Letters to Severall Persons of Honour

Donne writes from Spa, to which place he accompanied Sir Robert and Lady Drury in May, 1612.

By 1582, the recurring annual error of approximately eleven minutes in the Julian calendar amounted to ten days. Pope Gregory XIII accordingly ordained that ten days should be deducted from the year 1582 by reckoning what according to the old calendar would have been the 5th, as the 15th of October. Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy carried out the Pope’s instructions exactly; in France the change was deferred until December, when the 10th was reckoned as the 20th; in the Low Countries the change was from December 15th to December 25th. England did not adopt the change until 1752, when the 3d of September, old style, was reckoned as September 14th. “26 July here (i.e., at Spa) 1612” would, therefore, in England be July 16th, 1612.

Lord Treasurer Salisbury died May 24th, 1612. That contemporary estimate of his abilities which is, perhaps, most in accord with modern judgments is that of Francis Bacon:

“Soon after the death of a great Officer, who was judged no advancer of the King’s Matters, the King said to his Sollicitor Bacon, who was his Kinsman: Now tell me truly, what say you of your Cousin that is gone? Mr. Bacon answered, Sir, since your Majesty doth charge me, I’ll e’ne deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of him, as if I were to write his Story. I do think he was no fit Counsellor to make your Affairs better; but yet he was fit to have kept them from growing worse. The King said, On my So’l, Man, in the first thou speakest like a True Man, and in the latter like a Kinsman.” (Baconiana, 1679, p. 55.)

XXXII

This letter may conceivably have been addressed to George Hastings, Fourth Earl of Huntingdon. I think, however, that “To my Lord G. H.” is the younger Donne’s mistake for “To Sir H. G.” The reference to Lady Bedford, to whose husband’s establishment Sir Henry Goodyer was at this time attached, and the tone of the letter in general seem to me to support this supposition. As Donne left London with Sir Robert Drury late in November, 1611, this letter may be attributed with some confidence to the latter part of that year.

XXXIII

To Sir Henry Goodyer. Mr. Gosse places this letter in point of date of composition between VI (October 9th, 1607) and XLV (March 14th, 1608). Certainly the three letters have points of resemblance striking enough to serve as a basis for the inference that they belong to the same period of Donne’s life. I know of no external evidence as to date, however, and the internal evidence is of the slightest. If, as I venture to infer from some of the expressions used, the letter was written after Donne had taken orders, it cannot be of earlier date than 1615.

XXXIV

Written from Peckham, the home of Sir Thomas Grymes, the husband of Donne’s sister Jane. As the time of Donne’s ordination (January, 1615) approached, he applied to several friends, Lady Bedford (“the Countess”) and the Countess of Huntingdon (“the other Countess”) among them, to help him pay his debts before making his “valediction to the world.” Lady Bedford sent him £30; the Countess of Huntingdon responded even more liberally. Six verse letters to Lady Bedford and two to Lady Huntingdon are printed in Donne’s Poems (ed. Chambers).

XXXV

Sir George More, Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower (to whom the news of his daughter’s secret marriage to Donne (1601) was “so immeasurably unwelcome, and so transported him, that, as though his passion of anger and inconsideration might exceed theirs of love and errour,” he had procured his son-in law’s dismissal from the post of Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton), had, by the date of this letter, become “so far reconciled, as to wish their happinesse, and not to deny them his paternal blessing,” though he still “refused to contribute any means that might conduce to their livelihood.”

The Donnes had accepted the invitation of Mrs. Donne’s cousin, Sir Francis Wooley, to be his guests, on his inheritance in 1602 of the estate of Pyrford, in Surrey, “where they remained with much freedom to themselves, and equal comfort to him for many years,” says Walton. In reality their residence at Pyrford extended from some time in 1602 to the winter of 1604-5. To this period the letter belongs. The “entreaty that you let goe no copy of my Problems” may refer to some unrevised MS. of the Iuvenalia. (See note to XXX.)

XXXVI

To Sir Henry Goodyer. “My custom of writing” is one of the many allusions to Donne’s weekly letter to Goodyer. I find nothing in the present letter on which to base any very accurate dating.

