claimed to have been the first man to enter the town. He was, like his mother (vol. i. pp. 117, 156, notes) and brother (vol. i. p. 214, note), a friend of Donne's (cf. notes to Good Friday, vol. i. p. 172, and to the Elegy on Prince Henry, vol. ii. p. 72). Born 1583, he became a soldier and writer of some distinction. He was created Baron Herbert of Cherbury in 1629, and died in 1648. His chief works are the De Veritate (1624), the Occasional Verses (1665, ed. Churton Collins, 1881), the Life of Henry VIII. (1647), and the Autobiography (first printed_by Horace Walpole in 1764, and edited by Mr. Sidney Lee in 1886).

p. 22. TO THE COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

Dian's. St.

1. 13. Peter, Jove's... Paul Peter's at Rome is said to have been built on the site of a temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and St. Paul's in London on that of a temple and grove of Diana.

1. 67. We've added to the world Virginia, and sent Two new stars lately to the firmament.

133, note); the two May 4, 1609) and This would give

Expeditions were sent to effect the re-colonization of Virginia in 1607 and 1609 (cf. vol. i. p. stars may be Lady Markham (ob. Mrs. Boulstred (ob. Aug. 4, 1609). 1609-10 as the date of the letter.

p. 29. TO THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON. Lady Huntingdon was by birth Elizabeth Stanley, daughter of Ferdinando, fifth Earl of Derby, and wife of Henry Hastings, fifth Earl of Huntingdon. She was married in 1603, and died in 1633. There is an epitaph upon her by Henry Carey, Viscount Falkland. In 1600 her mother married as her second husband the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton (p. 96, note). Lady Derby was a daughter of Sir John Spenser of Althorpe, and a kinswoman of the poet Spenser. She is celebrated as a girl in his Colin Clout's come home again, and in her old age, Milton's Arcades was performed for her amusement. It seems to me probable that Lady Huntingdon is the

subject of the following passage of a letter from Donne to Sir H. Goodyere (Alford, vi. 407). The "other countess" is obviously Lady Bedford. The letter was written during Donne's residence at Peckham in 1605-6.

"For the other part of your letter, spent in the praise of the countess, I am always very apt to believe it of her, and can never believe it so well, and so reasonably, as now, when it is averred by you; but for the expressing it to her, in that sort as you seem to counsel, I have these two reasons to decline it. That that knowledge which she hath of me was in the beginning of a graver course, than of a poet, into which (that I may also keep my dignity) I would not seem to relapse. The Spanish proverb informs me, that he is a fool which cannot make one sonnet, and he is mad which makes two. The other stronger reason, is my integrity to the other countess, of whose worthiness though I swallowed your opinion at first upon your words, yet I have had since an explicit faith, and now a knowledge: and for her delight (since she descends to them) had reserved not only all the verses, which I should make, but all the thoughts of women's worthiness. But because I hope she will not disdain, that I should write well of her picture, I have obeyed you thus so far, as to write: but entreat you by your friendship, that by this occasion of versifying, I be not traduced, nor esteemed light in that tribe, and that house where I have lived. If those reasons which moved you to bid me write be not constant in you still, or if you meant not that I should write verses: or if these verses be too bad, or too good, over or under her understanding, and not fit; I pray receive them, as a companion and supplement of this letter to you."

1. 28. Elixir-like. Cf. vol. i. p. 41, note.

P. 32. To M[R]. I. W.

It is tempting to think this written to Izaak Walton, but could he be spoken of as Donne's master in poetry? His poetical remains, which are but slight, have been printed by R. H. Shepherd in Waltoniana (1878). Singer's conjecture that he was really the author of Thealma and Clearchus (1683), which he professed to

edit from the papers of a deceased friend, has been discredited, since the John Chalkhill of the title-page has been proved to have actually lived. But it is worth noting that Walton is spoken of in very similar terms to those of this poem by S[amuel] P[age], who dedicates to him his Amos and Laura (1619):

To my approved and much respected Iz. Wa. "If they were pleasing, I would call them thine, And disavow my title to the verse;

But being bad, I needs must call them mine,
No ill thing can be clothed in thy verse.'

1. 20. Surquedry, arrogance.

1. 30. zany. An imitator, generally an ineffective or burlesque imitator.

p. 33. To M[R]. T. W.

