A piece of the continent

[sawyl]

Given my well known soft spot for John Donne, it was with interest that I read Germaine Greer's article in yesterday's Grauniad about the Newbattle portrait. It seems as though the famous picture, used as a front piece on my copy of the classic Penguin anthology, is at serious risk of being sold off. As Donne said under other circumstances:

I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did;
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

Or, as Germaine puts it, "As one of the most remarkable portraits of a young poet ever painted anywhere, it has a universal appeal, and we could still lose it."