It was for long the only way to
Westminster
from the
north.
north.
Donne - 2
The second clause also has no obvious relation to the first
which would justify the 'too'. If we close the first sentence at
'doe', we get both better sense and a better balance: 'Act _now_, for
the night cometh. Hard deeds are achieved by the body's pains (i. e.
toil, effort), and hard knowledge is attained by the mind's efforts. '
The order of the words, and the condensed force given to 'reach'
produce a somewhat harsh effect, but not more so than is usual in the
_Satyres_, and less so than the alternative versions of the editors.
The following lines continue the thought quite naturally: 'No
endeavours of the mind will enable us to _comprehend_ mysteries, but
all eyes can _apprehend_ them, dazzle as they may. ' Compare: 'In all
Philosophy there is not so darke a thing as light; As the sunne which
is _fons lucis naturalis_, the beginning of naturall light, is the
most evident thing to be seen, and yet the hardest to be looked upon,
so is naturall light to our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer,
for it is _clearnesse_ it selfe, nothing darker, it is enwrapped in so
many scruples. Nothing nearer, for it is round about us, nothing more
remote, for wee know neither entrance, nor limits of it. Nothing
more _easie_, for a child discerns it, nothing more _hard_ for no man
understands it. It is apprehensible by _sense_, and not comprehensible
by _reason_. If wee winke, wee cannot chuse but see it, if wee stare,
wee know it never the better. ' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 324.
PAGE =158=, ll. 96-7. _a Philip, or a Gregory, &c. _ Grosart and Norton
conjecture that by Philip is meant Melanchthon, and for 'Gregory'
Norton conjectures Gregory VII; Grosart either Gregory the Great or
Gregory of Nazianzus. But surely Philip of Spain is balanced against
Harry of England, one defender of the faith against another, as
Gregory against Luther. What Gregory is meant we cannot say,
but probably Donne had in view Gregory XIII or Gregory XIV,
post-Reformation Popes, rather than either of those mentioned above.
Satire does not deal in Ancient History. The choice is between
Catholic and Protestant Princes and Popes.
PAGE =158=. SATYRE IIII.
This satire, like several of the period, is based on Horace's _Ibam
forte via Sacra_ (_Sat. _ i. 9), but Donne follows a quite independent
line. Horace's theme is at bottom a contrast between his own
friendship with Maecenas and 'the way in which vulgar and pushing
people sought, and sought in vain, to obtain an introduction'. Donne,
like Horace, describes a bore, but makes this the occasion for a
general picture of the hangers-on at Court. A more veiled thread
running through the poem is an attack on the ways and tricks of
informers. The bore's gossip is probably not without a motive:
I . . . felt my selfe then
Becoming Traytor, and mee thought I saw
One of our Giant Statutes ope his jaw
To sucke me in.
The manner in which the stranger accosts him suggests the
'intelligencer': 'Two hungry turns had I scarce fetcht in this wast
gallery when I was encountered by a neat pedantical fellow, in the
forme of a Cittizen, who thrusting himself abruptly into my companie,
like an Intelligencer, began very earnestly to question me. ' Nash,
_Pierce Penniless_.
In the _Satyres_ Donne is always, though he does not state his
position too clearly, one with links attaching him to the persecuted
Catholic minority. He hates informers and pursuivants.
ll. 1-4. These lines resemble the opening of Régnier's imitation of
Horace's satire:
Charles, de mes peches j'ay bien fait penitence;
Or, toy qui te cognois aux cas de conscience,
Juge si j'ay raison de penser estre absous.
I can trace no further resemblance.
l. 4. _A recreation to, and scarse map of this. _ I have ventured here
to restore, from _Q_ and its duplicate among the Dyce MSS. , what I
think must have been the original form of this line. The adjective
'scarse' or 'scarce' used in this way ('a scarce poet', 'a scarce
brook') is characteristic of Donne, and it always puzzled his
copyists, who tried to correct it in one way or another, e. g. 'scarce
a poet', II. 44; 'a scant brooke', IV. 240. It is inconceivable that
they would have introduced it. The preposition 'to' governing 'such
as' regularizes the construction, but would very easily be omitted by
a copyist who wished to smooth the metre or did not at once catch its
reference. Donne's use of 'scarse', like his use of 'Macaron' in this
poem, is probably an Italianism; in Italian 'scarso' means 'wanting,
scanty, poor'--'stretta e scarsa fortuna', 'E si riduce talvolta nell'
Estate con si scarsa acqua', 'Veniva bellissima tanto quanto ogni
comparazione ci saria scarsa', 'Ma l'ingegno e le rime erano scarse'
(Petrarch).
PAGE =159=, l. 21. _seaven Antiquaries studies. _ Donne has more than
one hit at Antiquaries. See the _Epigrams_ and _Satyre V_. The reign
of Elizabeth witnessed a great revival of antiquarian studies and the
first formation of an Antiquarian society: 'There was a time, most
excellent king,' says a later writer addressing King James, 'when
as well under Queen Elizabeth, as under your majesty, certain
choice gentlemen, men of known proof, were knit together, _statis
temporibus_, by the love of these studies, upon contribution among
themselves: which company consisted of an elective president and of
clarissimi, of other antiquaries and a register. ' Oldys, _Life of
Raleigh_, p. 317. He goes on to describe how the society was dissolved
by death. In the list of names he gives there are more than seven,
but it is just possible that Donne refers to some such society in its
early stages.
l. 22. _Africks monsters, Guianaes rarities. _ Africa was famous as the
land of monsters. The second reference is to the marvels described in
Sir Walter Raleigh's _The discoverie of the large, rich and bewtiful
Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden City of
Manoa which the Spaniards call El Dorado, performed in the year 1595_
(pub. 1596). Among the monsters were Amazons, Anthropophagi,
and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.
l. 23. _Stranger then strangers, &c. _ The 'Stranger then strangest'
of some MSS. would form a natural climax to the preceding list of
marvels. But 'strangers' is the authoritative reading, and forms the
transition to the next few lines. The reference is to the unpopularity
in London of the numerous strangers whom wars and religious
persecution had collected in England. Strype (_Annals_, iv) prints a
paper of 1568 in which the Lord Mayor gives to the Privy Council
an account of the strangers in London. In 1593 there were again
complaints of their presence and threats to attack them. 'While these
inquiries were making, to incense the people against them there were
these lines in one of their libels: Doth not the world see that
you, beastly brutes, the Belgians, or rather drunken drones and
faint-hearted Flemings; and you fraudulent father (_sic. Query_
'faitor[s]'), Frenchmen, by your cowardly flight from your own natural
countries, have abandoned the same into the hands of your proud,
cowardly enemies, and have by a feigned hypocrisy and counterfeit show
of religion placed yourself here in a most fertile soil, under a most
gracious and merciful prince; who hath been contented, to the great
prejudice of her own natural subjects, to suffer you to live here in
better case and more freedom then her own people--Be it known to all
Flemings and Frenchmen that it is best for them to depart out of the
realm of England between this and the 9th of July next. If not then to
take that which follows: for that there shall be many a sore stripe.
Apprentices will rise to the number of 2336. And all the apprentices
and journeymen will down with the Flemings and strangers. '
Another libel was in verse, and after quoting it the official document
proceeds: 'The court upon these seditious motives took the most
prudent measures to protect the poor strangers, and to prevent any
riot or insurrection. ' Among other provisions, 'Orders to be given to
appoint a strong watch of merchants and others, and like-handicrafted
masters, to answer for their apprentices' and servants' misdoing. '
Strype's _Annals_, iv. 234-5.
In the same year a bill was promoted in Parliament _against aliens
selling foreign wares among us by retail_, which Raleigh supported:
'Whereas it is pretended that for strangers it is against charity,
against honour, against profit to expel them: in my opinion it is no
matter of charity to relieve them. For first, such as fly hither have
forsaken their own king: and religion is no pretext for them; for we
have no Dutchmen here, but such as come from those princes where the
gospel is preached; yet here they live disliking our church,' &c.
Birch, _Life of Raleigh_, p. 163.
I have thought it worth while to note these more recent references as
Grosart refers to the rising against strangers on May-day, 1517.
l. 29. _by your priesthood, &c. _ In 1581 a proclamation was issued
imposing the penalty of death on any Jesuits or seminary priests who
entered the Queen's dominions, and in 1585 Parliament again decreed
that all Jesuits and seminary priests were to leave the kingdom
within forty days under the capital penalty of treason. The detection,
imprisonment, torture, and execution of disguised priests form a
considerable chapter in Elizabethan history. Donne's companion looks
so strange that he runs the risk of arrest as a seminary priest
from Rome, or Douay. See Strype's _Annals_, passim, and Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.
PAGE =160=, l. 35. _and saith_: 'saith' is the reading of all the
earlier editions, although Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
silently alter it to an exclamatory 'faith'--turning it into a
statement which Donne immediately contradicts. The 'saith' is a
harshly interpolated 'so he says'. One MS. adds 'he', and possibly the
pronoun in some form has been dropped, e. g. 'sayth a speakes'.
ll. 37-8. _Made of the Accents, &c. _ It is perhaps rash to accept
the 'no language' of _A25_, _Q_, and the Dyce MS. But the last
two represent, I think, an early version of the _Satyres_, and 'no
language' (like 'nill be delayed', _Epithal. made at Lincolns Inn_)
is just the sort of reading that would tend to disappear in repeated
transmission. It is too bold for the average copyist or editor. But
its boldness is characteristic of Donne; it gives a much better sense;
and it is echoed by Jonson in his _Discoveries_: 'Spenser in affecting
the ancients writ no language. ' In like manner Donne's companion, in
affecting the accents and best phrases of all languages, spoke none. I
confess that seems to me a more pointed remark than that he spoke one
made up of these.
l. 48. _Jovius or Surius_: Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, among many
other works wrote _Historiarum sui temporis Libri XLV. 1553_. Chambers
quotes from the _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_: 'Ses œuvres sont
pleines des mensonges dont profita sa cupidité. '
Laurentius Surius (1522-78) was a Carthusian monk who wrote
ecclesiastical history. Among his works are a _Commentarius brevis
rerum in orbe gestarum ab anno 1550_ (1568), and a _Vitae Sanctorum,
1570 et seq. _ He was accused of inaccuracy by Protestant writers.
It is worth while noting that _Q_ and _O'F_ read 'Sleydan', i. e.
Sleidanus. John Sleidan (1506-56) was a Protestant historian who,
like Surius, wrote both general and ecclesiastical history, e. g. _De
quatuor Summis Imperiis, Babylonico, Persico, Graeco, et Romano_, 1556
(an English translation appeared in 1635), and _De Statu Religionis et
Reipublicae, Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii_ (1555-9). The latter
is a history of the Reformation written from the Protestant point of
view, to which Surius' work is a reply. Sleidan's history did not
give entire satisfaction to the reformers. It is quite possible
that Donne's first sneer was at the Protestant historian and that he
thought it safer later to substitute the Catholic Surius.
l. 54. _Calepines Dictionarie. _ A well-known polyglot dictionary
edited by Ambrose Calepine (1455-1511) in 1502. It grew later to
a _Dictionarium Octolingue_, and ultimately to a _Dictionarium XI
Linguarum_ (Basel, 1590).
l. 56. _Some other Jesuites. _ The 'other' is found only in _HN_, which
is no very reliable authority. Without it the line wants a whole
foot, not merely a syllable. Donne more than once drops a syllable,
compensating for it by the length and stress which is given to
another. Nothing can make up for the want of a whole foot, though in
dramatic verse an incomplete line may be effective. To me, too, it
seems very like Donne to introduce this condensed and sudden stroke at
Beza and nothing more likely to have been dropped later, either by
way of precaution or because it was not understood. No one of the
reformers was more disliked by Catholics than Beza. The licence of
his early life, his loose Latin verses, the scurrilous wit of his own
controversial method--all exposed him to and provoked attack. The _De
Vita et Moribus Theodori Bezae, Omnium Haereticorum nostri temporis
facile principis, &c. : Authore Jacobo Laingaeo Doctore Sorbonico_
(1585), is a bitter and calumnious attack. There was, too, something
of the Jesuit, both in the character of the arguments used and in the
claim made on behalf of the Church to direct the civil arm, in Beza's
defence of the execution of Servetus. Moreover, the _Vindiciae contra
Tyrannos_ was sometimes attributed to Beza, and the views of the
reformers regarding the rights of kings put forward there, and those
held by the Jesuits, approximate closely. (See _Cambridge Modern
History_, iii. 22, _Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century_, pp.
759-66. ) In his subsequent attacks upon the Jesuits, Donne always
singles out the danger of their doctrines and practice to the
authority of kings. Throughout the _Satyres_ Donne's veiled Catholic
prejudices have to be constantly borne in mind.
PAGE =161=, l. 59. _and so Panurge was. _ See Rabelais, _Pantagruel_
ii. 9. One day that Pantagruel was walking with his friends he met
'un homme beau de stature et elegant en tous lineaments de corps,
mais pitoyablement navré en divers lieux, et tant mal en ordre qu'il
sembloit estre eschappe es chiens'. Pantagruel, convinced from his
appearance that 'il n'est pauvre que par fortune', demands of him his
name and story. He replies; but, to the dismay of Pantagruel and his
friends, his answer is couched first in German, then in Arabic (? ),
then in Italian, in English (or what passes as such), in Basque,
in Lanternoy (an Esperanto of Rabelais's invention), in Dutch, in
Spanish, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Greek, in the language of
Utopia, and finally in Latin. '"Dea, mon amy," dist Pantagruel, "ne
sçavez-vous parler françoys? " "Si faict tresbien, Seigneur," respondit
le compaignon; "Dieu mercy! c'est ma langue naturelle et maternelle,
car je suis né et ay esté nourry jeune au jardin de France: c'est
Touraine. "--"Doncques," dist Pantagruel, "racomtez nous quel est votre
nom et dont vous venez. ". . . "Seigneur," dist le compagnon, "mon vray
et propre nom de baptesmes est Panurge. "' Panurge was not much behind
Calepine's Dictionary, and if Donne's companion spoke in the
'accent and best phrase' of all these tongues he certainly spoke 'no
language'.
l. 69. _doth not last_: 'last' has the support of several good
MSS. , 'taste' (i. e. savour, go down, be acceptable) of some. It is
impossible to decide on intrinsic grounds between them.
l. 70. _Aretines pictures. _ The lascivious pictures of Giulio Romano,
for which Aretino wrote sonnets.
l. 75. _the man that keepes the Abbey tombes. _ See Davies' epigram,
_On Dacus_, quoted in the general note on the _Satyres_.
l. 80. _Kingstreet. _ From Charing Cross to the King's Palace at
Westminster.
It was for long the only way to Westminster from the
north. 'The last part of it has now been covered by the new Government
offices in Parliament Street'. Stow's _Survey of London_, ed. Charles
Lethbridge Kingsford (1908), ii. 102 and notes.
ll. 83-7. I divide the dialogue thus:
_Companion. _ Are not your Frenchmen neat?
_Donne. _ Mine? As you see I have but one Frenchman, look he
follows me.
_Companion (ignoring this impertinence). _ Certes they (i. e.
Frenchmen) are neatly cloth'd. I of this mind am, Your only
wearing is your grogaram.
_Donne. _ Not so Sir, I have more.
The joke turns on Donne's pretending to misunderstand the bore's
colloquial, but rather affected, indefinite use of 'your'. Donne
applies it to himself: 'You are mistaken in thinking that I have only
one suit. ' Chambers gives the whole speech, from 'He's base' to 'he
follows me', to the bore. This gives 'Certes . . . grogaram' to Donne,
and the closing repartee to the bore. Chambers uses inverted commas,
and has, probably by an oversight, omitted to begin a new speech at
'Mine'.
For 'your' as used by the bore compare Bottom's use of it in
_A Midsummer Nights Dream_: 'I will discharge it in either your
straw-coloured beard, or your orange-tawny beard', and 'there is not
a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion'. In most of the instances
quoted by Schmidt there is the suggestion that Shakespeare is making
fun of an affectation of the moment. That Donne had a French servant
appears from one of his letters: 'therefore I onely send you this
Letter . . . and my promise to distribute your other Letters, according
to your addresses, as fast as my Monsieur can doe it. ' To Sir G. B. ,
_Letters_, p. 201.
PAGE =162=, l. 97. _ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stowes. _ Every
reader of these old chroniclers knows how they mingle with their
account of the greater events of each year mention of trifling events,
strange births, fires, &c. This characteristic of the Chronicles is
reflected in the History-Plays based on them. Nash complains of these
'lay-chroniclers that write of nothing but of Mayors and Sherifs, and
the deere yere and the great frost'. _Pierce Penniless. _
ll. 98. _he knowes; He knowes. _ I have followed _D_, _H49_, _Lec_
in thus punctuating. To place the semicolon after 'trash' makes 'Of
triviall household trash' depend rather awkwardly on 'lye'. Donne does
not accuse the chroniclers of lying, but of reporting trivialities.
PAGE =163=, l. 113-4. _since The Spaniards came, &c. _: i. e. from 1588
to 1597.
l. 117. _To heare this Makeron talke. _ This is the earliest instance
of this Italian word used in English which the O. E. D. quotes, and is
a proof of Donne's Italian travels. The _Vocabolario degli Accademici
della Crusca_ (1747) quotes as an example of the word with this
meaning, _homo crassâ Minerva_, in Italian:
O maccheron, ben hai la vista corta.
Bellina, _Sonetti_, 29.
Donne's use of the word attracted attention. It is repeated in one of
the _Elegies to the Author_, and led to the absurd substitution, in
the editions after _1633_, of 'maceron' for 'mucheron' (mushroom) in
the epistle prefixed to _The Progress of the Soule_.
l. 124. _Perpetuities. _ 'Perpetuities are so much impugned because
they will be prejudiciall to the Queenes profitt, which is raised
daily from fines and recoveries. ' _Manningham's Diary_, April 22,
1602. Manningham refers probably to real property in which for many
centuries the Judges have ruled there can be no inalienable rights,
i. e. perpetuities. Donne's companion declares that such inalienable
rights are being established in offices. One has but to read Donne's
or Chamberlain's letters (or any contemporaries) to see what a traffic
went on in reversions to offices secular and sacred.
l. 133. _To sucke me in; for_. . . . I have, with some of the MSS. and
with Chambers and the later editions, connected 'for hearing him' with
what follows. But _1633_ and the better MSS. read:
To sucke me in for hearing him. I found. . . .
Possibly this is right, but it seems to me better to connect 'for
hearing him' with what follows. It makes the comparison to the
superstition about communicating infection clearer: 'I found that as
. . . leachers, &c. , . . . so I, hearing him, might grow guilty and he
free. ' 'I should be convicted of treason; he would go free as a spy
who had spoken treason only to draw me out'. See the accounts of
trials of suspected traitors before Walsingham and others. It is on
this passage I base my view that Donne's companion is not merely a
bore, but a spy, or at any rate is ready to turn informer to earn a
crown or two.
PAGE =164=, l. 148. _complementall thankes. _ The word 'complement'
or 'compliment' had a bad sense: 'We have a word now denizened and
brought into familiar use among us, Complement; and for the most part,
in an ill sense; so it is, when the heart of the speaker doth not
answer his tongue; but God forbid but a true heart, and a faire
tongue might very well consist together: As vertue itself receives
an addition, by being in a faire body, so do good intentions of the
heart, by being expressed in faire language. That man aggravates his
condemnation that gives me good words, and meanes ill; but he gives me
a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet, he gives me precious wine,
and in a clear glasse, that intends well, and expresses his good
intentions well too. ' _Sermons_ 80. 18. 176.
l. 164. _th'huffing braggart, puft Nobility. _ I have followed the MSS.
in inserting 'th'' and taking 'braggart' as a noun. It would be
more easy to omit the article than to insert. Moreover 'braggart' is
commoner as a noun. The O. E. D. gives no example of the adjectival use
earlier than 1613. Compare:
The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, i. 2.
PAGE =165=, l. 169. _your waxen garden_ or _yon waxen garden_--it
is impossible to say which Donne wrote. The reference is to the
artificial gardens in wax exhibited apparently by Italian puppet or
'motion' exhibitors. Compare:
I smile to think how fond the Italians are,
To judge their artificial gardens rare,
When London in thy cheekes can shew them heere
Roses and Lillies growing all the yeere.
Drayton, _Heroical Epistles_ (1597), _Edward IV to Jane Shore_.
l. 176. _Baloune. _ A game played with a large wind-ball or football
struck to and fro with the arm or foot.
l. 179. _and I, (God pardon mee. )_ This, the reading of the _1633_
edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping
of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from _1639_ onwards, has
adopted a reading of his own:
and aye--God pardon me--
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them.
But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is not
_his_ fault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon
them! ' would be the appropriate exclamation. What Donne asks God's
pardon for is, that he too should be found in the 'Presence' again,
after what he has already seen of Court life and 'the wretchedness
of suitors': as though Dante, who had seen Hell and escaped, should
wilfully return thither.
l. 189. _Cutchannel_: i. e. Cochineal. The ladies' painted faces
suggest the comparison. In or shortly before 1603 an English ship, the
_Margaret and John_, made a piratical attack on the Venetian ship,
_La Babiana_. An indemnity was paid, and among the stolen articles
are mentioned 54 weights of cochineal, valued at £50-7. Our school
Histories tell us of Turkish and Moorish pirates, not so much of
the piracy which was conducted by English merchant ships, not always
confining themselves to the ships of nations at war with their
country.
PAGE =166=, ll. 205-6. _trye . . . thighe. _ I have, with the support of
_Ash. _ 38, printed thus instead of _tryes . . . thighes_. If we retain
'tryes', then we should also, with several MSS. , read (l. 204)
'survayes'; and if 'thighes' be correct we should expect 'legges'.
The regular construction keeps the infinitive throughout, 'refine',
'lift', 'call', 'survay', 'trye'. If we suppose that Donne shifted the
construction as he got away from the governing verb, the change would
naturally begin with 'survayes'.
ll. 215-6. _A Pursevant would have ravish'd him away. _ The reading
of three independent MSS. , _Q_, _O'F_, and _JC_, of 'Topcliffe' for
'Pursevant' is a very interesting clue to the Catholic point of
view from which Donne's _Satyres_ were written. Richard Topcliffe
(1532-1609) was one of the cruellest of the creatures employed to
ferret out and examine by torture Catholics and Jesuits. It was he who
tortured Southwell the poet. In 1593 he was on the commission against
Jesuits, and in 1594-5 was in prison. John Hammond, the civilist, who
is possibly referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, sat with him on several
inquiries. See _D. N. B. _ and authorities quoted there; also Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.
PAGE =167=, ll. 233-4. _men big enough to throw
Charing Crosse for a barre. _
Of one of Harvey's pamphlets Nash writes: 'Credibly it was once
rumoured about the Court, that the Guard meant to try masteries with
it before the Queene, and, instead of throwing the sledge or the
hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end for a wager. ' _Have with
you, &c. _ (M^{c}Kerrow, iii, p. 36. )
ll. 235-6. _Queenes man, and fine
Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine. _
Compare Cowley's _Loves Riddle_, III. i:
_Apl. _ He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,
And to begin, look on that horned head.
_Aln. _ Whose is't? Jupiters?
which would justify the 'too'. If we close the first sentence at
'doe', we get both better sense and a better balance: 'Act _now_, for
the night cometh. Hard deeds are achieved by the body's pains (i. e.
toil, effort), and hard knowledge is attained by the mind's efforts. '
The order of the words, and the condensed force given to 'reach'
produce a somewhat harsh effect, but not more so than is usual in the
_Satyres_, and less so than the alternative versions of the editors.
The following lines continue the thought quite naturally: 'No
endeavours of the mind will enable us to _comprehend_ mysteries, but
all eyes can _apprehend_ them, dazzle as they may. ' Compare: 'In all
Philosophy there is not so darke a thing as light; As the sunne which
is _fons lucis naturalis_, the beginning of naturall light, is the
most evident thing to be seen, and yet the hardest to be looked upon,
so is naturall light to our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer,
for it is _clearnesse_ it selfe, nothing darker, it is enwrapped in so
many scruples. Nothing nearer, for it is round about us, nothing more
remote, for wee know neither entrance, nor limits of it. Nothing
more _easie_, for a child discerns it, nothing more _hard_ for no man
understands it. It is apprehensible by _sense_, and not comprehensible
by _reason_. If wee winke, wee cannot chuse but see it, if wee stare,
wee know it never the better. ' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 324.
PAGE =158=, ll. 96-7. _a Philip, or a Gregory, &c. _ Grosart and Norton
conjecture that by Philip is meant Melanchthon, and for 'Gregory'
Norton conjectures Gregory VII; Grosart either Gregory the Great or
Gregory of Nazianzus. But surely Philip of Spain is balanced against
Harry of England, one defender of the faith against another, as
Gregory against Luther. What Gregory is meant we cannot say,
but probably Donne had in view Gregory XIII or Gregory XIV,
post-Reformation Popes, rather than either of those mentioned above.
Satire does not deal in Ancient History. The choice is between
Catholic and Protestant Princes and Popes.
PAGE =158=. SATYRE IIII.
This satire, like several of the period, is based on Horace's _Ibam
forte via Sacra_ (_Sat. _ i. 9), but Donne follows a quite independent
line. Horace's theme is at bottom a contrast between his own
friendship with Maecenas and 'the way in which vulgar and pushing
people sought, and sought in vain, to obtain an introduction'. Donne,
like Horace, describes a bore, but makes this the occasion for a
general picture of the hangers-on at Court. A more veiled thread
running through the poem is an attack on the ways and tricks of
informers. The bore's gossip is probably not without a motive:
I . . . felt my selfe then
Becoming Traytor, and mee thought I saw
One of our Giant Statutes ope his jaw
To sucke me in.
The manner in which the stranger accosts him suggests the
'intelligencer': 'Two hungry turns had I scarce fetcht in this wast
gallery when I was encountered by a neat pedantical fellow, in the
forme of a Cittizen, who thrusting himself abruptly into my companie,
like an Intelligencer, began very earnestly to question me. ' Nash,
_Pierce Penniless_.
In the _Satyres_ Donne is always, though he does not state his
position too clearly, one with links attaching him to the persecuted
Catholic minority. He hates informers and pursuivants.
ll. 1-4. These lines resemble the opening of Régnier's imitation of
Horace's satire:
Charles, de mes peches j'ay bien fait penitence;
Or, toy qui te cognois aux cas de conscience,
Juge si j'ay raison de penser estre absous.
I can trace no further resemblance.
l. 4. _A recreation to, and scarse map of this. _ I have ventured here
to restore, from _Q_ and its duplicate among the Dyce MSS. , what I
think must have been the original form of this line. The adjective
'scarse' or 'scarce' used in this way ('a scarce poet', 'a scarce
brook') is characteristic of Donne, and it always puzzled his
copyists, who tried to correct it in one way or another, e. g. 'scarce
a poet', II. 44; 'a scant brooke', IV. 240. It is inconceivable that
they would have introduced it. The preposition 'to' governing 'such
as' regularizes the construction, but would very easily be omitted by
a copyist who wished to smooth the metre or did not at once catch its
reference. Donne's use of 'scarse', like his use of 'Macaron' in this
poem, is probably an Italianism; in Italian 'scarso' means 'wanting,
scanty, poor'--'stretta e scarsa fortuna', 'E si riduce talvolta nell'
Estate con si scarsa acqua', 'Veniva bellissima tanto quanto ogni
comparazione ci saria scarsa', 'Ma l'ingegno e le rime erano scarse'
(Petrarch).
PAGE =159=, l. 21. _seaven Antiquaries studies. _ Donne has more than
one hit at Antiquaries. See the _Epigrams_ and _Satyre V_. The reign
of Elizabeth witnessed a great revival of antiquarian studies and the
first formation of an Antiquarian society: 'There was a time, most
excellent king,' says a later writer addressing King James, 'when
as well under Queen Elizabeth, as under your majesty, certain
choice gentlemen, men of known proof, were knit together, _statis
temporibus_, by the love of these studies, upon contribution among
themselves: which company consisted of an elective president and of
clarissimi, of other antiquaries and a register. ' Oldys, _Life of
Raleigh_, p. 317. He goes on to describe how the society was dissolved
by death. In the list of names he gives there are more than seven,
but it is just possible that Donne refers to some such society in its
early stages.
l. 22. _Africks monsters, Guianaes rarities. _ Africa was famous as the
land of monsters. The second reference is to the marvels described in
Sir Walter Raleigh's _The discoverie of the large, rich and bewtiful
Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden City of
Manoa which the Spaniards call El Dorado, performed in the year 1595_
(pub. 1596). Among the monsters were Amazons, Anthropophagi,
and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.
