This is a very interesting piece of evidence as to the manner in which Donne's poems had been preserved by his friends, and the form in which they were being distributed. There is no reference to publication. It is doubtless due to this activity in collecting and transcribing the poems of the now famous preacher that we owe the number of manuscript collections dating from the years before and immediately after 1630. Had Donne undertaken the publication of his own poems, such of these manuscript collections as have been preserved--none of which are autograph, and few or none of which have a now traceable history--would have little importance for a modern editor. The most that they could do would be to show us occasionally what changes a poem had undergone between its earliest and its latest appearance. But Donne's poems were not published in this way, and the manuscripts cannot be ignored. They must have for his editor at least the same interest and importance as the Quartos have for the editor of Shakespeare. Whatever opinion he may hold, on _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ grounds, regarding the superior authority of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, no editor, not 'thirled to' a theory, will deny that a right reading has been preserved for us often by the Quartos and the Quartos only. No wise man will neglect the assistance even of the more imperfect of them. Before therefore discussing the relative value of the different editions, and the use that may be made of the manuscripts, it will be well to give a short description of the manuscripts which the present editor has consulted and used, of their relation to one another, their comparative value, and the relation of _some_ of them to the editions. It is, of course, possible that there are manuscripts of Donne's poems which have not yet come to light; and among them may be some more correctly transcribed than any which has come into the present editor's hands. He has, however, examined between twenty and thirty, and with the feeling recently of moving in a circle--that new manuscripts were in part or whole duplicates of those which had been already examined, and confirmed readings already noted but did not suggest anything fresh. I will divide the manuscripts into four classes, of which the first two, it will be seen at a glance, are likely to be the most important for the textual critic. (1) Manuscript collections of portions of Donne's poems, e.g. the _Satyres_. The 'booke' to which Freeman refers in the epigram quoted above was probably a small collection of this kind, and we have seen that Jonson sent the _Satyres_ to Lady Bedford, and Francis Davison lent them to his brother. Of such collections I have examined the following: