V. as an incident of the alliance between England and

the Protestant Union of Germany. The marriage was delayed by the death of Henry, Prince of Wales, in Nov. 1612, but it took place on the following Feb. 14 with great ceremony. A description of the festivities may be found in Nichols' Progresses of James /. After a few years of gaiety Elizabeth fell on troublous days. In 1619 Frederick was chosen King of Bohemia. In the inevitable religious conflict which followed the election of the Emperor Ferdinand, he lost his dominions, and
234 NOTES.
the rest of his life and the queen's were spent in unsuo cessful efforts to recover them. Frederick died in 1632, and in 1661 Elizabeth moved to England, where she died in the following year. Her beauty, her wit, and her misfortunes earned her the title of the " Queen of Hearts," and the generous devotion of the cavaliers and poets of the time. Lord Craven and Sir Henry Wotton were among her special admirers : the former was believed to have been secretly married to her (see note on page xlix) ; the latter wrote in her honour his best verses, those beginning, "Ye meaner beauties of the night."
1. 7. On the sparrow of. T/ie Progress of the Soul, Stanza xx (vol. ii. p. 158).
1. 103. It was a commonElizabethan custom to seren- ade a bride and bridegroom on the morning after a wedding. Cotgrave states that the song sung on such an occasion was called the Hunt's up.
p. 88. Eclogue.
Robert Carr, or Ker, was a Scotchman who came over with James I. ; he was knighted in 1607, created Viscount Rochester in 161 1, and Earl of Somerset in 1613. He fell in love with the Countess of Essex, who obtained a decree of nullity in order to marry him. This marriage was vehemently opposed by Carr's friend. Sir Thomas Overbury, chiefly on political grounds, since the Countess, by birth Frances Howard, was of the Spanish or pro-Catholic party. In revenge she got Overbury thrown into the Tower, and subsequently had him poisoned, probably with Carr's connivance. The crime remained a secret, and the marriage took place on December 26, 1613. Besides Donne's Epithalamion, Campion celebrated the occasion with a masque, and Jonson with a set of verses. He had already written his masque of Hyjnenaei for the bnde's former wedding. Afterwards Carr fell into disfavour with James : the murder was discovered in 1615 ; the murderers were prosecuted by Bacon, condemned, reprieved, committed to the Tower until 1622, and then allowed to hve in retirement. The following is a postscript to a letter to Sir Robert Drury (Alford, vi. 349) : " I cannot tell you so much, as you tell me, of anything from ray
EPITHALAMIONS. 235
Lord of Somerset, since the Epithalamium, for I heard nothing." There is another Sir Robert Carr, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, who was a friend and frequent corre- spondent of Donne's, and must not be confused with the Earl of Somerset. See a letter to him in vol. ii. p. 97, and the note there.
1. 87. sued livery. Land held by feudal tenure lapsed to the lord at the death of a tenant, until it was ascer- tained if the heir was of age ; if so he took possession at once, on payment of a year's profits, known as primer seisin; if not, the estate remained in the lord's hands, as his guardian, until he became so, when he could claim livery, or delivery, of wardship, by suing for a writ of ouster le main and paying half a year's profits.
1. 161. a cypress, a crape veil.
1. 204. Cf. with the opening of this stanza the Song, " Go and catch a falling star," on p. 4.
1. 215. Cf. Sir T. Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, iii. 21, "Why some lamps included in close bodies have burned many hundred years, as that discovered in the sepulchre of TuUia, the sister of Cicero, and that of Olibius many years after, near Padua?" Browne's editor refers to Hutton, Ozanam's Philosophical Eecre- ations, vol. i. p. 496.
p. 98. Epithalamion made at Lincoln's Inn.
Donne became a student at Lincoln's Inn on May 6, 1592, and the Epithalamion was probably written within the next two or three years. It is less likely that it belongs to the period 1616-1622, when Dr. Donne was reader to the same learned society.
236
ELEGIES.
The Elegies numbered in this edition i. to x. and xv. first appeared in 1633 (cf. Bibliographical Note, p. xxxv) ; Elegies xi. to xiv. xvi. and xvii. were added in 1635 ; Elegy xviii. in 1650 ; Elegies xix. and xx. in 1669. Like the Songs and Sonnets, the Elegies deal mainly with love, and represent Donne's earlier and later attitude of mind on the subject. Most of them are probably earlier than 1600, all earher than 1614. I have shown reason in the notes that follow for giving approximate dates to Elegy V. (1596?), Elegy ix. (1598-1600), Elegy xi. (before 1598), Elegy XVI. (1609-1610), Elegy xvii. (1611).
Except where otherwise stated, the headings to the Elegies appear only in 1635-1654, not in 1633, or 1669,
p, 102. Elegy i.