There is a good deal of vacillation in the MSS. as to the punctuation of 'Angels yet', some placing the semicolon before, others after 'yet'. The difference is not great, but that which I have adopted, though it has least authority, brings out best what I take to be the meaning of these somewhat difficult lines. 'Pity these Angels, for yet (i.e. until they are melted down and lose their form) they, as good angels, are superior in dignity to Vertues, Powers, and Principalities among the bad angels.' The order of the Angelic beings, which the Middle Ages took from Pseudo-Dionysius, consisted of nine Orders in three Hierarchies. The first and highest Hierarchy included (beginning with the highest Order) Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; the second, Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; the third, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Thus the three Orders mentioned by Donne are all in rank superior to mere Angels; but the lowest Order of Good Angels is superior to the highest Order of Evil Spirits, although before their fall these belonged to the highest Orders. Probably, however, there is a second and satiric reference in Donne's words which explains his choice of Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. In the other sense of the words Angels are coins, money; and the power of money surpasses that of earthly Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. This may explain, further, why Donne singles out 'Vertues, Powers, and Principalities'. One would expect that, to make the antithesis between good and bad angels as complete as possible, he would have named the three highest orders, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. But the three orders which he does mention are the highest Orders which travel, as money does. The angels are divided into _Assistentes_ and _Administrates_. To the former class belong all the Orders of the first Hierarchy, and the Dominions of the second. The Vertues are thus the highest Order of _Administrantes_. Aquinas, _Summa_, cxii. 3, 4. The _Assistentes_ are those who 'only stand and wait'. PAGE =99=, l. 100. _rot thy moist braine_: So Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, I. ii. 18: the Brain Doth highest place of all our Frame retain, And tempers with its moistful coldness so Th'excessive heat of other parts below. This was Aristotle's opinion (_De Part. Anim._ II. 7), refuted by Galen, who, like Plato, made the brain the seat of the soul and the generator of the animal spirits. See II. p. 45. PAGE =100=, ll. 112, 114. _Gold is Restorative ... 'tis cordiall._ 'Most men say as much of gold, and some other minerals, as these have done of precious stones. Erastus still maintaineth the opposite part, Disput. in Paracelsum, cap. 4, fol. 196, he confesseth of gold, that it makes the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a miser's chest: ----at mihi plaudo ----simulac nummos contemplor in arcâ as he said in the poet: it so revives the spirits, and is an excellent receipt against melancholy,