[Footnote 38: _Poems of John Donne Edited By E. K. Chambers. With An Introduction By George Saintsbury. London and New York. 1896._ Of the editions Mr. Chambers says: 'Nor can it be said that any one edition always gives the best text; even for a single poem, sometimes one, sometimes another is to be preferred, though, as a rule, the edition of _1633_ is the most reliable, and the readings of _1669_ are in many cases a return to it' (vol. i, p. xliv). A considerable portion of Mr. Chambers' edition would seem to have been 'set up' from a copy of the 1639 edition, the earlier and later readings being then either incorporated or recorded. The result is that the _1633_ or _1633-35_ readings have been more than once overlooked. This applies especially to the _Epicedes_ and the _Divine Poems_. As with the Grolier Club edition, so with Mr. Chambers' edition, I have recorded and discussed the chief differences between my text and his. I have worked with his edition constantly beside me. I used it for my collations on account of its convenient numbering of the lines. To Mr. Chambers' commentary also I owe my first introduction to the wide field of the manuscripts. His knowledge of seventeenth-century literature and history, which even in 1896 was extensive, has directed me in taking up most of the questions of canon and authorship which I have investigated. It is easy to record one's points of disagreement with a predecessor; it is more difficult to estimate accurately how much one owes to his labours. Mr. Chambers, too, has 'modernized the spelling and corrected the exceptionally chaotic punctuation of the old editions'. Of the latter changes he has, with one or two exceptions, preserved no record, so that when, as is sometimes the case, he has misunderstood the poet, it is impossible to get back to the original text of which the stops as well as the words are a part.]