DONNE, don. Joni (1573-1631). An F,ng poet and divine. He was born in London, where his father, John Donne, who was Welsh by descent. was a prosperous ironmonger. Ilia mother a daughter of John Heywood. the epigrammatist. He was brought tip a Roman Catholic'. Li 15'14 he was admitted at Hart Hall, Oxford, but was transferred to Cambridge; and in 159:2 lie was entered at Lincoln's Inn. A little later he turned Protestant. In 1.96 he served under Essex in the !tannins to Cadiz, and on hi, return was appointed secre tary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Keeper of the Great Seal. Duri•• the next few years lie wrote ninny poems, some if which circulated in MSS., hut none were published. In December, 1600, lie secretly married .krine, then only seventeen years old. the daughter of Sir George More, brother of the Lord Keeper's wife. In conse quence of this act, lie was dismissed from otliee, and was (-veil committed to the Fleet, hut he soon obtained his release. Thon211 .Intneq was friendly toward him, the King gave him no post at Court. Donne emit inued to write verse• sending the MSS, of his Dirine Perms to the mother of George Herbert in 1607. In 1610. he %%Tote for the Ding the Pseado-liortyr, an argu ment against the attitude of the Catholics toward the oath of allegiance. This was his first publica tion. The next year he published a beautiful elegy on the death of Elizabeth. daughter of Sir Robert Drury, who was Donne's patron. This poem was in 1612 by a philosophical poem, called The Progress of the Noul. Donne soon began to look toward the Church for a career. in 1615 he was ordained in London, and the Univer sity of Cambridge made him a D.D. The next year he was presented to the livings of Keyston in Huntingdonshire and of Sevenoaks in Kent. lie never resided in either parish. but he held Seven
oaks till his death. The satie year he was appointed divinity reader of Inn, and in 1621 he was elected dean of Saint Paul's. lie died March 31, 1631, and was buried in Saint Paul's. As a preacher, Donne at once attained eminence. His verse consists of satires, elegies, religious poems, epistles. and epigrams. Donne was among the first of a series of poets of the seventeenth century, NV110. uncles the infelicitous name of 'the metaphysical poets.' fill a conspicu ous place in English literary history. The direct ness 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, especially in the case of Donne, that. amid these subtleties, there is real poetry, and that of a high order. Especially beautiful are The Storm, The ('alm. The Blossom, The Primrose, and Upon Porting with His Mistress. Donne's influ ence has been very great,• for not only did he found a school of poetry which flourished till the advent of Dryden; but his intensity and obscurity passed into Browning. Donne pub lished little, but from his voluminous MSS. a collection of the poems was published in 1633: and eighty sermons in 1640, to which was pre fixed a charminr. Life by Isaak Walton. For his poems. consult the editions by Grosart, in Fuller's Worthies Library ;London. 1S72) : and by Chambers. with introd. by Saintsbury 15061 : for sermons: Alford. The Works of Joint Donne (London. IS391: for his life: Jessup (London. 1S97) : and Gosse, Life and Letters of John Donne (London, 1899),