how certain things were viewed once upon a time, and what members of the literary clergy have cut their cloth after the prettiest pattern? Do not the monuments of man, which survive the hands that reared them, lead men to ruminate on the strength or weakness of those hands, and to ascertain, from the amount of heroism put into the life and work, what sort of stuff the old heroes were made of? Am I not walking on glorious ground?-campos ubi Troja fuit,-and may I not by chance stumble on some weapon, which may explain the method of warfare which was used on this battlefield, or on some old suit of armour, whereby I may guess at the height and girth of the literary soldiers who fought here long ago?

And to my fancy, Minerva, my puss, modern criticism is a little too bilious. There was Gifford, now, the brave, courageous, but bitter gentleman, who was whipped by Dr. Wolcot, and who endeavoured to kill off John Keats by one critique. There was Jeffrey, who was juster than the tarterly Quarterly; he wrote a sound healthy criticism on Keats, but look what a savage attack he made on the virtuous Christabel. There was Hazlitt, a generous fellow in some respects, but too opinionated. There is our friend the critic in the -, who fills foolscap pages with attempts to prove (what we all know already) that a spondee is not a dactyl. We fail to recognise the personal qualifications of our poets; and our poets in private life go to church, pay the tax-gatherer, rock the cradle, and desiderate respectability. Confess, my dear Minerva, that you would have these shopkeepers, who write verses, a little more poetical in real life, and that you cannot help going back to the past to search for your heroes? And, by the way, don't you think that the young rhymesters might become a little more chivalrous if the fair sex would try to be a little more romantic? We should have more heroes if we had a little more heroworship; and we should have more poets if the ladies were a little more romantic, if the critics were a little more appreciative.

Be that as it may, I like a lay figure to work upon; and it is my delight to clothe it with graceful drapery. Here is Dr. Donne, some time Dean of St. Paul's. I am glad to be able to say that John Donne was, like Sterne's poor Yorick, "as heteroclite a creature in all his declensions, with as much life and whim and gaîté de cœur about him, as the kindest climate could have engendered and put together." He was born in London, as early as the year 1573. His father was an eminent merchant, descended from a distinguished Welsh family; his mother was descended from Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, and from the eminent lawyer Judge Rastrall. His grandfather on the mother's side was (as I learn from Jonson, in his Conversation with Drummond) no less a person than witty John Heywood, the epigrammist, who wrote that funny interlude called the Four P.'s, and whose merry conversation was the delight of the old age of Henry VIII. In his eleventh year, Donne was sent to Hart Hall, Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself as "another Picus Mirandula," being "rather born than made wise by study." He was prevented from taking his first degree by his relations, who, being of the

Roman-Catholic persuasion, objected to the usual oath. When fourteen years old, he went to Cambridge, where he greatly distinguished himself; and before he was eighteen, he was admitted into Lincoln's Inn, where he began studying law. His father, however, died shortly after his son's. initiation into the mysteries of law, and left him three thousand pounds as a marriage portion. Left to the pious care of a good mother, the boy found. himself diligently beset by the theological arguments of Roman-Catholic tutors. It was partly to avoid these gentry, I think, that he went with the Earl of Essex to Cales, passed the island voyages, spent some years in Italy, sauntered for a time in sunny Spain, and finally returned to England, well stocked with that wisdom which sharp-sighted travellers find waiting for them in every corner of the globe. On his return to fatherland, he was made chief secretary to the Chancellor of England, Lord Ellesmere, by whom he was regarded with deep esteem, and who went so far as to say that Donne "was fitter to serve a king than a subject." In this capacity, he spent five long and industrious years, stocking his fertile mind with political and legal knowledge. His employer was the same "Lord Elsmere" to whom Ben Jonson addressed two highly complimentary epigrams.

Early in life, Donne's metaphysical mind began to busy itself in religious speculations, and to weigh the Protestant faith against the faith in which he had been brought up. It was, of course, some time before he arrived at any definite conclusion; but he studied the question with a sagacity and a vigour which would make a lad's fortune in this conventional age, when people go to church because their neighbours do so likewise, and say their prayers, as they insure their lives, in the event of an accident. In the midst of his difficulty, however, he met Cupid at a time when, as Drayton saith,

"Cupid's wings were not then cut,
His bow broken, or his arrows

Given to boys to shoot at sparrows."