XXXVII

To George Gerrard. The nearest indication of the date of this letter is found in the mention of Sir Germander Pool. John Chamberlain in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated March 10th, 1612/13 writes:

“I know not whether I told you in my former, of an odd fray that happened much about that time [February 23d, 1612/13] near the Temple, ’twixt one Hutchison of Grays-Inn, and Sir German Pool; who, assaulting the other upon Advantage, and cutting off two of his Fingers, besides a Wound or two more before he could draw, the Gentleman finding himself disabled to revenge himself by the Sword, flew in upon him, and, getting him down, tore away all his Eyebrow with his Teeth, and then seizing on his Nose, tore away all of it, and carried it away in his Pockett.”

Mr. Gosse suggests that it is not unlikely that Sir Germander’s singular disfigurement led to the resignation of which Donne speaks.

With the exception of this letter and the passage just quoted from the Winwood Memorials I have been unable to find in print any reference to Sir Germander. Through the unwearying kindness of Mr. Gosse, however, and the researches of Lord Raglan, undertaken at his instance, I am able to give some particulars of the history of this unlucky knight. He was baptized – as German or Germaine (Germander is a corruption) – in 1573. He fought in Ireland under Montjoy in 1599; he was knighted at Dublin Castle by the Lord Deputy of Ireland on the 20th of April, 1603; and in 1625 he had so far triumphed over his misfortunes as to win the hand of Millicent, daughter of Francis Mundy, Esq., of Markeaton, who bore him a son.

XXXVIII

To Sir Henry Goodyer. More than once Donne insists on the sincerity of his letters. So he writes to Mrs. Herbert:

“If this sounds like a flattery, believe it not. I am to my letters rigid as a Puritan, as Cæsar was to his wife. I can as ill endure a suspicion and misinterpretable word as a fault.”

XXXIX

The reference to the cessation of hostilities in the Low Countries following the Truce of Bergen (April 19th, 1609) enables us to complete the date of this letter. “The best Lady,” here as elsewhere, is the Countess of Bedford. Perhaps the letter to Lady Bedford, enclosed in this letter, and presumably in verse, was written in acknowledgment of her verses on Donne, which are the subject of a letter to her already given (XXIII).

XL

To Sir John Harington, now best remembered as the translator of Ariosto, and one of the brilliant group of poets and wits which met at the Countess of Bedford’s house at Twickenham and which included Ben Jonson, Drayton, Daniel, Donne, and many lesser lights. Harington died in 1612. Donne’s daughter Lucy was born at Mitcham in 1608 and died nineteen years later at the Deanery of Saint Paul’s.

XLI

Sir Henry Wotton was in England when this letter was written early in 1612, and Donne was probably at Amiens, shortly to proceed to Paris with Sir Robert Drury. The phrase “when I was last here” is the only known evidence of an earlier visit to France.

In the Life of Wotton, Walton writes:

“I must not omit the mention of a love that was there [at Oxford] begun betwixt him and Dr. Donne, sometime Dean of St. Paul’s; a man of whose abilities I shall forbear to say anything, because he who is of this nation, and pretends to learning or ingenuity, and is ignorant of Dr. Donne, deserves not to know him. The friendship of these two I must not omit to mention, being such a friendship as was generously elemented; and as it was 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.”

XLII

This letter, to Sir Henry Goodyer, was written but a few weeks later than the preceding letter to Sir Henry Wotton. Their arrangement in sequence is one of John Donne, Junior’s rare triumphs as an editor of correspondence. The two letters admirably illustrate the manysidedness of Donne’s contact with the life of his time, social, political, and ecclesiastical. For the date, see note to XXXI, above.

XLIII

There is no conclusive evidence, internal or external, as to which of Donne’s correspondents is here addressed; certainly not Sir Henry Wotton, who was not a father, and who had recently returned from an important embassy in Germany, and who, a year later, became Provost of Eton College, to Bacon’s great disappointment. The intimate tone of the letter suggests that it was addressed to Sir Henry Goodyer, who had already begun to be “encombred and distressed in his fortunes.”

