Titus the brave and valorous young gallant
Three years together in the town hath beene,
Yet my Lo. Chancellors tombe he hath not seene,
Nor the new water-worke, nor the Elephant.
I cannot tell the cause without a smile:
Hee hath been in the Counter all the while.
Colonel Cunningham has pointed out another reference in Basse's
_Metamorphosis of the Walnut Tree_ (1645), where he tells how 'in our
youth we saw the Elephant'. Grosart's suggestion that the Elephant was
an Inn is absurd.
Davies' _Epigrams_ were first published along with Marlowe's version
of Ovid's _Elegies_, but no date is affixed to any of the three
editions which followed one another. But a MS. in the Bodleian
which contains forty-five of the Epigrams describes them as _English
Epigrammes much like Buckminsters Almanacke servinge for all England
but especially for the meridian of the honourable cittye of London
calculated by John Davies of Grayes Inne gentleman An^o 1594 in
November_.[2] This seems much too exact to be a pure invention, and
if it be correct it is very unlikely that the allusions would be to
ancient history. Banks' Horse, the performing Ape, and the Elephant
were all among the sights of the day, like the recently erected tomb
of Lord Chancellor Hatton, who died in 1591. The atmosphere of the
first _Satyre_, as of Davies' _Epigrams_, is that of 1593-5.
The phrase 'the Infanta of London, Heire to an India', in which
commentators have found needless difficulty, contains possibly,
besides its obvious meaning, an allusion to the fact that since 1587
the Infanta of Spain had become in official Catholic circles heir to
the English throne. In 1594 Parsons' tract, _A Conference about the
next Succession to the Crown of England. By R. Doleman_, defended her
claim, and made the Infanta's name a byword in England.
If _H51_ is thus approximately right in its dating of the first Satire
it may be the better trusted as regards the other two, and there is at
least nothing in them to make this date impossible. The references to
poetry in the second acquire a more vivid interest when their date or
approximate date is remembered. In 1593 died Marlowe, the greatest of
the brilliant group that reformed the stage, giving
ideot actors means
(Starving 'themselves') to live by 'their' labour'd sceanes;
and Shakespeare was one of the 'ideot actors'. Shakespeare, too, was
one of the many sonneteers who 'would move Love by rithmes', and in
1593 and 1594 he appeared among those 'who write to Lords, rewards to
get'.
It would be interesting if we could identify the lawyer-poet, Coscus,
referred to in this Satire. Malone, in a MS. note to his copy of
_1633_ (now in the Bodleian Library), suggested John Hoskins or
Sir Richard Martin. Grosart conjectured that Donne had in view the
_Gullinge Sonnets_ preserved in the Farmer-Chetham MS., and ascribed
with probability to Sir John Davies, the poet of the _Epigrams_
just mentioned. Chambers seems to lean to this view and says, 'these
sonnets are couched in legal terminology.' Donne is supposed to have
mistaken Davies' 'gulling' for serious poetry. This is very unlikely.
Moreover, only the last two of Davies' sonnets are 'couched in legal
terminology':
My case is this, I love Zepheria bright,
Of her I hold my harte by fealty:
and
To Love my lord I doe knights service owe
And therefore nowe he hath my wit in ward.
Nor, although Davies' style parodies the style of the sonneteers (not
of the anonymous _Zepheria_ only), is it particularly harsh. It is
much more probable that Donne, like Davies, has chiefly in view this
anonymous series of sonnets--_Zepheria_. _Ogni dì viene la sera. Mysus
et Haemonia juvenis qui cuspide vulnus senserat, hac ipsa cuspide
sensit opem. At London: Printed by the Widow Orwin, for N. L.
and John Busby._ 1594. The style of _Zepheria_ exactly fits Donne's
description:
words, words which would teare
The tender labyrinth of a soft maids eare.
'The verbs "imparadize", "portionize", "thesaurize", are some of
the fruits of his ingenuity. He claims that his Muse is capable
of "hyperbolised trajections"; he apostrophizes his lady's eyes as
"illuminating lamps" and calls his pen his "heart's solicitor".'
Sidney Lee, _Elizabethan Sonnets_. The following sonnet from the
series illustrates the use of legal terminology which both Davies and
Donne satirize:
Canzon 20.
How often hath my pen (mine heart's Solicitor)
Instructed thee in Breviat of my case!
While Fancy-pleading eyes (thy beauty's visitor)
Have pattern'd to my quill, an angel's face.
How have my Sonnets (faithful Counsellors)
Thee without ceasing moved for Day of Hearing!
While they, my Plaintive Cause (my faith's Revealers!),
Thy long delay, my patience, in thine ear ring.
How have I stood at bar of thine own conscience
When in Requesting Court my suit I brought!
How have the long adjournments slowed the sentence
Which I (through much expense of tears) besought!
Through many difficulties have I run,
Ah sooner wert thou lost, I wis, than won.
We do not know who the author of _Zepheria_ was, so cannot tell how
far Donne is portraying an individual in what follows. It can hardly
be Hoskins or Martin, unless _Zepheria_ itself was intended to be
a burlesque, which is possible. Quite possibly Donne has taken the
author of _Zepheria_ simply as a type of the young lawyer who writes
bad poetry; and in the rest of the poem portrays the same type when
he has abandoned poetry and devoted himself to 'Law practice for
mere gain', extorting money and lands from Catholics or suspected
Catholics, and drawing cozening conveyances. If _Zepheria_ be the
poems referred to, then 1594-5 would be the date of this Satire.
The third _Satyre_ has no datable references, but its tone reflects
the years in which Donne was loosening himself from the Catholic
Church but had not yet conformed, the years between 1593 and 1599,
and probably the earlier rather than the later of these years. On the
whole 1593 is a little too early a date for these three satires. They
were probably written between 1594 and 1597.
The long fourth _Satyre_ is in the Hawthornden MS. (_HN_) headed
_Sat. 4. anno 1594_. But this is a mistake either of Drummond, who
transcribed the poems probably as late as 1610, or of Donne himself,
whose tendency was to push these early effusions far back in his life.
The reference to 'the losse of Amyens' (l. 114) shows that the poem
must have been written after March 1597, probably between that date
and September, when Amiens was re-taken by Henry IV. These lines _may_
be an insertion, but there is no extant copy of the _Satyre_ without
them. It belongs to the period between the 'Calis-journey' and the
'Island-voyage', when first Donne is likely to have appeared at court
in the train of Essex.
The fifth _Satyre_ is referred by Grosart and Chambers to 1602-3 on
the ground that the phrase 'the great Carricks pepper' is a reference
to the expedition sent out by the East India Company under Captain
James Lancaster to procure pepper, the price of which commodity was
excessively high. Lancaster captured a Portuguese Carrick and sent
home pepper and spice. There is no proof, however, that this ship was
ever known as 'the Carrick' or 'the great Carrick'. That phrase _was_
applied to 'that prodigious great carack called the _Madre de Dios_ or
_Mother of God_, one of the greatest burden belonging to the crown of
Portugal', which was captured by Raleigh's expedition and brought to
Dartmouth in 1592. 'This prize was reckoned the greatest and richest
that had ever been brought into England' and 'daily drew vast numbers
of spectators from all parts to admire at the hugeness of it' (Oldys,
_Life of Raleigh_, 1829, pp. 154-7). Strype states that she 'was seven
decks high, 165 foot long, and manned with 600 men' (_Annals_, iv.
177-82). That pepper formed a large part of the Carrick's cargo is
clear from the following order issued by the Privy Council: _A letter
to Sir Francis Drake, William Killigrewe, Richard Carmarden and Thomas
Midleton Commissioners appointed for the Carrique_. 'Wee have received
your letter of the 23^{rd} of this presente of your proceeding in
lading of other convenient barkes with the pepper out of the Carrique,
and your opinion concerning the same, for answere whereunto we do
thinke it meete, and so require you to take order, so soone as the
goods are quite dischardged, that Sir Martin Frobisher be appointed to
have the charge and conduction of those shippes laden with the pepper
and other commodities out of the Carrique to be brought about to
Chatham.' 27 Octobris, 1592. See also under October 1. The reference
in 'the great Carricks pepper' is thus clear. The words 'You Sir,
whose righteousness she loves', &c., ll. 31-3, show that the poem was
written after Donne had entered Sir Thomas Egerton's service,
i.e. between 1598, if not earlier, and February 1601-2 when he was
dismissed, which makes the date suggested by Grosart and Chambers
(1602-3) impossible. The poem was probably written in 1598-9. There is
a note of enthusiasm in these lines as of one who has just entered
on a service of which he is proud, and the occasion of the poem was
probably Egerton's endeavour to curtail the fees claim'd by the Clerk
of the Star Chamber (see note below). With Essex's return from
Ireland in 1599 began a period of trouble and anxiety for Egerton, and
probably for Donne too. The more sombre cast of his thought, and
the modification in his feelings towards Elizabeth, after the fatal
February of 1600-1, are reflected in the satirical fragment _The
Progresse of the Soule_.
The so-called sixth and seventh _Satyres_ (added in 1635 and 1669)
I have relegated to the _Appendix B_, and have given elsewhere my
reasons for assigning them to Sir John Roe. That Donne wrote only five
regular _Satyres_ is very definitely stated by Drummond of Hawthornden
in a note prefixed to the copy of the fourth in _HN_: 'This Satyre
(though it heere have the first place because no more was intended
to this booke) was indeed the authors fourth in number and order
he having written five in all to using which this caution will
sufficientlie direct in the rest.'
[Footnote 1: Attention was first called to this inscription by
J. Payne Collier in his _Poetical Decameron_ (1820). He uses
the date to vindicate the claim for Donne's priority as a
satirist to Hall. 'Dunne' is of course one of the many ways
in which the poet's name is spelt, and 'Jhon' is a spelling
of 'John'. The poet's own signature is generally 'Jo. Donne.'
'Jhon Don' is Drummond's spelling on the title-page of _HN_.
In _Q_ the first page is headed 'M^r John Dunnes Satires'.]
[Footnote 2: Of the forty-five which the MS. contains, some
thirty-three were published in the edition referred to above.
On the other hand the edition contains some which are not
in the MS. Of these, one, 47, 'Meditations of a gull,' alone
refers to events which are certainly later than 1594. As this
is not in the MS. there is nothing to contradict the assertion
that it (and the Epigrams cited above) belong to 1594.
Davies' Epigrams are referred to in Sir John Harrington's
_Metamorphosis of Ajax_, 1596.]