ascetic life, he found intruding upon his ecstatic devotion to God faintly alluring remembrances of former sins, and this cast him into a state of despair not unmixed with fear. Time after time was his serenity destroyed, his poise lost.

And the reason for this is clear. The modern principle was not strong enough in him to control his medieval upbringing. The highly mystical form of religion to which he eventually came was an offspring of his early training; his reason could never completely master the terror called up by the 'sins' of his youth. And Donne's greatest merit is that he never abandoned the conflict. An invincible honesty of endeavour, rising probably from the depth of his conviction of the importance of religion, held him back from the easy solution of accepting, out of sheer weariness, a faith ready to hand in one of the churches. Instead, he worked out his own solution, and spent the latter half of his life in a fierce endeavour to subdue his body to the ideal which he had set himself to reach.

In Donne's poetry we find in action the same factors that we have seen in his character. The Middle Ages contribute scholastic learning and a delight in mere logic; also, more important still-for it is the chief stumbling-block to the modern reader—the idea that these are fit source from which to draw the decorative matter for poetry. The Renaissance quality occurs in the intense intellectual activity displayed, and in the purely pagan outlook which is seen in the natur

alism of the early poems. On the other hand, his innovations both in spirit, metre, and kind give evidence of a new outlook.

Professor Saintsbury says that it is inevitable that many shall not appreciate Donne, less, one gathers, on account of his difficulty than because of the sensual quality of much of his work. This may be so, yet it is difficult to imagine a poet unread in these days for such a reason. Naturalism is indeed beyond the pale, but the average man now has reached a point from which he may well look over without being thought to peep through. However that may be, no one can read Donne with any sincerity and deny him genius. He has the passionate intensity, the imperious need for expression, the leaping imagination which distinguish poets of the first class. What hinders, then, to count him among our greatest?

The impediments are various and serious. In the first place, like Swift, he seemed not to appreciate beauty, if such a thing can be said of one who hated ugliness so intensely. External nature thus had little charm for him; at least, it enters very seldom into his imagery. Whether a sense of the delightfulness of nature is necessary to great art is a separate question; the fact remains that we expect to find it in great poetry. In any case, something must be put in its place, and one is almost tempted to say that Donne has substituted a sense of almost mathematical appropriateness, as though he derived more

pleasure from contemplation of a straight line than from gazing at a stretch of green grass. Since it is at least possible that he is right in that choice, although we may differ from him, it behoves us to be careful how we assess this trait. All we can safely say is that it makes his verse less pleasant to read, in our opinion. Another fault Donne had which is certainly of far wider reach, and perhaps more vital. He was not, except instinctively, a literary artist. His work is full of essential artistry, but it is not deliberate. Certainly he had no care to polish his work. The state in which his poems have come down to us sufficiently attests this. Donne's one desire was to discharge his soul of the mood which held him; that done, he probably never turned to his poem again.

The result is that nowhere, except in an occasional short piece, is there the perfect balance which is the culminating merit of a work of art. Again, he seemed lacking in constructive power for a poem on the large scale. The only one he attempted was left unfinished, and the fragment is by no means promising.

These are heavy counts against one who would aspire to the first class among poets, yet Donne's genius will not always be denied. In spite of his indifference to beauty, in spite of the suspect nature of much of his imagery, in spite too of the casuistry with which he loads his verse, his native inspiration at times prevails, and we find here a phrase, there a stanza, now

a complete poem which is, as Professor Saintsbury says in another connexion, poetry sans phrase.

In forming an estimate of the importance of Donne, to his genius must be added the great historical significance of his innovations. Not only did he reject contemptuously the conventional dress of the poetry of his day and substitute another, but he originated one type of poetry in England, and changed the spirit of a second. is safe to prophesy that as a result of examining his poetry every reader will be convinced of the great originality of Donne, that most will admire the persistent honesty of purpose with which he maintained his search for truth, that many will thrill to the genius which places him, though but occasionally, among those great poets whose words echó down the imagination, striking out notes of sympathy on either hand.

II

OHN DONNE, whose name was variously spelt, and pronounced to rime with 'done,' was born in London in 1573, in Bread Street, being the son of a wealthy ironmonger. That he was Warden of the Ironmongers' Company in 1574 is almost the only fact extant about the poet's father, and the history of the Donne family is unknown. On the mother's side, however, there was distinction and to spare. She was Elizabeth, third daughter of

John Heywood, the celebrated wit and writer of interludes. He lost his position as favourite of Henry VIII by refusing to acknowledge the royal supremacy, and only saved his life by a public recantation. Thereafter, except during Mary's short reign, when he was restored to great favour, he lived in exile at Louvain or Malines. But a greater than John Heywood appears among Donne's ancestors. Heywood's wife, Elizabeth Rastell, was the granddaughter of Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas More, the illustrious and ill-fated Chancellor to Henry VIII.

It will be readily understood that the Catholic faith, consecrated by the sacrifice of the life of one ancestor of great renown, and the estates of more than one, became the most cherished possession of Donne's mother; and, it being a curious fact that religious devotion thrives on persecution, her enthusiasm was doubtless strengthened by the troubles that constantly overtook the family, which suffered in every outburst against the Catholics.

We can scarcely doubt, therefore, that Donne was brought up in an intensely religious atmosphere. His father died when the boy was three years old, and it seems probable that he spent some time thereafter with his grandfather, the illustrious John Heywood, at Louvain Malines. But Heywood died about 1580, and then in all probability John returned to England.

or

To understand the prominence of religious questions in the early years of our poet it must