Coline and Percye... That since [Done] was made Doctor [he] repenteth highlie and seeketh to destroy all his poems. . . (p. 10) Daniel was at jealousies with him, (Ft. n:... though he bore no ill will on his part). Drayton feared him; and he esteemed him not. That Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses. That Sir John Roe loved him. He beat Marston, and took his pistoll from him. Sir W. Alexander was not half kinde unto him, and neglected him because a friend to Drayton. That Sir Aiton loved him dearly.. That Markham . . . was not of the number of the Faithfull, i. (e.) Poets, and but a base fellow. (p. 12) That such were Day and Middleton. That Chapman and Fletcher were loved of him. Overby was his friend and turn'd his mortall enemie... (p. 15) That Done himself, for not being understood would perish. That Sir W. Raughley esteemed more of fame than of conscience. . . (p. 16) Marston wrott his Father-in-lawes preachings, and his Father-in-law his comedies. Shakespear, in a play, brought in a number of men saying they had suffered shipwrack in Bohemia, wher ther is no sea neer by some 100 miles. Daniel wrott Civill Warres, and yett hath not one batle in all his book. The Countess of Rutland was nothing inferior to her Father Sir P. Sidney in poesie. . . (p. 17) Flesher and Beaumont ten yeers since, hath written the Faithful Shipheardesse, a Tragicomedie, well done. . . Sir P. Sidney was no pleasant man in countenance, his face being spoiled with pimples... (p. 19) He was Master of Arts in both the Universities, by their favour, not his studie. He married a wife who was a shrew, yet honest... (p. 22) He heth consumed a whole night in lying looking to his great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, Romans and Carthaginians, feight in his imagination.

(p. 24) Salisbury never cared for any man longer nor he could make use of him. (p. 26) That verses stood by sense without either colours or accent; which yet other tymes he denied... (p. 32) What is that, the more you out of it groweth still the longer-A ditch... (p. 35) He said to me that I was too good and simple, and that oft a man's modestie made a fool of his witt... (p. 36) Tailor was sent along here

to scorn him... Joseph Hall the harbenger to Done's Anniversarie... (p. 37) [He said] They is still the nominative, those accusative, them newter... [That] He was better versed and knew more in Greek and Latin, than all the Poets in England, and quintessence their braines. . . Of all styles he loved most to be named Honest, and hath of that ane hundreth letters so naming him (p. 38) He went homeward the 25 of January 1619, in a pair of shoes which, he told, lasted him since he came from Darnton.

...

...

Drummond concludes (pp. 40-41) He [Jonson] is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to loose a friend than a jest... His inventions are smooth and easie; but above all he excelleth in a Translation.'

Laing (p. 5) cites Gifford' (i, cxxiv) as quoting Drummond's remarks and saying, 'it is observable that every addition by Drummond is tinctured with spleen . . .'; but Drummond's conclusions are so in keeping with the conversations that he need not have given them.

We have faithfully presented enough of the critical portions of the Conversations to show their general trend. Some bits of gossip are also admitted as showing what Drummond regarded as worth recording. Some things are omitted which are quite as vulgar as any line to be found in the worst of Donne's poetry,and be it remembered, Donne's ugly poetry was no more intended to be printed and preserved than were Jonson's conversations.

1In Gifford's 'Memoir,' i, xliii (The Works of Ben Jonson, edited by Lieut. Col. Francis Cunningham, London, 1870), under 'Heads of Conversations, &c.,' all that Jonson said of Donne is quoted, except the censure 'for not keeping of accent,' which is neither mentioned nor referred to. On p. 474, however, it is restored to its place and commented upon. After the quotations (p. xliii) Gifford concludes (p. xliv): 'Such are the remarks of Jonson on his contemporaries: set down [by Drummond] in malice, abridged without judgment, and published without shame.'

Saintsbury (A History of Criticism. London and Edinburgh, 1902, ii, 199, note) takes a more rational view of the matter: "The dicta, thus juxtaposed, should make all argument about apparently one-sided judgments superfluous. If Drummond had omitted the first ['for not keeping of accent deserved hanging'] or the last ['the first poet in the land in some things'] we should have been utterly wrong in arguing from the remainder.

Chambers remarks, 'It has been thought that there was some jealously between the two poets, and that the allusion to the Countess of Bedford's "better verser" in Jonson's Epistle to the Countess of Rutland, is a hit at Donne. Probably, however, Daniel is the "verser" referred to.'1

It seems wholly unnecessary to undertake to establish any reason or excuse for Jonson's remarks to Drummond, seeing that he mentions Donne oftener than any other, and always with compliment, except in the one instance cited. Should we fail to prove what we believe he meant by that censure, we have yet two alternatives upon which to rest. One is that Drummond made the suggestion

and Jonson, his guest, half-willingly agreed to it; 2 the other, that Jonson had just 'awoke' from gazing all night towards his great toe. Drummond (1619):

'Donne, among the Anacreontick lyrics, is second to none, and far from all second; but as Anacreon doth not approach Callimachus, tho' he excels in his own kind, nor Horace to Virgil, no more can I be brought to think him to excel either Alexander's or Sidney's verses: They can hardly be compared together trading diverse paths; the one flying swift, but low, the other, like the eagle, surpassing the clouds. I think, if he would, he might easily be the best Epigrammatist we have found in English; of which I have not yet seen any come near the Ancients. Compare the Song Marry and Love [Thy Flavia] with Tasso's stanzas about beauty; one shall hardly know who hath the best.' 3

This view is interesting as showing that Jonson's dicta had no influence upon a better versifier than himself.

