Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?
Can'st thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay?

Or will you think, my friend, your business done,

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When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;

You've play'd, and lov'd, and eat, and drank your fill:

Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:

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Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,

Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please.

[THESE Satires, as Pope informs us in the Advertisement prefixed to the Satires and Epistles of Horace Imitated (ante, p. 282), were 'versified' by him at the request of Lords Oxford and Shrewsbury, and therefore in the main belong to an earlier period of his career than the Satires among which they were afterwards inserted. He called his labour 'versifying,' says Warburton, because indeed Donne's lines 'have nothing more of numbers than their being composed of a certain quantity of syllables'-a description exaggerated, but not untrue.

John Donne was born in 1578, and died in 1631; but though he wrote most of his poetry before the end of the 16th century, none of it was published till late in the reign of James I. The story of his life may be summed up as that of a popular preacher under pecuniary difficulties, which only towards its close terminated in the assurance of a competency (he died as Dean of St Paul's). Donne has been, in deference to Pope's classification of poets, regarded as the father of the metaphysical, or fantastic school of English poets, which reached its height in the reign of Charles I. His poetry divides itself into two distinctly marked divisions-profane and religious. The former must be in the main regarded as consisting of purely intellectual exercitations; nor should the man be rashly confounded with the writer, or the Ovidian looseness of morals which he affects be supposed to have characterised his life. His Songs are full of the conceits criticised by Dr Johnson; some of his Epigrams are very good; his Elegies are most offensively indecent; and the Progress of the Soul is a disgusting burlesque on the Pythagorean doctrine of

metempsychosis. The Funeral Elegies already show the transition to sacred poetry; and it is on these and the Holy Sonnets that rests Donne's claim to be called a metaphysical poet.

Yet he states that he affected the metaphysics in his Satires and amorous verses as well. The former were first published, with the rest of his works, in 1633. In Dryden's opinion, quoted by Chalmers, the Satires of Donne, even if translated into numbers, would yet be found wanting in dignity of expression. It has however been doubted whether the irregularity of Donne's versification in the Satires was wholly undesigned. His lyrical poetry is fluent and easy; and the Satires of Hall, which preceded those of Donne by several years, show a comparative mastery over the heroic couplet which could surely have been compassed by the later Satirist. Pope has treated Donne's text with absolute freedom. Donne's Third Satire, in Warburton's opinion 'the noblest work not only of this but perhaps of any satiric poet,' was 'versified' by Parnell.]

SATIRE II.

ES; thank my stars! as early as I knew

the hate it too;

Yet here; as ev'n in Hell, there must be still
One Giant-Vice, so excellently ill,

That all beside, one pities, not abhors;

I grant that Poetry's a crying sin;

5

As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

It brought (no doubt) th' Excise and Army1 in:

Catch'd like the Plague, or Love, the Lord knows how,

But that the cure is starving, all allow.

IO

Yet like the Papist's, is the Poet's state",

Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean Bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an Actor live:
The Thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus, as the pipes of some carv'd Organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow:
Th' inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

One sings the Fair; but songs no longer move;
No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the dev'l, and all but gold.

These write to Lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.
Those write because all write, and so have still
Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others' wit:

[i.e. the increased excise duties (which it was apprehended would become a general excise), and an army which must prove a standing one. Cf. Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 119, and Im.

15

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of Hor. Bk. 11. Sat. ii. v. 160. The expressions are substituted for 'dearth and Spaniards' in Donne.]

2 [Cf. Im. of Hor. Bk. 11. Ep. ii. v. 68.]

'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before;
His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
Sense, past thro' him, no longer is the same;
For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those Confessors and Martyrs,
Who live like S-tt-n1, or who die like Chartres,
Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,
Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear2;
Wicked as Pages, who in early years

Act sins which Prisca's Confessor3 scarce hears.
Ev'n those I pardon, for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Of whose strange crimes no Canonist can tell

40

In what Commandment's large contents they dwell.
One, one man only breeds my just offence;

Time, that at last matures a clap to pox,

Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave Impudence:

45

Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
And brings all natural events to pass,
Hath made him an Attorney of an Ass.
No young divine, new-benefic'd, can be

More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
What further could I wish the fop to do,
But turn a wit, and scribble verses too;
Pierce the soft lab'rinth of a Lady's ear
With rhymes of this per cent. and that per year?
Or court a Wife, spread out his wily parts,
Like nets or lime-twigs, for rich Widows' hearts;
Call himself Barrister to ev'ry wench,

And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench?
Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold

More rough than forty Germans when they scold*.
Curs'd be the wretch, so venal and so vain:

Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.
'Tis such a bounty as was never known,

If PETER deigns to help you to your own:
What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies,
And what a solemn face if he denies!

