_A lame begger_ records a common spectacle in a
Spanish and Catholic town.
Spanish and Catholic town.
John Donne
'Then
we entered into the island of Cales with our footmen,' says Captain
Pryce in his letter to Cecil. Strype's _Annals_, iv. 398. Another
account relates how 'on the 21st they took the town of Cadiz and at
the bridge in the island were encountered by 400 horses'. Here the
severest fighting took place at 'the bridge from Mayne to Cadiz'. What
does Donne mean by 'late island'? Is it the island we lately visited
so gloriously, or the island on which the sun sets late, that western
island, now become a new Pillar of Hercules? It would not be unlike
Donne to give a word a startlingly condensed force. Compare (if the
reading be right) 'far faith' (p. 189, l. 4) and the note.
PAGES =75-6=. The series of Epigrams _A burnt ship_, _Fall of a wall_,
_A lame begger_, _Cales and Guyana_, _Sir John Wingefield_ seem to
me all to have been composed during the Cadiz expedition. The first
suggests, and was probably suggested by, the fight in the harbour when
so many of the Spanish ships were burned. The _Fall of a wall_ may
mark an incident in the attack of the landing party which forced its
way into the city.
_A lame begger_ records a common spectacle in a
Spanish and Catholic town. _Cales and Guyana_ must clearly have been
written when, after Cadiz had been taken and sacked, the leaders were
debating their next step. Essex (and Donne is on Essex's side) urged
that the fleet should sail west and intercept the silver fleet, but
Howard, the Lord Admiral, insisted on an immediate return to England.
The last of the series chronicles the one death to which every account
of the expedition refers.
PAGE =77=. ANTIQUARY. Who is the Hamon or Hammond that is evidently
the subject of this epigram and is referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, I
cannot say. I am disposed to think that it may be John Hammond, LL. D. ,
the civilist, the father of James I's physician and of Charles I's
chaplain. I have no proof that he was an antiquarian, but a civilist
and authority on tithes may well have been so, and he belonged to
the class which Donne satirizes with most of anger and feeling, the
examiners and torturers of Catholic prisoners. We find him in Strype's
_Annals_ collaborating with the notorious Topcliffe.
PHRYNE. An epigram often quoted by Ben Jonson. Drummond,
_Conversations_, ed.
we entered into the island of Cales with our footmen,' says Captain
Pryce in his letter to Cecil. Strype's _Annals_, iv. 398. Another
account relates how 'on the 21st they took the town of Cadiz and at
the bridge in the island were encountered by 400 horses'. Here the
severest fighting took place at 'the bridge from Mayne to Cadiz'. What
does Donne mean by 'late island'? Is it the island we lately visited
so gloriously, or the island on which the sun sets late, that western
island, now become a new Pillar of Hercules? It would not be unlike
Donne to give a word a startlingly condensed force. Compare (if the
reading be right) 'far faith' (p. 189, l. 4) and the note.
PAGES =75-6=. The series of Epigrams _A burnt ship_, _Fall of a wall_,
_A lame begger_, _Cales and Guyana_, _Sir John Wingefield_ seem to
me all to have been composed during the Cadiz expedition. The first
suggests, and was probably suggested by, the fight in the harbour when
so many of the Spanish ships were burned. The _Fall of a wall_ may
mark an incident in the attack of the landing party which forced its
way into the city.
_A lame begger_ records a common spectacle in a
Spanish and Catholic town. _Cales and Guyana_ must clearly have been
written when, after Cadiz had been taken and sacked, the leaders were
debating their next step. Essex (and Donne is on Essex's side) urged
that the fleet should sail west and intercept the silver fleet, but
Howard, the Lord Admiral, insisted on an immediate return to England.
The last of the series chronicles the one death to which every account
of the expedition refers.
PAGE =77=. ANTIQUARY. Who is the Hamon or Hammond that is evidently
the subject of this epigram and is referred to in _Satyre V_, l. 87, I
cannot say. I am disposed to think that it may be John Hammond, LL. D. ,
the civilist, the father of James I's physician and of Charles I's
chaplain. I have no proof that he was an antiquarian, but a civilist
and authority on tithes may well have been so, and he belonged to
the class which Donne satirizes with most of anger and feeling, the
examiners and torturers of Catholic prisoners. We find him in Strype's
_Annals_ collaborating with the notorious Topcliffe.
PHRYNE. An epigram often quoted by Ben Jonson. Drummond,
_Conversations_, ed.