l. 23. _Stranger then strangers, &c. _ The 'Stranger then strangest'
of some MSS. would form a natural climax to the preceding list of
marvels. But 'strangers' is the authoritative reading, and forms the
transition to the next few lines. The reference is to the unpopularity
in London of the numerous strangers whom wars and religious
persecution had collected in England. Strype (_Annals_, iv) prints a
paper of 1568 in which the Lord Mayor gives to the Privy Council
an account of the strangers in London. In 1593 there were again
complaints of their presence and threats to attack them. 'While these
inquiries were making, to incense the people against them there were
these lines in one of their libels: Doth not the world see that
you, beastly brutes, the Belgians, or rather drunken drones and
faint-hearted Flemings; and you fraudulent father (_sic. Query_
'faitor[s]'), Frenchmen, by your cowardly flight from your own natural
countries, have abandoned the same into the hands of your proud,
cowardly enemies, and have by a feigned hypocrisy and counterfeit show
of religion placed yourself here in a most fertile soil, under a most
gracious and merciful prince; who hath been contented, to the great
prejudice of her own natural subjects, to suffer you to live here in
better case and more freedom then her own people--Be it known to all
Flemings and Frenchmen that it is best for them to depart out of the
realm of England between this and the 9th of July next. If not then to
take that which follows: for that there shall be many a sore stripe.
Apprentices will rise to the number of 2336. And all the apprentices
and journeymen will down with the Flemings and strangers. '
Another libel was in verse, and after quoting it the official document
proceeds: 'The court upon these seditious motives took the most
prudent measures to protect the poor strangers, and to prevent any
riot or insurrection. ' Among other provisions, 'Orders to be given to
appoint a strong watch of merchants and others, and like-handicrafted
masters, to answer for their apprentices' and servants' misdoing. '
Strype's _Annals_, iv. 234-5.
In the same year a bill was promoted in Parliament _against aliens
selling foreign wares among us by retail_, which Raleigh supported:
'Whereas it is pretended that for strangers it is against charity,
against honour, against profit to expel them: in my opinion it is no
matter of charity to relieve them. For first, such as fly hither have
forsaken their own king: and religion is no pretext for them; for we
have no Dutchmen here, but such as come from those princes where the
gospel is preached; yet here they live disliking our church,' &c.
Birch, _Life of Raleigh_, p. 163.
I have thought it worth while to note these more recent references as
Grosart refers to the rising against strangers on May-day, 1517.
l. 29. _by your priesthood, &c. _ In 1581 a proclamation was issued
imposing the penalty of death on any Jesuits or seminary priests who
entered the Queen's dominions, and in 1585 Parliament again decreed
that all Jesuits and seminary priests were to leave the kingdom
within forty days under the capital penalty of treason. The detection,
imprisonment, torture, and execution of disguised priests form a
considerable chapter in Elizabethan history. Donne's companion looks
so strange that he runs the risk of arrest as a seminary priest
from Rome, or Douay. See Strype's _Annals_, passim, and Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.
PAGE =160=, l. 35. _and saith_: 'saith' is the reading of all the
earlier editions, although Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
silently alter it to an exclamatory 'faith'--turning it into a
statement which Donne immediately contradicts. The 'saith' is a
harshly interpolated 'so he says'. One MS. adds 'he', and possibly the
pronoun in some form has been dropped, e. g. 'sayth a speakes'.
ll. 37-8. _Made of the Accents, &c. _ It is perhaps rash to accept
the 'no language' of _A25_, _Q_, and the Dyce MS. But the last
two represent, I think, an early version of the _Satyres_, and 'no
language' (like 'nill be delayed', _Epithal. made at Lincolns Inn_)
is just the sort of reading that would tend to disappear in repeated
transmission. It is too bold for the average copyist or editor. But
its boldness is characteristic of Donne; it gives a much better sense;
and it is echoed by Jonson in his _Discoveries_: 'Spenser in affecting
the ancients writ no language. ' In like manner Donne's companion, in
affecting the accents and best phrases of all languages, spoke none. I
confess that seems to me a more pointed remark than that he spoke one
made up of these.
l. 48. _Jovius or Surius_: Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, among many
other works wrote _Historiarum sui temporis Libri XLV. 1553_. Chambers
quotes from the _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_: 'Ses œuvres sont
pleines des mensonges dont profita sa cupidité. '
Laurentius Surius (1522-78) was a Carthusian monk who wrote
ecclesiastical history. Among his works are a _Commentarius brevis
rerum in orbe gestarum ab anno 1550_ (1568), and a _Vitae Sanctorum,
1570 et seq. _ He was accused of inaccuracy by Protestant writers.
It is worth while noting that _Q_ and _O'F_ read 'Sleydan', i. e.
Sleidanus. John Sleidan (1506-56) was a Protestant historian who,
like Surius, wrote both general and ecclesiastical history, e. g. _De
quatuor Summis Imperiis, Babylonico, Persico, Graeco, et Romano_, 1556
(an English translation appeared in 1635), and _De Statu Religionis et
Reipublicae, Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii_ (1555-9). The latter
is a history of the Reformation written from the Protestant point of
view, to which Surius' work is a reply. Sleidan's history did not
give entire satisfaction to the reformers. It is quite possible
that Donne's first sneer was at the Protestant historian and that he
thought it safer later to substitute the Catholic Surius.
l. 54. _Calepines Dictionarie. _ A well-known polyglot dictionary
edited by Ambrose Calepine (1455-1511) in 1502. It grew later to
a _Dictionarium Octolingue_, and ultimately to a _Dictionarium XI
Linguarum_ (Basel, 1590).
l. 56. _Some other Jesuites. _ The 'other' is found only in _HN_, which
is no very reliable authority. Without it the line wants a whole
foot, not merely a syllable. Donne more than once drops a syllable,
compensating for it by the length and stress which is given to
another. Nothing can make up for the want of a whole foot, though in
dramatic verse an incomplete line may be effective. To me, too, it
seems very like Donne to introduce this condensed and sudden stroke at
Beza and nothing more likely to have been dropped later, either by
way of precaution or because it was not understood. No one of the
reformers was more disliked by Catholics than Beza. The licence of
his early life, his loose Latin verses, the scurrilous wit of his own
controversial method--all exposed him to and provoked attack. The _De
Vita et Moribus Theodori Bezae, Omnium Haereticorum nostri temporis
facile principis, &c. : Authore Jacobo Laingaeo Doctore Sorbonico_
(1585), is a bitter and calumnious attack. There was, too, something
of the Jesuit, both in the character of the arguments used and in the
claim made on behalf of the Church to direct the civil arm, in Beza's
defence of the execution of Servetus. Moreover, the _Vindiciae contra
Tyrannos_ was sometimes attributed to Beza, and the views of the
reformers regarding the rights of kings put forward there, and those
held by the Jesuits, approximate closely. (See _Cambridge Modern
History_, iii. 22, _Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century_, pp.
