ABSTRACT
Is Donne sufficiently an immortal to have made [the bibliography] worth while? … Donne is not everybody’s reading. Dryden pronounced him ‘our greatest witt, though not our greatest poet’, and Jacobean ‘wit’—though the word must not be taken in its present narrow sense-had often too much preciosity for modern enjoyment, especially when fantastic conceit is conveyed in a gnarled and unmelodious medium. If one compares Donne with an epigrammatic poet of the nineteenth century, Coventry Patmore, the advantage is wholly with the latter in respect of a tender sweetness and charm of style, as well as elevation and gracefulness of thought, and though the older writer has more flame it is often a murky one, and not seldom a make-believe….
