holy ghost as Abrahim 45 did the commandment of killing his sonn? if he will need punish retyrednes thus what hell can his witt devise for ambition? & if white integryty merit this what shall oMale or Malum which Seneca condems most deserve? but as the chancellor oHatton being told after a decree made that his predecessors was of 50 another opinion he answered hee had his genius & I had myne: So say I of authors that they thinke & I thinke both reasonably yet possibly both erroniously, that is manly: for I am so far from perswading yea conselling you to beleeve others that I care not that you beleeve not mee when I say that others are not to bee 55 beleeved: only beleeve that I love you and I have enough./ I have studied philosophy therefore marvayle not if I make such accompt of arguments oquae trahunte ab effectibus.54 Hand D1. Postscript in an italic hand not met elsewhere. Printed by Simpson (No. 9), who (using the Clarendon transcript) ascribes footnote to P. Donne to Wotton. Late 1597. Commentary 9.2.1. Philip Howard, thirteenth Earl of Arundel, died in the Tower in October 1595 after ten years’ sojourn for (among other things) Catholicism and conspiracy (J. G. Etzinga, ‘Howard, Philip, (St. Philip Howard), Thirteenth Earl of Arundel (1557–1595)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2004). o banding: as in ‘bandying’, hitting to and fro; to ‘brickwall’: to rebound off the wall, as a boast in squash; hazard: each of the winning openings in a (real) tennis court (OED). o petruccios: Simpson (Prose Works, p. 313) suggests Petruccio Ubaldini, man of letters and illuminator, but it is difficult to see the relevance. Perhaps Petruchio, in Taming of the Shrew (c.1594), who brings Katharina to heel after their marriage, unlike Arundel, whose wife brought him to her Catholic faith. o In L’Inferno, Dante – although he does not name him – appears to place Celestine among those who are accepted neither by God nor by the powers of Hell, because of their cowardly refusal to make a choice in life: ‘Poscia ch’io v’ebbi alcun reconosciuto / vidi e conobbi l’ombra di colui / che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto’ (III, 58–60) [When I had recognised a few of them / I saw the shade of the one who must have been / the coward who had made the great refusal]. o Celestine V, Pope for five months in 1294, but resigned the office. o This tale of Celestine being deceived by his successor Gaetano (Boniface VIII) does not appear in the Catholic Encyclopaedia account of the resignation, perhaps unsurprisingly. o D1 has written ‘Male or Malu’, with a superscript contraction sign above the o

54 ‘quae trahunte ab effectibus’ [that are drawn from their own conclusions]: it is unclear whether the postscript is Donne’s, or a comment by the unknown scribe.

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final ‘u’, and I have therefore transcribed it as ‘Male or Malum’. The sense of this is unclear, and I think that what D1 may have had before him is some contraction of ‘Mala Malorum’. This would support Simpson’s view that the reference is to Seneca, who writes in Epistolae, XXXIX.6: ‘Serviunt itaque voluptatibus, non fruuntur, et mala sua, quod malorum ultimum est, et amant’ [And so they are slaves of their pleasures rather than delighting in them, and they even love their own wickednesses – the worst wickedness of all]. o Hatton: Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor 1587–91.

299v 449 Sir. but that I have much ernest sorrow for the losse of many deere frends in Ireland I could make shift to greive for the losse of a poore letter of mine which sought you there after oyour retorne: in which though there were nothing to bee commended but that it was well suted for the place & barbarous enough to go 5 thither: yet it should have brought the thanks & betroathed to you the love & services of one who had rather bee honest then fortunate: this letter hath a greater burthen & charge; for it caries not only an assuraunce of myself to you but it begs a pardon that I have not in these weekes sought you out in England by letters 10 & acknowledged how deep roote the kindnes of your letter hath taken in me: but as in former innocent tymes estates of lands passed safly in few words (for these many entangling clauses are ether intruded at least to prevent or breed deceit) so unchangeable frendship being ever the same & therefore not subject to 15 the corruption of these tymes may now in these few & ill lines deliver me unto you & assure you none hath better title then you in            your poore frend & Lover. Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 3). Donne to Goodere. December 1599. Commentary 9.2.1. your retorne: Probably, like most of the gentlemen following Essex in Ireland, Goodere returned with the Earl at the end of September.

o

450 I send to you now that I may know how I do bycause uppon your opinion of me all I depend: for though I be troubled with the extremyty of such a sicknes as deserves att lest pitty if not love yet I were as good to send to a conjuror for a good fortune as to a phisition for health. indeed I am oprest with such a sadnes as I

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am glad of nothing but that I am oprest with it: if it had pleased you to have norisht & brought upp so much love in your brest as you have done greife perchaunce I should have had as much love in your service as I have done greif: yet I should accompt even sorrow good payment if by myne yours were lessoned: now 10 I vene & urge my body with physick when my desperat mind is sick as they batter citty walls when the citizens are stubborne: but by all this labor of my penn my mind is no more comforted then a condemned prisoner would bee to see his chamber swypt & made clean: only you know whether ever I shalbee & only you 15 can tell me (for you are my destyny) whether I were best to dy now, or endevor to live & keep the great honor of being your servant Hand D1. Printed by Simpson (No. 13) and Bell. Donne to Anne More. November 1601. Commentary 9.2.2.

300r 451 o M.C. To excuse, where there is no trespas, is to speake what we could not what wee need: but if we do need a mutuall pardon freeth us both: such is Good Will. At my retorne out of North: I met with your remembraunce, which tould me of your travel abroad, & arrant to me: for your advauncement: for my advice. the former 5 I assure you that as I love learning for it self where ere I find it. So much more a learned wisedome purchased by a travellers experience I most admire, yea pardon me with a touch of envy. the latter gives me certayne knowledg of your Error: but for t’is error amoris I will excuse it & wish it were not so: To give you counsell 10 in these affayres were to offer much more then I can give: yet this much I dare say in generall: that the course if you go on good grounds, may be your fayrest & I wish myself such oportunyty. your body if I know it with a spare diet & good excersise you may keep sound. for your mind take but such a preparation as your 15 Cosin oNay: out of his experience can prescribe you, & I doubt not you shall go well instructed for the best of knowledg. What you know already I can tell you, that abroad tis being trusty to your self; & keep all secrets at home lockt up with you. Common curtesies bring good acquaintaunce that againe gives oportu- 20 nyty to observe that which happyly is not in us: but in all keep distaunce still. to intrust as a secret that which is not, in some

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The Burley manuscript kind of people wins there love: seeme to suspect none. seeme not to observe. be not covetuous of newes. nor lavish in report. to be factious in any religion where are many may breed you 25 daunger curtesy you shall find much more common there then honesty preserve the one, the other you may requite without much cost. for your private with Sir H.W. I can say nothing for I know not your employment nor what course you meane to hold with him: In these kind of courses or the like we see so many 30 hopes so many discontentments all such uncertaynties crossing each other still in all, that I find my self far below the degree of a counseller to direct in any. oper varios casus per tot discrimina rerum tendring in Latium sedes ubi fata quietas ostendunt. your desire hath made me betray my weakenes. the messenger that 35 brought your note stays for this therfore no more. Love me as you were wont & I will never cease to bee Your H[umb]l[e] S[ervant]

In a hand of the same style as D1, but bolder, with more flourishes, and with occasionally different orthographic idiosyncrasies, e.g. ‘weakenes’ in the last line but two. Printed by Simpson (No. 18) who, using the Clarendon transcript, ascribes it to D1. Donne to an unknown correspondent. After 1604. Commentary 9.2.3. Heading ‘M.C.’: perhaps the addressee’s initials, although this feature is found nowhere else among the letters. Nay: not identified. Donne quotes Virgil, Aeneid, I.204–206: ‘per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum / tendimus in Latium, sedes ubi fata quietas / ostendunt’ [Through various chances, through many perilous events, our way is still to Latium, where the fates offer a home of rest]. The scribe has written ‘tendring’ for ‘tendimus’.

o o

300v 452 Right Honorable Lord: It may seem strang to you that upon so short a commendation & lesse abylyty of desert in me I should so sodenly importune your Honors favor but emboldened by the relation of the world in satisfying all excusable demands & presuming in the necessary respect of this importunyty I hope 5 my boldnes will find excuse or at least favorable censure: May it please your Honor therefore. I arrived in oRaguza a month ago where I remayned twenty daeys from whence to oParentio & so to Venice in a smale barke & opotentos from both places: yet I feare purgatory & therefore so farr as with modesty I may 10 I crave your Honors favor in procuring absolution: & fearing

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to be tedious in further relation of my suite unto you I besech your Honor to send your Secretary where I am in a banke right over against the house of the oSanitorium with whose help I may with lesse offence of circumstaunce recommend this my suite & 15 service to your Honor Thus least I should fold up many errors in one I humbly take my leave & vow the observaunces of him who is your Honors most obliged. A similar hand to Parkhurst’s, but with variations that make this uncertain. Printed by Simpson, p. 335. Unknown correspondent to Wotton, as Ambassador in Venice. Commentary 9.2.3. Raguza: presumably Marina di Ragusa, on the southern coast of Sicily; Ragusa, the chief city of the region, is about fifteen miles inland. o Parentio: Coastal town in Istria, then a Venetian dependency; modern Poreč, in Croatia. o potentos: Simpson puts forward the suggestion of C. T. Onions that the sense is ‘permits’ or ‘passports’ (Simpson, Prose Works, p. 335). The OED has ‘potent’ n.2 3: a military warrant or order’. o Sanitorium: incoming vessels were held at the Lazaretto Nuovo, on the (now sunken) island of Vigna Murada, at the entrance to the lagoon, until it was established that they were free of plague. o

453 Sir. To write to you newes were to give you a coppie of the original that you have already receaved: yet some what I must say only to tell tell you (though it may be superfluous) only to lett you knowe that I doe not make daynty of my paines. &c. I pray pardon my want of ceremony you shall find my Love within my letter and your Lordship on the backe of my letter.

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Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 23). Probably to Wotton. Commentary 9.2.3.

454 Sir. My Love makes me write unworthy lettres and yet you had wont to measure a letter by the Love of the writer: then have I matter enough, for I know this assuredly that this letter hath love enough to make it worthy, were he worth any thing that writes it therefore bycause he loves you. yet least I say nothing lett my [lines]55 tell you Sir that the sleeping preacher is sent for ^againe^ to the king for that contrary to his promise he practises againe 55 [lines]: the MS reads ‘my tell you’, but some such insertion is needed for the sense.

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The Burley manuscript which makes some report that his former confession was untrue and extorted and that it was in him an act either natural or divine: for my self I am assured that never Heriticke or any other Inno- 10 vator of State or Religion tooke a more dangerous course then hee doth or more more powerfull to perswade a people were not the king as ready to prevent. The particularities you shall have by the next. In the meane tyme assure your self that your commands 15 shall never be able to surprise or surcharge me.

Hand P. printed by Simpson (No. 26). Probably to Wotton. 1605/6. Commentary 9.2.3. Ff. 301–306 appear to be a single gathering, started at the front with item 455, running to item 466 in the middle, f. 303v. Another start comes at the other end of the gathering, f. 306v. beginning with item 483, which is inverted, and then followed by items 482–467, in reverse order and also inverted. Item 467 finishes on the same page in the middle, f. 303v.

301r 455 Sir. The relacion of occurrences here I leave to this gentleman Mr. William Strachey all wayes my good frend (who is desirous your Lordship should knowe so much) and sometymes secretary to Sir. T.G:. I dare boldly say that the greatest folly he ever committed was to submitt himself and parts to so meane 5 Master. you may thinke this a preposterous course in steed of commending a gentleman to open his imperfections, but I know your Lordship so wise as out of contraries to gather^draw^56 true and necessarie conclusions: and to say but truth for me to open my mouth in his commendations were but to play the owle 10 or some other bird in a painted cloath in whose mouth some sentence is put which most men know: and so of his vertues. only this I shall intreat that bysyde his merit he may for my sake find himself welcome. Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 31). Doubtfully by Donne, probably to Wotton. 1607–9. Commentary 9.2.3.

456 Sir. All this while like a silk worme I worke myself into a obottome or clew and by my sylence and contemplation of your honorable merits I am so increased in my inward Love and desire to 56 In the MS, ‘draw’ is written immediately above ‘gather’, neither being crossed out. Perhaps Parkhurst’s conjectures about a blotted or torn word in his copy-text.

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doe you service, as when you shalbee pleased to untwine me, you shall find enough in my desires though perhaps my thred of 5 performance be very small. If therefore in the accompts you cast of your frends you do not summ me upp amongst the rest it will very much greive and molest me, bycause though57 others take me only for a cypher to increase the number of their frends yet I am ambitious to be reputed of some number with you whose 10 frendship I know and judgment admitts no cypher. And bycause I cannot communicate with my frends that which I know I will tell you that it did much rejoyce my hart when I heard omy Lord E by his honorable testimony give great reputation to the Lord Ambassador of Venice as to one of very great fidelitie and excel- 15 lent dexterity and skill in publicke of busineses of which he had given acceptable proofe and experience to his Majestie: now as I doubt not but your desyre to merit him, so (if you willbe pleased not to thinke I presume to advise you) besyde that satisfaction of your excellent dispatches nothing wilbe more acceptable 20 then some such models and frames &c. I speake this (without commission) for that I know both your dispositions and I desire to encrease his good opinion of you. Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 29). Donne to Wotton. After 1604. Commentary 9.2.3. bottom: OED has ‘bottom, 15(a): a clew or nucleus on which to wind thread’, and ‘clew, (2), a ball formed by winding thread’. o my Lord E: Sir Thomas Egerton, Donne’s old employer, was raised to the barony of Ellesmere in 1603. o

301v 457 Sir. your letter of the 26 of oMay came unto my hand within the space of 20 dayes as if your goodnesse were not contented with the bare extending it self unto your poore dependents, but with the rare company of expedition: what comfort bysydes the honor it was unto me I best know that have felt the effects, neither can it be unknown to your self from whence the course hath so literally flown, though what the advantage will bee I must refer to future event which I hope shortly will fall out if it fall not in the meane tyme into the ordinarie Court apoplexie of forgetfullnes. I would

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gladly passe from hence to the performance of some service of relation, if either my desyre or meanes of knowing the tymes evills did agree with my forwardnes to serve you. somethinge I have learnd since my comming of church affayres I will keep my self within my compasse. It is great pittie to see the distractions of it, on the one syde challenged for innovation, on the other accused of antiquitie that if it were not as it is placed in the saftie of mediocritie there were small hope of endurance, and it might seeme strange that so many disagreements should breke out if it the hand of God had not sett this as his owne marke uppon it. The Puritans increase from theire discontents they receave at the Bishops and the papists rise by theire disagreements: they be two new names invented by the divel as visards to scarr men from all ancient learning and godly liveving. meere names they are and words of tyme; if your aske what the things are signified, either the answere shalbe nothing or as many things as you have answeres. it will never be agreed what they are. for my part I repent me of my paynes taken in my studie and am resolved to sett my self downe in myne Inn, and neither medle nor make in the world further then by my prayers and good wishes. I make accompt to find some contentment at home or at the worst some such discontentment as may divert myne eyes from the publicke. but whilst I remember my self I forgett you. I growe tedious. The Bishop of Glocester is removed to London by the meanes of [ ]58 as much for his instrumental as vocal fittnesse which I name you rather that you may see the wisdome of our Archbishop in preferring those of without partialitie those whome they find fitt I say so bycause there is now a difference put betwixt fittnesse and worthinesse and many worthy there may bee to have good place which are not fitt to doe the evills of them. The Archbishop is a man 302r  compounded of puritanisme and policy the one in judgment the other in state. I beginn to grow wild it is tyme to take up my self and to committ you to God, and your more weighty affayres. so I rest.

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The MS has ‘Ma:’; May, rather than March, must be intended because of the later reference to the translation of the Bishop of Gloucester, Thomas Ravis, to the see of London, which took place in May 1607.

o

458 If you ^please to^ write I will with all gladnes answere your letters: yf you please to be sylent yet will I answere your affection which need not be testified unto ^me^ by letters; whereof myne owne sure knowledg and ^the^ cleerenesse of my soule unto you will not suffer me to have the least doubt. You have all 5 liberty with me, all authoritie over me. Only it doth very much trouble me that any thing (what I cannot ghesse) should deprive me of the happines I was wont to have in your letters whereby I have enjoyed you at such distants: that makes me doubt least I have made some fayle in judgment (for other it is impossible) 10 if so I desire you to shew it me, and chyde me for I will take it kindly and amend; if not, then chyde your self in my behalf; for one of these in Justice I crave of you. Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 27). Donne to Ann More. November 1601. Commentary 9.2.2.

459 Ad bonitatem requiritum integritas boni; ad malum sufficit singularis defectus. So59 make my letters acceptable I should admitt no discontinuitie, least, as the best of ill Divines (the Roman schoolemen) thinke that uppon every sinn of ours God returnes to his anger for all the old store, you should uppon my 5 new negligencies remember my old I write therefore now, rather o Ne detur vacuum then that I present any thing worthy. His Majesties &c. of your particulars I have [nought]60 to say now, and my self am not worthy of a line, not in myne owne letters, my best honor is that I have a roome in your frendship, and my 10 best merit that I give you one in my prayers. o

Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 25). Probably Donne, to an unknown correspondent, after 1603. Commentary 9.2.3. Ad bonitatem requiritur integritas boni; ad malum sufficit singularis defectus [For goodness, everything must be good; for wickedness, a single fault is enough]:

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The scribe has written ‘requiritum’ for ‘requiritur’. Donne’s version of a phrase of Aquinas, derived from Dionysius (Simpson, Prose Works, p. 326). o Ne detur vacuum: So as not to give nothing.

460 Mille volte ringratio V[ostra] E[ccellenza] dell’efficacissimi pegni della sua benignita inverso me. Prego Iddio tanto me ne rende degno quanto ella si compiocce non haver riguardo ad altra degnita che delle proprie sue virte. I must acknowledg I have no defence for this and the rest forget then the infirmity of myne owne judgment by which it was as necessary for me to comitt many errors as it is proper for your goodnes to pardon them. And so wishing you many happie yeares with that zeale which is only worthy of your acceptance I rest. o

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Hand P. Printed by Simpson (p. 334). Unknown correspondent to Wotton, at Venice. Commentary 9.2.3. Mille volte [...] sue virte [A thousand thanks Your Excellency for the most effective pledges of your generosity towards me. I pray God to render me worthy both of such great efforts, disregarding any dignity other than your own virtue]: Parkhurst’s transcription may be faulty, or the original may have had abnormal Italian orthography, and I have had to suggest in my translation probable meanings for words like ‘compiocce’ and ‘virte’.

o

302v 461 Sir. I have receaved a very kind letter from you which promiseth intrageous many more hereafter when this is more then ever I shall demerit. Howbeit I am very content of them, as some men that love to borrow money yet know not how to repay. 5 Wherefore I would have you first acquainted with my estate lest when you thinke but to lend you in effect do give: you cannot chuse but loose much by the bargaine, receaving empty lines for letters fraught with intelligence and matter Yours shall serve as so many obligations wherein I stand bond unto you; and the 10 most that myne can serve is an acknowledgment and confession of the debt; which I shall then imagine you demand at my hands whensoever you give over that which you have now begun./ Hand P. Perhaps from Donne to an unknown correspondent. Substantially the same as item 284. Commentary 9.2.3.

The manuscript text 462 Sir. You may thinke itt somewhat strang for me, being un­­­ knowne, thus to molest you unacquainted: this fashion being never or not commonly used but where itt may be warranted with some fore acquai[n]tance: but Sir I assure you itt is only an extraordinary estimation of your worth that makes me run this extraordinary course: & iff itt be constrewed that my desire familiarly to know yourself, doth worke in me as good effects, as my longest familiarity with others my meaning is not mistaken: yff out of what I write there be gathred any acceptable kindnes, that: and what is due therto I do assume unto myself: if any overboldnes. that that burthen must be borne by our deare & worthy frend Mr. H.W. whose credit I have in pawne that you shall accept these lines (as I offer them) kindly and lovingly. they have nothing in charg but to tell you that the effect of your vertue and worth besydes your autority of our forenamed frends reports have made you already knowne unto me, but that knowledg is as a tast which doth rather stir upp appetite then satisfy itt: and that therefore I do infinitely desire to increase itt by our acquaintance: and for that purpose (being unwilling to attend so long an occasion as our meeting) I do this according to the fashion of a soldier (which occupation for a while I professe) charg you with this health: that you do me reason itt shalbee an argument of exceeding curtesy, a confirmation of your frends judgment, & the world report & lastly itt shall tye unto you the love though of an unworthy yett of an honest & assured frend.

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Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 19). Henry Goodere to Donne. Summer 1599. Commentary 9.2.1.

463 That increase of his greatnes although it were enough to warme his blood & the vessels of spirits in him [yet is’t]61 certayne hath neither in his countynance nor minde made any new impressions which I do the more wonder att, bycause methought I found that day myself a litle raysed in myne owne conceipt: as servants clyme upp upon theire masters fortunes.

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Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 20). Wotton to Donne. Early 1598. Commentary 9.2.1. 61 ‘yet is’t’: the MS here is difficult to read; the Clarendon Press scribe renders it as ‘yet’, which makes sense, but what is written looks more like two words or contractions.

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303r 464 The Tyranny of a suddaine raging sicknes (comfortable in nothing but the violence of itt) assures that either itt or I are short lived having found either vertue or stubbernes inough in me, to disdaine all bitternes that it can make against my body, now assayles my mind & shews me that (by imprisoning me in my chamber[)] itt is able to deprive me of that happines which by your grace was allowed me when you gave me the priveledg of having leave to visit you I confesse that this is my sicknes worst fitt & as fearefully ominous as oTamerlins last dayes black esnsignes whose threatnings none scaped. Let not your charity therefore disdayne to coyne with me, in an honest deceit, to breake this tempest of my sicknes, and since this letter hath my name, and hand, and words and thoughts bee content to thinke itt me, & to give itt leave thus to speake to you, though you vouchsafe not to speake to itt againe. It shall tell you truly [(]for from me itt sucked no olevin of flattery) with what height or rather lownes of devotion I reverence you: who besides the commandment of a noble birth, and your perswasive eloquence of beauty, have the advantage of the furniture of arts and languages, and such other vertues as might serve to justify a reprobate fortune and the lowest condition: soe that if these things whereby some few other are named are made worthy, are to you but ornaments such might be left without leaving you imperfect. To that treasure of your vertues whereof your fayre eyes curtesy is not the lest jewell I present this paper: and if itt be not to much boldnes in itt my excuse of not visiting you. And so kindly kissing your fayre hand that vouchsafes the receipt of these lines I rest take leave.

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Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 30). Probably from Donne to the Countess of Bedford, perhaps in the winter of 1608/9. Commentary 9.2.3. Tamerlins: Cf. Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, I, IV.1. On the first day of a siege, Tamburlaine’s colours were white, signifying that he would be satisfied with plunder; on the second, red, indicating that now he needed the blood of soldiers. On the third day, if still surrender was refused: ‘Black are his collours, black pavilion; / His spear, his shield, his horse, his armour, plumes, / And jetty feathers menace death and hell; / Without respect of sex, degree, or age, / He razeth all his foes with fire and sword’ (59–63). o levin: Lightning-flash (OED). o

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465 Sir. I am come but a litle nerer to you, and I am already att my o tropicke which I cannot yet transgresse: I made a promise to you of sending my footman and though perchance I would easyly forgive me this promise yet my love of a good conscience and zeale in this religion of promises keeping promise sends him. 5 I always loved an innocence better then a pardon: and ^had^ rather have true grace then reported. I do you a litle honor in this message: for I enable you to performe that which a great conqueror out of his abundance promised to those that would come to him that othose who came footemen should retorne 10 horsemen. Att your last being att London you took (as phisitians say wisemen should so of wine) ogenerosum haustum a gallant full draught of our London pleasures: and therefore I do not hope to see you so dry as to tast us againe: I must therefore have leave here at home from you to see you in your E. which I 15 desire much & by the goodnes of my love am worthy that you desire itt too. From D: parke Mr. M house oto whome with Mr. S. & me all prayse & love remembrance of you be nowe & for ever most welcome. Amen. Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 21). Probably from Donne to an unknown correspondent, perhaps in 1607/8. Commentary 9.2.3. tropicke: Each of the two solstitial points at which the sun reaches his greatest distance north or south of the equator and ‘turns’ or begins to move towards it again (OED); thus used in the sense of a boundary. o those who came ...: I have been unable to trace this reference, although the thought is in the spirit of Tamburlaine, quoted by Donne in the previous item. o generosum haustum: Donne translates the Latin freely in the next phrase: ‘a gallant full draught’. o all prayse ...: Donne echoes, consciously or not, doxologies found in the Book of Common Prayer, e.g. the prayer of thankfulness after Holy Communion: ‘throughe Jesus Christ our lord, to whom with thee and the holy ghost be al honour and glory, world without ende. Amen’ (BCP, 1552). o

303v 466 Sir. I am so far from telling you what day I may meete you[rself?]62 at London that I am not here suffered what to resolve with whome 62 The letters in square brackets are carelessly or hurriedly written, and I am not confident about my transcription. The Clarendon transcription has ‘you may meete mee’, but this is certainly an error.

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I dine to morrow: for I find here more kindnesses then I can tell how to dispose off: which is one of the happiest poverties that I have yet falne into: beleeve me this is a place of much contentment, oJuvenes et viri, occurrunt salutant, invitant Ingens messis est. You shall grace me with the newest occurrents by this carrier of whome I will demand itt on Saturday: In the meane while be satisfyed with these few lines from a man that wheresoever he is doth languish without you. Hand P. Printed by Simpson (No. 22). Donne, perhaps to Goodere, possibly from Pyrford in 1603–5. Juvenes et viri, occurrunt salutant, invitant Ingens messis est [Youths and men meet, greet and invite; it is a huge gathering]: If this is a quotation, it has not been traced.

o

304r–304v 467 I[n]felix ingens Anima atque miuse beatas Elysii vallis sedes, castumque Piorium [...] Hand P. 66 hexameters. Begins at f. 304v and runs backwards and inverted, the last three lines appearing inverted on f. 303v, at the foot of the page bearing item 466. See note on ff. 301–306 on p. 204 above.

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468 Sur un tombeau dans l’eglise de St. J[eroni]mo [**] a Paris C’y gist le pere, cy gist la mere Cy gist la seur cy gist le frere [...]

Hand P. Four-line riddling epitaph, of an incestuous union.

469 Enigma in cornicem Res est in silvis nigro depicta colone Cor si abstuleris res erit alba in ius. Hand P. Complete entry; epigram.

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470 Calu[mn?]ius Lucianus Georgius Petreius Surge Jesu protege. Hand P. Complete entry. Failed anagram.

471 Sur l’horologe a Paris Machina quae bis sex tam juste dividis horas Justitiam servare monet legesque tueri. Hand P. Inscription by Jean Passerat (1534–1602) on the clock of the Palais de Justice: ‘This device, which divides justly the twice six hours, reminds us to serve justice and uphold the laws.’

472 Borbonius, bonus orbi: Sackt Rome, Orbus boni: Hand P. Anagrammatic epigram on Charles Bourbon (1490–1527), who sacked Rome in 1527.

473 Annag:[rammata] Guilielmus Cranbornius. Illius carnum orbi genus. Hand P. Inaccurate anagram on ‘William Cranbourne’ – William Cecil (son of Robert, Earl of Salisbury), Viscount Cranbourne from 1605 to 1612, which is consistent with the suggestion in Chapter 5 that the first three parts of Burley (up to f. 315) are predominantly earlier than 1615.

474 That killed the K: Frere Jaques Clement C’este l’enfer qui m’a cr[é]er. Hand P. Inaccurate anagram on Jacques Clément, who assassinated Henri III in 1589.

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The Burley manuscript 475 Robertus Cicilius Scelus et cruor ibi

Hand P. Inaccurate anagram on Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury.

476 Josephus Silvestrius Vere os salustii. D[*?]Parii Salustii. Hand P. Another inaccurate anagram. The reference to ‘Salustii’ indicates that the subject ‘Sylvester’ is in fact not Joseph but Joshua Sylvester (1563–1618), translator of the works of Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (1544–90), French soldier, diplomat, and poet.

477 Rolfe Winwood Nip Howard. Hand P. Very inaccurate anagram on Winwood (1563–1617), agent to United Provinces 1603–14, Secretary of State 1614–17.

305v 478 Sur le canonisation du Cardinal Borome Si quelque Diable est veritable Charles Borome trespasse [...] Hand P. Two-quatrain libel on Charles Borromeo (1538–84) who, although a reforming cardinal, admired for learning and the arts, was disliked among English Protestants for his repression of Protestants in Switzerland, and because a cult in his name had been started in England, probably by Edmund Campion.

479 Sic latine Scilicet authori Satane si credere fas est, veraque si dederit qui dare verba solet [...] Hand P. Eight-line version of 478.

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480 In Bartholomeum Burghesium Esse tuam patrem Papam Burghesius inquit Papa negat, valida sed ratione negat [...] Hand P. Four-line libel. Camillo Borghese was elected Pope as Paul V in 1605; Bartholomeo is presumably the same target as that of item 482.

306r 481 Epitaph Uppon Mr. Owen oButler of Christchurch. Why cruel death should honest Owen catch Into my mind it cannot easyly sincke Belike sterne death stood att the buttery hatch And honest Owen would not make him drinke   Yf it be so fayth Owen twas thy faught   That he for want of drinke made the his draught   Not so not so for Owen gave him liquor   And death being drunke tooke him away the quicker   Yet merry ladds lett care nere hurt your mind   The butler’s gone the keys are left behind.

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Hand P. Possibly by Richard Corbett (1582–1635), although some MSS attribute it to ‘Benjamin Stone of New College’. Another version of item 588, where it is headed ‘Owen a Butler of University Colledg’. Commentary 10.9.1. Heading: The butler was in charge of the buttery, where undergraduates procured their ‘commons’ of bread, cheese and small beer, and in whose locked cupboard were held stronger liquors, including the ingredients for punch (OED ‘butler’, 1(a) and ‘buttery’, 1(b)).

o

482 Paulus V. C’y gist sans drap linceul ny nape Barthelmis le filz du Pape [...]

Hand P. Six rhyming couplets. Paulus V was Pope 1605–21, and the ‘Barthelmy’ joined with him in this libel is presumbly the ‘Bartholomeo’ of item 480.

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306v 483 Sava quatergermino Belgarum gloria lustro   Sufficiat furiis, totum quae exercuit orbem [...] Hand P. 17 lines of verse.

307r 484 The mayntayning of Paradoxes breedes a custome of approving untruths. Why should men seeke prayse by defending falsities when in this age it is glorie enough to be a defender of truth. Hand P. Complete entry.

307v–308r Blank 308v 485 Sir. Only in obedience I send you some of my paradoxes; I love you & myself & them to well to send them willingly for they carry with them a confession of there Lightnes. & your trouble & my shame. but indeed they were made rather to deceave tyme then her odaughther truth: although they have beene written in an age when any thing is strong enough to overthrow her: if they make you to find better reasons against them they do there office: for they are but swaggerers: quiet enough if you resist them. if perchaunce they be pretyly guilt, it is there best for they are not hatcht: they are rather alarums to truth to arme her then enemies: & they have only this advantadg to scape from being caled ill things that they are nothings: therefore take heed of allowing any of them least you make another. yet Sir though I know there low price except I receave by your next letter an assurance upon the religion of your frendship that no coppy shalbee taken for any respect of these or any other my compositions sent to you, I shall sinn against my conscience if I send you any more. I speake that in playnes which becomes (methinks) our honestyes; & therfore call not this a distrustfull but a free spirit: I meane to acquaint you with all myne: and to my satyrs there belongs some feare & to some elegies & these perhaps shame. against both which affections although I be tough enough yet I have a ridling disposition to bee ashamed of feare & afrayd of shame. therfore I am desirous to hyde them without over reconing of them or there maker. but they are

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The manuscript text not worth thus much words in theyre disprayse. I will step to a better subject your last letter to which I need not tell I made no answere but I had need excuse it. all your letter I embrace & beleeve it when it speakes of your self & when of me too if the good words which you speake of me bee ment of my intentions to goodnes: for else alas! no man is more beggerly in actuall vertue then I. I am sory you should (with any great ernestnes) desyre any thing of P oAretins not that he could infect; but that it seemes you are alredy infected with the common opinion of him: beleeve me he is much lesse then his fame & was so well payd by the Roman church in that coyne which he coveted most where his bookes were by the ocounsell of Trent forbidden which if they had beene permitted to have beene worne by all long ere this had beene worne out: his divinyty was but a sirrope to enwrapp his prophane bookes to get them passage yet in these bookes which have devine titles there is least harme as in his letters most good his others have no other 309r  singularyty in them but that they are forbidden. othe psalmes (which you aske) If I cannot shortly procure you one to poses I can & will at any tyme borrow for you: In the meanetyme Sir have the honor of forgiving two faults togeather: my not writing last tyme and my abrupt ending now.

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Hand D1, followed immediately by ten paradoxes. Printed by Simpson (No. 11). Donne to Goodere. Early 1600. Commentary 9.2.1. Aulus Gellius (second century AD), Noctes Atticae, XII.11.2: ‘Alius quidam veterum poetarum, cuius nomen mihi nunc memoriae non est, veritatem temporis filiam esse dixit’ [There is another old poet, whose name I now forget, who said: ‘Truth is the daughter of Time’]. o Aretins: Pietro Aretino (1492–1557), writer of erotic verses, plays, and also of Biblical paraphrases and lives of the saints. o counsell of Trent: Aretino’s works were not placed on the Index by the Council of Trent until 1559, two years after his death. Donne was perhaps remembering that Clement VII had prohibited ‘under severe penalties’ Aretino’s Sonetti Lussuriosi shortly after their publication (Bette Talvacchia, Taking Positions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 197). o the psalmes: Aretino’s Sette Salmi were published in 1536. o

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486 That all things kill themselves To affect yea to effect theire owne deathes, all living are importuned. not by Nature only which perfects them, but by art & education which perfects her. plants quickned & inhabited by the most unworthy soule, which therefore nether will nor worke, affect an end a perfection, a death. this they spend there spiritts to attayne, this attayned they languish & wither. & by how much more by mans industry they are warmd & cherishd & pampered so much the more early they clyme to this perfection this death: and if betweene men not to defend bee to kill, what a heynous self murder is it not to defend the self: this defence because beasts neclect they kill themselves bycause they exceed us in strenght number & lawles lyberty: yea of horses they which inherit most courag by being bred of gallantest parents & by artificiall nursing bettred runn to there owne deaths nether sollicited by spurr which they neede not nor by honor which they apprehend not: yf then the valiant kill himself who can excuse the coward? and how shall man bee free from this since the first man taught us this? Except wee cannot kill our selves because hee kild us all. yett least some thing should repayre this common ruyne, wee kill dayly our bodeys with surfetts & our minds with anguishes: of our powres remembrance 309v  kills our memory: of affections lusting our lust: of vertues, giving kills liberalyty: and if these things kill themselves, they do it in there best & supreame perfection: for after perfection immediately followes excesse which chainges the nature & the neame & makes them not the same things. yf then the best things kill themselves soonest (for no perfection acquired endures) & all things labor to this perfection, all travayle to there owne deathes: yea the frame of the whole world (if it were possible for god to be ydle) yet because it begunn must dy. then in this ydlenes imagined in God what could kill the world but it self since out of nothing is?

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Hand D1. Paradox V (1633). Paradox I (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

The manuscript text 487 That woemen ought to paynt themselves. Fowlenes is loathsome: can that bee so too which helps it? who forbids his beloved to girt in her wast? to mend by shoaring her un even lamenes? to burnish her teeth or to perfume her breath? yet that the face be more precysly regarded it concernes more. for as open confessing sinners are alwayes punisht but the wary & conceald offending without witnes do it also without punishment: so the secret parts need lesse respect; but of the face discovered to all survayes & examinations, there is not to nice a jelousy: nor doth it only draw the busy eye, but also is most subject to the divinest touch of all, to kissinge, the stranng & misticall union of soules yf she should prostitute herself to a more worthy man then thyself how ernestly & justly wouldst thou complayne? then for want of this easy repayring to betray her body to deformyty the tyranous ravisher & suddayne deflowrer of all woemen what can bee a more haynous adultery? what thou most lovest in her face is color and this paynting gives that: but thou hatest yt not but because thou knowest it; foole whome only ignorance makes happy: the starrs, the sunn the sky whom thou admirest, alas have no color but are fayre because they seeme colored if this seeming will not satisfy thee in her thou hast good assurance of her color when thou seest her lay it on: yf her face 310r  bee paynted on a board or a wall thou wilt love it & the board & the wall; canst thou loath it then when it smyles, speakes & kisses because it is paynted? Is not the earths face in the most pleasing season new paynted? is not the earths face63 Are wee not more delighted with seeing birds & beasts well paynted then with the naturalls? and do wee not behold with pleasure the paynted shapes of devills & mo[n]sters whome true wee durst not regard? Wee repayre the ruine of our houses, but first cold tempest warnes us of it & bytes us through it wee mend the wracke & wash the staynes of our aparell but first our eye & other body is offending: but by this providence of woemen this is prevented: if in kissing & breathing upon her the paynting fall of thou art angry: wilt thou be so if it sticke on? thou didst love her; if you begin to hate when it falls, thou hatest her because she is not paynted if thou wilt say thou dist hate before thou didst hate & love together: be 63 The repetition of these five words without cancellation is D1’s.

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The Burley manuscript constant in some thinge & love her who shews great love in thee in taking this payne to seeme lovely to thee.

Hand D1. Paradox II (1633). Paradox II (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

488 That old men bee more fantastique then young. Who reades this paradoxe but thinks me more fantastique now then I was yesterday when I thought not this? And if one day make this sensible chainge in me, what will the burden of many yeares? to bee fantastique in young men is a conceitfull distemperature & a witty madnes; but in old men whose sences are withered it becomes naturall therefore more full & perfect: for as when wee sleep our fancy is most strong so it is in age which is a slumber of the deeepe sleep of death: They taxe us of inconstancy which in them selves young they allowed: so that reproving that which they did approve there inconstancy exceeds ours because they have once chaynged more then wee: yea they are more idle busied in conceiting apparell then wee: for wee when wee are melancholy weare blacke when lusty greene when foresaken tawny pleasing our 310v  only inward affections leaving to others indifferent; but the Elders prescribe lawes & constrayne the noble the scholler & all estates to certayne habytes. the old men of our tyme have chaynge theire patience theire bodies much of there lawes, much of language yea theire religion yet they accuse us. to bee amarous is proper & naturall in a young but in an old man most fantastique: & that rydling humor of jelousy which seekes & would not find which requires & repents his knowledg is in them most common yet most fantastique. yea that which never falls in young men is in them most naturall & fantastique even att there journes end to make great provision. is any habite in young men so fantastique as in hottest seasons to bee double gownd & hooded as our elders? or seemes it so ridiculous to weare long heare, as to were none? truly as amongst philosophers the sceptique which doubts all is more contentious then ether the dogmatique which affirms all or the Academicke which denyes all so are these uncertayne elders which both call them fantastique which follow these inventions & them also which are ledd by there humors suggestion more fantastique then either.

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Hand D1. Paradox VII (1633). Paradox III (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

489 That Nature is our worst guide. Shall shee bee guide to all creatures which is her self one? or if shee also have a guide shall any creature have a better guide then wee? The affections of lust & anger yea even to err is naturall; shall wee follow these? can she bee a good guide to us which hath corrupted not us only but herself? was not the first man by desire of knowledg even corrupted even in the white integryty of Nature? and did not nature (if nature do any thing) infuse in him this desyre of knowledg & so this corruption in him, in her selfe, in us? if by nature wee shall understand 311r  our essence our definition our reasonablenes then this beinge alike common to all men (the ideot & wysard being equally reasonable) why shall not all men being one nature follow one course? or if wee shall understand our inclynations alas how unable a guide is that which follows the temperature of our slymy bodies? for wee cannot say that wee derive our inclynations our minds our soules from our parents by any way. to say it as all from all is error in reason: for then with the first nothing remaynes: or as part from all is error in experience: for then this part equally imparted to many children would (like gavelkind land) in few generations become nothing: or to say it by communication is error in dyvinyty for to communicate this abylyty of communicating whole essence with any but god is utter blasphemy: and if thou hadst thy fathers inclynation & nature hee also had his fathers & ^so^ clyming up all come of one man all have one nature all shall embrace one course. but that cannot bee our complexions & whole bodies wee inherit from our parents our inclyations & minds follow that. for our mynd is heavy in our bodyes afflictions & rejoyceth in the bodies pleasures; how then shall this nature governe us which is governed by the worst part of us? nature though wee chase it away will retorne: tis true: but those good motions & inspirations which bee our guides must bee wooed & courted & welcomed or els they abandon us. and that old64 in nihil invita etc must not bee sayd thou shalt but thou wilt do nothing against nature so unwilling hee notes us 64 Peters gives ‘old Axiome in’, but it is as transcribed.

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to curbe our naturall apetytes. wee call our bastards alwayes our naturall issues & wee designe a foole by no name so ordinaryly as by the name of natura all.65 & that poore knowledg whereby wee conceive but what rayne is what wind what thunder wee call metaphisick supernaturall such smale things such noth- 40 ings do wee allow to our playne natures apprehension. Lastly by following her wee loose the pleasa[nt]66 & lawfull commodytyes of this lyfe; for wee shall drink water & eate ackhornes & rootes & those not so sweete 311v  & delicate as now by mans art & industrie they are made: 45 Wee shall loose also the necessytyes of socyeties, Laws, arts, & sciences which are all the workmanships of man: yea wee shall lack the last best of mysery, death: bycause no death is naturall: for if wee will not call all deaths violent (though I see not why sickneses bee not violences) yet confes all proceed from of the 50 defect of that which nature made perfect & would preserve & therefore are all against nature. Hand D1. Paradox VIII (1633). Paradox IV (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

490 That Cowards only dare dye. Extreames are equally removd from the meane so that headlong desperatenes as much offends true valor as backward cowardlynes, of which sort I reckon justly all unenforced deaths: when will your valiant man dy? necessyted? so cowards suffer what cannot bee avoyded: and to runn to death unimportuned is to 5 runn into the first condemned desperatenes. Will hee dy when hee is rich & happy then by living he might do more good & in afflictions & misery death is the chosen refuge of cowards: fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest. but it is taught & practised amongst our valiannts, that rather then our reputation suffer 10 any mayne67 or wee any misery wee shall offer our brests to the cannon mouth yea to our owne swords poynts. & this seemes a brave a fiery sparkling & a clyming resolucion which is indeed a cowardly an earthly & a groveling spirit why do they chaing there slaves to the gallies but that they thirst there deaths & would at 15 65 ‘natura all’: This is what D1 has written, though ‘naturall’ was probably intended. 66 ‘pleasant’ is doubtless what D1 intended, although he has written ‘pleasaonit’. 67 ‘mayne’: elsewhere ‘maime’, so presumably ‘mayme’ intended.

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every lash68 leap into the sea? Why do they take weapons from condemned men but to barr them of that ease which cowards affect, a speedy death: truly this life is a tempest a warefare &69 he that dares dy to escape the anguishes of it seemes to me but so valiant as hee that dares hang himself least he bee prest to the 20 warrs. I have seene one in thast extremyty of melancholy which was then become 312r  madnes strive to make his owne breath an instrument to stopp his breath & labor to choake himself but alas hee was madd: and wee know another that languished under the oppression of a 25 poore disgrace so much, that he tooke more paynes to dy then would have servd to norish spirit enough to have outlived his disgrace: and what foole will call this cowardlynes, valor? or this basenes, humylyty? and lastly of those which dy that allegoricall death of entring into religion how few are formed fitt for any 30 shew of valianncy, but only of soft & supple mettall, made only for cowardly solitarines Hand D1. Paradox IX (1633). Paradox V (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

491 That the guifts of the body are better then those of the mynde.70 I say againe the body makes the mynd: not that it creates it a minde but forms it a good or badd mynd: & this mynd may bee confounded with soule without any violence or injustice to reason or philosophy: then our soule mee thinks is enabled by our body; not this by that: my body licenseth my soule to see 5 the worlds beauties through myne eyes to heare pleasant things through myne eares & affords it apt organs for conveyance of all perceaveable delights: but alas my soule cannot make any parte that is not of it self disposed 71see or heare: though no doubt shee be as able to see & as willing to see behind as before: now 10 68 Peters, following Grierson, reads ‘task’, but careful comparison with D1’s hand on the same page makes ‘lash’ (Peters’s preferred reading from the Westmoreland MS) almost certain. 69 ‘& he’: Peters, following Grierson, reads ‘he’, but it is as transcribed. 70 Peters, following other MS sources, adds ‘or of Fortune’, and (presumably because the collation was silent here) adds ‘?’ for Burley. 71 Peters, following Grierson, says that ‘[to] see or heare: though without doubt’ is omitted in Burley; the phrase is present as transcribed.

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if my soule would say that shee enables any part72 to tast these pleasures, but is herself only delighted with those rich sweetneses which her inward eye & sences apprehend shee should dissemble: for I feele her often solaced with beauties which shee sees through myne eyes & musicke which through my eares shee heareth: the perfection then of my body hath this that it can impart to the mynd all her pleasures & my minde hath this mayne73 that shee can neither teach any indisposed parts her faculties nor to the parts best disposed shew that 312v  beauty of Angells, or musick of spheares whereof shee boasts the contemplacion: Are chastyty, temperaunce or fortitude guifts of the mynd? I apeale to phisitions whether the causes of these bee not in the body: health is a guift of the body & patience in sicknes of the mynd: then who will say 74patience is as good a happynes as health when we must be myserable to have this health happynes? & for norishing of civill socyeties & naturall love amongst men which is one cheife end why men are I say the beauty proportion & presence of the body, hath a more masculyne force in the begetting this love then the vertues of the mind, for it strikes us soddenly & possesseth us imediately, when to know these vertues requires sound judgment in him which shall discerne & a long triall & conversation betweene them. and even at last, alas, how much of our fayth & beelefe shall wee bee driven to bestow to assure our selves that these vertues are not counterfeite? for that the same to be & to seeme vertuos because hee that hath no vertue can dissemble none: but hee that hath a litle may guild & enamell yt yea transforme much vice into vertue: for allow a man to bee descreet & sociable which are great guifts & vertues of the mynd this discretion to him wilbe the soule & elixar of all vertue: so that toucht with this even pride shall bee made civill humylyty & cowardise wise valor: but in things seene there is not this daunger: for the body which thou allowest & esteemest fayre is fayre certaynely & if it bee 75not in perfection, yet it is fayre in the same degree that

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72 Peters, following other MS sources, reads ‘my parts’, and (presumably because the collation was silent here) adds ‘?’ for Burley. 73 D1 makes the same error as in the previous paradox (n. 218); see Peters’s note on this one. 74 Peters, following other MS sources, reads ‘this patience’, and (presumably because the collation was silent here) adds ‘?’ for Burley. 75 Peters’s textual note re Burley is hard to understand; the MS is as transcribed.

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thy judgment is good. & in a fayre body I do seldome suspect 45 a disproportioned mynd: as when I see a goodly house I assure myself of a worthy possessor & from a ruinous withered building I turne away because it seemes either stuffed with varletts or handled by an unworthy necligent tennant. and truly the guifts of fortune which are riches are only handmaydes yea panders to 50 the bodies pleasures with there service wee norish healsth wee preserve beauty & buy delights: so that vertue 313r which must bee loved for herself & respects no further is indeed nothing: & riches whose end is the good of the body cannot bee so perfectly good as the end whereto it levells. 55 Hand D1. Paradox XI (1633). Paradox VI (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.



492 That a wise man is knowne by much laughing: Ride si sapis ô puella, ride. if thou beest wise laugh: for since the powres of discourse, reason & laughture bee equally proper to nonlytman76 why should not hee be most wise which hath most use of laugther as well as hee which hath most off reasoning & discoursing I alwayes did & shall understand that adage 5 per multum risum poteris cognoscere stultum that by much laughing thou maist know there is a foole: not that the laughers are fooles but that amongst them there is a foole att whome wise men laugh which movd Erasmus to put this as his first argument in the mouth of his folly that shee made the beholders laugh for 10 fooles are the most laught att & laugh themselves the least of any, and nature saw this faculty to bee so necessary in man that shee hath beene content that by more causes wee should bee importuned to laugh then to the exercise of any other powre: for things in themselves utterly contrary, begett this effect: for 15 wee laugh both att witty & absurd things: at both which sorts I have seene men : laugh so long & so ernestly that at last they have wept that they could laugh no more: & therefore the poet having described the quietnes of a wise retyred man sayth in one what hee sayd before in many lynes Quid facit Canius tuus? 20 ridet. wee receaved that even the extremyty of laughing (yea of

76 D1 originally wrote ‘non but man’, then corrected it, crossing out the first n and the t, overwriting the b as l, and altering the u to y. Peters, following Grierson, has ‘to non bytt man’, but this is a misreading of the deletion and alteration.

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weeping also) hath beene accounted wisdome & Democritus & Heraclytus the lovers of these extreames have beene caled the lovers of wisdome: now amongst our wise men I doubt not but many would bee found who would 313v  laugh at Heraclytus his weeping none that would77 weepe at Democrytus his laughing: At the hearing of commodies & other witty reports I have noted some which not understanding the jests have yett chosen this as the best meanes to seeme wise & understanding to laugh when there companions laughed: & I have presumed them ignorant whome I have seene unmoved: a foole if hee come into a princes court & see a gay man leaning at the wall so glistning & paynted in many colors that hee is hardly discerned from the pictures in arras hangings may & commonly doth envy him: but, alas, shall a wise man which ^may not^ only78 doth not envy this fellow, but not pytty him, do nothing at this monster: yes lett him laugh. & if one of these hott cholerique firebrands which norish themselves by quarrelling & kindling others spitt uppon a foole but one sparkle of disgrace, he like a thatched house quickly burning may bee angry: but the wise man as cold as the Salamander may not only not bee angry with him: but not bee sorry for him: therefore lett him laugh so shall hee be knowne a man because hee can laugh a wise man that he knowes when to laugh & a valiant man that hee dares laugh: & hence I thinke proceeds that which I thinke in these latter formal tymes I have much noted that now when our superstitious civilyty of manners is become but a mutuall tickling flattery one if79 another almost every man affects one humor of jesting, & is content to deject & deforme himself yea to become foole to no other end which I can spy but to give his wise companions occasion to laugh & to shew themselves wise; which promptnes of laughing is so great amongst wise men that I thinke all wise men (if wise men do reade this paradox[)] will laugh both att it and mee.

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Hand D1. Paradox X (1633). Paradox VII (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

77 ‘that would’: Peters, following Grierson, has ‘which’, but it is as transcribed. 78 D1 has put the insertion after ‘only’, but this makes no sense. 79 Peters, following Grierson, has ‘of ’, which makes more sense, but D1 has indeed written ‘if ’.

The manuscript text 314r

493 That good is more common then Evill. I have not been so pitifully tyred with any vanyty as with sylly olds mens exclaymings against our tymes & extolling theire owne. alas they betray themselves: for if the tymes bee changd theire manners have changd them: but theire senses are to pleasures as sick mens tast to liquors: for indeed no new thing is done in the world all things are what & as they were; & good is as ever it was most plenteous: & must of necessyty bee more common then evill bycause it hath this for nature end & perfection to bee common: it makes love to all creatures & all affect it so that in the worlds erly infancy there was a tyme when nothing was evill: but if this world shall suffer dotage in the extreamest degree & crookednes thereof there shalbee no tyme when nothing shalbee good. it dares appeare spred & glister in the world but still buries itself in night & darknes, & is suppressed & ­chastised when good is cherished & rewarded, & as Embroiderers Lapidaries & other like artisans can by all things adorne there workes80 (for by adding better things they adorne them so much by equals they double there goodnes & by worse they increase theire lustre & eminency) so good doth not prostitute her amiablenes to all but refuseth no ayde no not of her utter81 contrary evill, that shee may be more common to us: for evill manners are parents of good lawes; & in every evill there is an excellency which wee call good: for our fashions in habytes our movings in gestures, phrases in our speech wee say they were good so long as they were used that is as long as they were common: & wee eate walke sleep only when it is or semes good to do so: all fayre all profitable all vertuous; is good. & thse three I thinke embrace all things but there utter contraries: of which also foule may be rich & vertuous: poore may be vertuous & faire. vicious may be fayre & rich. so that good hath this good meanes to bee common; that some subjects shee can possesse intyrely & in subjects accompanied with evill she can humbly stoope to accompany the evill. & of indifferent many things become precisely good by only being common, as customes by use are made byndinge lawes but I remember nothing which is therefore ill bycause it is common

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80 Peters adopts the reading ‘works’ because of the plural possessives that follow, despite believing, following Grierson, that Burley has ‘work’. Burley in fact has ‘workes’. 81 Peters, following Grierson, records this word as missing, but it is present.

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The Burley manuscript but women of whome also they which are most common are the best of that occupation which they professe.

Hand D1. Paradox IV (1633). Paradox VIII (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

314v 494 That by Discord things increase. Nullos esse Deos inane cælum Affirmat Selius probatque quod se factum dum negat hæc videt beatum. So I assever this the more boldly bycause whilst I mayntayn it, I feele the contrary repugnanuces, & adverse fightings of the elements in my body my body increaseth; & whilst I differ from common opinion by this discorde the number of my paradoxes increaseth. all the rich benefits which wee can fayne in concord, is but an even conservation of things, in which evennes wee may expect no chang or motion therfore no encrease nor augmentation, which is a m[e]mber of motion: & if this unity & peace can give increase of things how migthly is discord & warr to this purpose? for these are indeed the only parents of peace. discord is never so barren that it affords no fruits for the fall of one state is at worst an encrease of another bycause it is as much impossybylyty to find a discomodyty without any advantage, as corruption without generation: but it is the nature and office of concord to preserve only which property when it leaves it differs from it self which is the greatest discord of all. All victories & Emperies gaind by warr & all judiciall decidings ^& doubts^ in peace I clayme children of discord & who can deny that controversies in religion are growen greater by discord & not the controversies only but even religion it self: for in a troubled misery men are alwayes more religious then in a secure peace. the number of good men the only charitable harborers of concord wee see is thin & dayly melts but of bad discording men it is infinite & growes hourely we are acertayned of all disputable doubts only by arguing & differing in opinion & if formal disputation which is but a painted counterfaict & dissembled discord can worke this benefitt what shall a full & mayne discord accomplish? truly mee thinks I owe a devotion yea a sacryfice to discord for casting that ball upon Ida & for all that busines of Troy whome envied I admire more then Rome or babilon or Quinzay nor are

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removed corners only fullfilled with her fame only but with cittys 35 & townes planted by her fugitives: lastly betweene cowardise & dispaire valor in engendred: & so the discord of extreams begetts all vertues: but of82 like thing there is 315r  no issue without miracle: Uxor pessima pessimus maritus, miror tam male convenire vobis. he wonders that betweene 40 any so like there could be any discord: yet for all this discord perchaunce83 there was nere the lesse increase. Hand D1. Paradox III (1633). Paradox IX (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

495 That it is possible to find some vertue in some weomen. I am not of that seard impudency that I dare defend weomen or pronounce them good: yet since phisitions allow some vertue in every poyson alas why should except only woemen? since certaynly they are good for phisick at least so as wine is good for a feaver to increase it: & although they bee the occasioners of most sinns they are also the punishers & revengers of the same sinns for I have seldome seene one which consumes his substaunce or body upon them escape diseases or beggery. & this is there justice & if suum cuique dare bee the fulfilling of all civill Justice they are most just for they deny that which is theirs to nobody. tanquam non liceat nulla puella negat. and who may doubt of great wisedome in them that doth but observe with how much labor & cunning our Justices & other dispencers of the lawes study to entrapp them. & how zealously our preachers dehort menn from them only by urging theire subtilties & wisedome which is in them yea in the worst & most prostitute sort of them: or who can deny them a good measure of fortitude if he consider how many valiant men they have overthrowne & being them selves overthrowne how much & how patiently they beare. & although they be all most intemperate I care not: for I undertooke to furnish them with some vertue, not all. necessyty which even makes bad things good prevayles also for them: & we must say of them as of sharp punishing lawes. if men were free from infirmities they were needles. but they are both good scourges for badnes.

