PREFACE

THE two dull and unimportant works by John Done called Polydoron and The Ancient History of the Septuagint have been persistently attributed to Donne, some colour being lent to this attribution by the fact that the publishers have falsely described Done on the title-page of the second edition of The History of the Septuagint as ‘ the Learned and Reverend Dr John Done, late Dean of St Pauls’. An inquiry concerning Done, which was made in Notes & Queries(ser. 6, VI, 47), elicited from the late Dr Augustus Jessopp the following reply: ‘It is one of the “curiosities of literature” that this latter volume [The History of the Septuagint] should have been attributed to the Dean of St Paul's by every editor of Walton's Lives till the mistake was pointed out by me in 1855. It is a trumpery production, and could never be set down to the great dean by any one at all familiar with his writings. I tried to find out something about the man Done twenty-five years ago, but I cannot lay my hands on my notes; my impression is that he was a needy schoolmaster, who was employed by the booksellers.’ (N. & 2. ser. 6, VI, 95, July 1882.) A long letter from a John Done on alchemy is preserved in the Bodleian (Ashm. MS 1415, f. 19b), and he is probably the same individual (see Simpson, p. 359).

The authorship of the books was discussed in a long letter from Professor S. G. Dunn in The Times Lit. Sup. for 7 July 1921. He was inclined to believe that both are by John Donne the younger, who might even have used some early writings of his father's in compiling Polydoron. These suggestions were further examined, and rejected, by Mrs Simpson in her Study of the Prose Works, pp. 357-60.

159 POLYDORON [STC 7020] 12° 1631

Title: Polydoron: or a mifcellania of Morall, Philofophicall, and Theologicall fentences. [rule] By Iohn Done, [rule and device]

Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, for George Gibbes dwelling in Popeshead Alley at the figne of the Flower de Luce. 1631.

Collation: A-I12K4; 112 leaves.

Contents: Ai blank except for sign.; A2 title; A3a-A4a (both with sign. A4) To the Reader signed I. Done; A4b blank; A5a-K4b (pp. 1-216) text (errata at bottom ofK4b).