The Will. Before I sigh my last gaspe, let me breath, By making me love her who 'had twentie more, That I should give to none but such as had too much before. My constancie I to the plannets give; My truth to them who at the Court doe live; Mine ingenuitie and opennesse To Jesuits; to buffoones my pensivenes; My money to a Capuchin. Thou, Love, taught'st mee, by appointing mee Of Amsterdam; my best civilitie And courtshipp to an Universitie; My patience lett gamesters share. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making mee Love her, that houlds my love disparitie, Only to give to those that count my guifts indignitie. My reputacion I give to those Which were my friends; mine industry to foes; My sicknes to phisitians, or excess; To Nature all that I in rithme have writt; Her who begot this love in me before, Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore. To him for whom the passing-bell next toles I give my phisik-books; my wrytten roles Of morrall counsells I to Bedlam give; For younger lovers, dost my guift thus disproportion. Then a sun-dyall in a grave. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointinge mee Character of a Bore-from Donne's Towards me did runne A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sunne Stranger than seven Antiquaries studies, Sleevelesse his jerkin was, and it had bin Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seene) Become Tuff-taffaty; and our children shall See it plain rashe awhile, then nought at all. The thing hath travail'd, and saith, speaks all tongues; Me to beare this. Yet I must be content For the best Linguist?' And I seelily Of our two academies, I named. Here He stopt me, and said: 'Nay, your Apostles were To teach by painting drunkards doth not taste meet Kings onely; The way to it is King's-street.' Not so, Sir, I have more.' Under this pitch Scratch'd into smart, and as blunt Iron grownd And askes, what newes? I tell him of new playes: More than ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stowes, He knowes who loves; whom and who by poyson He knows who 'hath sold his land, and now doth beg An early poetic allusion to the Copernican system occurs in Donne : As new phylosophy arrests the sun, This simile was often repeated by later poets : And with his arched neck this poore fish catch't: The second of Donne's five 'Prebend Sermons,' preached at St Paul's in 1625, 'a long poem of victory over death,' is, as Mr Gosse says, 'one of the most magnificent pieces of religious writing in English literature, and closes with a majestic sentence of incomparable pomp and melody': As my soule shall not goe towards Heaven, but goe by Heaven to Heaven, to the Heaven of Heavens, so the true joy of a good soule in this world is the very joy of Heaven; and we goe thither not that being without joy we might have joy infused into us, but that, as Christ sayes, Our joy might be full, perfected, sealed with an everlastingnesse for as he promises That no man shall take our joy from us, so neither shall Death itselfe take it away, nor so much as interrupt it or discontinue it, but as in the face of Death, when he layes hold upon me, and in the face of the Devil when he attempts me, I shall see the face of God (for everything shall be a glasse, to reflect God upon me); so in the agonies of Death, in the anguish of that dissolution, in the sorrowes of that valediction, in the irreversiblenesse of that transmigration, I shall have a joy which shall no more evaporate than my soule shall evaporate, a joy that shall passe up and put on a more glorious garment above, and be joy superinvested in glory. Amen. Donne's poems were posthumously collected and published in a one-volume quarto in 1633; his son issued a fuller edition in 1649. The son published also successive collections of sermons, prose works, and letters. Alford's edition of the poems (1839) is singularly unsatisfactory; Grosart's (in the Fuller Worthies Library') is the fullest. There is an edition by E. K. Chambers (1896), with critical introduction by Professor Saintsbury. Izaak Walton's Life, a remarkable masterpiece of biography, was originally prefixed to some of the sermons published in 1640, and was afterwards enlarged; but Walton had insufficient information on some parts of Donne's life. Dr Jessopp's John Donne, sometime Dean of St Paul's (1897) dwells mainly on the theological side of the man; then the same author's article in the Dictionary of National Biography is note worthy. But when Mr Gosse undertook his Life and Letters he could justly say that it was 'perhaps the most imposing task left to the student of Elizabethan and Jacobean literature.' The work, issued in two volumes in 1899, is a triumph of biographical skill and literary insight. Mr