Whose mortal taste
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as to be John Calvin. The tradition is interesting as marking how farDonne was in 1601 from his later orthodox Protestantism, for Calvin isnever mentioned but with respect in the _Sermons_. A few monthslater he wrote to Egerton disclaiming warmly all 'love of a corruptreligion'. But, though sceptical in tone, the poem is written from aCatholic standpoint; its theme is the progress of the soul of heresy.And, as the seventh stanza clearly indicates, the great heretic inwhom the line closed was to be not Calvin but Queen Elizabeth: the great soule which here among us nowDoth dwell, and moves that hand, and tongue, and browWhich, as the Moone the sea, moves us. Donne can hardly have thought of publishing such a poem, orcirculating it in the Queen's lifetime. It was an expression of themood which begot the 'black and envious slanders breath'd againstDiana for her divine justice on Actaeon' to which Jonson refers in_Cynthia's Revels_ the same year. That some copies were circulated inmanuscript later is probably due to the reaction which broughtinto favour at James's Court the Earl of Southampton and the formeradherents of Essex generally. The tone, moreover, of the stanza quoted above suggests that it wasno vulgar libel on Elizabeth which Donne contemplated. Elizabeth, thecruel persecutor of his Catholic kinsfolk, now stained with the bloodof her favourite, appeared to him somewhat as she did to Pope Sixtus,a heretic but a great woman. He felt to her as Burke did to the 'wholerace of Guises, Condés and Colignis'--'the hand that like a destroyingangel smote the country communicated to it the force and energy underwhich it suffered.' In a mood of bitter admiration, of sceptical andsardonic wonder, he contemplates the great bad souls who had troubledthe world and served it too, for the idea on which the poem was torest is the disconcerting reflection that we owe many good things toheretics and bad men: Who ere thou beest that read'st this sullen Writ,Which just so much courts thee, as thou dost it,Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with mee,Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest,Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest,By cursed _Cains_ race invented be,And blest _Seth_ vext us with Astronomie.Ther's nothing simply good, nor ill alone,Of every quality comparison,The onely measure is, and judge, opinion. It would have been interesting to read Donne's history of the greatsouls that troubled and yet quickened the world from Cain to Arius andfrom Mahomet to Elizabeth, but unfortunately Donne never got beyondthe introduction, a couple of cantos which describe the progress ofthe soul while it is still passing through the vegetable and animalplanes, the motive of which, so far as it can be disentangled, is todescribe the pre-human education of a woman's soul: keeping some qualityOf every past shape, she knew treachery,Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enowTo be a woman. The fragment has some of the sombre power which De Quincey attributesto it, but on the whole one must confess it is a failure. The 'wit' ofDonne did not apparently include invention, for many of the episodesseem pointless as well as disgusting, and indeed in no poem is theleast attractive side of Donne's mind so clearly revealed, that aspectof his wit which to some readers is more repellent, more fatal tohis claim to be a poet, than too subtle ingenuity or misplacederudition--the vein of sheer ugliness which runs through his work,presenting details that seem merely and wantonly repulsive. The samevein is apparent in the work of Chapman, of Jonson, and even in placesof Spenser, and the imagery of _Hamlet_ and the tragedies owes some ofits dramatic vividness and power to the same quality. The ugly has itsplace in art, and it would not be difficult to find it in every phaseof Renaissance art, marked like the beautiful in that art by thesame evidence of power. Decadence brought with it not ugliness butprettiness. The reflective, philosophic, somewhat melancholy strain of the poemsI have been touching on reappears in the letters addressed to nobleladies. Here, however, it is softened, less sardonic in tone, whileit blends with or gives place to another strain, that of absurd andextravagant but fanciful and subtle compliment. Donne cannot write toa lady without his heart and fancy taking wing in their own passionateand erudite fashion. Scholastic theology is made the instrumentof courtly compliment and pious flirtation. He blends in thesame disturbing fashion as in some of the songs and elegies thatdepreciation of woman in general, which he owes less to classicalpoetry than to his over-acquaintance with the Fathers, with anadoration of her charms in the individual which passes into thetranscendental. He tells the Countess of Huntingdon that activegoodness in a woman is a miracle; but it is clear that she and theCountess of Bedford and Mrs. Herbert and Lady Carey and the Countessof Salisbury are all examples of such miracle--ladies whose beautyitself is virtue, while their virtues are a mystery revealable only tothe initiated. The highest place is held by Lady Bedford and Mrs. Herbert. Nothingcould surpass the strain of intellectual and etherealized complimentin which he addresses the Countess. If lines like the following arenot pure poetry, they haunt some quaint borderland of poetry to whichthe polished felicities of Pope's compliments are a stranger. If notpure fancy, they are not mere ingenuity, being too intellectual andargumentative for the one, too winged and ardent for the other: Should I say I liv'd darker then were true,Your radiation can all clouds subdue;But one, 'tis best light to contemplate you. You, for whose body God made better clay,Or tooke Soules stuffe such as shall late decay,Or such as needs small change at the last day. This, as an Amber drop enwraps a Bee,Covering discovers your quicke Soule; that weMay in your through-shine front your hearts thoughts see. You teach (though wee learne not) a thing unknowneTo our late times, the use of specular stone,Through which all things within without were shown. Of such were Temples; so and such you are;_Beeing_ and _seeming_ is your equall care,And _vertues_ whole _summe_ is but _know_ and _dare_. The long poem dedicated to the same lady's beauty,
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