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82 Peters, following Grierson, has ‘on’, but it is as transcribed. 83 Peters, following Grierson, has the ‘perchance’ placed after ‘yet’, but it is as transcribed, making Burley conform with Westmoreland.

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Hand D1. Paradox VI (1633). Paradox X (Peters). Commentary 9.2.1, with item 485.

315v Blank 316r 496 Si mihi quem cupio cure Mildreda remitti   Tu bona tu melior tu mihi sola soror Sin per dessidium cessas aut transmare mittas   Tu mala tu peior tu mihi nulla soror. Is si Cornubiam tibi pax ^sit^ et omnia laeta   Sin mare Cecili nuntio bella: Vale. Hand P. Katherine Killigrew. This verse is discussed in Chapter 5, pp. 26–28.

316v Blank 317r 497 Verses taken out of the ruines of tyme O vaine worldes glory and unstedfast state Off all that lyves, on face of sinfull earth Which from theire first untill theire ^utmoste^ date Tast no one houre of happines or mirthe But like as at the ingate of theire mothers wombe So waylinge backe go wofull to theire tombe. Whi then doth fleshe: a bubble glas of breath Hunte after honor & advancement vayne And reare a trophee for devouringe death Wyth so longe laboure and longe lastinge paine As yf daies for ever should remaine, Sith all that in this world is greate and gaye Doth as a vapoure vanishe and decaie.

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Hand E. Inaugurates a sequence of 28 extracts from Spenser’s Complaints; see commentary, 10.10. ‘Ruines of Time’, 43–56. Commentary 10.10.1. 5–6: But like as at the ingate of their berth, / They crying creep out of their mothers woomb, / So wailing backe go to their wofull toomb. (1591, 47–49). E’s memory, or his eye slipping from ‘of ’ to ‘of ’, has conflated lines 47 and 48. 10 so longe: so great (1591, 53). 11 daies: his daies (1591, 54). 12 and: or (1591, 48).

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498 Off Rome: and oVerlame And of the whole worlde as thou wast thempresse So I of this smale ^northerne^ worlde was princesse: Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 83–84. Commentary 10.10.1. Heading: ‘Verlam’: Verulamium; modern St Albans. Heading: Not in 1591. 1 thempresse: the Empresse (1591, 83).

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499 Off Verlam o Ne Troynovant, though elder sister shee With my great forces might compared be That stout oPendragon to his perill felte Who in a seige seaven yeres about me dwelt. But long ere this oBonduca britonesse Her mightie host against my bullwarks brought Bonduca that victorious conqueresse That liftinge upp her brave heroicke thoughte Bove womans weaknes, with the Romans fought Fought, and in felde against them thrice prevailed Yet was shee foild when as shee me assailed.o And though at last I conquered were Off hardie Saxons, and became theire thrale Yet was I with much bloudshed bought full deare And prise with slaughter of theire generall. The moniment of whose sad funerall For wonder of the world in me lasted But now to nought through spoyle of tyme is wasted.

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Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 102–119. Commentary 10.10.1. Troynovant: New Troy, London; a reference to the tradition that the capital had been built, and given that name, by Brutus, King of the Trojans and grandson of Aeneas, after his discovery of Albion, which he renamed Britain after himself. o According to tradition, recorded in William Camden, Britain, trans. by Philémon Holland (London, 1610), p. 410, ‘the English-Saxons wonne it [Verulamium]: but Uther the Briton, surnamed for his serpentine wisdome, Pendragon, by a sore siege and a long recovered it’. o Bonduca: Boadicea or Boudicca, first-century British queen who rebelled against the Roman occupation (Tacitus, Annals, xiv, 31-–3). o

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In fact, Boudicca reconquered Verulamium, as well as Colchester and London (ibid., 33).

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Heading: Not in 1591. 12 at last: at last by force (1591, 113). 17 in me: long in me (1591, 118).

317v 500 And where the Christall Thamis wont to slideo In silver channell downe alonge the lee About whose flowrie banks on either side A thousand nimphes, with mirthfull jolitee were wont to playe from all anoyance free There now no ryvers course is to be seene But moorishe fennes and marshes ever greene.

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501 Yet it is comfort in great languishment To be bemoned with compassion kind And mitigates the anguishe of the mynde. Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 159–161. Commentary 10.10.1.

502 Cambden the nourice of antiquitie And lanterne unto late succeedinge age To see the light of simple veritie Buried in ruine, through the great outrage Off her owne people led with warlike rage Cambden, though tyme all monuments obscure Yet thy just laboures ever shall endure.

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in 1610 (Wyman H. Herendeen, ‘Camden, William (1551–1623)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008).

503 It is not longe, since these two eies behelde A omightie Prince, of most renowned race Whome England high in count of honor held And greatest ones did sue to gaine his grace. Of greatest ones he greatest in his place Saft in the bosome of his soveraigne, And oright and loyall did his worde maintayne. I saw him die I sawe him die as one Off the meane people, and brought forth on beare I sawe him die and no man leaft to mone His dolefull fate, that late loved him deare. Scarce anie lefte to close his eielidds neare Scarce any lefte uppon his lipps to laye The sacred sod, or requiem to saye.

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504 He nowe is gonne; the whiles the ofoxe is crept In to the hole, the which the badger swept. Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 216–217. Commentary 10.10.1. foxe [...] badger: respectively probably intended for Burghley and Leicester, while he lived Burghley’s chief rival, but such alignments should be made with caution, and commentators are by no means unanimous. For a balanced and wide-

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ranging discussion of the ‘fox’ allegory, both here and in ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, see Thomas Herron, ‘Reforming the Fox’, Studies in Philology, 105.3 (Summer 2008), 336–387.

318r84 505 Although the vulgar yelde an open eare, And comon courtiers love to gibe and fleare At every thinge they heare spoken ill And the best speeches with ill meaninge spill Yet the brave Courtier, in whose beuteous thought 5 Regarde of honor harbours more than ought Dothe lothe such base condition, to backbite Anies good name for envie or despite. He stands on tearmes of honorable minde Ne will be caried with the comon minde 10 Off Courts inconstant mutabilitie Ne after every tatlinge fable flie But heares and sees the follies of the rest And thereof gathers for him self the beste. He will not crepe nor crouch with fayned face 15 But walkes upright with comely steadfast pace. And unto all doth yeld due courteousye But not with kissed hand below the knee As that same apishe crue is wont to doe For he disdaines himself to embase thereto 20 He hates soild leasinges and vile flattery Two filthie blotts in noble gentrye And lothefull idlenes he doth detest The canker worme of every gentle brest The which to banishe with fayre exercise 25 Off knightly feates feates he dayly doth devise Now maneginge the ^mouthes of^ stubborne steads Now practisinge the profe of warlike deeds Now his bright armes assaying now his speare Now the onigh aymede ringe away to beare 30 At other tymes he casts to sew the chase Off swift wilde beasts, bea85 or runne the race Tenlarge his breath (Large breath on armes most needefu[ll)] 84 F. 318 has been wrongly assembled into the collection: it contains the later extracts from ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, and belongs after f. 320. See commentary 10.10, p. 407. 85 The correction in this line is discussed in note 16 on p. 44.

The manuscript text Or else in wrestlinge to waxe stronge and heedfull Or his stiffe armes to streach in oEughen bowes And manlie legs, still passinge tow and fro. With out a gowned beast him fast asyde A vayne ensample of the Persian pride Who after he had wonne the Assirian foe Did ever after scorne on fote to goe, Thus when this courtly gentleman with toyle Him self hath wearied with, he doth recoyle Unto his rest and there with sweete delight Off musicke skill revives his toyled sprite.

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1 Although: For though (1591). 3 thing they: thing, which they (1591). 21 soild: fowle (1591). 32 runne the race: runne on foote a race (1591). 33 Damage has removed the final ‘ll)’. 42 wearied with he: wearied, he (1591).

318v 506 So pytifull a thinge is suters state Most myserable man whose wicked fate Hath brought to court, to sue for had ywist That few have founde, and mani one hath mist. Full little knowest thou that hast not tried What hell it is, in suying longe to byde To louse good daies, that might be better spent To wast longe nightes in pensive discontent To speede to day, to be put back to morowe To feede on hope, to pine with feare & sorow To have the princes grace yet want the peeres To have thy askinge yet wait mani yeres To Fret thy soule with crosses and with cares To eate thy hart with comfortlesse dispaires To Fawne to crouch ^to wait^ to ryde to rune To spende to gyve to want to be undonne

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The Burley manuscript Unhappy wight borne to disastrous end that dothe his life in so longe tendance spend.

Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 891–908. Commentary 10.10.3. 2 whose: whom (1591). There is some sign of an attempted correction above the line. 11 the peeres: her peeres (1591). 14 with: through (1591).

507 The ape was stryfull and ambicious And the foxe guilefull, and most covetous Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 1021–1022. Commentary 10.10.3. 1 The ape: For th’Ape (1591).

508 He fed his cubs with fat of all the soyle and with the sweete of others sweatinge toyle He crammed them with cromes of benefices And fild theire mouthes with meedes of malefices He clothed them with all coullers save whit And loaded them with Lordshipps and with might So much as they weare able for to beare That with the weight theire backs nigh broken weare. Two lines (1159–1160) are omitted here. No statute so established might bee Nor ordinaunce so needefull but that he Would violate, though not with violence Yet under coloure of the confidence The which the ape reposd in him alone And reckned him the kingedomes corner stone And ever when he ought would bringe to passe His longe experience the plateforme was And when he ought not pleasing would put by The cloak was care of thrifte and husbandry For to encrease the common treasures store But his owne Treasure he increased more And lifted up his lofty towres thereby That they beganne to threate the neighboure skie The whiles the princes palaces fell fast

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The manuscript text To ruine (for what ^thing^ can ever last?[)] And whiles the othere Peeres for povertie Were forst theire auncient houses to lett lye.

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319r 509 Ne any poet seekes him to revive Yet manie poets honored him alive. Ne dothe his Colin, carelesse oColin Clout Care not now his idle bagpipe up to raise Ne tell his sorow to the listninge rout Off sheaperd gromes, which wont his soungs to praise.

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Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 223–228. Commentary 10.10.1. The spirit of Verulamium here castigates Spenser himself (Colin Clout, a pseudonym adopted by him in the ‘Argument’ to ‘Januarye’ in The Shepheardes Calender, and which appears subsequently in a number of works, notably, of course, ‘Colin Clouts Come Home Again’ (Colin Burrow, Edmund Spenser (Plymouth: Northcote House, 1996), p. 17).

o

510. He dide, and after him ohis brother dide His brother prince, his brother noble peere That whilste he lyved was of none envied And dead is now as lyvinge counted deare. Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 239–242. Commentary 10.10.1. o

his brother: Ambrose Dudley, first Earl of Warwick (c.1530–90).

511 And thou thi self herein shalt allso live o Such grace the heavens do to my verses give. Ne shall ohis sister ne thi father die o Thi father, that good earle of rare renowne And noble patrone of weak povertie Whose great good deades both in countrie and in towne Have purchased in heaven an happi crowne, o

Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 258–264. Commentary 10.10.1.

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thou thi self: Anne Dudley, née Russell, Countess of Warwick (1548/49–1604), introduced earlier (line 244) in a passage not recorded by E. o Such grace ...: Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 18: ‘So long lives this, and this gives life to thee’. o his sister: Mary Dudley (1530x35–86), who married Henry Sidney in 1551 and became mother to Philip and Mary Sidney (Simon Adams, ‘Sidney , Mary, Lady Sidney (1530x35–1586)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). o thi father: Francis Russell, secondnd Earl of Bedford (1526/27–85), who was (line 6) not only a Privy Councillor but also a great regional magnate and Lord Lieutenant of the western counties (Wallace T. MacCaffrey, ‘Russell, Francis, second earl of Bedford (1526/7–1585)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2004). o

6 both: (omitted) (1591).

512 Brave oimpe of Bedford, growe apace in bountie And counte of wisedome more then of thi Countie Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 272–273. Commentary 10.10.1. impe of Bedford: Edward Russell, third Earl of Bedford, grandson of the second Earl.

o

513 O noble spirite lyve there ever blessed The worlds late wonder and the heavens new joye Lyve ever there and leave me here distressed, With mortall cares and combious annoye,

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Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 302–305. Commentary 10.10.1. This passage is an extract from the long lament, lines 279–344, for Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86).

o

4 combious: cumbrous worlds (1591).

514 Provide therefore (ye princes) whilst ye live That of the muses you may frended be Which unto men eternitie do geive For they be daughters of oDame Memory And Jove the father of eternitie And do those men in golden thrones repose Whose merites they to glorifie do chose.

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Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 365–371. Commentary 10.10.1. The Muses were daughters of Zeus (Jove, line 5) and Mnemosyne (memory) (OCD).

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319v 515 Therefore in this half happy I do reade Good oMelibe that hath a poet gott To singe his prayses beinge dead Deservinge never here to be forgott In spite of envie that his deeds would spott Since whose decease learninge lyes unregarded And men of armes ^do^ wander unrewarded. These two be those calamities That longe agoe did grieve the noble sprite Off Solomon with great indignities Who whilome was alive the wisest wight But now his wisdome is disproved quite For ohe that now weldes all things at his will Scornes the one and thother in his deeper skill.

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O griefe of griefe O gale of all good hartes To see that vertue should dispised bee Off him, that first was raisd for vertuous parts And now brode spreadinge like an aged tree Lets none shoote upp, that nigh him planted be

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O let the man of whome the muse is scorned Nor live nor dead, be of the Muse adorned. O vile worlds trust, that with such vaine illusion Hath so wise men bewitched, and overkest That they see not the waie of theire confusion O ovaynes to be added to the rest.

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Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 435–459. Commentary 10.10.1. Melibe: Sir Francis Walsingham (1532–90), the title given to him in Watson’s poem written to mourn his death (Thomas Watson (1557?–92): ‘AN EGLOGUE Upon the death of the Right Honorable Sir Francis Walsingham’, l. 38). o Lines 8–11: The reference is to the apocryphal Ecclesiasticus 29.28: ‘There be two things that grieve my heart [...] a man of war that suffereth poverty; and men of understanding that are not set by’’ Spenser refers to Solomon (the author of the Biblical Ecclesiastes) as the one grieved, but Ecclesiasticus is attributed not to Solomon but to Jesus son of Sirach who, according to the prologue to Ecclesio

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asticus, ‘did imitate Solomon, and was no less famous for wisdom and learning’. o he: Another (ironic) hit at Burghley, who is also attacked in the succeeding stanza. o vaynes: vanity; not narcissism but pointless human effort and achievement, as the term is used in Ecclesiastes, which constantly refers to it: ‘Vanitie of vanities, saith the Preacher: vanitie of vanities, all is vanitie’ (Eccl. 1.2). 3 prayses: living praises (1591). 8 calamities: two great calamities (1591). 15 gale: gall (1591).

516 L.: Envoy Immortall spirite of oPhilisides Which now art made the heavens ornament That whilome wast the worlds chefest ritches Gyve leave to him that loved thee to lament His losse, by lacke of thee to heaven hent And with last duties of this broken verse Broken with sightes; to deck thy sable herse.

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Hand E. ‘Ruines of Time’, 673–679. Commentary 10.10.1. Philisides: Sir Philip Sidney. Also used by Spenser in Astrophel (London: 1595): ‘Philisides is dead. O lucklesse age; / O widow world’ (‘A pastorall Aeglogue upon the death of Sir Phillip Sidney Knight, &c’, ll. 111–112).

o

Heading: L’Envoy. (1591). 7 sightes: sighes (1591).

320r 517 Such happines have they, that do imbrace The precepts of myne heavenlie discipline But shame and sorow and accursed face have they that scorne the scole of arts divine And banishe me, which do professe the skill To make men heavenli wise, through humbled will. How ever yet they do me despise and spight I feede on sweete contentment of my thought And please my self with myne owne self delight In contemplation of things heavenlie wrought So loathinge earth I looke up to the skie And being dryven hence I thyther flie.

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Hand E. ‘Teares of the Muses’, 517–528. Commentary 10.10.2. 3 face: case (1591). 7 do me: me (1591).

518 Polihimnie Polyhymnia One onely lives, her makers ornament And mirrour of her makers maiestie: That with ritch bountie and deare cherishment Supports the praise of noble poesie: Ne onely favours them who it professe But is her self a peerelesse poetresse. Most peereles prince most peerelesse poetresse The true opandora of all heavenlie graces Divine Eliza, sacred emperesse Lyve she for ever, and her royall places Be filled with praises of divinest witts That her eternize with theire heavenlie writts. o

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A complete stanza (583–8) is omitted here. But all the rest borne of salvage brode And havinge been with oacorns alwaies fedd Can no whitt favoure this celestiall foode But with base thoughts are unto blindnes led, And kept from lookinge on the lightsom daie For whome I waile and weape all that I maie.

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Hand E. ‘Teares of the Muses’, 571–582 and 589–594. Commentary 10.10.2. One onely lives, her makers ornament: Elizabeth I. pandora: in Greek mythology the first woman; ‘all-gifted’ (OED: ‘Pandora’, n.1). o acorns: traditionally the food of pigs, and thus recalling Matthew 7.6: ‘neither cast ye your pearles before swine’. o o

1 makers: ages (1591). 10 places: P’laces (1591). 13 borne: as borne (1591).

320v 519 Prosopopoia or mother hubbarts tale           Sith that we are free borne Let us all servile base subjection scorne

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And as we be sonnes of the world so wyde Let us our fathers heritage divide And chalenge to our selves our portions due Off all the patrimonie which a fewe Now hold in hugger mugger in theire hand And all the rest do robbe of good & land For now a fewe have all and all have nought Yet all be brethren ylike dearly bought There is no right in this partition Ne was it so by institution Ordayned first ne by the lawe of nature But that shee gave like blessinge to each creature As well of worldlie livelihood as of life That there might be no difference ne strife Nor ought cald myne or thine thrice happi then Was the condition of mortall men That was the golden world of Saturne old But this might better be the world of golde For with out gold now nothinge will be gott.

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Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 133–153. Commentary 10.10.3. 1: One of only two instances of the extract starting at the caesura of the line; omitted is the conclusion of the previous sentence, ‘Make himselfe bond?’. that: then (1591). 15 livelihood: livelode (1591).

520 This Iron worlde Brings down the stoutest hartes to lowest state from misery doth bravest mindes abate And make them seeke for that they wonnt to scorne Of fortune and of hope at Once forlorne. o

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Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 254–258. Commentary 10.10.3. Iron, a, 2e: harsh, cruel, merciless; stern, severe (OED, quoting this example). Spenser may also be referring to the Iron Age, succeeding those of Gold, Silver, and Bronze, and bringing anarchy and misery (Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 89–150). o

1 The second half of the line ((that same he weeping sayes)) is omitted.

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521 Tyme delayed new hope of healpe still breedes. Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 327. Commentary 10.10.3. 1 Tyme delayed: For times delay (1591).

522        The chardge is wonderous great To fede mens soules, and hath an heavie threate To feede mens soules said he is not in man For they must feede them selves do what wee can Wee are but chardged to lay the meate before. Eate they that list wee need not do no more.

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Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 431–436. Commentary 10.10.3. 1 The other instance of a missing beginning; omitted is ‘Ah but (said th’Ape)’ 3 said he: (quoth he) (1591). 6 not do: to do (1591).

523 It is inoughe to do our smale devotion And then to follow ani mery motion Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 457–458. Commentary 10.10.3.

524 Beside we may have lyinge by our sides Our lovinge Lasses, or bright shininge brides. Hand E. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, 475–476. Commentary 10.10.3. 2 lovinge: lovely (1591).

321r 525 Are woemen fayre? yea passing fayre to see so Are woemen sweet? yea wondrous sweet they bee so. Are woemen wise? not wise but they are witty. Are woemen witty? yea sure the more’s the pitty   Both fayre and sweet they are to them that love them   Chast ne discreet to all but them that prove them   They are so witty and withall so wily   That were ye nere so wise they would beguile ye. Are woemen saints? no saints and yet no divels

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The Burley manuscript Are woemen good? no they are needfull evills 10 Are woemen kind? yea something kind & please them Are woemen proud? yea passing proud and prayse them   So angel like as divels none could doubt them   So needfull naught that none can live without them   And so imperious no man can endure them 15   And yet so fine as wee all fooles must love them.

Hand E. Printed in Francis Davison’s A Poetical Rhapsody (1602), with the couplets somewhat differently ordered, and with an extra two couplets. Ascribed there to ‘Ignoto’. Commentary 10.11.

526 Annswere. Are woemen foule? so foule you can abyde them Are woemen shrewd? to all but those have tryed them Are woemen fooles? yea fooles of mens one making Foolish in not there follies cause forsaking   So foule they are men cannot looke besides them   So shrewd that even shepe doth rule & guide them   Wee men are so unwise and so unwitty   They need not envy those that do them pitty. Are woemen coy? at mens faint loves beginning Are woemen cruel? no but long in winning Are woemen proud? when men doate on their beauty Are woemen stout? when men neglect theire duty   So cruell & so coy & evill willed   That never man with kindness yet was killed   So stout they are as mens base friends are slavish   So proud they are as mens fonde praise is lavish    Foule, shrewish, fond, coy, cruel, proud & peevish    What fooles are men to love & yet believe this.

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Hand P. Not found elsewhere. Commentary 10.11.

321v 527 If Puresby it should come to passe That thou must heare a play or masse     Which would you chuse? truly it fitts the child of grace To do in such a doubtfull case

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The manuscript text     As spirit should infuse. But hadst thou in thy frydayes dish A Capon or a peece of fish     Which wouldst thou eate? Capons are fitt for babes of grace Give sinfull creatures ling & place    Theyre superstitions meate. Lo here a puritan catechized aright Having a constant gutt & wavering spright.

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Hand P. No printed examples found, but is in MS Rawl. poet. 31. Commentary 10.5.2.

322r 528 A Taylor thought an honest man man of upright dealing True but for lying honest but for stealing Did fall on[e] day extreamely sicke by chance And on the suden was in wondrous trance The fiends of hell mustring in wondrous manner Of sundry coulerd silks displayed a banner Which hee had stolne and wisht as they did sell that one day he might find itt all in hell The man afrighted with this apparition Uppon recovery grew a great precision He bought a obible of the new translation And [in] his life hee used reformation Hee walked mannerly he talked meekly Hee heard 10 lectures and three sermons weekely He vowed to shun all companies unruly And in his speech he us’d no oath but truly And zealously to keepe the sabbaths rest His meate for that day on the eve he drest And lest the custome that he had to steale Should cause him sometyme to forget his zeale He gives his jorney man a special charge That if the stufs allowance being large He found his fingers were to filch inclined bid him but have the banner in his mind This done I scarce can tell the rest for laughter A Captaine of a ship camme 3 dayes after And brought six yards of velvet and thre quarters

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The Burley manuscript To make ovenetians downe below the garters Hee which precisely knew what was enough Soone slipt asyde 3 quarters of the stuffe His man espying it sayd in derision Master remember how you saw the vision   Peace knave quoth he I did not see one ragg   Of such a coulerd silke in all the flagg.

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Hand P. Sir John Harington (bap. 1560–1612). Also in BL Add. MS 12049, and printed, in a text close to this, in The Most Elegant and Witty Epigrams of Sir John Harington, Knight (1618), Book I, No. 20. Commentary 10.5.2. bible of the new translation: the version of 1611, the so-called ‘King James’ Bible or Authorised Version. o venetians: hose or breeches of [Venetian] fashion (OED, quoting this example). In a letter of 1599, Harington himself, listing the apparel for soldiers on the Irish campaign, includes ‘for an officer in winter’, ‘One pair of Venetians of broad Kentish cloth, with silver lace, 15 shillings and 4 pence’, and ‘for a common soldier’, ‘One pair Venetians, of Kentish broad cloth, with buttons, loops, and lining of linnen, thirteen shillings, 4 pence’ (Letters and Epigrams, pp. 75–76). o

322 Blank 322Ar 529 Since all things love why should not wee?   The best of creatures are most free.   The pearle eyed fish in every water   Persues his love being taught by nature The sylly worme the lambe and harmlesse Dove Which knoweth nothing yet knowes how to love. Each senceles thing loves passions feele   The stone attracts the yelding steele   The Ivy twines on every tree   And loves it more than you love mee And in the cold of winter fresh is seene For heatt of love is it that keepes it greene. Then learne by seeing what they doe,   Yf they want hands, eyes, tongs, yet woe   Can you which have of each the best   Apt for your use, yet use them lest? Twere sinn to thinke the world nere yet could show S’unkind a hart grac’d in so mild a brow.

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The manuscript text The olasse that lov’d th’Idean Swaine   Thought it not base nor found it vayne   Adon was lov’d though proud and coy   Endimion to that drowsy boye Whome for to please such care fayre Cynthia took That ever since that tyme she pale did looke: Then lett us love whilst w’ar’ in youth   You fraught with beauty I with truth.   Wee’le make the world, being in our prime   Wrinkled with envy more then tyme. And when to old to live our fates drawe nye Our love shall make us two, to young to dye.

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Hand P. ?Walter Porter (c.1590–1659) – see commentary. In several other MSS, without attribution. Commentary 10.2. lasse: Oenone, nymph of Mount Ida, who fell in love with Paris. Not, perhaps the happiest of examples, for he deserted her for Helen, was fatally wounded at Troy by Philoctetes’ poisoned arrow, and died because Oenone out of pique refused him her magical cure. She repented, went to him, found him dead, and killed herself in remorse (OCD, p. 1063).

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322Av Blank 323r 530 For Sir Fr. Bacon to the house of Palarment When you awake dull Brittaynes and behold What treasure you have throwne into the mold Your ignorance in pruning of a state You shall confesse, and that your rashnes hate. For in a sencelesse fury you have slaine A man as farr beyond the spungy braine of common knowledg, as is heaven from hell And yet you triumph, thinke you have done well. O that the monster multitude should sitt In place of Judgment, conscience, reason, witt Nay in a throne or speare above them all (for tis a supreame power that can call all these to barr) and with a frow[n]ing brow Make senators and mighty Consulls bow. Bould Plebeians the tyme will come I know

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The Burley manuscript When such a oCato such a Cicero Shalbee more worth then the first borne can bee Of all your ancestors or posterity. But he’s not dead you’le say, ô but the soule once checkt, contrould, that used to controule Coucheth her downy wings, and scornes to fly At any game but fayre eternity. Each spirit is retyr’d into a roome and made his living body but a tombe on which such epitaphs might well be read as would the gazer strike with sorrow dead. O that I could but give his worth a name that if not you your Sonns might blush for shame. Who in Arethmitike hath greatest skill his good parts cannot number: yet his ill cannot be cald a number, since tis knowne hee had but few that could be cald his owne And those in other men even in these tymes are often prays’d and virtue cald not crymes But as in purest cloath the smalest spott is sooner seene then either stayne or blott in baser stuffe: even so his chance was such to have of faults so few or worth so much For by the brightnes of his owne cleere light those omotts hee had lay open to each sight. Yf you will have a man in all points good You must not have him made of flesh & blood. An act of Parlament you first must setle And force dame nature worke on better metle. Some faults hee had no more then serv’d to prove hee drew his line from Adam not from Jove And those small staynes in natures forc’d offence like omoones in Armory were made a odifference ‘twixt him and angels being sure none other then marks to know him from theire yonger brother. Those spotts removed (not to profane) hee then Might well be cal’d a demigod mongst men. A Diamond flaw’d, saphires or rubies stayn’s but undervalued are not quite disdayn’d Which by a ofoyle recovered, they then become

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no lesse esteem’d, but yeld as large as somme The gardner finding once a canker growne Uppon a tree that hee hath fruiteful knowne grubbs it not upp, but with a careful hand opens the roote, removes the clay, or sand that caus’d the canker, and with cunning art pares off some ryn[d]e but comes not neere the hart Only such trees the axes edge endure as nere bare fruite or else are past all cure. The prudent husbandman thrusts not his share Into his corne because some weeds are there but takes his hooke, and gently as hee may walkes through the field & plucks them all away. A house of many roomes one may command but yet it will require many a hand To keepe it cleane, and if some filth bee found crept in through negligence; is’t cast to ground? Fy no: but first the supreme owner comes examines every office; veiws the roomes causeth itt to be cleans’d, and on some payne commands it never bee found so agayne. The temple else should ovethrowne have beene because some mony brokers were therein. Noaths arke had suncke and perist in the flood because some beasts crept in that were not good Adam had with a thunderbolt beene strooke When hee from Eve the golden aple tooke But should the maker of mankind do soe Who should write man! who should to mans state growe: Shall he bee then put to th’extreame of Law because his conscience had a litle flaw? Will you want conscience cleane because that hee stumbled or slipt but in a small degree? No, first goe backe to all your owne past acts examine them, then punish all the facts by him committed, and I sweare hee shall Confesse that you are upright chancelors all And for the tyme to come with all his might strive to out goe you all in doing right. O would his opredecessors ghost appeare

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The Burley manuscript and tell how foule his Master left the chaire how every fether that hee satt uppon infectious was, and that there was no stone on which some contract was not made to fright the fatherlesse and widow from theire right 100 No stoole, no board no bench no rush on which the poore man was not sold unto the rich You would give longer tyme the roomes to ayre and what you now thinke foule you would thinke fayre Hee tooke to keepe tis knowne, this but to [beguine?] live 105 Hee robd to purchase land, but this to give And had he so beene blest in’s owne bred treasure Hee wuld have given much more, with much more pleasure But such misfortune dodg [sc. dog’d] his honest will That what he tooke by wrong he gave as ill 110 for those his bounty nurst as all suppose (not those he injur’d) prov’d his greatest foes. So foolish mothers from theire wiser mates oft filch and steale, lessen theire owne estates to feed the humor of some wanton boy 115 They silly women thinking to have joy of this ranke plant, when they are sapless growne but seld or never hath it yet beene knowne That pampered youth gave parents more relief then what increase theire age with care & greife 120 Such oversights of nature former tymes have rather pittied, then condem’d as crymes Then where is charity become of late? Is her place beg’d or office given to hate? Is there a patent yet for her restraynt? 125 Or monopoly gott by false complaint? Yf so pursue the patentees, for sure false information did the writ procure. The seale is counterfeite, the referrees have taken bribes, then first examine these. 130 Restore fayre charity to her place againe And he that suffers now may then complaine Sett her at Justice feete, and lett the poise by them directed be not by the noyse Raze not a goodly building for a toye 135 .

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Tis better to repaynt then to destroy The skilfull surgeon th takes not off a lim Whilst there is hope, o deale you so with him Hee wants not fortitude but can endure Cuttings, incisions so they promise cure Would you anatomize, would you disect for your experience? ô you might elect within othat house where as you Judges sitt Many for execution far more fitt. And when you find a monster farr oregrowne With foule corruption, lett him be throwne att Justice feete, lett him be sacrific’d Let there new tortures, new plagues bee devis’d Such as may fright the living from like crimes And be a opresident to after tymes Which long liv’d liv’d records to ensuing dayes Shall still proclaime to your eternal prayse.

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Hand P. Ascribed in a number of other manuscripts to William Lewis, Provost of Oriel and Bacon’s former chaplain. The verse appears as Mii8 in ESL, but with an additional 8 lines after Burley’s l. 108, 2 after l. 134, 6 after l. 136 and 2 after l. 140. These omissions, all late in the piece, suggest that Parkhurst may have been writing from memory. Commentary 10.4.4. Cato […] Cicero: Cato the Younger (95–46 BC) opposed Julius Caesar and his imperial ambitions and, after defeat at Thapsus, committed suicide rather than surrender (46 BC). Cicero (105–43 BC), like Bacon a statesman, lawyer, orator, and essayist, opposed the corrupt triumvir Mark Antony, and was killed on Antony’s orders in 43 BC. Biographies of both are in Plutarch’s Lives. o motts: motes; spots or blemishes (OED, ‘mote’, n1, 2a). o moones in Armory […] difference: moons in heraldry; a crescent moon is used as a ‘brisure’ to distinguish (the heraldic word is ‘difference’) the coat of arms of the second son of the holder of the plain coat. Bacon was the second son of Sir Nicholas Bacon. o foyle: a reference to the practice of backing jewels with metal foil to improve their lustre. Lodowicke, in Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, says of a diamond ‘What sparkle does it give without a foil?’ (II.3.57). o predecessors ghost: Bacon’s predecessor as Lord Keeper, Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere. o that house: the House of Commons. o president: precedent. o

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531 When Sr. F. Bacon was told A Bishop was chosen to bee Lord Keeper in his place, hee laughed and sayd, they were now forced to seeke a Lord Keeper amongst the Clergy, for sure amongst the Lawyers hee himself was the best. Hand P. Commentary 10.4.4.

532 When Bruno first embrac’d his [wife] in bed He swore he could not get her maydenhed For one the night before had op’d the breach And thrust her maydenhead beyond his reach. Hand P. In several other MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

325v 533 Cocklowell would have the divel his guest And bad him into the opeake to dinner Where never the fein[d] had such a fest provided him yet at the charge of a sinner   His stomach was queasy (he came thither coacht)   the jogging had caused some crudities rise   To help it he cald for a puritan poacht   That had used to turne up the eggs of his eyes. And so recovered to his wish he satt him downe and fell to eate o Promoter in plum broth was his first dish his owne privy kitchen had no such meate   yet though with this he were much taken   uppon a sudden he shifted his trencher   As soone as he spied the bawd and bacon   by which you may see the divel a wencher Six pickled taylors sliced and cutt sempsters and tyrewomen fitt for his pallet With fethermen and perfumers putt some 12 in a charger to make a gran[d] sallet.   A rich fatt usurer stewd in his marrow   And by him a lawiers head and greene sauce   both which his belly tooke in like a barrow   As if till then he never had seene sauce.

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The carbonadado and cookd with paines was brough[t] a cloven sargeants face The sauce made of his yeomans braines that had beene beaten out with his owne mace.   Two roasted oshrives came whole to the board   the feast had nothing beene without them!   both living and dead they were foxd and fur’d   theire chaines like sausages hung about them The next dish was the maior of a towne with a pudding of mayntenance thrust in his belly like a goose in the feathers drest in his gowne and his couple of ohincheboyes boyld to a jelly   london cockold hott from the spitt   And when the carver upp had broke him   The divel chop’d up his head at a bitt   but the hornes were very nere like to choke him. The chine of a lecher too there was roasted with a plumpe harlotts haunch and garlike a pandars opetitoes that had boasted himself to a captain yet never was warlike   A lazy fatt pasty of a midwife hott   and for a cold baked meate into the story   a reverend painted Lady was brought   had beene coffind in crust till now she was hory To these an overgrone Justice of peace with a clarke like a gizard trust under his arme and warrants for osippetts layd in his owne grease sett over a chafing dish to be kept warme   The jowl of a jailor served for fish   a constable sou[s]ed pist vinegar by   two aldermen lobsters asleepe in a dish   a deputy tart a churchwarden pye All which devor’d hee then for a close and did for a drought of good oderby call he heavd the huge vessel upp to his nose and left not till he had drunk up all   Then from the table he gave a start   where banquet and wine were nothing scarce   all which he hirled away with a fart   from whence it was called the odivels arse.

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Hand P. Ben Jonson, from the masque The Gipsies Metamorphosed, performed in 1621. Beal (IELM) lists 47 manuscripts (including this one) containing this poem separately from the masque, more than for any other verse of Jonson’s. Most printed versions differ only trivially from Burley. Commentary 10.5.1. peake: the Peak district of Derbyshire; see note on line 64. Promoter: of the several meanings of this word, the one Jonson (who had a number of brushes with the law over his writings and his faith) had in mind is probably OED’s II 3:a: ‘a person who prosecutes or denounces offenders [...] and receives part of the fines as his fee’. o shrives: sheriffs. o ‘hincheboyes’: hench-boys, pages of honour, boy attendants. In the seventeenth century they ran on foot beside the mayor, sheriffs, etc. (OED). o petitoes: pigs’ feet. o sippetts: Small pieces of toasted or fried bread, usually served in soup or broth, or with meat, or used for dipping into gravy, etc.; a small sop (OED). o derby: ale. OED ‘Darby’ 4: Short for Derby ale; ale from that town being famous in the seventeenth century. o divels arse: The Peak Cavern at the foot of Winnats Pass, near Castleton in the Derbyshire Peaks. The nearby Mam Tor hill can sometimes be heard to groan, a noise which may be alluded to in line 63. o o

326v 534 Uppon the procla:[mation] You Ladies that do London love so well That scarse a proclamation can expell Who to be kept in fashion fine and gaye care not what ofines your honest husbands paye Who dreame on nought but visits masques and playes and thinke the cuntrey contributes no joyes but if you trading lack theres ware for ware and all thinges else for which you neede to care or if you musike lacke know every spring both nightingales and cuckoes there do sing your compleat gallant and your proper man Be not confind to ofleetstreet or the stran but you have nobler thoughts then will or do any thing ill or ought belong thereto o Cesar would have an honest woman be not only chast but from suspision free which you that sojorne here can hardly shunn you must so many tempting hazards runn

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for save some few here [that are] full of grace the world hath not a more odeboshed place Your owne propension ill enough contrives Without the noose of towne provocatives Therefore depart in peace & looke not back remember oLotts wife ere you suffer wracke of fame and fortune which you may redeeme and in the country live in fayre esteeme Ladies of honor grace the court I graunt but tis no place for vulgar dames to hau[n]t the cuntry is your orbe & proper spheare there your revenues are, bestow them there. convert your coach horse to the plow andcart & plow take notice of your sheep your corne your cow and think it no disparagement or tax to acquaint your fingers with the wool or flax whereof examples are not far to seeke where many princesses have done the like your husbands will as kindly you embrace without your Jewells or your paynted face and there your children you may educate as well as those that french & spanish prate Visit the sick & needy & for playes play the good huswife, loose not golden dayes in wanton pleasures which do ruinate insensibly both honor goods^wealth^ and state do’t of your selves: oshortly the spanish dames frugality will teach you to your shames and then no thankes for so itt comes in fashion you will be servile apes to any Nation And yee good men tis best you gett you hence lest honest Adam opay for Eves offence.

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Hand P. James I (1566–1625). Many contemporary MS versions, e.g. BL Add. MS 28640, f. 126v, mostly close to this. Published in James Craigie, ed., The Poems of James VI of Scotland, 2 vols (Edinburgh: The Scottish Text Society, 1958), II, 178–181. Commentary 10.7. fines: Disobedience to this Proclamation (see commentary) was punishable condignly, ‘without toleration or connivence’, but the usual sentence was a fine. o fleetstreet: Fleet Street ran from the bridge over the Fleet at Ludgate, westwards past the Temple area. It then (as now) became The Strand, continuing to Charing o

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Cross. Between both streets and the Thames (whose left bank, before the nineteenth-century Embankment, was much closer to these streets than now) stood a number of fine houses of the aristocracy, such as York House and Arundel House, and many fashionable residences of landed gentry, government servants, and rich lawyers and merchants. o Cesar: A reference to Julius Caesar who, called to be a witness when Publius Clodius was accused of misconduct with Caesar’s wife Pompeia, answered that he knew nothing against him. Nevertheless, he divorced Pompeia and, asked why this should be if he had no evidence, responded ‘Because I will not that my wife be so much as suspected’ (Plutarch, ‘Iulius Cæsar’, x, 6, in Lives, translated by Sir Thomas North (London: Thomas Vautroullier, 1579), p. 768). o deboshed: The earliest use cited by OED of this form of ‘debauched’ (itself a fairly recent coinage, in 1598) is James I’s own in Basilikon Doron (1599). o Lotts wife: Lot alone, with his family, was permitted by God to escape the destruction of Sodom, but they were instructed not to look behind them. Lot’s wife disobeyed, and was turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19.26). o shortly ...: This threat seems not only tactless, given the antipathy of most English people to the Spanish match, but unwarranted, for the Spanish court was remarkable for its extravagance in the face of declining American revenues and an economic crisis at home. o pay: See note on line 4.

327v 535. Uppon the Prince his Voyage to Spaine & Buckingham What soddayne chance hath dark’t of late The glory of oth’Arcadian state The fleecy flocks refuse to feed The Lambs to play the ewes to breed.   The altars smoake the offrings burne  That oJack & Tom may safe returne. The spring neglects his course to keepe. The ayre continual stones doth weepe The pretty birds disdayne to singe The meades to smyle the woods to springe   The mountaynes drop the fountaynes morne   Till Jack and Tom do safe returne What may be then that moves this woe Whose weale aflicts Arcadia soe The hope of Greece the propp of arts Was princyly Jack the Joy of harts

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  And Tom was to our princely Pan   His cheifest swayne, his honest man. The lofty top of oMenalus Did shake with winds from oHesperus 20 Whose sweet delicious ayre did fly Throughout the bounds of Arcady   Which moved a vayne in Jack & Tom   To see the coast it issued from. This wind was Love, which Princes stout To Pages torne, but who can doubt Where equal fortune Love procures And equal Love successe assures   But venturous Jack shall bring from Greece   The best of price the golden fleece. Love is a world of many Spaines Where coldest hills and hottest plaines With barren rocks and fertile fields By turnes despayre and comfort yeilds   But who can doubt of prosperous lucke   When love & fortune both conduct. 328r

Thy grandsyre ogoodsyre father too Were thyne examples this to doe Theire brave attempts in heate of love Francks Scotts and Denmarks did approve   So Jack and Tom do nothing new   When love and fortune they pursue. Kind shepheards that have lov’d them long Be not so rash in censuring wrong Convert your feare leave of to morne The heavens wills favor theire retorne   Remitt the care to Royall Pan   of Jack his sonn & Tom his man.

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Jack & Tom: Charles and Buckingham, see commentary. ‘Menalus’: a mountain in Arcadia, celebrated as a haunt of Pan, representing (line 17) the King. o Hesperus: the evening star (Venus), and hence antonomasia for a westerly or south-westerly direction, the direction of Spain. o goodsyre: Although ‘goodsire’ is a frequent Scottish term for ‘grandsire’, or grandfather, James appears here to be referring to three generations of Charles’s ancestors, as evidenced by line 40. James himself had sailed to Oslo in 1590 to wed Anne of Denmark, his father, Lord Darnley, had married Mary Queen of Scots in 1561, and her father, James V, had gone to France to wed, first Madeleine de Valois in 1537 and then, after her early death, Mary of Guise in 1538. o o

328v 536 The Puritane. A puritane is such a wayward thing As loves oDemocraties, and hates a king For royal issue never making prayers Since kingdomes (as he thinks) should have no heyres but stand elective, that the holy crew 5 May when theire zeale transports them choose a new And is so strongly grounded in beleife That Antichrist his raygne wilbe but breife As he dares sweare (if he dare sweare att all) the oPalsgrave is ordayn’d to make him fall 10 from whence hee growes impatient, and then sayes the wisest counsels are but fond delayes To hold him lingring in deluding hope Else ere this he had subdued the Pope A Puritane is hee that still doth grutch 15 Att any charge bestow’d but on the dutch Who rather would desire the Turke might bee Lords of ourselves, and liberties, then wee should for our good, and honor joyne with spaine [to free our merchants & our trade susteyne.]86 20 When his brave mind can well excuse & beare the insolent odutch att home and every where And thinks it is a point of state and witt to venture millions never counting itt 86 Line 20 is missing from Burley, and is supplied here from Huntington MS HM 198 (Part 1, p. 185).

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So men may see he’s willing to decline the affronts on this syde and beyond the line But this selfe loving man hath cast that long seditions here he cannot last And therefore fayne would have the king dispence that Amsterdam might keepe him banish hence A Puritane is hee whose hart doth hate the man (how good so’ere) advanced in state And finding his disease a leprosy doth judg that all the court oJehesies bee. Whilst hee himself in bribery is lost and lies for gaine against the holy ghost So though in shew hee seeme a grave oTobias he is within a very oAnanias The Lay prophane name (Lord) he hates, and sayes It is the approaching signe of the last dayes for churchmen to be stiled so: nay more tis usher to the babilonian whore The bishops habits with theire otipps and rochetts begett in him such fancies and such crochetts that he believes itt is a strong as evill to looke on them as to behold the divell and for the government episcopall he doth condemne itt as the worst of all bycause the promest tymes did suffer no man t’exalt him self for all was held in common yet ’tis most strang When hee is most zeale sicke Nothing can cure him but a bishoppricke. And once invested proves without all scope insulting boundly more then any Pope A puritane is hee is never knowne to thinke on others good besydes his owne and all his doctrine is of hope and fayth for charity tis popery he sayth and is not only sylent for good works but for his practise hee resembles turks The churches ornaments the ring of bells (Can he get power) tis ten to one he sells for his well tuned eares cannot abyde a jangling noyse but when his neighboures chyde

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The Burley manuscript A puritane is hee that never prayes but all the world must heare him what he sayes And in that fashion so as all may see he is [tis plain] an open opharasy the name of oSaboth still he keepes tis trew true but so hee is lesse christian and more Jew. nor to the forme of prayer he will keepe but preacheth all his purer flocke asleep To study what to say were so to doubt of a presumed grace to hold him out and oto be learnéd is too [too]87 humane thought th’apostles as he sayth were men untaught and thus he proves itt farr the best to bee a simple teacher in divinity The reverence which ceremony brings into the sacred church his conscience stings which is so voyd of grace and so ill bent that kneele he will not att the sacrament but sitts more like a judge then like a synner and takes it just as he receaves his dinner thus do his sawcy postures speake his syn for as without such is his hart within A puritane is hee who doth defame the reverend ancestor from whence he came and like a graceles child above all other denies respect unto the church his mother his cosen protestants he scornes as men scarce sane because they are no brethren and lest his doctrine should be counted new he weares an ancient beard to make it trew. A puritane is hee who thinks his place att every table is to say the grace When the good man or when the child hath pray’d and thanks to god for king & realme hath sayd then he starts up and thinks himself a debtor till he doth cry I pray lets thanke god better When long hee prayes for every living thing but for the catholique church & for the king.

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A puritane is he would wondrous fayne be cald disciple by the holy trayne which to be worthy off would stray and erre ten miles to heare a sylent minister o Hee loves a vesper sermon hates a matten as he detests the fathers name’d in oCatten and as he oFriday Sunday makes in diett because the king and commons so deny itt the self same matter makes him to repayre to each dayes lecture more the[n] sundayes prayer and as this man needs in all things [to] erre he cheats his parson feeds his lecturer. A puritane is hee whose hart is bent to crosse the kings designs in parlament where whilst the place of oburgees he doth beare he thinks he owes but smalle alleageance there but stands att distance as some higher thinge like a olycurgus or a kind of king Then as in errant tymes bold knights arwere wont to seeke out monsters and adventures hunt so with his witt and valor he doth try how the prerogative he may defy this he attempts and first fayne would know whether the soveragine be new or no or if it were not fitter kings should bee confin’d unto a limited degree and for [his] part likes the oVenetian state where the magnificos may still debate all matters att theire pleasure not confin’d to this or that but as they cause do find when though that every voyce against him go heele slay that Giant with his simple no. A strong beleife his brayne sicke mind doth hatch that tis his part t’appoint the prince a match and therefore puts his witt to wondrous payne to find a fitter one then that of Spayne But having lookt all over finding none he wishes that the ogenerall states had one. He in his hart though att a poore expence abhorrs a guift that’s cald benevolence

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The Burley manuscript for as his mind so is his bounty bent and still unto the king malevolent Hee is that states man just enough precyse 145 the justest government to scandalize Not like a drunkard when he doth deexpose in secret underneath the sylent rose to use his freedome when the pott might beare the fault which closely he committed there 150 but oSherin lyke to all the men he meetes he spews his frantique venom in the streets and though he sayth the spirit moves him to ytt the divel is that spirit makes him do itt. A puritane is he else there is non 155 that thinks the king will change religion his doubtfull thoughts like to his moone bling [blind] eyes makes the beast start att every shape hee spies and what his fond mistaking fancies breed he doth beleeve as firmely as his creed 160 from whence he doth proclaime a fast for all whome he allows to bee canonicall then consecrates a secret hyred roome where none but the elected sisters come when being mett doth boldly treason teach 165 and will not fast and pray but fast and preach he straynes a text whereby hee may relate the churches daunger discontent of state and holds them there whole dayes in feare and doubt that some do thinke tis danger to go out 170 beleiving if they heare the seeling cracke there is some Spaniard standing att theire back and so they sitt bewayling one another each groaning sister to her sobbing brother A puritane is he has womens feares 175 a[nd] yet will sett the whole world by the ayeseares heele rayle in publique if the king deny or lett the oquarrel in bohemia dy He storms to heare in france the wars shall cease and that by otreaty there should be a peace 180 for (as he sayes) the church doth honor want when tis not truly called militant.

The manuscript text And surely for as much as I can find he beares the self same treasonable mind as doth the Jesuit for so we see although theire tongs make war theire hands agree for each professes foes a like consent both to betray th’annoynted oInnocent And though theire manners differ, both do ayme how best they may the king or kingdome rayne the difference is this way understood One in sedition, thother deales in blood. Theire characters abridg’d if you would have Each seemes a saint and either proves a knave.

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Hand P. Not elsewhere printed, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.5.2. 2 Democraties: not ‘democracy’ in the modern sense, but something closer to ‘mob-rule’. o 10 Palsgrave: the Elector Palatine, Protestant count, James I’s son-in-law from 1613. o 21 dutch: Many Puritan satires connected the sect with the Low Countries, for instance in Jonson’s The Alchemist (1610), the character Tribulation Wholesome is described in ‘The Persons of the Play’ as ‘a pastor of Amsterdam’ and his associate Ananias (see line 37 below) as ‘a deacon there’. Popular sentiment, and that of the Commons, was none the less for the Dutch against Spain; in 1624, the Commons budgeted £240,000 to pay for English troops there in support of the Protestant cause, and another £360,000 to the King of Denmark to finance his entry into the Thirty Years War (Stewart, The Cradle King, p. 339). This is what is commented on in ll. 23–24. o 33 Jehesies: Gehazi, Elisha’s servant who swindled Naaman, whom the prophet had cured of leprosy, and was punished by his master by receiving the disease which had left Naaman (II Kings 5.20–27). o 36 Tobias: In the apocryphal Book of Tobit, exemplar of trust in and obedience to God; also perhaps a reference to Tobias Mathew, Bishop of Durham 1595–1606, Archbishop of York 1606–28. o 37 Ananias: Follower of Peter who, with his wife Sapphira, swindled the apostles out of part of what he promised them; the couple were miraculously punished with death (Acts 5.1–11). o 41 babilonian whore: see Revelation 17; often symbolic (in Protestant writing) of the Roman Church. o 42 tipps and rochetts: tippets and rochets, episcopal vestments. o 67 pharasy: Pharisee; a reference to Jesus’s parable, recounted in Luke 18.9–14, in which a Pharisee prays publicly, praising himself for his godly life, and a publican prays alone ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner’. o 68 Saboth: possibly scribal error for Sabbath, but perhaps more probably for o

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Sabaoth, a term for the heavenly host, as in a reference where it is connected with swindling (see 33–37 above): ‘Behold the hire of labourers, which have reaped your fieldes (which is of you kept backe by fraud) crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped, are entred into the eares of the Lorde of hostes.’ James 5.4 (Geneva Bible). o 74–77 untaught: The Puritans were, said the Dean of Chester, William Barlow, in his report on the Hampton Court Conference, ‘not the learnedest men in the world’ (Stewart, The Cradle King, p. 193). o 106 vesper sermon: It is not clear why a Puritan should love a sermon at vespers (evening prayer) and hate one at matins (morning prayer), and I have found no other reference to such a tendency. Puritans in general were thought to prefer sermons to liturgy or music. o 107 Catten: catena or, more fully, catena patrum, a series of extracts from the writings of the fathers, forming a commentary on some portion of Scripture (OED). A further reference to the Puritan’s dislike of learning. o 108 Friday: Orthodox Anglican doctrine admitted fasting as a godly exercise, but frowned upon the Puritan habit of fasting on particular days of the week; see [Thomas Cranmer], Certaine Sermons Or Homilies appointed to be read in Churches, In the time of the late Queene Elizabeth of famous memory (London, 1623), Volume 2 (written 1563–71), IV ‘Of Good Works: And First of Fasting’. The same homily declared that the Friday fast, widely observed, was not a religious obligation but a (quite proper) institution of the monarch for the encouragement of the fishing industry and the sustenance of coastal towns. o 116 burgees: burgess, an elected member of Parliament (OED: ‘burgess’, 1b). o 119 lycurgus: Lycurgus, traditionally the founder of Sparta and its regime (Plutarch, Lives). o 128–131 Venetian: The Venetian proclivity for debate was almost proverbial: Sir Henry Wotton wrote to Sir George Calvert, then Secretary of State, on 6/16 March 1621(2) ‘that abundance of counsel, and curious deliberation, by which they subsist in times of peace, is as great a disadvantage in time of action’ (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 228). o 140 generall states: the Netherlands, constantly in rebellion against Spain. A majority in both Court and commons, not only Puritans, would have preferred a match for Prince Charles anywhere but Spain (Stewart, The Cradle King, p 328). o 151 Sherin: unidentified; presumably one known for being caught urinating in the public street. o 178 quarrel in bohemia: Although drawn by ties of family and religion to the cause of Bohemia, James I had been deeply opposed to the ejection of their previous monarch (or that of any anointed king), and tried to avoid getting involved, remarking ‘that he never wished to meddle in the affairs of Bohemia, and he clearly foresaw these disasters’ (the Thirty Years War) (Stewart, The Cradle King, p. 308). o 180 treaty: Possibly a reference to the Treaty of La Rochelle (1624), which secured a (temporary) truce between Richelieu and the Huguenots.

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188 Innocent: the majuscule suggests a pun on a name taken occasionally by Popes, but the most recent at this time was Innocent IX, pontiff for only two months in 1591, so probably no double meaning is intended.