Gosse arranged the letters for the first time, and shed much light on various parts of Donne's career. The bibliographical and critical information brought together by Mr Gosse is unapproached elsewhere in value. Joseph Hall (1574-1656), born at Ashby-dela-Zouch, in Leicestershire, studied at Cambridge, and rose through various church preferments to be Bishop of Exeter (1627) and then of Norwich (1641). In 1617 he went with James to Scotland in the design of establishing Episcopacy, and next year was a deputy to the Synod of Dort. He was accused of Puritanism, was at enmity with Laud, and in 1641, as a prelate claiming his rights in the House of Lords, was imprisoned in the Tower for seven months. His revenues were sequestrated and his property pillaged; and in 1647 he retired to a small farm near Norwich, where he lived till his death. His principal works were theological and devotional-Christian Meditations, The Contemplations on the New Testament and On the Holy Story, and a Paraphrase of Hard Texts. His sermons have a rapid, vehement eloquence well fitted to arouse and impress. He wrote against Papists and Brownists with equal fervour. In 1608 he published a remarkable series of Characters of Vertues and Vices, similar to the famous Characters of Overbury (1614). Hall's Epistles are also numerous. Fuller, who says that 'for his pure, full, plain style' Hall was called the English Seneca, judges him 'not ill at controversies, more happy at comments, very good in his characters, better in his sermons, best of all in his meditations.' He is, however, best remembered in literature for his satires, published under the title of Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes, in 1597-98, before he was in holy orders. In them he followed Latin models, but is rather vigorous, witty, and even scurrilous than polished. Archbishop Whitgift condemned them to be burned as licentious with works by Marlowe and Marston, but the judgment was withdrawn. Pope thought them the best poetry and the truest satire in the English language; while Hallam pronounces them rugged, obscure, and ungrammatical. Hall boldly claims to be the first English satirist : I first adventure, follow me who list He means probably the first regular satirist, following Latin models; and even then Marston was enraged by Hall's claim. Donne and Marston seem to have written about the same time; Lodge's Fig for Momus was some years earlier. Wyatt and Gascoigne, too, might claim to be reckoned, and Nash, whether or no he was Greene's 'Young Juvenal, that biting satirist,' even though Skelton were regarded as too irregular and ribald; and Piers Plowman was, of course, very far removed from classical models. In Scotland, Dunbar and Lyndsay were persistent satirists in vernacular verse, and Buchanan both in Latin verse and Scottish prose. The Chaplain. A gentle squire would gladly entertain Third, that he never change his trencher twice. The Famished Gallant. Seest thou how gaily my young master goes, As if he meant to wear a native cord, If chance his fates should him that bane afford. His linen collar labyrinthian set, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel. . . . A part of old St Paul's Cathedral was called Duke Humphrey's Walk, from a tomb erroneously supposed to be that of the famous Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester; it was the resort of beggars, lank rupts, and dinnerless poor gentlemen, who were playfully said to dine with Duke Humphrey. Upon the Sight of a Tree Full-blossomed. Here is a tree overlaid with blossoms. It is not pos sible that all these should prosper; one of them must needs rob the other of moisture and growth. I do not love to see an infancy over-hopeful; in these pregnant beginnings one faculty starves another, and at last leaves the mind sapless and barren. As, therefore, we are wont to pull off some of the too frequent blossoms, that the rest may thrive; so it is good wisdom to moderate the early excess of the parts, or progress of over-forward childhood. Neither is it otherwise in our Christian profession; a sudden and lavish ostentation of grace may fill the eye with wonder, and the mouth with talk, but will not at the last fill the lap with fruit. I et me not promise too much, nor raise too high expectations of my undertakings; I had rather men should complain of my small hopes than of my short performances. Upon a Redbreast coming into his Chamber. Pretty bird, how cheerfully dost thou sit and sing; and yet knowest not where thou art, nor where thou shalt make thy next meal, and at night must shroud thyself in a bush for lodging! What a shame is it for me, that see before me so liberal provisions of my God, and find myself set warm under my own roof, yet am ready to droop