In contrast to these two elegies that beginning 'Death be not proud' is found in only five manuscripts, _B_, _H40_, _O'F_, _P_, _RP31_. Of these _H40_ and _RP31_ are really one, and in them the poem is not ascribed to Donne. In two others, _O'F_ and _P_, the poem is given in a very interesting and suggestive manner, viz. as a continuation of 'Death I recant'. What this suggests is the fairly obvious fact that the second poem is to some extent a reply to the first. 'Death I recant' is answered by 'Death be not proud'. If _O'F_ and _P_ are right in their arrangement, then Donne answers himself. Beginning in one mood, he closes in another; from a mood which is almost rebellious he passes to one of Christian resignation. This was the view I put forward in a note to the Cambridge _History of Literature_ (iv. 216). I had hardly, however, sent off my proofs before I felt that there was more than one objection to this view. There is in the first place nothing to show that 'Death I recant' is not a poem complete in itself; there is no preparation for the recantation. In the second place, 'Death be not proud' is as a poem slighter in texture, vaguer in thought, in feeling more sentimental and pious, than Donne's own _Epicedes_. Whoever wrote it had a warmer feeling for Mris. Boulstred than underlies Donne's rather frigid hyperboles. This suggested to me that the poem was indeed an answer to 'Death I recant', but by another person, another member of Lady Bedford's entourage. In this mood I came on the ascription in _H40_, viz. 'By C. L. of B.' This indicated no one whom I knew; but in _RP31_ it appeared as 'By L. C. of B.,' i.e. Lucy, Countess of Bedford. We know that the Countess did write verses, for Donne refers to them. In a letter which Mr. Gosse dates 1609 (Gosse's _Life_, &c., i. 217; _Letters_, 1651, p. 67) he speaks of some verses written to himself: 'They must needs be an excellent exercise of your wit, which speak so well of so ill.' That the Countess of Bedford could have written 'Death be not proud', we cannot prove in the absence of other examples of her work; that if she could she did, is very likely. She had probably asked Donne for some verses on the death of her friend. He replied with 'Death I recant'. The tone, which if not pagan is certainly not Christian, while it is untouched by any real feeling for the subject of the elegy, displeased her, and she replied in lines at once more ardent and more resigned. At any rate, whether by Lady Bedford or not, the poem is not like Donne's work, and the external evidence is against its being his. _B_ attributes it to 'F. B.', i.e. Francis Beaumont. It is right, on the other hand, to point out that Donne opens one of the _Holy Sonnets_ with the exclamation used here: Death be not proud! I have left the question of authorship an open one. Personally I cannot bring myself to think that it is Donne's.