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331v Blank 332r 537 Uppon the death of the Lady Penelope Clifton Since thou art dead Clifton, the world may see A certayne end of flesh and blood in thee Till then a way was left for man to cry flesh may bee made so pure it cannot dy But now thy unexpected death doth strike With greife the better and the worse alike the good are sad they are not with thee there the bad have found they must not tary here. Death I confesse ’tis just in thee to try Thy powre in us, for thou thyself must dy thou pay’st but wages, death, yet I must know What strange delight thou tak’st to pay them so When thou comst face to face thou strikest us mute And all our liberty is to dispute With thee behind the back, (which I will use) Yf thou hadst bravery in thee, thou wouldst choose (Since thou art absolute and canst controule All things beneath a reasonable soule) some look’d for way of killing. Yf her day had ended by a fire, a sword, a sea Or hadst thou come hid in a hundred yeares to make an end of all her hopes and feares Or any other way direct to thee which nature might esteeme an [emisary?] who would have chid thee? Now it shews thy hand desires to coozen where it may command. Thou art not proud to kill but where th’intent of those that suffer is their nourishment Yf thou canst steale into a dish, or creepe When all is still (as thou) into a sleepe or cover thy dry body with a draught

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The Burley manuscript wherewith some innocent Lady may be caught and cheated of her life, then thou wilt come to stretch thy self uppon her early tob tombe, and laugh, as pleas’d to shew thou canst devoure Mortality with witt as well as powre I would thou hadst had eyes or not a dart That yet att least the cloathing of that hart thou strookst so spitefully might have appear’d to thee, and with a reverence have beene fear’d But since thou art so blind, receave from mee who was on whome thou wroughts[t] this tragedy. Shee was a Lady who for publique fame Never since she in thy protection came (who seest all living tongs att large) receaved a blemish with her beauty shee deceived No man; when taken with itt they agree Twas natures fault, when from them twas in thee for such her beauty was that if they loath’d and naked left were with such garments cloath’d of flesh and bloud, coverd with such a fayre and tempting skin adornd with such a hayre Stucke with such eyes (although I know who brings thee in his company shalbee to kings but an unwelcome guest) in despite thy hate her self shouldst prove a favorite and that same Lady thinke her self divine that could but have the[e] for her valentine such was her matchlesse vertue, that though shee receivd as much joy having passd through thee as ever any did, yet hath thy hate made her as litle better in her state as ever it did woman: Being where she livd with us as if she had beene there Such Ladies thou canst kill no more but soe I give thee warning here thou kill no moe For if thou dost my pen shall make the rest of those that live (especially the best whome thou most hurts) for to abandon all those forced things, which thou wouldst have us call preservatives, keeping theire diett so

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as the long living poore theire neighbours do So shall we have them long, and they att last shall passe from thee to her but not so fast. Hand P. Francis Beaumont (1584–1616); printed in Poems (1653). Commentary 10.8.1. Title: A funerall Elegie on the Death of the Lady Penelope Clifton (1653). 19 look’d: look (1653). 24 [emisary?]: enemy (1653); the Burley text is illegibly blotted, but almost certainly not ‘enemy’. Bodleian MSS Ashmole 781 (henceforth A781) and BL Harley 3910 (H3910) also have ‘enemie’. 27 proud: prone (1653). 30 (as thou): as though (1653); (like thou) (A781). 49–58: These five couplets are missing from 1653, but present in A781 and H3910. 49–50 they loath’d / and naked left: thy loath’d / and naked self (H3910). 56 hate her self: loathed self (A781 and H3910). 57 that same Lady thinke her self: Ladies all would thinke themselves (A781). 58 that could but have the[e] for her: could they but drawe thee for their (A781); that could but draw thee for her (H3910). 59 such was her matchlesse vertue, that though shee: and such her vertue was, that although she (1653). 60 receivd as much joy: receaved much by (A781); receave as much as (H3910) 61-2: Missing (H3910). 63 as ever it did woman. Being where: as ever it did any being here (1653); as ever did woeman. Being where (A781). 68 (especially the best / whome thou most hurts) for to abandon all, especially the best, / Whom thou most thirstest for, t’abandon all (1653); (especially the best / whom thou dost long for) to abandon all (A781); (especially the best / whome thou most thirstest for) to abandon all (H3910). 70 forced: fruitlesse (1653). 73 have: keepe (A781). 74 from: by (A781); her: hear (1653).

333v 538 Seeing. From such a face whose excellence May captivate my soveraignes sence And make [him] oPhebus like his throne Resigne to some young Phaeton Whose skillesse and unsteddy hand May prove the ruine of the land

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The Burley manuscript Unlesse great Jove downe from the sky beholding earths calamity strike with his hand that cannot erre the proud usurping charioter and cure (though Phebus greive,[)] our woe from such a face that can worke soe wheresoevere thou hast a being Bless my soveraigne and his seeing.

Hearing

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Feeling.

From jests prophane from flattering toungs from baudy tales and beastly songs from after=supper=suites that feare a parliament or councells eare from oSpanish treaties that may wound our countryes peace othe gospels sound from oJobs false frends that would entice my soveraigne from heavens paradise from oprophets such as Ahabs were whose flatterings sooth my soveraignes eare his frownes fmore then his makers fearing blesse my Soveraigne and his hearing From all fruite that is forbidden Such for which old Eve was chidden from bread of laborers sweat & toyle from poore widdows meate and oyle from bloud of innocent oft wrangled from theire estates and for that strangled from the candied poysned baytes of oJesuits and theire deciets o Italian sallets romish druggs the milke of oBabels proud whores duggs from wine that destroyes the braine and from the dangerous ofig of Spaine att all banquetts and all feasting bless my Soveraigne and his tasting. From pricke of conscience such a sting as slayes the soule heavens blesse my king from such a bribe as may withdrawe his thought from equity and law from a smooth and beardles chinn

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The manuscript text as may provoke or tempt a sinn from such a hand whose omoyst palme may my Soveraigne lead out of the way from things polluted and uncleane from all that’s beastly and obsceane from what may sett his soule a reeling blesse my Soveraigne and his feeling. Smelling. Where mirh and frankensence is throwne the altars built to gods unknowne o lett my Soveraigne never dwell such dambd perfumes are fitt for hell Lett no such sent his nostrils stayne from smells that poyson may his braine heavens still preserve him. Next I crave thou wilt be pleased great God to save My Soveraigne from a oGanimede Whose whorish breath hath power to lead his excellence which way itt list o lett such lips be never kisst. from a breath so farr excelling blesse my Soveraigne and his smelling. Seeing. Now just God I humbly pray 334v that thou wilt take the filme away   that keeps my Soveraignes eyes from veiwing   the things that wilbe our undoing. Hearing. Then lett him heare good God the sounds   As well of men as of ohis hounds Tasting Give him a tast and tyme[ly] soe   of what his subjects undergoe Feeling. Give him a feeling of theire woes   and then no doubt his royal nose Smelling will quickly smell those rascals forth   whose blacke deeds have eclipsd his worth   They found & scornd for theire offences   Heavens blesse my soveriagne & all his senses.

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Hand P. Virtually identical with ESL L8, except that ll. 31–32 are absent from ESL. Here, 12-line stanzas alternate with 14-line. Attributed in Bodleian MS Eng. Poet.c.50 to William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649). Commentary 10.4.5.

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11 Phebus [...] Phaeton [...] Jove: Phoebus, the sun-god, offered to give his son Phaethon any gift, whereon he asked to drive the god’s fiery chariot across the skies. Failing to deter him by argument, Phoebus gave in rather than be forsworn: Phaethon lost control, the chariot crashed earthwards, and the world was saved only by Jove (Jupiter), the king of the gods, hurling a thunderbolt to destroy Phaethon and the chariot (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2.1). o 19 Spanish treaties: almost certainly a reference to Buckingham’s expedition with Prince Charles in 1623 to arrange a marriage treaty with the Infanta of Spain. o 20 the gospels sound: Protestantism. o 21 Jobs false frends: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, ‘Job’s comforters’, who gave him well-intentioned traditional theological accounts for his suffering, which helped him not at all (Job 2.11ff.). God rewarded Job, and made his friends do penance. o 23 prophets such as Ahabs: Ahab, King of Israel, who listened to the false prophets who, telling him what he wanted to hear, foretold success in a war to take Ramoth Gilead, ignoring the true prophet Micaiah. Ahab lost, and was killed in, the ensuing battle with Aram (I Kings 22). o 31 wrangled from theire estates: Buckingham’s rise to great wealth began when the King presented him with estates in Buckinghamshire that had been forfeited to the Crown (Roger Lockyer, ‘Villiers, George, first duke of Buckingham (1592– 1628)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). o 34 Jesuits: militant proselytising order of Roman Catholics, generally supposed to be leading the Counter Reformation. o 35 Italian sallets romish druggs: metonyms for the practices of the Roman Church. Italy was generally associated with poisoning, a reputation it gathered in the fifteenth century, when political assassination was rife, and poison a favourite means. According to Burkhardt, the imagination of the Italian people ‘became so accustomed to [political poisoning] that the death of any powerful man was seldom or never attributed to natural causes’ (Jacob Burkhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by S. G. C. Middlemore (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 287). o 36 Babels proud whore: the whore of Babylon (Revelation 17), identified by Protestants with the Papacy. o 38 fig of Spaine: poisoned fig (OED, fig, n.1), allying Spain with the Catholic menace, expressed, as in l. 35, by the poison reference. o 47 moyst palme: an indication of sexual desire, cf. Othello, III.4.32. o 53–59 Smelling: Metonymic references to the Church of Rome, derived from its use of incense. o 61 Ganimede: boy beloved of Zeus; common term for a catamite. o 72 his hounds: James’s passion for hunting frequently caused him to absent himself from matters of state (Stewart, The Cradle King, pp. 176–181). o

The manuscript text 335r 539 To the Hon. of Buckingham. Admirall. Couldst thou young Neptune number all the sand Could I the nymphs that doted on thee ken: Or thou theire thoughts, my thanks perhaps I then Might utter, and thy self them understand Thou broughtst me first to kisse his sacred hand That holds Joves scepter & Apolloes pen The man who next to God the God of men Lord of himself no lesse then of the Land His hand that in his birth and ever since Was open, and of gold doth count but chaffe Though now thou recommended hath the staffe To frugall hands, the handmayds of theire prince   How can the Checquer then but prosper well   Betweene our Lion and his Lionell.

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540 To my Lord the King health & happines Externall, Internall, Æternall. Yf for his witt Ulisses bee renowned that brought Achilles to the Trojan trenches Whose lance (a distaffe late among the wenches) In teares and bloud the townes of Asia drowned For wisedome Sir then bee you doubly crowned That of the commonwealth to cure the wrenches A brace of men have sett uppon your benches To match both cloked greeks and Romans gowned The King was then now are the men admired So clearely shines in both your judgment deeper Who study most when most you seeme at leasure

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The Burley manuscript God hath my leige your noble hart inspired That having such a treasure of your keeper You chose as good a keeper of your treasure.

Hand P. Another version is at item 613. Commentary 10.3.1. Variations from item 613: Heading: To the King for your Lo: Thr: & Lo: keper / C. W. 1 bee: were 2 that: who 3 Parentheses: omitted 14 as: so

335v 541 M[i]st[resse]. Buck:[ingham] Most gracefull Mary mother of that pearle A well sett pendon in his soveragnes eare Rare Countesse worthy of the greatest Earle Your gentil blood and murthering beauties were Beare you to him my thanks whome you did beare 5 Unworthy though unthankfull I am not Could you but see my hart then you should there Know all my thoughts in Lines far better wrott I have not yet my self so far forgott Nor you nor every other moral thing 10 goe then brave spirits and while the chase is hott have care the worke so perfect of a king   As he gave honor you brought noble blood   Made by him great, your selves must make you good. Hand P. Conjecturally by John Williams (1582–1650), see commentary. Another version is at item 612. Commentary 10.3.1. Variations from item 612: Heading: To the Countesse of Buckingham. / requesting her to thank her son. 1 Mary: Lady 5 to him my thanks: my thanks to him 6 though: though, I am: am I 9 far: much 10 moral: earthly 13 noble: gentle

The manuscript text

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542 I will no more on progresse I but to my pilgrimage will hy and from my soverayne to my saint two names to great for rymes so faint Nor wott I whether to prefer for him I pray but pray to her that of my hart the Idol is the image of all heavenly blis to me an image and no more she must be noes my hart therefore She is the mother shell that drew Into her lap celestial dew And might myne arme but make the ring She were a diamond for a king Her eyes are both the sonn and moone They make the night she makes the noone for with her smiles the day she crownes and maketh midnight with her frownes of fortune she is both the child and of all vertues mother mild the vowes of all men and the joyes of such as never felt annoyes Soule of the world sole hart of d’alby My saint she is and ever shalbee

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336v 543 The Lady Eliza: Queene of Bohemia You meaner beauties of the night That poorely satisfie our eyes More by your number then your light Like common people of the skies   What are yee when the moone shall rise. Yee violetts that first appeare And by your purple mantles knowne Like proud virgins of the yeare As if the spring were all your owne   What are yee when the Rose is blowne

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So when my mistris shal bee seene In sweetnes of her lookes and mind By Nature first then choyce a Queene Tell me if she were not design’d   Th’Eclipse & glory of her kind.

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337r 544 An Elegy uppon Mr. Tho: Washington his death in Spaine. Hast thou beene lost a month, am and can I bee Compos’d of any thing but Elegye Or hath this country taught my soule to feele No greife where harts are made of Spanish steele Or am I hyred not to magnify Ought what my country breeds? Else how should I bee sylent in thy losse, who lives to see Now nothing but thy goodnes left of thee. If I forgett thee lett my scorned hearse Want a true mourner and my tombe a verse. May I unpittied fall, unwished againe

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Or to somm upp all curse, fall sicke in Spaine. A curse which hadst thou scaped no ayre had beene So cruell to have struck thee at eighteen: But if they some purer ayres they say endure No poisonous breath but either kill or cure What ere’t infects, so againe tis true Unlesse you poyson this itt poysons you: You must breath falsehood here or treachery For undisguised fayre simplicity Are [guests?] not with this soyle, no more then thou Lov’d youth which or that busines couldst not bow,88 Therefore infection when itt could not cease Thy soule or manners throws into disease Thy body, to see if distempered blood Could make thy soule lese pure lesse good But no rude fever ruder oArguisile No Jesuite no devill could make thee feele Distemper in thy soule, though hell combind to strike at one thy body and thy minde Thy most distracted thoughts & wildest blood had sence yet to discerne thy w theire ill from good and hate that barbarisme which durst increase thy dolour in disturbing thy last peace Now if there be a curse which thou hast not Madrid already may it fall as hott as are thy noonetydes on those which do nurse those moores which are thy scandal and thy curse though thy infectious ayre deny the breath yet for shame give him liberty of death do not invent so rude a cruelty not to give leave for what thou kilst to dy: But thy fayre soule is fled now farr above the reach of all theire malice or our love where he shall have no spaniards to molest or interupt his everlasting rest Only the case that cover’d that rich mind his body he hath left with us behind And that is challenged as oPatroclus bounes

88 21–22: These two lines are very faint in the MS.

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The Burley manuscript by two armies, so two religions Lay claime to this: so once othe devil did strive for Moises dead who was not his alive and though his soule could not be touchd by him he would have thankt the angell for a lymm But this hath found a grave, though still I must greive that such choise unvaluable dust should dwell so long so il imprisoned there till he be wakd with summons to appeare: when the last ohunts up shal cal at his doores how white shall he appear amongst those moores. those sullied burnt soules of the self same dy and tincture of the place where they shall fry yet here will l[ive?] this treasure which they keepe Whilst we have nothing left us but to weepe the losse whereof endthe frend that hath true sence knowes oboth theire Indies cannot recompence O you who henceforth shall desire to seeth or stew yourselves in July att oMadrid hope not your temperance or your youth can cure or guarde your goodnes from a ocalenture Twas his disease, the purest & the best is made a sacrifice for all the rest resigne your innocence before you part from your owne cuntry, leave [behind] your hart if it be english, bring no vertues hither but patience: here ô the vertues wither and you shall find it treason at the shore for any man to bring such treasure oere Let it be henceforth counted a mishap to see spaine any where but in a map Let ship wracked men as rock avoyde this land end and rather choose to perish in the sand Nor save them here selves within this cost, the wombe of fraud & mischeife & of good the tombe. yet now it holds a guest which every age will invite strangers unto pilgrimage o Thy reliques Washington may bring againe me and my curses once now back to spaine who had forsworne itt. but if ere I come Ile come a pilgrim only to thy tombe.

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His Epitaph89 Knowst you whose these ashes weare reader you wouldst weeping sweare The rash fates send heare as appears counting his vertues for his yeares His goodnes made them overseene 5 which show’d him threescore at eighteene Inquire not his disease or paine he died of nothing else but spaine Where the worst ocallantures he feeles Are Jesuites & oArguisiles 10 where he was not allowed to have unlesse by stealth a quiet grave He needs no epitaph or stone but this here lies lov’d Washington write this in teares in that lost dust 15 & every greivd behold or must who bew[r]ays him & knows his yeares renew the letters with his teares. Hand P. In several other MSS, notably Bodleian Ashmole 47 and BL Sloane 826, but no contemporary printed version found. Possibly by William Lewis. Commentary 10.8.1. 27 Arguisile: The word, in this form or in that found in BL Sloane 826, ‘Arguazile’, is probably a rendering of ‘alguacil’, a constable. o 49–51: The Greek and Trojan armies fought over the body of Achilles companion, Patroclus, the action taking up the whole of Book XVII of Homer’s Iliad. The reference (see commentary) is to the conflict over the burial of the body, and the attempt to convert the dying youth. o 51–54: Jude 1.9 refers to ‘Michael the archangel […] contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses’; in turn, this refers to an apocryphal tradition that the devil wished Moses’s body to become a shrine, so that the Jews might be tempted to break the first commandment by worshipping there. In the event, Moses was buried in an unmarked grave (Deuteronomy 34.6). o 59 hunts up: a song sung or tune played to rouse anyone (OED, quoting Romeo & Juliet, III.5.34: ‘Hunting thee hence, with hunts-up to the day’). o 66 ‘both theire Indies’: The Spanish West Indies at this time consisted of Cuba, Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Trinidad, and the Bay Islands. Their East Indian possessions included the Philippines and a number of other Pacific islands. Although by the o

89 In Burley, the epitaph and its heading are written as a marginal note on the right of lines 55–73 of the elegy itself.

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time of this poem Spain was in economic decline, the image of inexhaustible colonial wealth, established in the previous century, lived on (Ruth Pike, Aristocrats and Traders (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 21–129; David R. Ringrose, Madrid and the Spanish Economy, 1560–1850 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 315). o 68 The rhyme ‘seeth […] Madrid’ perhaps represents an attempt at Spanish pronunciation. See textual note on l. 68. o 70 calenture: a disease incident to sailors within the tropics, characterised by delirium […] also used in the Spanish general sense of ‘fever’, and sometimes in that of ‘sunstroke’ (OED). o 86–90: Despite the steadily Protestant tone of the poem as a whole, these lines, with their references to pilgrimages and relics, suggest that the poet was not unaffected by Catholic practice. o 9 (epitaph) callantures: calentures, see note on line 70 of the elegy. o 10 (epitaph) See note on line 27 of the elegy. Main variations from Bodleian Ashmole 47 and BL Sloane 826: Elegy: Heading: Another elegye on Mr Washingtons death (A41); An Eligie upon the death of Mr Thomas Washington / who died at Madrid, while his Highness was there. 1623. (S826). 1 lost: dead (A47). 9 lett my scorned: thus may my scornd (A47). 11 missing from A47. 21 Are [guests?]: Agrees (A47 & S826). This makes sense but, despite the faintness of the Burley text, it looks more like the (perhaps more poetic) rendering I have given than ‘Agrees’. 23 cease: seiz (A47); seaze (S826). ‘Seize’ makes better sense. 25 to see if: so if that (A47), which scans better. 26–31 Missing from A47. The scribe’s eye has slipped from ‘blood’ (25) to the next rhyme-word, ‘good’ in 32; he then repairs the grammar by using the subjunctive in 32. 26 thy: thy troubled (S826), which scans. 27 Arguisile: Arguazile (S826). 32 had: have (A47). 36 Madrid: made rich (A47). which is perhaps a mishearing. 38 thy curse: our curse (A47). The scribe has written ‘thy’, then crossed it out and substituted ‘our’; our curse (S826). 41 rude: new (A47 & S826). 47 case that cover’d: cause that cool’d (A47), which is evidently corrupt. 47–48 Transposed in A47. 59 hunts up shal cal: trumpet soundeth (A47). 61 sullied burnt soules of the self same: sullen soules of the same (A47). 63 will l[ive?] this: we leave that (A47); have leave this (S826). 68 Madrid: Madrith (A47). An attempt at Spanish pronunciation, perhaps.

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71 purest: poorest (A47). 76 ô the: all other (S826). 78 treasure: traffique (A47 & S826). 81 ship wracked: spanish (S826). 81 as rock avoyde this land: likewise survy this shore (A47); avoide this shoare (S826). 82 in the sand: then come oer (A47 & S826). 88 curses once now back to spaine: verses curses back againe (A47); curses back once more (S826). 90 only to: to weepe oer (A47); to weepe at (S826). Epitaph Heading: In A47, this poem is inscribed as a separate item immediately before ‘Hast thou been lost a month’, and is headed ‘An elegye uppon the death / of Mr Washington’. In S826, it follows the elegy, and is headed ‘His Epitaphe’. 1 you: thou (S826). 10 Arguisiles: Arguaziles (S826). 15 lost: loose (S826). 17 who bew[r]ays : When he weighes (S826).

338r–339v 545 My Lords and Gentlemen all I have Cause first to thanke god with my heart, and all the faculties of my mynde that my speache which I Delivered in Parlyament [...] Hand S. Four-page copy (presumably just a summary, since it is so brief) of a speech made to Parliament, probably that of 1621, by James I.

339ar–340r 546 My Lords and Gentlemen all I have nothinge to saye to the preamble of my Lord of Canterbury, Butt that, hee intimated some thynge in it which I never spake. [...] Hand S. Three-page copy (also presumably a summary) of a speech made by James I to the same (1621) Parliament.

340v Blank 341r 547 Sir, I presume you rather try what you can do in me, then what I can do in verse. you knew my uttermost when itt was att the best. And even then I did best when I had least truth for my

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The Burley manuscript subject. In this present case there is so much truth as it defeats all poetry. Call therefore this paper by what name you will, And if it bee not worthy, of him nor of you, nor of mee, smother itt, and bee that the sacrifice. Yf you had commanded me to have wayted on his body to Scotland and preached there I should have embraced the obligation with more alacrity. but I thanke you for that you would command that which I was loath to do for even that hath given a tincture of meritt to the obedience of

               your poore freind and servant                in Christ Jesus. J.D.

Hand M (see commentary). John Donne to Sir Robert Ker (no addressee here, but in several other MSS). Accompanies following poem. Commentary 10.8.1. No significant difference from the Variorum (hereafter Var.) copy-text, save that in the subscription the words ‘in Christ Jesus’ are not in Var., although the Var. editors note that they appear in three other MSS.

548 A Hymme to the saints and the Marquis Hamilton. Wheter that soule which now comes up to you fill any former rancke or make a new whether it take a name nam’d there before Or be a name it self, or order more then was in heaven till then now (for may not hee bee so?) if every angell be a kind alone a kind alone. What ever order grow greater by him in heaven, wee do not soe one of your orders growes by his accesse but by his losse grow all our orders lesse the name of father, master, frend the name of subject and of Prince in one are lame fayre mirth is dampt and conversation black the houshold widdow’d, and the garter slacke the chappel wants an eare, councell a toung Story a theame and musicke lacks a soung. Blest order that hath him; the losse of him gangren’d all orders here: all lost a lymme. Never made body such hast to confesse what a soule was: all former comelynesse

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341v

fled in a minute when thy soule was gone and having lost that beauty would have none. So fell our monasteries in an instant growne not to lesse houses but to heapes of stone so sent his body that fayre forme in wore Unto the Spheare of formes: and doth before his soule shall fill upp his sepulchral stone anticipate a resurrection. for as in his fame nohw his soule is here so in the forme thereof his body’s there And if fayre soule not with first innocence thy station bee but with the penitents (and who shall dare to ask them when I am die’d scarlet in the bloud of that pure lamb whether that coulor which is scarlett then were black or white before the eyes of men) when thou remembrest what syns thou didst find amongst those many frends thou lefts[t] behind and ^seest^ such synners as they are with thee got thither by repentance, let it bee thy wish to wish all there, to wash them cleane wish him a David, her a oMagdalene.

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6 angell: severall Angel (Var.). The omission gets the scribe into an evident difficulty of scansion. 25 in: it (Var.). No other MS has this error, which is therefore presumably scribal. 27 soule shall: body (Var.). Many other MSS and printed texts follow Burley, but Var. has chosen the version that makes more sense. 36 the eyes: in th’eyes (Var.).

90 Beal (IELM, I, Pt 1, p. 256) identifies the hand as Parkhurst’s, but I have the support of Steven May in my belief that it is neither Parkhurst’s nor D1’s. See commentary.

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342r 549 Mens bona non vaga sors virtus non gratia Regis   Nomina cui tribuit Dux bone convaleas [...] Hand P. Six-line epigram. Found also in Osborn MS (Yale University Library, Beinecke Library , MS Yo52-2” 34 (p. 159).

550 A learned Bishop of this land Thinking to make religion stand In equall poise on every syde The mixture of them thus he tryde An oounze of protestants he singles And a dramme of papists mingles Then adds a scruple ^of a^ puritan And melts them all^downe^ in his brayne pan   But when hee lookes they should digest   The scruple oeagers all the rest. o

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342v 551 What is our life? a play of passion our omirth? the musick of odivision Our mothers wombs the tyring houses be Where we are drest for lives short comedy The earth the stage, heaven the spectator is Who still doth note who ere do act amisse Our graves that hide us from th’all seeing sunn Are but drawne curtaynes when the play is donn.

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mirth: ‘Pleasurable feeling […] often used of religious joy and heavenly bliss’ (OED, mirth, (1.a.)). o division: in music, ‘execution of a rapid melodic passage’ (OED, division, (7)); but perhaps also here implying the separation of earthy life from heavenly bliss, or the separation from this life’s pleasures that death will bring. o

Raleigh’s most recent and comprehensive editor, Michael Rudick,91 identifies six contemporary MS copies of this poem; he does not include Burley. Three of them have four couplets, as here; the others add a fifth. Burley’s text is closest to MS Folger V.a.319, f. 2, Rudick’s ‘B’ copy-text, with the following important variations: 4 comedy: Tragedie (‘comedie’ appears in only one other text, BL Add. MS 21433, f. 133v). 7 th’all seeing: the parching (other texts have ‘burning’, ‘parching’, or ‘scorching’); none has Burley’s less hackneyed version.

343r 552 A Kisse O what a blisse   is this?   heaven is effected   and loves eternity cont^r^acted    In one short kisse. For not tymes measure     makes pleasure        more full   tedious and dull   all joyes are thought    that are not in an instant wrought. Cupi[d]s blest and highest spheare     is heare.   heer on his throne   in his bright imperial crowne        hee sitts        Those witts That thinke to prove   that mortals know   in any place below

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91 Sir Walter Raleigh, The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh, a Historical Edition, ed. by Michael Rudick (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999), pp. 69– 70.

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    a blisse so great        so sweet   Are heritiques in love. These pleasures high     now dye   but still beginning   new and greater glory winning     gett fresh supply   No short breath’d panting     nor fainting        is heere   fuller and freer   more pleasinge is   this pleasure still, and none but this Heer’es no payne ^blush^ nor labor great        no sweat   Heres no payne   nor repentance when againe     Love cooles.     O fooles   That fondly glory     in base condition     of sensual fruition   You do mistake     and make   your heaven purgatory

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Hand P. Commentary 10.2.

343v 553 Mar: Ep: 47. lib. 10. My sonn receave these lines, and happy bee   Yf choice or fortune what they speake, grant thee Goods by descent, and not by Labour gott, Feilds fruitefull, a chymney th[a]t’s alwayes hott Rare visits, no suites at Law, to none bound Apt and convenient strenght in body sound Frends equable, and a wise simplicity An easy diet a table from arts free Nights not confused with cares nor wine: A wife

5

The manuscript text That[s] alwayes joyous yet of a chast life. A quiet mind, sleep that makes short nights Pleas’d in thy self nor searching strang delights   Long you for nought but what you present have So shalt thou never wish nor feare thy grave.

285 10

Hand P. Conjecturally by Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639). Commentary 10.3.3.

344r 554 Martial Ep. 94: lib: 9o Twixt Lords and servants some great difference make And good for ill, or ill for worse mistake Foundly concluding that the servants case Is truly worse bycause it semes more base The Lord in softest lynines though hee lye by often turning shews his misery Hee walks in thoughts whol nights, his temples bete with fancies, where next morne he first may meete the favorite, and with a trembling brow salutes him, fearefull what he speake or how. The man securely sleepes, though’in ruder sheets and rising cares not how nor whome he meets None whispers him for debts: the Lord must pay Interest and thanks, and pray to see that day that quietly may passe from houshold noyse though[’]t bee by purchase of deare idle toyes And then he drownes his cares, and ease that payne perhaps doth lay on his disturbed brayne such charg of wine or meats, from whence ensue Aches or gouts or palsies, or some new distempered agues, and his man thereby the next hopes to’have doble livery The truth thus stands: they have the happier shares who live within the lesser round of cares.

5

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15

20

Hand P. Conjecturally by Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639). Commentary 10.3.3. Heading Martial Ep. 94: lib: 9o: incorrect; in fact this is Ep. 92: lib. 9.

The Burley manuscript

286

344v 555 A lost finger Arithmatique nine digits and no more Admits of, then I shall have all my store. for that which chance has cut from my left hand It seemes, did only for a cypher stand Yet this for thee Ile speake departed joynt thou wert not given to pick or steale or point att any in disgrace, but thou didst goe Untymely to thy grave only to showe the other members what they once must doe hand, arme, legg thigh & all must follow too Oft hast thou scan’d my rymes, where if I misse hereafter Ile impute the cause to this A finger lesse I speake it not in sport o May make a verse a foot too short.   Farwell deare finger I much greive to see   how soone mischance hath made a hand of thee

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Hand P. Thomas Randolph (bap. 1605–1635), who lost a finger in a tavern brawl. Printed, with no significant variation from the text here given, in Thomas Randolph, Poems with the Muses looking-glasse: and Amyntas (Oxford: for Francis Bowman, 1638), p. 61. Commentary 10.9.2. It will be observed that this verse (line) is a (metrical) foot short. The editor of the 1664 and 1668 editions of the poems saw fit to repair the scansion with the addition of ‘sometimes’ after ‘verse’.

o

556 Quam miser est qui vocandi argumentum non habet propter infortunium suum. Hand P. Latin sententia.

345r 557 Annagra^m^ma    Richardus Westonus.     Vir durus ac honestus. Te virum durum vocat ac honestum Nominis felix Annagramma vostri Sis tamen quæso mihi mile durus        Valor et honestus.

The manuscript text

287

Although your Lordships happy annagramme Give you of hard and honest both the name Yet let that hard I pray you fall on me gently, and pay me with your honesty.   To the Right Ho: Ric: L: Weston   Lo: High Treasurer of England The humble petition of A. B. showeth. Hand P. Connected curiously with item 555; see commentary on that poem in 10.9.2.

345v 558 On the Countesse of Pembroke Underneath this sable herse Lies the subject of all verse Sydnies sister, pembrooks mother Death ere thou hast kild another Fayre and learned good as shee Tyme will throwe a dart att thee.

5

Marble pillars let none rayse To her name for after dayes Some good lady as was shee Reading it like oNiobe. 10 Will turne a stone, & so become both her mourner & her tombe.92 Hand P. Written in or after 1621. William Browne of Tavistock (?1590–1645). Printed in Camden’s Remaines, 1623. Many manuscript copies. Commentary 10.8.2. Niobe: In Greek myth, Queen of Thebes who boasted arrogantly of her fourteen children at a ceremony to honour Theto, mother of (only) two, Apollo and Artemis. In revenge, Theto sent her two children to kill the fourteen, and Niobe’s husband committed suicide; thus Niobe’s whole family were dead within minutes. In her grief she retreated to the mountains, where she was turned to stone, her image continuing to weep (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 6.2).

o

Major variations from 1623: Title: On the Countesse Dowager of Pembroke 9 Some good lady as was shee: Some kinde woman borne as she 10 it like Niobe: this (like Niobe,) 11 Will turne a stone, & so: Shall turne Marble, and 92 The second stanza has been squeezed on to the page, as if an afterthought – see discussion and facsimile reproduction in Chapter 7, pp. 37–40.

The Burley manuscript

288

559 New freinds are no freinds; how can that be true? For oldest freinds that are were sometymes new. Hand P. Sir John Harington (c.1561–1612). Printed in Most elegant and witty epigrams (1618), Book IV, No. 50. Commentary 10.9.2.

560 Uppon a non resident president

o

St: Jhons is governed only by a P. For theres no resident that wee can see Yf vice then rule there take it not amisse The Vice in presidents roome by statute is. Hand P. No printed version, but the epigram appears in Bodleian MS Douce, f. 5. Commentary 10.9.2. Title: There are several candidates for the subject of this epigram. Dr Hegarty, the historian of St John’s College, thinks it likely to be William Juxon (bap. 1582– 1663), who was President from 1621 to 1633, with increasing absences at Court during the later part of his term or, less probably, Richard Baylie (1585/86?–1667), President from 1633 to 1648. Another possibility is William Laud (1573–1645), elected in 1610–11, but unable to take his place until disputes over the conduct of the election had been resolved. Laud was President until 1621.

o

561 Of a Rotten Str[ay?]93 Sextus on a spleene did rashly sweare that no new fashion he would ever weare He was forsworne for see what did ensue He wore the old one till the old was new. Hand P. Thomas Bastard (1565/66–1628). Printed in Chrestoleros (1598), Ep. 17, Bk 6. Commentary 10.9.2.

346r 562 Brabus of late hath often boldly sed That no disease should make him keepe his bed His reason is as I heard him tell itt Hee wanteth money and he needs must sell itt. Hand P. Printed in Wits Recreation (1640). Commentary 10.9.2. 93 This title which, as indicated, is not entirely legible, appears as a marginal note, and from its position could just as well belong to the previous item. It seems more likely that it belongs here.

The manuscript text

289

563 On the Lady Car. There was at Court a Lady of late Whome none could enter she was so ostrate And now with use she’s growne so wide There[’s] passage for a carre to ryde. Hand P. The last four lines of ESL F5 (see above, item 341). Commentary 10.4.3. strate: ironical reference to the lady’s supposed virginity; OED gives ‘strait, n8, a narrow passage of the body’, and quotes (1567) ‘Dictamus is an Herbe, very wonderful in losening & unbinding the straights of the bodie’. o

564 On a knife to a Valentine Fayre Valentine since once your welcome hand did cull me out wrapt in a paper band Vouchsafe the same hand still to shew thereby that fortune did your will no injury. What though a knife I give? your beauties charme will keepe the edge in awe for doing harme Wooll deads the sternest blade, and will not such a weake edge turne meeting a softer touch.

5

Hand P. William Strode (1601?–45). Printed, without attribution, in The Academy of Complements (1650), p. 247. Commentary 10.9.2.

565 Musicus et Logicus Downhalt iacet ecce Johannes Organa namque loqui fecerat ille quasi. Musitian and Logician John Downhalt low lies here Who made the organ while he liv’d To speake, as if it were. Hand P. The English, which is a translation of the Latin, is in two other MSS, the names ‘John Jener’ and ‘John Wingfall’ being substituted in them for ‘John Downhalt’. Commentary 10.8.2.

346v 566 On a fountayne The Dolphines twisting each on others syde for joy leapt up, and gazing there abide

290

The Burley manuscript And whereas other waters fish do bring Heere from fishes doth the water spring Who thinke it is more glorious to give 5 then to receave the juyce whereby they live. And by this milk-white bason learne you may That pure hands you should bring or beare away for which the bason wants no furniture Each dolphin wayting makes his mouth a oEure. 10   Your welcome then you well may understand   When fish themselves give water for your hand.

Hand P. William Strode (1601?–45). Not printed until 1907, but in several contemporary MSS. Commentary 10.9.2. o

Eure: ewer, a large pitcher or water-jug.

567 Marriage (sayth one) hath oft compared byn Unto a feast where meets the publique rout Where those that are without would fayne gett in And those that are within would fayne gett out. Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

347r 568 On the Bible Behold this litle volume here enrold Tis the Almighties present to the world Harken earth, earth, each senceles thing can heare his makers thunder though it want an eare Gods word is senior to his works, nay rather (if rightly cald weighd) the world may call it father God spake, twas done, this great foundation is the creators exhalation breathd out in speaking. Each work of man is better then his word; but if wee scan Gods word aright his work far short doth fall The word is God the work are creatures all The sundry peeces of this general frame are dimmer letters all which spell the same Eternal word, but they cannot expresse

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The manuscript text his greatnes with such easy readinesse and therefore yeild. oThe heaven shall passe away the sunne and Moone & starrs shall all obey To light one general bonfire: but his word his builder up his all destroying sword that still survives, no jot of that can dye each tittle measure imortalitye The words owne mother on whose brest did hang the worlds upholder drawne into a spanne She, she was not so blest bycause she bare him as cause her self was new borne & did heare him Before she had brought forth she heard her sonn first speake in the oannuntiation and then even then before she brought forth child o by name of blessed she herself instild Once more thy mighty word his people greets thus lapt thus swadled up in paper sheetes Read here Gods Image with a zealous eye The legible and written deity.

291

20

25

30

Hand P. William Strode (1601?–45). Holograph in Corpus Christi College MS 325, f. 78. Commentary 10.8.1. The heaven: a reference to Matthew 24.35: ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.’ The same verse appears in the other synoptic Gospels. o annuntiation: The event known to Christians as the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would become the mother of the Son of God, is described in Luke 1.26–38. o by name of blessed: A reference to the pregnant Mary’s hymn of praise to God, known as the Magnificat (Luke 1.46–55), which includes the words ‘behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed’ (v. 48). o

(1656) omits ll. 23–30. This apart, the Burley text has only minor differences from either (1656) or CCC325.

347v 569 Light fingered Catch to keep his hand in ure Stole anything: and that you may be sure that every things his owne that he but handles for practice sake he stole a pound of candles   Was taken in the fact a foolish wight   To steale such things that needs must come to olight.

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292

The Burley manuscript

Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.2. light: The paronomasia on ‘light’ not only embraces the thoughts that candles give light, and that his crime was exposed (came to light), but also connects with the first line and his ‘light’ (meaning both ‘nimble’ and ‘immoral’) fingers.

o

570 A Lady once that lately was besped With all the pleasures of a marriag bed asked her phisition whether twere more meet fit for Venus sports the morning or the night the good old man replied as he thought meet the morne more wholesome but the night more sweet   Well then quoth she since we have tyme & leasure   We’le take the morne for health the night for pleasure.

5

Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

571 On the Lady Rich Here lies one dead under this marble stone Who when she liv’d lay under more then one. Hand P. It is not in ESL, but carries the same unkind sentiment as ESL, B14. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.4.1.

572 A certayne old cooke cald his dog cuckold His wife did often here it & him told Fy husband fye it is a filthy shame To call a dog after a christians name Hand P. In several other MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

348r 573 An unmaried man in the nominative case He dived so deepe in the genitive place and gave such a dative to his feminine freind as she brought him to an accusative end The vocative sommer he still playd the ranger till he brought both their cases to an ablative danger.

5

The manuscript text

293

Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

574 Seest thou those jewells which she weares   In that rich ocarconett And those in her disheveled hayres   fayre pearles in order sett Beleeve yong man alle these are teares   by wretched lovers sent In obubles hyacinths and orue   Emblems of discontent Which when not warmed by her view   through cold neglect each one   Congeald to pearle & stone Which now the spoyles of love upon her She weares as trophies to her honor   Oh then beware fond youth       And thus surmise   She that will weare thy teares       Would weare thyne eyes.

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Hand P. Robert Herrick (1591–1674). Printed in Hesperides (1648). Commentary 10.2. Carconett: carcanet, ornamental collar or necklace (OED). bubles: something worthless (OED); hyacinth: the hyacinth was a symbol of hope (Henry Hawkins, Partheneia Sacra (1633), p. 10: ‘the Hiacinth of Hope’), so ‘bubles hyacinths’ may stand for ‘false hope’. Alternatively, ‘bubles’ may signify ‘baubles’. rue: stands for repentance. o o

Variations from Hesperides (1648): No title: The admonition 1 jewells: Diamonds 2 carconett: Carkanet 7 bubles: mournfull 8 Emblems of: that figure 10 through: by 12 now the spoyles of love: precious spoiles 14/15 Oh then beware fond youth / And thus surmise: Ah then consider! What all this implies (one line). 16/17 Two lines: one line.

The Burley manuscript

294

575 Here lies one had a great deale of witt     He died. and so be itt. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.1.

576 Here lies one had a great deale of worth.     He died: and so forth. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.1.

348v 577 K. James The K. of Isles is dead   Whose like againe All Isles and continents   shal ne’re contayne. Hand P. Written in or after 1625. No other copy found. Commentary 10.8.2.

578 Faustus stabd flora and would you know why He being a souldier she gave him the ly And yet this desperate wench would not refrayne To give him the lye till he stabd her againe. Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

579 Phisitians say Tobacco’s good: ’tis true Tis good indeed for them: but not for you. Hand P. Also in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS CCC 327. Commentary 10.9.2.

580 Motion begets heat, and thus wee see it proved For men are hott and angry when they are moved. Hand P. John Pyne (bap. 1600–1678). Printed, without attribution, in Wits Recreations (1640), No. 37. Commentary 10.9.2.

The manuscript text

295

581 On a Lawier God works wonders now and than Here lies a Lawier was an honest man. Hand P. Not elsewhere printed, but attributed in two MSS to Sir John Harington; these suggest it is about Justice Randall of Surrey. Commentary 10.9.1.

349r 582 On the death of Q. Anne. Thee to invite the great God sent his stare Whose frends and kindred mighty Princes are For though they runn the race of men, and dye Death seems but to refine theire majesty. So did the Queene from hence her court remove And left this court to bee enshrin’d above   Thus shee is changd not dead. No good Prince dies   But like the day starre only rests to rise.

5

Hand P. Written 1619. James I and VI (1566–1625). Also, in a version close to this one, in BL MS Harley 6917. Commentary 10.8.2.

583 Uppon Prince Henry Did hee dy young? ô no, that cannot bee For I know few that liv’d so long as hee Till God and men lov’d him: Then be bold That man that lives so long must needs be old. Hand P. Written 1612/13. William Rowley (1585?–1626). In Folger MS V.a.308, f. 127v, and printed in Mausoleum (Edinburgh, 1613). Commentary 10.8.2. 3 and men: and all men (Maus).

584 Uppon a child Within this marble caskett lies A matchlesse Jewell of rich prize Whome nature in the worlds disdaine But shew’d, and putt it vppe againe. Hand P. A second version of item 423. Attributed to George Morley (1598?–1684). Commentary 10.8.2.

The Burley manuscript

296

585 On Jo: Fidle: On the seaven & twentieth ^day^ of June Jhon Fidle went out of tune. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.1.

349v 586 A tankard can do as much as a Kan And a Kan can do as much as a man For a man can do [no] more than hee can Then a tankard can do as much as a man. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.2.

587 Our paradice is in a payre of dice Our cares are turnd to cards All our houses are alehouses Hee is no gallant that drinks not his gallon Was it thus in the dayes of Noah? Ah no.

5

Hand P. Commentary 10.9.2.

588 Owen a Butler of University Colledg. o

Why cruel death should honest Owen catch Into my mind it cannot easyly sincke It may bee death stood att the buttry hatch And honest Owen would not make him drinke If it were so fayth Owen twas thy fault That death insted of drinke made thee the draught Not so not so for Owen gave him liquor And death being fond tooke him away the quicker Yet merry ladds let naught molest your mind The Butlers dead the keys are left behind.

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Hand P. Possibly by Richard Corbett (1582–1635), although some MSS attribute it to ‘Benjamin Stone of New College’. Another version of item 481, where it is headed ‘Epitaph Uppon Mr. Owen Butler of Christchurch’. Commentary 10.9.1. o

Butler: see note on item 481.

The manuscript text

297

350r 589 Uppon a Gentlewoman walking where it snowed. I saw fayre Cloris walke alone When feathered rayne came softly downe And Jove descended from a Tower To court her in a silver shower The wanton snow flew to her brest Like little birds unto theire nest Being overcome with whitenes there For greife it thaw’d into a teare Then falling to her garments hem To deck her freez’d into a gem.

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Hand P. William Strode (1601?–45). Printed in Walter Porter, Madrigales & Ayres (1632). Commentary 10.2.

590 On a Lady Nature was here so lavish of her store That she bestowed untill she had no more Whose treasure being weakned (by this dame) Shee thrusts into the world so many lame. Hand P. Between two of Strode’s lyrics, but not, I think, by him, for it lacks his characteristic charm. Commentary 10.9.2.

591 Ile tell you how the rose did first grow red And how the Lilies whitenes borrowed You blush’d, and straight the rose with red was dite The Lilly kis’d your hand and so grew white Before [that time] each rose had but his staine And lilies nought but paleness did retayne You have the native colours they the dy And only florish in your Livery.

5

Hand P. William Strode (1601?–45), but also attributed to William Baker (see commentary). Printed in Parnassus Biceps (1656). Commentary 10.2.

The Burley manuscript

298

350v 592 On Prince Henry Nature waxing old began this for to desire Once to make up such a man, men might admire And so with too fine a thred (she rues it since) In eighteene yeares she perfected a Prince. Then death the work of natures art the danger spied for by this sight each hart reviv’d, and no mann died And so in tyme amends to make and help this error Remorseles death untymely brake this mirror   But death beware of surfet for tis sed   That no man cares to live now Henry’s ded.

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Hand P. Written 1612/13. William Juxon (bap. 1582–1663). Many MS versions.

593 Why call wee old men grave? why, tis cause then They are neerer to the grave then other men. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.2.

594 Hym for a rare preacher men do account Because tis so rare hee the pulpit doth mount. Hand P. Commentary 10.9.2.

I had my I lent my mony I askd my   I lost my

595 and a frend, I did them both preserve to my frend his needful use to serve of my frend because he kept it long and my frend: and was not this great wrong?

Hand P. It is suggested by Ruth Hughey, the editor of the Arundel–Harington MS, that the version in that text is probably attributable to John Harington of Stepney, father of the epigrammatist.94 Commentary 10.9.2.

351r 596 Wrong not deare empresse of my hart The merit of my true passion By thinking that he feeles no smart 94 Ruth Hughey (ed.), The Arundel Harington Manuscript of Tudor Poetry, 2 vols (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1960), II, 4.

The manuscript text That sues for your compassion For knowing that I sue to serve A saint of such perfection Whome all desire but none deserve A place in her peraffection I rather choose to want releife Then hazard the revealing Where beauty recomends the greife Despayre dissuades the healing Since I my hart cannot approve The merit of your beauty It comes not from desert in love But from excesse of duty. Sylence in love bewrays more woe Then words though nere so witty The beggar that is dumb you know Deserves a double pitty.

299 5

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20

Hand P. Printed in Wits Interpreter (1655) and in The Poems of Sir Robert Ayton, ed. by Charles B. Gullans (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1963). Included in BL Add. MS 10308, an early seventeenth-century collection headed ‘Poems of Sir Robert Ayton’, p. 16. Commentary 10.2.

597 Silvius lies here within this grave Who nothing ever gratis gave And it greives him being dead His Epitaph is gratis had. Hand P. More than a century later, Samuel Derrick, A Collection of Original Poems (1755), has a similar verse, suggesting perhaps that both are translations of the same classical original, so far unidentified. Commentary 10.9.1. The Derrick text runs: Here Silvius lies – for such his fate is / Who nought e’er gave, when living, gratis. / And grieves, tho’ in his grave, that you / Should read all this – and gratis too.

351v 598 On dr. Goodwines death Is not christchurch a goodly Vine Since that from thence proceeded that Goodwine: No marvel ^that^ the wine[‘s good] thats now prest for Goodwine’s sent for to the heavenly feast.

300

The Burley manuscript

Hand P. In or after 1620, possibly by Richard Corbett (1582–1635). Commentary 10.9.1.

599 A vertuous Lady sitting in a muse As oftentymes faire vertuous Ladies use Leaning her elbow on her kne ful hard The other distant from her half a yard Her knight to squib her by a secret token Sayd wife arise your cabinet is open She rysing blush’d, and smilingly did say Sir locke it if you please you have the key.

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Hand P. Sir John Harington (c.1561–1612). Holograph, in a version close to this, in BL Add. MS 12049, No. 404, written about 1603. Commentary 10.9.2.

600 A mayden faire I dare not wed for feare to weare oActeons head A mayde thats black is always proud A mayden litle is to loud A mayden that is tal of grouth Is alwayes subject unto slouth So fayre or foule litle or tall Some fault remayns of amongst them all.

5

Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in many MSS. Commentary 10.9.2. Acteons head: Actaeon spied on Artemis bathing, and was punished by the goddess by being turned into a stag; his own hounds then tore him to pieces (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.2). The reference is to his horns, horns being a symbol of cuckoldry.

o

601 Here lies a fayre wife in earth foule & dirty Who odrew at 15 & went out a thirty. Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.1. drew: It is uncertain whether ‘drew’ here means ‘wed’ (a meaning not offered in OED), or if there is a reference to some card game (cribbage, for instance, which counts in fifteens, is recorded by the OED in 1630).

o

The manuscript text 352r 602 This is all a womans worke To keepe her true so some mans sport Scape the name of publique synner Rising then be drest to dynner After dynner make a triall Of the touch of Lute or Viall Then to supper then to gamyng Last to the sport that needs no naming This is all being done in nought diminish’d [And then?] a womans worke is ^fully^ finished.

301

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Hand P. Last line hard to read and ‘And then’ is conjectural. Given this, either the ‘And then’ or the insertion ‘fully’ needs to be omitted to preserve the metre. Bodleian MS Don.d.58, f. 35v has ‘Then a woman’s work is finished’. Commentary 10.9.2.

603 Tobacconists. Much meat doth gluttony procure And feeds men fatt like swine But he’s a temperate man I’am sure Who with a leafe can dine Hee needs no napkins for his hands his fingers ends to wipe Who hath his Kitchin [in] a boxe And rost meat in a pipe.

5

Hand P. No contemporary printed version, but in several MSS. Commentary 10.9.2.

352v Blank 353r 604 To his confined frend Mr. Felton Enjoy this bondage, make this prison knowe Thou hast a liberty thou canst not owe To those base punishments: keep it entire, since Nothing but guilt shekles the conscience. I dare not tempt thy valiant bloud to sway Infeebling it with pitty, nor dare pray Thine act may mercy find, lest thy great story

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353v

The Burley manuscript Loose somewhat of it’s miracle and glory I wish thy merit laboured cruelty Stout vengeance best befits thy memory For I would have posterity to heare Hee that can bravely do can bravely beare Tortures may seeme great in a cowards eye It’s no great thing to suffer lesse to dye. Should all the clouds fall out and in that strife Lightning and thunder send to take thy life I would applaud the wisdome of thy fate That knew to valew thee at such a rate As to thy fall to trouble all the sky Emptying uppon the[e] Joves full armory Serve in your sharpest mischeifs, use the racke Enlarge each jointe, and make each sinew cracke This soule before was streightened, thanke thy doome To shew her vertue she hath larger roome Yet sure if every artery weare brooke Thou wouldst find strenght enough for such a stroke And now I leave thee unto death and fame Which lives to shake ambition with thy name And if it were no syn, the court by itt Should howerly sweare before the favoritt Farwell for thy bold sake wee shall not send Henceforth commanders enimies to defend Nor will it ever our just Monarch please To keepe an Admiral to loose the sease Farwell undaunted stand and joy to bee Of publique sorrow the Epitome Lett the Dukes name solace and crowne thy thrall All wee for him did suffer, thou for all. And I dare boldly write, as thou dost dye Stout Felton Englands ransome heere doth lye.

10

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30

35

40

Hand P. Probably by Zouch Townley. This item is the first 40 lines of ESL Pii10 (for the last four, see item 605 below), with only the substantial variations noted below. Commentary 10.4.6. 5 sway: whay 6 with pitty: to pittie 13 may: omitted from ESL – Burley improves the scansion. 16, 17, 18, 20 ‘thy’ and ‘thee’: ‘my’ and ‘mee’; Burley perhaps makes better sense.

The manuscript text

303

605 From the Hagh. Yf idle travellers aske who lies here Lett the dukes tombe this for inscription beare Paint oCales and Ree, make french and spanish laugh Mixe Englands shame and shew his Epitaph. Hand P. Probably by Zouch Townley. The final four lines in ESL’s version of item 604 (see note above). In Burley, though a separate item, it follows immediately after the conventional strokes with which Parkhurst ends the former verse, and shows every sign (letter size, pen width, ink density, even the size and shape of the two strokes that conclude it) of being inscribed on the same occasion. ESL identifies six manuscript versions (not including Burley) that show these as separate poems, and 39 that give the 44 lines as a single item. Commentary 10.4.6. Cales and Ree: Cadiz (1625) and Ile de Ré (1627), failed expeditions commanded by Buckingham.

o

354r 606 On Felton Immortal man of glory! whose brave hand Hath once begun to disenchant our land From magicke thraldome. One proud man did mate The nobles gentry commons of the state Strooke peace and war at pleasure; hurld down all That to his Idol greatnes would not fall With groveling adoration: Sacred Rent Of Brittaine, Saxon, Norman Prince[s] spent Hee on his pandars mignions punks & whores Whilst they great royal o[ff]spring wanted doores To shutt forth hunger; had not the okind whelp of good Eliza’s Lion gave him help The ship[s] the men the victuals cast away o Consumed under his all controuling sway! Iliads of greife! On [top of] which hee bore himself triumphant; neither traynd in lore of Arts or armes, and yet as for a vast debordment of ambition in all hast To cunning Hondthirst must transported bee to make him theire restored Mercury in a triumphant opaynting. Fayry Isle

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The Burley manuscript Nought but illusion were wee till this guyle Was by this hand cut off. Stout oMacabee Nor they nor Rome nor did Greece see a greater glory. Then the neighboure flood Sinke all fables of old Brute and Lud To give thy statues place. What brave hand hath won The prize of Patriots to a brittish son.

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Hand P. The text is very close to ESL Pii8 which, however, has the undernoted passages not in Burley, making it likely that Parkhurst was writing the poem down from memory. Commentary 10.4.6. kind whelp: the States of Holland; see commentary. Consumed ...: Buckingham ‘became for many members of the political nation the embodiment of corruption’ (Roger Lockyer, ‘Villiers, George, first duke of Buckingham (1592–1628)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008). o paynting: Honthorst’s painting of Buckingham as Mercury; see commentary. o Macabee: Judas Maccabeus, who led a successful uprising of the Jews, and liberated Jerusalem from Antiochus IV, Seleucid king of Syria (164 BC). o o

After 12: The seats of Justice forc’d say, they lye / Unto our auntient English Libertie / The stain of honour, which to deeds of praise / And high achievements should brave spiritts raise, 21 after ‘paynting’: , when before / Antwerpian Rubens best skill made him soare, / Ravisht by heavenly powers, unto the skie / Opening, and ready him to deifie / In a bright blissfull Pallace, 27 after ‘place.’: In spight of charme / Of Witch or Wizard, thy more mighty Arme, / With Zeale and Justice arm’d, hath in truth wonne

354v 607 An Epitaph on Felton Here uninterred suspends (though not to save Surviving frends th’expences of a grave) Feltons dead earth, which to the world must bee It’s owne sad monument, its ellegy As large as fame; but whether bad or good I dare not say, by him twas writt in bloud For which his body is entombed in ayre Ore’archd with heaven and a thousand fayre And glorious [diamond]95 stars, a sepulcher which tyme can never ruinate, and where

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95 [diamond]: thus other MSS, missing from Burley, but its presence restores the scansion.

The manuscript text Th’impartial wormes (that are not bribd to spare Princes corrupt in marble) cannot share his flesh; which oft the charitable skies Embalmd in teares, doing those obsequies Belong’d to men: It shall last till pittying foule Contend to bring his body to his soule.

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Hand P. Close to ESL, Pii15. Attributed to Henry Cholmley (1609–56). Commentary 10.4.6.

355r 608 Hobsons Epitaph Hobson lies here intombd amongst his betters A man not learned yet a man of letters His carriage is well knowne: oft hath he gone On embasses twixt father and the son Few now in Cambridge (to his prayse bee’t spooken) But may remember him by some good tooken. From whence he rode to London day by day Till death benighting [him] he lost the way. His teame was of the best, nor would he have Beene mired any where but in a grave: Nor is it wonder that he thus is gone Since all men know he long was drawing on. Now rest in peace thou everlasting swayne And supreme waggoner next oCharles his Wayne.

