Present-day writers on Donne, I have recently come to realise, have never heard of a belief about him which, twenty or thirty years ago, I thought was being taken for granted. I can't believe I invented it; it was part of the atmosphere in which I grew up as an undergraduate at Cambridge. Nor, so far as I can gather, has it been refuted (though there are two old magazine articles, regularly listed in footnotes, which I have looked up and will discuss); I fancy the detailed evidence for it did not get collected because that seemed unnecessary. I myself, being concerned with verbal analysis, thought I could take this part of Donne's mind as already known; and all the more, of course, when I was imitating it in my own poems, which I did with earnest conviction. The current of fashion or endeavour has now changed its direction, and a patient effort to put the case for the older view seems timely. The text of the poems, I think, gives strong evidence, but perhaps only in a literary way; that is, the poetry becomes better, both more imaginative and more coherent, if the hints implying this opinion are allowed the weight due to a consistent use.