_ 'All things are
concealed
in all.
John Donne
'scanty'. It is not common. See note to l. 4.
PAGE =168=, l. 242. _Macchabees modestie. _ 'And if I have done well,
and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired; but
if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto. ' 2
Maccabees xv. 38.
PAGE =168=. SATYRE V.
l. 9. _If all things be in all.
_ 'All things are concealed in all.
One of them all is the concealer of the rest--their corporeal vessel,
external, visible and movable. ' Paracelsus, _Coelum Philosophorum: The
First Canon, Concerning the Nature and Properties of Mercury_.
PAGE =169=, l. 31. _You Sir, &c. _: i. e. Sir Thomas Egerton, whose
service Donne entered probably in 1598 and left in 1601-2. Norton says
1596 to 1600. In 1596 Egerton was made Lord Keeper. In 1597 he
was busy with the reform of some of the abuses connected with the
Clerkship of the Star Chamber, and this is probably what Donne has in
view throughout the Satyre. 'For some years the administration of this
office had given rise to complaints. In the last Parliament a bill
had been brought in . . .