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Hand P. In or after 1631. Perhaps by John Milton (1608–74). No contemporary printing found, but several other manuscript copies. Ccommentary 10.9.1. Charles his Wayne: Charles’s Wain, English name for the constellation of the Plough in Ursa Major, derived from Charlemagne’s Wain. Wain is an archaic term for a wagon (OED).

o

355v 609 From the wars I once lov’d peace but cannot now abide itt War is most sweet to them that never tride itt And I do prove itt now and playnely see[’]t So sweet it is that it makes all things sweet At home canary wines, and greeke grow loathsome Here milke is nectar, water tasteth toothsome

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The Burley manuscript

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At home in silken osparvers beds of downe Wee scant can rest but still tosse up and downe Heere I can sleepe a sadle fo[r] my pillowe An hedge the curtayne, canopy a willowe There if a child but try cry oh what a spight Here wee can brooke three larums in a night There without bakd rost boyled is no cheere Bisket’s a banquet with ditch waters heere There from each litle storme wee shrinke like pullets Here wee stand fast against a storme of bulletts. There sweetest roomes must be perfum’d with roses Here match and powder nere offend our noses Lo then how greatly theire opinions erre To thinke there’s ought more sweeter then is warre Yet I for this sweet warre am most thy debter And shall for ever love my home the better.

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Hand P. Sir John Harington; printed in Most Elegant and Witty Epigrams (1618), I.6, the only substantial differences being the opening line and the additional lines, noted in the commentary, after line 6. Commentary 10.11. o

sparver: a canopy for a bed (or cradle) (OED). 1 I once lov’d peace: I Prays’d the speech, (1625).

356r 610 Sr. Ed: Cecil to Caly Consuluit nuper Phoebus Cecilus Heros Usurus qualis per mare sorte foret [...] Hand P. 12-line epigram.

356v 611 To the Duke of Buckingham. Couldst thou young Neptune number all the sand   Could I the nymphs that doted on the ken:   Or thou theire thoughts, my thanks perhaps I then   Might utter, & thy self them understand. Thou broughtst me forth to kisse his sacred hand   That holds Joves scepter & Apolloes pen   The man who next to God is God of men   Lord of himself no lesse then of the Land

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The manuscript text His hand that in his birth & ever since   Was open, and of gold doth make but chaffe   Though now he recommended hath the staffe To frugall hands, the handmayds of theire Prince   How can the chequer then but prosper well   Betweene our Lyon and his Lionell.

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Hand P. Conjecturally by Lionel Cranfield (1575–1645), see commentary. Another version of item 542. Commentary 10.3.1.

612 To the Countesse of Buckingham: requesting her to thanke her son. Most gracefull Lady mother of that Pearle   A well sett pendon in his soveraignes eare   Rare Countesse worthy of the greatest Earle   Your gentil blood & murthring beautyes were Beare you my thanks to him whome you did beare   Unworthy though, unthankfull am I not   Could you but see my hart then you should there   Know all my thoughts in Lines far better wrott I have not yet my self so much forgot   Nor you nor every other earthly thing   Go then brave spirits & while the chase is hott Have care the worke so perfect of a King   As he gave honor you brought gentle blood   Made by him great your selves must make you good.

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Hand P. Conjecturally by John Williams (1582–1650), see commentary. Another version of item 544. Commentary 10.3.1.

357r 613 To the King for your Lo: Thr: & Lo: keper C. W. Yf for his witt Ulisses bee renowned   Who brought Achilles to the Trojan trenches   Whose lance a distaffe late among the wenches   In teares and bloud the townes of Asia drowned For wisedome Sir, then bee you doubly crowned   That of the commonwealth to cure the wrenches   A brace of men have sett uppon your Benches

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The Burley manuscript   To match both cloked greeks & Romans gowned The King was then, now are the men admired   So clearely shines in both your judgment deeper   Who studdy most when most you seeme at leasure God hath my Leige your noble hart inspired   That having such a treasure of your keeper   You chose so good a keeper of your treasure.

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Hand P. Another version of item 543. Commentary 10.3.1.

357v 614 A lamentation for the burninge of a petty schoolhouse. What heat of learning kindled your desire Yee Muses sonns to sett your house on fire? What love of honor in your brests did burne These sparks of vertue into flames to turne? Or was’t some other cause? Were the hott gods o Phebus and oVulcan (old frends) now att ods And hee prevayled? then never lett the doult bee praysed for making flames or thunderbolt. What se so’ere the cause was sure ill was the event Which all the Muses justly may lament. But above all for namesake oPolyhimny Bewayles the downefall of this learned chymny.

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Hand P. Thomas Randolph (bap. 1605–35). Printed in Wit and Drollery (1661), p. 104, with a further 26 lines, entitled ‘Upon the burning of a Petty School’, attributed to ‘T.R.’, and found, with attribution to Randolph, in several other MSS, e.g. BL Add. MS 22118, f. 4. Commentary 10.9.2. Phebus: ‘radiant’, used as a name for Apollo when identified with Helios, the sun god. o Vulcan: god of (destructive) fire (OCD). o Polyhimny: Polyhymnia, muse of sacred song, eloquence and the mimic art (OCD). o

358r 615 o Hospitium Mytr[is] cadu[cum] Cantab[rigiensis] Lament you shcollers all Each weare his blackest gowne The Myter that held upp your witts

The manuscript text

309

Is now it self falne downe.        

The dismal fire on oLondon bridg Can move no hart of myne for that but ore the water stood But this stood ore the wine.

It needs must melt each christians hart That this sad news but heares To see how the poore hogsheads wept good sack and clarret teares.        

The zealous students of that place Chang of religion feare That this mischance may chance bring in The heresy of beare.

Unhappy Myter I would know The cause of thy sad happ Came it by making leggs so low To oPembrooks cardinal capp?        

358v

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Hence know thy self and cringe no more Since popery went downe That cap should vayle to thee, for now The myters next the ocrowne.

Or wast by cause our company Did not frequent thy cell As wee weare wont to drowne [these?] cares Thou foxt thy self and fell?        

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No sure the devill was a dry And causd this fatall blowe Twas he that made the cellar sinck That he might drink below.

And some do say the devil did itt Cause he would drinck upp all I rather think the pope was drunk To lett his Myter fall.   oFor conjurors all your owne grant   Your want of spells acknowledg   To lett a Taverne fall that stood   On the walls of your Colledg.

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The Burley manuscript

310

But Rose now wither, Falcon molt Whilst Sam enjoys his wishes The Dolphin too must cast her crowne Wine was not made for fishes.        

That sign a Taverne best becomes That shews who wine love best The Myter then is th’only signe for that’s the schollers crest.

Then drinck sack Sam and cheere thy hart Be not dismayd att all for wee will drinck it upp againe Though our selves catch a fall.        

We’ll be thy workmen day & night In spite of bugbeare oProcters We dranck like fresh men all before But now wee’le drinck like Docters.

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Hand P. Thomas Randolph (bap. 1605–35). Printed in Wit and Drollery (1661), p. 109, entitled ‘Upon the fall of the Mitre in Cambridge’, attributed to ‘T.R.’, and found, with attribution to Randolph, in several other MSS, e.g. Rawl. poet.62. Commentary 10.9.2. o (heading): The fallen Mitre Tavern of Cambridge; the Latin title, not found in other sources, invites an aural association of ‘caducus’, fallen, with ‘cadus’, winejar. According to Parry, Randolph, p. 213, it fell down in ‘1633, or thereabouts’, but I have found no confirmation of this, beyond the reference in line 5. o London bridg: the northern third of London Bridge, including 43 houses, was destroyed by fire on the night of 13 February 1632/33 (IHR, British History Online: ‘London Bridge’, www.british-history.ac.uk). o Pembrooks cardinal capp: the inn called ‘The Cardinal’s Cap’ stood in Trumpington Street, a couple of hundred yards from the Mitre, and near Pembroke College (Charles Whibley (ed.), In Cap and Gown, 3rd edn (London: Heinemann, 1898), p. 5 (n. 1)). o crowne: the Mitre Tavern stood next to King’s College. o The version of this stanza in Crew of kind London Gossips (1663), p. 72, opens ‘Lament, ye Eaton-conjurors’, a reference to King’s College’s close association with Eton, which adds point to the reference to ‘your Colledg’ in the final line. o Proctors: University officers charged with the discipline of undergraduates (OED ‘proctor’, n1 5a).

359r–359v Blank

The manuscript text 360r 616 Gaze on frayle man, my dust commands thee stand And reade this story; not that I command A teare, or pitty to bee lett falne heere But make the knowe that Wentworth England Peere The greatest subject of the world, could nott Beyond his fatal tyme survive a jott. Hah! dost thou wonder yet att this; when I Deem’d it impossible; that destyny Durst thwart my pleasure? Wa’st not I that did Confront the mighty oBuckingham? and did bid Unto his face defiance? wa’st not I That curb’d the wills of kings? made Soveraignty Frustrate of future hopes by force to rayse Or oTax or Loane? yet since by other wayes Turn’d that streame so? Wa’st not I withstood Stormes of Prerogative for Publique good? And these but when a Commoner? Then f***d forc’d The state to brybe mee they might not bee cros’d? o Lord President of the North I first assum’d Next oIrelands ViceRoy: After that presum’d (A place to great for any subjects hand) To bee the oLord Leiuetennat of that land. An honor Naples ViceRoy cannot boast Not oseated yet, I must command the hoast. Made Great Northumberland to quake; and add An oEarldome to the Honors that I had! I then commanded all, where ere The King him self had either love or feare. But my Ambition, Avarice, and Lust Hurried me on to Actions most unjust Some think that oRabyes honor wrought my fall But lett them know no Raby=busy shall That honor have. It was three kingdoms hate Whom I had misused pluckt on me on me my fate96 Lesse could not doe it. Nay when all had bent Theire combined forces in a oParliament, 360v I stood it out; my courage scorn’d to yeilde 96 The repetition of ‘on’ is P’s.

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The Burley manuscript Slighting them all with hope to gett the feild. And yet with all theire great expence, and toyle They gave me onot a fayre fall, but a foyle: I was but on my knees, when cowardlike Ere I could rise, they did behind me strike Thinking them selves not safe till I was dead o Sever’d at on[c]e, my body from my head. Ane head whose eyes did scorne for feare to winke A corps whose hart did scorne for feare to shrinke For when they thus divided were, my eyes Frown’d on my foes, out star’d my enemies My hart a long tyme strugl’d to gett out And be revenged on th’unruly rout But now behold this litle peece of ground Contaynes what once the Ocean could not bound Straffords great Earl, and my ambition lyes With all my honors, in these Obsequies.

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Hand P. No other MS or print copy found. Commentary 10.8.1. Confront: Wentworth refused Buckingham’s demand that he resign as custos rotulorum for the West Riding, and the Duke retreated. See commentary. o Tax or Loane: He went to prison rather than pay the forced loan of 1626/27, and eventually he and others in Parliament enacted that taxation should only be raised constitutionally. See commentary. o Lord President: He became Lord President of the North in 1628. o Irelands ViceRoy: He was appointed Lord Deputy in 1631. o Lord Leiuetennat: This happened in 1640. o seated: ‘sated’ is probably intended. He was made captain-general of the army in 1640. o Earldome: He became Earl of Strafford in 1640. o Rabyes: At the same time as he became earl, he took the title of Baron Raby, offending the owner of Raby Castle. See commentary. o Parliament: He was impeached in the Lords in 1640, and formally charged in 1641. o not a fayre fall: The charge of treason, when it looked likely to fail, was changed to a bill of attainder. See commentary. o Sever’d: Strafford was executed on 12 May 1641. o

361r–373v Blank: this appears to be a separate gathering.

9

Private letters: commentary and notes

No other kinde of conveyance is better for knowledge, or love. (Donne)1

9.1 Introduction In the manuscript are copies of 86 private prose letters in English. This number is arrived at by adopting a particular definition of what constitutes a ‘private letter’: I have included everything that appears to be a communication from one person to another, except for what seem to be official reports, diplomatic correspondence and business letters to and from government officers. Six of these ‘private letters’ (such missives as Sir Philip Sidney’s to the Queen about the suggested match between her Majesty and a French Duke (the ‘Alençon letter’), Sir Walter Raleigh’s to Carr, pleading for the return of his estate, and Penelope, Lady Rich’s to the Queen begging for mercy on her brother, the Earl of Essex), accidentally or by design, obtained wide currency as manuscript copies in their own time. As we have seen in Chapter 7, the ‘Alençon letter’ was almost certainly a remembered text, and it is likely that most, if not all, of the other widely circulated texts were either remembered or copied at some remove from the original. While this leaves them with a certain bibliographical interest, they lack the intimacy of the letters of which Burley is the only exemplar, and accordingly I have relegated them (as a list, rather than as annotated transcriptions) to an appendix to this chapter, and the discussion that follows refers only to the 80 letters unique to Burley. It will emerge in section 9.4 that, for over thirty of these, ‘uniqueness’ refers only to their existence as English artefacts, for they are translations, from texts that were widely available in print in Parkhurst’s time, of Latin originals. They are, I shall contend, none the less valuable for what they tell us about Parkhurst and his life and times, as well as those of ancient Rome.   1 John Donne, ‘To Sir G.M.’, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour (1651), p. 105.

314

The Burley manuscript

Almost none of the private letters has any indication of author, address­ ­­ or date. Scholars like Pearsall Smith,2 Simpson,3 Shapiro,4 Bell,5 and ee, Flynn,6 however, have been able to establish (not always unanimously, nor with absolute certainty) some or all of these facts about 36 of the letters (many of them forming part of the correspondence between John Donne and Henry Wotton), and these are commented on in the next section. In the following section are presented three more that have not received scholarly attention hitherto, together with such speculation as I can offer in relation to the author, addressee, or date of each. In section 9.4 come comments on the translations and finally, in section 9.5, on the remaining five letters, of which it has not proved possible to determine for certain whether they are of seventeenth-century origin or are translations of classical originals. Fewer than half, then, of the letters in Burley have received any previous critical attention; the only ones that have are those associated with known figures in the political or literary scene of the period. This accords with Gary Schneider’s conclusion that letters ‘are rarely analyzed in and of themselves’. ‘Where they are explored’, he says, letters tend to be examined for their biographical relevance, ransacked for their factual information [...] or for the light they cast on one’s literary corpus, as with Donne’s. Far less often are letters explored for their meanings as the structures of sociocultural interaction.7

In what follows, I have not ignored biographical relevance, factual information, or literary illumination, but I have tried also to rectify the imbalance that Schneider deplores by looking at the letters as artefacts, and at what they represent in terms of human relationships such as patronage, duty and – overwhelmingly – love and friendship, which are presumably embraced in Schneider’s term ‘structures of sociocultural interaction’. More elegant than Schneider’s is the definition of the Greek sophist Libianus, quoted by Erasmus in the opening sentences of Conficiendarum epistolarum formula (A Formula for the Composition of Letters): ‘A letter is a conversation between two absent friends’.8 Here, Erasmus plants one   2 Pearsall Smith, Wotton.  3 Simpson, Prose Works of John Donne.   4 I. A. Shapiro, ‘Burley MS’, unpublished essay of about 1960. Dennis Flynn, who has it in his care, has kindly given me a sight of this work.   5 Bell, ‘Under Ye Rage’.   6 Dennis Flynn, work in progress 2007. The author has kindly allowed me to see and use his transcripts and notes.   7 Gary Schneider, The Culture of Epistolarity (Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press, 2005), p. 286.   8 Desiderius Erasmus, Conficiendarum epistolarum formula, in Collected Works, ed. by J. K. Sowards, 86 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 25, 258.

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of his many seeds in the garden of the Renaissance, pointing to a classical author to exemplify good practice, and to energise the writing of his own time. In the Formula, and in the much longer book De conscribensis epistolis (On the Writing of Letters),9 Erasmus expands on this basic notion of the letter as conversation to show how it influences the style and presentation of a properly constructed letter. Such was his influence, through these works and through his many other writings about education that, by the time of Burley, the writers here represented had absorbed his instruction in their schools, and practised it in their own writing.10 At those schools, as it says in the statutes of one of them, the older pupils were to be exercised in devising and writing sundry epistles to sundry persons, of sundry matters, as of chiding, exhorting, comforting, counselling, praying, lamenting, some to friends, some to foes, some to strangers; of weighty matters or merry, as shooting, hunting, etc., of adversity, of prosperity, of war and peace, divine and profane, of all sciences and occupations, some long and some short.11

Later, we will see how writers such as Hoskyns and Howell developed Erasmus’s ideas in their essays on the writing of letters, as well as in their own correspondence. In the Burley letters, not all are from one friend to another (although, as we shall see, the majority are), but all – even the most hurried notes – are careful to acknowledge the nature of the relationship between writer and addressee, and to seek through style and rhetorical device to enhance and strengthen the bonds between them, and this applies equally to the original letters of Parkhurst’s time and to the translations. In Chapter 6, I advanced reasons for supposing that some of the Burley manuscript, both verse and prose, is there as a result of covert interception by Parkhurst and his associates of correspondence between persons under state surveillance; this includes, of course, most notably, the Donne/Wotton correspondence. It does not necessarily follow that all the private letters (other than translations) are here as a result of this practice, but it is indeed possible that some, or even all, of them are.  9 Erasmus, De conscribensis epistolis, in Works, 25, 12–254. 10 John Colet, who founded St Paul’s School in 1518, enshrined in the statutes the study of Erasmus’s Institutum Christiani Humanis and Copia. His statutes were copied by those of Merchant Taylors’ School, and doubtless by others (David Cressy, Education in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Edward Arnold, 1975), pp. 47, 50).­ 11 Statutes of Rivington School, quoted from Kenneth Charlton, Education in ­Renaissance England (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965) p. 114. On the same page, he describes De conscribendis epistolis as ‘the most popular text’ for the teaching of letterwriting.

316

The Burley manuscript

Every letter in sections 9.2 and 9.3 is a copy of some lost original, and thus subject to scribal errors that may sometimes obscure or distort the sense of what was first written; in items 454 and 459, for instance, I have offered editorial amendments that seem to me to make more sense, and to be likely to reflect the original better, than what Parkhurst has written, but we cannot be certain that the text as now rendered is indeed what the writer intended. In many of the letters, corrections occur, but it is impossible to be sure which (if any) of these show the scribe diligently copying what is before him, and which are his corrections of mistakes of his own. Commentators should hesitate, therefore, before asserting that such changes reflect the originator’s improvements or later thoughts. 9.2 The Donne correspondence In this section are presented all those private letters that have hitherto been, or are soon to be (in the forthcoming Oxford edition), published as emanating from, or being addressed to, John Donne or his friends.12 Logan Pearsall Smith in 1907 suggested three of these as being from Wotton to Donne at the time of the Irish campaign in 1599.13 Ilona Bell was the first to identify three more as love letters from Donne to Anne More, a view that has been reinforced (and a fourth letter added) by Hester, Sorlien, and Flynn.14 The correspondence between Donne and Wotton has been the subject of much study by Flynn, whose generosity has also allowed me sight of his work in progress on the Oxford edition of Donne’s letters, and who draws extensively upon the Burley manuscript. These letters will be dealt with in three groups: first, the correspondence of 1597–1600 between Donne and several others of his circle including Henry Wotton, Sir Henry Goodere and perhaps John Egerton, next the love letters, all of late 1601, and finally the remaining letters, each of which seems to involve one or other of the first group of friends, either as writer, addressee, or both, but whose dates, where they can be estimated at all, are later. It must be remembered that none of these letters is addressed or signed, and the certainty of attributions (and hence the reliability of the groupings just defined) is variable, a matter I have tried to indicate in the commentaries. In thinking about these attributions, I 12 Two other brief letters from Donne, accompanying poems, appear with the related poems, items 392 (postscript) and 547. 13 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 306, 308, 309. 14 Bell, ‘“Under Ye Rage”’, pp. 25–52. John Donne’s Marriage Letters in The Folger Shakespeare Library, ed. with an Introduction by M. Thomas Hester, Robert Parker Sorlien, and Dennis Flynn (Washington, DC: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 2005).

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have of course considered the work of others, as described in the previous paragraph, but what is now presented is my own opinion. It may be, too, that I (and perhaps others) have fallen into a circularity, in arguing that there is to be heard in a letter a relationship that in fact has been deduced from how we hear it. 9.2.1 Donne, Wotton, and others, 1597–1600 Items 437, 447, 448, 446, 436, 463, 440, 441, 445, 439, 296, 297, 462, 435, 449, 444, 443, 485. In this section are presented eighteen letters datable on internal evidence, although not in all cases with exactitude, to the period between August 1597 and early 1600. Most of them are from Donne, and the rest (except for one from Sir Henry Goodere) from Wotton, attributions that are made with some confidence from evidence of the matters contained in their texts, from their styles, and from the hands in which they have been transcribed. The addressees, however, are harder to determine (despite the insightful and clear-headed work of Dennis Flynn, to whom I am much indebted), and alternatives are sometimes presented in what follows. 437  The first letter, an amusing one and the earliest we have of Donne’s, was written before the ‘Islands Voyage’ expedition of the Earl of Essex in 1597. This had been intended as an attack on Ferrol, where a new Armada was being fitted out, although its objectives later became less precise. Donne had sailed with the expedition in early July, but the fleet had been forced by severe storms back to Plymouth to wait for better weather. The ‘extreamely brave’ volunteers were described by Stow: of Knights and Gentlemen voluntaries, to the number of 500, or better, very gallant persons, and as bravely furnished of all things necessary (besides superfluitie in gold lace, plumes of Feathers, and such like).15

The theatrical references (‘the first act of that play’, ‘company of mummers’) recall Baker’s description of Donne as ‘a great frequenter of Playes’,16 and the remark about thinking himself in Utopia reminds us that this fantasy of the ideal country where no money existed had been written 81 years before by Donne’s great-great-uncle, Sir Thomas More. We do not know who the addressee was, but the copy is in the hand of D1. Later, when Donne was in the Lord Keeper’s employ, D1 copied his correspondence, so it is likely that D1, too, was on Egerton’s staff. If so, 15 John Stow, Annales of England (1631), p. 783. 16 Baker, Chronicle, p. 156.

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he might have copied this letter on its arrival rather than (as he seems to have done with the later letters) at the time of its writing, which is rather more plausible than supposing D1 to be in Plymouth and able to copy it at source. If this is the case, the addressee was at York House and one is drawn to the idea that the letter may be to the 18-year-old John Egerton, whom Donne would have known at the Inns of Court, and whose elder brother, Donne’s friend, was also on the Islands expedition.17 447  Simpson declared that this letter could not be to Wotton, because it was to ‘an acquaintance with whom Donne wishes to contract a friendship’.18 This assertion depends on accepting Walton’s statement that the two had already become fast friends at Oxford, for which there is little other evidence. Walton’s acquaintance with Wotton was in the last years of Sir Henry’s life, and when he writes (long after the deaths of both friends) about Wotton’s youth, one is inclined to agree with Pearsall Smith and ‘not place much reliance on his statements about dates and facts’.19 It seems more likely, in view of their ages (twelve and sixteen) at that time, that the friendship should mature later, in 1597, when they were twenty-one and twenty-five. Flynn has argued this proposition most persuasively, and I am content to adopt his view, which makes this letter mark an early and important stage in their relationship. During the period of the letters in this section, the friends were often separated, Donne being from about the end of 1597 employed by the Lord Keeper, and Wotton following Essex at Court, to Ireland, and to Wanstead. At some time in one of these absences, Donne wrote, in a verse-letter to his friend, his own version of Libianus’s dictum: Sir, more then kisses, letters mingle Soules; For, thus friends absent speake.20

(1–2)

The importance of letters to the maintenance of a friendship is discernible, not only in the correspondence of this section but in that of later sections as well. The prime feature of this letter is the explicit emphasis laid on honesty. This is the first expression of the value he placed on this quality in others, 17 John Stubbs, Donne: The Reformed Soul (London: Viking, 2006), pp. 88–9. 18 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 318. 19 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, xii. The passage in Walton reads: ‘a love that was there [at Oxford] begun between him and Dr. Donne [...] a friendship [...] begun in their Youth, and in an University, and there maintained by correspondent Inclinations and Studies, so it lasted till Age and Death forced a Separation’ (The Life of Sir Henry Wotton (1650), p. 19). 20 Milgate, Satires, Epigrams & Verse-letters, p. 71.

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and the pride he took in his own; subsequently it is a theme in many letters.21 The word ‘honesty’ had only recently acquired its prevailing modern sense of truthfulness and straightforwardness (the OED’s definition 3d, whose earliest example is 1579); earlier it had a wider meaning, embracing all kinds of moral excellence (definition 3a), and it is in this broader sense (which of course encompasses the first) that Donne seems generally to use the word. 448  About this letter I have ventured to disagree with Flynn, who believes it is not Donne’s (although it may be to him), and may possibly be by Wotton. But I cannot hear Wotton’s smooth and carefully cultivated voice in this; on the contrary, the imagery, the leaping from topic to topic, the sheer energy of the work are redolent of Donne. It must be accepted, of course, that determining authorship from style alone is a process fraught with peril and, further, that a man may write in more than one style. But consider a letter recorded by Pearsall Smith as to Edward Reynolds in 1600, undoubtedly by and not untypical of Wotton, dealing with matters (sickness, friendship, debt, and parting) that recur in the correspondence of both: Sir, I do receive at this time (wherein I suffer some indisposition of body), your letters very kindly, as friendly visitors; yet if you think they have added anything to my remembrance of you, then you take from their kindness. In your opinion of my honesty I will never deceive you, and therefore be constant in it, for I was born to be one of them that must live by it, if it be possible; and yet I understand many things of more instant preferment. The profession of your love is welcome unto me in this barren age of true friends. I will keep it, and always yield you an accompt of the like. For that sum of money which I owe you, at my going abroad (which I think will be tomorrow), I will strain a friend to leave you satisfied, though I proposed to pay all my debts together, with the mortgage of my lease, which I expect on Monday, for till that be done, I am peradventure unquieter than other men. I will conclude with your own words and mind, that I am, Your very affectionate and assured poor friend, Henry Wotton22

Thinking now of Donne and his prose style, one is forced to the conclusion that, using the same material and many of the same expressions, he would have left us a letter sounding quite differently, more original and less like the product of schooling and practice. 21 See, for instance, the closing line of item 436. 22 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 310.

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To return to letter 448, I am also unable to imagine Wotton (who was himself a ‘great voyager in other men’s works’) representing his disagreement with Dante’s view of the cowardice of Celestine by citing Hatton’s opinion of a former Lord Chancellor: ‘He had his genius and I have mine’.23 There is another reference to his own creative gift in the phrase ‘that smale coole [coal] which god hath pleased to kindle in mee’; modest as it is, Wotton would, I think, have seen this as unseemly self-praise. The letter’s being in D1’s hand is not conclusive evidence for either view. Flynn’s date, of October 1597, seems plausible (despite a complete lack of evidence, other than the reference to the Earl of Arundel, which places it later than October 1595): the note of developing friendship may be heard. 446  In this letter, Donne excuses his failure to keep a promise to visit his correspondent, saying – in a phrase echoing the ‘promise & vow’ of three things by godfathers – ‘for I am since overtaken, & mett & inwrapd in busineses’. Wotton may have invited him to his family home at Boughton Malherbe, or perhaps, at Essex’s instigation, to the Earl’s country residence at Wanstead, Essex. It may be that the business that engaged him was connected with his employment by Egerton, which began then or soon afterwards. The letter is remarkable for its repeated use, seventeen years before Donne’s ordination, of Anglican Christian imagery: the ‘three things’ promised by godfathers, ‘nothing else could have made me committ this omission’ (a reference to the distinction between sins of commission and omission), ‘I will not aske pardon bycause you cannot give it’ (referring to the Protestant understanding that priests do not pardon sins, God does), and ‘reprobate’, rejected or condemned as worthless (OED, 1) but also rejected by God, lost or hardened in sin (OED, 3). As Simpson says, ‘it is impossible to draw a line between things sacred and profane in [Donne’s] letters’,24 as he not uncommonly switches suddenly from one class of topic to the other, but here the ‘sacred’ is never the ostensible topic; it is always a playful figure for the ‘profane’, and this is, for Donne, unusual. The rhythmic balance of the sentence beginning ‘Sir I would some great princes or men were dead’ may remind us of the Songs and Sonets, in which images of princes and their realms recur (‘She’is all States, and all Princes, I’;25 ‘wee / (Who Prince enough in one another bee,)).26 The 23 I assume that the writer is using ‘genius’ in either the OED’s sense 3a, ‘characteristic disposition’, or 4, ‘natural ability’. 24 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 297. 25 ‘The Sunne Rising’, l. 21. 26 ‘The Anniversarie’, ll. 13–14.

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marginal indication (see text footnote), however, is probably not there to indicate literary quality, but seems rather to confirm that D1 or his employer were seeking evidence of disaffection. Donne’s phrasing, though, is careful not to be even potentially self-incriminating. 436  Even during what was evidently an uncomfortable gastric affliction, Donne’s wit does not desert him, as may be seen in the puns on ‘bound’ and ‘loose’ and the neat sequence of antitheses in ‘when I have drunk one potion more to my health & weakned my self I shalbee strong enough to find you’. His ardour to know what was going on in the world of government may reflect his newness in the post of secretary to the Lord Keeper, but already he has realised, from his own experience, the commonplace observation that an honest man at Court is to be regarded in the light of a miracle. More subtle is the description of courtiers as ‘fortune’s tumblers’: people who perform before greater ones to make their fortunes, and also people whose fortunes may take a tumble if they offend. 463  The next brief passage may be only a fragment of the whole letter, which is likely to be a reply to item 436. Essex was raised to the degree of Earl Marshal on 28 December 1597; this gave him back the precedence he had lost (to his great chagrin) when Charles Howard, Lord Admiral, was created Earl of Nottingham in October.27 Wotton, writing from Wanstead, observes that this honour has done little to raise the Earl’s spirits, but is – typically – somewhat amused at his own perception that he is now himself promoted. 440  Over this letter, I find myself again at odds with Flynn, who disagrees with my attribution of it to Donne, for it seems to me that its nimble steps from topic to topic and image to image are typical of the poet. It is perhaps a reply to item 463, mentioned in the opening lines as ‘your last (if it were so) the 25 Ja:’, conveying more impressions of court life to Wotton, still buried at Wanstead. He assures his friend that he is not forgotten, indeed ‘Omnes omnia bona dicere’, despite his master’s being under a cloud. One cannot tell if the marginal note is Donne’s, or that of a scribe or later reader. 441  I think (as did Simpson)28 that this letter sounds again like Donne (in town) writing to Wotton (at Wanstead) but, as with the previous letter, Flynn disagrees and, moreover, points out that the addressee is not neces27 Paul E. J. Hammer, ‘Devereux, Robert, Second Earl of Essex (1565–1601)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008. 28 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 309.

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sarily Wotton. Certainly, Donne had at this time a manservant, Thomas Danby, to send to Sir Maurice, whereas we do not know whether Wotton had one.29 The use in the final sentence of a favourite saying of Wotton’s,30 ‘virtus est in terris peregrina in caelo civis’ (‘virtue consists in travelling this world as a citizen of Heaven’), perhaps lends weight to Flynn’s position, but it is a well-known sentiment: using a phrase deriving from St Augustine, and ultimately from Romans 6 and Philippians 3, Luther wrote: Therefore we are no longer citizens of earth. The baptised Christian is born a citizen of heaven through baptism. We should be mindful of this fact and walk here as if native there.31

Whoever wrote it, the letter expresses the value of their friendship and the wish that, in these dangerous times, they may meet and exchange views in a less perilous way than by letter. 445  In this letter, evidently, Donne is replying to a letter (which has not survived) from Wotton, chiding him for not writing. It begins suddenly, with no carefully constructed exordium, in a way (typical of the Songs and Sonets) that startles the first-time reader into thinking ‘What’s this about?’ Flynn dates this letter, persuasively, to the period immediately following Essex’s famous quarrel with the Queen, when she boxed the Earl’s ears, and he and his retinue had to withdraw to Wanstead. Donne reminds his friend of the virtue of ‘sylent discoursing’; between the lines one may read that Donne is in a confidential government post, and not at liberty to disclose Court affairs, and also that correspondence between them is not secure. Despite the restrictions imposed by their respective situations, Donne is anxious to preserve the integrity of their friendship. 439  This next letter comes from Wotton as a member of the expeditionary force led by Essex in 1599. On their way to Ireland, Essex’s ships were forced by contrary winds to put back into Beaumaris, in the shelter of the isle of Anglesey, where they arrived on 11 April and were not able to leave before the 14th. The salutation to ‘your Mistris’ is notable: Donne had met Anne More only recently, and Wotton must therefore have been one of the first to be admitted to their secret. He kisses her ‘faire & learned’ hand, and indeed Anne had been, under her grandfather’s care, ‘curiously 29 Stubbs, Donne, p. 105. 30 For instance in a letter to Lord Zouche of 25 Oct 1592 (NS); Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 290. 31 Martin Luther, Precious and sacred Writings (Minneapolis, MN: Lutherans in all Lands, 1906), 11, 31.

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and plentifully educated’, as Walton puts it.32 Donne himself prized this feature; he refers, in a letter to her (item 442), to ‘so fayre a pallace as you are and so furnish[ed]’ (presumably with learning) and, in the same letter, kisses ‘that fayre learned hand’. The postscript (if it be that, and not a separate note; it is written hurriedly and in a different hand from D1’s) is odd: whom must Donne not omit to visit seven times a week? Pearsall Smith suggests that ‘Thr.’ stands for ‘Thresorer’s, or Treasurer’s; but there is no obvious connection between Wotton’s ‘best and dearest’ (his family?) and Buckhurst, the Lord Treasurer. It is not impossible that Wotton too was conducting a secret liaison, with the Treasurer’s youngest daughter, Anne, who was around 20 at this time and never married, but no record of such an affair has come to light. Simpson ignores the uncertainty, and Bald, who quotes this sentence, deals with it by omitting ‘att Thr.’.33 A less extremely conjectural explanation than mine may be that ‘Thr:’ stands for the Throckmortons, with whom Wotton was certainly friendly later, although I have found no record of their acquaintanceship as early as 1599. Donne, too, was likely to have known the Throckmortons through their Catholic connections. A final, plausible, possibility was suggested to me by Cathy Shrank: that ‘att Thr.’ may be part, not of the preceding sentence, but – despite the lack of punctuation – of the valediction, and thus represent the place, or the person’s house, from which the letter was written. No ‘Thr.’ or ‘Tr:’ has been found, however, in the neighbourhood of Beaumaris. 296  The complaint to which Wotton refers in the opening sentence of the next letter may be that implied in the poem ‘H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti’, item 361, that of Donne not receiving letters from his friend: I aske not labored letters which should weare Long papers out: nor letters which should feare dishonest cariage: or a seers Art Nor such as from the brayne come, but the hart.

(17–20)

Yet the quotation admits the probable reasons for the failure, not that Wotton didn’t write but that what he wrote suffered ‘dishonest cariage’, or – worse – interception by a ‘seer’: not a prophet, but one who ‘sees’ letters not intended for him by the ‘Art’ of unsealing them. It will be recalled from the section on interception that Harington, on the same campaign, remarked upon the unpleasant consequences suffered on their return by 32 Walton, Lives, p. 31. 33 Bald, Donne, p. 104.

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many who had not been discreet in what they wrote while away. Wotton is clearly anxious about something he has said in the earlier letter ‘sent you by A.D.’, and has not realised that all his letters are being opened by Parkhurst, presumably stationed with him and Henry Goodere (see commentary on item 462). In the letter, as also with its successor, Wotton’s detestation of Ireland and the Irish comes over clearly. His was a widely–held view, for it was generally thought that Ireland’s having come neither under Roman administration nor the English Common Law placed the country and its people outside the mainstream of European civilisation. Spenser, a man with much longer and wider experience of Ireland than anyone engaged in the 1599 campaign, had written of the Irish in 1596: they do use all the beastly behaviour that may bee, they oppresse all men, they spoile aswell the subject as the enemy, they steale, they are cruell and bloodie, full of revenge, and delighting in deadly execution, licentious, swearers, and blasphemers, common ravishers of woemen, and murtherers of children.34

And, in the same work, he wrote of the difficulty of guerrilla warfare in the undeveloped Irish countryside: he is a flying enemie, hiding himselfe in woodes and bogges, from whence he will not drawe forth, but into some straight passage or perillous foord, where he knowes the Army must needes passe: There will he lye in waite, and if he finde advantage fit, will dangerously hazard the troubled Soldiour.35

This was still the way the Irish fought; Fynes Moryson, in his account of Essex’s campaign, described how Sir Conyers Clifford, with 1400 foot, was ambushed: He had not gone farre, before Ororke and other rebels with him, upon the advantage of Woods, Bogges, and a stony causy, assailed our men, who at the first valiantly repelled them, till the rebels finding the munition our men had about them beginning to faile, renewed the charge with greater fury then before; at which time our men, discouraged with the want of powder, (almost all they had about them being spent, and their store being behind with the carriage), as also weried with a long march they had made before the skirmish, began to faint, and take themselves to flight, when the rebels pursued, & killed some one hundred and twenty in the place, among 34 Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland (1596), p. 50; first printed in Meredith Hanmer, Edmund Campion, and Edmund Spenser, The Historie of Ireland (Dublin: Societie of Stationers, 1635). 35 Ibid., p. 68.

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which the Governour Sir Conyers Clifford, and a worthy Captain, Sir Alexander Ratcliffe, were lost, besides many more hurt.36

The penultimate sentence of Wotton’s letter (‘I will say no more & yet perad­­­venture I have sayd a great deale unto you’) suggests awareness of the possibility of interception, and asks his friend to read between the lines to discern his true opinion. This may be that not only is the size of the task underestimated in England, and the expedition’s efforts to tackle it undervalued, but also perhaps that the whole project to subdue Ireland is ill-conceived. 297  Here, Wotton, having risked his own credit on the mysterious German (who is, by the sound of it, engaged in some covert activity on the Crown’s behalf), is anxious both to be sure of recovering it and to appear to trust this person implicitly. This leads him into an amusingly detailed and – for someone of Donne’s perspicacity – unnecessarily lengthy sequence of instructions on how he is to be handled. In the last part of the letter, Wotton displays the general contempt in which the Irish, not just the forces ranged against the Tudor power, were held. The O’Reillys had been nominally allies of the English since a treaty of 1566, and their homeland of County Cavan was administered like an English shire, but they do not seem to have played any military part in Essex’s campaign, and are not mentioned in Fynes Moryson’s account.37 The English force had presumably billeted itself upon one of their towns, cleaned them out of provisions and left without paying. As in the previous letter, Wotton’s dislike of all things Irish is manifest, and his normal urbanity and tolerance desert him; in a characteristic meiosis, Pearsall Smith remarks: ‘his habitual kindliness of judgement is a little obscured whenever afterwards the Irish are mentioned in his letters’.38 The hint to ‘read between the lines’ may be observed again in ‘Certaynely obedience & good publique ends brought us hither not our owne wisdome I dare warrant itt’, and even Wotton’s habitual caution cannot prevent a sardonic note being heard in his expression. 462  The tone of this and the following letter, and the references to Henry Wotton in each, make it virtually certain that this letter constitutes the beginning of one of Donne’s greatest friendships, that with Henry Goodere, and that item 435 is Donne’s reply. A later letter, not in Burley, addressed to Goodere in 1608, confirms that their friendship began by 36 Fynes Moryson, An itinerary (1617), II, 37. 37 Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary. 38 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 34.

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letter: ‘I nurse that friendship by Letters, which you begot so’.39 Both letters were printed by Simpson, the first with the unlikely suggestion that it is ‘perhaps from Donne to a gentleman – a friend of Wotton’s – whose acquaintance he desires to make’.40 Her attribution of the second is more insightful: ‘probably written by Donne to a friend of Wotton in Ireland in the summer of 1599 [indicating] that Wotton was the intermediary through whom Donne and his correspondent had become acquainted’.41 Donne’s friendship with Goodere is so important a feature of his life that it is odd that these two letters (and item 449, which continues the exchange), despite being in print since Simpson’s first edition in 1924, have been ignored by his modern biographers, Bald and Stubbs. Bald generally follows Simpson in the attribution of the Burley letters, although he refers to I. A. Shapiro’s doubts about the attribution of some of them to Donne;42 Stubbs simply says of Donne and Goodere that they had known one another ‘since his [Donne’s] early secretarial days at least’.43 Goodere, like Wotton, was in Ireland with Essex, and was knighted by him in August 1599. It would appear that Parkhurst was keeping an eye on his correspondence as well as Wotton’s and, perhaps, that of other adherents of Essex. 435  The commentary should be read in conjunction with that on item 462. Donne’s references to Ireland echo those in ‘H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti’, item 361: I pardon death (who though hee do not reap yet gleanes hee many of our frends away)

The distinction between ‘reaping’ and ‘gleaning’ is presumably that between death in battle and death by disease.44 Many on the Irish expedition died in the late summer of 1599, of dysentery and other ailments of the camp, indeed a quarterly reinforcement of two thousand to Essex’s original complement of 17,300 had been planned for this very reason, Ireland being known as an unhealthy country. Besides the endemic 39 Donne, Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, p. 68. 40 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 324. 41 Ibid., p. 306. 42 Bald, Donne, p. 4. 43 Stubbs, Donne, p. 183. 44 ‘Reap’ could stand for any kind of death; the image of Death with a scythe was conventional: ‘And nothing ’gainst time’s scythe can make defence’ (Shakespeare, Sonnet 12). OED has glean (3c), to carry off, and cites R. Johnson, Kingdom & Commonwealth (1601): ‘The plague, which gleaned away many thousand people.’

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form of malaria (which Cromwell encountered, and caught, in 1649) Essex’s expedition ran into an outbreak of plague.45 By the time of the final march against Tyrone, sickness, desertion, and the need for garrisons had reduced Essex to something over three thousand men, and he was outnumbered two or three to one.46 In the letter, ‘gleaned’ may have some less menacing meaning, since only one of Donne’s close friends (Sir Thomas Egerton) is known to have died on the Irish campaign; its subject is ‘fortune’, and so it may signify something like ‘visited with illluck’. Another possibility is that it means ‘captured’: OED has ‘glean’ (3d) ‘to cut off (a remnant or stragglers)’, which presumably implies capture, but quotes no example earlier than 1611. 449  The reference to a lost letter which may have arrived in Ireland too late to catch Goodere before his departure in late September is presumably to item 435, some of whose images – of betrothal and land tenure – are echoed here. As secretary to the Lord Keeper, at whose residence at York House Essex was confined following his inglorious return from Ireland, Donne would naturally be wary of contacting any of the Earl’s associates. This letter implies as much in its reference to ‘these weekes’ in which the writer has not sought out his friend. Characteristically, Donne stresses the unchangeable and incorruptible nature of friendship, even when beset by the difficulties of the times. 444  After the failure of the Irish expedition, Wotton47 distanced himself from Essex, and from the hotheads like Cuffe and Merrick who adhered to him, by retiring first to Kent and then to the Continent.48 This letter seems to have been written at the beginning of this self-imposed rustication and, as with the previous letter, Donne takes carefully guarded pains to point out that he cannot be seen to be close to any of the Essex faction. In the final lines, he proposes a cautiously arranged meeting, at which, if they take care, they may express themselves more openly to one another (Donne plays on the word ‘trip’: they will ‘step nimbly and lightly’ around the topics of their conversation, and not ‘fall nor stumble’ 45 A. L. Rowse, The Expansion of Elizabethan England (London: Macmillan, 1955), p. 157. 46 Details from Cyril Falls, Elizabeth’s Irish Wars, 2nd edn (London: Constable, 1996) pp. 230–244. 47 Flynn, while conceding that the addressee is an Essex adherent retired into the country, believes this may be Goodere. If the dating is correct, Goodere and Donne seem only recently to have begun their correspondence, and may not yet physically have met, so I regard Wotton as the more likely addressee. 48 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 34; A. J. Loomie, ‘Wotton, Sir Henry (1568–1639)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2004.

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into subjects where an eavesdropper might detect disaffection). Equally carefully expressed, but clear, are his views on the corruption of the Court and the value of the friendship of honest men. The very length of the letter emphasises that such friendships are more important to him than the day-to-day politicking of York House, and the distress he is caused by being prevented from a straightforward relationship. 443  Although, as he says ‘no Courtier’, Donne is spending the Christmas season at Richmond, doubtless to report on affairs to the Lord Keeper who, like his prisoner Essex, is sick at York House.49 The tone is bright and witty, gayer than that of the (possibly contemporary, or a year or so earlier) verse-letter to Wotton ‘Here’s no more newes then vertue’. Even in his strictures on the corruption of the court itself, he employs a wellsustained metaphor of harvest. I gleane such vices as the greater men (whose barnes are full) scatter. yet I learne that the learnedst in vice suffer some misery for when they have reapd flattery or any other fault long there comes some other new vice in request wherein they are unpracticed.

His repeated use of this metaphor may seem strange for so committed a metropolitan as Donne, but its origin is probably Biblical,50 rather than memory of actual agricultural practice. Nor do the women of the Court escape censure: ‘sure they cannot bee worse nor more throwne downe then they have beene’: ‘Throwne down’ invokes the sense of ‘degraded or humiliated’ (OED, 40f), but also that of being forcibly laid down (OED, 19d) for sexual congress. Lord Mountjoy, to whom he refers later, had been living openly at Court with his mistress, Penelope Rich, for the last decade,51 and doubtless this, with other scandals, was in Donne’s mind. Despite these strictures, one senses that Donne is enjoying the ‘jollyty & revells & playes’. Well he might: for a bachelor of 28, even one outside the inner court circle, music, dancing, theatre and gorgeous girls must have constituted an atmosphere much more conducive to high spirits than the lawyerly seriousness of the gloomy and unhealthy York House. His light-hearted mood leads him to quote Rabelais, then a minority interest among the English intelligentsia, although known to Bacon and 49 Stubbs, Donne, p. 117. 50 Jer. 12.13, Hos. 8.7, Gal. 6.7 and many others. 51 Alison Wall, ‘Rich, Penelope, Lady Rich (1563–1607)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

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Jonson, and presumably Wotton.52 53 He recalled the passage years later, in his ‘Panegyricke Verse’ to Thomas Coryate’s Crudities (1611): It’s not that French which made his Gyant see Those uncouth Ilands where wordes frozen bee, Till by the thaw next year they’r voic’t againe;54

Donne feels freer, too, to express himself to his friend than when writing from the Lord Keeper’s office (optimistically, he remarks that his words will be ‘herd only by one or such as in his judgment they are fitt for’), and he regales Wotton (still rusticated) with a bit of gossip about the rise of Mountjoy, who had been with both of them on the Islands voyage, and comments shrewdly on Essex’s decline. 485  Although commentators have generally accepted Simpson’s view that the next letter is ‘probably to Wotton’, Flynn argues persuasively that it is to Goodere, pointing to the evidence of its being to a fairly new friend, and to someone not already acquainted with Aretino. (Donne and Wotton had been firm friends for two or three years. Wotton had lived in Italy for several years and was fluent in the language: a man so fond of books could hardly have missed Aretino.) One should add that Wotton, of whose learning and intellect Donne had by now plenty of experience, would not have needed the advice on how to read a paradox.55 The ten paradoxes that follow the letter are all those printed in Juvenilia (1633), save the first, and appear in the manuscript in the order V, II, VII, VIII, IX, XI, X, IV, III, VI. This arrangement is identical with that in the Westmoreland MS, Peters’s other principal copy-text. In writing this long letter, in copying and enclosing the paradoxes, and in promising to send an even more significant and close-binding gift, copies of his poems, Donne admits Goodere to the circle of his beloved friends.56 He makes clear, though, that it would not consort with ‘our honestyes’ for the works to be circulated further, since not only the paradoxes and the satires (of which Donne feels ‘some shame’) but the elegies (of which ‘some feare’) may bring disapprobation upon him. The ban on 52 Again (see n. 47 above) Flynn and I are not unanimous about the addressee’s identity. 53 Huntington Brown, Rabelais in English Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), pp. 81, 99. 54 Thomas Coryate, Crudities (London, 1611), sig. f. 5v, ll. 11–13. 55 It was for very similar reasons that Helen Peters found it difficult to believe that Wotton was the addressee (Peters, John Donne: Paradoxes and Problems, p. xxv, n. 2). 56 For other examples of the gift of poems as marking the strength and depth of a relationship, see the anecdote about Sir Henry Mainwaring on p. 4, and two translated letters, items 18 and 21.

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copying does more than protect Donne from adverse comment: by privileging the circle of friends it strengthens the bond between them, and by restricting the supply of his work raises its value. As we saw in Chapter 6 on interception, we owe the paradoxes’ presence in Burley not to Goodere’s breaking the non-proliferation treaty, but to D1’s pertinacity in copying 22 pages of script in case he should come across something damaging. 489–498. The Paradoxes After the letter, I present transcriptions of the Paradoxes themselves. Some textual notes are included, but the paradoxes have not been annotated, since that would be to duplicate the work of Peters. As far as the text is concerned, it is remarkable that, working as she was from the copy which Evelyn Simpson made of Grierson’s collations, and thus at third hand from Burley itself, Peters is so frequently correct in what she says the manuscript contains. Peters regarded Burley (even though she believed it to exist only as the collations, Burley being supposed to have been destroyed) and Westmoreland as the most reliable witnesses for the paradoxes. She is meticulous in noting Burley’s supposed departures from the text as she edited it, and in putting ‘?’ in the textual notes where she did not know if it differed or not, presumably because the collation was silent upon the point. As it turned out, there are only about ten instances of Peters being misled by what was before her into thinking the Burley text different from what in fact it is. These are recorded in the textual notes, as are the places to which she gave the ‘?’ annotation. 9.2.2 Donne’s love letters to Anne More Items 438, 458, 450, 442. Study our manuscripts, those Myriades   Of letters, which have past twixt thee and mee,   Thence write our Annals, and in them will bee To all whom loves subliming fire invades,    Rule and example found;    There, the faith of any ground    No schismatique will dare to wound,   That sees, how Love this grace to us affords, To make, to keep, to use, to be these his Records. (A Valediction: of the booke, 10–18)

Of these ‘Myriades / Of letters’, Burley has the distinction of bearing the only copies known to survive of any of Donne’s letters to Anne More; of hers to him, none has been found. Ilona Bell, with a brilliant insight,

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identified three of the letters in Burley as the poet’s, and Hester and his colleagues showed later that another was his. Three, items 438, 450, and 442, printed by Bell, are in the hand of the D1 scribe, and I have argued in Chapter 6 that he was the source of the leak that led Sir George More to whisk his daughter away to Losely. The other letter, item 458, is in Parkhurst’s hand, which gives rise to a difficulty noted below in the discussion of this letter. The four letters are printed here in the chronological order which Hester, Sorlien, and Flynn assigned to them, and with the dates that they proposed, a chronology that fits, as will be seen from the commentary, the known history of the lovers’ relationship in late 1601. 438  Simpson’s suggestion, that the first letter of the four was from John Donne to the Countess of Bedford, seems – with hindsight – ludicrous. Even she, by the second (1948) edition of her book, had become uncertain, although she made the unlikelihood into a case for supposing that the author was not Donne. We must, of course, be wary of saying on stylistic grounds alone that any letter of this period is undoubtedly Donne’s, for we have so few examples of unquestionable authenticity from which to determine the characteristics of his style. But since Bell’s essay of 1986 no one has seriously contested her conclusion that it is his, and Anne the addressee. Consider the combination of ardent humanity with precise yet uncommon poetic imagery in the following few phrases: in all that part of this sommer which I spent in your presence you doubled the heat and I loved under the rage of a hott sonn & your eyes. that hart which you melted then no winter shall freise but it shall ever keepe that equall temper which you gave it soft enough to receave your impressions & hard enough to retayne them.

These lines surely make this one of the most memorable of love-letters, with the pace and power that drives the Songs and Sonets, ‘The goodmorrow’ for instance. In that poem, the traditional aubade is transformed by Donne’s energy and sense of drama into an assertion of mutual, human, love and desire. In the letter, conventional Petrarchan antitheses of summer and winter, melting and freezing, soft and hard, with their underlying feminine/masculine implications, are reenergised into prose that speaks, not of the worship of a lover for an unreachable mistress, but of a passion shared – in an actual, not a poetic, summer – between two equals. This equality (also to be found in many of the Songs and Sonets)57 57 E.g. ‘The good-morrow’, ‘Sweetest love, I do not goe’, ‘A Valediction forbidding mourning’, and ‘The Extasie’.

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enables the writer, despite his ‘devout humylyty’, to assert forcibly ‘I will have leave to speake’ and ‘you owe me this releif ’, and to propose quite firmly in the final lines that his beloved should send him another letter. 458  The business that caused Donne to be ‘sodenly throwne out of the towne’ (near the end of letter 438), was connected perhaps with his election as MP for Brackley in October. On his return, it would seem, he penned the next letter, the one added to the canon by Hester and his colleagues, which seems to imply that Anne has not answered his earlier letter. His distress at this is manifest, but not because he fears that her love has grown cold, for he is confident of her ‘affection which need not be testified unto me’. The reason is that, for him, not only friends but lovers ‘absent speake’, and the failure of a reply would ‘deprive me of the happines I was wont to have in your letters whereby I have enjoyed you at such distants’. The letter also poses a problem: it appears on a page, entirely in Parkhurst’s hand, between the last three lines of a letter datable to 1607, and two other complete letters whose earliest possible dates are respectively 1603 and 1604. Now, although at the time of the courtship D1 seems to have been employed at York House, and thus able to intercept the correspondence, Parkhurst from 1604 was in Venice, and even in 1603 cannot be connected with the Lord Keeper. We have to suppose, therefore, that he has received a copy of Donne’s letter at some time – perhaps around 1607, perhaps years previously – and has chosen for some reason to recopy it on to this page. The alternative possibility, that it is not from Donne to Anne, is only sustainable if we believe it is not Donne’s at all, for it is inconceivable that he should write to someone else ‘you have all liberty with me, all authoritie over me’.58 450  To that letter, Donne seems to have received no reply, or a cold one, for in the third letter we see him in a frenzy of love, fear, and grief, omitting (if D1’s transcription is complete) even the most perfunctory salutation or exordium, pausing hardly for breath as he seeks to know, yet fears to learn, whether she still and truly loves him, whether – by implication – she will give up all assurance of future comfort and respectability for him, as he is willing to do for her. Yet his frenzy does not deprive him of authorial skill; the presentation of his emotions is rhetorically – almost histrionically – designed to exert the maximum leverage upon whatever is blocking Anne’s will to reply. 58 ‘words he could address only to her’, Hester et al., ed., Marriage Letters, p. 14.

