Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.' _Essais_, ii. 17. Mrs. Herbert's marriage was due to no 'heyday of the blood'. It was the gravity of Danvers' temper which attracted her, and he became the steady friend and adviser of her children. There are, moreover, some items of evidence which go to support Walton's testimony. The poem is found in one MS., _S_, dated 1620, which gives us a downward date; and in 1610 occurs what looks very like an allusion to Donne's poem in Ben Jonson's _Silent Woman_. Clerimont and True-wit are speaking of the Collegiate ladies, and the former asks, Who is the president? _True._ The grave and youthful matron, the Lady Haughty. _Cler._ A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready now-a-days, till she has painted and perfumed ... I have made a song (I pray thee hear it) on the subject Still to be neat, still to be drest... The resemblance may be accidental, yet the frequency with which the poem is dubbed _An Autumnal Face_ or _The Autumnall_ shows that the phrase had struck home. Jonson's comedies seethe with such allusions, and I rather suspect that he is poking fun at his friend's paradoxes, perhaps in a sly way at that 'grave and youthful matron' Lady Danvers. We cannot _prove_ that the poem was written so early, but the evidence on the whole is in favour of Walton's statement. PAGE =79=. ELEGIE I. l. 4. That Donne must have written 'sere-barke' or 'seare-barke' is clear, both from the evidence of the editions and MSS. and from the vacillation of the latter. 'Cere-cloth' is a word which Donne uses more than once in the sermons: 'A good Cere-cloth to bruises,' _Sermons_ 80. 10. 101; 'A Searcloth that souples all bruises,' Ibid. 80. 66. 663. But to substitute 'sere-cloth' for 'sere-barke' would be to miss the force of Donne's vivid description. The 'sere-cloth' with which the sick man is covered is his own eruptive skin. Both Chambers and Norton have noted the resemblance to Hamlet's poisoned father: a most instant tetter barked about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body. ll. 19-20. _Nor, at his board together being sat With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate._