Call himself barrister to every wench,

And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench? 60
Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold,
More rough than forty Germans when they scold.
Cursed be the wretch, so venal and so vain :
Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.
'Tis such a bounty as was never known,
If PETER deigns to help you to your own:
What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies!
And what a solemn face, if he denies!

65

75

Grave, as when prisoners shake the head and swear
'Twas only suretyship that brought them there. 70
His office keeps your parchment fates entire,
He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,
For not in chariots Peter puts his trust;
For you he sweats and labours at the laws,
Takes God to witness he affects your cause,
And lies to every Lord, in every thing,
Like a king's favourite-or like a king.
These are the talents that adorn them all,
From wicked Waters even to godly **
Not more of simony beneath black gowns,
Not more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.
In shillings and in pence at first they deal;
And steal so little, few perceive they steal;

NOTES.

80

Ver. 78. Like a king's favourite] A line from the original, as also line 60; which shews that Donne, if he had properly attended to it, could have written harmoniously.

Warton.

Shortly (as the sea) he'll compass all the land

From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand. And spying heirs melting with luxury,

Satan will not joy at their sins as he:

For (as a thrifty wench scrapes kitchen-stuffe,
And barrelling the droppings, and the snuffe
Of wasting candles, which in thirty year,
Reliquely kept, perchance buys wedding cheer)
Piecemeal he gets lands, and spends as much time
Wringing each acre, as maids pulling prime.
In parchment then, large as the fields, he draws
Assurances, big as gloss'd civil laws,

So huge that men (in our times' forwardness)
Are Fathers of the Church for writing less.
These he writes not; nor for these written payes,
Therefore spares no length (as in those first dayes
When Luther was profest, he did desire
Short Pater-nosters, saying as a fryar

NOTES.

Ver. 105. So Luther, &c.] Our Poet, by judiciously transposing this fine similitude, has given new lustre to his author's thought. The Lawyer (says Dr. Donne) enlarges his legal instruments to the bigness of gloss'd civil laws, when it is to convey property to himself, and to secure his own ill-got wealth. But let the same lawyer convey property to you, and he then omits even the necessary words; and becomes as concise and loose as the hasty postils of a modern divine. So Luther, while a monk, and by his institution obliged to say Mass, and pray in person for others, thought even his Pater-noster too long. But when he set up for a governor in the church, and his business was to direct others how to pray for the success of his new model; he then lengthened the Pater-noster by a new clause. This representation of the first part of his conduct was to ridicule his want of devotion; as the other, where he tells us, that the addition

85

90

Till, like the sea, they compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight from Mount to Dover strand:
And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,
Or when a Duke to Jansen punts at White's,
Or city-heir in mortgage melts away;
Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.
Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
Indenture, covenants, articles, they draw,
Large as the fields themselves, and larger far 95
Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are;
So vast, our new Divines, we must confess,
Are Fathers of the Church for writing less.
But let them write for you, each rogue impairs
The deeds, and dextrously omits, ses heires: 100
No commentator can more slily pass

O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place;

Or, in quotation, shrewd divines leave out

Those words, that would against them clear the

doubt.

So Luther thought the Pater-noster long,

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

NOTES.

105

dition was the power and glory clause, was to satirize his ambition; and both together, to insinuate, that from a monk, he was become totally secularized. About this time of his life Dr. Donne had a strong propensity to the Roman Catholic religion, which appears from several strokes in these Satires. We find amongst his works, a short satirical thing called a Catalogue of rare Books, one article of which is intitled, M. Lutherus de abbreviatione Orationis Dominica, alluding to Luther's omission of the concluding Doxology in his two Catechisms; which shews the Poet was fond of his joke.

Each day his beads; but having left those laws, Adds to Christ's prayer, the Power and Glory clause ;)

But when he sells or changes land, he impaires The writings, and (unwatch'd) leaves out, ses heires, As slily as any commenter goes by

Hard words, or sense; or, in divinity,

As controverters in vouch'd texts leave out

Shrewd words, which might against them clear the doubt.

Where are these spread woods which cloath'd heretofore

Those bought lands? not built, not burnt within door.

Where the old landlords' troops, and almes? In halls Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals

Equally I hate. Means blest. In rich men's homes I bid kill some beasts, but no hecatombs;

None starve, none surfeit so. But (oh) we allow Good works as good, but out of fashion now,

NOTES.

In this catalogue (to intimate his sentiments of reformation) he puts Erasmus and Reuchlin in the rank of Lully and Agrippa. I will only observe, that it was written in imitation of Rabelais's famous Catalogue of the Library of St. Victor, one of the finest passages in that extravagant Satire, which was the Manual of the Wits of this time. It was natural therefore to think, that the Catalogue of the Library of St. Victor would become, as it did, the subject of many imitations. The best of which are this of Dr. Donne's, and one of Sir Thomas Brown's. Dr. Donne afterwards took orders in the Church of England. We have a large volume of his sermons in the false taste of that time. But the book which made his fortune was his Pseudo-martyr, to prove that Papists ought to take

the

But having cast his cowl, and left those laws, Adds to Christ's prayer, the Power and Glory clause.

The lands are bought; but where are to be found Those ancient woods that shaded all the ground? We see no new-built palaces aspire,

No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.

Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of

yore

The good old landlord's hospitable door?

Well, I could wish that still in lordly domes 115 Some beasts were kill'd, though not whole heca

tombs ;

That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,
Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals;

And all mankind might that just mean observe,
In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.
These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow,
But oh! these works are not in fashion now :

NOTES.

the oath of allegiance. In this book, though Hooker had then written his Ecclesiastical Policy, he has approved himself entirely ignorant both of the Origin and End of Civil Government. In the 168th page, and elsewhere, he holds, that when men congregate to form the body of civil society, then it is, that the soul of society, SOVEREIGN POWER, is sent into it immediately from God, just as he sends the soul into the human embryo, when the two sexes propagate their kind. In the 91st page, and elsewhere, he maintains that the office of the civil sovereign extends to the care of souls. For this absurd and blasphemous trash, James I. made him Dean of St. Paul's; all the wit and sublimity of his genius having never enabled him to get bread throughout the better part of his life. Warburton.