As regards punctuation, it was my intention from the outset to preserve the original, altering it only (_a_) when, judged by its own standards, it was to my mind wrong--stops were displaced or dropped, or the editor had misunderstood the poet; (_b_) when even though defensible the punctuation was misleading, tested frequently by the fact that it had misled editors. In doing this I frequently made unnecessary changes because it was only by degrees that I came to understand all the subtleties of older punctuation and to appreciate some of its nuances. A good deal of my work in the final revision has consisted in restoring the original punctuation. In doing this I have been much assisted by the study of Mr. Percy Simpson's work on _Shakespearian Punctuation_. My punctuation will not probably in the end quite satisfy either the Elizabethan purist, or the critic who would have preferred a modernized text. I will state the principles which have guided me.
I do not agree with Mr. Chambers that the punctuation, at any rate of _1633_, is 'exceptionally chaotic'. It is sometimes wrong, and in certain poems, as the _Satyres_, it is careless. But as a rule it is excellent on its own principles. Donne, indeed, was exceptionally fastidious about punctuation and such typographical details as capital letters, italics, brackets, &c. The _LXXX Sermons_ of 1640 are a model of fine rhetorical and rhythmical pointing, pointing which inserted stops to show you where to stop. The sermons were not printed in his lifetime, but we know that he wrote them out for the press, hoping that they might be a source of income to his son.
But Donne did not prepare his poems for the press. Their punctuation is that of the manuscript from which they were taken, revised by the editor or printer. One can often recognize in _D_ the source of a stop in _1633_, or can see what the pointing and use of capitals would have been had Donne himself supervised the printing. The printer's man was sometimes careless; the printer or editor had prejudices of his own in certain things; and Donne is a difficult and subtle poet. All these circumstances led to occasional error.
The printer's prejudice was one which Donne shared, but not, I think, to quite the same extent. Compared, for example, with the _Anniversaries_ (printed in Donne's lifetime) _1633_ shows a fondness for the semicolon,[45] not only within the sentence, but separating sentences, instead of a full stop, when these are closely related in thought to one another. In an argumentative and rhetorical poet like Donne the result is excellent, once one grows accustomed to it, as is the use of commas, where we should use semicolons, within the sentence, dividing co-ordinate clauses from one another. On the other hand this use of semicolons leads to occasional ambiguity when one which separates two sentences comes into close contact with another within the sentence. For example, in _Satyre III_, ll. 69-72, how should an editor, modernizing the punctuation, deal with the semicolons in ll. 70 and 71? Should he print thus?--