XLIV

A. V[uestra] Merced, “to your worship,” is the common Spanish form of address. The allusion to the plague enables us to assign the letter to 1608, and this date in connection with the references to “My Lady” [Bedford] and to “Twicknam” suggest that Donne’s correspondent was Sir Henry Goodyer, in the service of the Earl of Bedford. “Mistress Herbert” is Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, the mother of the saintly George Herbert and his unsaintly brother Edward. Of Mrs. Herbert, after she had become Lady Danvers, Donne speaks in what is perhaps the best remembered of his poems, the lines beginning:

“No spring, nor summer beauty hath such graceAs I have seen in one autumnal face,”

and the best remembered of his sermons, except Death’s Duel, is that in commemoration of her death.

“Mris Meauly” according to Dr. Jessopp (quoted by Mr. Gosse) is Mistress Meautys, one of the members of Lady Bedford’s household, and, if so, possibly a connection of Bacon’s faithful follower.

XLV

“M. Mathews” is Toby Matthew, the eldest son of Dr. Tobias Matthew, Archbishop of York. Three years before, while travelling in Italy, he had become converted to Romanism. On his return to England in the summer of 1607, his case was laid before the King, who suggested that he be required to take the oath, abjuring allegiance to Rome. This he refused to do, and was committed to the Fleet prison by Dr. Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and there visited by Bishop Andrews, Morton, then Dean of Gloucester, Sir Henry Goodyer, Donne, and others. In a letter dated 11th February 1607[8] the voluminous Chamberlain wrote to Carleton:

“Your friend, Tobie Matthew, was called before the Council-table on Sunday in the afternoon, and, after some schooling, the Earl of Salisbury told him that he was not privy to his imprisonment, which he did in no ways approve, as perceiving that so light a punishment would make him rather more proud and perverse. But in conclusion they allotted him six weeks’ space to set in order and depart the realm.”

He left England accordingly, and lived on the Continent until 1623, when he was forgiven, invited to return, and knighted by the King. Apart from his extraordinary personality his chief claim on our interest is that he was the life-long friend and correspondent of Francis Bacon.

XLVI

To Sir Henry Goodyer. Written between the death of Sir Geoffrey Fenton in October, 1608, and the performance of Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queens on February 2d, 1609. Donne was not successful in his attempt to secure the position left vacant by Fenton’s death, for all the “haste and words” of Lord Hay and other friends. James Hay was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in Scotland, and came to England with the King. In 1603 the King appointed him Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and knighted him. In 1606 he was made Lord Hay, and afterwards became Viscount Doncaster, and Earl of Carlisle. Donne accompanied him on his embassy to the Palatinate. (See note on VII, above.)

This letter gives us our earliest mention of a warm friendship that lasted as long as Donne lived. In his will he bequeathed to Carlisle “the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary which hangs in the little dining-chamber.”

XLVII

To Sir Henry Goodyer. I cannot identify the “paper” the composition of which helped Donne to pass the anxious hours that brought him a son; but as the letter was written during his residence at Mitcham, where the Donnes went to live shortly after the birth of their son George, the birth here recorded must have been that of Francis, Donne’s fourth child and third son, who was baptized at Mitcham January 8th, 1607, and who died in infancy. John, who survived to be the first editor of these letters, was now three years old.

XLVIII

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and apparently written during the anxious weeks between Donne’s decision to enter the church and his ordination in January, 1615. (See note on XXXIV, above.) “That good lady” is, of course, the Countess of Bedford, “Mr. Villars” is George Villiers, soon to be the Duke of Buckingham, and “Mr. Karre” is a nephew of Somerset, the present favourite. The “Masque of Gentlemen” may have been Ben Jonson’s The Golden Age Restored, in a Masque at Court, 1615, by the Lords and Gentlemen, the King’s Servants, first printed in the folio of 1616.

Sir Robert Rich, later Earl of Warwick, lived to become Lord High Admiral for the Parliament, 1643-5, 1648-9. Three years after the date of this letter we find Donne planning to meet Sir Robert at Frankfort. (XLII.) Lord Dorset (Richard, third Earl of Dorset) was one of the most generous of Donne’s patrons. To him Donne owed the reversion of St. Dunstan’s.