759-66. ) In his subsequent attacks upon the Jesuits, Donne always
singles out the danger of their doctrines and practice to the
authority of kings. Throughout the _Satyres_ Donne's veiled Catholic
prejudices have to be constantly borne in mind.
PAGE =161=, l. 59. _and so Panurge was. _ See Rabelais, _Pantagruel_
ii. 9. One day that Pantagruel was walking with his friends he met
'un homme beau de stature et elegant en tous lineaments de corps,
mais pitoyablement navré en divers lieux, et tant mal en ordre qu'il
sembloit estre eschappe es chiens'. Pantagruel, convinced from his
appearance that 'il n'est pauvre que par fortune', demands of him his
name and story. He replies; but, to the dismay of Pantagruel and his
friends, his answer is couched first in German, then in Arabic (? ),
then in Italian, in English (or what passes as such), in Basque,
in Lanternoy (an Esperanto of Rabelais's invention), in Dutch, in
Spanish, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Greek, in the language of
Utopia, and finally in Latin. '"Dea, mon amy," dist Pantagruel, "ne
sçavez-vous parler françoys? " "Si faict tresbien, Seigneur," respondit
le compaignon; "Dieu mercy! c'est ma langue naturelle et maternelle,
car je suis né et ay esté nourry jeune au jardin de France: c'est
Touraine. "--"Doncques," dist Pantagruel, "racomtez nous quel est votre
nom et dont vous venez. ". . . "Seigneur," dist le compagnon, "mon vray
et propre nom de baptesmes est Panurge. "' Panurge was not much behind
Calepine's Dictionary, and if Donne's companion spoke in the
'accent and best phrase' of all these tongues he certainly spoke 'no
language'.
l. 69. _doth not last_: 'last' has the support of several good
MSS. , 'taste' (i. e. savour, go down, be acceptable) of some. It is
impossible to decide on intrinsic grounds between them.
l. 70. _Aretines pictures. _ The lascivious pictures of Giulio Romano,
for which Aretino wrote sonnets.
l. 75. _the man that keepes the Abbey tombes. _ See Davies' epigram,
_On Dacus_, quoted in the general note on the _Satyres_.
l. 80. _Kingstreet. _ From Charing Cross to the King's Palace at
Westminster.
It was for long the only way to Westminster from the
north. 'The last part of it has now been covered by the new Government
offices in Parliament Street'. Stow's _Survey of London_, ed. Charles
Lethbridge Kingsford (1908), ii. 102 and notes.
ll. 83-7. I divide the dialogue thus:
_Companion. _ Are not your Frenchmen neat?
_Donne. _ Mine? As you see I have but one Frenchman, look he
follows me.
_Companion (ignoring this impertinence). _ Certes they (i. e.
Frenchmen) are neatly cloth'd. I of this mind am, Your only
wearing is your grogaram.
_Donne. _ Not so Sir, I have more.
The joke turns on Donne's pretending to misunderstand the bore's
colloquial, but rather affected, indefinite use of 'your'. Donne
applies it to himself: 'You are mistaken in thinking that I have only
one suit. ' Chambers gives the whole speech, from 'He's base' to 'he
follows me', to the bore. This gives 'Certes . . . grogaram' to Donne,
and the closing repartee to the bore. Chambers uses inverted commas,
and has, probably by an oversight, omitted to begin a new speech at
'Mine'.
For 'your' as used by the bore compare Bottom's use of it in
_A Midsummer Nights Dream_: 'I will discharge it in either your
straw-coloured beard, or your orange-tawny beard', and 'there is not
a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion'. In most of the instances
quoted by Schmidt there is the suggestion that Shakespeare is making
fun of an affectation of the moment. That Donne had a French servant
appears from one of his letters: 'therefore I onely send you this
Letter . . . and my promise to distribute your other Letters, according
to your addresses, as fast as my Monsieur can doe it. ' To Sir G. B. ,
_Letters_, p. 201.
PAGE =162=, l. 97. _ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stowes. _ Every
reader of these old chroniclers knows how they mingle with their
account of the greater events of each year mention of trifling events,
strange births, fires, &c. This characteristic of the Chronicles is
reflected in the History-Plays based on them. Nash complains of these
'lay-chroniclers that write of nothing but of Mayors and Sherifs, and
the deere yere and the great frost'. _Pierce Penniless. _
ll. 98. _he knowes; He knowes. _ I have followed _D_, _H49_, _Lec_
in thus punctuating. To place the semicolon after 'trash' makes 'Of
triviall household trash' depend rather awkwardly on 'lye'. Donne does
not accuse the chroniclers of lying, but of reporting trivialities.
PAGE =163=, l. 113-4. _since The Spaniards came, &c. _: i. e. from 1588
to 1597.
l. 117. _To heare this Makeron talke. _ This is the earliest instance
of this Italian word used in English which the O. E. D. quotes, and is
a proof of Donne's Italian travels. The _Vocabolario degli Accademici
della Crusca_ (1747) quotes as an example of the word with this
meaning, _homo crassâ Minerva_, in Italian:
O maccheron, ben hai la vista corta.
Bellina, _Sonetti_, 29.
