Donne has in this Elegy carried to its farthest extreme, as only a metaphysical or scholastic poet like himself could, the favourite Elizabethan pun on the coin called the Angel. Shakespeare is fond of the same quibble: 'She has all the rule of her husband's purse; she hath a legion of angels' (_Merry Wives_, I. iii. 60). But Donne knows more of the philosophy of angels than Shakespeare and can pursue the analogy into more surprising subtleties. Nor is the pun on angels the only one which he follows up in this poem: crowns, pistolets, and gold are all played with in turn. The poem was a favourite with Ben Jonson: 'his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart' (_Drummond's Conversations_, ed. Laing). The text of the poem, which was first printed in _1635_ (Marriot having been prohibited from including it in the edition of 1633), is based on a MS. closely resembling _Cy_ and _P_, and differing in several readings from the text given in the rest of the MSS., including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_. I have endeavoured rather to give this version correctly, while recording the variants, than either to substitute another or contaminate the two. When _Cy_ and _P_ go over to the side of the other MSS. it is a fair inference that the editions have gone astray. When they diverge, the question is a more open one. PAGE =97=, l. 24. _their naturall Countreys rot_: i.e. 'their native Countreys rot', the 'lues Gallica'. Compare 'the naturall people of that Countrey', Greene, _News from Hell_ (ed. Grosart, p. 57). This is the reading of _Cy_, and the order of the words in the other MSS. points to its being the reading of the MS. from which _1635_ was printed. l. 26. _So pale, so lame, &c._ The chipping and debasement of the French crown is frequently referred to, and Shakespeare is fond of punning on the word. But two extracts from Stow's _Chronicle_ (_continued ... by_ Edmund Howes), 1631, will throw some light on the references to coins in this poem: In the year 1559 took place the last abasement of English money whereby testons and groats were lowered in value and called in, 'and according to the last valuation of them, she gave them fine money of cleane silver for them commonly called Sterling money, and from this time there was no manner of base money coyned or used in England ... but all English monies were made of gold and silver, which is not so in any other nation whatsoever, but have sundry sorts of copper money.' 'The 9. of November, the French crowne that went currant for six shillings foure pence, was proclaimed to be sixe shillings.'