BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
There is no doubt that, during his lifetime, John Donne enjoyed an extraordinary reputation as a poet. Nevertheless it does not appear that, with the exception of the Anatomy of the World, the Elegy on Prince Henry, and two or three sets of commendatory and other verses, any of his poetry was printed before the posthumous quarto of 1633. I am aware that Dr. Grosart has a mare’s-nest theory of one or perhaps two, earlier ‘‘now-missing privately-printed’’ collections, but this theory is built on the flimsiest of evidence. Dr. Grosart quotes in support of it—
(a) The entry of ‘‘Jhone Done’s Lyriques” among the books read by Drummond of Hawthornden in 1613 (Archaeologia Scotica, vol. iv.).
(b) An epigram of Freeman’s published in 1614, of which he says, ‘‘Freeman in 1614, in his Rubbe and a Great Cast, has an epigram to Donne, in which he celebrates his Storme and Calme, and two ‘short’ satires.” As a matter of fact, the epigram is in Runne and a Great Cast, which is the second part, as Rubbe and a Great Cast is the first, of Freeman’s book, and it does not speak of two short Satires, but of Satires which are too short, a very different thing.
Thy Calm a gale of famous wind hath got;
Thy Satires short, too soon we them o’erlook;
I prithee, Persius, write a bigger book.”