XLIX

To Sir Henry Goodyer and presumably of later date than the letter to Sir John Harington (XL) of August 6, 1608, which contains our earliest record of Donne’s acquaintance with “that good lady,” the Countess of Bedford, and to which allusion may be made in the last paragraph of the present letter. The Lord Harrington here mentioned must be one of the Harringtons of Exton, probably the second Lord Harrington, who was Lady Bedford’s brother.

The home of Donne’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Gryme, where the Donnes were frequent guests, was in Peckham.

L

To Sir Robert Drury, and written at the lowest ebb of Donne’s fortunes, when he was casting about for court preferment of any kind. The marriage of Somerset and Lady Frances Howard, whose marriage to Essex had at length been annulled, took place December 26, 1613. One would be glad to forget that Donne wrote the beautiful epithalamium which connects him with this unholy union, and so gives the approximate date of this letter.

LI

That this letter was written in the year 1621, and not ten years earlier, is evident from the references to contemporary events. The contrast between Donne’s circumstances as indicated in the present letter and his situation at the date of the preceding letter is striking. In less than three months from August 30th, 1621, he became Dean of Saint Paul’s; from this date until the end his fame both as preacher and as saint, continued in the ascendent.

Archbishop Abbot’s “accident” was his unfortunate killing of a game-keeper in Lord Zouch’s park. No one doubted that the killing was accidental, but it was questioned whether the homicide, even though involuntary, did not render him incapable of holding the see of Canterbury. A commission appointed to inquire into the ecclesiastical status of the Archbishop at length reported that his title was without flaw. “Lady Nethersoles” is Goodyer’s daughter Lucy, the wife of Sir Francis Nethersole.

LII

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in 1609. Mr. Gosse thinks the book here discussed is the Bishop of Lincoln’s Answer to a Catholic Englishman, but Donne’s criticism is equally applicable to a score of volumes which appeared in connection with the doctrinal controversy springing from the vexed questions arising in the King’s relations with his Catholic subjects.

During this year Donne completed his Pseudo-Martyr, Wherein out of certaine Propositions and Gradations, This Conclusion is evicted, That those which are of the Romane Religion in this Kingdome, may and ought to take the Oath of Allegeance.

LIII

As to the identity of “Sir T. H.” I have no conjecture to offer. Lord Cranfield “received his staffe” as Lord High Treasurer in September, 1621. For “my L. of Canterburies irregularity” see note to LI, above.

LIV

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in 1614 but a few months later than the letter to Sir Robert Drury already printed. (L.) The “Book of the Nullity” is apparently either the record of the legal proceedings looking to the annulment of the marriage of the Earl of Essex and Lady Frances Howard or a brief, covering the arguments in favour of the nullity, drawn up by Donne in the hope of reward in the shape of patronage from Somerset.

LV

To Sir Henry Goodyer and written five months later than the preceding letter. Donne is still seeking court employment. The Lord Chancellor is Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, whom Donne had served as Secretary fifteen years before.

LVI

Written in 1619, on the eve of Donne’s departure for the Palatinate. (See VII, note.) “My Lord” is, of course, Lord Hay. “M. Gher” is George Gerrard. “M. Martin” is presumably Donne’s friend, Richard Martin, mentioned in XIX and XLI. He died a few months before the date of this letter, and Sir Henry Goodyer has evidently been urging Donne to write a poem in his memory.

The Queen died on March 2d. “That noble Countess” is Lady Bedford.

LVII

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written three months after Donne became Dean of St. Paul’s. Lady Ruthyn was the sister-in-law of the Earl of Kent, who had promised to Donne the living of Blunham in Bedfordshire.

LVIII

To Sir Henry Goodyer. The allusions to the birth of Donne’s son Nicholas (baptized in August, 1613) and to the (erroneous) report of the death of Tobie Matthew, who was dangerously ill at Rome, give the date of this letter.

LIX

As Somerset and Lady Frances Howard were married in December, 1613, following the declaration of “the nullity” which is here in question, this letter must be assigned to January of the same year. (See notes to L and LIV, above.) I am unable to identify G. K. Lady Bartlet seems to have acted as housekeeper for Sir Robert Drury at Drury House, where the Donnes were living when this letter was written. “That noble lady at Ashworth” was the third wife of Donne’s old friend and employer, Sir Thomas Egerton.

