No More Learning

[12] By 1608 he was dead, for a list of captains
discharged in Ireland since 1603 gives the following: 'Born in England
and dead in 1608--Sir John Roe. '[13]

Such in brief outline is the life of the man who in 1603, possibly
between his Irish and Low Country campaigns, appears in London as
one, with his more famous cousin Thomas, of the band of wits and poets
whose leader was Jonson, whose most brilliant star was Donne. Jonson's
epigrams and conversations enable us to fill in some of the colours
wanting in the above outline. The most interesting of these shows Roe
to have been in Russia as well as Ireland and the Low Countries, and
tells us that he was, like 'Natta the new knight' in his _Satyre_, a
duellist:


XXXII.

ON SIR IOHN ROE.

What two brave perills of the private sword
Could not effect, not all the furies doe,
That selfe-devided _Belgia_ did afford;
What not the envie of the seas reach'd too,
The cold of _Mosco_, and fat _Irish_ ayre,
His often change of clime (though not of mind)
What could not worke; at home in his repaire
Was his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.
Which shewes, where ever death doth please t' appeare,
Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sicknesse, all are there.

In his conversations with Drummond Jonson as usual gave more intimate
and less complimentary details: 'Sir John Roe was an infinite spender,
and used to say, when he had no more to spend he could die. He died
in his (i. e. Jonson's) arms of the pest, and he furnished his charges
20lb. , which was given him back,' doubtless by his brother William.
Morant states that 'Sir John the eldest son, having no issue, sold
this Manor (i. e. Higham-hill) to his father-in-law Sir Reginald
Argall, of whom it was purchased by the second son--Sir William Rowe'.
Such a career is much more likely than Donne's to have produced the
satire 'Sleep, next Society', with its lurid picture of cashiered
captains, taverns, stews, duellists, hard drinkers, and parasites.
It is much more like a scene out of _Bartholomew Fair_ than any of
Donne's five _Satyres_. Nor was Donne likely at any time to have
written of James I as Roe does. He moved in higher circles, and was
more politic. But Roe had ability. 'Deare Love, continue nice and
chaste' is not quite in the taste of to-day, but it is a good example
of the paradoxical, metaphysical lyric; and there are both feeling
and wit in 'Come, Fates; I feare you not', unlike as it is to Donne's
subtle, erudite, intenser strain.

Returning to the list of poems open to question on pp. cxxviii-ix we
have sixteen left to consider. Of some of these there is very little
to say.

Nos. 1 and 14 are most probably by the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl
of Pembroke collaborating with Sir Benjamin Rudyard. Both were wits
and poets of Donne's circle. The first song,

'Soules joy, now I am gone'

is ascribed to Donne only in _1635-69_, and is there inaccurately
printed. It is assigned to Pembroke in the younger Donne's edition
of Pembroke and Ruddier's _Poems_ (1660), a bad witness, but also
by Lansdowne MS. 777, which Mr. Chambers justly calls 'a very good
authority'.