Letters to Severall Persons of Honour

LXXXVIII

This letter, addressed, I suppose, to Donne’s sister Jane, the wife of Sir Thomas Grymes, is printed in the 1719 edition of the Poems, and is there dated “Amyens, the 7th of Febr. here, 1611,” i.e., January 28th, 1612.

LXXXIX

To George Gerrard, and written from Paris not long after the date of the preceding letter.

XC

Written in 1624, during Donne’s recovery from a dangerous illness. Here, as elsewhere, Walton is our best commentator:

“Within a few dayes his distempers abated; and as his strength increased, so did his thankfulnesse to Almighty God, testified in his book of Devotions, which he published at his recovery. In which the reader may see, the most secret thoughts that then possest his soul, Paraphrased and made publick; a book that may not unfitly be called a Sacred picture of spiritual extasies, occasioned and applyable to the emergencies of that sicknesse, which being a composition of Meditations, disquisitions and prayers, he writ on his sick-bed; herein imitating the holy Patriarchs, who were wont to build their Altars in that place, where they had received their blessings.”

Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions and Several Steps in my Sickness was published in 1624, and dedicated “To the most excellent prince, Prince Charles.”

XCI

To George Gerrard, and written from the Low Countries, where Donne was travelling with Sir Robert Drury in the late summer of 1612.

XCII

To George Gerrard, and evidently an amplified version of LXXXV.

XCIII

Apparently written on Donne’s return to London at the beginning of the winter of 1612-13. I imagine that George Gerrard and his sister had come up to London to meet Donne, but had, by some mischance, failed to find him.

XCIV

Written, I think, early in the summer of 1612, and, if so, from Paris, whither Donne had gone with his “noble neighbour,” Sir Robert Drury. “That Noble Lady” is presumably the Countess of Bedford.

XCV

To George Gerrard, and like the next letter written from Amiens in the winter of 1611-12.

XCVII

To George Gerrard’s sister, and written from Spa in the summer of 1612.

XCVIII

Certainly not addressed to Sir Henry Goodyer, but probably to Somerset, during the negotiations of which Walton, though with some inaccuracy, reports the happy ending:

“His Majesty had promised him a favour, and many persons of worth mediated with his Majesty for some secular employment for him, to which his education had apted him, and particularly the Earle of Somerset, when in his height of favour, being then at Theobalds with the King, where one of the Clerks of the Council died that night, the Earle having sent immediately for Mr. Donne to come to him, said, Mr. Donne, To testifie the reality of my affection, and my purpose to prefer you, stay in this garden till I go up to the King, and bring you word that you are Clerk of the Council. The King gave a positive denial to all requests; and having a discerning spirit, replied, I know Mr. Donne is a learned man, has the abilities of a learned Divine, and will prove a powerfull Preacher, and my desire is to prefer him that way. After that, as he professeth, the King descended almost to a solicitation of him to enter into sacred Orders: which, though he then denied not, yet he deferred it for three years.”

XCIX

Written in 1613. (See note on L, above.)

C

Donne’s fifth daughter, Margaret, was christened April 20th, 1615, three days after the date of this letter.

CI

Mary, Donne’s fourth daughter, died in May, 1614, in her fourth year.

CII

This letter, and CXIII, below, seem to belong to the same period, probably to the closing years of Donne’s residence at Mitcham, when Donne may have begun to hope that through his acquaintance with the Earl of Bedford (who is, I think, here intended by “My Lord”) he might obtain public employment of some kind.

CIII

This and the two following letters belong to July and August, 1622, and seem to relate to a single incident. Sir Robert Ker had apparently asked Donne for his opinion of one of his fellow-travellers in attendance on Lord Doncaster during the German tour. Donne’s evident anxiety to be fair to both parties results in a somewhat indefinite answer.

CVI

Donne’s eyes gave him a good deal of trouble in the winter of 1613-14; this letter, as well as LXVII, above, may belong to this period.

CVII

“In August, 1630,” says Walton, “being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvy, at Abury Hatch in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant infirmity (vapours from the spleen,) hastened him into so visible a consumption, that his beholders might say, as St. Paul said of himself, ‘He dies daily.’” This letter was written from Abury (or Aldeburgh) Hatch. “Mrs. Harvy” is Donne’s daughter Constance, the widow of Edward Alleyn, and now the wife of Samuel Harvey. Donne’s son George, the soldier, was taking part in the campaign in Spain. Lord Carlisle was the old friend whom, as Lord Doncaster, Donne had attended in his German embassy. Lord Percy was Algernon Percy, soon to become fourth Earl of Northumberland.

CVIII

Written apparently before Donne had entered the church, and probably in 1614, while Donne was still living in Drury House. George Gerrard was at court. His “hopeful designs upon worthy widows” seem to have been the cause of much pleasantry. (See XIX.)

CIX

There is no certain indication of the date of this letter. Mr. Gosse assigns it conjecturally to 1622. It seems to me more likely that it belongs to the period of Donne’s residence at Mitcham, and is of 1609, or earlier date. “My house” would then be Donne’s lodgings in the Strand.

CX

Written not long after the date of CVII, above, and presumably from Aldeburgh Hatch. “The Lady of the Jewel” (obviously “the Diamond Lady” of CVII) remains a mystery. Apparently she had placed her jewels in Donne’s keeping, thus charging him with a responsibility which he seems to have found exceedingly irksome.

CXI

Donne was ordained in January, 1615, a “very few days” before the date of this letter.

