Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 12, cont. (p.33) |
|
some 800 years, I have met two Letanies in Latin verse, which gave me not the rea- son of my meditations, for in good faith I thought not upon them then, but they give me a defence, if any man; to a Lay man, and a private, impute it as a fault, to take such divine and publique names, to his own little thoughts. The first of these was made by Ratpertus a Monk of Suevia; and the other by S. Notker, of whom I will give you this note by the way, that he is a private Saint, for a few Parishes; they were both but Monks, and the Letanies poor and bar- barous enough; yet Pope Nicolas the 5, va- lued their devotion so much, that he cano- nized both their Poems, and commanded them for publike service in their Churches: mine is for lesser Chappels, which are my friends, and though a copy of it were due to you, now, yet I am so unable to serve my self with writing it for you at this time, (being some 30 staves of 9 lines) that I must intreat you to take a promise that you shall have the first, for a testimony of that duty [CW: which] |
 |