This satire, like several of the period, is based on Horace's _Ibam
forte via Sacra_ (_Sat._ i. 9), but Donne follows a quite independent
line. Horace's theme is at bottom a contrast between his own
friendship with Maecenas and 'the way in which vulgar and pushing
people sought, and sought in vain, to obtain an introduction'. Donne,
like Horace, describes a bore, but makes this the occasion for a
general picture of the hangers-on at Court. A more veiled thread
running through the poem is an attack on the ways and tricks of
informers. The bore's gossip is probably not without a motive:
I ... felt my selfe then
Becoming Traytor, and mee thought I saw
One of our Giant Statutes ope his jaw
To sucke me in.
The manner in which the stranger accosts him suggests the
'intelligencer': 'Two hungry turns had I scarce fetcht in this wast
gallery when I was encountered by a neat pedantical fellow, in the
forme of a Cittizen, who thrusting himself abruptly into my companie,
like an Intelligencer, began very earnestly to question me.' Nash,
_Pierce Penniless_.
In the _Satyres_ Donne is always, though he does not state his
position too clearly, one with links attaching him to the persecuted
Catholic minority. He hates informers and pursuivants.
ll. 1-4. These lines resemble the opening of Régnier's imitation of
Horace's satire:
Charles, de mes peches j'ay bien fait penitence;
Or, toy qui te cognois aux cas de conscience,
Juge si j'ay raison de penser estre absous.