Grave, as when pris'ners shake the head and swear
'Twas only Suretyship that brought 'em there.
His Office keeps your Parchment fates entire,
He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
For you he walks the streets thro' rain or dust,
For not in Chariots Peter puts his trust;
For you he sweats and labours at the laws,
Takes God to witness he affects your cause,

1 Sir Robert Sutton, who was expelled the House of Commons on account of his share in the frauds of the company called the Charitable Corporation. Carruthers.

2 Out-swear the Letanie. Donne. 3 [Accentuated as in Donne.]

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4 [Donne's fine touch of satire against a historic wrong

Than when winds in our ruin'd abbeys roar,' is exchanged by Pope for a cheap sneer against a then unpopular nationality.]

And lies to ev'ry Lord in ev'ry thing,
Like a King's Favourite-or like a King.
These are the talents that adorn them all,
From wicked Waters ev'n to godly * * 1
Not more of Simony beneath black gowns,
Nor more of bastardy in heirs to Crowns 2.
In shillings and in pence at first they deal;
And steal so little, few perceive they steal;
Till, like the Sea, they compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand:
And when rank Widows purchase luscious nights,

Or when a Duke to Jansen punts at White's,
Or City-heir in mortgage melts away;
Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.
Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
Indentures, Cov'nants, Articles they draw,
Large as the fields themselves, and larger far
Than Civil Codes, with all their Glosses, are;
So vast, our new Divines, we must confess,
Are Fathers of the Church for writing less.
But let them write for you, each rogue impairs
The deeds, and dext'rously omits, ses heires:
No Commentator can more slily pass
O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place;

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85

90

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Or, in quotation, shrewd Divines leave out

Those words, that would against them clear the doubt.
So Luther thought the Pater-noster long3,

[05

When doom'd to say his beads and Even-song;

But having cast his cowl, and left those laws,

Adds to Christ's pray'r, the Pow'r and Glory clause.

The lands are bought; but where are to be found

ΓΙΟ

Those ancient woods, that shaded all the ground?
We see no new-built palaces aspire,
No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.

Where are those troops of Poor, that throng'd of yore
The good old landlord's hospitable door?
Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes
Some beasts were kill'd, tho' not whole hecatombs;
That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,
Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals;
And all mankind might that just Mean observe,
In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.
These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow;
But oh! these works are not in fashion now:

[Carruthers suggests the name of Paul Benfield, a financing M.P., for this hiatus.]

2 [Pointless here; but not so in Donne.] 3 About this time of his life Dr Donne had a strong propensity to Popery, which appears from several strokes in these satires. We find amongst his works, a short satirical thing called a Cata

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logue of rare books, one article of which is intitled, M. Lutherus de abbreviatione Orationis Dominicæ, alluding to Luther's omission of the [spurious] concluding Doxology in his two Catechisms; which shews the poet was fond of a joke. Warburton.

4 [i. e. as an Augustine monk.]

Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare,
Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence;
Let no Court Sycophant pervert my sense,
Nor sly informer watch these words to draw
Within the reach of Treason, or the Law.

WELL

SATIRE IV.

ELL, if it be my time to quit the stage,
Adieu to all the follies of the age!

I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my Purgatory here betimes,
And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.
The Poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames,
To this were trifles, toys and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fir'd,.
Nor the vain itch t'admire, or be admir'd;
I hop'd for no commission from his Grace;
I bought no benefice, I begg'd no place;
Had no new verses, nor new suit to show;
Yet went to Court!-the Dev'l would have it so.
But, as the Fool that in reforming days
Would go to Mass in jest (as story says)
Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,
Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God;
So was I punish'd, as if full as proud
As prone to ill, as negligent of good,
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,

As vain, as idle, and as false, as they way!}

Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold! there came
A thing which Adam had been pos'd to name;
Noah had refus'd it lodging in his Ark,
Where all the Race of Reptiles might embark:
A verier monster, that on Afric's shore

The sun e'er got, or slimy Nilus bore,

Or Sloane1 or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain,

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Nay, all that lying Travellers can feign.

The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,

At night, would swear him dropt out of the Moon.

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One whom the mob, when next we find or make
A popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take,
And the wise Justice starting from his chair
Cry: "By your Priesthood tell me what you are?"
Such was the wight; th' apparel on his back
Tho' coarse, was rev'rend, and tho' bare, was black:

1[Cf. Moral Essays, Ep. IV. c. 10.] [John Woodward (1665-1728) the founder of the professorship of Geology in the Univer

sity of Cambridge, to which he bequeathed his collections.]