THE

SA TIRES

OF

Dr. JOHN DONNE,

Dean of ST. PAUL's,

VERSIFIED.

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili fcripta legentes
Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negârit
Versiculos natura magis factos, & euntés
Mollius ?

Hor.

SA TIRE II.

VIR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate

Perfe&tly all this town; yet there's one ftate In all ill things, so excellently beft, That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the ret. Though Poetry, indeed, be such a sin, As I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in: Though like the peftilence, and old-fashion'd love, Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove Never, till it be ftarv'd out; yet their state Is poor, disarmd, like Papifts, not worth hate.

One (like a wretch, which at barre judg'd as dead, Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read, And faves his life) gives Idiot Actors means, (Starving himself) to live by's labour'd fcenes. As in fome Organs, Puppits dance above And bellows pant below, which them do move. One would move love by rythmes; but witchcraft's

charms Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms;

SATIRE II.

Y

ES; thank my stars ! as early as I knew

This Town, I had the fenfe to hate it too :
Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there muft be ftill
One Giant-Vice, fo excellently ill,
That all befide, one pities, not abhors ;

5 As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

I grant that Poetry's a crying fin;
It brought (no doubt) th'Excise and Army in :
Catch'd like the Plague, or Love, the Lord knows

how,
But that the cure is starving, all allowv.
Yet like the Papist's, is the Poet's state,
Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!

Here a lean Bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an Alor live:
The Thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of some carv'd Organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heav'd by the brcath th'inspiring bellows blow :
Th'inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

One fings the Fair ; but fongs no longer move; No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:

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Rams, and flings now are filly battery,
Pistolets are the best artillery.
And they who write to Lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like fingers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'scuse for writing, and for writing ill.

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Others wits fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spue,
As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis true,
For if one eat my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, the excrement's his own,
But these do me no harm, nor they which use,

to out-usure Jews, T' outdrink the sea, t'out-swear the Letanie, Who with fins ail kinds as familiar be. As Confessors, and for whose finful fake Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make; Whose strange fins Canonists could hardly tell In which Commandment's large receit they dwell.

VEP. 44. In what Commandment's large contents they dwell.] The Original is more humourous,

In which Commandment's large receit they dwell. As if the Ten Commandments were so wide, as to stand ready to receive every thing within them, that either the Law of Natur or the Gospel commands. A just ridicule on thofe practical Corte

30

In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the dev'l, and all but gold.

These write to Lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars fing at doors for meat. 26
Those write because all write, and so have still
Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.
Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others wit:
'Tis chang'd no doubt, from what it was before,
His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
Sense, past thro' him, no longer is the same;
For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those Confessors and Martyrs, 35 Who live like St-n, or who die like Chartres, Out-cant old Efdras, or out-drink his heir, Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear; Wicked as Pages, who in early years A&t fins which Prisca's Confessor scarce hears. 40 Ev'n those I pardon, for whose finful fake Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make; Of whose strange crimes no Canonist can tell In what Commandment's large contents they dwell,

mentators, as they are called, who include all moral and religious Daties within them. Whereas their true original sense is much more confined, being a short fummary of duty fitted for a fingle People, upon a particular cocafion, and to serve transitory ends.