under a distrustful and unthankful dulness! Had I so little certainty of my harbour and purveyance, how heartless should I be, how careful! how little list [inclination] should I have to make music to thee or myself! Surely thou comest not hither without a Providence God sent thee not so much to delight as to shame me, but all in a conviction of my sullen unbelief, who, under more apparent means, am less cheerful and confident. Reason and faith have not done so much in me, as in thee mere instinct of nature; want of foresight makes thee more merry, if not more happy here, than the foresight of better things maketh me. O God! thy providence is not impaired by those powers thou hast given me above these brute things; let not my greater helps hinder me from a holy security, and comfortable reliance on thee. Upon hearing of Music by Night. How sweetly doth this music sound in this dead season! In the daytime it would not, it could not sc much affect the ear. All harmonious sounds are advanced by a silent darkness. Thus it is with the glad tidings of salvation; the gospel never sounds so sweet as in the night of preservation, or of our own private affliction. It is ever the same; the difference is in car disposition to receive it. O God! whose praise it is to 'give songs in the night,' make my prosperity conscionable, and my crosses cheerful. Upon the Sight of an Owl in the Twilight. What a strange melancholic life doth this creature lead; to hide her head all the day long in an ivy bush, and at night, when all other birds are at rest, to fly abroad, and vent her harsh notes. I know not why the ancients have sacred this bird to wisdom, except it be for her safe closeness and singular perspicacity; that when other domestical and airy creatures are blind, she only hath inward light to discern the least objects for her own advantage. Surely thus much wit they have taught us in her: That he is the wisest man that would have least to do with the multitude; That no life is so safe as the obscure; That retiredness, if it have less comfort, yet less danger and vexation; lastly, That he is truly wise who sees by a light of his own, when the rest of the world sit in an ignorant and confused darkness, unable to apprehend any truth save by the helps of an outward illumination. Had this fowl come forth in the daytime, how had all the little birds flocked wondering about her, to see her uncouth visage, to hear her untuned notes! She likes her estate never the worse, but pleaseth herself in her own quiet reservedness. It is not for a wise man to be much affected with the censures of the rude and unskilful vulgar, but to hold fast unto his own well-chosen and well-fixed resolutions. Every fool knows what is wont to be done; but what is best to be done, is known only to the wise. : Upon the Sight of a Great Library. What a world of wit is here packed up together! I know not whether this sight doth more dismay or comfort me it dismays me to think that here is so much that I cannot know; it comforts me to think that this variety yields so good helps to know what I should. There is no truer word than that of Solomon-there is no end of making many books: this sight verifies. There is no end; indeed, it were pity there should: God hath given to man a busy soul, the agitation whereof cannot but through time and experience work out many hidden truths; to suppress these would be no other than injurious to mankind, whose minds, like unto so many candles, should be kindled by each other. The thoughts of our deliberations are most accurate; these we vent into our papers. What a happiness is it that without all offence of necromancy, I may here call up any of the ancient Worthies of Learning, whether human or divine, and confer with them of all my doubts! --that I can at pleasure summon whole synods of reverend fathers and acute doctors from all the coasts of the earth, to give their well-studied judgments in all points of question which I propose! Neither can I cast my eye casually upon any of these silent masters but I must learn somewhat. It is a wantonness to complain of choice. No law binds me to read all; but the more we can take in and digest, the better-liking must the mind needs be blessed be God that hath set up so many clear lamps in his Church; now none but the wilfully blind can plead darkness; and blessed be the memory of those his faithful servants, that have left their blood, their spirits, their lives, in these precious papers, and have willingly wasted themselves into these during monuments, to give light unto others! [Paradise-The Gospel of Labour.] Every earth was not fit for Adam, but a garden; a paradise. What excellent pleasures, and rare varieties, have men found in gardens planted by the hands of men! And