Then fick with Poetry, and possest with Muse Thou waft, and mad I hop'd; but men which chufe Law practice for meer gain; bold foul repute That only furetyship hath brought them there, NOTES. He speaks here of thofe illiberal Advocates who frequent the Bar for mere gain, without any purpofe of promoting or advancing civil juftice; the confequence of which, he tells us, is a flavish attendance, together with a degradation of their parts and abilities. So that when they undertake to excuse the bad conduct of their client, they talk as idly, and are heard with the fame contempt, as debtors, whofe common Curs'd be the wretch, fo venal and so vain: Paltry and proud, as Drabs in Drury-lane. 'Tis fuch a bounty as was never known, 65 If PETER deigns to help you to your own: NOTES. 75 80 cant is, that they were undone by Suretyship. The Imitator did not feem to take the fineness of the fatire, or would not have neglected an abufe of this importance, to fall upon fuch paultry things as Peter, and those whom Peter confidered (and fo well ufed) as his patrimony. Shortly (as th' fea) he'll compafs all the land, Hard words, or fenfe; or, in Divinity ၄၁ "Till, like the Sea, they compafs all the land, 85 O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place; Or, in quotation, fhrewd Divines leave out Those words, that would against them clear the doubt. 105 So Luther thought the Pater-nofter long, NOTES. VER. 105. So Luther, &c.] Our Poet, by judiciously tranfpofing this fine fimilitude, has given new luftre to his VOL. IV. S Where are these spread woods which cloath'd heretofore Those bought lands? not built, not burnt within door. Where the old landlords troops, and almes? In halls Carthufian Fafts, and fulfome Bacchanals Equally I hate. Mean's bleft. In rich men's homes I bid kill fome beafts, but no hecatombs; NOTES. Author's thought. The Lawyer (fays Dr. Donne) enlarges his legal inftruments, to the bignefs of glofs'd civil Laws, when it is to convey property to himfelf, and to fecure his own illgot wealth. But let the fame Lawyer convey property to you, and he then omits even the neceffary words; and becomes as concife and loose as the hafty poftils of a modern Divine. So Luther, while a Monk, and by his Inflitution, obliged to fay Mafs, and pray in perfon for others, thought even his Pater-nofter too long. But when he fet up for a Governor in the Church, and his bufinefs was to direct others how to pray for the fuccefs of his new Model; he then lengthened the Pater-nofter by a new claufe. This reprefentation of the first part of his conduct was to ridicule his want of devotion; as the other, where he tells us, that the addit or was the power and glory claufe, was to fatirize his ambition; and both together, to infinuate that from a Monk, he was become totally fecularized. — About this time of his life Dr. Donne had a ftrong propenfity to the Roman Catholic Religion, which appears from feveral ftrokes in thefe Satires. We find amongst his works, a fhort fatirical thing called a Catalogue of rare Books, one article of which is entitled, M. Lutherus de abbreiatione Orationis Do ninica, alluding to Luther's omission of the concluding Doxology in his two Catechifms; which thews the Poet was fond of his joke. In this catalogue (to intimate |