Page:The Poems of John Donne - 1896 - Volume 1.djvu/18

The institution of great men’s households, which then prevailed, provided a kind of additional liberal profession for men of parts and gentle but not distinguished birth; and Donne, on his return to England, joined the household of Chancellor Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Ellesmere. Here he met Anne More, Lady Egerton’s niece and daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower. A clandestine marriage (1601) followed, with the result of great wrath on Sir George’s part, the dismissal of Donne from Egerton’s service, and his incarceration with his two friends, Samuel and Christopher Brooke (both poets, and the first afterwards Master of Trinity), who had helped his love-affairs. These troubles he won through, and at last was re-united to his wife with Sir George’s blessing, but none of his money. So the pair had to take up their abode with a certain Francis Wolley of Pirford, at whose death, after a short residence at Peckham and Mitcham, Donne transferred his family to the house of Sir Robert Drury in London. He also accompanied Sir Robert on an embassy to France. It is this journey in reference to which a famous apparition story is told. There is no positive evidence to show why Donne, whose strong theological leanings must have been obvious to everybody, and who had, ac-