yet all the world of men cannot make one twig, or leaf, or spire of grass. When he that made the matter undertakes the fashion, how must it needs be, beyond our capacity, excellent! No herb, no flower, no tree, was wanting there, that might be for ornament or use; whether for sight, or for scent, or for taste. The bounty of God wrought further than to necessity, even to comfort and recreation. Why are we niggardly to ourselves, when God is liberal? But for all this, if God had not there conversed with man, no abundance could have made him blessed. Yet, behold! that which was man's storehouse was also his workhouse; his pleasure was his task paradise served not only to feed his senses, but to exercise his hands. If happiness had consisted in doing nothing, man had not been employed; all his delights could not have made him happy in an idle life. Man, therefore, is no sooner made than he is set to work neither greatness nor perfection can privilege a folded hand; he must labour, because he was happy; how much more we, that we may be! This first labour of his was, as without necessity, so without pains, without weariness; how much more cheerfully we go about our businesses, so much nearer we come to our paradise. The Hypocrite. A hypocrite is the worst kind of player, by so much as he acts the better part: which hath always two faces, ofttimes two hearts: that can compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be wanton and careless within; and, in the mean time, laughs within himself, to think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder: in whose silent face are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures pronounce, but his hands recant: that hath a clean face and garment, with a foul soul: whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers belie his mouth. Walking early up into the city, he turns into the great church, and salutes one of the pillars on one knee; worshipping that God which at home he cares not for: while his eye is fixed on some window, on some passenger; and his heart knows not whither his lips go: he rises and, looking about with admiration, complains of our frozen charity; commends the ancient. At church he will ever sit where he may be seen best; and in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he feared to lose that note; when he writes either his forgotten errand or nothing: then he turns his Bible with a noise, to seek an omitted quotation; and folds the leaf, as if he had found it; and asks aloud the name of the preacher, and repeats it; whom he publicly salutes, thanks, praises, invites, entertains with tedious good counsel, with good discourse, if it had come from an honester mouth. He can command tears, when he speaks of his youth; indeed because it is past, not because it was sinful: himself is now better, but the times are worse. All other sins he reckons up with detestation, while he loves and hides his darling in his bosom. All his speech returns to himself, and every occurrent draws in a story to his own praise. When he should give, he looks about him, and says, 'Who sees me?' No alms, no prayers fall from him, without a witness; belike, lest God should deny, that he hath received them: and, when he hath done, lest the world should not know it, his own mouth is his trumpet to proclaim it. . . . In brief, he is the stranger's saint; the neighbour's disease; the blot of goodness; a rotten stick in a dark night; a poppy in a corn field; an ill tempered candle with a great snuff, that in going out smells ill; an angel abroad, a devil at home; and worse when an angel than when a devil. The Busy-body. His estate is too narrow for his mind; and therefore he is fain to make himself room in others' affairs; yet ever in pretence of love. No news can stir but by his door neither can he know that which he must not tell. What every man ventures in Guiana voyage, and what they gained, he knows to a hair. Whether Holland will have peace, he knows; and on what conditions, and with what success, is familiar to him ere it be concluded. No post can pass him without a question; and rather than he will lose the news, he rides back with him to appose [question] him of tidings: and then to the next man he meets, he supplies the wants of his hasty intelligence, and makes up a perfect tale; wherewith he so haunteth the patient auditor that after many excuses he is fain to endure rather the censure of his manners in running away, than the tediousness of an impertinent discourse. His speech is oft broken off with a succession of long parentheses; which he ever vows to fill up ere the conclusion; and perhaps would effect it, if the others' ear were as unweariable as his tongue. If he see but two men talk and read a letter in the street, he runs