husband a deformed man. Donne, however, merely laughs at his deformity, as
he bids the lady laugh at the jealousy that reduces her to tears:

O give him many thanks, he is courteous,
That in suspecting kindly warneth us.
We must not, as we used, flout openly,
In scoffing riddles, his deformity;
Nor at his board together being set,
With words nor touch scarce looks adulterate.

And he proposes that, now that the husband seems to have discovered them,
they shall henceforth carry on their 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