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Mired in an ‘extremyty’ of such a sickness as no physician could treat – something which recurred in Donne’s life, and which today would probably be diagnosed as severe depression – he can still offer a characteristic paronomasia, hoping that his sorrow might ‘lesson’ Anne’s, reduce it, or teach her to be sorry for him. The image of the condemned prisoner is no mere fancy: Donne had heard at his mother’s knee the stories of his ancestors – John Heywood, his grandfather, condemned for treason in 1542, and dragged from the Tower to Tyburn for execution before a last-minute reprieve from Henry VIII; two generations further back, Sir Thomas More executed in 1535; and, in his own lifetime, his uncle Jasper Heywood condemned and sent to the Tower for treason, but reprieved and deported in 1585.59 The image recurs in his poems, in ‘The Curse’, ‘The Expiration’ and most notably in the Holy Sonnet ‘Oh my black Soule’: Or like a thief, which till deaths doome be read, Wisheth himself delivered from prison; But damn’d and hal’d to execution, Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned;

(5–8)

In the letter, all his labour of writing is wasted, like cleaning a condemned man’s cell before his execution, unless he is to be reprieved by a letter from his beloved. 442  Between item 450 and this, the last of the four letters, Donne learns what has caused her withdrawal from him: a ‘Mr. Davies’ has told Lord Latimer, who has told Anne’s father, that he, Donne, has spoken of their relationship in a way that dishonours her. Now he knows the reason, his tone becomes less frantic, the language more controlled: there is even what seems to be an innovative use of the word ‘spungy’. He is hurt by what he sees as some acquaintance’s betrayal, hurt that Sir George should believe the slander, hurt above all that Anne should suppose that he might have instigated it but, now that he knows the grounds for Anne’s own pain, confidence returns to his voice. He knows that she values in him that quality of honesty that is what he values above all else in relationships,60 and that she will believe him if in plain and unpoetical terms he assures her ‘not that I ever spake but that I never heard ill word from any man which might be wrested to the impeachment of your honor’. It would seem that she did believe him, enough to trust her future life to him, for within weeks they were married. Without the permission, or 59 See Stubbs, Donne, pp. 10–16. 60 See the commentary on letter item 447 in section 9.2.1.

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even the knowledge, of her father, she and her lover were wed in early December, perhaps at the chapel of the Savoy, a ‘liberty’ where no licence was required. Donne’s friend Christopher Brooke gave her away, Brooke’s brother Samuel married them, and there were hardly any witnesses, for Donne later declared that ‘at the doing, there were not used above five persons’. Two months elapsed before Donne nerved himself to break the news to Sir George More, whose anger had Donne and the Brookes committed to prison; More also persuaded the Lord Keeper to dismiss his unwanted son-in-law from the service of the Crown. Although the Court of Audience of Canterbury declared in April that Donne and Anne were validly married, a decision accepted with bad grace by her father, the couple were without income or settled home until friends rallied round.61 9.2.3 Other correspondence of the circle Items 456, 451, 299, 452, 453, 454, 455, 457, 459, 460, 284/461, 464, 465, 466. Here are presented the remaining 14 letters. In each case there is at least a strong suggestion that either the author or the addressee is Donne or Wotton (in the first case, both are involved but, as already explained, it is much later than the letters of section 9.2.1, so the letter is included here). The hand of the scribe D1 has disappeared from the collection, to be replaced by another unidentified handwriting for two letters; all the others are in Parkhurst’s hand. 456  The attribution to Donne of this letter depends entirely on style, and Simpson is surely right to say that ‘the opening sentence has the ring of his style’. This is true, not just of its metaphysical image, but of its abrupt and attention-getting introduction, characteristic of many of the poems: ‘When I dyed last’, ‘Blasted with sighs’, ‘Tis the yeares midnight’, for instance. Characteristic, too, is the continuation of the ‘silkworm, bottom and clew’ image in the opening on to ‘my thred of performance’ at the end of the sentence. The letter is interesting as illustrating the nature of their continuing friendship after Wotton left for Venice in 1604 and, one supposes, Parkhurst’s continuing espionage, begun in the previous reign (see items 463, 296, and 297). What it also conveys is something that may not have been noticed before about Donne at this period. Egerton, after dismissing his young secretary at Sir George More’s behest, had refused Donne’s petition to be reinstated, saying – according to Walton – ‘that though 61 Bald, Donne, pp. 128–140.

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he was unfeignedly sorry for what he had done, yet it was inconsistent with his place and credit, to discharge and readmit servants at the respect of passionate petitioners’.62 Despite this pompous rejection, Donne, it appears, was still admitted to social circles where he might hear the Lord Keeper declare his admiration for Wotton’s performance as Ambassador, a conclusion reinforced by the next letter. 451  This seems to be addressed to a young man who has sought Donne’s advice, and an introduction to his friend Wotton (named as ‘Sir H. W.’, so dating the letter after Wotton’s being knighted in 1604). He gives the first in a fatherly tone, but is wary of the second, unwilling perhaps to strain his friendship by offering Wotton someone who may not be useful, and unwilling, too, to give his own reputation as a guarantee of the young man’s abilities. He seems to understand, however, that his correspondent will see Donne’s response as a reverse of his fortunes, and quotes Aeneas’s speech to his troops when theirs were at their nadir. The passage quoted follows immediately upon one of Virgil’s most famous lines, and one often felt to be a consolation in adversity: forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit [Perhaps one day, recalling even these events, we will be glad]. Interesting is the phrase ‘At my retorne out of North:’. This must, I think, mean Northamptonshire, for I can trace no connection between Donne and Northumberland. (He speaks, indeed, of the North in the verse-letter ‘Blest are your North parts’, but it is clear from another verse-letter, ‘Of that short Roll of friends’, also addressed to ‘Mr. I. L.’, that the addressee lives somewhere on the Trent, that is to say, in the North Midlands.) Sir Thomas Egerton, Donne’s employer from 1598 to 1602, married in 1600 the dowager Countess of Derby, who had substantial property around Brackley, Northants, and Donne had been MP for Brackley in the 1601 Parliament. It sounds as if the Lord Keeper, though unwilling publicly to readmit him to his service, may not have been above employing Donne’s considerable talents in his private business affairs. Simpson does not interpret ‘North:’, and the possibility of a continuing connection with Egerton (noticed both here and in the previous letter) seems not to have been considered by Donne’s biographers.63 The hand, no longer D1’s, is further evidence that D1 was employed at York House, and thus unable by this time to intercept Donne’s letters; this letter’s presence here seems also to confirm the continued interest of the authorities in Donne’s correspondence. 62 Walton, Lives, p. 30. 63 Bald, Stubbs, and Walton, Lives.

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299  Parkhurst’s movements after March 1615 are a mystery, so there is no indication of how he came to copy this next letter, which evidently belongs to the period following Donne’s ordination in January that year. Whoever is the addressee, there is no obvious way of accounting for Parkhurst’s involvement. Donne writes, perhaps to his sometime patron Robert Carr, now Earl of Somerset, to keep open the line of patronage from one who was, after the King, the most powerful man in England. Though ordained, Donne was at this stage without a benefice, and it is not clear what emoluments attached to the appointment he was given in March as Chaplain-in-ordinary to the King, or when – if ever – they were paid.64 Nothing, as far as we know, materialised from this letter’s approach, and the eruption of the Overbury scandal the following year closed that path. (The Earl and Countess were arraigned for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, once Somerset’s mentor, were sent to the Tower, and their agents executed. Even after their eventual release, they were never accepted in society again, and Somerset’s position as king’s favourite was ceded to George Villiers, later Duke of Buckingham.) I put forward the suggestion that the addressee is Somerset with nothing to commend it but plausibility. Bald, hearing in the letter no note of supplication (and perhaps misunderstanding Simpson’s note that all the other letters seem to date from the period of Wotton’s Ambassadorship in Venice or earlier),65 asserts that it is to Henry Wotton,66 and Stubbs follows him.67 This is interesting, and in one way even more plausible, for ‘better than any other you know my infirmity’ is just the sort of phrase that Donne might use to Wotton, but the rest of the letter has, to my ear, a different tone from that he uses to him. It is, curiously, possible that Wotton and Parkhurst were together in The Hague at this time, although Parkhurst had long since left Wotton’s employ.68 Wotton was certainly there until August 1615, trying – in spite of James I’s futile and unwise efforts in support – to solve the Juliers–Cleves controversy,69 and Dudley 64 Bald, Donne, p. 306; Stubbs, Donne, p. 309. 65 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 334. 66 Bald, Donne, p. 305. 67 Stubbs, Donne, p. 307. 68 He had accompanied Wotton to Turin in 1612 but, having been left behind as English agent, he seems to have transferred to the staff of the Duke of Savoy in early 1613 (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 476). 69 This intricate and somewhat baffling affair began in 1609 with the death of the childless and intestate Duke of Cleves, leaving among other things a small patch of land, lying between the domains of various claimants from the rival Catholic and Protestant factions of the Low Countries. The Emperor deliberated on the rightful succession, which would determine whether the Dutch should be cut off from their allies, or Brussels and the

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Carleton wrote on 3 March that Parkhurst was going thither on a different business on behalf of the Duke of Savoy.70 There is no confirmation, however, that Parkhurst ever got there, or that he encountered Wotton. Yet another possibility is that the letter is to Lord Hay, in reply to his congratulatory letter upon Donne’s ordination.71 Seven years earlier, Hay had tried unsuccessfully to help Donne to a position under the Crown, and it was to him that the poet wrote the famous letter acknowledging that it was his imprudent marriage that had damned him in the King’s eyes: ‘I have been told, that when your Lordship did me that extream favour, of presenting my name, his Majestie remembered me, by the worst part of my historie, which was my disorderlie proceedings, seaven years since, in my nonage.’72 452  This letter is clearly addressed to Wotton, by an English sea-captain pleading for his help in obtaining discharge from the Venetian quarantine, imposed to keep out the plague. His situation is surely serious, yet he finds a gentlemanly lightness of touch in his image of quarantine as purgatory and of discharge as absolution. There is a pleasing modesty, too, in his suggestion that the Ambassador should not deal with the problem himself but send a secretary. 453  Since the letter is on the same page as item 452, it is reasonable to suppose that the ‘Lordship’ it is addressed to is Wotton. By the sound of it, it comes from someone who has a professional relationship with the Ambassador, but wishes it not to be forgotten that they are friends, too. It came, perhaps, with a packet of other mail from the Secretary of State’s office, or another embassy. 454  Again on the same page, and so likely to be also to Wotton, this next letter is remarkable for its mention of the ‘sleeping preacher’, Richard Spanish provinces should be surrounded. The Protestant side, including Henry IV and the States-General, supported by four thousand troops from James I, armed for invasion, and even the assassination of Henry IV by a Jesuit agent in May 1610 was too late to stop a successful campaign. he disputed territory passed into the hands of the leading Protestant claimants, who fell out and went to war with one another. This gave the Catholic claimants an opportunity for retaliation, provoked by the Dutch garrisoning of the city of Juliers. The Spanish occupied every Protestant position that they could that was of importance to their enemy, and this was the situation that James, whose motto was beati pacifici, gave Wotton to resolve. The great diplomat was, in a sense, successful, securing the Treaty of Xanten (a copy of which is in Burley, at item 262) in November 1614, but failing in subsequent attempts to prevent the parties from abrogating it. He left, his mission a failure, in August 1615. (Most detail from Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 134–143.) 70 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 477. 71 Printed in Bald, Donne, p. 304. 72 Quoted from Bald, Donne, p. 161.

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Haydock (1569/70–c.1642). A physician of Salisbury, Haydock had become famous for preaching sermons, often of a Puritan, anti-Catholic nature, in his sleep, and had been summoned to Court in 1605 to exhibit his powers to James I. Eventually he acknowledged that he was not really asleep, but had begun the habit of speaking at night to overcome a stutter and, having gained fame for it, found it hard to admit the truth. Wotton is likely to have been acquainted with Haydock, for they were only a year apart at Winchester, although Haydock was four years later than Wotton in proceeding to New College. He shared Wotton’s interest in art, publishing a treatise on painting, the first such work in English, a translation from the Italian of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo.73 455 Simpson says that the ‘Sir T.G.’ referred to in this next letter is ‘probably Sir Thomas Gates’.74 William Strachey, the bearer of the letter, certainly sailed for Virginia in 1609 with Sir Thomas in the Sea Venture, the story of whose wreck in the Bermudas is famous as a probable source for The Tempest.75 This hardly amounts to conclusive evidence that Gates is the ‘Sir T.G.’ of the letter, and Simpson is certainly wrong. In fact, Strachey had served for a year or so as secretary to another ‘Sir T.G.’, Sir Thomas Glover, the Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, but lost his job in March 1607, apparently for involving himself with the former ambassador, Henry Lello, who had remained in Constantinople and was accused by Glover of malfeasance and embezzlement. Simpson implies that the letter is from Donne, but offers no evidence, and I have found none – not, for instance, a single letter – that would confirm that Donne regarded Strachey as ‘all wayes my good frend’. Whoever wrote it, it is almost certainly addressed to Wotton as one of Strachey’s attempts to find employment in another Mediterranean country. This one, like the others, was fruitless; perhaps Wotton had heard Glover’s side of the story as part of the occasional correspondence with one another in which ambassadors engaged.76 The reference to Glover as ‘so meane Master’ implies that the author, whoever he was, had heard only Strachey’s version of events. 73 Details from Sarah Bakewell, ‘Haydock, Richard (1569/70–c.1642)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2004. 74 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 353, n. 75 Those tempted by the siren call of counterfactual history might wonder what would have happened to English letters had Donne’s application to serve on this voyage been successful. 76 E.g. a letter to Edmondes of 1608 relays news from Glover’s post (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 445).

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457  Simpson shows, with several well-chosen examples, that the doctrinal position of the writer of this letter is close to that of John Donne, but she also puts forward the – to my mind, very convincing – conjecture of Bald that it is from Nathaniel Fletcher, the son of Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London 1594–96.77 The younger Fletcher had served as Wotton’s chaplain in Venice until 1606, and is credited with founding St George’s chapel, the earliest Anglican establishment in that city. He returned to England in the autumn of 1606, bearing a glowing recommendation from the ambassador to the Earl of Salisbury, suggesting that by your honourable means he may be put into the list of the preachers at the Court this next Lent [...] that he may before so religious a King, and in so noble an assembly, with that good spirit and those good gifts wherewith God have indued him, even according to the charge of the gospel annuntiare quae vidit;78 and I think I may add as followeth in the same place, that the blind here have received sight.79

The opening lines of his letter show that he is still hopeful of Court preferment, although nothing has yet emerged. As well as demonstrating Fletcher’s gratitude to his sometime master, the letter shows a desire to repay Wotton with what the writer can: news of and comments on affairs at home, expressed at some length, always desirable commodities to a distant expatriate. 459  ‘Clearly Donne’s’ says Simpson of the next letter,80 and, despite the lack of any other evidence, it is on grounds of style hard to disagree. It seems to be prompted by a need to write – having been dilatory in the past – in order to maintain a friendship, although the writer has nothing to say. There is no clue to the addressee, or to the enigmatic request that he seems to have made for ‘particulars’ about the King. 460  Simpson prints three letters as ‘in the Burley MS. certainly not by Donne’. They are items 439 and 452 above, and this one. It seems to be addressed to Wotton by some Englishman whom the Ambassador had helped out of some difficulty, apparently of his own making. 284 & 461  The tone of this letter is not unlike that of Donne’s side of the Goodere correspondence, items 435 and 449 above, and the letter may 77 Simpson, Prose Works, pp. 328–330. 78 ‘to announce what he has seen’; a variant on Matt. 11.4 and Luke 7.22. Wotton suggests that Fletcher’s powerful preaching, and his relation of its effects in Catholic Venice, will impress the Court. 79 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 363. 80 Simpson, Prose Works, p. 327.

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well be Donne’s. However, it reads like a reply to an opening of a correspondence, and must therefore be to some other new friend. Moreover, although item 461 appears immediately before, and on the same page as, the opening letter from Goodere, what we have of their correspondence is hardly ‘fraught with intelligence and matter’, which confirms that the addressee is probably some other new acquaintance. 464  The next letter is printed by Simpson as by Donne, probably to the Countess of Bedford, and there is no reason to doubt either attribution. I have suggested a date of 1608/9 since that was a period when their friendship was closest, and Donne was seriously ill that winter.81 The witty style is reminiscent of an earlier letter (item 436) to Wotton, also when he was sick, and he goes on to describe the Countess in terms that would seem flattering, were it not for their justness, as one who besides the commandment of a noble birth, and your perswasive eloquence of beauty, have the advantage of the furniture of arts and languages, and such other vertues as might serve to justify a reprobate fortune and the lowest condition.

‘Noble birth’ is perhaps hyperbole, for she had been born the daughter of a gentleman, Sir John Harington, only later ennobled as Lord Exton, but the rest is confirmed by contemporary accounts and portraits. A parallel encomium is found in the verse-letter ‘Reason is our Soules left hand’: In every thing there naturally growes A Balsamum to keepe it fresh, and new, If ’twere not injur’d by extrinsique blowes; Your birth and beauty are this Balme to you. But you of learning and religion, And vertue, ’and such ingredients, have made A mithridate,82 whose operation Kepes off, or cures what can be done or said.

(21–28)

The valediction may be compared with that of another letter to the Countess: ‘Here therefore I humbly kiss your Ladyship’s fair learned hands, and wish you good wishes and speedy grants.’83 465 This letter is enigmatic. The style, with its allusions and images, sounds like Donne, but who is ‘Mr. M’ with a house at ‘D. Park’? Perhaps 81 Bald, Donne, p. 177. 82 ‘mithridate’: universal antidote (OED). 83 Edmund Gosse, The Life and Letters of John Donne, 2 vols (London: William Heinemann, 1899), I, 219, assigned by him to 1609.

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Thomas Morton, then Dean of Gloucester, with whom Donne seems to have worked closely in 1607/8, and who was accustomed to stay when in London with the Dean of St. Paul’s, Dr Overall.84 It may be that Donne lodged there while working with Morton on his polemical writings against the Roman Church and its authority and pretensions, but I cannot trace a ‘Dean Park’ within Dean’s Court, where Overall lived. ‘Mr. S.’, too, remains a mystery, unless he is the William Strachey of item 455 above, which seems unlikely, although the suggested date would fit. Finally, there is no evidence on which to found even a guess as to the addressee from whom Donne is seeking an invitation, save that he lives outside London, in ‘your E.’, perhaps the county of Essex. 466 The final letter in this sequence is also obscure. It sounds like other letters more confidently attributed to Donne, for instance in the suddenness of its opening and the paradox of ‘happiest poverties’, and Simpson includes it. Its addressee, date, and occasion, though, can only be guessed at. The person written to is clearly somewhere removed, but not far, from wherever the author is, for Donne demands from him news by the following Saturday. He writes to someone likely to be up to date with Court news, and who is a close enough friend for him to ‘languish without’. The context would fit Donne’s life at Pyrford in Surrey, in the period after his marriage, living with Anne under the roof of the generous, easygoing and gregarious Francis Wolley, her cousin. In this case, Goodere is a likely correspondent, although Wotton, in the few months between his return to England and his appointment as Ambassador in July 1604, is a possibility. Donne also corresponded regularly during his Pyrford days with Tobie Mathew, but the phrase about languishing sounds more intimate than he was accustomed to be with him: as Stubbs remarks, ‘he always kept a certain distance between himself and Mathew’. Gosse, too, observes that ‘the two men were utterly opposed in interests’, and the tone of Donne’s letters to Mathew (for instance, that which appears in Mathew’s Collection of Letters on p. 67) is cooler than is the one noted here.85

84 Bald, Donne, p. 207; Stubbs, Donne, pp. 231–240. 85 Collection of Letters, made by Sr. Tobie Mathews, Kt., ed. by John Donne, Jr (1660).

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Items 41, 42, 43. In this section are considered three letters that, though they are of the period and quite probably obtained clandestinely, are not easy to assign to any particular correspondents. In the first, item 41, the urbane tone of most of the Burley letters is made discordant by anger; for the writer clearly despairs of the friendship that had formerly been between him and his correspondent. In this, the fifth letter of his own, his patience has gone, and his grief and ire are palpable. The next letter, item 42, addresses the recipient as ‘Right Honorable’ in the salutation and ‘Your Lordship’ in the valediction, both permissible forms of address for an Ambassador, and its proximity to the following one invites the conclusion that it, too, is to Wotton. It offers congratulations to the recipient on his appointment, together with an elegantly expressed apology for the delay in writing, an elegance enhanced – if the conjecture is correct – by its being fashioned around an anecdote about an earlier embassy, that of the Venetian Republic to Queen Elizabeth in 1603. The layers of rhetorical effect working in this letter – Wotton’s embassy balanced with Scaramelli’s, the letter seen as an embassy from the writer to the recipient, Wotton’s elevation by being compared with the monarch – are pleasing now, and would have delighted a contemporary reader, well-versed in rhetoric and poetics. One supposes Sir Henry, if it was indeed to him, would have been quite disarmed by it. The text of letter item 43 yields some interesting hypotheses about it. It tells – apparently as a recent event – of the installation of Prince Charles as Duke of York. This happened on Twelfth Night, 1605 (NS), the proclamation being issued the following day,86 so we have a terminus a quo for the letter. A terminus ad quem is provided, I think, by the report that the Queen is ‘ready to ly down’. This must refer to Queen Anne’s ‘lying-in’, her forthcoming confinement; she gave birth to the Princess Mary on 8 April 1605, so we have narrowed the letter’s date down to a period of three months in early 1605. Now, Parkhurst (in whose hand the copy is written) was at this period in Venice, as one of Sir Henry Wotton’s secretaries. This makes it virtually certain that the addressee is Sir Henry himself; the recipient is addressed as ‘Sir’ in the salutation,87 a form serviceable for 86 Cal. S.P. Dom 1603–10, 6 Jan 1605. 87 It should be remarked that the ‘Sr.’ and ‘farwell’ (sometimes abbreviated to ‘f.’), with which so many of these letters open and close, may be Parkhurst’s shorthand for more expansive expressions. This is noticeably the case in the translations, where he uses this form of address even to the Emperor himself (item 16).

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any rank of person from gentleman to peer, and as ‘your Lordship’ in the postscript, which would be quite proper for the Ambassador but for no other Englishman in Venice. So it is confirmed that Parkhurst’s surveillance of Wotton’s private correspondence, begun in the previous reign, continued after the Venice appointment. The writer declares that he writes ‘nothing’, and remarks his own ‘pratling ignorance’, but I think there is in fact a purpose to his apparently idle gossip. The one item he describes (in a throwaway postscript)88 as ‘news [...] which I heard but yesternight’ is the tale about the carpenter of Rochester, who swears that there is no work for such as him in the naval dockyards of Rochester and Chatham. The Navy, he implies, is being neglected, and the writer intends that Wotton should know about it, not by an outright accusation of the authorities but by this slight anecdote. The concern was justified: Lord Howard of Effingham’s admirable care for the ships and men under his command at the time of the Armada had been submerged under the weight of his new dignity as Earl of Nottingham, the second peer of England. To support this title in its proper style required all the perquisites of the Lord Admiral’s office, leaving nothing over for maintaining the Navy in a suitable condition for the defence of the realm. Corruption pervaded the system down to the lowest administrator, and the ships, stores, and seamen were made to pay for the lifestyles of Nottingham and his relatives and cronies.89 Wotton’s correspondent, it may be inferred, knows all this, but lacks a way of bringing it to the attention of those who might remedy it. His friend the Ambassador has the ear of Secretary of State Viscount Cranbourne, and even that of the King himself: who better to air his concerns at the highest level? He needs to disguise his meaning from prying eyes, however, so he uses what Bacon calls ‘the highest degree of cipher [...] omnia per omnia’, that is to say ‘everything under the cover of anything’.90 In the published correspondence from the Venice embassy, though, there is no sign of Wotton reporting the matter to his masters. Perhaps the evidence was thought too slight, or Sir Henry perceived – no doubt correctly, considering the King’s sensitivity to criticism of his personal decisions – that censure of the Lord Admiral would be taken as censure of the monarch who confirmed him in his appointment. 88 This artful way of drawing attention to an important point is dealt with in Erasmus, De conscribendis epistolis, 27 (Works, 25, 62). 89 A clear account of the disgraceful state of naval administration in this period is given in N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea (London: Penguin, 1997), chapter 25. 90 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning and The New Atlantis, ed. by Arthur Johnstone (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 133.

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9.4.1 Background If Parkhurst in 1617 (during a five-year period when his circumstances are obscure) learned of an archaeological discovery made in Rome that year, there is little doubt that he would have been interested, even perhaps excited. There emerged, on the Caelian hill in the south-east of the city, a monument bearing the inscription: Q. Aur. Symmacho v.c. quaest., praet., pontifici maiori, correctori Lucaniae et Brittiorum, comiti ordinis tertii, procons. Africae, praef. urb. cos. ordinario, oratori disertissimo, Q. Fab. Memm. Symmachus v.c. patri optimo.91

This is rendered by Glover as: To Q. Aurelius Symmachus, Vir Clarissimus, Quaestor, Praetor, Pontifex Major, Corrector (Governor) of Lucania and the Bruttii, Count of the third order, Proconsul of Africa, Prefect of the City, Consul of his year, a most eloquent orator, – Q. Fabius Memmius Symmachus, Vir Clarissimus, to the best of fathers.92

Lapidary piety describes the cursus honorem of Symmachus (c.340–c.402) who, obliged by the responsibility of his class to assume public office, held in turn the posts proper to a wealthy patrician of the fourth century AD.93 However, the tribute barely hints at the main reason for his fame in Parkhurst’s time, his letters. These, over nine hundred strong, were published posthumously by the same Q. Fabius Memmius Symmachus who dedicated the monument, in ten books imitating the published form of the letters of the younger Pliny, nine of private correspondence and the tenth of letters to the Emperor including, in Symmachus’s case, 49 relationes or official reports. 91 Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones latinae selectae, 3 vols (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892), I, 576, item 2946; accessible at (http://openlibrary.org/works/OL146554W/Inscriptiones_ latinae_selectae). 92 Terrot Reaveley Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901), p. 149. 93 ‘Vir clarissimus’ was a title given to senators; ‘quaestor’ and ‘praetor’ were administrative magistrates below the level of ‘prefect’ and of ‘consul’, the most senior such position. ‘Pontifex maior’: a senior priest.

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In our own time, Symmachus and his letters are a specialist interest, but in Parkhurt’s they were mainstream literature. At least six editions of Q. Aurelii Symmachi ... Epistolarum ad diuersos libri X were published between 1580 and 1608 in various cities in Europe,94 although the rate of publication declined to nothing later in the seventeenth century, and resumed only in 1883 with the edition of Seeck, which was intended for scholars rather than the general reader. The letters are not remarkable as sources of historical fact, or for any light they shed on the political or religious controversies of the time; perhaps Symmachus or his son selected or edited them to avoid just such dangerous matters, a type of self-censorship not unknown in Jacobean England. They do, however, as Hugh Trevor-Roper observed of the Lisle letters, serve ‘to bring back to life the self-contained human world which had created them’.95 They offer a view of the quotidian concerns of patrician society: patronage, property, the operations of the law, family ties and, above all, amicitia, friendship. These were very much the concerns of gentlemanly society in Renaissance Europe, and that is likely to account for their popularity. The matter of friendship, in particular, is the theme of many of the letters of the circle of Donne and Wotton that we have already examined, and may be part of the reason for the presence in Burley of translations of thirty-four of those of Symmachus.96 All, save for item 298, which is a combination of two of the others and is discussed separately later, appear on ff. 7–14, and thus seem likely to come from the earlier part of Parkhurst’s career. This presence is another of Burley’s mysteries. If Parkhurst himself was the translator – and there is no reason to suppose otherwise – why did he do it? Why, from nearly a thousand, did he choose these few? Perhaps he was exercising a skill he had learned at school, with a view to improving his own (English) epistolary style, or perhaps he was occupying in an appropriately civilised way time in which he had no work to do. Such an occupation had classical sanction: Pliny the Younger, asked by his protégé Fuscus Salinator for advice on filling his time during a prolonged holiday, responded: The most useful thing [...] is to translate Greek into Latin and Latin into Greek [to develop] precision and richness of vocabulary, a wide range of metaphor, and power of exposition, and, moreover, i­mitation of the best models leads to a like aptitude for original composition.97 94 Paris, 1580, 1604; Geneva, 1587, 1598, 1601; Mainz, 1608. 95 Quoted from the foreword to Bridget Boland’s abridged edition of The Lisle Letters, ed. by Muriel St Clare Byrne (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), p. 8. 96 Actually 36 items; the discrepancy arises because items 3 and 23 are translations of the same letter, and item 298 combines the texts of items 39 and 40. 97 The Letters of the Younger Pliny, trans. by Betty Radice (London: Penguin, 1963, repr.

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It might even be that Parkhurst was contemplating publishing his translations, perhaps in a manual for letter-writers. We can only speculate; his selection from Symmachus gives no insight into his motives. Twelve letters are to the poet Ausonius (Decius Magnus Ausonius (c.309–392)) with whom Symmachus formed a great friendship in 369,98 four are to Symmachus’s father, three to his son-in-law, and the rest to a dozen or so friends and relations. Eighteen, including all the Ausonius letters, are drawn from Book 1, and the rest apparently randomly from seven of the other nine books. 9.4.2 Commentary Items 2, 3, 5-32, 35–37, 39, 40. Reading these letters, one cannot help being struck by how contemporary they seem; contemporary, that is, to Parkhurst. This is not just a matter of diction, which is after all Parkhurst’s own, but of the topics discussed, the manner of the discussion, the rhetorical technique, and, above all, the social structure, manners, and mores implicit in them. This should not come as a surprise; aristocratic and gentlemanly society in Parkhurst’s time modelled itself consciously on that of (or what it perceived to be that of) the classical era. Unexpected, though, is the total success that such writers achieved in the area of ‘sociocultural interaction’ expressed by personal letters. Any one of these translations, shorn of its directly Roman references (as indeed many of them have been) might pass as an original artefact of the seventeenth century. Consider, for example, item 11. It opens with a ‘metaphysical’ image that might have come from the pen of Donne himself: They say that when cockles thirst for ayre, and that the dew of heaven releive them not, they then are norished by their owne substances. It is now even so with mee who bereft of the foode of your letters am susteyned with myne owne thoughts.

Parkhurst knows, doubtless, that coclea should be translated ‘a snail’,99 and that cockles are not snails but small edible bivalves (their name derives not from coclea but (ultimately) from the Greek word for small mussels), but he needs an image not at odds with the metaphor of food. Snails, 1969), VII, 9, p. 190). 98 J. F. Matthews, ‘The Letters of Symmachus’, in Latin Literature of the Fourth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), pp. 58–99 (p. 76). 99 He may have been familiar, too, with the reference in Plautus, Captivi, 80–1: ‘Quasi, cum caletur, cocleae in oc]culto latent / Suo sibi suco vivont, ros si non cadit’ [It’s the same as snails hiding in their holes during the dog days and living on their own juices when there’s no dew falling]. Plautus, Works, ed. and trans. by Paul Nixon, 5 vols (London: Heinemann, Loeb Classical Library, 1916).

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though a delicacy in ancient Rome, were not considered wholesome in England: Thomas Tryon, warning of the health risks of eating fish taken from stagnant water or from rivers into which sewage is discharged, says ‘If People were sensible of the hurt they do, they would no more eat them than they would Frogs, Snales, yea, Snakes.’100 Cockles are an acceptable food, so he substitutes them in his translation, and it now sounds like a perfectly English letter that Donne might have sent to Wotton. So do they all. If a few of them were slightly further anglicised to rid them of Roman references (and perhaps even this is unnecessary, for the Latin names that remain might easily be witty seventeenth-century pseudonyms), they would all fit unremarkably into the collected letters of some seventeenth-century gentleman, or into a book of model ‘letters for all occasions’. The topics that occupy them are those that occupied Parkhurst and his contemporaries: property and patronage, sickness and friendship, the honours and cares of office. Their rhetorical techniques are those that both Symmachus and Parkhurst learned as boys, and many features of the social structure of fourth-century Rome are present again over twelve centuries later in London, most notably that of patronage. It is perhaps worth dwelling for a moment on this system of patronage, for it is referred to implicitly in many of the Symmachus letters yet, once translated, none of them sounds out of place in Parkhurst’s England. The senator writes, as an English courtier might write, acknowledging the system but without sycophancy and with an assured literary touch that reflects his confidence in the social structure. The system itself is explained, and the literary skill demonstrated, in the sonorous cadences (as rendered by Parkhurst) of letter item 2: It concernes the glory of happy tymes, That, as the ayre of heaven and light of the day communicate themselves to all thinges placed in life below even so a Princes benignyty should have its influence generall and season the good offices and wishes of all men in some measure.

Reading these letters, we must in imagination exchange our detached modern sensitivities for a life within the fourth or the seventeenth century, and understand that – as the almost universal system for the distribution of appointments and favours – patronage was not necessarily inimical to upright and honourable conduct. We may take as an example letter item 2, whose writer feels able to support the claims of his own brother to some public appointment, and he does so with rhetorical and literary skills that enhance, rather than 100 Thomas Tryon, The way to health, long life, and happiness (London, 1683), p. 226.

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undermine, the integrity of what he writes. It is a persuasive letter, but the persuasion, the reader feels, is towards a desirable end not only for the brother but for the addressee and the enterprise in which he is engaged. The letter shows one reason why the system does not lack integrity: the writer offers his own reputation as a warranty of the subject’s worth. We have seen, in letter item 455, someone doing just this on behalf of William Strachey and, in item 451, Donne politely declining to do the same for some young friend. Similarly, letters seeking to lubricate the wheels of justice do not ask for its perversion: Symmachus, in letters items 14 and 15, is concerned only that the cause shall come before the authority addressed; he has confidence thereafter that the case will be decided justly: ‘By me they only desire to deserve a facility of audience for whatsoever succor belongs to oppressed and greived subjects they know your favor and the tenor of the law will supply’ (item 14). Making requests to friends was, in both classical Rome and Renaissance England, a quite proper use of friendship, provided that the favour requested was not itself dishonourable. The practice was sanctioned by revered (and much read) classical authors such as Cicero (I quote from one of several sixteenth-century translations, but Parkhurst would probably have been familiar with the original): ‘Let this therfore be the first decreed Law in Frendshippe, that wee neyther request thinges unhoneste: neither beinge requested, do anye’.101 It follows, of course, that – as Cicero also says – ‘Frendshippe cannot be but in good men’.102 He emphasises that by ‘good men’ he does not mean saints, but just such people as ordinary folk deem to be good men, and it is not hard to believe that the correspondence presented here is between such people. And, surely, it is their friendship, rather than the material or social benefits to be derived from it, which is the principal theme of these missives, just as it is of most of the Donne letters. Letters, said James Howell in a letter to his cousin in 1631, ‘are the very Nerves and Arteries of friendship, nay, they are the vital spirits and elixar of love, which in case of distance and long absence would be in hazard to languish, and quite moulder away without them’.103 Whatever ostensible reason is given 101 Cicero, De Amicitia, xii, 40, quoted from Fowre Severall Treatises of M. Tullius Cicero. Conteyning his most learned and Eloquente Discourses of Frendshippe: Old Age: Paradoxes: and Scipio his Dreame. all turned out of latine into English, by Thomas Newton (London, 1577), p. 19. 102 De Amicitia, v. 18, ibid., p. 8. 103 James Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 2nd edn (London, 1650), vol. 2, p. 33 (the two volumes are bound together, and pagination is restarted several times in vol. 1, but is continuous to this point in vol. 2).

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for the letter – a favour, as in the examples already examined, congratulation, as in items 28 and 36, modest rejoicing in an appointment (item 16), or the relation of one’s occupations in one’s house and lands (items 19 and 20) – letters seem always intended to remind the recipient of the ties that bind the correspondents, and thus to make those ties firmer and more durable. Sometimes, indeed, there need be no ‘ostensible reason’: the two simple sentences of item 17 say no more than that the senator and his friend are likely to meet in a day or two, so there is no need to write. The act of writing, though, has performed its function of demonstrating, and thus enhancing, the friendship, and so it is in the seventeenth-century letters considered earlier. In both periods, to assemble the materials for writing, to write, and to find a delivery method for a letter took care and effort, and this care and effort became an expression of friendship.104 So Parkhurst’s translation and anglicisation of these letters is highly relevant to his times, whether done for his own education or for eventual publication. He is inconsistent, though, in this anglicisation. Sometimes he suppresses a Roman reference, as he does in item 2, where ‘for my frend AB.’ translates pro amico meo Benedicto, or in item 26, where fratris mei Callistiani becomes simply ‘my brother’. Sometimes he anglicises it, as in item 27, giving ‘Ha[rry]’ for Flavianus, or in item 32, where quaestor es, memini; consilii regalis particeps [you are a financial official, I recall, a participant in royal councils] is rendered ‘you are a treasurer, I remember itt: a privy counsellor’, raising the addressee to a considerably higher position in English government than the original enjoyed in Roman, where quaestor was only the first step in the cursus honorem. Notable in this connection is item 31, in which Dii boni! becomes, for monotheist England, ‘Good God!’ At other times, though, Parkhurst is content to translate the Latin directly: item 5, ‘my brother Julianus’, and item 8, ‘you are chosen Consul’, are examples. His translation of place-names is sometimes insecure: Praenestina he gives as ‘Prostina’, a town on the peninsula of Istria, now in Croatia but in Parkhurst’s time a dependency of Venice, whereas it really refers to Palestrina, not far from Rome. He shies away from Capuani, rendering it ‘Cap:’, where Capua, near Naples, is intended. The lack of a consistent translation rule is curious for, whatever his reason for engaging in this work, one would expect him to keep doing it the same way. Curiosity becomes confusion with his further ­inconsistency 104 There was no publicly available system of mail delivery in England before 1635, and only a rudimentary one until 1660 (J. C. Hemmeon, The History of the British Post Office (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912), p. 10).

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in the matter of numbering: sometimes his marginal note puts the book number first, then the letter number (item 3, ‘6.69’ = Book 6 Letter  69), sometimes the other way round (item 13, ‘1.10’ = Book 10 Letter 1) and, of course, sometimes there is no annotation at all. Occasionally, Parkhurst’s numbers are at variance with the modern (Seeck) edition’s numbering, and this provides some clues to the edition(s) that he may have used. Table 2, which shows the seven cases of different numbering between Parkhurst, Seeck and the six editions of the 1580–1609 period, will make this clear. Table 2  Source editions of Symmachus translations Item P’s No. Seeck No. 6 12 13 14 18 28 29

 1.20 16.10 17.10 22.10  1.11  1.32  1.41

1.22 80138 8.139 Rel. 1 1.10 1.38 1.48

1580

1587

1598

1601

1604

1608

1.16 10.12 10.16 1.40  1.32  1.42

1.16 10.12 10.15 1.40 1.32 1.42

1.22 10.12 10.15 1.10 1.32 1.42

1.22 10.15 1.10 1.38 1.48

1.14 10.12 10.15 1.40 1.32 1.42

1.20 10.16 10.17 10.22 1.10 1.38 1.48

Although, for the other 27 letters, Parkhurst may have used any edition, since the numbering is the same in all of them, it would seem that he has used the 1608 edition for the first four entries above (getting book and letter numbers the ‘wrong’ way round in Book 10), and either 1580, 1587, or 1604 for the last two. Letter item 18’s numbering is wrong on all counts; Parkhurst appears to have made a slip of the pen. It seems likely, then, that though the translations occupy adjacent folios in the same gathering (see p. 351 below), he made them in different places (London, Venice, East Lenham, and Turin are possibilities, as may be seen from Chapter 4), using whatever edition came to hand. There remains another small puzzle: item 298. This appears in a widely different part of the codex from the other translations, and combines the texts of items 39 and 40, which in Symmachus are two different letters, addressed to different people and, although in the same book, are some distance apart. Item 298 thus aggregates two separate texts. The first two sentences are in Parkhurst’s hand, the remainder in a curious secretary/italic hybrid not met elsewhere in Burley. Why Parkhurst started the letter and then gave up, why the unknown scribe, of his own volition or at Parkhurst’s behest, ran the two together, are questions beyond any easy conjecture.

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9.5 Other letters Items 4, 33, 34, 38, 284. We come to the remaining five letters. The skill that Parkhurst has shown already in appropriating the Symmachus letter to his own century makes it difficult to say whether they are translations belonging in the previous section, or seventeenth-century letters whose writers and addressees cannot be guessed at, and thus properly to be found in section 9.3. Items 4, 33, 34, and 38 come from the same part of the codex as the translations, which are all (apart from the hybrid item 298) in what seems to be a single gathering at the beginning, comprising ff. 1–16 and the two unnumbered folios preceding them. Although one is inclined on that account to think that these four are also translations, no original has been identified, and this gathering does contain a few seventeenth-century letters, as well as Tourneur’s ‘Character of Robert late Earle of Salisbury’. Item 4, to be sure, sounds thoroughly seventeenth-century, with its ‘metaphysical’ image of digestion, but then so does item 11 (the ‘cockles’ letter), an undoubted translation. The valediction of item 38, too, sounds more like Donne than Symmachus: What I can promise in recompence you already have, my Love           Till death:

However, its appearance on f. 14 (whose other three letters are all undoubted translations) warns against necessarily assuming a R ­ enaissance attribution. Item 284, coming from Part 3 of the manuscript, may well be from Parkhurst’s own time and, indeed, sounds more seventeenth-century than the others, so far as a (twenty-first-century) ear can detect so indefinable a difference in tone. 9.6 Conclusions Of these letters, I have said that both the original English letters and the translations from fourth-century Rome offer an insight into the interests and concerns of English gentlemen of Parkhurst’s time. But they do more: they present us with a view of the art of letter-writing itself as it was practised in the early seventeenth century. About the beginning of that century, John Hoskyns wrote for a pupil of his at the Middle Temple a long essay called Direccions for Speech and Style, which opens

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with a treatise on ‘Penninge of Letters’, Hoskyns evidently seeing this as the most important field of communication.105 There are, he says, two aspects to be considered when writing: ‘Invencion & the fashion’,106 or, as we would say, the matter and the style. Among the distinguishing qualities of ‘fashion’ or good style, are brevity and plainness, but neither characteristic is a reason to be inelegant. On brevity, he remarks that ‘you are not to put riddles of your witt, by being too scarce of wordes’ but ‘to examyne the clearest passages of your understanding, & through them to convey your sweetest & most significant English wordes’.107 Of plainness, he stresses that this does not mean dullness, but asks his pupil ‘to use (as Ladies use in their Attyre) a kinde of dilligent negligence’ so that ‘the deliverie of most weighty & important things, may be caryed with such a grace, as that it may yeald a pleasure to the conceipt of the reader’.108 ‘Liffe’ (liveliness), he asserts, ‘is the very strength & synnewes [...] of your penning’.109 Some decades later, James Howell (1597–1654) observed: It was a quaint difference the Ancients did put ’twixt a Letter and an Oration, that the one should be attir’d like a Woman, the other like a Man: The latter of the two is allowed large side robes, as long periods, parenthesis, similes, examples, and other parts of Rhetorical flourishes: But a Letter or Epistle should be short-coated, and closely couched; a Hungerlin110 becomes a Letter more hansomely than a gown. Indeed we should write as we speak; and that’s a true familiar Letter which expresseth ones mind, as if he were discoursing with the party to whom he writes in succinct and short termes.111

This comes from Epistolae Ho-Elianae, a popular collection of Howell’s letters, first published in 1645, which ran through six editions. This particular letter, to Sir John Smith, appears first in 1650, in the second edition, where it is dated ‘25 Julii, 1625’. It is generally thought, however, that the letters (whether or not based on earlier, private, originals) were composed for publication during Howell’s sojourn in the Fleet from 1643 to 1651. The letters we have been looking at are certainly ‘short-coated, 105 The treatise is printed in Louise Brown Osborn, The Life, Letters, and Writings of John Hoskyns, 1566–1638 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937), pp. 118–121. 106 Ibid., p. 118. 107 Ibid., p. 119. 108 Ibid., p. 120. 109 Ibid., p. 121. 110 ‘Hungerlin’: ‘A sort of short furred robe, so named from having been derived from Hungary’ (Nares); OED, quoting this example. 111 James Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, 2nd edn (1650), p. 1.

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and closely couched’: the longest of them is scarcely more than three hundred words, and the average not much more than half that figure. ‘Parenthesis, similes, examples, and other parts of Rhetorical flourishes’, though, they have in abundance, as we have seen. Howell, however, is not entirely consistent on this point. Later in the letter he complains of some writers’ ‘cobweb-compositions’, wherein ‘One shall hardly find an apothegm, example, simile [...] or as much as one new created phrase, in a hundred of them’.112 What Howell seems to be pleading for is good taste; in his final paragraph, he returns ‘your Balzac’, his friend’s copy of Jean Louis Guez de Balzac’s Lettres (1625), finding it ‘so puff ’d with prophane hyperboles, and larded up and down with such gross flatteries’, that he had been unable to finish it.113 Neither Hoskyns nor Howell, I think, would have faulted the Burley letters on the score of liveliness or good taste. In both the tone in which they treat of their chosen subjects and the literary skill they bring to that treatment, they show an elegance and refinement of manners that is not ‘puff ’d’ or ‘larded’, but genuine. They are ‘caryed with such a grace, as that may yeald a pleasure to the conceipt of the reader’, even the twenty-firstcentury reader, ignorant of the writer, the addressee, and the background to them. ‘Amongst the Italians and Spaniards’ said Howell in the letter quoted above, ‘’tis held one of the greatest solecismes that can be in good manners, not to answer a Letter with like civility, by this they use to distinguish a Gentleman from a Clown; besides they hold it one of the most vertuous ways to employ time’. The lively wit and genuine feeling of the Donne– Wotton correspondence, the well-turned congratulations of item 42, just like (among the translations) the delicate sympathy of item 35, even the scarce-controlled anger of item 31, all come from gentlemen for whom ‘Manners makyth Man’, for whom, that is to say, good taste is not a veneer but an essence in the formation of a civilised person. Appendix: Letters not unique to Burley In the Introduction, section 9.1 above, I referred to six ‘private letters’ that enjoyed wide circulation as manuscripts in their own time, and whose appearance in Burley – unlike that of the forty or so letters dealt with in sections 9.2 and 9.3 – is probably at some remove from the originals. (It is possible, though, that two of those in D1’s hand, items 281 and 282, one 112 Ibid., p. 2. 113 Ibid., p. 2.

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from the Earl of Essex, the other about him, are copies of interceptions, since D1 is known to have been so engaged in 1601.) The six letters are listed below. Item 216 inc. My Lord: Out of the love I beare to some of your frends exp. To the Lord Monteagle: Hand P. Francis Tresham to Lord Mounteagle, 1605. The letter giving away the Gunpowder Plot. Item 244 inc. Amias my most faithfull and carefull servante, god rewarde thee treblefolde exp. To my faythfull Amias P[illegible] Hand S. Queen Elizabeth to Sir Amyas Paulet, 1586. Thanks him for faithful service as jailer of Mary Queen of Scots. Item 280 inc. Sir Phillip Sydney to her Majestie: Concerning Mounseur exp. the most excellent friende of all your progenitores & the perfect mirror of all posterity. Hand D1. Sir Philip Sidney to Queen Elizabeth, 1579. The ‘Alençon letter’. Item 281 inc. The Erle of Essex to the Erle of Southampton ... exp. your Lordships Cosin & true frend whome no wordly cause can divide from you: Robert Deavrex. Hand D1. Essex to Southampton, probably 1601. Probably during their incarceration in the Tower after the ‘Essex rebellion’. Item 282 inc. The Ladie Riches letter to her Majestie exp. vowinge the obedience & endless love of:/your Majesties Most dutyfull & Loyall Servant. Hand D1. Penelope, Lady Rich to Queen Elizabeth, 1601, pleading for her brother, the Earl of Essex. Item 291 inc. Sir Walter Rawligh to Sir R. Carr exp. with my uttermost thankfulnesse will ever remayne ready to obey your commands. Similar hand to P, but not certainly his. Raleigh to Carr, 1603, pleading for his estates to be restored to support his wife and children.

10

English verse: commentary and notes 10.1 Introduction Early in her important work on manuscript verse miscellanies, Mary Hobbs rejoices in the rich mine of such collections opened up to scholars by Beal’s ‘painstakingly thorough’ Index of English Literary Manuscripts: When scholars have had time to digest his many exciting discoveries, this unimaginable wealth of new material will revolutionize studies of seventeenth-century poetry: to name but one find, the rediscovery of the Burley manuscript of Donne’s poems that Grierson mistakenly thought had been burnt in a fire.1

From this sentence, readers unfamiliar with Burley might expect to find all or most of Donne’s verse there; in fact, it contains 21 of his poems: 16 of the epigrams, two verse-letters, a satire, the ‘Hymn to the Saints and the Marquis Hamilton’, and an incomplete version of the elegy ‘Come, Madam, come’. What it does hold in addition, however, are copies of 146 other poems or extracts from poems in English by other authors,2 with a range of genre (and, it must be admitted, literary quality) that altogether justifies the title of ‘miscellany’. It will be my contention, in the commentary on these verses that follows, that the verse content of Burley is a substantial contribution to the ‘unimaginable wealth’, and that as an ‘introduction to an age, its thought, events and people’ it supplies a panorama of the literary, political, and social culture of early seventeenth-century England as seen through the eyes of one man, William Parkhurst.3 Burley is, of course, not unique as a window on the period; parallel claims might be made for many other manuscript miscellanies. But its  1 Mary Hobbs, Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany Manuscripts (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992), p. 4.   2 A few of these are duplicates, or near-duplicates, which are appropriately indicated.   3 Hobbs, Verse Miscellany MSS, p. 38.

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The Burley manuscript

sheer size and range make it important: Hobbs assesses the significance of the Stoughton manuscript in these terms: In the unwieldy mass of extant seventeenth-century manuscript verse miscellanies, it is necessary, first, to find some touchstone, some landmark from which the situation as a whole can be viewed. Fortunately, at least one such touchstone exists: the Stoughton manuscript.4

The Stoughton manuscript contains 78 genuinely miscellaneous poems: ‘love poems, song lyrics, elegies, answer poems and verse satire’,5 together with 35 poems by Henry King. In Burley, even if we eliminate from the reckoning the Donne works (most of which, as explained in Chapter 6, on the spying activities of Parkhurst and the scribe known as ‘D1’, may be there for other than literary reasons) and the Spenser extracts (which, as we shall see, seem disconnected from the rest of the anthology), there remain 116 items of miscellaneous verse, half as many again as Stoughton. Only two poems are common to both manuscripts: Strode’s lyrics ‘I saw fair Cloris walk alone’ (item 589 in Burley, No. 34 in Stoughton) and ‘Ile tell you how the rose did first grow red’ (item 591 and No. 51 respectively). The range of Burley’s content is at least as great as that of Stoughton; although there is only one answer poem, there are many epigrams, lyrics, elegies, libels and anti-libels, and two verse-letters. Even though the ‘English verse miscellany’ content of Burley constitutes less than one-fifth of all its items, this still amounts to well over a hundred items, and this element of the collection is, tried with Hobbs’s touchstone, a useful and important viewpoint for the examination of seventeenthcentury literary culture. 10.1.1 Structure and date There are 227 separate verse entries (including those in other languages than English), ‘entry’ here signifying an item presented as a distinct entity: a line or lines written consecutively, and separated from an ­adjacent entry by a line-space. Poems of several stanzas count as one entry, even though their stanzas are conventionally separated by a line-space. They are distributed among the languages in a similar way to the totality of entries (see Chapter 3 and Figure 7) The 163 items of English verse (counting duplicates only once) are mostly unattributed in the manuscript, but a thorough search of both modern and contemporary sources has enabled the authorship of 104 of them to be recognised (with varying degrees of certainty). Twenty-eight   4 Ibid., p. 41.  5 Ibid.

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Latin 19%

French 1%

Italian 5%

English 75%

Figure 7  Verses of the Burley manuscript divided by language entries are by Spenser, but this statistic gives a misleading impression of the manuscript’s emphasis on this poet; no complete poems are included, and the extracts occur together on ff. 317r–320v, all in the same secretary hand (E’s). They vary in length from one line to 44, and are introduced by a heading: Verses taken out of the ruines of tyme. ‘The Ruines of Time’ is a long poem in Spenser’s Complaints, first published in 1591. Not all the extracts come from this one poem; ten come from ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’ and two from ‘The Teares of the Muses’, both also in Complaints. The reasons for this particular selection are obscure, but an attempt to account for it is made above in Chapter 7. Despite the early style of handwriting, the manuscript is almost certainly of later date than the first printing: the text is rendered almost word for word, making it probable that the printed version was copy-text for the manuscript.6 The poet with the next most items is John Donne, unsurprisingly in view of the popularity of his verse in manuscripts of the period. There are 16 of his 23 epigrams, and five major poems: the elegy ‘On His Mistress Going to Bed’ (‘Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy’, missing the last 16 lines); the satire, No. IV in the Variorum Donne (‘Well. I may now receive, and die; my sin’); the epicede ‘An Hymn to the Saints and to Marquis Hamilton’ (‘Whether that soul which now comes up to you’)   6 As explained in Chapter 7, ‘Memory’, this does not mean that the scribe had the printed text before him; it is likely that he was relying on his memory of it, which may account for his inaccurate heading.

The Burley manuscript

358 Anon. Spenser Donne Strode Jonson Harington Wotton Randolph James I Towneley Morley Lewis Corbett Ayton Williams Rowley Raleigh Pyne Porter Parrot Milton Mathew Juxon Hoskyns Holland Herrick Harington of Stepney Drummond Cranfield Constable Clanricarde Cholmeley Browne Beaumont Bastard Bartlet

57 28 21 5 5 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Figure 8  English verses of the Burley manuscript divided by author with its introductory letter to Sir Robert Ker; the verse letter to Sir Henry Wotton ‘H. W. in Hiber: belligeranti’ (‘Went you to conquer? and have so much lost’) and another to the same good friend ‘To Sir H.W. at his going Ambassador to Venice’ (‘After those reverend papers, whose soul is’). The close association of Donne and Wotton, and the clear connection of the manuscript with Wotton, make these texts important for the study of Donne’s poems; the same, of course, may be said of Donne’s prose items: letters, paradoxes, and the extracts from Overbury’s Characters that are attributed to him.

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No other named poet has as many entries as Spenser or Donne, as may be seen from Figure 8. Fewer than half the items in Part 3 of the manuscript are of English verse (fifty-four out of 125), and of these 31 are in D1’s hand, 23 in Parkhurst’s. The two hands alternate in blocks, both of verse and prose, suggesting that they collaborated in this part of the compilation, rather than Parkhurst taking over something started by D1. About half of the items might be characterised as ‘light verse’, and the others as of a more serious intent. (I would not wish to be more precise about the proportions: a libellous and comic verse might also have a serious political intent, for instance, and witty expression in an epitaph does not necessarily trivialise the subject.) Parts X (the Killigrew epigram) and Y (the 28 extracts from Spenser’s Complaints in the hand of the scribe I call E, because of his Elizabethan secretary style) are, of course, entirely verse. In Part 4, by contrast with Part 3, almost every item (85 out of 92) is English verse, the bulk in Parkhurst’s hand. Save for Donne’s ‘Hymn to the Saints and the Marquis Hamilton’ and its covering letter, and for two prose items, the whole of the rest of this part is Parkhurst’s, including the other three pieces of prose. The two pieces of prose (speeches of James I) not inscribed by Parkhurst are in secretary hand, but I think not E’s, for the majuscules seem more carefully inscribed and the hand more sloping. The English verse may again be divided into roughly equal amounts of light and serious. I suggested earlier, in Chapter 5, that Parts 3 and 4 belonged to differ­ ­ent periods in Parkhurst’s career. With two possible exceptions, Part 3 contains nothing that could not have been written before 1615. Part 4, on the other hand, has much that must be of later date, such as the encomia on Felton, Buckingham’s assassin (1628) and the epitaph on Hobson the carrier (1631). Its final item, an epitaph for the Earl of Strafford, cannot be earlier than 1641, when he was executed. The exceptions in Part 3 are, first, the verse item 336: Epi: B: Jo: Tell me who can when a player dies In which of his shapes againe he shall rise What need hee stand att the judgment throne Who hath a heaven and a hell of his owne   Then feare not Burbage heavens angry rodd   When thy fellows are angells & old Hemmings is God.

