The MSS. generally support the punctuation which I have adopted, which is that of the Grolier Club edition. PAGE =40=. THE FLEA. I have restored this poem to the place it occupied in _1633_. In _1635_ it was placed first of all the _Songs and Sonets_. A strange choice to our mind, but apparently the poem was greatly admired as a masterpiece of wit. It is the first of the pieces translated by Huyghens: De Vloy. Slaet acht op deze Vloy, en leert wat overleggen, Hoe slechten ding het is dat ghy my kont ontzeggen, &c., and was selected for special commendation by some of his correspondents. Coleridge comments upon it in verse: Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas! In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees. Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns; Thrice-honored Fleas! I greet you all as _Dons_. In Phoebus' archives registered are ye, And this your patent of nobility. It will be noticed that there are two versions of Donne's poem. PAGE =41=. THE CURSE. l. 3. _His only, and only his purse._ This, the reading of all the editions except the last, and of the MSS., is obviously right. What is to dispose 'some dull heart to love' is his _only_ purse and _his_ alone, no one's but his purse. Chambers adopts the _1669_ conjecture, 'Him only for his purse,' but in that case there is no subject to 'may dispose', or if 'some dull heart' be subject then 'itself' must be supplied--a harsh construction. 'Dispose' is not used intransitively in this sense. l. 27. _Mynes._ I have adopted the plural from the MSS. It brings it into line with the other objects mentioned. PAGE =43=. THE MESSAGE. l. 11. _But if it be taught by thine._ It seems incredible that Donne should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which' of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that. 'Which' was in the MS. used by the printer. If 'But' is not Donne's own reading or emendation it ought to be, and I am loath to injure a charming poem by pedantic adherence to authority in so small a point. _De minimis non curat lex_; but art cares very much indeed. _JC_ and _P_ read 'Yet since it hath learn'd by thine'. ll. 14 f. _And crosse both Word and oath, &c._ The 'crosse' of all the MSS. is pretty certainly what Donne wrote. An editor would change to 'break' hardly the other way. To 'crosse' is, of course, to 'cancel'. Compare Jonson's _Poetaster_, Act II, Scene i: Faith, sir, your mercer's Book Will tell you with more patience, then I can (For I am crost, and so's not that I thinke.) and Examine well thy beauty with my truth, And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise. Daniel, _Delia_, i. PAGE =44=. A NOCTURNALL, &c.