Instead there is a distinct suggestion of thoughtful brooding. Of Donne's life from 1592 until 1596 no actual facts are known, but it is possible to reconstruct the main course of events from the poetry which he wrote during this period.1 The sections in which appear the poems written during the years about to be considered are "The Satyres," "Songs and Sonnets," "Elegies," "Epithalamions," and "Letters to Several Personages," but works in these sections may belong to a later date. We can well believe that Donne, being settled at Lincoln's Inn, possessed of ample means, and with his independence no longer fettered by tutors, turned the vitality which had hitherto made him remarkable as a scholar into observation of the life about him, and after only a few months we find this resulting in verse which indicates at once the youth of the author and his extreme originality. He introduced into English satire of the classical type. Satire was prominent enough in medieval England. Skelton excelled in it, Spenser perhaps gave it its best expression in his description of a suitor's woes, but that of Donne is different. Medieval satire was essentially a torrent of invective against some particular abuse; the classical form is a work of art in which life is deliberately drawn in its ugliest colours, the avowed intention being 1 This was first done by Sir Edmund Gosse in "The Life and Letters of Dr John Donne." so to paint folly and vice that they shall repel. It is generally stated that the first poets who attempted this kind of satire in English were Hall and Marston. They were certainly the first to publish their satires. Between 1597 and 1599 Hall was printing his, Marston's appeared in 1598, and the vogue of both met an abrupt end in 1599, when their works were burned by order of the Bishop of London. Both of these men were younger than Donne, and the manuscript of Donne's first three satires is dated 1593, when he was only twenty years old. It follows almost certainly that Donne was the originator in England of this type of verse,1 and, had he chosen to print, could have claimed precedence of Hall and Marston. The extract given below comes, therefore, from one of his earliest productions.2 Away thou fondling motley humorist, Leave mee, and in this standing woodden chest, And jolly Statesmen, which teach how to tie Here gathering Chroniclers, and by them stand Giddie fantastique Poëts of each land. 1 No account here is made of Lodge's satires in "A Fig for Momus " (1595), because the verse is so soft and vague that the essential spirit of the genre is absent. Still, these were written in imitation of Horace's satires. * The text in all poems quoted follows exactly early editions. As the problem of Donne's text is very difficult, owing to careless editing and innumerable MSS., in all cases except those indicated in footnotes the actual reading is that chosen by Professor Grierson for his admirable edition. Shall I leave all this constant company, Not though a Captaine do come in thy way Great traine of blew coats, twelve, or fourteen strong, But since thou like a contrite penitent, I shut my chamber doore, and come, lets goe. Now we are in the street; He first of all Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet 1 high, 1633, Chambers; his, 1635-69, manuscripts and Grierson. And as fidlers stop lowest, at highest sound, So to the most brave, stoops hee nigh'st the ground. Now leaps he upright, Joggs me, and cryes, Do you see Yonder well favoured youth? Which? Oh, 'tis hee That dances so divinely; Oh, said I, Stand still, must you dance here for company? For his device, in hansoming a sute, To judge of lace, pinke, panes, print, cut, and plight, Of all the Court, to have the best conceit; Our dull Comedians want him, let him goe; But Oh, God strengthen thee, why stopp'st1 thou so? At last his Love he in a windowe spies, And like light dew exhal'd, he flings from mee The reader who is acquainted with the rhythm and subject-matter of the average Elizabethan poem will notice at once both the content and ruggedness of this verse. As we shall see from the lyrics dealt with later, as, indeed, the 1 stop'st, 1635-54, Chambers; stoop'st, 1633, 1669, Grierson. specimen already given shows in no small measure, Donne was possessed of a highly acute critical faculty. Just as he could see through the glamour of the fashionable London of his day to the follies and vices below, so he perceived that beneath the sugared rhythm of much of the Elizabethan love-poetry there was nothing worth having; that it was mere imitation of the Italian, that the very honey of its phrases was conventional. Against this the downrightness of Donne's soul revolted, and he went to the opposite extreme. For love-nonsense he would substitute realism; for honey, harshness. The actual form of his revolt was probably influenced by a new movement which had been gaining strength for some time. When Casaubon succeeded Scaliger in the Chair of Greek at the University of Geneva, he drew attention to the claims of Persius as opposed to Juvenal and Horace. Of the three satirists Persius had hitherto been neglected, because he was considered obscure in meaning and harsh in metre. The first of these assumptions Casaubon vigorously denied, but made little reference to the second. The result was that Persius came to pass for the ideal satirist, and, since for most people he remained difficult to read, and no one denied that his verse was irregular, it was assumed by enthusiastic youths like Donne and Hall that some obscurity in meaning and much harshness of metre were an integral part of verse satire. It is almost certain, |