Donne's use of the word attracted attention. It is repeated in one of
the _Elegies to the Author_, and led to the absurd substitution, in
the editions after _1633_, of 'maceron' for 'mucheron' (mushroom) in
the epistle prefixed to _The Progress of the Soule_.
l. 124. _Perpetuities. _ 'Perpetuities are so much impugned because
they will be prejudiciall to the Queenes profitt, which is raised
daily from fines and recoveries. ' _Manningham's Diary_, April 22,
1602. Manningham refers probably to real property in which for many
centuries the Judges have ruled there can be no inalienable rights,
i. e. perpetuities. Donne's companion declares that such inalienable
rights are being established in offices. One has but to read Donne's
or Chamberlain's letters (or any contemporaries) to see what a traffic
went on in reversions to offices secular and sacred.
l. 133. _To sucke me in; for_. . . . I have, with some of the MSS. and
with Chambers and the later editions, connected 'for hearing him' with
what follows. But _1633_ and the better MSS. read:
To sucke me in for hearing him. I found. . . .
Possibly this is right, but it seems to me better to connect 'for
hearing him' with what follows. It makes the comparison to the
superstition about communicating infection clearer: 'I found that as
. . . leachers, &c. , . . . so I, hearing him, might grow guilty and he
free. ' 'I should be convicted of treason; he would go free as a spy
who had spoken treason only to draw me out'. See the accounts of
trials of suspected traitors before Walsingham and others. It is on
this passage I base my view that Donne's companion is not merely a
bore, but a spy, or at any rate is ready to turn informer to earn a
crown or two.
PAGE =164=, l. 148. _complementall thankes. _ The word 'complement'
or 'compliment' had a bad sense: 'We have a word now denizened and
brought into familiar use among us, Complement; and for the most part,
in an ill sense; so it is, when the heart of the speaker doth not
answer his tongue; but God forbid but a true heart, and a faire
tongue might very well consist together: As vertue itself receives
an addition, by being in a faire body, so do good intentions of the
heart, by being expressed in faire language. That man aggravates his
condemnation that gives me good words, and meanes ill; but he gives me
a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet, he gives me precious wine,
and in a clear glasse, that intends well, and expresses his good
intentions well too. ' _Sermons_ 80. 18. 176.
l. 164. _th'huffing braggart, puft Nobility. _ I have followed the MSS.
in inserting 'th'' and taking 'braggart' as a noun. It would be
more easy to omit the article than to insert. Moreover 'braggart' is
commoner as a noun. The O. E. D. gives no example of the adjectival use
earlier than 1613. Compare:
The huft, puft, curld, purld, wanton Pride.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, i. 2.
PAGE =165=, l. 169. _your waxen garden_ or _yon waxen garden_--it
is impossible to say which Donne wrote. The reference is to the
artificial gardens in wax exhibited apparently by Italian puppet or
'motion' exhibitors. Compare:
I smile to think how fond the Italians are,
To judge their artificial gardens rare,
When London in thy cheekes can shew them heere
Roses and Lillies growing all the yeere.
Drayton, _Heroical Epistles_ (1597), _Edward IV to Jane Shore_.
l. 176. _Baloune. _ A game played with a large wind-ball or football
struck to and fro with the arm or foot.
l. 179. _and I, (God pardon mee. )_ This, the reading of the _1633_
edition, is obviously right. Mr. Chambers, misled by the dropping
of the full stop after 'me' in the editions from _1639_ onwards, has
adopted a reading of his own:
and aye--God pardon me--
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them.
But what, in this case, does Donne ask God's pardon for? It is not
_his_ fault that their apparels are fresh or costly. 'God pardon
them! ' would be the appropriate exclamation. What Donne asks God's
pardon for is, that he too should be found in the 'Presence' again,
after what he has already seen of Court life and 'the wretchedness
of suitors': as though Dante, who had seen Hell and escaped, should
wilfully return thither.
l. 189. _Cutchannel_: i. e. Cochineal. The ladies' painted faces
suggest the comparison. In or shortly before 1603 an English ship, the
_Margaret and John_, made a piratical attack on the Venetian ship,
_La Babiana_. An indemnity was paid, and among the stolen articles
are mentioned 54 weights of cochineal, valued at £50-7. Our school
Histories tell us of Turkish and Moorish pirates, not so much of
the piracy which was conducted by English merchant ships, not always
confining themselves to the ships of nations at war with their
country.
PAGE =166=, ll. 205-6. _trye . . . thighe. _ I have, with the support of
_Ash. _ 38, printed thus instead of _tryes . . . thighes_. If we retain
'tryes', then we should also, with several MSS. , read (l. 204)
'survayes'; and if 'thighes' be correct we should expect 'legges'.
The regular construction keeps the infinitive throughout, 'refine',
'lift', 'call', 'survay', 'trye'. If we suppose that Donne shifted the
construction as he got away from the governing verb, the change would
naturally begin with 'survayes'.
ll. 215-6. _A Pursevant would have ravish'd him away. _ The reading
of three independent MSS. , _Q_, _O'F_, and _JC_, of 'Topcliffe' for
'Pursevant' is a very interesting clue to the Catholic point of
view from which Donne's _Satyres_ were written. Richard Topcliffe
(1532-1609) was one of the cruellest of the creatures employed to
ferret out and examine by torture Catholics and Jesuits. It was he who
tortured Southwell the poet. In 1593 he was on the commission against
Jesuits, and in 1594-5 was in prison. John Hammond, the civilist, who
is possibly referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, sat with him on several
inquiries. See _D. N. B. _ and authorities quoted there; also Meyer, _Die
Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth_, 1910.
PAGE =167=, ll. 233-4. _men big enough to throw
Charing Crosse for a barre. _
Of one of Harvey's pamphlets Nash writes: 'Credibly it was once
rumoured about the Court, that the Guard meant to try masteries with
it before the Queene, and, instead of throwing the sledge or the
hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end for a wager. ' _Have with
you, &c. _ (M^{c}Kerrow, iii, p. 36. )
ll. 235-6. _Queenes man, and fine
Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine. _
Compare Cowley's _Loves Riddle_, III. i:
_Apl. _ He shew thee first all the coelestial signs,
And to begin, look on that horned head.
_Aln. _ Whose is't? Jupiters?
