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 Athenaeum_.

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 mig