Page 145. Satyre I.
This Satyre is pretty closely imitated in the Satyra Quinta of SKIALETHEIA. or, A shadowe of Truth in certaine Epigrams and Satyres. 1598. attributed to Edward Guilpin (or Gilpin), to whom extracts from it are assigned in Englands Parnassus (1600). Who Guilpin was we do not know. Besides the work named he wrote two sonnets prefixed to Gervase Markham's Devoreux. Vertues tears for the losse of the most Christian King Henry, third of that name; and the untimely death of the most noble and heroical Gentleman, Walter Devoreux, who was slain before Roan in France. First written in French by the most excellent and learned Gentlewoman, Madame Geneuefe Petan Maulette. And paraphrastically translated into English by Jervis Markham. 1597. See Grosart's Introduction to his reprint of Skialetheia in Occasional Issues. 6. (1878). Donne addresses a letter to Mr. E. G. (p. [208]), which Gosse conjectures to be addressed to Guilpin. That Guilpin knew Donne is probable in view of this early imitation of a privately circulated MS. poem. Guilpin's poem begins:
Let me alone I prethee in thys Cell,
Entice me not into the Citties hell;
Tempt me not forth this Eden of content,
To tast of that which I shall soone repent:
Prethy excuse me, I am hot alone
Accompanied with meditation,
And calme content, whose tast more pleaseth me
Then all the Citties lushious vanity.