_And follow headlong, wild
uncertain
thee?
John Donne
.
not
to be too high-minded or jolly for anything that is past. ' Sanderson
(1648).
l. 10. _Giddie fantastique Poets of each land. _ In a letter Donne
tells Buckingham, in Spain, how his own library is filled with Spanish
books 'from the mistress of my youth, Poetry, to the wife of mine age,
Divinity'. This line in the Satires points to the fact, which Donne
was probably tempted later to obscure a little, that his first
prolonged visit to the Continent had been made before he settled in
London in 1592 and probably without the permission of the Government.
The other than Spanish poets would doubtless be French and Italian.
Donne had read Dante. He refers to him in the fourth _Satyre_ ('who
dreamt he saw hell'), and in an unpublished letter in the Burley MS.
he dilates at some length, but in no very creditable fashion, on an
episode in the _Divina Commedia_. Of French poets he probably knew at
any rate Du Bartas and Regnier.
l. 12.
_And follow headlong, wild uncertain thee? _ I have retained the
_1633_ punctuation instead of, with Chambers, comma-ing 'wild' as
well as 'headlong'. The latter is possibly an adverb here, going with
'follow'. The use of 'headlong' as an adjective with persons was not
common. The earliest example in the O. E. D. is from _Hudibras_:
The Friendly Rug preserv'd the ground,
And headlong Knight from bruise or wound.
Donne's line is, however, ambiguous; and the subsequent description of
the humorist would justify the adjective.
l. 18. _Bright parcell gilt, with forty dead mens pay. _ Compare:
'Captains some in guilt armour (unbatt'red) some in buffe jerkins,
plated o'r with massy silver lace (raz'd out of the ashes of dead
pay). ' Dekker, _Newes from Hell_, ii. 119 (Grosart). So many
'dead pays' (i.
to be too high-minded or jolly for anything that is past. ' Sanderson
(1648).
l. 10. _Giddie fantastique Poets of each land. _ In a letter Donne
tells Buckingham, in Spain, how his own library is filled with Spanish
books 'from the mistress of my youth, Poetry, to the wife of mine age,
Divinity'. This line in the Satires points to the fact, which Donne
was probably tempted later to obscure a little, that his first
prolonged visit to the Continent had been made before he settled in
London in 1592 and probably without the permission of the Government.
The other than Spanish poets would doubtless be French and Italian.
Donne had read Dante. He refers to him in the fourth _Satyre_ ('who
dreamt he saw hell'), and in an unpublished letter in the Burley MS.
he dilates at some length, but in no very creditable fashion, on an
episode in the _Divina Commedia_. Of French poets he probably knew at
any rate Du Bartas and Regnier.
l. 12.
_And follow headlong, wild uncertain thee? _ I have retained the
_1633_ punctuation instead of, with Chambers, comma-ing 'wild' as
well as 'headlong'. The latter is possibly an adverb here, going with
'follow'. The use of 'headlong' as an adjective with persons was not
common. The earliest example in the O. E. D. is from _Hudibras_:
The Friendly Rug preserv'd the ground,
And headlong Knight from bruise or wound.
Donne's line is, however, ambiguous; and the subsequent description of
the humorist would justify the adjective.
l. 18. _Bright parcell gilt, with forty dead mens pay. _ Compare:
'Captains some in guilt armour (unbatt'red) some in buffe jerkins,
plated o'r with massy silver lace (raz'd out of the ashes of dead
pay). ' Dekker, _Newes from Hell_, ii. 119 (Grosart). So many
'dead pays' (i.
