to curious and itching ears; least of all made table-talke, and houshold-discourse.' _Sermons_ 26. 1. 4. The 'Schismaticks of Amsterdam' were the extreme Puritans. See Jonson's _The Alchemist_ for Tribulation Wholesome and 'We of the separation'. PAGE =58=. THE FUNERALL. l. 3. _That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme_; 'And Theagenes presented her with a diamond ring which he used to wear, entreating her, whensoever she did cast her eyes upon it, to conceive that it told her in his behalf, that his heart would prove as hard as that stone in the admittance of any new affection; and that his to her should be as void of end as that circular figure was;' (compare _A Ieat Ring sent_, p. 65) 'and she desired him to wear for her sake a lock of hair which she gave him; the splendour of which can be expressed by no earthly thing, but it seemed as though a stream of the sun's beams had been gathered together and converted into a solid substance. With this precious relique about his arm,' (compare _The Relique_, p. 62) 'whose least hair was sufficient' (compare _Aire and Angels_, p. 22, 'Ev'ry thy hair' and note) 'to bind in bonds of love the greatest heart that ever was informed with life, Theagenes took his journey into Attica.' Kenelm Digby's _Private Memoirs_ (1827), pp. 80-1. When later Theagenes heard that Stelliana (believing Theagenes to be dead) was to wed Mardonius, 'he tore from his arm the bracelet of her hair ... and threw it into the fire that was in his chamber; when that glorious relic burning shewed by the wan and blue colour of the flame that it had sense and took his words unkindly in her behalf.' Theagenes was Sir Kenelm Digby himself, Stelliana being Lady Venetia Stanley, afterwards his wife. Mardonius was probably Edward, Earl of Dorset, the brother of Donne's friend and patron. It is probable that this sequence of poems, _The Funerall_, _The Blossome_, _The Primrose_ and _The Relique_, was addressed to Mrs. Herbert in the earlier days of Donne's intimacy with her in Oxford or London.