that Hall was only third, Lodge the second, and Dr. Donne the first English satirist.

MORTON. You do not mean that nobody had written satires before the date when they flourished? BOURNE. Certainly not: Skelton, Ròy, and several others had written satirical pieces: Roy's attacks upon Cardinal Wolsey were very severe, but though they were intended as satires they were not so called. There was, besides, Gascoyne, whose "Steele Glasse" I have already mentioned, and to which I shall again have occasion to refer that was first printed in 1576. Even Sir T. Wyat has been called a satirist.

ELLIOT. But you are wandering: how do you show that Dr. Donne wrote his satires before 1597, the date of Bishop Hall's work?

BOURNE. By a manuscript copy of his three first satires preserved in the British Museum (among the Harl. MS. No. 5110): it is entitled "Ihon Dunne his Satires. Anno Domini 1593;" of the authenticity, as well as of the correctness of the date of this document, I imagine, there can be no doubt..

MORTON. You have heard of no printed copy of so early a date?

BOURNE. NO; but printing has in truth nothing to do with the question, who was the first English satirist it is enough for me to show that Dr. Donne was the first, about that time, who wrote several satires in English, so called. Besides, great doubt hangs over the printing of Dr. Donne's poems.

ELLIOT. What is the date of the first printed edition of his satires?

BOURNE. What is called the first edition, and that incomplete, of Donne's Poems is dated in 1633, and was published by John Marriot, with some commendatory verses of his own.

ELLIOT. I thought that Donne had been dead by that time.

BOURNE. And so he was, and it is not a little singular, that though scattered pieces had appeared, there was no collection of his poems during his lifetime. The epistle before his poem called "The Progresse of the Soule," is dated 16th August, 1601; other poems to Ben Jonson are in 1603, and what is very remarkable is that in the collection of Ben Jonson's works, in 1616, is an epigram "To Lucy Countesse of Bedford with Mr. Donne's satyres,” which it seems Ben Jonson sent at her desire.

MORTON. Does it not appear whether they were or were not printed?

BOURNE. No, but it is most likely that they were, though they have not come down to us. This may be accounted for. In a letter from Dr. Donne to Sir H. G. dated "Vigilia St Tho." 1614, he mentions his resolution to print his poems "not so much for public view, but at mine own cost a few copies," which few copies, if printed, in all probability are lost.

ELLIOT. One of those might be sent to the Countess of Bedford: if they had been published for sale,

she need not have desired a copy as a present, unless as a mark of distinction to the author.

MORTON. But surely I have seen or heard something of a poem by Dr. Donne, printed before 1633.

BOURNE. What you refer to are probably some pieces called Anniversaries, which, in a letter dated "Paris, the 14th April, 1612," he notices the printing of, as well as some objections urged against them. The second and third of them, dated in 1612, were in Dr. Farmer's Collection.

MORTON. Then how old was he when you suppose he wrote the three satires, the copy of which in MS. is dated 1593 ?

BOURNE. He was born in 1573, therefore he was not more than twenty; but Ben Jonson and others bear testimony to the precocity of his talents: he had obtained a very considerable reputation, as appears by the evidence of contemporaries, before he entered into holy orders, about 1615. Thomas Freeman, in his Epigrams, called "Rubbe and a great Cast," and "Runne and a great Cast," 1614, has one addressed "to John Dunne," in which some of his pieces are noticed, and among them his satires, and Freeman seems to speak of the whole as if they were printed. ELLIOT. Have you that? I should like to see it. BOURNE. I have by good fortune; for it is a work of rare occurrence and high price, principally from the frequent mention in it of poets living about that time. Here is that upon Donne.

The Storme describ'd hath set thy name afloate, Thy Calme, a gale of famous winde hath got: Thy Satyres short, too soone we them ore looke; I prethee Persius write a bigger booke."

Most of the epigrams in this tract have never been quoted, and this among them.

ELLIOT. It is very much to the purpose: bigger booke" would certainly indicate a printed book, if nothing be said to the contrary.

MORTON. And he could hardly have gained a reputation so extensive as is there spoken of, had not his poems and satires been published to the world. BOURNE. His name appears among the satirical eulogisers of Coryate and his Crudities in 1611, and he wrote a poem on the death of Prince Henry, which in 1613 was printed with others by Sir W. Cornwallis, Sir Edw. Herbert, Sir H. Goodyere, &c.

MORTON. Does the MS. of the three first satires of Dr. Donne agree with the printed copy, or does it supply any material omissions?

BOURNE. None perhaps very material, unless we except a few lines left out of the edition of 1633, which the printer did not venture to publish. They are added in most of the subsequent editions.

ELLIOT. Sometimes an old contemporary MS. might enable one to correct admitted errors.

BOURNE. And so does this: I collated the printed

copy and the MS., and found nearly a hundred variations of different kinds, some of them much assisting in explaining the sense of the author: thus the last of the following lines is nonsense as printed in 1633, and subsequently copied ;

"Oh monstrous, superstitious puritan,

Of refin'd manners, yet ceremoniall man;
That when thou meets't one, with enquiring eyes
Dost search and like a needy broker prize
The silke and golde he weares, and to that rate
So high or low dost raise thy formall hate!"

Now the MS. makes it quite intelligible;

"So high or low dost vaile thy formall hat."

However, it would only tire you to go into these minute matters, nor would it be attended with much profit.

MORTON. It is long since I read those satires, but no doubt you have taken the pains to ascertain whether the allusions with which they abound accord with the date assigned to them in the MS.

BOURNE. I have read them carefully with that view, and there is not a reference to any single event, or to any peculiarity of dress and custom, that does not belong to the date which the MS. bears, viz. 1593. Indeed there is one passage that fixes them in Queen Elizabeth's reign almost beyond a doubt: he makes one of the persons say,