PAGE =121=, l. 30. _How blest am I in this discovering thee!_ The 'this' of almost all the MSS. is supported by the change of 'discovering' into 'discovery' of _B_, _O'F_, one way of evading the rather unusual construction, 'this' with a verbal noun followed by an object. The alteration of 'this' to 'thus' in _1669_ is another. But the construction, though bold, is not inexcusable, and Donne wishes to lay the stress not on the manner of the discovery, but on the discovery itself, comparing it (in a very characteristic manner) to the discovery of America. This figure alone is sufficient to establish Donne's authorship, for he is peculiarly fond of these allusions to voyages, using them again and again in his sermons. For the use of 'this' with the gerund compare: 'Sir,--I humbly thank you for this continuing me in your memory, and enlarging me so far, as to the memory of my Sovereign, and (I hope) my Master.' _Letters_, p. 306. l. 32. _Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be._ Chambers reads 'my soul'--I do not know from what source. The metaphor is from signing and sealing. ll. 35-8. _Gems which you women use, &c._ I have adopted several emendations from the MSS. In the edition of 1669 the lines are printed thus: Jems which you women use Are like Atlantas ball: cast in men's views, That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem His earthly soul may court that, not them: I have adopted 'balls' from several MSS. as agreeing with the story and with the plural 'Gems'. I have taken 'are' with 'cast in mens views', regarding 'like Atlantas balls' as parenthetic. Both the metre and the sense of l. 38 are improved by reading 'covet' for 'court', though the latter has considerable support. The two words are easily confused in writing. I have adopted 'theirs' too in preference to 'that' because it is more in Donne's manner as well as strongly supported. 'A man who loves dress and ornaments on a woman loves not her but what belongs to her; what is accessory, not what is essential.' Compare: For he who colour loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes. The antithesis 'theirs not them' is much more pointed than 'that not them'. l. 46. _There is no pennance due to innocence._ I suspect that the original cast of this line was that pointed to by the MSS., Here is no penance, much less innocence: Penance and innocence alike are clothed in white. The version in the text is a softening of the original to make it compatible with the suggestion that the poem could be read as an epithalamium. 'Why', says a note in the margin of the Bridgewater MS., 'may not a man write his own epithalamium if he can do it so modestly?' PAGE =122=. ELEGIE XX. Though not printed till 1802 there can be no doubt that this poem is by Donne. The MS. which Waldron used is the Dyce fellow of _JC_. Compare Ovid, _Amor._ i. 9: 'Militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra Cupido.' PAGE =124=. HEROICALL EPISTLE. _Sapho to Philaenis._