This _Satyre_ is pretty closely imitated in the _Satyra Quinta_ of
_SKIALETHEIA. or, A shadowe of Truth in certaine Epigrams and Satyres.
1598_. attributed to Edward Guilpin (or Gilpin), to whom extracts from
it are assigned in _Englands Parnassus_ (1600). Who Guilpin was we
do not know. Besides the work named he wrote two sonnets prefixed to
Gervase Markham's _Devoreux. Vertues tears for the losse of the most
Christian King Henry, third of that name; and the untimely death of
the most noble and heroical Gentleman, Walter Devoreux, who was slain
before Roan in France. First written in French by the most excellent
and learned Gentlewoman, Madame Geneuefe Petan Maulette. And
paraphrastically translated into English by Jervis Markham._ 1597. See
Grosart's Introduction to his reprint of _Skialetheia_ in _Occasional
Issues_. 6. (1878). Donne addresses a letter to _Mr. E. G._ (p. 208),
which Gosse conjectures to be addressed to Guilpin. That Guilpin
knew Donne is probable in view of this early imitation of a privately
circulated MS. poem. Guilpin's poem begins:
Let me alone I prethee in thys Cell,
Entice me not into the Citties hell;
Tempt me not forth this _Eden_ of content,
To tast of that which I shall soone repent:
Prethy excuse me, I am hot alone
Accompanied with meditation,
And calme content, whose tast more pleaseth me
Then all the Citties lushious vanity.
I had rather be encoffin'd in this chest
Amongst these bookes and papers I protest,
Then free-booting abroad purchase offence,
And scandale my calme thoughts with discontents.
Heere I converse with those diviner spirits,
Whose knowledge, and admire, the world inherits:
Heere doth the famous profound _Stagarite_,
With Natures mistick harmony delight
My ravish'd contemplation: I heere see
The now-old worlds youth in an history:
l. 1. _Away thou fondling, &c._ The reading of the majority of
editions and MSS. is 'changeling', but this is a case not of a right
and wrong reading but of two versions, both ascribable to the author.
Which was his emendation it is impossible to say. He may have changed
'fondling' (a 'fond' or foolish person) thinking that the idea was
conveyed by 'motley', which, like Shakespeare's epithet 'patch', is a
synecdoche from the dress of the professional fool or jester. On the
other hand the idea of 'changeling' is repeated in 'humorist', which
suggests changeable and fanciful. I have, therefore, let the _1633_
text stand. 'Changeling' has of course the meaning here of 'a fickle
or inconstant person', not the common sense of a person or thing
or child substituted for another, as 'fondling' is not here a 'pet,
favourite', as in modern usage.
l. 3. _Consorted._ Grosart, who professes to print from _H51_, reads
_Consoled_, without any authority.
l. 6. _Natures Secretary_: i.e. Aristotle. He is always 'the
Philosopher' in Aquinas and the other schoolmen. Walton speaks of 'the
great secretary of nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon'.
l. 7. _jolly Statesmen._ All the MSS. except _O'F_ agree with _1633_
in reading 'jolly', though 'wily' is an obvious emendation.
Chambers adopts it. By 'jolly' Donne probably meant 'overweeningly
self-confident ... full of presumptuous pride ... arrogant,
over-bearing' (O.E.D.). 'Evilmerodach, a jolly man, without Iustyse
and cruel.' Caxton (1474). 'It concerneth every one of us ... not
to be too high-minded or jolly for anything that is past.' Sanderson
(1648).
l. 10. _Giddie fantastique Poets of each land._ In a letter Donne
tells Buckingham, in Spain, how his own library is filled with Spanish
books 'from the mistress of my youth, Poetry, to the wife of mine age,
Divinity'. This line in the Satires points to the fact, which Donne
was probably tempted later to obscure a little, that his first
prolonged visit to the Continent had been made before he settled in
London in 1592 and probably without the permission of the Government.
The other than Spanish poets would doubtless be French and Italian.
Donne had read Dante. He refers to him in the fourth _Satyre_ ('who
dreamt he saw hell'), and in an unpublished letter in the Burley MS.
he dilates at some length, but in no very creditable fashion, on an
episode in the _Divina Commedia_. Of French poets he probably knew at
any rate Du Bartas and Regnier.
l. 12. _And follow headlong, wild uncertain thee?_ I have retained the
_1633_ punctuation instead of, with Chambers, comma-ing 'wild' as
well as 'headlong'. The latter is possibly an adverb here, going with
'follow'. The use of 'headlong' as an adjective with persons was not
common. The earliest example in the O.E.D. is from _Hudibras_:
The Friendly Rug preserv'd the ground,
And headlong Knight from bruise or wound.
Donne's line is, however, ambiguous; and the subsequent description of
the humorist would justify the adjective.
l. 18. _Bright parcell gilt, with forty dead mens pay._ Compare:
'Captains some in guilt armour (unbatt'red) some in buffe jerkins,
plated o'r with massy silver lace (raz'd out of the ashes of dead
pay).' Dekker, _Newes from Hell_, ii. 119 (Grosart). So many
'dead pays' (i.e. men no longer on the muster roll) were among the
perquisites allowed to every captain of a company, but the number was
constantly exceeded: 'Moreover where' (i.e. whereas) 'there are 15
dead paies allowed ordinarily in every bande, which is paid allwaies
and taken by the captaines, althogh theire nombers be greatly
dyminished in soche sorte as sometimes there are not fower score or
fewer in a company, her Majestys pleasure is that from hence the saide
15 dead paies shall not be allowed unlesse the companies be full and
compleate, but after the rate of two dead paies for everie twenty men
that shalbe in the saide bande where the companies are dyminished.'
