I should be inclined to date from 1597 to about 1607-8. The last is probably the date of the letter _To E. of D._ or _To L. of D._ (so in _W_), beginning: See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime. This I have transferred to the _Divine Poems_, and shall give reasons later for ascribing it to about this year, and for questioning the identification of its recipient with Viscount Doncaster, later Earl of Carlisle. Of the remaining _Letters_ some date themselves pretty definitely. Donne formed the acquaintance of Lady Bedford about 1607-8 when she came to Twickenham, and the two letters to her--'Reason is our Soules left hand' (p. 189) and 'You have refin'd mee' (p. 191)--probably belong to the early years of their friendship. The second suggests that the poet is himself at Mitcham. The long, difficult letter, 'T'have written then' (p. 195), belongs probably to some year following 1609. There is an allusion to Virginia, in which there was a quickening of interest in 1609 (see _Elegie XIV_, Note), and the 'two new starres' sent 'lately to the firmament' may be Lady Markham (died May 4, 1609) and Mris Boulstred (died Aug. 4, 1609). This is Chambers's conjecture; but Norton identifies them with Prince Henry (died Nov. 6, 1612) and the Countess's brother, Lord Harington, who died early in 1614. Public characters like these are more fittingly described as stars, so that the poem probably belongs to 1614, to which year certainly belongs the letter _To the Countesse of Salisbury_ (p. 224). What New Year called forth the letter to Lady Bedford, beginning 'This twilight of two years' (p. 198), we do not know, nor the date of the long letter in triplets, 'Honour is so sublime perfection' (p. 218). But the latter was most probably written from France in 1611-12, like the fragmentary letter which follows, and the letter, similar in verse and in 'metaphysics', _To the Lady Carey and Mrs Essex Riche_ (p. 221). Donne had a little shocked his noble lady friends by the extravagance of his adulation of the dead child Mrs. Elizabeth Drury, in 1611, and these letters are written to make his peace and to show the pitch he is capable of soaring to in praise of their maturer virtues.