Letters to Severall Persons of Honour Part 1

Letters to Severall Persons of Honour.

by John Donne.

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 t.i.tle 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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 t.i.tle 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_ n.o.ble 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 carka.s.se. 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 appet.i.te 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