> I can't remember off hand the other items in the list, but in Vanity of
> Human Wishes Johnson lists the miseries of the writer, ending with (I think
> -- I'll look this up later) "the patron and the jail."
And mark what ills the Scholar's life assail -- Toil, Envy, Want, the Patron and the Jail.
IIRC Johnson's first version of the poem had something different in place of 'patron' -- 'printer', maybe? But after his notorious disappointment with Lord Chesterfield, made immortal by the finest poison-pen letter ever committed to paper, the old boy inserted 'patron' instead.
How I love that man.
> Joanna perhaps could give more detail on
> the price James put on any patronage for Donne.
Once Donne became a Dean it was all pretty much smooth sailing, wasn't it? As it is is for most Deans in my experience.
But before he went into Orders, when his patron was the Earl of Ellesmere, he got himself in hot water by marrying the Earl's niece Ann -- hence his famous epigram: John Donne, Ann Donne, undone.
-- --
Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
Any proposition that seems self-evident is almost certainly false.