CXII

This letter may safely be assigned to 1613. Rochester was made Earl of Somerset in December of this year, a few days before his marriage to Lady Frances Howard. Surely none of the letters to Somerset for which Sir Francis Bacon has been so severely condemned expresses a more complete submission than is here offered.

CXIV

To George Gerrard. Probably written from France, and, if so, presumably to be assigned to 1612, when Donne was in Paris with Sir Robert Drury. “This book of French Satyrs” Mr. Gosse takes to be the first authoritative edition of Regnier’s Satyres et autres œuvres folastres, 1612.

CXV

The allusion to Pierre du Moulin, the French theologian, who preached before the Court in June, 1615, gives the approximate date of this letter. Sir Thomas Grymes, the husband of Donne’s sister Jane, we have already met. Donne says father-in-law where we should say step-father.

CXVI

Sir Dudley Carleton remained as Ambassador to Venice until 1616, when he was succeeded by Sir Henry Wotton, but this letter must have been written before Donne’s ordination in January, 1615. “My Lord” is, of course, the Earl of Somerset.

CXVII

This, and the next letter, may belong to the same period as the preceding letter to Sir Robert Ker. “Monte Magor” is George de Montemayor, whose “Shepherdess Felismena,” in the Spanish pastoral romance of “Diana,” tells the same story as “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” A translation into English by Bartholomew Yonge was published in 1598, but Donne may have read it in the original.

CXIX

On November 4, 1616, Charles, the Duke of York, was created Prince of Wales.

CXX

This letter, like CXVI, seems to belong to the period immediately preceding Donne’s entrance into the church, when Sir Robert Ker’s advice as to the best way of retaining Somerset’s interest was constantly in request.

CXXI

To George Gerrard, and belonging to the winter of 1612-13. Cf. XCI, which also carried an enclosure. The letter enclosed with the present letter may have been addressed to Lord Clifford (Cf. CVI) or, more probably, to Rochester.

CXXII

This and the next two letters were written in April, 1627, and relate to the same incident. This letter is the first, and the next the last of the series.

Dr. Richard Montagu, who had been chaplain to James I, was the highest of high-churchmen, and a believer in the doctrine of the divine right of kings in its extreme form. He is said to have looked upon reunion with the Roman church as quite possible. In the ecclesiastical politics of the time he was an ardent supporter of Laud, then Bishop of Bath and Wells. In the early part of 1627 Montagu published his Apello Cæsarem, in spite of the opposition of Archbishop Abbot, who had refused to license it. Abbot thereupon instigated an attack on Montagu in the House of Commons. Montagu was committed to the custody of the serjeant-at-arms, and the House petitioned the King for his punishment. Charles not only refused his consent, but marked his resentment of the attitude of Archbishop Abbot and the Commons by making Montagu Bishop of Chichester. Abbot returned to the charge in a sermon which gave the King great offense. At this juncture Donne was appointed to preach before the court. Laud was present and seems to have thought, and to have persuaded the King, that Donne’s sermon indicated sympathy with Abbot, whose break with the King was now open. At any rate Laud directed Donne to send a copy of his sermon to the King.

The letters tell the rest of the story so far as Donne is concerned. Abbot, on his refusal to license Dr. Sibthorpe’s sermon, Apostolical Obedience, was deprived of his archiepiscopal authority, which was given to a commission of five bishops.

CXXIII

As Donne was born and bred in the Roman church, this reference to the religion he was born in, is explicable only if we understand Donne to be thinking of the Anglican and Roman communions as branches of one Catholic Church, divided in government, but spiritually one.

CXXIV

There is in the British Museum a copy of Donne’s Poems, 1633, which belonged to Charles I, and which contains MS. notes in his hand. “The Bishop” here is Laud; “My Lord Duke” is Buckingham.

CXXV

This letter, and CXXVII, below, which should precede it, relate to the occasion of the delivery of the first of the Two Sermons Preached before King Charles, upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of Genesis, which stand at the head of Donne’s published Sermons. James I died on March 27th, 1625. One week later, Donne, at the command of the new King, preached at the Court. His extreme nervousness and almost painful diffidence are clearly implied in these two letters to Sir Robert Ker.

CXXVI

I am unable to give any satisfactory account of this letter. The form of the address indicates that it was written not earlier than 1625 when Ker became Master of the Privy Purse. “My great neighbour” may possibly be “the B” of CXXVIII.

CXXVIII

“The B” to whom allusion is here made, is George Montaigne, Bishop of London since 1621, and a prominent member of the party of which Laud, now Bishop of Bath and Wells, was already the leader. In 1628 Montaigne’s witty suggestion that the King had power to throw “this mountain” into the see of York was rewarded by his appointment as Archbishop of York, Laud succeeding him as Bishop of London. Montaigne warmly defended Montagu against the attacks of Archbishop Abbot. (See note to CXXII, above.)

CXXIX

This letter, written less than two weeks before his death, is addressed to one of the most intimate of the friends of Donne’s later life. Mrs. Thomas Cokain, or Cokayne, had been abandoned by her husband, who left her with a houseful of children, at Ashbourne, the Derbyshire estate of the Cokaynes, and went to London where the rest of his life was spent in the compilation of an English-Greek lexicon, which was finally published in 1658, twenty years after his death.

Donne lived long enough to perform the Lenten service of which he writes. On February 12th, 1631, he preached at Court the last and most famous of his sermons, Deaths Duell, or, A Consolation to the Soule, against the Dying Life, and living Death of the Body, Delivered in a Sermon at White-Hall, before the KINGS MAIESTIE, in the beginning of Lent, 1630[1], By that late Learned and Reverend Divine, John Donne, Dr. in Divinity, and Deane of S. Pauls, London.