Letters to Severall Persons of Honour

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 grace
As 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.