Donne, John (1573-1631).—Poet and divine, s. of a wealthy ironmonger in London, where he was b. Brought up as a Roman Catholic, he was sent to Oxf. and Camb., and afterwards entered Lincoln's Inn with a view to the law. Here he studied the points of controversy between Romanists and Protestants, with the result that he joined the Church of England. The next two years were somewhat changeful, including travels on the Continent, service as a private sec., and a clandestine marriage with the niece of his patron, which led to dismissal and imprisonment, followed by reconciliation. On the suggestion of James I., who approved of Pseudo-Martyr (1610), a book against Rome which he had written, he took orders, and after executing a mission to Bohemia, he was, in 1621, made Dean of St. Paul's. D. had great popularity as a preacher. His works consist of elegies, satires, epigrams, and religious pieces, in which, amid many conceits and much that is artificial, frigid, and worse, there is likewise much poetry and imagination of a high order. Perhaps the best of his works is An Anatomy of the World (1611), an elegy. Others are Epithalamium (1613), Progress of the Soul (1601), and Divine Poems. Collections of his poems appeared in 1633 and 1649. He exercised a strong influence on literature for over half a century after his death; to him we owe the unnatural style of conceits and overstrained efforts after originality of the succeeding age.
Doran, John (1807-1878).—Miscellaneous writer, of Irish parentage, wrote a number of works dealing with the lighter phases of manners, antiquities, and social history, often bearing punning titles, e.g., Table Traits with Something on Them (1854), and Knights and their Days. He also wrote Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover (1855), and A History of Court Fools (1858), and ed. Horace Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III. His books contain much curious and out-of-the-way information. D. was for a short time ed. of The Athenæum.
Dorset, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of (1638-1706).—Poet, was one of the dissolute and witty courtiers of Charles II., and a friend of Sir C. Sedley (q.v.), in whose orgies he participated. He was, however, a patron of literature, and a benefactor of Dryden in his later and less prosperous years. He wrote a few satires and songs, among the latter being the well-known, To all you Ladies now on Land. As might be expected, his writings are characterised by the prevailing indelicacy of the time.
Dorset, Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of, and Lord Buckhurst (1536-1608).—Poet and statesman, was b. at Buckhurst, Sussex, the only s. of Sir Richard S., and ed. at Oxf. and Camb. He studied law at the Inner Temple, and while there wrote, in conjunction with Thomas Norton, Ferren and Porrex or Gerboduc (1561–2), the first regular English tragedy. A little later he planned The Mirror for Magistrates, which was to have been a series of narratives of distinguished Englishmen, somewhat on the model of Boccaccio's Falls of Princes. Finding the plan too large, he handed it over to others—seven poets in all being engaged upon it—and himself contributed two poems only, one on Buckingham, the con-