to them, and asks if he may not be partner of that secret relation; and if they deny it, he offers to tell, since he may not hear, wonders: and then falls upon the report of the Scottish Mine, or of the great fish taken up at Lynn, or of the freezing of the Thames; and, after many thanks and dismissions, is hardly entreated silence. He undertakes as much as he performs little. This man will thrust himself forward, to be the guide of the way he knows not; and calls at his neighbour's window, and asks why his servants are not at work. The market hath no commodity which he prizeth not, and which the next table shall not hear recited. His tongue, like the tail of Sampson's foxes, carries firebrands; and is enough to set the whole field of the world on a flame. Himself begins table-talk of his neighbour at another's board; to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter: whose choleric answer he returns to his first host, enlarge with a second edition: so, as it uses to be done in the fight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can no Act pass without his Comment; which is ever far-fetched, rash, suspicious, delatory. His ears are long, and his eyes quick; but most of all to imperfections; which as he easily sees, so he increases with intermeddling. . . He labours without thanks; talks without credit; lives without love; dies without tears, without pity; save that some say, 'It was pity he died no sooner.' ... Hall's works, including also a Latin satirical romance of an unknown country in Terra Australis, called Mundus Alter et Idem, were edited by the Rev. Josiah Pratt (ro vols. 1808), Peter Hall (12 vols. 1837-39), and the Rev. Philip Wynter (10 vols., Oxford, 1863). The satires have been republished by Warton, Grosart (1879), and others. There is a Life by the Rev. George Lewis (1886). John Day, dramatist, has since 1897 been identified with John Dey, who, according to college records, was the son of a yeoman at Cawston in Norfolk, born 1574, and entered Caius College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1592. Of his work practically nothing was known till 1881, save that with Chettle he produced the extant play, The Blind Beggar of Bednal Green, which owes but little to the well-known ballad in Percy's Reliques. He had a share in over a score of plays, often in collaboration with Chettle, Dekker, Haughton, and others. But little of his handiwork was accessible till in 1881 Mr Bullen reprinted five plays by him; an allegorical masque, The Parliament of Bees, in which the Humble Bee, the Hornet, the Drone, &c., are arraigned; and an allegorical tract called Peregrinatio Scholastica. The lie of Guls is a mixture of romance, allegory, and fun, without much dramatic consistency. Humour out of Breath is an Arcadian play, slight in texture, dealing with the adventures of the daughters of a banished Duke of Mantua and of the sons of his enemy, the Duke of Venice. Day shows everywhere more grace and fancy than constructive power or consistency. The academic trilogy The Pilgrimage to Parnassus and the Returne (quoted below) have also been attributed, on no sufficient grounds, to Day. See Mr Bullen's Introduction to Day's Plays (1881), Ward's Dramatic Literature, and Mr Swinburne's article on Day in the Nineteenth Century for October 1897. The Pilgrimage to Parnassus.—A play of this name was acted at St John's College, Cambridge, at Christmas of 1598; a sequel, called the Returne from Parnassus, in 1599; and a second part of the Returne in 1601. This second part of the Returne has often been reprinted; the two earlier plays of this academic series were only known by name till, found in Hearne's collection by Mr Macray, they and their sequel were published by him in 1886, a complete Parnassian trilogy. They may be taken as the most notable specimen of the academic plays which were a conspicuous feature of the time. Sometimes the classical plays merely were acted by the students; gradually new Latin plays on classical models became common; and by-and-by, in spite of academic and court prohibitions, the new plays came to be wholly or partly in English. These especially shed a strange and vivid light on contemporary university life, and give a melancholy picture of the misery and humiliation of those who then sought to make a precarious livelihood by learning or letters. In the Pilgrimage to Parnassus we have the travels to the Mountain of the Muses of Philomusus and Studioso through Logic Land and Rhetoric Land and Philosophy Land in spite of the seductions of Madido and his wine-cup, Stupido, and Amoretto. The Returne from Parnassus, in two parts, shows the struggles of the same pilgrims to find, after their sojourn in the heights of poetry, a footing in this workaday |