I cannot identify the T. W. of this poem and the next.

So headed in the 1635 Poems. In those of 1633 and in Addl. MS. 18,647, it forms part of the preceding poem, To M[r]. T. Ŵ. In T. C. Dublin MS. G. 2. 21, f. 102, it is a separate poem, and is headed To Mr. T.W. In Harl. MS. 4955 it is headed An Old Letter.

p. 35. To M[r]. C[hristopher] B[ROOKE]. The allusion to Donne's wife in 1. 3 gives a date for this letter after his marriage at the end of 1600.

P.. 36. To M[R]. S[AMUEL] B[ROOKE].

Samuel Brooke was a son of Robert Brooke of York and a brother of Christopher Brooke. He was imprisoned for officiating at Donne's marriage in 1601. Subsequently he became a D.D., and President of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a disciple of Abp. Laud, and wrote several theological works. Two Latin plays

of his, Adelphe and Sciros, were acted before Prince Charles at Trinity, on March 3, 1613, and exist in MS.; a third, Melanthe, acted before the King on March 10, 1615, was printed. A poem by him On Tears is in Hannah's Courtly Poets (p. 112).

P. 37. To M[R]. B. B.

Dr. Grosart identifies these initials with those of Mr., afterwards Sir, Basil Brooke. He was not a brother of Christopher and Samuel, but a son of John Brooke of Madeley, Shropshire, and grandson of Sir Robert Brook, Chief Justice of England. He was born 1576, educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, knighted in 1604, and sent to the Tower by the House of Commons in 1644. If Dr. Grosart is right, the date of the letter will be before 1604, when Brooke became Sir Basil.

p. 38. To M[R]. R[OWLAND] W[OODWARD].

13. Morpheus

his brother. "Icelus or Phobetor, the giver of the dream-shapes of other animals, as Morpheus was of those of men.

1. 23. these Spanish businesses. Dr. Grosart quotes a letter of Rowland Woodward's to Mr. Secretary Windebank, concerning the proposed marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta of Spain, from Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa (1781). Intrigues for an alliance between England and Spain began after the death of Cecil in 1612, and therefore 1613-1614 may be about the date of this letter.

P. 39. To M[R]. I. L.

There are two short sets of Latin verses signed J. L. in the Farmer-Chetham MS. (ed. Grosart, pp. 163-4). They accompany some others signed Thomas Lawrence.

p. 40. To M[R]. I. P.

In Addl. MS. 18,647, and in T. C. Dublin MS. G. 2. 21, f. 107, the initials are J. L., as in the preceding poem. There are some verses signed I. P. before Sir John Beaumont's Metamorphosis of Tobacco. I am not sure,

however, that I. L. is not right. In any case both these poems were written to some friend or friends in the north of England.

p. 41. TO SIR HENRY WOTTON, AT HIS GOING AMBASSADOR TO VENICE.

This was in 1604. Walton prints these verses, not in the 1651, but in the 1670 edition of his Life of Sir Henry Wotton, with the following introduction-

"And though his dear friend Dr. Donne, then a private gentleman, was not one of the number that did personally accompany him in this voyage, yet the reading of this following letter, sent by him to Sir Henry Wotton the morning before he left England, may testify he wanted not his friend's best wishes to attend him."

P. 43. To M[RS]. M[AGDALEN] H[ERBERT].

This letter may perhaps be addressed to Donne's friend, Lady Herbert, on whom see the notes to vol. i. pp. 117, 156.

p. 48. TO THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON. First printed in 1635. In T. C. Dublin MS. G. 2. 21, f. 508, it is ascribed to Sir Walter Aston.

I. 92. your zanies. Cf. p. 32, note.

P. 53. TO THE COUNTESS Of Bedford.

Begun in France. This letter and the following were doubtless written in 1611-12, when Donne was travelling with Sir Robert Drury through France to Frankfort. Cf. vol. i. pp. 16, 51, 139, with notes.

P. 54. A LETTER TO THE LADY CAREY AND
MISTRESS ESSEX RICH, FROM AMIENS.

Probably written in 1611-12. The two ladies addressed were daughters of Robert, third Lord Rich, by Penelope Devereux, daughter of Walter, Earl of Essex, the Stella