Letter to Sir John Norreyes, Knighte. _Acts of the Privy Council_,
1592.
PAGE =146=, l. 27. _Oh monstrous, superstitious puritan._ The
'Monster' of the MSS. is of course _not_ due to the substitution
of the noun for the adjective, but is simply an older form of the
adjective. Compare 'O wonder Vandermast', Greene's _Friar Bacon and
Friar Bungay_.
l. 32. _raise thy formall_: 'raise' is probably right, but 'vaile' is
a common metaphor. 'A Player? Call him, the lousie slave: what will
he saile by, and not once strike or vaile to a Man of Warre.' Captain
Tucca in Jonson's _Poetaster_, III. 3.
l. 33. _That wilt consort none, &c._ It is unnecessary to alter
'consort none' to 'consort with none', as some MSS. do. The
construction is quite regular. 'Wilt thou consort me, bear me
company?' Heywood. The 'consorted with these few books' of l. 3
is classed by the O.E.D. under a slightly different sense of the
word--not 'attended on by' these books, but 'associated in a common
lot with' them.
l. 39. _The nakednesse and barenesse, &c._ The reading 'barrennesse'
of all the editions and some MSS. is due probably to similarity of
pronunciation (rather than of spelling) and a superficial suggestion
of appropriateness to the context. A second glance shows that
'bareness' is the correct reading. The MSS. give frequent evidence of
having been written to dictation.
l. 46. The 'yet', which the later editions and Chambers drop, is quite
in Donne's style. It is heavily stressed and 'he was' is slurred, 'h'
was.'
PAGE =147=, l. 58. _The Infanta of London, Heire to an India._ It is
not necessary to suppose a reference to any person in particular.
The allusion is in the first place to the wealth of the city, and the
greed of patricians and courtiers to profit by that wealth. 'No one
can tell who, amid the host of greedy and expectant suitors, will
carry off whoever is at present the wealthiest minor (and probably the
king's ward) in London, i.e. the City.' Compare the _Epithalamion made
at Lincolns Inn_:
Daughters of London, you which be
Our Golden Mines, and furnish'd Treasury,
You which are Angels, yet still bring with you
Thousands of Angels on your marriage days
. . . . . . . .
Make her for Love fit fuel,
As gay as Flora, and as rich as Inde.
Compare also: 'I possess as much in your wish, Sir, as if I were made
Lord of the Indies.' Jonson, _Every Man out of his Humour_, II. iii.
The 'Infanta' of _A25_, _O'F_, _Q_ is pretty certainly right, though
'Infant' can be applied, like 'Prince', to a woman. There is probably
a second allusion to the claim of the Infanta of Spain to be heir to
the English throne.
l. 60. _heavens Scheme_: 'Scheme' is certainly the right reading. The
common MS. spelling, 'sceame' or 'sceames', explains the 'sceanes'
which _1633_ has derived from _N_, _TCD_. For the _Satyres_ the editor
did not use his best MS. See _Text and Canon, &c._, p. xcv. It is
possible that a slurred definite article ('th'heavens') has been lost.
In preparing his 'theme' or horoscope the astrologer had five
principal things to consider, (1) the heavenly mansions, (2) the signs
of the zodiac, (3) the planets, (4) the aspects and configurations,
(5) the fixed stars. With this end in view the astrologer divided the
heavens into twelve parts, called mansions, to which he related the
positions occupied at the same moment by the stars in each of them
('drawing the horoscope'). There were several methods of doing this.
That of Ptolemy consisted in dividing the zodiac into twelve equal
parts. This was called the equal manner. To represent the mansions the
astrologers constructed twelve triangles between two squares placed
one within the other. Each of the twelve mansions thus formed had
a different name, and determined different aspects of the life and
fortune of the subject of the horoscope. From the first was foretold
the general character of his life, his health, his habits, morals.
The second indicated his wealth; and so on. The different signs of
the zodiac and the planets, in like manner, had each its special
influence. But sufficient has been said to indicate what Donne means
by 'drawing forth Heavens scheme'.
l. 62. _subtile-witted._ There is something to be said for the
'supple-witted' of _H51_ and some other MSS. 'Subtle-witted' means
'fantastic, ingenious'; 'supple-witted' means 'variable'. Like
Fastidious Brisk in _Every Man out of his Humour_, they have a fresh
fashion in suits every day. 'When men are willing to prefer their
friends, we heare them often give these testimonies of a man; He
hath good parts, and you need not be ashamed to speak for him; he
understands the world, he knowes how things passe, and he hath a
discreet, a supple, and an appliable disposition, and hee may make a
fit instrument for all your purposes, and you need not be afraid to
speake for him.' _Sermons_ 80. 74. 750. A 'supple disposition' is one
that changes easily to adapt itself to circumstances.
PAGE =148=, l. 81. _O Elephant or Ape_, See Introductory Note to
_Satyres_.
l. 89. _I whispered let'us go._ I have, following the example of
_1633_ in other cases, indicated the slurring of 'let'us' or 'let's',
which is necessary metrically if we are to read the full 'whispered'
which _1669_ first contracts to 'whisperd'. _Q_ shows that 'let's'
is the right contraction. Donne's use of colloquial slurrings must be
constantly kept in view when reading especially his satires. They are
not always indicated in the editions: but note l. 52: