Peace, fools, or Gonṣon will for Papists seize you, If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu! Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another. But here's the captain that will plague them both, 270 NOTES. taken equal pains, he need not have left his numbers so much more rugged and disgusting, than many of his cotemporaries, especially one so exquisitely melodious as Drummond of Hawthornden; who, in truth, more than Fairfax, Waller, or Denham, deserves to be called the first polisher of English versification. Milton read him much. And Pope copied him, not only in his Pastorals, as before observed, but in his Eloisa. A well written Life of Drummond is inserted in the fifth volume of the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, with many curious particulars imparted by Mr. Parke. Warton. Ver. 274. For, hung with, deadly sins,] The room hung with old tapestry, representing the seven deadly sins. Pope. Those Askaparts,* men big enough to throw NOTES. * A giant famous in romances. Pope. Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy. Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine: Charge them with heaven's artillery, bold divine! From such alone the great rebukes endure, Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure : 'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears. Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my wit, In time to come, may pass for holy writ. NOTES. 285 Ver. 286. my wit,] The private character of Donne was very amiable and interesting; particularly so, on account of his secret marriage with the daughter of Sir George More; of the difficulties he underwent on this marriage; of his constant affection to his wife, his affliction at her death, and the sensibility he displayed towards all his friends and relations. Warton. "He was born," says Mr. Ellis, "at London in 1573, and educated at home till the eleventh year of his age. His academical residence then became divided between Oxford and Cambridge, and his studies between poetry and law. He accompanied the Earl of Essex in an expedition against Cadiz, was secretary some time to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; and having taken orders, was promoted to be King's Chaplain, preacher of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and Dean of St. Paul's. He died in 1631." His life is written by Isaac Walton. Bowles. The poetic talents of Donne were not confined to satire, but were displayed to equal advantage in lyric poetry. Many of his productions in this department breathe strongly of that poetic spirit which characterizes the age of Shakespear, and in originality and vigour of sentiment are not exceeded by any passages in the foregoing satires. |