Cupid solved the problem for the time being, by making him the devout and orthodox worshiper of a young gentlewoman, daughter of Sir George Moore, Chancellor of the Garter, and Lieutenant of the Tower. Pretty Mistress Anne encouraged the advances of the young lawyer.

"No grape that's kindly ripe could be

So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice;"

and finding John good-looking and clever, for his sake she was tempted to be naughty. "He was of stature moderately tall, of a straight and equally proportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible addition of comeliness." They were in a hurry to kiss lips lawfully; but festinatio tarda est. Ah, Daphne, dear, how much more domesticity there would be if the old people would let the young people alone! "Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love?" asks pert country Phoebe in the play, and ""Tis to be all made up of sighs and

tears," groans the lost Silvius, while his big brown hand presses down his overflowing heart. Fathers have flinty hearts. Sir George Moore had. He heard of his daughter's love-making, and, threatening the poet with vengeance if he continued his attentions, bore Anne away to his country house at Lothesley, in Surrey. Cupid has been sick since Venus, his own mother, began fingering in the counting-house the guineas of her fat Adonis of fifty. But when Venus has read a few of my articles, and puts away her crinoline, we shall have more poor poetical John Donne's running away to some new Gretna Green with the daughters of irate Chancellors of the Garter. Yes, that was the course poor Donne adopted. Instead of strangling Cupid with Sir George's garter, he invocated despair in several copies of metaphysical verses. Then, finding no consolation in metaphysics, he bought a little golden ring, which he put on Lady Anne's white finger; and away they went one fine morning to be married on the sly. This was very wicked and disobedient; but I confess that I sympathise with the young people.

The newly-married couple did not long enjoy their golden dream. Love, in the opinion of Papa, was "a scribbled form drawn with a pen upon a parchment." Sir George, on hearing of the marriage, never rested until he had procured his son-in-law's dismissal from the office of Secretary to the Lord Chancellor. Donne wrote a letter on the subject to his wife, who was still at Lothesley, subscribing it with the anagram, "John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done." But Sir George was not yet pacified. He set to work vigorously further to punish the poor poet. So successful were his endeavours, that Donne, Samuel Brooke (the clergyman who performed the marriage ceremony), and Christopher Brooke (who gave the bride away and witnessed the marriage) were thrown into three several prisons. Why won't proud people read Chaucer's prose treatise, De Septem Peccatis Mortalibus? "Certes the herte of man," says Geoffrey, De Ira, "by enchausing and meving of his blood waxeth so troubled that it is out of all maner jugement of reson;" and he goes on to prove, very beautifully, that malice is an offence against God and man. (By the way, who reads Chaucer's prose now? It contains gorgeous writing;-witness the defence of women, put into the mouth of the wife of Melibus. To return.) Donne was no sooner set at liberty (and the authorities could not detain him long), than he procured the liberation of his two friends, and involved himself in a laborious lawsuit, whereby he sought to regain possession of his wife, who was still detained as a prisoner in her father's house. "There was never yet philosopher," observes Shakespeare's Leonato, "that could endure the toothache patiently;" but Donne was more tolerant under his grievances than might have been anticipated. The greater part of his portion had been spent in travel, and he was out of all employment. When at last Fortune, the "bountiful blind woman," made his father-in-law relent, the poet's position was not much bettered. Sir George endeavoured in vain to procure Donne's readmission to the lost secretaryship, but steadily refused to as

sist the young couple with money. Travel and the lawsuit had reduced their means to a very low ebb. They were thrown upon the wide waters of life to sink or swim, as fate might will it.

But Donne had already distinguished himself as a wit who wrote excellent verses, and his genius found a liberal patron in Sir Francis Wooley, a distant kinsman. I am afraid that Master Donne toadied at this time about the crowded ante-chambers of the rich, in the common but vain expectation of Court preferment. Literature was a hired jester, not a lady, in those days. She jingled a cap and bells, and received chance halfpence. Patronage, and the instinctive recognition on the other side of the position of moneyed men, was fast degenerating into pot-house patronage. Once, the literary man could receive honourable favours at the hands of the rich man. Thomas the Rhymer tippled strong wine with the wineloving lords of Dunbar; Spenser wrote sincerely when he sang the praises of Burleigh and Northumberland; Caxton had tasted the fleshpots of Margaret of Burgundy; Chaucer had been well treated at the hands of John of Gaunt; Buchanan had been assisted by Lord Cassilis; and Shakespeare had been helped on by Southampton. But Ben Jonson's merry begging-letters to the King of England and his nobles were to furnish a bad precedent; and things came to such a pass at last, that Benwas denied a buck! I asked a lord a buck, and he denied me." So soon as the poets became beggars, the noble lords ceased to open their purses; but it was not until Dryden was born that beggary was elevated by genius to the rank of a poetical religion. Donne, therefore, was lucky in his friend Sir Francis, who for several years entertained him and his family at Pilford, in Surrey. During this time, having finally gone over to the Reformed Church, he was again and again advised to enter into holy orders; and Morton, Bishop of Durham, went so far as to offer him a benefice. "Sir," he said, in refusing Morton's offer, "some irregularities of my life have been so visible to some men, that though I have, I thank God, made my peace with Him by penitential resolutions against them, and by the assistance of His grace banished them my affections; yet this, which God knows to be so, is not so visible to men as to free me from their censures, and, it may be, that sacred calling from a dishonour." Soon after this Sir Francis Wooley died, and with him died Donne's means of subsistence. But at last he was fortunate enough to complete the reconciliation with his father-in-law, who promised to give him 8001. as his wife's portion, and to let him have 207. quarterly until the whole amount was paid. He thereupon hired a house for his wife and children at Mitcham, in Surrey, and took apartments for himself in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. To the lodging at Whitehall came the nobility and gentry, and even the foreign ambassadors, to hear the excellent discourse of Mr. John Donne, who knew about half a dozen languages, besides Latin and Greek. He was courted and flattered; for his wonderful attainments dazzled even Ben Jonson, who prided himself on his scholarship. Ben, not then laureate,- for well-languaged Daniel still survived,-wad

dled down from the Devil Tavern to pay his respects to him, and present him with a copy of verses. "Who shall doubt," said Ben,

"Who shall doubt, Donne, whe'r I a poet be,

When I dare send my epigrams to thee?"

Ben was still keeping his grand Symposia, in the Apollo Chamber, in the tavern near Temple Bar, while Inigo Jones was adorning his dramas with fine scenery and appointments. "He would many times excel in drink," says old Aubrey. old Aubrey. "Canary was his beloved liquor. Then he would tumble home to bed, and when he had thoroughly perspired, then to study." I fear that Donne once or twice made one in those convivial gatherings at which Jonson presided, and at which Camden and Selden drank moderately, with old Simon Wadloe to wait upon them.

"Welcome, all that lead or follow,

To the oracle of Apollo-
Here he speaks of his pottle,
Or his tripos, his tower-bottle:
All his answers are divine,

Truth itself doth flow in wine."

Jonson, who had been but scurvily treated by Cambridge, his Alma Mater, was desirous of propitiating all Oxford men, having some anticipations of the honour which was afterwards conferred upon him, when he was invited to Oxford by Corbet, and made, in full convocation, a Master of Arts of the University. So pleasant did London society become to Donne, that he removed with his family to the house of Sir Robert Drury, in Drury Lane. In 1610 he became a Master of Arts of Oxford, having previously taken the same degree at Cambridge.

The great secret of the merits and demerits of Donne's poetry is partly to be found in the insatiable desire for book-knowledge which at this period distinguished his genius, in common with that of Cowley and the other metaphysical poets. Almost unconsciously, he became pedantic. Pedantry, coming into contact with a metaphysical habit of thought, soon made his language a puzzle to vulgar comprehensions. "He dealeth so profoundly," said Harrison of John Heywood's Spider and Fly, “ and beyond all measure of skill, that neither he himself that made it, neither any one that readeth it, can reach unto the meaning thereof." And much the same criticism might be applied to Donne's writings. He had always a meaning, sometimes a beautiful one, but it was too subtle to be easily detected. So with the rest of the metaphysicians,

"Wha ding their brains in college classes,

And syne expect to climb Parnassus,

By dint o' Greek."

Donne himself, in one of his letters, regrets for another reason his immoderate desire of learning. I embraced, he says, "the worst voluptuousness, an hydroptique immoderate desire of human learning and languages: beautiful ornaments indeed to men of great fortunes, but mine was grown so low as to need an occupation." Add to all this, that he