In _B_ and _P_ 'cruel' has been inserted to complete the verse when 'o'erpressed' was contracted to 'o'erprest' or changed to 'o'erspread'. In _1635-69_ the somewhat redundant 'rash' has been altered to 'harsh'. With cares harsh, sodaine horinesse o'rspread. The image is more easily apprehended, and this may be Donne's final version, but the original (if my view is correct) was bolder, and more in the style of Shakespeare's That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold, When yellow leaues, or none, or few doe hange Vpon those boughes which shake against the could, Bare ruin'd quiers, where late the sweet birds sang. _Sonnets_, 72. 1-4. l. 16. _Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see._ Here again there has been some recasting of the original by Donne or an editor. Most MSS. read: Should like and love less what hee did love to see. To 'like and love' was an Elizabethan combination: And yet we both make shew we like and love. Farmer, _Chetham MS._ (ed. Grosart), i. 90. Yet every one her likte, and every one her lov'd. Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix. 24. Donne or his editor has made the line smoother. l. 20. _To feed on that, which to disused tasts seems tough._ I have made the line an Alexandrine by printing 'disused', which occurs in _A25_ and _B_, but it is 'disus'd' in the editions and most MSS. The 'weak' of _1650-69_ adjusts the metre, but for that very reason one a little suspects an editor. Donne certainly wrote 'disus'd' or 'disused'. Who changed it to 'weak' is not so certain. The meaning of 'disused' is, of course, 'unaccustomed.' The O.E.D. quotes: 'I can nat shote nowe but with great payne, I am so disused.' Palsgr. (1530). 'Many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret.' Baxter, _Reformed Pastor_ (1656). It seems to me probable that _P_ preserves an early form of these lines: who now is grown tough enough To feed on that which to disused tastes seems rough. The epithet 'tough' is appropriately enough applied to Love's mature as opposed to his childish constitution, while rough has the recognized sense of 'sharp, acid, or harsh to the taste'. The O.E.D. quotes: 'Harshe, rough, stipticke, and hard wine,' Stubbs (1583). 'The roughest berry on the rudest hedge', Shakespeare, _Antony and Cleopatra_, I. iv. 64 (1608). Possibly Donne changed 'tough' to 'strong' in order to avoid the monotonous sound of 'tough enough ... rough', and this ultimately led to the substitution of 'weak' for 'disused'. The present close of the last line I find it difficult to away with. How can a thing seem tough to the taste? Even meat does not _taste_ tough: and it is not of meat that Donne is thinking but of wine. I should be disposed to return to the reading of _P_, or, if we accept 'strong' and 'weak' as improvements, at any rate to alter 'tough' to 'rough '. PAGE =87=. ELEGIE VI.