November 7, 1958

Miss Helen Gardner
St. Hilda's College
Oxford, England

Dear Helen,

I was delighted to have word from Hodgson's that you had been in and thoroughly scrutinized the manuscript with the Donne poems. Various scouts have been writing me about it, but none of them seemed to know where it stands as far as importance in the canon. Perhaps that is a defense mechanism in part.

The message from you says that the manuscript is quite similar to the Phillipps manuscript now in the Bodleian. From what I can make out in the Donne literature, this is not considered an important manuscript. But I should welcome any comments you may have to make. Please don't pull your punches.

My position at the moment is simply that I expect to bid on it, as I would on any other manuscript poetry of the seventeenth century. If I get it, and you have any plans for using it, please consider that you would have a green light. I am so involved in trying to get other things done, that it would be another case of leaving Donne undone, which he does not deserve.

If the Bodleian plans to bid on the item, please let me know, in order that I may extend the courtesy of not bidding until their bid has been exhausted, should it reach that level. In the meantime, any acute observations from your first hand knowledge of the manuscript will be most welcome.

Marie-Louise thrives, and we speak often of the good time we had with you in Oxford last spring. We are looking forward to coming again early in 1959, but will be centered chiefly in London. Perhaps we can entice you down there. We hope for a three week holiday in Sicily, in order to maintain intimacy with Mare Nostrum.

The Clarendon Press, having promised proof on Whythorne for August, has not yet produced a single galley. In the meantime, I have been busy with other things, chiefly Spence. But on November seventeenth (the four hundredth anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth I) at the opening of the Yale Library's exhibition of Elizabethan books and manuscripts, I expect to unveil a minor Shakespearean find. It is the song from which Shakespeare quotes four lines in the mouth of Benediction in Act V, Scene 2, of Much Ado. Happily, it is quite a good poem, as well as a very popular one, though paradoxically no copy has hitherto been uncovered.

Marie-Louise joins in warm greetings to you.

s

November 21, 1958

Dear Helen,

Very many thanks for your full and most helpful letter. It told me exac-
ly what I wanted to know.

A cable has just come from Robert Dobell, to whom I gave the commission be-
cause he had written me about the manuscript a fortnight before anyone else
did so, saying that he had bought it for me. Regardless of its lack of
authority, I am glad to have it. Until Keynes sells his copies, if it ever
so transpires, I don't expect to see another one in the sale rooms, even of
this inferior quality. Perhaps you are more optimistic than I, and goodness
knows, things do keep turning up. But I am nevertheless happy that I am not
starting in to make a collection of seventeenth century items at this date.

By now you have seen the *Times* article on *Much Ado*. I am in somewhat of a
quandary about whether to write an article for scholars, giving the exact
text, or to wait until time is available for an edition of all the poems in
the volume. At least, I don't have to settle that matter immediately.

As you can judge from this article, Roger Lonsdale is starting in very well.
He is quite intelligent, and now that he has tasted blood, is throwing him-
self enthusiastically into the hunt. He is also enjoying New Haven and Yale
a great deal. When I told him I had heard from you, he wished me to send
special greetings.

We are now beginning to make plans for our annual sojourn in Europe. I
don't know yet when we shall be coming to Oxford, but shall try to give you
plenty of notice.

To return to the Donne manuscript, you will probably have heard from
Robert Dobell before this, asking whether you would like the manuscript sent
to Bodley, or what your wishes may be. Tell him, and it shall be done.

Marie-Louise thrives, and sends warm greetings. We shall look forward to a
reunion with you early in 1959.

S

UNRECORDED EARLY MANUSCRIPT OF DONNE'S POEMS

Donne (John) An early and extremely interesting Manuscript of Donne's Poems (and a few prose Problemes), in a neat and legible early seventeenth century hand. 336 pp. oblong 8vo, 6 in by 4 in. contemporary vellum with slightly yapped edges and green silk ties. (c.1620) £275

This important manuscript exhibits many interesting variations from the
accepted text of Grierson and is obviously quite unknown. It does not
appear to correspond with any of those listed by Keynes.

We have devoted considerable time to the collation of the manuscript with
Grierson's two volume text, but the large number of variations in the
titles of poems makes it difficult to indicate fully the contents. It
opens with eight satires, and eighteen Elegies and continues with the two
epistles to Ben Jonson (attributed by Grierson to Sir Thomas Roe). It
then continues with a mixed bag of poems in no particular series. We find
nothing that has not, in the seventeenth century at least, been attributed
to Donne.

There is nothing to indicate previous ownership except a note partly in
longhand, the date of which appears to be in shorthand.

As a slight indication of the interest of the manuscript we offer one
example:-

Line 19 of the first Satire in the MS reads "No though a briske
pfum'd neate Courtier" Grierson text and indeed all the MSS, ex-
cept one reads "piert" for 'neate'.

The reading 'neate' which occurs only in Grierson's experience in the Queen's
College, Oxford, MS. seems to us better than 'piert' especially since Donne
has the more probably form 'parte' elsewhere.

The Librarian of Queen's College informs us that his MS seems to agree closely
with Grierson's printed text. The present which has extensive differences
both in titles and the verses themselves conforms neither to the text, nor, as
far as we can determine to any one MS in any way at all.

As Mr. Geoffrey Keynes points out, no MS. in Donne's hand is recorded and of
the nineteen more or less complete collections of poems, fifteen are in public
libraries. The three earliest MSS are all ascribed to c. 1620 by Grierson, a
feasible date for both writing and binding of the present manuscript.

While neither competent nor desirous of usurping the function of the textual
critic, we feel that this interesting MS. is important enough to deserve the
attention of a patient and expert observer of the verse of the period.