and a great deal of patience are needed to make them tell a consecutive and intelligible tale. Walton's famous study appeared in its original form in 1640, What we read now is a recension of 1659, greatly expanded, corrected, and, in some degree, diverted from its original purpose. It is not sufficiently remembered that the original title of the narrative was: "The Life and Death of Dr. Donne, late Dean of St. Paul's, London." The words "and Death" disappeared from the enlarged edition, but it is well that we should bear them in mind. They indicate Walton's attitude in approaching his theme, the central feature of which was the dignified and even slightly scenic decease of the Dean, in the midst of pious and admiring friends. The keynote of Donne's life, in Walton's mind, was its preparation for his death; and so he hurries over the circumstances of forty years in a very few pages, that he may concentrate our attention on some forty months. In the days of Walton, of course, what we now call conscientious biography was unknown. The object of the author was not solely or mainly to tell in exact sequence the events of a career, but to paint a portrait in which all that was rugged or unseemly should be melted into a dignified gloom. He had to consider the morality of the reader; he dared not neglect the hortatory or the educational attitude. It is said that the late George Richmond, R.A., on being accused of not telling the truth in his delicate portraiture, replied with heat: "I do tell the truth, but I tell it in love." The ideal of the seventeenth-century biography was to tell the truth in love. When Walton's "Lives" began to regain the great position which they are now never likely to lose, it was perceived that they were too rose-coloured and too inexact for scientific uses. In 1796 they were edited by Dr. Thomas Zouch, who returned to the task of annotation several times during his long life (1737-1815). The researches of Zouch, who was a useful and industrious antiquary, cleared away various obstructions in the text of Walton, but it did not dawn upon Zouch, as it has scarcely been evident to any later editor, that the discrepancies in the narrative were so many and so important, as to be beyond the power of an annotator to remove. Meanwhile, in 1805, the Clarendon Press at Oxford issued an unannotated text, in two volumes. Zouch's text was re-issued in 1807, with a few additional notes; this has remained the foundation of all subsequent reprints of the "Lives," and mistakes of his are reproduced in the very latest issue which has left the press. One modern edition, however, is independent of Zouch, or rather substantially extends his labours. It is that which was published without a date (but I believe in July 1852), and without an editor's name (but under the care of Henry Kent Causton), in a cheap and obscure form as the opening volume of a projected "Contemplative Man's Library for the Thinking Few." Thinkers proved to be few indeed, and this modest little volume has become extremely rare. It contains, however, with a great deal that is inexact and fortuitous, genuine and valuable contributions to our knowledge of Donne. Serious attention to the bibliography of the Poems of Donne was first called by Sir John Simeon in the treatise, founded on a rather late MS., which he printed for the Philobiblion Society in 1856. In 1872, the late Dr. A. B. Grosart exemplified the neglect which was still paid to the Dean of St. Paul's, by prefacing his edition of the Poetical Works, in two volumes, with the words, "I do not hide from myself that it needs courage to edit and print the poetry of Dr. John Donne in our day." His own issue, though not the happiest of his adventures, increased our knowledge of the poet, and tended to explode any prejudice existing against him. Twenty years more passed, however, without producing a really masterly text of Donne's poems. Dr. Brinsley Nicholson had long intended to prepare one, when he died in 1891. The responsibility was transferred to Mr. E. K. Chambers, who produced in 1896 an edition of Donne's poetical works in two volumes, which for all practical purposes leaves nothing to be desired. Donne as a poet is not likely ever to be better edited than by Mr. E. K. Chambers, although in later editions he will probably revise some of his conjectures. ギ The prose works remain in a very different condition. It is as painful as it is unbecoming to speak ill of one's predecessors, but I strive in vain to find a palliating word to say for what Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Čanterbury, issued as the "Works of John Donne, D.D.,” in six volumes, in 1839. Alford was very young, was unaccustomed to the work he undertook, and had formed no standard of editorial excellence. I have been told that in later life he bitterly lamented the publication of this edition. If so, we must share his mortification; these pretended Works contain neither the Pseudo-Martyr, nor Biathanatos, nor Ignatius his Conclave, nor the Miscellanies, all of which remain unreprinted to the present day. Alford professed to give the poems, but "pruned, some may be disposed to think, unsparingly." He promised the bonne bouche of "valuable notes by the late Mr. S. T. Coleridge,' which did not appear. But, worse