DONNE, JOHN, D.D., the son of an eminent merchant, cadet of an ancient family in Wales, was b. in London in 1573. His parents were Catholics, and he was educated in that faith. At the age of 11, he went to Oxford, where he remained three years; there after, he removed to Cambridge. Although he greatly distinguished himself at these scats of learning, the faith of his parents prevented him from taking a degree. At the age of 17, he entered Lincoln's inn, to read for the bar; and while so engaged, he care fully studied the principal points in dispute between Catholics and Protestants, and finally joined the latter. About this time, he wrote several of his minor poems, the erotic beat of which contrasted strangely with the austerity of his later years. In 1594, he went abroad, and lived for three years in Spain and Italy. On his return, he was made secretary to Lord Ellesmere, then lord. keeper of the great seal. Here he fell in love with that nobleman's niece, and they were privately married. When the union was discovered, D. was imprisoned by his enraged father-in-law. After his liberation, he recovered his wife by legal process, and, without settled employment, went to reside at the house of sir Francis Wooley, a kinsman of his wife. After the death of sir Francis, he removed to London, and lived with sir Robert Drury, in Drury lane. With sir Robert he went to Paris; and on his return, at the instigation of James I., who was
delighted with the Pseudo-Martyr, a book which D. had written against the Catholics, he entered holy orders. He was made D.D. by the university of Cambridge; and after accompanying an embassy to the queen of Bohemia, he was made on his return dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St. Dunstan's. A fever carrried him off in 1631. His life has been written by Izaak Walton—forming one of the group of "lives" so praised by Wordsworth in a celebrated sonnet.
D.'s works consist of satires, elegies, religious poems, complimentary verses, and epigrams: they were collected and published by his son in 1650. An earlier but imper fect collection appeared in 1633. D. is usually considered as the first of a series of poets of the 17th c., who, under the infelicitous naine,q poets, fill a con spicuous place in English literary history. The directness of thought, the naturalness of description, the rich abundance of genuine poetical feeling and imagery, now began to give way to cold and forced conceits, and elaborate exercises of the intellect. Yet it is generally acknowledged that, amid much rubbish, there is not a little real poetry, and that of a high order, in Donne. His fancy was rich and subtle, his wit singularly keen and poignant, and his word-painting such, that, if he had possessed, in addition, music and sensibility, he would probably have enjoyed a perpetual popularity.