DEATH.
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LONDON_ Printed by _M. F._ for JOHN MARRIOT,and are to be sold at his Shop in S^t _Dunstans_Church-yard in _Fleet-street_. 1635. The _Poems by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death_ were reprintedby M. F. for John Harriot in 1635 (the title-page is here reproduced),but with very considerable alterations. The introductory materialremained unchanged except that to the _Hexastichon Bibliopolae_ wasadded a _Hexastichon ad Bibliopolam. Incerti_. (See p. 3.) To thetitle-page was prefixed a portrait in an oval frame. Outside the frameis engraved, to the left top, ANNO DNI. 1591. ÆTATIS SVÆ. 18.; tothe right top, on a band ending in a coat of arms, ANTES MVERTOQUE MVDADO. Underneath the engraved portrait and background is thefollowing poem: _This was for youth, Strength, Mirth, and wit that TimeMost count their golden Age; but t'was not thine.Thine was thy later yeares, so much refindFrom youths Drosse, Mirth, & wit; as thy pure mindThought (like the Angels) nothing but the PraiseOf thy Creator, in those last, best Dayes.Witnes this Booke, (thy Embleme) which beginsWith Love; but endes, with Sighes, & Teares for sins._IZ: WA: _Will: Marshall sculpsit_.[5] _The Printer to the Understanders_ is still followed immediately bythe dedication, _Infinitati Sacrum_, of _The Progresse of the Soule_,although the poem itself is removed to another part of the volume. Theprinter noticed this mistake, and at the end of the _Elegies upon theAuthor_ adds this note: _Errata_.[6] _Cvrteous Reader, know, that that Epistle intituled, InfinitatiSacrum, 16. of August, 1601. which is printed in thebeginning of the Booke, is misplaced; it should have beeneprinted before the Progresse of the Soule, in Page 301.before which it was written by the Author; if any other in theImpression doe fall out, which I know not of, hold me excusedfor I have endeavoured thy satisfaction._ Thine, I. M. The closing lines of Walton's poem show that it must have been writtenfor this edition, as they refer to what is the chief feature in thenew issue of the poems (pp. 1-388, including some prose letters inLatin and English, pp. 275-300, but not including the _Elegies uponthe Author_ which in this edition and those of 1639, 1649, 1650,and 1654 are added in unnumbered pages). This new feature is theirarrangement in a series of groups:[7]-- Songs and Sonets.Epigrams.Elegies.Epithalamions, _or_, Marriage Songs.Satyres.Letters to Severall Personages.Funerall Elegies, (including _An Anatomie of theWorld_ with _A Funerall Elegie_, _Of the Progresse ofthe Soule_, and _Epicedes and Obsequies upon thedeaths of sundry Personages_.)(Letters in Prose).[8]The Progresse of the Soule.Divine Poems. While the poems were thus rearranged, the canon also underwent somealteration. One poem, viz. Basse's _Epitaph on Shakespeare_ ('RenownedChaucer lie a thought more nigh To rare Beaumont'), which had foundits way into _1633_, was dropped; but quite a number were added,twenty-eight, or twenty-nine if the epitaph _On Himselfe_ be reckoned(as it appears) twice. Professor Norton, in the bibliographical notein the Grolier Club edition (which I occasionally call Grolier forconvenience), has inadvertently given the _Elegie on the L. C._ as oneof the poems first printed in _1635_. This is an error. The poem wasincluded in _1633_ as the sixth in a group of _Elegies_, the rest ofwhich are love poems. The editor of _1635_ merely transferred it toits proper place among the _Funerall Elegies_, just as modern editorshave transferred the _Elegie on his Mistris_ ('By our first strangeand fatall interview') from the funeral to the love _Elegies_. The authenticity of the poems added in _1635_ will be fully discussedlater. The conclusion of the present editor is that of the Englishpoems fifteen are certainly Donne's; three or four are probably orpossibly his; the remaining eleven are pretty certainly _not_ byDonne. There is no reason to think that _1635_ is in any way a moreauthoritative edition than _1633_. It has fewer signs of competentediting of the text, and it begins the process of sweeping in poemsfrom every quarter, which was continued by Waldron, Simeon, andGrosart. The third edition of Donne's poems appeared in 1639. This is identicalin form, contents, and paging with that of 1635. The dedication andintroduction to _The Progresse of the Soule_ are removed to theirright place and the _Errata_ dropped, and there are a considerablenumber of minor alterations of the text. POEMS, _By_ J. D.
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