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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
am one, but that a hope that I have a room in your favour keeps me alive,
which you shall abundantly confirme to me, if by one letter you tell me
that you have received my six; for now my letters are grown to that bulk,
that I may divide them like _Amadis_ the _Gaules_ book, and tell you that
this is the first letter of the second part of the first book.

  _Your humblest, and affectionate
  servant_ J. D.

  _Strand, S._ Peters
  _day at nine_.




[ii.]

_To the worthiest Lady M{rs}_ B. W.


MADAME,

I think the letters which I send to you single lose themselves by the way
for want of a guide, or faint for want of company. Now, that on your part
there be no excuse, after three single letters, I send three together,
that every one of them may have two witnesses of their delivery. They come
also to waite upon another letter from S{r} _E. Herbert_, of whose
recovery from a Fever, you may apprehend a perfecter contentment then we,
because you had none of the former sorrow. I am an Heretique if it be
sound Doctrine, that pleasure tasts best after sorrow. For my part, I can
love health well enough, though I be never sick; and I never needed my
Mistris frowns and disfavours, to make her favours acceptable to me. In
States, it is a weakness to stand upon a defensive war, and safer not to
be invaded, then to have overcome: so in our souls health, an innocence is
better then the heartiest repentance. And in the pleasures of this life,
it is better that the variety of the pleasures give us the taste and
appetite to it, then a sowre and sad interruption quicken our stomack; for
then we live by Physick. I wish therefore all your happinesses such as
this intire, and without flaw, or spot of discontentment; and such is the
love and service of

  _Your humblest and affectionatest
  servant_ J. D.

  _Strand S._ Peters
  _day at 4_.




[iii.]

_To the same._


MADAME,

This letter which I send enclosed hath been yours many moneths, and hath
languished upon my table for a passage so long, that as others send news
in their letters, I send an antiquity in mine. I durst not tear it, after
it was yours: there is some sacriledge in defacing any thing consecrated
to you, and some impiety to despaire that any thing devoted to you should
not be reserved to a good issue. I remember I should have sent it by a
servant, of whose diligence I see I was too confident. I know not what it
says: but I dare make this letter no longer, because being very sure that
I always think the same thoughts of you, I am afraid I should fall upon
the same words, and so send one letter twice together.

  _Your very affectionate
  servant_ J. D.

  _Novemb. 8._




[iv.]

_To the Honourable Lady M{rs}_ B. W.


MADAME,

I have but small comfort in this letter; the messenger comes too easily to
me, and I am too sure that the letter shall be delivered. All adventures
towards you should be of more difficulty and hazard. But perchance I need
not lament this; it may be so many of my letters are lost already that it
is time that one should come, like _Jobs_ servant, to bring word that the
rest were lost. If you have had more before, this comes to aske how they
were received; and if you have had none, it comes to try how they should
have been received. It comes to you like a bashfull servant, who, though
he have an extreme desire to put himself in your presence, yet hath not
much to say when he is come: yet hath it as much to say as you can think;
because what degrees soever of honour, respect, and devotion you can
imagine or beleeve to be in any, this letter tells you that all those are
in me towards you. So that for this letter you are my Secretary; for your
worthiness, and your opinion that I have a just estimation of them [?it],
write it: so that it is as long, and as good, as you think it; and nothing
is left to me, but, as a witness, to subscribe the name of

  _Your most humble servant_
  J. D.

Though this letter be yours, it will not misbecome or disproportion it
that I mention your Noble brother, who is gone to _Cleave_, not to return
till towards Christmas, except the business deserve him not so long.




[v.]

_To the Honourable L. the Lady_ Kingsmel _upon the death of her Husband_.


MADAME,

Those things which God dissolves at once, as he shall do the Sun, and
Moon, and those bodies at the last conflagration, he never intends to
reunite again; but in those things, which he takes in pieces, as he doth
man, and wife, in these divorces by death, and in single persons, by the
divorce