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If Grierson’s identification of this as an epitaph on Hemmings is correct, it must be from 1630 or later.7 However, Jonson’s editors are surely right in their assertion that its subject is Burbage (d. 1619), and that it is not an epitaph but an epigram. It is thus quite feasibly earlier than 1615.8 The second exception presents more difficulty: it is the fragment of verse, item 393, attributed to Tobie Mathew, ‘And since the glorious fether of thy wing’. The lines, which are the sestet of a sonnet, seem to refer to Mathew’s father’s impending death, which took place in 1628. A remnant of a sonnett that Toby Mathew made to the Angels Gab: & Ra: which he adopted to his old father Tobias And since the glorious fether of thy wing The Angel Raphael by old Tobies eyes behold another of that name that lies sick: beleife bid him Chrismatour bring:   and cure his hart more blind then that blind face   Not with the gal of fish but oyle of grace.

The lines must certainly be later in date than 1607, when the younger Tobie converted, but – if my proposal that Part 3 is all earlier than about 1615 is correct – it must refer not to his father’s dying days but to some illness, in the event not fatal, suffered between 1607 and 1615, during most of which period the author was in Italy, and perhaps receiving only occasional accounts of his father’s condition. Alternatively, the poem may indeed be of 1628, and Parkhurst copied it and another sonnet at that time on to the spare space on f. 286, which otherwise has only the last eight lines, with its postscript, of Donne’s verse-letter to Wotton on his going as Ambassador to Venice (1604), all in D1’s hand. A small piece of evidence in favour of the earlier date is that Tobie was knighted by the King at Royston in 1623 (‘an extraordinary gesture to a Catholic priest’, as his biographer says)9 and it would have been more natural for the heading, if written in 1628, to describe him as ‘Sir Toby’.10 The division into pre- and post-1615 entries corresponds well with the little we know of Parkhurst’s life. It will be recalled that, from around  7 Grierson, Poems of John Donne, p. 443 (in section headed ‘Poems ascribed to Jonson’).   8 Ben Jonson, Works, VIII, 439.   9 A. J. Loomie, ‘Matthew, Sir Toby (1577–1655)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2004. 10 I am concerned here only with dating the poem; its social and religious background, and those of the following sonnet, are discussed in section 10.3.2 ‘Two Catholic Poems’, pp.  372–376 below.

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the turn of the century to about 1616, he seems to have been engaged in covert activities for the government. If my conjecture is right, Part 3 belongs to this period of Parkhurst’s career as agent and secretary, as do most of Parts 1 and 2. It is notable, given that his connection with Italy seems to have ended in 1615, that all the Italian material is in these three parts, all the Italian verse being in Part 3. Part 4, I contend, belongs to that later phase of his career in which, perhaps as a reward for his services to the state, he obtained a knighthood and a lucrative and not too demanding government post. This contention conflicts with Bell’s view that Parts 1 and 4 ‘originally belonged together’ (see also the discussion on pp. 13–14), but I think that the separation by decades of so many datable items cannot be ignored. I find the supposition that we are dealing with two collections that were assembled separately and subsequently brought together persuasive although not, perhaps, altogether conclusive. 10.1.2 Grouping In what follows, I have chosen to treat verses of like genre together. For instance, the 17 short lyric pieces are discussed in section 10.2; five philosophical poems are commented on in section 10.3.3; and the four religious satires have their commentary in section 10.5.2. This arrangement is like that adopted in Chapter 9 for the letters. 10.2 Lyrics Items 339, 356, 382, 383, 385, 386, 389, 390, 398, 528, 542, 543, 552, 574, 589, 591, 596. In this section are discussed seventeen poems, some well known, some unfamiliar, some I believe hitherto unpublished. Among the unfamiliar ones are seven which were published a century ago, but seem not to have been heard of since. In his edition of Donne’s poems published in 1912, which did so much to revive and inspire Donne scholarship, Grierson included in appendix C 35 works that he described as ‘A selection of poems which frequently accompany poems by John Donne in manuscript collections or have been ascribed to Donne by modern editors’. In section II of this appendix appear eleven ‘Poems from the Burley MS’, although Grierson admits that they do not belong under the appendix’s general heading: most of them do not appear in other manuscripts, and

362

The Burley manuscript

none I think is Donne’s. The chief interest of the collection is that it comes from a commonplace-book of Sir Henry Wotton, and therefore presumably represents the work of the group of wits to which Donne, Bacon and Wotton belonged.11

As a reason for including in a volume of Donne’s verse a selection of anonymous lyrics having no manifest connection with that poet, it is slender. His real reason is likely to have been the very praiseworthy one that he admired their quality, and wanted to introduce them to a wider audience. Seven of the poems in Grierson’s appendix C, section II, are love-lyrics: items 382, 383, 385, 386, 389, 390, and 552. That the collaborators – which is what they seem to have been – Parkhurst and D1 had a taste for the lyrics of the time is undeniable. From the work either of popular poets like Jonson and Strode or of authors who to this day remain wholly anonymous, they select poems of elegance and charm. Yet it is remarkable that, despite the access that D1 at least enjoyed to the writings of John Donne (evidenced in the letters and in other poetic genres), none of that poet’s Songs and Sonets appears in the collection. The four lyrics in D1’s hand are all anonymous, like himself, and there is no telling how they came to be here. As well as four anonymous lyrics, however, Parkhurst has supplied nine which are attributable to recognised poets such as Jonson, Strode, Ayton, and Herrick, and it is possible that he was on the fringes of Jonson’s circle, whose members included the latter three poets.12 Neither of the Jonson poems (items 339 and 398) shows any significant variation from the published version, although the manuscript in at least the first case is much earlier in date than the printing, strengthening the suggestion that Parkhurst was close enough to someone in the ‘tribe of Ben’ to have received a copy at the time it was written. Parkhurst also acquired two poems by Sir Robert Ayton (1570–1638), items 356 and 596. In the first of these, ‘I lov’d thee once’, the confident handling of a complex verse-form (something like ottava rima, but with the fifth and sixth lines rhyming cc), the elegant diction, the nice balance of many of the tetrametric lines (the first and the thirtieth, for instance), the movement of the thought from stanza to stanza, and the use of the figure polyptoton (‘A captives Captive to remain’ (16), and ‘A begging to a beggars door’ (32)) mark the poem as more than a piece of courtly doggerel, and it is somewhat surprising that Grierson did not select it 11 Grierson, Poems of John Donne, II, 267–268. 12 See Ian Donaldson, Ben Jonson: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 29 (Ayton), 434 (Herrick), and 72 (Strode).

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for his appendix. The second Ayton poem, ‘Wrong not deare empresse of my hart’, is far less elegant, charming, and technically accomplished than ‘I lov’d thee once’, although it is better in the original than in Burley’s evidently corrupt (probably because badly remembered) version. A transcript of a text believed to be close to, perhaps actually, Ayton’s own is appended here, and it will be seen that Parkhurst has missed 12 lines out of 32, and has the other 20 in an order all his own. ’Ayton’s ‘Wrong not deare mistresse’ from Add. MS 10308: Wrong not sweete Empress of my heart The merritt of true passion Pretending that he feeles noe smart   That sues for noe compassion, Since if my plaints come not t’approve   The conquest of thy beautie It comes not from defect of love   But from excess of duty, For knowing that I sue to serve   A sainte of such perfection As all desire but none deserve   A place in her affection I rather chuse to want releife   Then venter the revealing Where glory recommends the greefe   Dispayre distrusts the heeling, Thus those desyres which ayme too high   For any mortal lover When reason cannot make them dye   Discretion doth them cover, Yet when discretion bids them leave   The plaints which they should utter Then thy discretion should perceive   That silence is a suiter; Silence in love bewrays more woe   Then words then never soe pithy witty A beggar that is dumb you knowe   They challenge Doth merit double pitty Then wrong not deare heart of my heart   My true though secrete passion Hee smarteth meritts most that hydes his smart   And sues for noe compassion.

364

The Burley manuscript

As for Grierson’s claim that the Burley poems are ‘the work of the group of wits to which Donne, Bacon and Wotton belonged’, I can find no connection between Ayton and this group. Nor is there even evidence that they were acquainted, although Ayton, like Wotton, enjoyed the confidence of James I, and was chosen to carry copies of the King’s Premonition to the courts of Germany at the same time as Wotton was presenting it in Venice. Ayton was a candidate for the post of Provost of Eton in 1623, which was awarded to Wotton. Lyrics 382–383 and 385–386 are all in D1’s hand. D1 is the scribe of all the undoubted Donne works in Burley, with the exception of ‘A Hymn to the Saints and the Marquis Hamilton’ (item 548), and the first two lyrics, Clanricarde’s ‘My love doth fly with wings of feare’ and the anonymous ‘O eyes what do you see’, are placed between a collection of Donne’s epigrams and a copy of his elegy ‘Come, Madam, come’. Although both lack the pace and originality of the Songs and Sonets, Donne’s influence is apparent in the first, for instance in lines 13–16, with their image of the sun, and 17–19, referring to the eyes as conduits for both sight and emotion. ‘O eyes what do you see’ appears on the same page as the previous lyric, and indeed shows every sign (letter size, pen width, ink density) of having been written down by D1 immediately consecutively. The final couplet is not clear: line 11 presumably means that the poet wishes to intensify the visual experience of his beloved’s beauty, but extending a similar meaning to line 12 would imply that Fame had very large ears. Representations of Fame usually include a trumpet, and occasionally a shawm when the artist wants to distinguish ill fame from good, but the notion of Fame having attributes of acquisition rather than, or as well as, dissemination is unusual. Or is the poet saying he wants to have the ear of Fame in the sense of being able to give Fame the news of the beloved, so that it can be spread around the world? In the poem as a whole, however, some influence of Donne may be heard, and the remarks on authorship of the previous poem may apply. The next of D1’s anonymous lyrics, ‘Commend her? no. I dare not terme her fayre’ (item 385) follows in the manuscript immediately after ‘Come, Madam, come’. The model is now Shakespeare rather than Donne, both in the form of the sonnet and in the somewhat untraditional view of the beloved. There is an awkwardness in the expression of lines 5–6 that is not helped by D1’s aversion (strong even by Parkhurst’s standards, and those of the time) to punctuation, a habit which also obscures the wellwrought turn after the octave. D1’s final contribution to this section, ‘Those drossy heads and

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i­ rrepurged braynes’ (item 386), follows consecutively the previous poem, and seems again to have been inscribed by D1 on the same occasion. The form is again that of the Shakespearian sonnet, and the theme is once more a mistress of untraditional attraction. The long ‘s’ in line 6 may have been intended as a contraction for ‘small’st’ (although it is written quite separately from the preceding ‘smale’) and would then make a tidier antithesis with ‘greatest’. The next neat little lyric, ‘I that the higher half of Loves’ (item 389) is in a hand like Parkhurst’s, although some variation in the formation of the letter ‘e’ makes the attribution uncertain.13 The poet has reached the high point of his love, the summer solstice, which occurs in the sign of Cancer, the crab; from here it wanes, bringing the lover relief. On the same page as, and in a similar hand to, the previous poem,14 the next lyric, ‘When Fortune Love and Tyme bad me be happie’ (item 390), is a witty and technically accomplished lyric that includes in lines 8 and 9 the ‘stage’ topos of which the compiler of Burley is so fond. A version of stanza 1 is set as song XV in John Bartlet’s A Booke of Ayres, which makes it possible that the poem is his.15 Grierson omits the crossed-out ‘false’ in line 12, but the manuscript has a letter ‘m’ above it, perhaps indicating ‘manet’, and certainly the retention of ‘false’ improves the scansion and gives a pleasing spring to the line. Moving into the fourth section of the Burley manuscript, we come to ‘Since all things love why should not wee?’ (item 528). This is a wellwrought and clever lyric, with a witty and well-sustained conceit in the first three stanzas, moving via the Ovidian comparisons of the fourth stanza to the carpe diem conclusion, and again one wonders that Grierson did not include it. It was published, in a text very close to this, in Walter Porter’s Madrigales and Ayres (1632), where it is set as a trio for two sopranos and bass.16 Porter gave no credit to any of his lyric-writers, so there is no compelling reason to suppose that this was his own, but there would be a pleasing symmetry in the attribution: a later Porter, Cole, wrote another amusing song with the same thought, ‘Let’s do it’, three centuries later. There follows another anonymous lyric, ‘I will no more on progresse  I’ (item 542). Tired of following James I on some royal progress, the poet 13 Steven May is of the opinion that it is ‘probably not Parkhurst’. The hand is very like that of the letter item 452, about which there is the same uncertainty. 14 Steven May thinks this ‘probably Parkhurst’. 15 John Bartlet, A booke of ayres with a triplicitie of musicke (London, 1606). 16 It is not included, apparently, in all copies: the copy in the Folger Shakespeare Library, reproduced on EEBO, lacks it.

366

The Burley manuscript

pines for his beloved. Line 23 implies that his name is d’alby, but I have identified no courtier-poet of that name. The syntax of lines 9–10 is awkward; what is meant is, presumably, ‘My heart knows that she must be to me no more than an image’. The image of lines 11–12 is elusive; it sounds Ovidian, but no exact parallel springs to mind: She is the mother shell that drew Into her lap celestial dew

Danaë’s shower of gold might perhaps be represented by ‘celestial dew’, but what then of the ‘mother shell’? Besides, yielding one’s virginity to a shower of gold does not offer quite the chaste, saintly image that the poet seems otherwise to intend. We come to lyric item 543, Wotton’s verses entitled here ‘The Lady Eliza: Queene of Bohemia’. This is, perhaps justly, Sir Henry’s most famous poem, and much anthologised. Although Parkhurst’s close connection with Sir Henry make the Burley text an important source for the work, most modern editions rely on the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, edited by Izaak Walton and published in 1651. Important variations from this text are given in the textual notes, perhaps the most notable being that in line 5: ‘moone’ for ‘sun’. Burley has, to my mind, the more appropriate image, stars being diminished by moonrise, rather than extinguished by the sun, just as the violets and the songbirds are diminished by the rose and the nightingale. Burley seems stronger, too, in 13–14, where ‘Thinking your passions understood / By silly notes’ is greatly to be preferred to Reliquiæ’s feeble ‘Thinking your Voyces understood / By your weak accents’. Elizabeth, consort of the Elector Palatine, became Queen in 1619, and the poem must have been written in the following year, for on 12 June 1620 the reformed pirate Sir Henry Mainwaring wrote to Lord Zouche (Wotton’s sometime spy-master): I expect Sir Henry Wotton at Dover the latter end of this week. Being in Greenwich Parke he made a sonnet to the Queen of Bohemia which he sent by me to the Lady Wotton; the copy I have sent to your Lordship. It will be a good exercise for your Lordship’s two choiristers, Mr. Fooks and Mr. North, to set it to a sound.17

James I did not recognise the election of Frederick to the throne of Bohemia, so his ambassador (on his way, at the King’s behest, to visit the crowned heads of Europe to put a stop to the Thirty Years War), was faced 17 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 170.

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with a difficulty in addressing the monarch of Bohemia and his lovely consort. He was forced to call them still the Prince and Princess Palatine, which naturally gave offence. In a letter to the Queen, he began: ‘May it please your Majesty (but with a solemn protestation that I give you this title not as an ambassador)’, which seems, equally naturally, to have done little to repair the damage.18 The poem, however, was a different matter, and Sir Henry was able to choose the title most suited to the lady he so admired. It is not known whether he was able to present it to her, but it remains the Winter Queen’s best-known memorial. Nor do we know if Messrs Fooks and North ever set it; Michael East, however, Master of the Choristers at Lichfield, wrote a melodious setting (using a text close to this one) that he published in his Sixt Set of Bookes.19 It rebalances the five-line stanzas by repeating ‘What are you’ three times, and then ‘when Moon shall rise’ three times (and similarly in the following stanzas), followed by elaborating the two phrases as a sort of chorus. It is effective, although it misses the subtle change of tone in the final stanza. This change raises the work from a neat specimen of courtly verse to a true poem. In the first three stanzas, a class of pleasant objects is weakly praised, and then surpassed by a supreme example: stars by the moon, violets by the rose, songbirds by the nightingale. In the final stanza, we might expect a similar pattern: ladies in general, or the ladies of the Court, being first invoked, and then outshone by the Queen in line 5. In fact, the stanza begins, rather than ending, with the supreme example, celebrating not only her beauty but her virtue and qualities of mind, and nothing at all is said of ladies in general, who vanish before ‘th’Eclipse and glory of her kind’.20 William Webb set the work for three voices in 1653, again using a text close to Burley although Reliquiæ Wottonianæ was by then available, and setting the lines as written, without repeats or chorus.21 This version, however, does not seem to have survived, as East’s has, in the modern repertory. Had George Herbert written love-songs, the next anonymous lyric, ‘A Kisse’ (item 552), might have been his, for its delicacy of tone, sweetly 18 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 194, n. 19 Michael East, The Sixt set of Bookes, wherein are Anthemes for Versus and chorus, of 5. and 6. Parts, Apt for Violls and Voyces (London, 1624), sig. A2v. 20 Much of this commentary (the last three paragraphs) appeared in my ‘It is the mind that makes the man’s estate’: The Life and Poems of Sir Henry Wotton (MA dissertation, University of Sheffield, 2002). 21 Included in John Playford, Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues (London, 1653), pp. 22–23.

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The Burley manuscript

simple diction and pretty appearance on the page are those of a poet of Herbert’s sensibilities. Unusually, Parkhurst gives this poem a title, something he commonly does only with works of known poets. It is charming in both thought and expression, the alternating 11- and 12-line stanzas are well-managed technically, and the piece cries out for music, although I have not been able to find a setting. Indeed, the only printed version seems to be Grierson’s. The only poem by Herrick that figures in Burley is the uncharacteristically disillusioned ‘Admonition’, not here given a title (item 574). Fowler describes this poem as anonymous, but its printing in Hesperides (1648), which the poet himself probably compiled, means that there is no reason to doubt its authenticity.22 As with most of Herrick’s poems, its composition cannot be dated, but it is certain – since Burley was compiled no later than 1642 – that Parkhurst acquired a manuscript copy, or memorised it, well before its publication. Two lyrics by William Strode appear on the same page, 350r, in Parkhurst’s hand, and separated by an anonymous four-line epitaph, ‘On a Lady’. The first is ‘Uppon a Gentlewoman walking where it snowed’ (item 589). Although Strode’s works circulated in manuscript throughout the 1620s, this poem – his best-known – was first published when the identical text, save for musical repeats, was set by Walter Porter in his Madrigales & Ayres (1632), No. XXV. It is also printed in Parnassus Biceps (1656), pp.  77–78, where it is given the same title as here. The other Strode verse is ‘Ile tell you how the rose did first grow red’ (item 591). First printed in Parnassus Biceps (1656), p. 75, where lines 5 and 6 are transposed with lines 7 and 8, it also appeared in Wit Restor’d (1658), p. 64, where it is attributed to William Baker and in which the last three words of l. 7 are ‘these they die’. The Burley text (accepting the editorial amendment to l. 5, arising from an evident metrical slip on Parkhurst’s part) seems preferable to either, and is certainly closer in time to the original composition. Again, it seems likely that Parkhurst was on the distribution list for circulating manuscripts, or was able to memorise someone else’s copy. Sir Robert Ayton’s neat courtly poem ‘Wrong not deare empresse of my hart’ (item 596), is the last of the 17 lyrics with which I set out to deal in this section. Parkhurst and D1 were associated in what seems like systematic spying on correspondence, and it will also be suggested that Parkhurst’s collections of religious, political, and libellous poems 22 New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse, No. 707.

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were prompted not just by interest but also by some sinister, or at any rate political, motive. When we come to the lyrics, however, no ulterior motive offers itself. The poems are of the kind that one might find in any other manuscript miscellany, or indeed in one of the popular printed verse miscellanies of the period. Even a secret agent must have his recreational diversions. These poems are, it seems to me, worth considering, as examples of the sheer quality of some of the verse making of the period, not just that of the great poets of the time but that of courtiers like Ayton and the unknown ‘d’alby’, of musicians like Bartlet and Porter – if all those attributions are valid – and of the anonymous writers of ‘Those drossy heads’, ‘I that the higher half ’, and ‘O what a blisse’. Parkhurst, like other collectors of his time, has done posterity a service. 10.3 Poems in miscellaneous genres This category embraces, with one exception, all those poems whose intent seems to be more than amusement. This is, of course, a subjective definition, and readers may disagree with individual choices; in particular, I am myself hesitant about denying to an epigram the possibility of serious intent. For the purpose of discussion, however, it seemed necessary to parcel the epigrams together, and to do the same with their cousins, the epitaphs, although these are divided between comic and serious. Within the category, the poems are further subdivided into groups to allow comparisons to be made and – in some cases – inferences to be drawn about their authorship, or about the reason for their inclusion. 10.3.1 Three political sonnets Items 539/611, 540/613, 541/612. On folio 335, in Parkhurst’s hand, are three sonnets with a political background. Two are on the recto and the other on the verso; the verso also begins a love-poem, ‘I will no more on progresse I’ (item 542), but it is with the former three that we are concerned here. The juxtaposition of the three is no accident: Parkhurst repeats them later on in the codex, and they are again on adjacent pages, f. 356v (the first and third from f. 335) and f. 357r (the second). Duplication is unusual in Burley, there being only two other instances. Differences between the two versions are in each case mostly trivial matters of orthography and conventional contractions, although there are variations in the headings which are more significant. The three poems as they first occur, items 539,

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540, and 541, have notable variations from the later versions, items 611, 613, and 612, appended as notes. The first poem (item 539) is addressed to Buckingham. George Villiers, then Marquis Buckingham and still only 26, was made Lord Admiral in January 1619, which gives a terminus a quo for the heading, and perhaps indicates the date of composition.23 The inscription to the Duke means that the second version’s writing is no earlier than 1623, when this final step in the elevation of the King’s favourite through the ranks of the peerage occurred. The voice of the poem is clearly that of Lionel Cranfield, the ‘Lionell’ of the final line. Cranfield was a client of Buckingham’s, and was appointed at his instigation to be a treasury commissioner in 1619. The two were associated in the reforms of the Navy, to such effect that, when ‘the staffe’ passed into their ‘frugal hands’, its cost was more than £50,000 a year, but by 1624 this had been cut to £30,000, although the number of seaworthy ships had gone up from 23 to 35.24 It is likely, therefore, that the sonnet celebrates the double appointment, and Cranfield’s gratitude to his patron. Other possibilities are that it dates from 1621, when in July ­Cranfield was made a baron, and in September Lord Treasurer, or from the following year, when he became Earl of Middlesex. I incline, though, to the earlier date, because the poem seems to speak only of deeds to come. The sonnet is cleverly contrived, not only to express Cranfield’s ­gratitude to his patron, but also to join them together in an alliance to remedy the King’s profligacy, gracefully attributed (in lines 9 and 10) to His Majesty’s having a mind above sordid gold. While it is possible that Cranfield commissioned some hack to write it, there is no reason to suppose him incapable of composing it himself: he had had a grammarschool education at St Paul’s, where he would have practised translating Latin verse into English prose, back into Latin, and finally into English verse. The rhyme scheme chosen is not a common one; there is a Petrarchan octave, followed by a sestet rhyming cddcee. I have not found any other reference to Buckingham as a ‘Lion’ (line 14), but ten light warships which he commissioned in 1628 were known as the ‘Lion’s Whelps’,25 and in Rubens’s painting of c.1624, Minerva and Mercury conducting the Duke of Buckingham to the Temple of Virtue a 23 Roger Lockyer, ‘Villiers, George, First Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008. 24 Ibid. 25 ‘Lion’s Whelps’: possibly from Genesis 49.9, where Jacob says of his son: ‘Judah, as a Lions whelpe shalt thou come up from the spoile, my sonne. He shall lye downe and couch as a Lion, and as a Lioness. Who shall stirre him up’ (Geneva Bible).

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lion, perhaps representing the Duke’s honour, is shown attacking the allegorical figure of Envy, which is trying to pull the Duke down.26 Moreover, the York House watergate in Villiers Street, which Buckingham commissioned in 1626 and still stands, is surmounted by stone lions couchant, carved by Nicholas Stone. It is possible, therefore, that ‘Lion’ would be generally understood as standing for Buckingham. In the next poem (item 540), addressed to the King, the initials below the title of the second version refer to Lionel Cranfield (Lord Treasurer, September 1621) and John Williams (Lord Keeper, June 1621), and identify them as the ‘brace of men’ in line 9, and the subjects of the neatly turned antithesis in the final two lines. This time, the whole sonnet is of Petrarchan form, but there is, in places such as line 6, an awkward, Latinate order of words. Style does not compel the belief that the verse comes from the same hand as the previous example, nor indeed would these lines be graceful in Cranfield’s mouth. One wonders if Buckingham, made anxious at first by the King’s personal choice of Williams for Lord Keeper over Buckingham’s candidate (Cranfield), is here declaring himself pleased with, and mollified by, the choice of Cranfield for Lord Treasurer. If this is so, the authorship probably belongs to one of Buckingham’s secretaries, for he himself was not known for intellectual pursuits; his accomplishments were ‘dancing, fencing, and riding, [...] combined with exceptional good looks and charm of manner’.27 The third poem (item 541) is addressed to the widowed Lady Villiers, Buckingham’s mother, who was made a countess in her own right in 1618, the year in which he became a marquis. The implication of the phrase in line 3 ‘worthy of the greatest Earle’ is not that she had had such a one for husband, but that she would have been equal to that honour. Similarly, in line 13, ‘noble blood’ does not imply that she was herself of noble stock (she was the daughter of a gentleman, Anthony Beaumont), but that her blood, expressed in her character, naturally suited the honour she had received. ‘Noble’, however, has become the more appropriate ‘gentle’ in item 612. There is an awkwardness in lines 3 and 4, not helped by the lack of punctuation; what seems to be meant is ‘Rare Countess, your gentle blood and murdering beauties were worthy of the greatest Earl’, line 5 beginning a new thought. While it was conventional to describe a beauty as having the power to kill, as for instance in Feste’s song ‘Come away 26 National Gallery, NG 187, which is a sketch for a ceiling at York House that was destroyed by fire in 1949. 27 Lockyer, ‘Villiers, George’, ODNB.

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death’ in Twelfth Night: ‘I am slain by a fair cruel maid’,28 it is cruelty that gives the fairness its murderous power, as it does in Donne’s ‘The Apparition’: ‘When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead’ (line 1). The countess being, as far as we know, blameless in the matter of cruelty, ‘murthering’ seems an unhappy choice of epithet. This is another poem expressing, this time through his mother, gratitude to Buckingham, and may again be Cranfield’s. There is, however, a stiffness about the style which makes it less probable that it is by the author of the first sonnet, and a likelier candidate is John Williams. Disinclined in his early career to cultivate the King’s favourite, Williams had been bluntly told by James to alter this attitude, and had the opportunity to do so when entrusted with the conversion to Anglicanism of Lady Katherine Manners, Buckingham’s future bride. His courtship of the Marquis, and of his mother, enabled him in 1620 to apply successfully for the deanery of Westminster, and this seems to be a possible occasion for the poem. Despite its stylistic deficiencies, the sonnet is correctly formed on the Shakespearian model, and may well be Williams’s own work. Items 393, 394.

10.3.2 Two Catholic poems

Diverse though the Burley collection is in form, and heterogeneous in content, some of the items in it nevertheless offer clues to the character and views of the person who assembled it. Satires on Puritans and popes show a Protestant of liberal beliefs; essays and letters evince an interest in politics and power; many of the verses display a taste for the lyrical, the satirical, the epigrammatic and the ribald. Many educated men of the period might have shared this standpoint, so the occasional exceptions may be more helpful in determining Parkhurst’s motives and interests. Among these exceptions are two poems on f. 286r. Both seem to be in Parkhurst’s hand, although neither, particularly the first, is written with quite his usual care: the lines are far from horizontal, the slope of letters is greater than usual, and – in the first – majuscules are unornamented and some minuscules ill-formed. The first (item 393) we met earlier in this chapter, under the heading ‘Structure and Date’ (10.1.1), and is attributed to Tobie Mathew (1577–1655). His conversion in 1607 was a major coup for the Jesuits, for he was the son of Tobias Mathew, appointed Archbishop of York in the previous year. Sir Henry Wotton wrote 28 Twelfth Night, II. 3.54.

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I cannot but be sensible of that scandal which will hence arrive to our Church, through his being the son of so great a prelate, and through the eminency of his own natural abilities, which will be the theme of the Jesuits to draw divers foolish inferior wits by his example.29

Soon after his return to England in 1607, the scandal of his apostasy and his refusal to take the oath of allegiance led to his banishment. He was not allowed to return until 1617, and this was followed by another period of exile from 1619 until 1621. Wotton, British Ambassador in Venice, was careful to record his movements and activities: there is in [Florence] at the present a certain knot of bastard Catholics, partly banished and partly voluntary resiants there, whereof Tobie Mathew is the principal; who with pleasantness of conversation, and with force of example, do much harm, and are likely to do more, considering the correspondency they hold with the English in Rome, through whose means they seem to undertake the securing or endangering (and I think both easy enough) of any Englishman that shall go thither, according to his quality, by their recommendation and advice of him.30

Mathew’s father, the Archbishop, died in 1628, and it seems that, in the sonnet, Sir Tobie is praying the angels’ help to secure a deathbed conversion.31 In the Apocryphal Book of Tobit, chapter 11, Tobias, instructed by the Angel Raphael, cures his father’s blindness by rubbing his eyes with the gall of a fish. A chrismator is a case for holding a flask of holy oil, or can be a person bearing this, so Sir Tobie is looking to the sacrament of Unction (removed at the Reformation from the Anglican rite), and the priest who brings it, to effect his father’s conversion. Catholics regard Raphael (the name means ‘healer of God’), as patron of the blind, which might include the spiritually blind. Gabriel, ‘man-like one of God’ or by extension ‘strength of God’,32 is patron of, among others, the clergy and diplomats, although he is only mentioned in the title and, in the story of Tobit, he plays no part. The sonnet’s ending has movement and power, despite a slight awkwardness introduced by the enjambment ‘lies/sick:’ (lines 3–4, therefore 11–12 of the complete sonnet), bringing the caesura of line 12 too far forward. However, there is a version of this sonnet in another early seventeenth-century verse miscellany, in which 29 30 31 32

Letter to Sir Thomas Edmondes, 3 Aug 1607; quoted from Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 396. Letter to the Earl of Salisbury, 5 Sep 1608, ibid., I, 434. But see the remarks in Chapter 10.1 about the dating of this work. The interpretation of each archangel’s name comes from Hebrew Online.com, the exclusive holder of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs franchise to teach and learn Hebrew online.

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line 12 runs: ‘blind in beliefe: bid him like succour bringe’, a version which is not only metrically preferable, but also makes sense of ‘beliefe’.33 The Petti version is as follows: To St Michael Th’archangell I could have wisht great captaine thou hadst slaine and hadst not onlie put to flight the foe for now with fraud, havinge no force to showe, By tempting me to sinne, he fights againe. But though his life be given him for more paine Take thou my soule in charge for then I knowe he dares not deale with it for feare he growe a second Time to feele thie Just Disdaine. And since that glorious feather of thie winge the Angell Raphaell cured an oule mans eyes Behold another of that name who lies, blind in beliefe, bid him like succor bringe   and cure his hart more blind, then that blinde face   not with the gall of fish; but oyle of grace.

5

10

But, apart from its restructuring of line 12, and the substitution of the more accessible ‘like succor’ for ‘Chrismatour’, this full version brings more problems. First, Gabriel – promised to us in Burley’s heading – is not there, but Michael, not mentioned by Burley (or Tobit), is. Then, the octave deals, not with the poet’s father, but with his own Donne-like struggles with sin and need of rescue. Petti, who transcribed it,34 thinks it possible, even likely, that the whole sonnet is about Tobie himself, and not about his father, but this seems to be denied by Burley’s heading.35 Reading it as starting with Tobie’s moral wrestling and then changing to his father’s Protestant misbelief, however, makes a volta so sudden and unprepared-for that the sestet seems almost a different poem. Neither way of reading the verse seems wholly satisfactory; a conclusion which threatens Petti’s view that, in his more personal sonnets, Mathew ‘attains a strength and beauty of utterance which is almost Shakespearean’.36 Following this poem comes a complete sonnet by Henry Constable (item 394). The subject declares this to be a Catholic poem, as does 33 Huntington Library MS, HM 198, vol. 2, f. 88v. 34 Anthony G. Petti, ‘Unknown Sonnets by Sir Toby Matthew’, Recusant History, 9 (1967– 68), 123–158 (p. 143). 35 Ibid., p. 125. 36 Ibid., p. 137.

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the expression in lines 1–4 of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which may also be read into the final line. The closing trope, of God as Mary’s ‘Father, Spouse and Son’, goes back in English religious verse at least to the fourteenth century.37 While Catholic theologians are careful to distinguish between latria, the worship reserved for God, and hyperdulia, the special veneration due to Mary, Protestants of the period would have seen the whole tenor of this sonnet as evidence of the Mariolatry they regarded as a besetting sin of the Roman Church. The sentiments are clearly sincere and devout, and the verse is technically competent. ‘Queene of Queenes’ (l. 1) dignifies Mary above the wordly queens of the sestet, and may also suggest, given the phrases that follow, that she was born of a queen like herself, a reference to the belief, common at the time but condemned by the Vatican in 1677, that St Anne was a physical virgin at Mary’s birth.38 Constable, like Mathew, was a banished Catholic convert, and the tone of his poem, its diction and its form, resemble strongly those of the sonnet on Tobias. Indeed the ‘Spirituall Sonnettes’ in general strongly resemble in form and content the 18 hagiographical poems by Mathew in the Huntington manuscript transcribed by Petti. Petti dates the latter to the period 1608–14, and ‘Ad virginam Mariam’ may well come from the same period: Constable’s conversion was in about 1590, he died in 1613, and Joan Grundy suggests that the ‘Spirituall Sonnettes’ ‘are the work of an experienced worshipper in that [Roman Catholic] religion rather than of a recent convert’.39 A Jacobean date is perhaps indicated, too, by the reference to ‘wordly Queenes […] That mothers wives & daugthers are of kings’, Queen Anne being just such a person. The question remains: why did Parkhurst record these poems? The earlier conjecture for the date of their inclusion in Burley (1607–15) places them firmly in the period of Parkhurst’s secretaryship, and of his probable employment as a spy. The later possibility, 1628, was during Parkhurst’s tenure as Warden of the Mint, an appointment that may have been a retirement present after many years as a secret agent. But he was still an officer of the state, probably still knew the people managing the 37 For instance, William Herebert (d. 1333/1337?), ‘Thou wommon boute fere’, BL Add. MS 46919, f. 206v, printed in Medieval English Lyrics, ed. by R. T. Davies (London: Faber & Faber, 1963), p. 95. 38 This belief is not required by the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which says that Mary was conceived free of original sin, but not that her conception or birth were physically different from those of the rest of humankind. 39 The Poems of Henry Constable, ed. by Joan Grundy (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960), p. 59.

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covert surveillance of potential troublemakers, and it may be that he was, even this late in his career, collecting material that could be used, if necessary, to support a charge of treason against Mathew or Constable. In the former’s case, an attempt to subvert the Anglican Church by luring an archbishop into Papacy would certainly have been a criminal offence. The absence of the first eight lines of the ‘Tobias’ sonnet may be a failure of memory on Parkhurst’s part, or on that of his informant, or may have resulted from a failure (loss of a sheet, say) in the acquisition process, or from deliberate omission for no discernible reason. 10.3.3 Five philosophical poems Items 357, 553, 554, 360, 551. At item 357 there appears a copy of Sir Henry Wotton’s poem ‘The Character of a Happy Life’, first printed in the fifth edition of Overbury’s Wife in 1614,40 and also included by Izaak Walton in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ in 1651.41 Although Walton had access to Wotton’s own papers, there seems little doubt that what he published in Reliquiæ has suffered from editorial ‘improvement’, and cannot be relied on. The variations noted may, therefore, safely be ignored.42 The poem was probably written in 1612–13, the period of Wotton’s temporary disgrace following Scoppius’s publication of his witticism about ambassadors.43 It extols the attractions of a life free from the competition and corruption to be found in courts, a quiet, gentlemanly life, such as Wotton in this period found it possible to live. It does this in the plainest language; there are, in 24 lines, only three words of more than two syllables, and the diction is direct and unornamented, without modern coinages or fanciful conceits. The language, that is to say, mirrors the thought. Unerringly, Wotton picks off the features of public life that make it both wearisome and dangerous: subordination, ambition, the need for favour, the desire for acclaim, flattery, and plots. He names the sins to which the courtier is tempted more than the ordinary man: pride, wrath, envy, and avarice, and he contrasts that life with a life of honesty, truth, 40 A Wife, now the Widow of Sir Tho. Overburie, The fift Impression (London: for Lawrence Lisle, 1614), sig. F4. 41 Sir Henry Wotton, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 2nd edn (London, 1651), p. 522. 42 For a persuasive discussion of this matter, and of other manuscript variations, see C. F. Main, ‘Wotton’s “The Character of a Happy Life”’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 5th series, 10 (1955), 270–274. 43 ‘An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.’ (See p. 43, n. 14.)

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good conscience, and passing the time with ‘a well chosen book or friend’. The simplicity of the verse imparts a feeling of sincerity, an effect that may be observed in Wyatt’s ‘Stand whoso list upon the slipper top / Of court’s estates’, or ‘Mine own John Poyntz’,44 and in the poem of Wotton’s sometime master, the Earl of Essex, ‘Happy were he could furnish forth his fate’.45 These sentiments are not original, and they are found elsewhere in Wotton’s work, poetry and prose, but (unlike Wyatt or Essex) he did ­eventually achieve the life they recommend, so suited to his philosophy and faith, in the last years before his death in 1639.46 The close connection of the manuscript with Wotton makes this an important copy-text for the poem, as I have argued elsewhere.47 What I wish to do here is to connect it with two other Burley poems, not as far as I know published hitherto, and to suggest that these two may also be by Wotton. These poems, also in Parkhurst’s hand, appear on successive folios later in the codex, 343v and 344r (items 553 and 554). Each is a translation of an epigram of Martial and, for ease of reference, each is followed by the Latin original and a modern literal prose translation. The first Martial poem, like ‘The Character of a Happy Life’, reflects the simplicity of its sentiments in that of its diction, and the translation reproduces this faithfully while turning the original, most skilfully and with close adherence to the text, into English iambic pentameters. Vitam quae faciant beatiorem iucundissime Martialis, haec sunt: res non parta labore, sed relicta; non ingratus ager, focus perennis; lis numquam, toga rara, mens quieta; vires ingenuae, salubre corpus; prudens simplicitas, pares amici; convictus facilis, sine arte mensa; nox non ebria, sed soluta curis; non tristis torus et tamen pudicus; somnus qui faciat breves tenebras; quod sit esse velis nihilque malis; summum nec metuas diem nec optes. 44 Sir Thomas Wyatt, Collected Poems, ed. by Kenneth Muir (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), pp. 164, 185. 45 The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth-Century Verse, ed. by Emrys Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 608. 46 The discussion of the poem follows broadly, in this paragraph and the previous two, that in Redford, Wotton, pp. 46–49. 47 Ibid.

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Literal translation:48 Most delightful Martialis, the elements of a happy life are as follows: money not worked for but inherited; land not unproductive; a fire all the year round; lawsuits never, a gown rarely worn, a mind at peace; a gentleman’s strength, a healthy body; guilelessness not naive, friends of like degree, easy company, a table without frills; a night not drunken but free of cares; a marriage bed not austere and yet modest; sleep to make the dark hours short; wish to be what you are, wish nothing better; don’t fear your last day, nor yet pray for it.

More dependent than Wotton represents himself on the comforts of inherited wealth, Martial nevertheless declares a shared preference for a quiet independence, free of the cares of public office. Translation from Latin and back again was, of course, a staple exercise at any English school, but the resultant verse here seems to me to be considerably more accomplished than a schoolboy might offer. The rhythm is handled deftly, with springy variations rather than a pedantic mechanical sound (the awkwardness in line 4 could be smoothed away by some such reading as ‘and a chimney always hot’), and the poet has managed a sonnet-length sequence of couplets without falling into bathos or unintended comic effect. The second Martial epigram, which follows, denies that even wealth or comfort is necessary to the happy life, asserting that it is available even to a slave. Here is an entirely different sort of translation; indeed, it is less a translation than a meditation upon the theme of Martial’s epigram. 49 Quae mala sint domini, quae servi commoda, nescis,   Condyle, qui servum te gemis esse diu. dat tibi securos vilis tegeticula somnos,   pervigil in pluma Gaius ecce iacet. Gaius a prima tremebundus luce salutat   tot dominos, at tu, Condyle, nec dominum. ‘quod debes, Gai, redde’ inquit Phoebus et illinc   Cinnamus: hoc dicit, Condyle, nemo tibi. tortorem metuis? podagra cheragraque secatur   Gaius et mallet verbera mille patio quod nee mane vomis nee cunnum, Condyle, lingis,   non mavis quam ter Gaius esse tuns? 48 The Latin text, and the modern English translation, in the commentary are taken from Martial, Epigrams, ed. and trans. by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, 3 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 366–369. 49 Latin text and modern English translation in the commentary from Martial, as previous poem, pp. 310–313.

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Literal translation: Condylus, you lament that you have been so long a slave; you don’t know a master’s afflictions and a slave’s advantages. A cheap little mat gives you carefree slumbers: there’s Gaius lying awake all night on feathers. From daybreak on Gaius in fear and trembling salutes so many masters: but you, Condylus, do not salute even your own. ‘Gaius, pay me back what you owe,’ says Phoebus, and from yonder so says Cinnamus: nobody says that to you, Condylus. You fear the torturer? Gaius is cut by gout in foot and hand and would rather take a thousand lashes. You don’t vomit of a morning or lick a cunt, Condylus; isn’t that better than being your Gaius three times over?

The language is still simple, but there is no attempt to reproduce exactly the text of the Latin, neither is there to emulate its terse interlocutory style. The substitution of generalities for Martial’s incisive apostrophe diminishes the original’s impact, but also brings it nearer in tone to ‘The Character of a Happy Life’, with which this subsection began, a tone of Stoic content, first heard from Wotton in his verse letter to John Donne of late 1598, ‘’Tis not a coat of gray’.50 Warm, although Stoic, satisfaction with one’s lot appealed to Wotton as a philosophy, even during a youth filled with the excitements of travel, spying, and war, and it stayed with him through the highs and lows of a career in the service of the Crown until, in his old age, he was able to fulfil it in his life,51 and to write ‘On a Bank as I sate a Fishing, A description of the Spring’.52 The presence in Burley of the two Martial poems as well as ‘The Character of a Happy Life’ may be coincidence, or it may be that Parkhurst collected all three because their dominant sentiment appealed to him. But who translated the Martial works? Was it one person or two? Possibly, of course, Parkhurst himself undertook the task; he could certainly have translated them, as could any educated man of his period, 50 This verse-letter is sometimes anthologised, e.g. in The New Oxford Book of SixteenthCentury Verse and in The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse. It is not in Wotton’s best vein; indeed, Dennis Flynn has described it to me as ‘doggerel’, although admittedly he was reading it in the context of a correspondence between Wotton and one of the great poets of our tongue, John Donne. 51 Izaak Walton’s (1651) was the first biography of Wotton, but for a scholarly and eminently readable account of a truly fascinating life, see the first volume of Pearsall Smith, Wotton. 52 This may also be found in The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse. It is one of Wotton’s finest poems, a pastoral piece whose poetic tone is less that of Marvell or Vaughan, as one might expect, than that of Cowper, in the next century, in ‘The Task’.

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but the English versions seem to speak of someone with a genuine poetic gift. Parkhurst? We know nothing of his poetic talent nor, given his enigmatic life, are we ever likely to. Sir Henry Wotton is another matter: he had an undoubted talent for verse, and a liking for the philosophy expressed by Martial. His close connections with Parkhurst and with the Burley manuscript make it a plausible conjecture that both translations are his work. If we accept this conjecture, it is likely that they date from Wotton’s first embassy to Venice, from 1604–10, when Parkhurst was one of his secretaries, and it would place the translations as part of a development of his philosophical position from ‘’Tis not a coat of gray’ to ‘The Character of a Happy Life’. The other two poems in this section find metaphors for man’s life, a popular diversion in this age, the most famous example being Jaques’s ‘seven ages of man’ in As You Like It.53 In the first (item 360), an anonymous composition found only in Burley, each of the six couplets offers a different image, ending with the same analogy as Jaques, that of a play. In the manuscript, it appears shortly after ‘The Character of a Happy Life’, and on the same folio and in the same hand as Donne’s verse-letter ‘H: W: in Hiber: belligeranti’ (item 361), but one may say with confidence that it is not Donne’s, nor does it sound like Wotton. The metaphor of life as play is the entire subject of the last poem, Raleigh’s ‘What is our Life?’ (item 551), which appears adjacent to the Martial translations, in Parkhurst’s hand. This famous poem, written, if one may trust the inscription on BL MS Harley 7332, on the morning of the writer’s execution, does more than work out the metaphor; it asserts a Stoic acceptance of all life’s fortunes and misfortunes. If that was the time of its composition, then the suggested wordplay on ‘division’ in line 2 (see the gloss) has a sardonic literality: Raleigh was ‘divided’ by the headsman’s axe, whose edge he is said to have tried with his thumb, remarking to the executioner that here was ‘a sharp medicine [...] a Physitian for all Diseases’.54

53 As You Like It, II. 7. 139–166. Michael Hattaway, the editor of the New Cambridge edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) dates the play from late 1599 to 1600. An even earlier example of the genre is the poem ‘De Morte’, attributed to Wotton and probably written in 1597–98, which is printed in The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse, p. 74. 54 Mark Nicholls and Penry Williams, ‘Ralegh, Sir Walter (1554–1618)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

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10.4 Libels and anti-libels Among the verses are fourteen examples of verse libels, using the ­selection criteria given in Bellany and McRae’s ‘Early Stuart Libels’ (henceforward ESL):55 poems directly relating to English political identities and issues, which were produced for and circulated within manuscript culture. This includes anything that contemporaries would have identified as a libel, while also incorporating a number of pieces that directly respond to libels, and others that function more in the manner of satiric commentary.56

Thirteen of these figure in some way in ESL, with variations both major and minor, and one is not represented there, although there is another libel on the same subject, Lady Penelope Rich. The ESL reference is quoted beneath each poem, and important differences from ESL are noted in the commentary or footnotes. Taken as a whole, Parkhurst’s selection of verse libels is consistent with a standpoint supporting the executive and against Court favourites: there are libels on the Somersets and on Buckingham (as well as one on Penelope Rich, sister of Elizabeth’s favourite, Essex), and ‘anti-libels’ praising Bacon and John Felton, Buckingham’s assassin. There are two exceptions to this general view; one is a version of ‘The Parliament Fart’, a poem neutral in the matter of favourites versus the executive for, while making harmless fun of Members of Parliament, it does not mock the executive (Bacon is mentioned (ll. 101–102), but not pejoratively). The other is a libellous epitaph on the poet and dramatist Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, which seems quite out of keeping with Parkhurst’s supposed political stance: Sackville was Cecil’s mentor and friend, well regarded by both the monarchs he served, and certainly no more corrupt than was usual in holders of high office at the time. It was normal at this period for those who collected manuscript verse to circulate copies among their friends and, if he followed this practice, Parkhurst may have been motivated by more than amusement: it might be that his political masters, while not soiling their own hands with scurrilous material, could promote and test feeling against their rivals through these verses. Even the libel on Sackville may have served some such purpose after his death, perhaps to divert attention from another. 55 ‘Early Stuart Libels: an edition of poetry from manuscript sources’, ed. by Alastair Bellany and Andrew McRae, Early Modern Literary Studies, Text Series I (2005). 56 ESL, vi.i.

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10.4.1 Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich Item 571. The lovely and accomplished Penelope Devereux (1563–1607), Sidney’s ‘Stella’ and maid of honour to the Queen, is the subject of this libel (item 571). She married Lord Rich (later Earl of Warwick) in 1581. Although the marriage lasted until 1605, she had a long-running affair from 1590 with Sir Charles Blount (later Baron Mountjoy and Earl of Devonshire), in which her husband seems to have acquiesced until the divorce. She then married Blount, although marriage while the previous spouse lived was illegal. She remained a Court favourite, despite her affair, but offended the Queen at the time of the disgrace of her brother, the Earl of Essex (a copy of her letter to Elizabeth is in Burley, item 282). Recovering favour on James’s accession, she took part in Court masques, and was influential in the court politics of the time. Inevitably, such influence aroused enmities, and the callous and contemptuous tone of this and other libels reflects these, rather than any moral objections to her behaviour, which was easily tolerated at Court. The verse’s appearance so late in the collection (in Part 4, and thus probably from after 1615 (see Chapter 5) may imply that Parkhurst collected it for its neatness, rather than out of any interest in its subject this long after her death. Item 348.

10.4.2 Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset

The next verse (item 348) concerns Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (c.1536–1608), who is familiar to students of literature as part-author of the first English blank verse tragedy, Gorboduc (1561), and as the writer of commendatory sonnets to Hoby’s Book of the Courtier (1561) and Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590), and of the Induction and ‘Complaint of Buckingham’ in the enlarged Mirror for Magistrates of 1563. He was also Privy Counsellor and Lord Treasurer to both Elizabeth and James, and – although he died rich, partly on the profit of lucrative monopolies – seems to have enjoyed a reputation for integrity and generosity rather than corruption.57 It is suggested in the introduction to this section that Parkhurst’s uncharacteristic inclusion of this sally against a member of the executive may have had the purpose of diverting attention away from someone living and towards Dorset, whom it could not now harm.

57 Rivkah Zim, ‘Sackville, Thomas, First Baron Buckhurst and First Earl of Dorset (c.1536– 1608)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

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10.4.3 Robert Carr and Frances Howard, Earl and Countess of  Somerset58 Items 340, 341, 342, 343, 563. Robert Carr (1585/86?–1645) was the son of a Scottish gentleman, and went as page to George Home at the Court of James VI, where he attracted the attention of the King and became a royal favourite and, probably, lover. On James’s succession to the English throne, Carr’s personal and political influence increased as he became a groom of the bedchamber, was knighted, and eventually in 1611 elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochester. At about this time he and the lovely and well-born Frances Howard (1590–1632), daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, became mutually infatuated. The two wished to be married, despite the advice of Sir Thomas Overbury, Carr’s English mentor, that she would ‘do well as a mistress, but not as a wife’. There was a more potent obstacle to the marriage: Frances, at 15, had been married to the 14-year-old Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex. The couple were thought too young for the marriage bed, so the Earl set off on a Continental tour that lasted for three years. On his return, they lived together, although Frances was later to claim that the marriage was unconsummated. To marry Carr, she petitioned for divorce on these grounds, her husband consenting on condition it was made clear that his incapacity referred only to her, not to women in general. An ecclesiastical commission was empanelled, witnesses heard, and a trio of matrons inspected the Countess and declared her virgin. The commissioners, especially George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, were unconvinced, and James – a strong supporter of the match with Carr – had to add more, and more pliable, members to the commission until the desired verdict was obtained. In 1613, Carr and the Countess, her marriage annulled, were married, and Carr created Earl of Somerset, crowning his rise from the ranks, and ensuring no loss of status for his new wife. Meanwhile, however, Overbury continued his opposition to the union, not just on the grounds of suitability but probably also because he could see his own influence undermined by the huge political power that the Howards would acquire. This alienated Carr, and infuriated his beloved, and in the summer of 1613 Overbury was committed to the Tower on a trumped-up charge. Here, just before the nullity was granted, he died, it was assumed naturally. But rumours began inevitably to circulate, and two 58 Much of the ensuing biographical account comes from two articles by Alistair Bellany, ‘Howard, Frances, Countess of Somerset (1590–1632)’, and ‘Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset (1585/6?–1645)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

384

The Burley manuscript

years later Sir Gervase Elwes, lieutenant of the Tower, admitted that he had known of, and at first been able to thwart, a plan to murder Sir Thomas.59 His keeper, Weston, Anne Turner, a maid to the Countess, and the apothecary who supplied poison were all tried and hanged, as was Elwes himself. At the trial, the court proclaimed Frances’s guilt, and the Somersets were arrested and indicted. Frances confessed before trial, and was pardoned by the King, as was Carr, who did not confess. The two remained prisoners in the Tower for five more years, and eventually died in obscurity. The rich soil of these scandals yielded a huge crop of libels: ESL records 39, of which five appear in Burley. The first (item 340), despite the heading, is aimed at the Countess who, as the transgressive female always does, caught the male imagination. Libels are, in general, not great poetry, but here the image of the errant Countess as a light ship-of-war is well maintained and the punning relentless. The last four lines are not in ESL, but the texts are otherwise close. Item 341, aimed again at the Countess, conflates both the scandals touching Frances Howard: her divorce from the Earl of Essex on the grounds of non-consummation, during which her virginity was physically examined (‘her co[u]rse o’er[e]looked’ (l. 3)), and the Overbury murder, which she confessed to having done with a poisoned enema (‘kill with farts’ (l. 6)). Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice (l. 4), was one of the four commissioners appointed to consider charging the Somersets with murder, although he does not seem to have been concerned directly with the earlier divorce proceedings. The next libel (item 342), the only one in the Burley collection aimed at Carr, reflects the full disgrace of his complicity in the Overbury murder, as well as recalling the earlier annulment and Carr’s rise to wealth while in the King’s favour. Apart from the difference in the first line, which in ESL runs ‘Poore Pilote thou hast lost thy Pinke’ (and lacks, consequently, the subtle allusion to the doubtful legality of Carr’s marriage), this is identical to the first ten lines of ESL, H10. ESL has four more lines. Item 343 is a savage and popular pasquinade that circulated in two versions (ESL, H5), one of 1613, after the Somerset marriage but before the Overbury scandal, in which the fourth line ran ‘A maid, a wife, a Countess and a whore’, and this one, which must date to 1615, invoking the further accusations of witchcraft and murder. There is a witty balance between the first line’s account of Carr’s rise up the social ladder and that in the fourth line of Frances Howard’s descent down the moral one. 59 A copy of Elwes’s confession appears in Burley at item 207.

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Finally, Item 563 is probably an early libel, aimed only at Frances Howard’s alleged promiscuity, despite her supposed virginity. She was never in fact ‘Lady Carr’, her husband having been elevated to Viscount Rochester and then (immediately before the marriage) to the Earl of Somerset.

Item 530.

10.4.4 Francis Bacon, Viscount St Albans

This anti-libel on Bacon (item 530) was penned after his impeachment in 1621 (a copy of his ensuing speech to the Lords is in Burley at item 208). The defence undertaken by the author, that Bacon was no more corrupt than everybody else, and that his virtues greatly outweighed his vices, would be more persuasive if more elegantly, and more briefly, expressed. The sheer tedium of most of this piece, however, despite occasional lines of an antiquarian interest (for instance, lines 48 and 55 – see the notes) makes one wonder why Parkhurst bothered to commit it to memory. It aligns, though, with what seems to be Parkhurst’s general stance: in favour of the executive, and against Court favourites. Despite his lapses of memory, several Burley readings are superior to those in ESL: ‘is’ (l. 7) for ‘if ’ and ‘open’ (l. 40) for ‘even’ make better sense, and ‘Consulls’ (l. 14) for ‘ Counsellors’ and ‘every’ (l. 97) for ‘each’ make better scansion. The next item (531) in Burley is altogether more succinct, and its five lines come as a relief after the previous 152. Item 538.