Dryden's remark, in the preface to Eleanor (1692), 'Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the best poet of our nation, etc.' is quoted by Grosart (ii, xxxiv), Gosse (ii, 350), and many others, some of whom comment upon it.

1E. K. Chambers, Poems of John Donne, 2 vols., London and New York, ii, 224, Note. Hereafter cited as Chambers.

* Barrett Wendell, The Temper of the Seventeenth Century in English Literature, New York, 1904, p. 118: 'Whether this emphasis came of Jonson's own motion or because of questions from Drummond, we can never know.'

3 Conversations, p. 50.

James Russell Lowell says, 'Dryden, with his wonted perspicacity follows Jonson' in this opinion, and that 'he [Dryden] shows little of that finer instinct which suggests so much more than it tells, and works the more powerfully as it taxes more the imagination of the reader ...'1

Hartley Coleridge, after quoting the same from Dryden, adds: 'I cannot think that Donne as a wit was at all to be compared to Butler... But Donne was an impassioned poet-Butler only a profound wit.' 2

Dryden's next criticism (1693) is more to our purpose:

'Would not Donne's Satires, which abound with so much wit, appear more charming if he had taken care of his words and his numbers? But he followed Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him; and I may safely say it of this present age, that, if we are not so great wits as Donne, yet, certainly, we are better poets.' 3

If Dryden was also speaking for himself, may it not be asked, If he was a better poet than Donne, why did he need, in his Eleanora, to copy Donne to such an extent as to make an acknowledgement, in the preface, imperative? 'I have followed [Donne's] footsteps in the design of his panegyric, [An Anatomy].'

94

The next criticism bears about equally upon matter and metre, and may be presented in the language of Gosse (ii, 350, 361):

When, in a regrettable passage of undiluted eulogy, Dryden wished to flatter Lord Dorset to the top of his bent, he told him that Donne alone, of all the English poets, had equalled him in talent, and that even the Dean of St. Paul's "was not happy enough to arrive at [Dorset's] versification." Again, that laudation may reach its acme, Dryden declares that Dorset "equals Donne in the variety, multiplicity, and choice of thoughts, and excels him in the manner and the words. I read you both with the same admiration." This is tantamount to saying that espeially in the department of "wit", Dryden admired Donne more than he admired any other British poet. And this more than

1 Among my Books, cited by Grosart, ii, xxxiv.

2 Essays and Marginalia, ed. by Derwent Coleridge, London, 1851, ii, 47.

3 Essay on Satire, prefixed to 'Juvenal,' 1693, cited by Gosse, ii, 350,

4

* Ibid., ii, 350.

sixty years after Donne's death, and across more than one complete revolution in taste and literary fashion! For those who were sagacious enough to read between the lines, and discount the flattery of Dorset, this was praise for Donne of an extraordinary quality. He has never since found an admirer so strenuous among critics of a like authority with Dryden.'

It is noteworthy that, while Dryden thought Donne's Satires would have appeared more charming (and this means that he thought them charming anyhow), he had better judgment than to undertake to Pope them, or to Parnell them.

Gosse (ii, 326) suggests that it was 'somewhere about 1717' that the Earl of Oxford and the Duke of Shrewsbury 'commended the Satires of Donne to the revising hand of Pope and Parnell.'

Goldsmith, Gilfillan, and the various other biographers of Parnell do not give a date for his 'versifying' of Donne's third Satire ; but Parnell and Pope were together, at Bath, in 1715, when they probably talked over the project, which was carried out,—Parnell's part at least,-soon afterward, for he died in 1718.

Parnell has left no reason for taking part in this affair, beyond the title which he gives to his production: 'Dr. Donne's third Satire Versified.' Pope's title is: The Satires of Dr. John Donne Versified.'1

When we come to consider Pope in connection with this matter, it will appear that Parnell was merely an instrument in the hands of his younger but stronger fellow-versifier.

It may be noted, in passing, that Parnell, in his version of this Satire, frequently places the particles (artioles, conjunctions, and prepositions) in position to receive the ictus; furthermore, we meet such accents as the following, which were, no doubt, and which are, certainly, objected to in Donne:

53. Seek thou Religion primitively sound.

153. For every contrary in such degree.

137. Nor were submission humbleness exprest.
1

139. Power from above, subordinately spread.

1The Italics are mine,