JOHN DONNE, poet and theologian, belongs to a literary period which produced so many great writers that everything which belongs to it is studied with interest in the hope of explaining them. He was born in London in 1573, and educated at Oxford. He was for a time Secretary to the Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, whose niece he married in opposition to her uncle’s wishes. He became a favorite of James I., and on taking orders was made the royal chaplain. Among his prose works are “Pseudo-Martyr,” “Essays on Divinity,” and “Letters to Several Persons of Honor.” Some of his poems were greatly admired by De Quincey, but as a poet he falls under the sweeping condemnation of Taine for affectation, which characterizes the minor poets of his age.