than all this, Alford was so little acquainted with the difficulties of press-reading and collation, that his text absolutely swarms with errors. His notes are few, but they are almost always glaringly inaccurate. In short, this edition of the Works of Donne, which is the only one which has ever been attempted, is (it is distressing to have to say) no better than so much paper wasted. The first man, indeed, who really saw that what was wanted was not a patched-up revision of Donne but a totally new Life, was Dr. Augustus Jessopp. More than fifty years ago, when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, he began to make collections illustrative of the character and writings of Donne. He could find no publisher to undertake such an enterprise, which the production of Alford seemed to render impossible-an excellent example of the way in which a bad book may spoil the market for a good one. In 1855 Dr. Jessopp brought out a reprint of the Essays in Divinity, with copious and learned notes, which were little valued by the reviewers of forty years ago, but which now prove how eminently well Dr. Jessopp was fitted to illuminate the theological characteristics of the great Dean of St. Paul's. After that, until 1897, the general public had no means of knowing how persistent was Dr. Jessopp's interest in everything connected with Donne, except through his excellent article in the "Dictionary of National Biography." Many years have passed since, by a mere accident, I discovered how lively was still the enthusiasm felt for the Dean by our admirable historian of East Anglia. I, also, had been making collections for the biography, and my first impulse was to place them unreservedly in Dr. Jessopp's hands. To this day, echoing the famous tirade of Young to Pope, I find myself saying "O had he press'd his theme, pursu'd the track, He claimed, however, that I should join him in the delightful labour. We soon found, however, a great difficulty in the road of our collaboration. In his own words, Dr. Jessopp "has never been able to feel much enthusiasm. for Donne as a poet," whereas to me, even to his last seraphical hour in his bedchamber at St. Paul's, Donne is quintessentially a poet. This difference of view offered so great a drawback to conjoint study that, although, for some years, we continued to speak of our united work, it made no practical progress. I had, indeed, well-nigh abandoned the idea of completing my share of the undertaking. Suddenly, in 1897, in terms of unexampled generosity, and in a mode which left me helpless to resist, Dr. Jessopp transferred the whole responsibility to my shoulders. My first intimation of his change of mind was received by reading the preface to a charming little life of Donne as a Theologian which he contributed to Mr. Beeching's series of "Leaders of Religion." In this he repeated his indifference to the poetry of Donne, and he declared that it was from me only that any adequate and elaborate biography of Donne was to be looked for. These printed words—in which sympathy and generosity, for once, I fear, may have betrayed my ardent friend to some error of judgment—were accompanied by a private letter, in which he placed all his material at my disposal, and offered me the inestimable advantage of his revision. This was a summons which it would have been churlish to disobey, and I immediately threw myself into a task which has been no holiday effort, and which I conclude at last with a thousand apprehensions. My severest and most learned critic, however, is silenced by his own declaration; however imperfect my work may prove, Dr. Jessopp cannot blame that of which he is the "onlie begetter." The materials on which this life is founded must now be stated. Izaak Walton is, of course, the basis; the two versions or recensions of his narrative have been very closely examined, with a view to appreciating their spirit as well as their letter. It becomes obvious that Walton's personal knowledge of Donne was confined to the very close of his career. For some months (as I conjecture), in 1629 and 1630, he contrived to enjoy the Dean's intimacy, and beyond question to take notes of his conversation. We do not begin to understand what the early part of Walton's "Life of Donne" is until it occurs to us that it is largely Donne's own report of the incidents of his career. Replying to the enthusiastic curiosity of Walton, Donne would recount events the exact sequence of which had escaped his memory, would pass over in silence facts which seemed immaterial, and errors which he regretted, and would place his conduct in a light distinctly edifying to his listener. In short, without being in the least degree conscious that he was doing so, Donne would give a picture of his own life which was neither quite accurate nor perfectly candid. Whatever the great Dean said, Walton joyfully accepted; it would take too long to illustrate here, what the judicious reader will well understand, the necessity of treating Walton's narrative with the utmost sensitiveness, as a thread to be held tightly at some points and at others to be thrown resolutely away, in our progress through the labyrinth of Donne's career. I would venture to deprecate the multiplication of annotated editions of Walton's "Life of Donne." They |
