



Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive.)









LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONS OF HONOUR


_This edition is limited to six hundred copies_




  LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONS OF HONOUR


  BY JOHN DONNE


  THE TEXT EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY
  CHARLES EDMUND MERRILL, JR.


  NEW YORK
  STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
  1910




  COPYRIGHT, 1910
  BY STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY




  TO PAYSON MERRILL

  QUALEM NEQUE CANDIDIOREM
  TERRA TULIT, NEQUE CUI ME SIT DEVINCTIOR ALTER




NOTE


The Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, _now for the first time
reprinted in their original form, were collected and published by John
Donne, Jr., in 1651, twenty years after the death of the author.
Apparently the sales were not large, for three years later the original
sheets were rebound with a new title page and put on the market as a
second edition. Not many copies of the earlier, and still fewer of the
later date, have come down to us._

_In the present volume changes from and additions to the original text are
indicated by brackets, with a single exception: errors in punctuation have
been corrected without comment when, and only when, they seem seriously to
impair the intelligibility of the text. In the case of a few letters the
reading followed is that of the original manuscripts, for which I am
indebted to the great kindness of Mr. Edmund Gosse._

_Readers of Mr. Gosse's brilliant study_, The Life and Letters of John
Donne _(London: Heinemann, 1899) will not need to be reminded of the
obligations under which he has placed all later students of Donne's life
and work. I have, in addition, to thank him for generous encouragement and
for many helpful suggestions, specific and general._

_C. E. M., Jr._

  _Huntington, Long Island
  October 14, 1910._




LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONS OF HONOUR




[Illustration: JOHN DONNE

_From an engraving by Pierre Lombart, prefixed to the_ POEMS _of 1633,
after a portrait of Donne at the age of forty._]




  (_Facsimile of Title Page of Original Edition._)


  LETTERS
  TO
  SEVERALL PERSONS
  OF HONOUR:

  _WRITTEN BY_
  JOHN DONNE

  Sometime Deane of
  _S{t} Pauls London_.


  Published by JOHN DONNE D{r}. of
  the Civill Law.


  _LONDON_,
  Printed by _J. Flesher_, for _Richard Marriot_, and are
  to be sold at his shop in S{t} _Dunstans_ Church-yard
  under the Dyall. 1651.




  To the most virtuous
  and excellent Lady, Mris.
  _BRIDGET DUNCH_.


MADAM,

_It is an argument of the_ Immortality _of the_ Soul, _that it can
apprehend, and imbrace such a_ Conception; _and it may be some kinde of_
Prophecy _of the continuance and lasting of these_ Letters, _that having
been scattered, more then Sibyls leaves, I cannot say into parts, but
corners of the_ World, _they have recollected and united themselves,
meeting_ at once, _as it were, at the same spring, from whence they
flowed, but by_ Succession.

_But the piety of_ AEneas _to_ Anchises, _with the heat and fervour of his
zeale, had been dazelled and extinguished by the fire of_ Troy, _and his
Father become his Tombe, had not a brighter flame appeared in his_
Protection, _and_ Venus herself _descended with her embraces, to protect
her_ Martiall Champion; _so that there is no safer way to give a
perpetuity to this remnant of the dead Authour, but by dedicating it to
the_ Altar _of_ Beauty _and_ perfection; _and if you, Madam, be but
pleased to shed on it one beame of your_ Grace _and Favour, that very_
Adumbration _will quicken it with a new_ Spirit, _and defend it from all
fire (the fate of most Letters) but the last; which, turning these
into ashes, shall revive the Authour from his Urne, and put him into a
capacity of celebrating you, his_ Guardian Angell, _who has protected that
part of his Soul, that he left behinde him, his_ Fame _and_ Reputation.

_The courtesies that you conferre upon the living may admit of some allay,
by a possibility of a_ Retaliation; _but what you bestow upon the_ Dead
_is a Sacrifice to_ pure Virtue; _an ungifted Deity, 'tis true, without_
Oblation, Altar, _or_ Temple, _if she were not enshrined in your_ noble
brest, _but I must forever become her votary, if it be but for giving me
this_ Inclination, _and_ desire _of being_

  Madam
  Your most humble servant
  _Jo. Donne_.




A COLLECTION of Letters written to severall Persons of Honour.




[i.]

_To the worthiest Lady M{rs}_ Bridget White.


MADAME,

I could make some guesse whether souls that go to heaven, retain any
memory of us that stay behinde, if I knew whether you ever thought of us,
since you enjoyed your heaven, which is your self, at home. Your going
away hath made _London_ a dead carkasse. A Tearm and a Court do a little
spice and embalme it, and keep it from putrefaction, but the soul went
away in you: and I think the onely reason why the plague is somewhat
slackned is because the place is dead already, and no body left worth the
killing. Wheresoever you are, there is _London_ enough: and it is a
diminishing of you to say so, since you are more then the rest of the
world. When you have a desire to work a miracle, you will return hither,
and raise the place from the dead, and the dead that are in it; of which I
