l. 18. _Bright parcell gilt, with forty dead mens pay._ Compare: 'Captains some in guilt armour (unbatt'red) some in buffe jerkins, plated o'r with massy silver lace (raz'd out of the ashes of dead pay).' Dekker, _Newes from Hell_, ii. 119 (Grosart). So many 'dead pays' (i.e. men no longer on the muster roll) were among the perquisites allowed to every captain of a company, but the number was constantly exceeded: 'Moreover where' (i.e. whereas) 'there are 15 dead paies allowed ordinarily in every bande, which is paid allwaies and taken by the captaines, althogh theire nombers be greatly dyminished in soche sorte as sometimes there are not fower score or fewer in a company, her Majestys pleasure is that from hence the saide 15 dead paies shall not be allowed unlesse the companies be full and compleate, but after the rate of two dead paies for everie twenty men that shalbe in the saide bande where the companies are dyminished.' Letter to Sir John Norreyes, Knighte. _Acts of the Privy Council_, 1592. PAGE =146=, l. 27. _Oh monstrous, superstitious puritan._ The 'Monster' of the MSS. is of course _not_ due to the substitution of the noun for the adjective, but is simply an older form of the adjective. Compare 'O wonder Vandermast', Greene's _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_. l. 32. _raise thy formall_: 'raise' is probably right, but 'vaile' is a common metaphor. 'A Player? Call him, the lousie slave: what will he saile by, and not once strike or vaile to a Man of Warre.' Captain Tucca in Jonson's _Poetaster_, III. 3. l. 33. _That wilt consort none, &c._ It is unnecessary to alter 'consort none' to 'consort with none', as some MSS. do. The construction is quite regular. 'Wilt thou consort me, bear me company?' Heywood. The 'consorted with these few books' of l. 3 is classed by the O.E.D. under a slightly different sense of the word--not 'attended on by' these books, but 'associated in a common lot with' them. l. 39. _The nakednesse and barenesse, &c._ The reading 'barrennesse' of all the editions and some MSS. is due probably to similarity of pronunciation (rather than of spelling) and a superficial suggestion of appropriateness to the context. A second glance shows that 'bareness' is the correct reading. The MSS. give frequent evidence of having been written to dictation. l. 46. The 'yet', which the later editions and Chambers drop, is quite in Donne's style. It is heavily stressed and 'he was' is slurred, 'h' was.' PAGE =147=, l. 58. _The Infanta of London, Heire to an India._ It is not necessary to suppose a reference to any person in particular. The allusion is in the first place to the wealth of the city, and the greed of patricians and courtiers to profit by that wealth. 'No one can tell who, amid the host of greedy and expectant suitors, will carry off whoever is at present the wealthiest minor (and probably the king's ward) in London, i.e. the City.' Compare the _Epithalamion made at Lincolns Inn_: