This is the first Volume of two.
Volume I contains the Poems and Line Notes, showing textual and punctuaton differences between the various MSS. and Editons and the Index of First Lines.Volume II contains the Introduction and Commentary, Annotational Notes for the Poems of Vol. I, and the Index of First Lines for poems quoted in Vol. II.There are links between the Poems and the Commentary Notes, with various References back and forth.
The rest of the Transcriber's Note is at the end of the book.
EDITED FROM THE OLD EDITIONS AND NUMEROUS MANUSCRIPTS,
WITH INTRODUCTIONS & COMMENTARY
BY
HERBERT J. C. GRIERSON M.A.
CHALMERS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
VOL. I
THE TEXT OF THE POEMS
WITH APPENDIXES
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1912
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
The present edition of Donne's poems grew out of mywork as a teacher. In the spring of 1907, just after I hadpublished a small volume on the literature of the earlyseventeenth century, I was lecturing to a class of Honoursstudents on the 'Metaphysical poets'. They found Donnedifficult alike to understand and to appreciate, and accordinglyI undertook to read with them a selection from hispoems with a view to elucidating difficult passages andillustrating the character of his 'metaphysics', theScholastic and scientific doctrines which underlie hisconceits. The only editions which we had at our disposalwere the modern editions of Donne's poems by Grosartand Chambers, but I did not anticipate that this wouldpresent any obstacle to the task I had undertaken. Aboutthe same time the Master of Peterhouse asked me toundertake the chapter on Donne, as poet and prose-artist,for the Cambridge History of English Literature. The resultwas that though I had long been interested in Donne,and had given, while at work on the poetry of the seventeenthcentury, much thought to his poetry as a centre ofinterest and influence, I began to make a more minutestudy of the text of his poems than I had yet attempted.
The first result of this study was the discovery thatthere were several passages in the poems, as printedin Mr. Chambers' edition, of which I could give nosatisfactory explanation to my class. At the close of thesession I went to Oxford and began in the Bodleiana rapid collation of the text of that edition with theolder copies, especially of 1633. The conclusion to which[page iv]I came was that, excellent in many ways as that edition is,the editor had too often abandoned the reading of 1633for the sometimes more obvious but generally weaker andoften erroneous emendations of the later editions. As herecords the variants this had become clear in some casesalready, but an examination of the older editions brought