10.4.5 George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

Although the poet of item 538 almost never directly criticises the King (the single possible exception is line 72), and never names anyone as a bad influence on him, and thus avoids any accusation of treason or libel, he makes it clear that he sees the kingdom as misgoverned and the monarch as at least misguided. The chief culprit is clearly Buckingham, the subject of the whole of ‘Seeing’ and much, if not all, of ‘Hearing’ and ‘Feeling’, of the first half of ‘Tasting’ and the second of ‘Smelling’. He is attacked both for his misuse of power and for the way he came by it. There is a second subject, the Roman Church, but Buckingham and James are implicated in that organisation’s perceived ambition to impose its faith on England by force, by their misguided attempt to achieve a reconciliation with Spain with a Spanish match for Charles. There may be also, in ‘Hearing’, a thrust at the Arminian faction of Laud and others, who were seen as tolerating Popish practices within the Church of England.

386 Items 604, 605, 606, 607.

The Burley manuscript 10.4.6 John Felton

Here are examples of what are known as ‘anti-libels’: verses complimentary to some person and thus libellous of his adversary. On 23 August 1628, the Duke of Buckingham was in Portsmouth assembling another expedition against the Ile de Ré. Talking with one of his colonels in the hall of his headquarters, the Greyhound Inn, he was suddenly stabbed to the heart. The assassin, who later gave himself up, was John Felton, a soldier who had served in the first disastrous Ré expedition, and who blamed Buckingham for his debts and lack of promotion.60 Such was the feeling against Buckingham at the time that Felton’s further claim, that he had struck the blow in the service of his country, drew the approval of many, and the scurrilous verses on the Duke that had circulated for some time were replaced by anti-libels on Felton.61 Poem item 604’s somewhat tasteless theory that the torture Felton might expect in the Tower would be welcome, as simply adding to his fame and glory, was not tested in practice, the judges of the King’s Bench overruling the wish of Charles and Laud that he be racked. He was hanged on 28 November, and the following extract from Bellany and McRae’s introduction to their version of this verse confirms that it was written very soon after the assassination and, as the verse itself implies, before Felton’s execution: On 26 October 1628, Attorney-General Robert Heath questioned Ben Jonson as the suspected author of this widely circulated poem on the assassin Felton. Jonson admitted having read the verses at the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton’s house, but assured Heath that he was not the author. ‘Common fame’, Jonson confessed, attributed the poem to the Oxford scholar, Zouch Townley (Original Papers, 72–73). On 14 November, John Pory informed Joseph Mead that Townley, ‘a minister of rare parts, that should have come into the Star Chamber, ore tenus, for writing of verses “To his confined friend, Mr. Felton,” is got safe over to the Hague where some say he will print an apology for the fact’. (Court and Times of Charles I, 1.427).62

The attribution to Townley seems to be confirmed by the heading of the verse that follows next in Burley (item 605).63 This verse is discussed here, 60 Lockyer, ‘Villiers, George’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford Universtity Press, 2004), online edn 2008. 61 Ibid. 62 ESL, Pii10, Introduction. 63 Bodleian MS Malone 23, p. 207, also attributes these lines to Townley (ESL).

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in the section on Felton anti-libels, because so many manuscripts show it as part of item 604. Taken as a separate poem, however, it reads more like a direct libel on Buckingham, who would then be the subject of ‘who lies here’. The opening and closing lines of item 606 celebrate Felton but, in between, a series of well-aimed volleys is discharged at Buckingham, under whose ‘magicke thraldome’ (l. 3) the kingdom had for so long lain. He it was who had decided national policy, whatever the wish of Parliament (ll. 3–5), ruined those who would not crawl to him (ll. 5–7), and spent the nation’s revenues on his own luxurious vices (ll. 7–9). Lines 10–12 refer to the plight of Frederick and Elizabeth, the ‘Winter King and Queen’, whom Charles (the Queen’s own brother) allowed to live in poverty in The Hague, while Buckingham lived in royal state in England. ‘The kind whelp / of good Eliza’s Lion’ is the States of Holland, who revolted boldly against Spanish rule during Elizabeth I’s reign and were thus allies of England, and who sheltered the couple after they lost the Bohemian throne. Lines 13 and 14 glance at Buckingham’s expensive and useless expeditions to Cadiz and Ré, despite which – and despite his lack of accomplishment in warfare or learning (ll. 16–17) – he caused himself to be celebrated as both leader and patron of the arts in Gerrit van Honthorst’s painting, now at Hampton Court, of Buckingham as Mercury presenting the seven liberal arts to Apollo and Diana, represented as Charles and Henrietta Maria (ll. 19–21). The second of the missing passages, about ‘Antwerpian Rubens’, clearly refers to that artist’s painting of Buckingham’s apotheosis described in the introduction to poem item 539 in section 10.3.1. After Felton’s execution, the King ordered that his body be hung in chains outside Portsmouth, an unintended consequence being the minor masterpiece which is item 607. At the outset, with its wry joke, one expects something merely epigrammatic, but the imaginative movement thereafter takes it to a higher level of poetic achievement in which the hero is ‘entombed in ayre’, with the enduring heavens as sepulchre. The impartial worms, charitable skies, and pitying fowl are memorable images, and it is not surprising that another manuscript (Bodleian MS Ashmole 38, p. 20) attributes the work – however implausibly for external reasons – to John Donne.

388 Item 337.

The Burley manuscript 10.4.7 The Parliament Fart

The emission celebrated in this famous piece of verse occurred in 1607. It is not, in the modern sense of the term, a libel, but an extended epigram giving wittily expressed responses, attributed to individual Members, to Sir Henry Ludlow’s accidental breach of good manners. Its humorous political comment perhaps justifies its inclusion in ESL, as also do its closing lines in the version that appears there: ‘Come come quoth the King libelling is not safe / Bury you the fart, I’le make the Epitaph’.64 ESL describes it as ‘an artful piece of wit, and hence the product of a sophisticated and urbane political culture’. That may be; it is also characteristic of the schoolboy humour that abounds wherever men gather together for work or play. It is notable, too, that most of the members mentioned are known for speaking up for Parliamentary privilege and against Union, impositions, increases in the Royal subsidy, and other matters dear to James’s heart. Virtually all of them, too, were members of James’s first Parliament, which sat on and off from 1604 until 1610, and it is likely that the Burley version of the poem comes from this period, although other manuscripts have additions that are probably later. The ESL version is 208 lines long; here we have only 116, but eight of these do not appear in ESL: lines 67–70, 85–6 and 115–16 (in Chapter 8 printed in italic, for easier identification). Notes on these lines are my own; many other notes are derived from ESL’s carefully detailed annotations, although notes simply recording that the person named was a Member of Parliament have been ignored. The more notable variations in wording between Burley and ESL are also indicated. 10.5 Satires While satirical thrusts may be found in many of the poems, particularly among the epigrams, it has been thought useful here to group a few, mostly rather longer, poems that together may shed light, not just on the targets of the time but also on Parkhurst’s individual dislikes. The poems divide into satires of a social nature and those with religious (generally Puritan) targets, and there are two of the first kind and four of the second, the latter being all in the later (after c.1615) part of the manuscript.

64 Bodleian MS Malone 23, pp. 2–10.

English verse: commentary and notes Items 391, 533.

389

10.5.1 Social satires

First of the social satires comes Donne’s ‘Satire IV’ (item 391). Milgate, aware that Burley had contained a copy of this verse, was not able to collate it, believing it to have been destroyed.65 The forthcoming Variorum edition will repair this omission; here I have confined myself to noting and commenting on the principal variations from 1633. None of these variations occurs in any of the other manuscripts recorded by Milgate as having copies of all or part of the poem. This strengthens my view that Burley is a remembered text, the more so since it is scarcely possible that several of the variations should have arisen from misreading the copy-text. The probability that the poem was transmitted by memory (not necessarily D1’s memory) leads one to view with caution the elaborate stemmata prepared by Milgate for the Satires.66 The notes on the variations make clear, I think, that only a few of Burley’s readings would come up for discussion in an attempt to produce a ‘best’ version of Satire IV, but these are not without interest. The other social satire is shorter and lighter: Jonson’s ‘Cocklowell’, from The Gipsies Metamorphosed. It is a pleasing coincidence that the first performance of the masque was at Burley-on-the-Hill, whence this manuscript gets its name, with the Duke of Buckingham, to whom Burley House belonged, speaking the Introduction before James I. Items 529, 527, 550, 536.

10.5.2 Religious satires

Of the four religious satires, three have Puritans as their target and the other, although aimed at a bishop, points to the danger of admitting Puritanism to the governance of the Anglican Church. Sir John Harington’s satire, (item 529), although it does not mention Puritans directly, pillories their supposed hypocrisy, their ostentatious modesty (ll. 11–18), and their preference for sermons and lectures over liturgy. Puritan hypocrisy is also the theme of another, anonymous, verse (item 527). A third (item 550) reflects the concern that, if Puritanism were allowed to flourish, a small number of its adherents would be enough to corrupt the whole Church, a view heard at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, to which this poem may date.67 65 Milgate, Donne, p. xlvii, n. 66 In particular, that on Milgate, Donne, p. lxi. 67 Stewart, The Cradle King, pp. 191–201.

390

The Burley manuscript

The other satire is a curious verse (item 536) that, although attacking the Puritans with much the same ammunition as other poems and sermons of the period (hypocrisy, self-serving, corruption, lack of education, and the misleading of the congregation), is unusual in making central to its campaign the Puritans’ supposed opposition to the King, his policies, and his royal prerogative. This theme is introduced at line 2 and reiterated throughout to line 211. As in the other three, many of the charges are those that animated the Hampton Court Conference, but other references make it clear that – at least in this form – the poem is from a date certainly after 1613, possibly as late as 1624, and maybe later. 10.6 Verse-letters Items 361, 392. There are two verse-letters in Burley, both from John Donne to Henry Wotton. The first (item 361) forms part of their correspondence when Wotton was with Essex on the disastrous Irish campaign from April to September of 1599, and Donne was one of the secretaries to Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper.68 It was not printed in the 1633 collected edition of Donne’s poems, and this is the only contemporary manuscript witness, but editors have followed Grierson (who took it from here) in the certainty that it is Donne’s, because of the context, as well as its inimitably metaphysical style. This is well exemplified in the parenthesis in lines 13–15; a view endorsed by Grierson, who wrote of the passage: ‘These lines are enough of themselves to prove Donne’s authorship of this poem.’69 Characteristic, too, is the abrupt, attention-seizing, opening line. The letter’s tone – of hurt at not receiving letters from Wotton, and fear that their friendship was withering – was doubtless occasioned, not by any actual coolness or lack of diligence on Wotton’s part, for he (like Donne) had a true gift for friendship, and was one of the age’s great letter-writers, but by the loss or interception of correspondence (‘dishonest carriage’, line 19) on the perilous journey between the battlefront and London. Wotton, indeed, at this time needed all the solace that a friendship such as his with Donne could bring; his letters betray a man thoroughly miserable in Ireland, mired in a campaign through bogs and forests against guerrillas to whom these conditions were native, and working in the headquarters of an army lacking men, equipment, and 68 Items from this correspondence have been dealt with in section 9.2.1. 69 Grierson, Donne, II, 152.

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supplies. Eventually, he had to document the disgraceful truce that Essex was forced to negotiate with Tyrone, and to accompany his leader home on the fateful journey to a wrathful Queen. That Donne had, despite the lack of letters, some sense of his friend’s plight, is evident from lines 9 and 10, although the comfort offered in the following couplet is of a decidedly Stoic kind. The second verse-letter (item 392) dates from 1604, when Wotton, now Sir Henry, went as Ambassador to the Venetian Republic. Although eminently suited to the appointment by his mastery of languages, his intellectual attainments, and his devotion to the Protestant cause, he was given the post as a personal reward by James I for his exploit as a secret agent in 1601. Learning of a plot by Spanish Catholic extremists to poison James (then King of Scotland), the Doge of Florence, no friend to the Pope’s political machinations, sent Wotton to the King with letters and a box of antidotes. Disguised as an Italian traveller, Ottavio Baldi, he undertook the hazardous mission successfully, and James survived to become king of the more-or-less united ‘Great Britain’.70 The poem was printed in the 1633 edition of Donne’s poems, and later in Izaak Walton’s Life of Sir Henry Wotton (1670), where it is described as a ‘letter, sent by him [Donne] to Sir Henry Wotton, the morning before he left England’. Walton, however, is notoriously unreliable about dates; the postscript seems to make it more likely that it was before he left the Court, or London. Wotton was knighted on 8 July 1604, set out some time later, and had reached Dover by 19 July, so the poem may be dated with unusual precision. Donne was now married but out of work and living at Pyrford in Surrey on the generosity of his wife’s cousin, Francis Wolley. He writes a modest and dignified poem, avoiding any expression of envy at his friend’s advancement, but in which perhaps can be heard a note of regret at his own lack of progress to any public office. The scribal carelessness to which I have ascribed the various obvious lacunae in lines 3, 15, 21, and 37 may be further exemplified by the poem’s being inscribed as 40 continuous lines, although elsewhere it appears as ten four-line stanzas. Given D1’s sparing use of punctuation, and Donne’s involved syntax, the stanza form would be easier to comprehend. This ‘scribal carelessness’ brings with it another problem: if it were not for that, Burley would be the prime copy-text for any edition of this poem, simply because of the postscript, which surely admits of no other explanation than that Burley is a direct copy from Donne’s own holograph 70 Details from Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 38–45.

392

The Burley manuscript

sent to Wotton.71 Although the occasional – but manifest – errors make one cautious in adopting every Burley reading uncritically, I would still support this manuscript’s ‘noble’ in line 24 for its elegance, and to avoid the tautologous, if fanciful (see Grierson, II, 173) ‘honouring of your honour’; ‘tents’ (31) as a pleasant metonymy for ‘warres’; and also perhaps ‘tast’ (32), because to ‘touch and taste […] activity’ seems to make better sense than to ‘touch and test’ it, and there is a pleasing harmony between ‘touch’ and ‘taste’, lacking in the alternative. Of this last variant, however, Dennis Flynn has pointed out to me that lines 29–30 inaugurate an alchemical metaphor, which would be continued by the adoption of ‘test’, a touchstone being used to test the quality of precious metals and their alloys. Another variant, ‘safe’ for ‘rich’ in line 11, seems unlikely to be a scribal error, and may represent the poet’s first thought, later changed for some reason. Whichever textual alternatives one chooses, the postscript gives us a valuable insight into the nature of the Donne/Wotton friendship. Taking nothing from the poem’s courtly, urbane charm, or from its tone of modest and amicable congratulation – indeed, enhancing those characteristics – it sharpens the note, audible in both these poems, as well as in many other poems and letters of Donne, of anxiety that separation should not diminish mutual love. 10.7 Two royal poems Items 534, 535. These two poems of James I occur on successive folios of the collection. The first (item 534) refers to one of several proclamations requiring those with country estates to leave London and go and attend to them. This had also been the subject of a number of Tudor proclamations, although most of these, particularly those of Henry VIII and Edward VI, were concerned with reducing the risk of plague and with having local commanders for the defence of the realm. By the late sixteenth century, however, the emphasis was on administrative need: the enforcement of the anti-hoarding legislation and poor relief, with defence placed last in the priorities.72 It is clear that, as time went by, the authorities saw the 71 Dennis Flynn brings it to my attention that this conclusion is reinforced by the heading: the holograph had no need to say to Sir Henry that he was appointed Ambassador; other copies might require this explanation. 72 For instance, the proclamation of 2 November 1596, ‘Enforcing Orders against Dearth; Ordering Hospitality Kept in Country, and Defenses Maintained’. Tudor Royal Proclamations, ed. by Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, 3 vols (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), III, 169–179.

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swelling of London’s population, not only by the nobility and gentry but also by their servants and attendants, and the growing fashion for family coaches, as causing unacceptable pressure on the capacity and facilities of the capital and as stifling good government. Early in James’s reign, proclamations included the risk of spreading the plague among the reasons adduced for sending people back to their counties, but later ones concentrated on the need for administrators such as Lords Lieutenant and Justices of the Peace to reside in their areas, both to give justice and ‘for the suppressing of Ryots, tumults and disorders’. They referred, also, to how poorer people, ‘the inferiour sort of Commons’, relied on the nobility and gentry residing among them to distribute relief in times of need, particularly in winter, when most of the proclamations were issued.73 That of 1615, quoted above, was drafted by Francis Bacon and also cleverly introduced an appeal to the xenophobic feeling common at the time by recommending the governing classes to abandon city-dwelling ‘after the manner in forreine Countreys’, and to resume their former habits, departure from which had been a ‘course of alteration to the worse’. The Burley poem, however, probably refers to a later proclamation, for there is a copy in BL MS Egerton 923, f. 21r, headed ‘Made by K. James. 1622’. This proclamation, of 20 November 1622, ‘commanding Noblemen, Knights, and Gentlemen of quality, to repayre to their Mansion houses in the Country, to attend their services, and keepe hospitality, according to the ancient and laudable custome of ENGLAND’, was drafted by Sir Thomas Coventry, Attorney-General. Although the reasons given are the usual statesmanlike ones – the ‘subordinate government of this Realme’ and ‘(especially in this time of scarcity and dearth) to revive the ancient and laudable custome of this Realme, by housekeeping and hospitality’, observers saw deeper motives at work. The Flemish ambassador, barely six weeks later, wrote, ‘There has never been so much murmuring […] most would contest and dispute the King’s authority. It may prove necessary to avert an imminent revolution, threatened by the Puritans.’ The murmuring was a consequence of a very real ‘scarcity and dearth’, caused not just by bad harvests but also by the collapse of the cloth trade and by manipulation of the money markets by German princes. The ambassador added, ‘The realm would be fortunate if the good Prince of Wales were 73 Quotations from proclamation of 9 December 1615, ‘requiring the residencie of Noblemen, Gentlemen, Lieutenants, and Justices of Peace, upon their chiefe Mansions in the Countrey, for the better maintenance of Hospitalitie, and discharge of their duties.’ Stuart Royal Proclamations, I, 356–358.

394

The Burley manuscript

married’.74 But the King’s solution to the marriage question displeased many; the Venetian ambassador wrote that the ‘real and secret reason’ for the proclamation was to prevent the nobles and gentry from meeting together, and thus remove all occasion of discussion and criticism, now that the Spanish marriage proposal was in hand.75 Certainly the monarch’s proposal that Prince Charles should be married to the Spanish Infanta excited much opposition.76 Plenty of His Majesty’s subjects could remember the Spanish Armada, and the literate ones had read in Foxe’s Actes and Monuments of the vile treatment of honest Protestants by a Catholic queen. Had James’s plan succeeded, revolution might easily have followed. The King, however, was sure that he knew best, and that his project would bring in a new era of peace with Spain, with the Pope and with all Christendom. On 19 February 1623, not three months after the Proclamation, Charles and Buckingham, absurdly disguised as Jack and Tom Smith, set sail en route for Madrid to negotiate the marriage. Their absence prompted James to the second poem given here (item 535), whose whimsical and romantic tone does not prevent him, in the last stanza, from admonishing those who criticise: ‘Be not so rash in censuring wrong’ (l. 44), nor from reminding them that he, their king, knows best what is good for them (ll. 47–48). The proximity of the two poems in Burley is perhaps another argument for dating the first to the 1622 Proclamation, and for the composition of both poems to be assigned to the winter and spring of 1622–23. In some other poems of the King, James’s muse seems to be overcome by the weight of his high-minded sentiments, producing verse that is ponderous and sometimes bathetic.77 Like many versifiers, however, he could sustain a lighter mood in a more accomplished manner; in the first poem, although the underlying matter is serious, its treatment in ao ­ lloquial and friendly vein produces light verse of some quality. In particular, the contrast between the pompous Civil Service language of the Proclamation itself and the gentle, lightly mocking admonition of the poem (surely intended as much to give arguments to their husbands as to drive the ladies themselves back to the country) is a pleasant one. In the ‘Jack and Tom’ poem, too, there is a mildly humorous lightness of touch that enlists the reader on the side of the King, even if – surely like most 74 Stuart Royal Proclamations, I, 562, n. 75 Quotations from Stuart Royal Proclamations, I, 561–562. 76 Stewart, The Cradle King, pp. 311–329. 77 See The Poems of James VI of Scotland, ed. by James Craigie, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1958).

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of his subjects – that reader had misgivings about the Spanish plan itself. There is a third poem by James I in the collection, an epitaph for Anne of Denmark, which is dealt with in the section (10.8.2) devoted to such verses. 10.8 Elegies and epitaphs 10.8.1 Elegies Items 384, 397, 537, 544, 548, 568, 616. Some of the poems in this section raise again the difficulty, noted on p.  369, of categorising verse. Three only are elegies in the sense of a lament for the dead,78 one – Donne’s ‘Come Madam, come’ – is here because he or someone in his own time called it an elegy, two more seemed to belong here rather than elsewhere, and the last, though it does not exactly mourn the Earl of Strafford, at least provides an obituary for him. On Donne’s eighth elegy, item 384, there is little need to expatiate. The textual variants (including this manuscript) are dealt with exhaustively in the Variorum, volume 2, and I show only those which in Burley are significantly different from that volume’s printed text. Unless otherwise stated, the Burley variant is also to be found in other manuscripts. The Variorum editors consider Burley to be corrupt, a point I discuss in Chapter 7, but – as observed there – this view might need to change were it to be supposed that this text is the product, not of some extended round of ‘Chinese whispers’ among copyists but of D1’s reproduction of what someone in Donne’s circle of friends could remember. The elegy was not published until the 1669 edition of Donne’s poems, a date much later than this or most of the other sixty-odd surviving manuscript versions. The excitement, wit, imagery, and elastic rhythm of Donne’s poem is followed by the morose monotony of the anonymous verse that appears a few pages later. ‘O that there weare a Muse’ (item 397) has 25 stanzas of rhyme royal, executed competently enough, but with never a memorable image, nor a striking turn of phrase, nor any emotional insight beyond ‘How miserable I am, I’m crossed in love’. It does not appear in the Union First-Line Index, nor can I locate a printed version. This, given its quality, is hardly a surprise; indeed, perhaps D1’s bothering to copy it can be 78 ‘elegy’: a song of lamentation, esp. a funeral song or lament for the dead (OED). However, this definition seems only to have crystallised in the seventeenth century; Elizabethan writers used the term to imply ‘an amatory lyric, either plaintive or sportive’ – see Francis White Weitzmann, ‘Notes on the Elizabethan Elegie’, PMLA, 50, 2 (Jun 1935), 435–443 (p. 443).

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explained only by his (or a close friend’s) being the author; as Randall Anderson remarks: ‘we need to be mindful that a manuscript may be more reflective of its compiler’s taste in friends than his taste in poetry’.79 The next poem in this section is Francis Beaumont’s funeral elegy for Lady Penelope Clifton (1592–1613), item 537. She was the daughter of Penelope Rich (née Devereux), Sidney’s Stella, by her widely tolerated extra-marital affair with Sir Charles Blount, later Lord Mountjoy. Penelope, their first child, was baptised with the surname Rich, and lived with her mother and the other Rich children. She continued to do so after her mother, divorced by Lord Rich in 1605, married later that year her paramour of 15 years, now Earl of Devonshire. The ceremony was conducted by William Laud, at that time Devonshire’s chaplain, and its breach of canon law raised a scandal that the affair itself had never done.80 The younger Penelope, the subject of the poem, married Sir Gervase Clifton (one of the new baronets created by James I for £1095 each in his cash-for-honours scheme) but died soon afterwards at the age of 21. Beaumont’s poems were not printed until decades after his death, so the manuscript predates the printing, and may be a more authentic text; certainly several of its readings are to be preferred, such as ‘her’ for ‘here’ in the final line, where the sense is clearly that good ladies, at their demise, shall pass through death’s hands to join Clifton in Heaven. The blazoning of the subject in lines 49–58 is of interest, being omitted from the printed version, perhaps because Beaumont’s editor, Abraham Wright, thought its expressions inconsistent with the piety proper to an elegy. It is present, though, in two other manuscripts closer to the lady’s time than the printed version, Bodleian MS Ashmole 781 and BL MS Harley 3910, with which Burley has also been collated. The anonymous tribute to Thomas Washington (1605–23), item 544, laments the death of the page who served Prince Charles in the expedition he undertook to Spain, with Buckingham, in 1623. Washington died there of a fever, and in some accounts it is said that the English mission had difficulty in procuring a suitable Protestant burial, something referred to in lines 47–54. The poet implies in line 5 that he has been ‘hyred’ to write the elegy, so is likely to have been a professional author, perhaps someone like Beaumont. The patron hiring him may have been Charles himself, 79 Randall Anderson, ‘“The Merit of a Manuscript Poem”: The Case for Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poet. 85’, in Arthur F. Marotti and Michael D. Bristol (eds), Print, Manuscript & Performance: The Changing Relations Of the Media in Early Modern England (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000), pp. 127–171. 80 Wall, ‘Rich, Penelope’, ODNB.

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Buckingham, or possibly a family member. The violently anti-Spanish, anti-Catholic feeling that the poem expresses was never far from the surface among Englishmen at the time; even in Washington’s last hours, Sir Edward Verney struck an English Jesuit priest, one Ballard, whom he discovered trying to convert the dying boy, starting a fight between the local populace and Charles’s retinue.81 Despite the wish of Charles and his father for the Spanish match, Buckingham, at least, was disillusioned by the end of the expedition about the prospects for a satisfactory settlement with Spain. No printed version of the elegy has been found, but the Burley text has been collated with Bodleian Ashmole 47 and BL Sloane 826. The latter collection contains much material connected with Buckingham; dispatches from Spain immediately precede the poem, reports relating to him follow it, and later in the volume come many libels on the Duke, including some posthumous ones, and anti-libels on Felton. The elegy’s presence may reflect simply Washington’s connection with an important episode in Buckingham’s career, or may possibly imply that it was Buckingham who commissioned it. As with Donne’s other poem in this section, the elegy ‘Come, Madam, come’, his ‘Hymne to the saints and the Marquis Hamilton’ (item 548), needs little comment. It is exhaustively treated in the Variorum, Volume 6 (whose editors consider this among thirteen contemporary manuscript texts), and only the significant variations from the Variorum copy-text are given here. Most texts, manuscript and printed, include Donne’s covering letter to Robert Ker, Earl of Ancrum. Burley includes it at the top of a page, immediately before the poem itself begins, and it is reproduced in Chapter 8 as item 547. The handwriting is not easily identified: although all the other Donne works in Burley are in the hand of the scribe known as D1, the script here, although not unlike his in its upright, unornamented letters, differs in detail formation. This is notably true of the ‘e’, which D1 elsewhere writes as a Greek epsilon, but here is a theta, the form used by Parkhurst. The hand, however is less fluent and confident-looking than Parkhurst’s general style, so it is perhaps the case that another scribe, using the same mixed italic style, has joined, a view with which Steven May, in a discussion between us, concurred. The likelihood that this entry is not D1’s means that the manuscript has no sure connection with him after 1604, when Donne wrote the verse-letter to Henry Wotton on his appointment as Ambassador (item 392). 81 Charles Carlton, Charles I, the Personal Monarch (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), p. 45. For an apparently first-hand account of this incident, see James Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae (1645), section 3, letter XX, p. 79.

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Hamilton died on 2 March 1625, and Ancrum’s request for an epicedium, and Donne’s response, must have followed swiftly, for it is inconceivable that a verse of this nature written after 27 March, when James I died, would omit any reference to that event. The next work in the sequence is William Strode’s poem on the Bible (item 568). Strode is better known for his charming lyrics (like ‘I saw fair Cloris walk alone’, item 589, which appears in many other manuscripts and has been anthologised in print from the seventeenth century to the present time), but here he displays a controlled use of the heroic couplet form, with intricate conceits and polished diction. An example of this, and of interest because of its apparently Marian religious position, is found in the four couplets, lines 23–30: The words owne mother on whose brest did hang the worlds upholder drawne into a spanne She, she was not so blest bycause she bare him as cause her self was new borne & did heare him Before she had brought forth she heard her sonn first speake in the annuntiation and then even then before she brought forth child by name of blessed she herself instild

One can see readily why Abraham Wright left them out when including the poem in his miscellany Parnassus Biceps in 1656: they would have been altogether too Popish for the Lord Protector and his censors; but why were they there in the first place? They are present in Strode’s own copy-book (Corpus Christi College’s MS 325), with which Burley has been collated, so are evidently authentic. Strode was an Anglican churchman of liberal views, but was not known as a closet Catholic: his ODNB entry describes him as a ‘mild, reasonable, humorous man, by inclination charitable and tolerant’; he was Oxford’s Public Orator and was advanced by both Laud and the King.82 Perhaps having thought of the neat conceit of Mary hearing the Word (at the Annunciation) and then giving birth to the Word (in the sense of John 1.14: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’), he found he couldn’t give it up, although in fact it contributes little to his central theme. Finally, we come to an anonymous funeral poem for Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford (item 616). This rehearses, in competent, occasionally bathetic (ll. 5–6), but sometimes majestic (ll. 51–54), verse, 82 Margaret Forey, ‘Strode, William (1601?–1645)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

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the political life of that great magnate, and somewhat resembles a modern newspaper obituary, providing an assessment of his stature and achievements, picking out the principal events of his career, giving due weight to his vices (seen by the versifier as ‘Ambition, Avarice, and Lust’ (l. 29), although the last of these is not illustrated) as well as his virtues, and showing Wentworth’s accusers – even, without naming him directly, the King – as altogether lesser people than their victim. The poem is uttered by Wentworth himself, in the manner sometimes found on inscriptions on memorial statues, and makes a convincing case for his self-description as ‘the greatest subject (person below the rank of king) in the world’ (l. 5). The first incident it records is that he ‘did confront the mighty Buckingham’ (ll. 10–11). Pressed by Buckingham to resign his post of custos rotulorum for the West Riding in favour of Buckingham’s client Savile (who had previously held the post,83 but had been forced to step down after charges of fraud and intimidation), Wentworth refused, and Buckingham retreated.84 He was often thus at odds with authority: he went to prison rather than pay the unconstitutional forced loan, levied in 1626–27 to pay for the war against France, and eventually his and others’ efforts carried the point in Parliament that taxation should be raised only by constitutional means, making ‘Soveraignty / Frustrate of future hopes by force to rayse / Or Tax or Loan’ (ll. 12–14). He was made Lord President of the North in 1628 (l. 19), appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1631 (l. 20), he became Lord Lieutenant in 1640 (l. 22), and was made Earl of Strafford (l. 26) and, later that year, captain-general of the army (l. 24). At the same time as his elevation to Earl of Strafford, he was made Baron Raby; by taking this title he gave deep offence to another Privy Councillor, Sir Henry Vane, the owner of Raby Castle in Co. Durham (ll. 31–33). On a Bill presented by the House of Commons, Strafford was impeached in the Lords in November 1640, and formally charged (by ‘theire combined forces in a Parliament’ (l. 36)) in March 1641. When it seemed likely that his spirited defence against the charge of treason would succeed, the proceedings (at which Parkhurst gave evidence; see Chapter 4) were changed to a bill of attainder (with the consequence of death for the attainted), something virtually impossible to defend if the accusers 83 ‘custos rotulorum’: the principal Justice of the Peace in a county, who has the custody of the rolls and records of the sessions of the peace (OED). 84 This and later details of Wentworth’s life are drawn from Ronald G. Asch, ‘Wentworth, Thomas, first earl of Strafford (1593–1641)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2009.

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held their course, since the motion before the House amounted to not ‘Is he guilty or innocent?’ but rather ‘Do we want to attaint him or not?’ This stratagem the poet refers to, not unreasonably, as ‘not a fayre fall, but a foyle’ (l. 40). Strafford was beheaded on Tower Hill on 12 May 1641, facing his death with great calm and courage (ll. 42–48). 10.8.2 Epitaphs Items 558, 359, 583, 592, 582, 577, 423, 584, 349, 565. Distributed through the last quarter of the Burley manuscript, that is to say from f. 270 to f. 360, are a score or so of short epitaphs, none greater than 14 lines, about half of them serious and the rest comical.85 All are in Parkhurst’s hand, suggesting that he was a collector with a particular interest in the genre. He was not alone in this; many manuscript miscellanies contain numerous such pieces. In Redding’s list of 18 poems popular in manuscript miscellanies, eight are epitaphs, and among the eight Burley poems common to Redding’s list three are epitaphs.86 Of the serious epitaphs, one is well known: William Browne’s elegant lines on the Countess of Pembroke (1561–1621), ‘Underneath this sable hearse’ (item 558).87 This was printed in the third edition of Camden’s Remaines, and was clearly one of the most popular poems of the period: Beal identifies fifty-one surviving manuscript versions.88 Writers mentioning the Countess never fail to quote the third line: ‘Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother’,89 but the poem is more than a handy mnemonic. It celebrates a woman who had in her own time a reputation for beauty, for learning, as a poet, translator, and literary patron, for accomplishments such as music and needlework, and for displaying, after her husband’s death in 1601, great administrative skill in the management of her vast estates. The poet’s assertion in lines 5–7 that Death will wait a long time before he finds another ‘fayre and learned, good as she’ is not just funerary hyperbole.90 85 Epicedia, all much longer than the poems of this section, are considered in section 5.8.1 above. 86 The list is given in Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric, pp.  127–128. 87 This entry is referred to in Chapter 7, pp. 37–40. 88 William Camden, Remaines, concerning Britaine: But especially England, and the inhabitants thereof, 3rd impression (London, 1623), p. 340. 89 See, for example, the entry for ‘Pembroke, Countess of ’ in The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th edn, ed. by Margaret Drabble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 90 Details of the Countess’s life from Mary Patterson Hannay, ‘Herbert [Sidney], Mary, Countess of Pembroke (1561–1621)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

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Much anthologised in our own time (for instance in The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse and The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse), this is Browne’s best-known poem. Parkhurst has recorded it from memory, and there is no reason to prefer any of his readings to those of Camden; indeed the second stanza, where most of the variations occur, is really intelligible only in Camden’s version. Most of the other serious epitaphs are of lower poetic quality but, like Browne’s, also have noble subjects. Three lament the death in 1612 of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the 18-year-old whose handsome and noble appearance, sporting and martial prowess, enlightened patronage of the arts, and firmly Protestant religious views made him popular with a great many people. These qualities, and the contrast with the sickly, bookish 12-year-old who succeeded him as heir apparent, contributed to the legend of Henry as the Renaissance prince England never had, and these epitaphs are perhaps an early manifestation of this feeling. Certainly, as Grierson remarks, the Prince’s death ‘evoked more elegiac poetry, Latin and English, than the death of any single man has probably ever done’.91 Donne, Webster, Fletcher, Tourneur, and scores of less wellknown names contributed epitaphs and elegies; the presses of London and Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge worked feverishly to satisfy the market. Several dozen volumes of tributes appeared in 1612 and 1613, and the printers’ haste is in many cases certified by their sloppy alignment and their well-filled errata pages.92 Of the three such epitaphs in Burley, the neatest and most imaginative, and the only one with something of the lyric quality of ‘Underneath this sable hearse’, is that attributed to Hugh Holland (item 359). Although he was later to contribute a dedicatory poem to Shakespeare’s First Folio (‘Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenicke Poet, Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’), Holland is not to be reckoned among the greatest of the period’s poets. This poem was not published in his lifetime, but he does have a five-page elegy for the Prince, followed by a four-line Latin epitaph, in Sylvester’s Lachrimae lachrimarum, whose third edition also contains Donne’s ‘Elegie on the untimely Death of the incomparable Prince, Henry’, and ran through ten printings in 1613.93 In his Burley epitaph, ‘motion’, in line 3, is a trisyllable. It was common enough in Shakespeare’s time to give two syllables to the ‘ion’ 91 Grierson, Donne (1912), II, 204–205. 92 For instance, George Wither’s Prince Henries obsequies (1612). 93 Josuah Sylvester, Lachrimae lachrimarum, or The Spirit of teares, distilled for the un-tymely death of the incomparable prince Panaretus (London, 1613).

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sound,94  but   the usage was perhaps archaic by 1640, when the earliest printed version of this epitaph appeared, in the miscellany Wits Recreations, itself among the earliest seventeenth-century anthologies, popular over several decades.95 The editor has rendered the line ‘Whose motions thence come under’; a metrical (for the modern pronunciation of ‘motions’) but unpersuasive emendation, for what motion is the star supposed to have that leaves the heavens somewhere else? He also exchanges ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ in lines 4 and 5, making the moon somewhat forward in her approach. Burley almost certainly precedes the printed version, and may indeed be of a date close to 1612, although how Parkhurst came by it is not known. No other manuscript versions have been identified. William Rowley’s tribute (item 583) was printed soon after the event, in 1613, in the anonymously compiled anthology, Mausoleum.96 In the printed version, the awkward scansion of line 3 is not apparent, ‘men’ being rendered as ‘all men’. Again, I can trace no other manuscript copy, and the Mausoleum version is the earliest we have; Burley cannot be as early, for it follows immediately, on the same page as, the King’s own epitaph for Queen Anne, who did not die until 1619. The last of the three epitaphs for Prince Henry is that by William Juxon, later Archbishop of Canterbury, but at the time of Henry’s death vice-president of St John’s College, Oxford (item 592). The thought is poetic, but the scansion is uncertain. The King’s epitaph on Anne of Denmark, referred to on p. 393, comes next in this group of serious epitaphs (item 582). James was seriously ill when Anne died on 2 March 1619 and, although the funeral was postponed until 13 May, he was still not strong enough to attend, and it was June before he was well enough to return to Whitehall. His mind in this period was running on his own death; indeed, Charles, Buckingham, and the leading Privy Councillors were summoned to Royston to hear his deathbed speech.97 It is not known when James composed these lines, but one hears in them the intimation of his own mortality. This, however, damages the verse’s emotional appeal, for its celebratory tone, and its lack of any spirit of humility or repentance (acceptable and indeed praise94 For example, ‘Some say, the lark makes sweet division’ (Romeo & Juliet, III.5.29); or ‘Give dreadful note of preparation’ (Henry V, IV.1.14). 95 Smyth (Printed Miscellanies) records in his introductory note that 41 such books were printed between 1640 and 1682. 96 Mausoleum, or, The choisest flowres of the epitaphs, written on the death of the never-toomuch-lamented Prince Henrie (Edinburgh, 1613). 97 Stewart, The Cradle King, p. 301.

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worthy features were it by a subject), become unattractive vanity, perhaps the hamartia of the Stuarts. On an earlier page, so – if the folios hereabout are in date order – providing an even later terminus ad quem for dating Parkhurst’s record of the Henry and Anne epitaphs, is an anonymous tribute (item 577) to James himself, who died in 1625. This slight piece is remarkable only for being, as far as I can discover, the only known copy of the verse, for its help in dating this part of the Burley manuscript and, perhaps, for its use of the archaic title ‘King of Isles’ which was used by some medieval Irish and Scottish chieftains.98 Among the serious epitaphs, only two have no named subject. The first is a four-line memorial to a dead child, and appears in two versions (items 423 and 584), widely separated in the manuscript. This poem is found in many manuscript collections,99 and was printed in Stowe’s Survey of London in 1618. Most households of the period would have had some occasion to record or remember this sad little verse, and it is not surprising that Parkhurst wrote it down twice, from memory or a copy. The other serious epitaph for an unknown person commemorates an honest man, whose honest life is to be his enduring memorial (item 349). Finally among the serious epitaphs comes a neat translation from the Latin of lines on John Downhalt (item 565), an organist, whom I have not been able to trace, but who may be connected with Gregory Downall, or Donhault, principal suspect in the case of D1’s lost identity (see p. 33 in Chapter. 6). The note to the item records that the English version is found elsewhere, with other surnames; these are likewise untraced. 10.9 Light verse 10.9.1 Epitaphs (comic) Items 350, 481/588, 598, 585, 581, 601, 578, 579. As well as the nine serious epitaphs, the manuscript has about the same number of comic ones, mostly of people of less elevated rank, not always named. The first example (item 350) celebrates the ‘porter of Winchester gate’. A number of ‘Winchester Gates’ can be identified; the two most likely to have had porters are those of Winchester College and Windsor Castle. The former seems to me the more likely in this case, for the verse smacks of a university wit (such as, perhaps, Sir Henry Wotton, closely 98 E.g. Domnall macTadg (fl. 1111–1115) – see Master Index to Royal Genealogical Data, (www.hull.ac.uk/php/cssbct/genealogical/royal/. 99 Marotti, Print, Manuscript and Performance, p. 130.

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connected with this manuscript, who went up from Winchester to New College, Oxford, in 1584).100 It also recalls, with its ‘oft knocking and much comming inn’, the drunken porter in Macbeth, II.3 (c.1606). Like some other epitaphs in this selection, it is amusing, unsentimental, not particularly flattering (flattery perhaps being reserved for those great and good from whose family one might expect some benefit) but not libellous either. The same can be said of the next example, the epitaph on Owen the butler, which appears twice, at items 481 and 588. This verse has been attributed to Richard Corbett (1582–1635), Dean of Christ Church from 1620 to 1628, then Bishop of Oxford until 1632, and after that of Norwich, and certainly it has something of his crisp and witty style. It is not included in his Certain Elegant Poems of 1647, however, although a comic epitaph on another butler, John Dawson, is there.101 The rhyme in the third couplet is interesting: it seems that ‘draught’, meaning something drawn, was then pronounced to rhyme with ‘fault’, which appears in the modern spelling in the version at item 588.102 Corbett may also have been the author of another Burley epitaph, that on his immediate predecessor as Dean, William Goodwin (1535/36–1620) (item 598). The next subject is obscure and probably only prompted by the subject’s surname, Fidle, being too good to let pass without memorial (item 585), Parkhurst using it to fill up a page otherwise devoted to serious epitaphs (items 582, 583, and 584). Probably comic epitaphs were often written just for fun, rather than to commemorate any particular decedent. The next verse, Harrington’s ‘On a Lawier’ (item 581), may be an instance; the joke is not the funniest ever told, but it has the merit of timelessness. In the next example (item 601), not only the subject but also the manner of her death is obscure. One contributor (assuming that both distiches (items 578 and 579) are from the same pen) parodies the whole idea of epitaphs. We come now to the gem of the comic epitaphs in Burley, that on Hobson the carrier (item 608). Thomas Hobson (c.1544–1631) was the rich and famous carrier of Cambridge, who established a regular weekly service between that city and London. He also had a livery stable, from which one could hire any horse one chose, provided one took the one 100 Pearsall Smith, Wotton, I, 5. 101 Corbett’s editors regard the attribution of this latter epitaph to him as spurious: see The Poems of Richard Corbett, ed. by J. A. W. Bennett and H. R. Trevor-Roper (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 172. 102 Professor Joan Beal suggests, in a private communication, that both were pronounced to rhyme with ‘owt’.

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nearest the door – hence the term ‘Hobson’s choice’ for no choice at all. Some years ago, on the day I first examined the Burley manuscript, I turned its pages in search of material relating to Sir Henry Wotton, whose life I was researching at the time. Five folios from the end, there was this verse, which I thought I recognised as from John Milton’s juvenilia; indeed I pointed it out as such to the curator. In case it should provide any interesting textual variation, I transcribed it into my notebook and, on arriving home, reached for a complete Milton (Gordon Campbell’s Everyman edition of 1990). There, sure enough, were two such comic epitaphs, similar in style, in diction and in the relentless punning – but not this one. The Burley poem was in no way inferior; indeed in my (possibly clouded) judgment, it was better than either. Researching the matter further, I found that very many Cambridge undergraduates had written such epitaphs, which were printed in the comic miscellanies of the time, but all seemed to be couplets or quatrains, hexastichs at most.103 It dawned on me that I had been blessed with a discovery such as most scholars seldom dream of, an unknown poem by John Milton. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken. My puffed-up state was not to last. Further research revealed that, in 1943, the notable American scholar Gwynne Blakemore-Evans had found this epitaph in a number of manuscripts (not Burley, which was believed at the time to have been destroyed), and arrived at the same conclusion, argued more convincingly and expressed more modestly in a paper in MLQ.104 So much for my ‘discovery’! Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when he realises that the blob he is viewing in his telescope was left on the lens by a passing seagull. 10.9.2 Epigrams Items 362–377, 336, 399, 559, 599, 555, 614, 615, 564, 566, 378, 561, 580, 595, 381, 532, 579, 603, 379, 569, 587, 274, 347, 352, 353, 560, 562, 567, 570, 572, 573, 578, 586, 590, 593, 594, 600, 602. There are in Burley over fifty English epigrams, 16 of which are by John Donne and appear as a continuous sequence (items 362–377) on folios 279v and 280r in the hand of the scribe known as D1. Many collections of Donne’s epigrams circulated in the early seventeenth century, and the Variorum editors note that there survive no fewer than 26 collections that 103 John T. Shawcross, ‘A Note on Milton’s Hobson Poems’, Review of English Studies, 18, 72 (Nov 1967), 433–437 (p. 433), speaks of ‘a rash of Hobson poems written by many hands’, a description confirmed by a trawl through the comic miscellanies of the period. 104 G. Blakemore-Evans, ‘Milton and the Hobson Poems’, MLQ, 4 (1943), 281.

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include at least four of these poems.105 They postulate three holograph sources for these, the collection being altered in number (eventually there were 21 poems, although the fullest manuscript collection has only 20) and the individual poems revised by the author at each stage. Burley is identified as one of two principal texts belonging to the middle stage of the three, the other being the Westmoreland MS in the New York Public Library, which contains the collection of 20 poems referred to above. The Variorum editors’ account of the reasons for the inclusion of, or absence from, particular epigrams in the two manuscript collections concludes, inter alia, that Burley’s text derives from a holograph made by Donne between 1596 and 1602. This is the very period in which the scribe D1 seems to have been intercepting Donne’s correspondence, notably that with Henry Wotton, and is also a period of close friendship between Wotton and Donne. It seems highly likely, therefore, that the Burley text of the epigrams is at only one remove from the putative holograph – sent, I suggest, by the author to Wotton – which would confirm it as one of the most important source documents for this sequence. This argument is strengthened when it is noted that the epigram sequence follows immediately the verse-letter from Donne to Wotton (on f. 279, item 361), which is also in D1’s hand and is datable to 1599. The variations noted in the texts are those from the Variorum intermediate stage text, itself derived from the Westmoreland manuscript. The other 39 epigrams are by a variety of authors, of whom I have been able to identify eight as responsible for 14 of them; this leaves 25 poems without an attribution, a not unexpected result given the infrequency with which an author is quoted in either manuscript or printed miscellanies of the period.106 Of the identified poems, two are by Ben Jonson (items 336 and 399), two by one of the great masters of the Renaissance epigram, Sir John Harington, the translator of Ariosto and author of The Metamorphosis of Ajax (items 559 and 599), three by Thomas Randolph, equally famed as an epigrammatist in his own time (items 555, 614, and 615),107 two by William Strode (Nos 564 and 566), and one each by Henry Parrott (item 378), Thomas Bastard (item 561), John Pyne (item 580), and Sir John Harington of Stepney, father of the more famous Sir John (item 595). 105 Variorum, VIII, ‘The Epigrams, Epithalamions, Epitaphs, Inscriptions and Miscellaneous Poems’ (1995), pp. 14–18. 106 Wits Recreations (1640), for instance, contains over five hundred epigrams without a single attribution. 107 His popularity was such that his posthumous Poems, with Amyntas and the Muses Looking-Glass (1638) went through seven editions.

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Jonson’s contributions have the economy and dexterity of a master of the genre, but modern anthologies exclude them, as they do almost all the other poems in this section. Even Donne’s brilliant epigrams, several of them small miracles of compression, wit, paradox, or mockery, are found nowhere outside Donne collections. The only Burley epigram that I have found in a modern anthology is Randolph’s poem on his lost finger (item 555), with its deliciously unmetrical fourteenth line, which appears in The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse (No. 477).108 Several of the other epigrams found in Burley, and not just those of the great poets, seem to me to deserve wider circulation than they have had: Parrott’s lines on the flirtatious Clara (item 378) (more slyly elegant in the Burley version than with the additional couplet printed in Parrott’s lifetime), the witty summary of the state of St John’s College (item 563), or Harington’s verse on the accidental embarrassment of the virtuous lady (item 599), for instance. The other epigrams vary in quality, and it is not clear what prompted the inclusion of some of them, but de gustibus. The male chauvinist doggerel of item 381 or the vulgarity unmixed with humour of item 532 may at the time have been more appealing, and even these sit easily (like the ‘tobacco’ jokes of items 579 and 603) in a collection of work that 108 A little puzzle attaches to the Burley text here. On the following folio, 345r, there appears, again in Parkhurst’s hand, item 560, relating to Richard Weston. This same inscription, lacking the heading and the bottom three lines, appears, in a different hand from P’s, on the flyleaf of the British Library copy of Randolph’s poems, printed in 1638. It is there followed by the name ‘Tho Randolph’, but this cannot indicate that the poet himself presented the copy to Weston, for Randolph had died in 1635. The appearance of the almost identical inscription in Burley, on the folio following the Randolph poem, cannot be coincidence, but no firm connection has been established between Parkhurst and either Randolph or Weston. The Burley inscription would seem to date from between 1628, when Weston became a baron and Lord Treasurer, and 1633, when he was elevated to Earl of Portland. Thus the Randolph inscription is at least five years later than Burley, and either was copied from it, or both are copies descending from another source.   It is not clear what object Parkhurst had in recording the three lines that appear to be the opening of a petition to the Lord Treasurer, nor by whom the supposed petition was made, or proposed to be made. Sir Henry Wotton, Parkhurst’s employer in an earlier period, certainly had reason to petition Weston, who had balanced Charles I’s books by keeping creditors like Wotton out of their money. Wotton wrote to Sir Edmund Bacon in 1637/38: ‘My condition or fortune was never better than in this good Lord Treasurer’s [Bishop Juxon’s] time: the very reverse of his proud predecessor [Weston], that made a scorn of my poverty and a sport of my modesty, leaving me in bad case’ (Pearsall Smith, Wotton, II, 375). Many others, however, would have had like reason to plead with Weston.   The puzzle, therefore, is in three parts: who wrote the anagram and the verse; who (if a different person) wrote the petition, and why; and why is Randolph’s name appended to the copy in the book?

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might have circulated among a masculine coterie, linked by education and the leisure pursuits of their class. Certainly any age can appreciate Randolph’s merry lines on the burning of the schoolhouse or the fall of the tavern (items 614 and 615), the anonymous squib on the toothless and scolding Scilla (item 379), the neat piece of drollery on the candlethief (item 569), Strode’s pretty conceit on the dolphin-fountain (item 566), or many others. Notable, too, is item 587, an example of a most unusual genre. This is a free-verse epigram in which, despite the lack of rhyme or metrical consistency, a structure is provided by the wordplay in successive lines, ‘paradice’ – ‘pair of dice’, ‘cares’ – ‘cards’, ‘all [...] houses’ – ‘alehouses’, ‘gallant’ – ‘gallon’ and finally the anagram ‘Noah’ – ‘Ah no’. The Arundel–Harington version (taken from Hughey) runs: I once had money and my Frend, and did them bothe preserve I Lent my money to my Frend, his needfull use to serve I spar’d my money and my Frend, so Long as I well cowlde I saw nor money nor my Frend, Return as Reason wolde I ask my money of my Frend, I thought his stay was strange I lost my money and my Frend, and fownd a Foe in change You that have money and a Frend, be warned at my Cost Least money, Frend, and warning to be altogether Lost

10.10 Extracts from Spenser’s Complaints109 There are 28 of these, 16 from ‘The Ruines of Time’, two from ‘The Teares of the Muses’ and ten from ‘Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale’. These are respectively the first, second, and fourth of the nine poems, all ‘meditations of the worlds vanitie, verse grave and profitable’,110 constituting Complaints. They occupy eight pages, the recto and verso of each of four consecutive folios (ff. 317–320), and all are in the careful Elizabethan secretary hand of a single scribe whom I designate E, and whose work does not appear elsewhere in the codex. It is evident that f. 318 has been wrongly assembled into the collection: it contains the later extracts from ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’, and belongs after f. 320. ‘Mother Hubberds Tale’ begins on f. 320v, and placing f. 318 next would mean that all 28 extracts were arranged in the order of the printed original. The passages vary in length from a single line to over twenty lines, and in one case 44. In Chapter 7, I argue that these extracts are remembered texts, written 109 Complaints, Containing sundrie small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie, Whereof the next Page maketh mention, by ED. SP. LONDON, Imprinted for William Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Church, and at the signe of the Bishops head. 1591. 110 ‘The Printer to the Gentle Reader’, pp. 10–11.

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down by someone who had learned them from the printed version of 1591. It is not the intention here to go over this ground again, but rather to discuss the features that might have led E to choose or to remember just these passages. This is necessarily speculative: we know almost nothing of E save that he learned to write the ‘Secretarie Alphabete’ described in de Beau Chesne and Baildon’s A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of hands (1571), and had not adopted (at any rate for this record) the later italic and mixed hands; and also that somehow his manuscript came into the possession of Parkhurst. These are hardly materials from which a biography may be constructed, but his choice of reading will tell us something of the man. Choosing Complaints seems to align him with Spenser himself in the matter of ‘the worlds vanitie’, the futility of man’s endeavour, the fragility of his achievement, and the foolishness of his self-importance, that quality that Spenser describes in ‘Visions of the Worlds Vanitie’, the seventh poem (not represented here), as ‘surquedrie’.111 From these poems, he selects passages illustrative, not only of the principal themes of each but perhaps also of his own experience or situation, or of the present situation of England. Of course, this raises more difficulties: we know neither E’s situation nor when the ‘present’ was. What may be allusions to Salisbury would date it to before 1612; the possibility that the Spanish Match was on E’s mind promotes 1622, the passages on the Dudleys, Sidney, and Walsingham suggest a man looking back to the time of Complaints’ original publication, 1591, those on patronage one frustrated in efforts to achieve it, those on Burghley one antipathetic to some grandee of state, perhaps Salisbury or Buckingham. I doubt that it is possible to get closer to E than to say that he had, like Spenser, suffered disappointment and, again like him, was something of a laudator temporis acti. And why did Parkhurst choose to incorporate these pages in his collection? The few anti-establishment passages are hardly enough to sustain a charge of treason, so it seems unlikely that their collecting was – as I suggested in relation to the Catholic poems earlier – the amassing of evidence in case of need. In none of his other selections does Parkhurst align himself with the feelings I have conjectured for E. Like so much about Parkhurst, it remains a mystery.

111 ‘Worlds Vanitie’, l. 105.

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10.10.1 ‘The Ruines of Time’ Items 497–504, 509–516. ‘The Ruines of Time’ is a poem of 98 stanzas of rhyme royal, and was dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke. The main part of the poem, the first 70 stanzas, has three themes, not rigidly divided but sliding into one another: the lament of the spirit of Verulamium for her former greatness,112 epicedia for Sir Philip Sidney (the dedicatee’s brother), the Earl of Leicester and his family, and Sir Francis Walsingham, and finally the thought that, though men and their works decay, art survives. There follow a series of ‘visions’, in 26 stanzas that are not represented in Burley (lines 491–672), and an envoi of two stanzas, one appearing here lamenting the death of Sidney, and the other, absent from Burley, a final dedication of the work to Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Burley’s extracts begin with six that are representative of the first theme, the lament of Verulamium (items 497–502). Several striking passages are recorded that illustrate not only the poem’s general mood of sic transit gloria mundi but also, in the brief but deeply perceptive and moving three lines of item 501, the value of mourning to the bereaved. In the whole poem, this is a key passage preparing us for the laments on Sidney, Leicester and Walsingham. Similarly, item 502, with its tribute to ‘Cambden the nourice of antiquitie’, announces the theme developed later in the poem of the permanence of art, though men and their buildings decay. E has, then, picked out – perceptively, or accidentally, or because he liked them – two crucial passages displaying the poet’s art. There follow113 seven passages from the middle theme of lamentation for those departed great men, Leicester, Sidney, and Walsingham,114 all of whom had died in the five years before the poem was published, while Spenser was in Ireland. His return in 1590 to an England from which so many possibilities of patronage had vanished may, at least in part, have prompted him to put together Complaints. Items 503–504 and 509–512 include references to other members of Leicester’s family who had died in this period (the Earl of Warwick, the second Earl of Bedford, and Mary Dudley, Sidney’s mother), as well as to two family members still alive in 1591, the Countess of Warwick and the third Earl of Bedford. E’s record 112 ‘Verulamium’: modern St Albans, about twenty miles north-west of London, in Roman times an important city. In the poem, Verulamium is not always distinguishable from London. 113 In this part of the commentary, the misplacing of f. 318 (see above, in the opening paragraph of this section) is ignored. 114 The Walsingham passage in fact comes in the last three extracts, dealt with in the ensuing paragraph because it stresses the need for poets to record the lives of great men.

