ir intrigue at some distance from where

He, swol'n and pampered with great fare,
Sits down and snorts, cag'd in his basket chair.

It is an extraordinary story, if it is true. It throws a scarcely less
extraordinary light on the nature of Donne's mind, if he invented it. At
the same time, I do not think the events it relates played the important
part which Mr. Gosse assigns to them in Donne's spiritual biography. It is
impossible to read Mr. Gosse's two volumes without getting the impression
that "the deplorable but eventful liaison," as he calls it, was the most
fruitful occurrence in Donne's life as a poet. He discovers traces of it
in one great poem after another--even in the _Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's
Day_, which is commonly supposed to relate to the Countess of Bedford, and
in _The Funeral_, the theme of which Professor Grierson takes to be the
mother of George Herbert. I confess that the oftener I read the poetry of
Donne the more firmly I become convinced that, far from being primarily
the poet of desire gratified and satiated, he is essentially the poet of
frustrated love. He is often described by the historians of literature as
the poet who finally broke down the tradition of Platonic love. I believe
that, so far is this from being the case, he is the supreme example of a
Platonic lover among the English poets. He was usually Platonic under
protest, but at other times exultantly so. Whether he finally overcame the
more consistent Platonism of his mistress by the impassioned logic of _The
Ecstasy_ we have no means of knowing. If he did, it would be difficult to
resist the conclusion that the lady who wished to continue to be his
passionate friend and to ignore the physical side of love was Anne More,
whom he afterwards married. If not, we may look for her where we will,
whether in Magdalen Herbert (already a young widow who had borne ten
children when he first met her) or in the Countess of Bedford or in
another. The name is not important, and one is not concerned to know it,
especially when one remembers Donne's alarming curse on:

Whoever guesses, thinks, or dreams he knows
Who is my mistress.

One sort of readers will go on speculating, hoping to discover real people
in the shadows, as they speculate about Swift's Stella and Vanessa, and
his relations to them. It is enough for us to feel, however, that these
poems railing at or glorying in Platonic love are no mere goldsmith's
co