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 to attract a patron. They hardly suggest, indeed, real feeling, although they are very curious illustrations of Donne's 'metaphysical' subtleties, and contain some of his most striking phrases. Meanwhile, it is singular, as Mr. Gosse points out, that Drury vanishes entirely from Donne's life, and is hardly mentioned in his letters. Possibly, as a cynic might observe, the explanation is to be guessed from Drury's relation to Donne's contemporary, Joseph Hall. Drury had patronised Hall, and Hall, as he tells us, had given him up because another patron offered more liberal terms.

Donne's hopes were long fixed on secular preferment. Some great man was to make him Secretary to the Virginia Company, or Ambassador at Venice; and yet, in spite of worries and ambitions, he was still immersed in his favourite studies. He was learning the 'Eastern tongues,' reading Spanish divines and poets, and following religious controversy, besides turning out an occasional 'epithalamium ' or elegy. One occupation suggests a problem. From 1605 to 1607, Donne, as Mr. Gosse thinks, was chiefly employed in what lawyers would call 'devilling' for the learned Dr. Morton, who was arguing with the Jesuits, and in 1607 was rewarded by the Deanery of