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of all these seems to indicate that he was more interested in the Dudley family, or in their impact on Spenser’s receipt of patronage than in the literary merits of the poem. This interest would account for the inclusion of item 510, an otherwise dull and unmemorable quotation. Perhaps it also provides a reason for there being only four lines (one of which he gets wrong, further justifying the theory that this is a remembered text) out of the 66 comprising the lament for Sir Philip Sidney (item 513), although he later includes the stanza about that hero from the envoi. Finally come three extracts from the later part of the poem, about the enduring nature of art. The first (item 514) states the principle that great men, if they and their works are to be remembered, need poets to carry their memories down to posterity; then a long extract (item 515) applying this to ‘Melibe’, Sir Francis Walsingham; and to end, the single stanza from the envoi that commemorates ‘Philisides’, Sir Philip Sidney, in lines memorable and affecting (item 516). Items 517, 518.

10.10.2 ‘The Teares of the Muses’

‘The Ruines of Time’ having established the prime importance of poetry, the next poem in Complaints bemoans the state of that art in late Elizabethan England: For all their groves, with which the heavenly noysses Of their [the Muse’s] sweete instruments were wont to sound, And th’hollow hills, from which their silver voyces Were wont redoubled Echoes to rebound, Did now rebound with nought but ruefull cries, And yelling shrieks throwne up into the skies. (19–24)

‘The Teares of the Muses’ comprises 100 six-line stanzas, rhyming ababcc. Following the introduction, from which the above stanza comes, each of the nine Muses utters her own complaint in turn, the last two being Urania and Polyhymnia, from which E’s excerpts are taken. Urania, muse of astronomy and religious poetry, bewails in the two stanzas in Burley (item 517) mankind’s scorn of her uplifting teaching, and abandons them so that she may contemplate higher things. From the lament of Polyhymnia (item 518), muse of sacred poetry and eloquence, are taken two stanzas excepting Elizabeth from the general condemnation. The Yale editors are surely right to comment that this represents the Queen ‘as her poets and learned men would have liked her to be, not as she was, and

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it attempts by mirroring her ideal self to persuade her to live up to it’.115 These two stanzas are followed by one in which Polyhymnia condemns all but a few of Spenser’s contemporaries as savages. 10.10.3 ‘Prosopopoia or Mother Hubberds Tale’ Items 519–524, 505–508. This is a poem in couplets, 1388 lines in length. It participates, as the Yale editors note, in two medieval traditions: the beast-fable and the estates satire, but Spenser adapts their conventions freely, departing from the usual manifestations of the Ape and the Fox to suit his own satiric ends, and providing a denouement outside either tradition in which Mercury sets the kingdom to rights.116 Although the poet satirises generally the peasantry, the Church and the Court, there is wide agreement that, in many passages, the Fox represents Burghley and the Ape probably Simier, Alençon’s ambassador in his suit for Elizabeth’s hand.117 Although I have speculated in the introduction to this section that E might have related to this poem because it satirises Burghley, it is noticeable that only the last two of the ten chosen extracts do this. E ignores the 44-line incipit, and the final 164 lines, in which Jove sends Mercury to rectify matters, and takes all his extracts from the middle part of the poem, in which the Fox and the Ape practise their confidence tricks upon various sections of society. The first passage (item 519) shows the Fox providing a specious justification for what he proposes they do. Then comes a short extract (item 520) from the phase of the progress in which they are professional beggars, but it is not directly related to the narrative; it remarks the hardness of ‘This Iron worlde’. There follows a single line (item 521) from the episode in which they find employment as shepherds, advocating delay as a source of hope, and sounding like a proverb although I have not been able to identify it as such. After this come three passages from the episode in which they are a priest and his clerk, the first (item 522) a piece of sophistry by the Ape, freeing their consciences from guilt for the sins of those they minister to, and the others (items 523 and 524) rather simpler satires on the differences between what the Church teaches and what its ministers practise. The next extracts come from the episode in which the two begin as courtiers, the Ape finally achieving the Crown. The first (item 505) is 115 Shorter Poems, p. 266. 116 Shorter Poems, pp. 329–330. 117 But see the note on item 504, in ‘The Ruines of Time’; Herron cites commentators who agree with this view, and others who equate the Ape with Robert Cecil.

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not part of the satirical narrative, but comes from an authorial digression describing the perfect courtier. E records the first 44 lines of this 81-line sequence, and follows it with the opening 18 lines (item 506), of another digression, this time of 24 lines, on the pitiful state of suitors at Court. It is hard to doubt that these digressions represent Spenser’s own feelings about his lack of preferment in England; perhaps, too, they were E’s. I have speculated in Chapter 7 that this accounts for E’s substantial amount of recall in this poem. In conclusion, E records two passages directly attacking the Fox, one (item 507) a single couplet, the other (item 508) of 26 lines. One’s speculative picture of E is easily extended to his suit being blocked by Burghley, and his still nursing the grievance (Burghley died in 1598), or by some successor such as Buckingham. Indeed, item 508 is more just as a picture of Buckingham (nepotism (ll. 1–8), regarded by his employer as ‘the kingedomes corner stone’ (l. 14), and personal enrichment (l. 20)) than it is of Burghley. Item 508 also introduces yet another of Burley’s small mysteries: down the left-hand margin on f. 318v, E has written the name ‘Captayne Mantell’. Who he was, or what association, if any, he had with the Fox’s greed and corruption, E does not tell us. The name is written near line 18, in which the word ‘cloak’ appears, but – if some pun is intended – its meaning is not readily discerned. The only Mantell that I have been able to find who might reasonably be described as ‘Captayne’ is Walter Mantell, an officer in Wyatt’s army in the rebellion of 1554. Proctor, in his contemporary (Marian) history, describes him as among ‘sundrie of Wyates complices [...] arrained and condemned [...] in divers partes of the Shyre: as [...] Water Mantel at Maydsten, where Wyat first displaied his standerde’.118 John Foxe recorded his heroic defiance in the Tower: offered the chance to save his life by converting, ‘Master Mantell, like a worthy gentleman, refused their serpentine Councell, and chose to die rather then to live for dishonouring of God’.119 The excellent Captain was thus a man after Spenser’s – and perhaps therefore E’s – own heart, but Spenser was only around two years old when he was executed, and what he is doing on this page of the manuscript we may never know.

118 John Proctor, The historie of Wyates rebellion (London, 1554), p. 75. 119 John Foxe, Christs victorie over Sathans tyrannie (London, 1615), p. 244.

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10.11 Other poems Items 387, 525, 526, 609. In this, the final section of Chapter 10 in which all Burley’s verse is discussed, are included those few poems that did not fit easily into any of the genre classifications of the first sections. The first (item 387) is a comical (if somewhat bawdy) account of what is ostensibly a card game, but turns out to be an allegory for a sexual encounter, that is, for ‘that play which did content us both’ (10). The doubles entendres are never explicitly defined, and there may easily be more of them than are caught by the modern ear, such is the richness in all ages of sexual metaphor and innuendo. Although the general tenor of the poem is not hard to comprehend, there is something of a surprise in the final stanza: when ‘my mistress’ mother’ comes in (33–36), she seems to catch the lovers, not in flagrante delicto, as the previous stanza leads us to expect (30) but only in circumstances that arouse her suspicion that something more than a card game is going on. So perhaps the sexual encounter was all in our (and the poet’s) minds. As with the game of ombre in the third canto of Pope’s ‘Rape of the Lock’, there is some amusement in trying to reconstruct the hands. All we know for sure from the second stanza is that the upturned card is a spade, making that suit trumps, and he has the ace of spades, entitling him to exchange a card of lower value for the upturned spade.120 She has two other aces, and the knave of diamonds, as well as the five of spades, the ‘good five finger’. So the hands look something like the ones depicted in Table 3. Table 3  Opening hand for the game of maw She He ♥ A ♣ ♦ A J ♠ 5 J

♥ x + (x exchanged for ♠ x) ♣ ♦xx ♠ A + (x from exchange)

She leads in turn the ace and knave of diamonds, which he must follow, losing both tricks. She leads the five of spades, taking his lower trump. At this point, she may take the stake, or elect to continue, in which case they play for higher stakes but she must win both remaining tricks or she 120 Here, and in the notes to the poem, I have referred to the rules of maw as explained in Parlett’s Historic Card Games, (www.davidparlett.co.uk/histocs, Aug 2008.

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loses. She continues, leading the knave of spades, the second highest card at maw, and takes his ace. Her remaining card is the ace of hearts, which is the third highest card, and will win, whatever he is left with. The second hand cannot be reconstructed from the information given: all we know is that she has the queen of trumps, which is taken by his knave, but by this time the sexual allusions, not the card game, are uppermost in the reader’s mind. The poem on women (item 525) is arranged in two stanzas of four couplets each. In each stanza, each line of the first two couplets poses a rhetorical question about women in the first two iambic feet, followed by an answer in the last three. The second two couplets then develop the theme of the first two, this device being pointed up by Parkhurst’s indentation. This, despite what is to modern ears the tastelessness of the subject, yields an elegant form that is balanced and controlled like an eighteenth-century musical movement. In the only printed version found, the couplets are differently arranged, the first being followed by the third to make one four-line stanza, then the second and the fourth to make another, and so on. There is an extra stanza after the second. The effect is repetitive and monotonous, and the Burley version is much to be preferred on literary grounds. The ‘Annswere’ (item 526) I have found nowhere else, although its emulation of both the form and the diction of item 525 makes it seem likely that they are by the same versifier. The answer is not, as one might expect, in the voice of a woman, but of a man contemptuous of the first poem’s lack of perception, and pointing out in a final extra couplet that men are fools if they fall in love and yet believe women to be as bad as the first poem claims. The two poems should be taken, it seems to me, not as statements of opposed philosophical views but as exercises in that great occupation of the Renaissance gentleman, the display of ‘wit’: not the making of funny remarks but the show of cleverness. Harington’s poem, ‘From the wars’ (item 609), is – despite its humorous tone and its witty deployment of the conventions of the genre – more than just an epigram, but represents a soldier’s philosophy. It was written during the Irish campaign of 1599, in which Harington served as captain of horse under Southampton, and was knighted by Essex.121 In the printed version of 1625, the poem begins ‘I Praysed the speech, but cannot now abide it’, and then quotes the speech concerned in line 2: ‘War is most sweet to them that never tried it’. This line is a translation of the opening 121 Jason Scott-Warren, ‘Harington, Sir John (bap. 1560–1612)’, ODNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn 2008.

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of Erasmus’s essay ‘On War’: ‘dulce bellum inexpertis’, which itself derives from a fragment of a Pindaric Dance-Ode: ‘Sweet is war to the untried’.122 Harington’s implication is that those who claim that only non-combatants like war are wrong; as he goes on to demonstrate, war to a soldier is desirable in its emphasis on stoic virtues and – in the final couplet – in leading him to a true appreciation of his home. Here, however, Parkhurst renders the opening: ‘I once lov’d peace, but cannot now abide itt’, leaving the second line isolated from the rest of the poem, and failing to connect with the closing couplet. In 1625, after line 6 comes Burley’s line 13 followed by 3 additional lines, the first of which substitutes for Burley’s line 14: There without bak’t, rost, boyl’d, it is no cheere. Bisket we like, and Bonny Clabo heere, There we complaine of one reare rosted chicke: Heere meat, worse cookt, ne’re makes us sicke.

(‘Bonny Clabo’: milk naturally clotted or coagulated on souring (OED). It seems to have been an Irish expression: Jonson, The Irish Masque at Court (1613), 79: [Patrick] ‘Tey drink no bonny-clabber, i’ fait, now.’) The variation may be evidence of Burley’s being a remembered text, a theory strengthened by Parkhurst’s omission of six lines after line 6. This raises the question of provenance: given that Parkhurst (although extensive research has failed to establish his exact whereabouts at any time before 1604) seems at this time to have been spying on the correspondence of Henry Wotton, then he is likely to have been in Ireland, as Wotton was. He might, then, have heard this poem from Harington himself. The poem expresses, indeed takes almost to an extreme, the Stoic philosophy expounded by Sir Henry Wotton in much of his verse, for instance in ‘The Character of a Happy Life’ (item 359). In Ireland, however, Wotton’s dislike of the country, its weather and its people proved too much for his sanguine temperament, and his letters betray impatience, boredom, and disgust unamended by philosophy. Harington, though, a more natural soldier and with a more active role in the campaign, seems – despite having dependants at home, which Wotton had not – to be more equal to the stresses of the war.

122 Pindar, Hyporchemata, 110 (Pindar, ed. and trans. by William H. Race, Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), II.

11

Conclusion

‘I promised a jorney’ said John Donne in letter item 446, ‘like godfathers which promise & vow three things for children before they know whether it bee in the childrens destiny to bee able to keepe there vowes or no.’ When I began work on the Burley manuscript, I too undertook three tasks whose successful accomplishment was then problematic: a historical and analytical description of the manuscript, an annotated edition of the English private letters, and another of the English verse. Donne, on that occasion, was prevented from fulfilling his vow; I have been more fortunate, and the outcome appears in this volume. For me, the journey has been full of excitement, surprise, and enjoyment. The detective work on the collection itself, on the compiler, William Parkhurst, and his fellow-scribes, and on the individual letters and poems has revealed much that was new to me and, indeed, uncovered some things that were generally unknown. It has generated a couple of theories, about the function of memory and about covert surveillance, which – while they cannot be regarded as proven – none the less account rationally for features of the miscellany that are otherwise baffling. I cannot show a note from Parkhurst saying ‘I wrote this from memory’, or one from D1 stating ‘I copied this secretly from Mr Donne’s letter’, but the theories accord with observation like the theories of quantum mechanics: even though no one has seen a quark, the supposition that they are there helps us understand the things we can observe. Among the English verse, although some of the identifiable poems have been found to contribute something to our understanding of the poem, the poet, or the scribe, the great source of joy to me has been the quality of some of the anonymous verse. Some of this was printed by Grierson, but much of it appears here for the first time and, I think, helps a modern reader understand just how natural an occupation the writing of verse was thought to be four centuries ago. Similarly with the

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letters: much excitement was had from what seem to be first-hand copies of the correspondence of Donne, Wotton and Goodere, but much delight, too, from the anonymous or guessed-at authors of the other letters. Even where the content is trivial, these missives – probably not from notable figures, or ever intended for publication or even survival – offer a picture, often elegantly painted, of the society within which they were written, like Rabelais’s ‘words being spoken in some Country during a hard winter [that] are immediately congeal’d, frozen up and not heard’ and then heard at the next thaw,1 in this case after four hundred years. ‘For the past nine years’, I said in the Preface, ‘I have been enjoying this feast, and it is the work of this book to share it.’ It is a feast never exhausted, ‘a perpetual feast of nectared sweets’, as the Second Brother muses of philosophy in Milton’s Comus,2 and I hope that readers of the present work have partaken of it with delight.

  1 See note on p. 193 to letter item 443, line 2.   2 John Milton, A Maske (1637), l. 479.

Bibliography

Manuscripts Bodleian Library, Oxford

Eng poet.c.80; Ashmole 781; Ashmole 47

British Library

Add. 4130; Add. 10308; Add. 4149; Add. 30982; Add. 38823; Add. 12049; Add. 34064 Cotton Vitellius C xvii Egerton 2230; Egerton 2642 Harley 3910; Harley 6917 Sloane 826 Cambridge University Library Ff.5.14

Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Kent CKS U951 Lenham Parish Records

Corpus Christi College, Oxford 325

London Metropolitan Archives ACC/0262; ACC/0262/043/112

PRO

SP 84, Vol. 91; SP 9/51; SP 106/4

Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Wigston Magna, Leics. Finch, DG7, Lit2 (the Burley Manuscript)

Surrey History Centre, Woking, Surrey 6729/10/130

420

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Andrewes, Lancelot, XCVI Sermons (London, 1629) Baker, Sir Richard, A chronicle of the Kings of England (London, 1643) Barlow, Francis, Aesop’s Fables with his Life (London, 1666) Bartlet, John, A booke of ayres with a triplicitie of musicke (London, 1606) Beau Chesne, John de, A Booke containing divers sortes of hands (London, 1571) Billingsley, Martin, The pen’s excellence or The secretaries delight (London, 1618) Camden, William, Remaines, concerning Britaine: But especially England, and the inhabitants thereof, 3rd impression (London, 1623) — Britain, or A chorographicall description of, trans. by Philémon Holland (Londini, 1610) Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero), Fowre Severall Treatises of M. Tullius Cicero. Conteyning his most learned and Eloquente Discourses of Frendshippe: Old Age: Paradoxes: and Scipio his Dreame. all turned out of latine into English, by Thomas Newton (London, 1577) Corbett, Richard, Certain Elegant Poems (London, 1647) Cortés, Martin, The Arte of Navigation, Englyshed out of Spanishe by Richard Eden (London, 1584) Coryate, Thomas, Coryats crudities (London, 1611) [Cranmer, Thomas], Certaine Sermons Or Homilies appointed to be read in Churches, In the time of the late Queene Elizabeth of famous memory (London, 1623) Crew of kind London Gossips (London, 1663) Depositions and articles against Thomas Earle of Strafford, Febr. 16. 1640, Printed in the yeare 1640 [OS] Donne, John, Pseudo-Martyr [...] (London, 1610) — Juvenilia (London, 1633) — LXXX sermons [...] (London, 1640) — Letters to severall persons of honour [...] (London, 1651) East, Michael, The Sixt set of Bookes, wherein are Anthemes for Versus and Chorus, of 5. and 6. Parts, Apt for Violls and Voyces (London, 1624) Foxe, John, Christs victorie over Sathans tyrannie (London, 1615) Gildas, The epistle of Gildas (London, 1638) Harington, Sir John, The Most Elegant and Witty Epigrams of Sir John Harington, Knight (London, 1618) Herrick, Robert, Hesperides (London, 1648) House of Lords Journal, Vol. 4, 8 Jan 1641 and 7 Apr 1641, (www.british-history. ac.uk) Howell, James, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 2nd edition (London, 1650) Laquei ridiculosi, or, Springes for Woodcocks (London, 1613) Mathew, Sir Tobie, A collection of letters, made by Sr Tobie Mathews Kt. [...] (London, 1660) [i.e. 1659] Mausoleum, or, The choisest flowres of the epitaphs, written on the death of the never-too-much-lamented Prince Henrie (Edinburgh, 1613)

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Index of first lines and authors

Index of first lines (English verse)

Verses believed to be unique to Burley (among contemporary manuscripts) are marked with an asterisk First line

Item

*A bird did fly from Essex cage 341 A certayne old cooke cald his dog cuckold 572 A Lady once that lately was besped 570 A learned Bishop of this land 550 A mayden faire I dare not wed 600 A page, a knight, a vicount & an Earle 343 A puritane is such a wayward thing 536 *A tankard can do as much as a Kan 586 A Taylor thought a man of upright dealing 528 A vertuous Lady sitting in a muse 599 After those reverent papers whose soule is 392 Although the vulgar yelde an open eare, 505 An unmaried man in the nominative case 573 And of the whole worlde as thou wast thempresse. 498 And since the glorious fether of thy wing 393

And thou thi self herein shalt allso live 511 And where the Christall Thamis wont to slide. 500 Are woemen fayre? yea passing fayre to see so 525 *Are woemen foule? so foule you can abyde them 526 Arithmatique nine digits and no more. 555 At lenght by the wondrous worke of fate 350 Behold this litle volume here enrold 568 Beside we may have lyinge by our sides 524 Both robd of ayre wee both ly in one ground 362 *Brabus of late hath often boldly sed 562 Brave impe of Bedford, growe apace in bountie 512 By childrens birth & death I am 364 become Cambden the nourice of antiquitie 502 Clara half angry with my baudy song 378

Index of first lines and authors Cocklowell would have the divel his guest 533 Come Madam come all rest my powers defy 384 *Commend her? no. I dare not terme her fayre 385 *Couldst thou young Neptune number all the sand 539/611 Did hee dy young? ô no, that cannot bee 583 Downe came grave ancient sergiant Crooke 337 Enjoy this bondage, make this prison knowe 604 Faustus stabd flora and would you know why 578 Fayre Valentine since once your welcome hand 564 From Katherines docke was lanch’d a Pinke 340 From such a face whose excellence 538 *Gaze on frayle man, my dust commands thee stand 616 God works wonders now and than 581 Hast thou beene lost a month, and can I bee 544 He dide, and after him his brother dide 510 He fed his cubs with fat of all the soyle 508 He nowe is gonne; the whiles the foxe is crept 504 Here lies a fayre wife in earth foule & dirty 601 Here lies one dead under this marble stone 571 *Here lies one had a great deale of witt 575 *Here lies one had a great deale of worth 576 Here lyeth a man like hive without honny 349

431

Here uninterred suspends (though not to save 607 Hobson lies here intombd amongst his betters 608 How happy is hee borne or taught 357 *Hym for a rare preacher men do account 594 I am unable (yonder beggar creys) 367 I had my mony and a frend, I did them both preserve 595 I lov’d thee once; Ile love ^no^ more 356 I once lov’d peace but cannot now abide itt 609 I saw fayre Cloris walke alone 589 *I that the higher half of Loves 389 *I will no more on progresse I 542 If in his study Hamon take such care 371 If Puresby it should come to passe 527 Ile tell you how the rose did first grow red 591 Immortal man of glory! whose brave hand 606 Immortall spirite of Philisides 516 In that o Queene of Queene[s] thy birth was free 394 Is not christchurch a goodly Vine 598 It is inoughe to do our smale devotion 523 It is not longe, since these two eies behelde 503 Lament you shcollers all 615 *Lett me dy my deare unlesse I love thee 352 Light fingered Catch to keep his hand in ure 569 Like Esops fellow slave o Mercury 377 *Loe now hee shineth yonder 359 Marriage (sayth one) hath oft compared byn 567 *Most gracefull Mary [Lady] mother of that pearle 541/612

432

Index of first lines and authors

*Motion begets heat, and thus wee see it proved 580 Much meat doth gluttony procure 603 Musitian and Logician 565 My love doth fly with wings of feare 382 *My sonn receave these lines, and happy bee 553 *Nature was here so lavish of her store 590 Nature waxing old began this for to desire 592 Ne any poet seeks him to revive 509 Ne Troynovant, though elder sister shee 499 New freinds are no freinds; how can that be true? 559 *O eyes what do you see 383 O noble spirite lyve there ever blessed 513 O vaine worldes glory and unstedfast state 497 *O what a blisse 552 *Oh that there weare a Muse that never writt 397 *On the seaven & twentieth ^day^ of June 585 *One holy even when winters nights wax longe 387 One onely lives, her makers ornament 518 Or scorne or pitty on me take 339 *Our paradice is in a payre of dice 587 Out of a fyred ship which by no waye 365 Philo with 12 yeares study hath beene greevd 375 Phisitians say Tobacco’s good: ‘tis true 579 Pilott or pirat thou hast lost thy Pinke 342 Provide therefore (ye princes) whilst ye live 514

Rawlings so deeply hath vowed nere more to come 376 Scilla is toothles yet when shee was yong 379 Seest thou those jewells which she weares 574 Sextus on a spleene did rashly sweare 561 *Silvius lies here within this grave 597 Since all things love why should not wee? 529 Since thou art dead Clifton, the world may see 537 Sith that we are free borne 519 So pytifull a thinge is suters state 506 *Some in hast 347 St: Jhons is governed only by a P 560 Still to be neate still to be drest 398 Such happines have they, that do imbrace 517 Tell me who can when a player dies 336 The ape was stryfull and ambicious 507 The charge is wonderous great 522 The Dolphines twisting each on others syde 566 *The K. of Isles is dead 577 Thee to invite the great God sent his stare 582 There was at Court a Lady of late 563 Therefore in this half happy I do reade 515 This Iron worlde 520 This is all a womans worke 602 *This Lyfe it is not life, it is a sight 360 *Those drossy heads and irrepurged braynes 386 Thou callst m’effeminate for I love womens joyes 370 Thou in the feilds walks out thy supping howres 373 Thy father all from thee by his last will 372

Index of first lines and authors Thy flattering picture Latrine is like thee 374 Thy Sins & heyres may no man equall call 369 *Twixt Lords and servants some great difference make 554 Two by themselves each other love & feare 363 Tyme delayed new hope of healpe still breedes 521 Uncivill death which wouldst not once conferr 348 Under an undermind & shott bruisd wall 366 Underneath this sable herse 558 Was ever contract better driven by fate 399 Well: I may now receave & dy, my sinn 391 *Went you to conquer? and have so much lost 361 What heat of learning kindled your desire 614 What is our life? a play of passion 551 What soddayne chance hath dark’t of late 535 When Bruno first embrac’d his [wife] in bed 532 *When Fortune Love and Tyme bad me be happie 390

433

When you awake dull Brittaynes and behold 530 Whether that soule which now comes up to you 548 Who so hath leave within this booke to prye 274 *Why are maydes witts then boyes of lower strayne? 381 *Why call wee old men grave? why, tis cause then 593 Why cruel death should honest Owen catch 481/588 Within this marble caskett lies 584 Within this marble cave here lies 423 *Wolsey thy tombs imperfect, so’s thy colledge 353 Wrong not deare empresse of my hart 596 Yet it is comfort in great languish ment 501 *Yf for his witt Ulisses bee renowned 540/613 Yf idle travellers aske who lies here 605 You Ladies that do London love so well 534 You meaner beauties of the night 543 Your mistris that you follow whores still taxeth you 368

Index of authors (English verse) About two-fifths of the poems are anonymous; for the rest, authorship has been proposed with various degrees of certainty, the most conjectural of such attributions being marked with asterisks in the index. Author Item Andrewes, Francis Ayton, Sir Robert Bartlet, John Bastard, Thomas Beaumont, Francis

550 356, 596 390* 561 537

Browne, William 558 Cholmley, Henry 607* Clanricarde, Richard Burke, 4th Earl of 382 Constable, Henry 394 Corbett, Richard 481/588* 598* Cranfield, Lionel 539/611* 18*

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Index of first lines and authors

Donne, John 361, 362-377, 384, 391, 392, 548 Drummond, William 538 Harington, Sir John 528, 559, 581, 599, 609 Harington, John, of Stepney 595 Herrick, Robert 574 Holland, Hugh 359 James I, King 534, 535, 582 Jonson, Ben 336, 339, 398, 399, 533 Juxon, William 592 Lewis, William 530, 544* Mathew, Sir Tobie 393

Milton, John 608* Morley, George 423/584 Parrott, Henry 378 Porter, Walter, 529* Pyne, John 580 Raleigh, Sir Walter 551 Randolph, Thomas 555, 614, 615 Rowley, William 583 Spenser, Edmund 497-524 Strode, William 564, 566, 568, 589, 591 Townley, Zouch 604, 605 Williams, John 541/612* Wotton, Sir Henry 357, 543, 553*, 554*

Index of first lines (non-English verse) First line Item Latin Accii sinceri Sannazzari 407 Adeste Orbilii quot estis omnes 429 Aethera sol peragra, tu Joiiose inclyte terras 416 Area parva Ducum totus quem respicit Orbis 358 Barbariem Hermoleus Latio qui dependit omnium 432 Borbonius, bonus orbi: 472 Consuluit nuper Phoebus Cecilus Heros 610 Deformatus sixtus Aigias, Dux tetendit ad oras 420 Ditior reprobat, debellat [] 402 Dum Venus et Veneri positis Mari gratior armis 408 Esse tuam patrem Papam Burghesius inquit 480 In Cratere meo Thetis est commixto Lyeo 403 I[n]felix ingens Anima atque miuse beatas 467 Jesuitae cur te si quaeris post fulmania(?) primi 414 Lipsius ut moritum exacto frigore

sensit 427 Lumine Acon dextro caruit Leonella sinistro 425 Machina quae bis sex tam juste dividis horas 471 Mens bona non vaga sors virtus non gratia Regis 549 Musicus et Logicus Downhalt iacet ecce Johannes 565 Natum nobile par treni Camoena 406 Parve puer tibi parva vo[?], et corpore parvus 426 Pauperiem vatum nemo mirabit, [Vinis?] 434 Petra Petrum tegit hic, animumque fovet Petra Christus 431 Petri hostis Petrus Christi insidiate oculi 344 Phi nota[m?] fetoris, Lippus malus omnibus Lotis(?) 433 Politiorum amator ille verborum 428 Quilibet si sit contentus 338 Quod per armes vitam 405 Religio mihi non Regis Pax publica non Rei 334 Res est in silvis nigro depicta colone 469

Index of first lines and authors Sanguis effusi imposita est hac poena Davidi 419 Sava quatergermino Belgarum gloria lustro 483 Scilicet authori Satane si credere fas est, 479 Si Lapis est unus dic qua fuit arte Levatus 404 Si mihi quem cupio cure Mildreda remitti 496 Su[pe]r quae eram, nec eram quae [enim?], nunc dicor utcumque 422 Te nisi solus amo peream Clorinda, vel illud 351 Te virum durum vocat ac honestum 557 Trina mihi ducta est variis aetatibus armis 346 Ursa quid infrendis? [.] 418 Uxorem ducit qui macham in vertice cornu 388 Uxorem fraudas tua fraudet amica maritus 412

435

Italian Alla Zuecca intendo che vuol fare 413 Ardea, di Lidio il vago 354 Beneficii il Pastori dona non vendi 411 Latrai a i ladri a gli amanti tacqui 410 Negra si, ma sei bella, o di Natura 409 Non fatto Papa Tosco perche ogli e patro 421 Queste poche d’honor frondi novelle 355 Qui giace Il Cardinale Colonna Romano nato 415 Sciolta il crin, rotta i panni, e nuda il piede 294 Sovra a liquidi Campi 345 French C’y gist le pere, cy gist la mere 468 C’y gist sans drap linceul ny nape 482 Si quelque Diable est veritable 478

Index of authors (non-English verse) Author Item Latin Amalteo, Girolamo 425 Casa, Giovanni della (Formosa) 408 Castellani, Giacomo 354 Killigrew, Katherine 496 Menini, Ottavio 416 Nequam (Neckam), Alexander 433 Passerat, Jean 471

Italian Achillini, Claudio 294 Grazzini, Anton Francesco (Il Lasca) 410 Marini, Giambattista 355, 409

436

Index of first lines and authors Incipit index (English letters)

Note: Salutations, such as ‘Sir’, are omitted. Some items begin with a foreign phrase or sentence, but are indexed here because they are substantially in English. The English translations of the letters of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus are included. Official and diplomatic communications are excluded. Incipit Item Ad bonitatem requiritum integritas boni; 459 After many great losses, and many yeares sorrowes, 291 After your long sylence I no lesse desired then I expected 32 Albeit I doubt not (by gods leave) to have a mutuall intersight 17 Albeyt in my letter of the last of February 254 Albeytt commendation of children to theire parents 25 All this while like a silk worme I worke myself into a bottome 456 Although I know your modesty is a neere ally to vertue, 13 Amias my most faithfull and carefull servante, 244 As neither nature nor custome hath mad me a man of complement, 281 As well in Love as in greife why should not sylence 445 But that I have much ernest sorrow for the losse 449 Early did I hope this morning to have had myne eyes blessed 282 Excuse the infinite faultes in the writing 269 Good God! now there is nothing belonging to men certayne 31 I am come but a litle nerer to you, and I am already 465 I am filled with joy for the recovery of your health, 22 I am in [no] way guilty of sylence, 19

I am intangled in a double affliction by being accused 442 I am no great Voyager in other mens works 448 I am so far from telling you what day I may meete you 466 I have receaved a very kind letter from you 284 I have receaved a very kind letter from you (2nd version) 461 I have the honor of a letter from your Lordship 299 I imagine in you, bycause I find in my self, 4 I know you remember that the same greife with yours 35 I love and admire your vertue: 27 I must wonder that since my comming to London 439 I pray you bestow my commend ations 285 I presume you rather try what you can do in me, 547 I promised a jorney like godfathers which promise & vow 446 I remember when Scaramella a Segretarie to the Venetian 42 I send to you now that I may know how I do 450 I undertake a labourious buisines to offer to persuade 12 I use that confidence with you which your self hath given 9 I very much rejoyce that you are chosen Consul 8 I will answere your letter bycause I remember 441

Index of first lines and authors I will have leave to speake like a lovor, 438 If I had remembred that I should have wanted your sight 436 If you please to write I will with all gladnes answere your letters 458 In this sickly dotage of the world where vertue languisheth 447 In your whole fortune you have not adventured so much; 435 It is an old saying, honor increaseth Arts, 5 It is for the publique good this new charge is committed to you 36 It is ill conceived that fortune wanteth judgment: 30 It is my fortune that wheresoever I sett my foote 20 It is worth my wondring that you can complayne 296 It may seem strang to you that upon so short a commend ation 452 Least intermission of writing should seem a vice 18 Me thinks your good discretion should not call ill fortunes faults 444 Men were meant to bee impatient of delayes 24 Mille volte ringratio V[ostra] E[ccellenza] 460 Most feared & beloved most sweet & gratious soveraigne 280 Most mightie kinge, my not lesse deare ^dread^ 273 Moste gracious Soveraigne if either bitter teares, 243 My dearest Lord and brother I humbly beseche you 252 My love finding passage by so fitt a messenger 43 My Love makes me write unworthy lettres 454

437

Omnes omnia bona dicere et laudare fortunas meas 440 Only in obedience I send you some of my paradoxes; 485 Out of the love I beare to some of your frends 216 Suesse is a towne of honest inhabitants 14 That increase of his greatnes although it were enough 463 That love which went with you followes & overtakes 443 That which I conceived in opinion and hope 39 That which I conceived in opinion, and hope, (variation) 298 That your fortunes so abundantly prosper 28 The badnes of theire minds is manifest 37 The first act of that play which I sayd I would go 437 The publique magistrate to you, and a private compassion to mee 15 The relacion of occurrences here I leave to this gentleman 455 The succession of frendship is to bee affected 34 The Tyranny of a suddaine raging sicknes 464 They say that when cockles thirst for ayre, 11 They speak not vaynely, who say mens understandings 6 This bearer a gentleman of Germany is worthy of your acquaintance: 297 This is the fift letter that hath died in your service 41 Tis true you abound in all abilities of nature and mind, 40 To excuse, where there is no respas 451

Index of first lines and authors

438

To resume therefore, the conclu sion of my last, 290 To write to you newes were to give you a coppie of the original 453 Whilst I lived in sylence and was wholy removed from desires 16 Yf the memory of our old frendship remayne constant 2 You excuse your sylence I confesse with an elegant exposition, 3 You excuse your sylence I confesse with an elegant exposition: 23

You have recompensed a long sylence 7 You know what hath passed betweene you and mee 38 You may thinke itt somewhat strang for me, 462 You require of me longer letters 21 You say you expected longer letters from me 29 You speake like a noble and worthy frend 10 You understand the new honor our Prince hath conferred 33 Your letter of the 26 of May came unto my hand 457

Index of authors (English letters) As with the poems, authorship has been proposed with various degrees of certainty,  the most conjectural of such attributions being marked with ­asterisks  in the index. Author

Item

Babington, Anthony 243 Donne, John 284*, 285*, 299, 435–438, 440–451, 455*, 456, 458, 459, 461*, 464, 465, 466, 485, 547 Elizabeth I, Queen 244 Essex, Robert Devereaux, 2nd Earl 281

Fletcher, Nathaniel 457* Goodere, Sir Henry 462 Raleigh, Sir Walter 291 Rich, Penelope, Lady 282 Sidney, Sir Henry 252, 254 Sidney, Sir Philip 280 Symmachus, Q. Aurelius 2–40, 298 Tresham, Francis 216 Wotton, Henry 296, 297, 439, 463

Incipit index (other English prose) Incipit Item A Courtier to the French King: that his eares receaved 153 A fayre & ready one of your hand musick for 79 A gentleman of Naples begging a pension 142 A gratious kind of pardoning not to take notice 204

A King should use his prerogative as rarely 115 A letter hath beene spread here agaynst the Citty of Verona’s 69 A memoryall of sure Resolvement at his Majestie 271 A partie in Senat presently after the death of the French King: 136 A preacher begging almes told the audience 128

Index of first lines and authors A Preist near St. Hieronimo in Venice 112 A prisoner in Venice rejoiced when he heard 116 A soldier should draw the platforme of battayles 133 A soule in a fatt body lies soft and is lost [loth?] to rise 312 A Venetian Ambassador when he saw Phillip the 2d 129 About a picture of my Lord of Essex which Brassadonna 127 Acts that fill Princes coffers are often the ruine 191 After my hartie comendacions his Majestie hath 264 After my harty commendacions unto your good Lordships 248 After my very heartie Commendacions, His Majesty 236 After our ^very^ harty commendacions, wee received 249 Al the matter in discourse heere, is a maske represented by the Q: 62 All states are ungratefull: & so theire ministers 98 All woemen are for one use though in divers tytles 308 An Advertisement was brought from Rome by a preist 155 An objection being made against the acting 114 Anteus when he touched the earth recovered his strenght 176 Any Friar may quit his monasterie that pretendeth 138 At Luca every houre is rung an Ave Maria bell 143 Atheist in affliction like blind beggars: 303 Because I know not whither I shall live to come before the Lords 210 Before men leap into great busi nesses they must see 158

439

Beinge arrived at Angiers on Fridaie nyght last 266 Being not able yet to make any final judgment 93 Boterg a Jesuit of the Cittie of Bene of whome it is said 167 By the Turks law all contracts writ ten in Latin may be broken 135 Causabong to Rhony presenting his Athaneus: 161 Cavaliere Guar:[di?]: The Court of Rome is like the sea 146 Charles V. That the Diets of Germany were like 148 Cheri yelded to the Duke of Savoy with condition 184 Christmas Lords only know theire ends 306 Christning a ceremony of the church: 109 Concerning the enterteyment given to our Irish Earles 81 Cosimo de Medici gave his son this precept: 275 Court motions are upp and downe; ours circular: 311 Denials from Princes must be supplemented with gratious usage 193 Deodati of Padre Paulo: huomo cubiculare on what syde soever 180 Discourse with ^all^ men as nere as you can 132 Don Francesco Count di Castro lay from Saturday 89 Don Pedro in 88 being asked why he did not runne 162 Errors like rivers the further they run the more they increase 123 Experience is deerely bought, when itt never learns to do 199 Extreames are equally removd from the meane 490

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Index of first lines and authors

Every great vice is a pike in a pond 324 Every man a letter beyond him self is a foole 300 Fatali inavertenze. The League of Cambray against the Venetians 175 Few dare write the trew news of theire chambers 321 First it was and is concluded, established, and agreed, 247 First that God may blisse your travell you must principally apoint 287 Flattery is increased from a pillow 313 Fowlenes is loathsome: can thast bee so too 487 Fulgentio burned at Rome in July 1610 for denying the pope 168 God hath made one worke of substance 301 Great must be the art of that man, that keeps himself afloate 194 Having expounded here unto your Highnes Resident 215 Having formerly given you a generall accompt 94 Having made foure voyages to Rome & concluded the peace 417 Havinge had this daie & yesterdaie our [reinforcement?] 267 Hee came of a Parent, that coun selled the state 1 Hee that first considers what should bee the latter, 333 Hee that sleepes in the cradle of security 314 Heere hath beene this week a solemne professing 75 Henry 3. A famine so violent that the king was enforced 195 Henry 3. A parliament at Oxford chose 24 ^comites^ 202 Henry 3. for want & rather then

call a parliament, 201 Henry 3. was complaynd off for his private electing cheife Justice 196 Honoria Denny 401 Humbly shew, That wee cast our selves att his Majesties feet 91 I A.B. do truly, and syncerely acknowledge, professe, 235 I am adjudged to dy for a plott plotted but not acted; 283 I am enjoyned ii things by the Lords, The first to saye 268 I am not of that seard impudency that I dare defend weomen 495 I am sure there is none of the forbidden fruite left 327 I cannot att this tyme sett my penn to paper, without resolving 230 I Determined since the veiw that I tooke here of Mr H.W 295 I have besydes this place of my charge in divers other, 231 I have Cause first to thanke god with my heart, 545 I have not been so pitifully tyred with any vanyty 493 I have nothinge to saye to the preamble of my Lord of Canter bury 546 I heare myself diversly censured for the discovery 207 I say againe the body makes the mynd: 491 If Ariana ymperit be not onlie for knowledge 255 Illustrissimo Nani Venetian Ambassador when the Pope 145 Immoderate liberality is a weake meanes to win love, 206 Immoderate liberality is a weake meanes to win (longer version) 209 In difficult tymes States send into the eares of the people 166

Index of first lines and authors In Naples the general of the Camp permitteth 149 In ^the^ banishment of the Jesuits from Venice 157 In things we know wee should not do as those that fall 124 It is the wholesomest getting a stomake 302 It may please your Lordshipps, I shall humbly crave 208 It was unlikely that the Venetians would apprehend 131 It was written from Bologna that the Image 107 Jesuits are like apricocks, hereto fore, 323 Jurea called Stallabium, for a col lony of horse the Romans kept 185 Justices of the Peace have the felling of the underwoods; 322 Leagues and contracts of Princes last no longer 96 Least intermission of writing should seeme a vice 18 Leo V. offered in the Venetian troubles 3000 loaves 130 Macguire the Vaut courier of Tyrones company 77 Many statesmen hunt theire owne fortunes 310 Many thinke there are as many miseries beyond happines, 329 Marino Grimani Duke of Venice (weakned with a double tertian 51 Masters of houses like false pillars which seeme to hold upp 139 Maximilian I. was wont to say that he was King of Kings 156 Men must beware of running downe steepe hills 203 Molin to Sir H.W. of the death of the French King 178 Mounsieur Moulin in Orleans 100 My Lord Montjoy reprehended

441

y the King for taking tobacco 171 My Lord of Essex after being made counsellor 120 My Lord Treasurer to Sir H.W. concerning his following the King 179 My Lordes and you Gentlemen of this lower Chamber 272 My wordes your highnesses having been long and greatly 239 Next to noe wife and children, your owne wife 309 No mans bounty is much loved that is not merely future 200 Now at lenght after almost 5 months deliberation, 73 Nullos esse Deos inane cælum 494 Often sleeping are so many trialls to dy 320 On Tewsday the xth of February, the [?] of the Citty of Derrye 246 One document I have learn’d in Lucca not to medle 78 Our carts are never worse em ployed then when 307 Our moste bounden duties and fortunes moste humblye 253 Out of Arithmetike sprong musicke 125 Pasquin. He died Spanish and lived French 117 Pere Cotton receaving the Kings hart 106 Presently uppon the King of France his death a miracle 137 Princes minds & favors more transitory then others 192 Princes must choose instruments par negotiis 190 Ride si sapis ô puella, ride if thou beest wise laugh: 492 Rolfe Winwood 477 Sentences in authors like hayres in a horse tayle 325

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Index of first lines and authors

Shall shee bee guide to all creatures which is her self one 489 Signor Hercule de Salice: that when the league 144 Since the example of Alexander 6, and then Bianca Capella 169 Sir Edwin Sands: No difference conceaved from and betweene 270 Sir F. Bacon in parlament I sh after a very fayre speech 165 Sir Henry Wooten his Majesties Embassador at Venice 237 Sir Robert Cecil accused to his Majestie by Udal 170 Sir Tho: Parry departed hence yesterday having received from the K: 52 Sixtus 4th built the bordello in Rome 104 Sleepe is deaths picture drawne to the life, 319 So farre as the Lordes here assyned 3 houres after 242 Some 3 weeks before the arrival of his Majesties book 90 Sometymes flashes are flung abroad ^of purpose^ 159 Soveriano the Inventor of and cause of the building of Palma 70 Squire my advice to thy master shalbee as a token 286 Such is ower extreame want of raynes in these parts 80 That chambering is esteemed a civiller quality then playing 317 That mony is nothing but a thing that art 316 That smale service which your Lordship left in my hand 86 The 16. of May the Bishop of Feltre 102 The 28 of April 1605 the K: made his entry into Paris 53 The best bedfellow for all tymes in the yeare 318

The Bishop of Filadelphia in Venice being asked 152 The Bishop of Winchester denied delivery of the great seale 197 The Camarieri of Contarini at his retorne 105 The censure lately sett forth a Rome against certayne books 66 The Count Olivares Spanish Ambassador to Sixtus V 150 The Duke in Florence seldome came where his brethren were 111 The Duke of Ferrara preceded in Italie accept 177 The Duke of Nevers to Villeroy that if he ceased 163 The English Jesuits for the special favor 74 The extortion that is in the mighty, the oppression 288 The fertility of Piemont may be imagined by the neerenes 187 The French King after he is dead for certayne dayes 134 The French King by his Ambassa dor 118 The Jesuits after vespers say always divers ave maria’s 147 The Jesuits in theire bande That unlesse the Colledg 68 The judgments which are here made of forraine actions 57 The K: maketh great instance to restablish the Jesuits 54 The King he governeth all 289 The King of Swethlands son being feasted with a dance 154 The Lord of Arundel that commandeth the regiment 71 The Lord Threasurer Burleigh speaking of a kings authority 183 The maine matter which is here intended to is the treaty of Flanders 63

Index of first lines and authors The marriages are these: The Prince of Mantua 84 The mayntayning of Paradoxes breedes a custome 484 The murtherer must be wrought to the fact: 101 The news which we have here latly out of Spaine 60 The night heats in Venice for your grosse bodies 174 The Nuns of St. Lorenzo (gentlemens daugthers) 67 The officers of the Turk in theire prayers 141 The Pope by executing Fulgenzio sheweth to the world 164 The Pope Paulus V. when Fulgentio preached at Venice 151 The Prince Donato very often used to Ambassadors 103 The Prince of Jenville [Joinville] who a little whyle since 58 The Prince of Parma; of Orange; Sixtus Vs; 97 The Prince of Venice in this like the sun doth effect 181 The Princesse of Orang hath lately obteyned leave of the K: 59 The Queene proceeded against the Erle of Essex 108 The Queen’s farwell to my Lord of Essex 110 The Queen was wont to cal Sir R. C[ecil] 121 The religion of Malta is to destroy the Turks and infidels 182 The sense: to let the “Quene” understand of matters 245 The Signoria of Venice farmeth 2/3 of theire datii: 172 The Spanish Ambassador in Venice 99 The Spanish Ambassador needed no spectacles in Venice 173 The Sposa of Florence on the way

443

had her meat 160 The State of the Treaty in Holland 233 The states generall of the Unyted Provinces 240 The subject which doth here amuse us most in Paris 55 The Theater of the affayres of Christendome 56 The Turk hath a close grate with a curtayne in a rome 140 The treaty of peace in the Low countries 95 The wisedome of action is discretion 332 Thebe a Queene of Lombardy had Corduba for her dowry: 186 There are not two such acres in all the country 304 There fell out an accident here a few dayes since 76 These reasons may be gathered dissuadinge thexecution 241 This last week we had executed heere a certayne Italian 64 Those of the religion have latly made an end of theire Synod 61 To affect yea to effect theire owne deathes 486 To demande heere the liberty of burial for his Majesties subjects 219 Too great benefitts from Princes to subjects are dangerous: 188 Trustie and right welbeloved ­Counsellors 263 Trusty and welbeloved such and so many are youre dispatches 226 Trusty and well beloved We greet you well 50 Truth is every mans by assertinge 330 Tyme was never but a minute old 331 Tyrants shed blood for pleasure, kings for necessity 205

444

Index of first lines and authors

Upon the breaking of the Treaty of Peace, the Archdukes Uppon arrival of the news of the French King’s death Want and abondance equally informe a rectified mind Wee the Commons assembled in Parliament doe clayme When it shall please God to bring thee to mans estate, When Sr. F. Bacon was told A Bishop was Wheareas it is the pleasure of Sir John Popham knight,

232 229 326 265 211 531 250

Whereas yt is the pleasure of Sir John Popham knight, Who reades this paradoxe but thinks me more fantastique Witt and a woman are two frayle things Woemen are not so tender fruite, but that they beare Your best three piled mischeife comes from beyond sea Your Lordship hath reason to say that the imposterous straw miracle

251 488 315 305 328 72

Incipit index (non-English prose) Incipit Item Latin Abirrant iam novem dies ex quo Roma: ad veneram, 257 Cum Serenissimus Archidux Mathias frater noster carissimus 225 Cum verum presentiium deplorata statio perdita casi 224 Deformior vivit 396 Fratississime Princeps ac Duc. Ad Ser [.] 234 Generosissimo Domino Virtute, ingenio, et stemmatu antique 293 Henricus Wottoniius, AngloCantianus, Thomae Optimi viri 44 Hic iacet Robertus Devreuxes Vir bonus et ama[n]dus 395 Justos et nos segneris per multa damna christiano orbi 335 Mirabene fortassio (vir insignis sime) qua confidentia 279 Negate intercessionem sanctori 221 Nego Doctores ipsi aut Univer sitatarum seu Gymnasiorum 212 Nimia Lectio effecit stultitiam 276 Nuntius Papalis questus est

uperiori (septimana?) in Collegio 85 Pacem servare inter Principes Christianes 92 Quam apposite Reipublicam Venetiae Tiberius Imperator 260 Quam miser est qui vocandi argumentum non habet 556 Qui vostrum proximus inviserit Westphalos 45 Quod M. Cato olim dixit Mirabile si aruspix aruspicem videns 256 Salutem eisque boni incrementio tibi ex animo 227 Sanctam Catholicam et Aposto licam Romanam ecclesiam 213 Significatium mihi est quid in ma[**]ta urbe vostra 223 Sunt in hoc Collegio, quae prius erat Anglorum hospitale, 258 Superacti me pronititudine, Illus tris ac Generosissime Domine, 292 Superioribus mensibus ad nostram et Apostolica sedis 259 Tu ni me ita es 400 Unus [.] pro populo, et populus pro uno 278

Index of first lines and authors Italian Aggiungeret a Serena Majesta la sadisfattione grande Arrive in questa citta il Signor Cavaliere Arrigo Wottoni Christiani son gente senza legge: Hebrei legge e ne gente: Gia che i segni della misericordia del signor Dio Ha tel opinione N. Sig. Della bonta di V.A. Il signor Giacobo Lyndsay [qualunque?] normale mi ha fatto sapere La poca pratica che lo nel scrivere bono in questa vulgare Le lettere della Maiesta Vostra presentatea dal Signor Monsignore Illustrissimo Io son venuto a V.S. Illustrissimo Per essere hora mai a veria infor mata la Serenissima Vostra

49 48 277 218 220 87 88 47 214 222

445

Se ben Io son comparso qua spose voleo 217 Se L’Italia volese, come prio ben considerarium diligentemente 261 Visto per Maesei delle Requeste Ordinarie del Re Guidici 65 Spanish Es de prossoponem que el dictio Francesco: Ravaillart 228 He recibido la carta di V[ostr]a S[erenissim]a Ill[ustrissi]ma 82 Si Dios ne habiera dado a las al cuerpo conform 83 French Articles, accordes entre les Ambasadeures des Royes, Princes, 262 Mons. Mon Cousin votre lettre de Vienne du vj Septembre devant nous 238

General index

Note: Readers looking for works by a particular writer should use the appropriate author index above. Alençon letter, Sydney’s 48–49, 119, 313 Anderson, Randall 396 Bacon, Francis, later Lord Verulam and Viscount St Albans 83, 105, 247, 252, 385 Beal, Peter 1, 7, 9, 50, 51 Bell, Ilona 13–14, 33, 316, 331 Blakemore-Evans, Gwynne 405 Burke, Victoria 2 Burley-on-the-Hill 8, 389 Cecil, Sir Robert, later Viscount ­Cranbourne and Earl of ­Salisbury 15n.9, 21, 27, 32, 47, 101, 105, 117, 230, 409 Churchill, Winston S. 8–9 commonplace books 11 Commaundre’s 5 Hoby 11 Kytton’s 27 Saffin’s 1 Starkey Transcripts 5 Cranfield, Lionel, later Earl of Middle­ ­sex 271, 307, 370–371 Devereux, Robert, 2nd Earl of Essex 19, 119, 173

Donne’s Paradoxes 26, 216–230, 329–330 Downall (otherwise Donhault), Gregory 33, 403 Duncan-Jones, Katherine 48–50 Elwes, Sir Gervase 104, 384 Finch family 7–8 Flynn, Dennis 29, 32, 198, 314, 316– 322, 327, 329, 379, 392 Gardner, Dame Helen 9–10 Goodere, Henry 20, 32, 196, 200, 209, 212, 217, 317, 325–327, 329–330, 340–341 Grierson, Sir Herbert 8, 14, 35, 46–47, 150, 154, 361–365, 390, 401 Grundy, Joan 375 Hobbs, Mary 355–356 Horwood, Alfred J. 8 Howell, James 151, 315, 348, 352–353 James I 83, 85, 93, 107–108, 116, 118, 264, 279, 294, 384, 392–394, 402 Love, Harold 4

General index Mainwaring, Sir Henry 4–5, 366 Marotti, Arthur F. 5–6, 36 Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis 377–380 Mathew, Tobie (later Sir Tobie) 341, 360, 372–376 May, Steven 2–3 McKenzie, D. F. 6, 60 More, Anne (Donne’s wife) 33, 189, 201, 316, 322–323, 330–334, 341 Mulcaster, Richard 56 Ong, Walter J. 17 Overbury, Sir Thomas 53–54, 104, 141, 336, 383–384 Characters 51–54, 128 Parkhurst, Robert 26, 113 Parkhurst, William 7, 19–24, 32 Pebworth, Ted-Larry 10, 29, 147 Peters, Helen 8, 330 Petti, Anthony G. 172, 374–375 Quintilian, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus 55–56 Ramus, Petrus 56–57 Sackville, Thomas, Earl of Dorset 143, 381–382

447

Saunders, J. W. 3 Schneider, Gary 314 Shapiro, I. A. 9–10, 117, 326 Shrank, Cathy 323 Simpson, Evelyn M. 8, 14n.6, 29, 199, 200, 203, 205n.57, 208, 318, 320, 321, 323, 326, 329, 331, 334, 335, 336, 338, 339, 340 Smith, Logan Pearsall 8, 14n.6, 19, 31, 51, 82, 124, 126, 128, 189, 316, 319, 323, 336n.69, 379n.51 Spenser’s Complaints 14, 40–44, 230–243, 357, 408–413 Stoughton manuscript 356 Tourneur, Cyril 61 Vives, Juan Luis 55, 57, 58 Walsingham, Sir Francis 32, 121, 240 watermarks 13, 15, 25–26, 27 Williams, John, Lord Keeper 22, 371, 372 Willis, John 57 Wotton, Sir Henry 3–4, 19–20, 21, 29, 31, 53, 55–56, 106, 107, 110, 116, 117, 123 Woudhuysen, H. R. 2, 35, 36, 37 Yates, Frances A. 55