LX

Of this letter, and of LXVII, apparently sent to the same person, I can give no satisfactory account. An unpublished letter from Donne to Sir G. Brydges is said to be in existence, and the present letter may be addressed to him.

LXI

Evidently to Sir Henry Goodyer. “Your son Sir Francis” is Sir Francis Nethersole, who had married Goodyer’s daughter Lucy, and who had apparently been imprisoned for debt.

Poor Constance Donne, a year after “her losse” here described, was married to Edward Alleyn, the actor-manager and founder of Dulwich College, a man who was considerably older than her father, and who seems to have made her thoroughly unhappy.

LXII

Evidently misdated for 1612, and written a few weeks after the date of XXXI. (See note to XVI.)

LXIII

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written in 1614, but a few days after XLVIII.

LXIV

To Sir Henry Goodyer. The references to “the good Countess” of Bedford and to Mitcham fix the date of this letter as later than August, 1608, and earlier than the spring of 1610, when Donne moved his family to Drury House. Sir Henry Goodyer was now in the service of the Earl of Bedford.

LXV

To Sir Henry Goodyer, and written two days later than LXIII. Apparently Tobie Matthew had deposited a part of his fortune in Goodyer’s keeping to avoid the possibility of confiscation. (See note to XLV, above.) By 1614 Sir Henry’s affairs were in hopeless confusion. (See note to XI, above.)

No copy of Donne’s Poems in an earlier edition than that of 1633 has been discovered, and it is unlikely that he carried out the intention, here expressed, of printing them during his lifetime.

LXVI

For “my L. of Canterburies businesse” see note to LI, above. “My little book of Cases” is presumably the Paradoxes and Problems.

LXVIII

Donne was presented to the living of Keyston, in Huntingdonshire, by the Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn in 1616. Wrest was the home of the Earl of Kent. (See note to LVII, above.) “My Lady Spencer,” the daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, and third wife of Sir Thomas Egerton, is “that noble lady at Ashworth” of LIX.

LXIX

To Sir Henry Goodyer. This letter appears to belong to the period of Sir Henry’s prosperity, and was written, I think, either from Mitcham, or from Donne’s lodgings in the Strand; in either case, not earlier than 1605 nor later than 1610. Parson’s Green was in the parish of Fulham, Middlesex. Ben Jonson has an Epigram (LXXXV) anent Sir Henry Goodyer’s hawks:

“Goodyere, I’m glad, and grateful to report,Myself a witness of thy few days sport;Where I both learn’d, why wise men hawking follow,And why that bird was sacred to Apollo:She doth instruct men by her gallant flight,That they to knowledge so should tower upright,And never stoop, but to strike ignorance;Which if they miss, yet they should re-advanceTo former height, and there in circle tarry,Till they be sure to make the fool their quarry.Now, in whose pleasures I have this discerned,What would his serious actions me have learned?”

And in the verses enclosed in his letter (XXX) to Goodyer, Donne writes:

“Our soule, whose country is heaven, & God her father,Into this world, corruptions sinke, is sent,Yet, so much in her travaile she doth gather,That she returnes home, wiser than she went;It pays you well, if it teach you to spareAnd make you asham’d, to make your hawks praise, yours,Which when herselfe she lessens in the aire,You then first say, that high enough she toures.”

LXX

To Sir Thomas Roe. Until 1752, when by Act of Parliament the first day of January became the first day of the year, the year began on March 25th and ended on the following March 24th. What to Donne was “the last (day) of 1607” would be to us March 24th, 1608. Since 1752 therefore it has been a common practice in referring to dates falling between January 1st and March 24th inclusive of all years previous to the year 1752 to give both years. So we would give the date of the execution of Charles I as January 30th, 1648/49.

“The Mask” is possibly Ben Jonson’s The Hue and Cry after Cupid, “celebrating the happy marriage of John Lord Ramsey, Viscount Hadington, with the Lady Elizabeth Ratcliffe,” of which Rowland White wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury, “The great Maske intended for my L. Haddington’s marriage is now the only thing thought upon at Court.”

LXXI

I have not succeeded in finding a clue to the “accident” of which Donne writes. It would seem that some friend or relation of Sir Henry Goodyer’s had met with sudden, and perhaps violent, death.