_Aln._ The Bull? Tis well the fellows of the Guard Intend not to come thither; if they did The Gods might chance to lose their beef. The name 'beefeater' has, I suppose, some responsibility for the jest. Nash refers to their size: 'The big-bodied Halbordiers that guard her Majesty,' Nash (Grosart), i. 102; and to their capacities as trenchermen: 'Lies as big as one of the Guardes chynes of beefe,' Nash (M^{c}Kerrow), i. 269. 'Ascapart is a giant thirty feet high who figures in the legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton.' Chambers. l. 240. _a scarce brooke_. Donne uses 'scarce' in this sense, i.e. 'scanty'. It is not common. See note to l. 4. PAGE =168=, l. 242. _Macchabees modestie._ 'And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.' 2 Maccabees xv. 38. PAGE =168=. SATYRE V. l. 9. _If all things be in all._ 'All things are concealed in all. One of them all is the concealer of the rest--their corporeal vessel, external, visible and movable.' Paracelsus, _Coelum Philosophorum: The First Canon, Concerning the Nature and Properties of Mercury_. PAGE =169=, l. 31. _You Sir, &c._: i.e. Sir Thomas Egerton, whose service Donne entered probably in 1598 and left in 1601-2. Norton says 1596 to 1600. In 1596 Egerton was made Lord Keeper. In 1597 he was busy with the reform of some of the abuses connected with the Clerkship of the Star Chamber, and this is probably what Donne has in view throughout the Satyre. 'For some years the administration of this office had given rise to complaints. In the last Parliament a bill had been brought in ... for the reformation of it; but by a little management on the part of the Speaker had been thrown out on the second reading. Upon this I suppose the complainants addressed themselves to the Queen. For it appears that the matter was under inquiry in 1595, when Puckering was Lord Keeper; and it is certain that at a later period some of the fees claimed by the Clerk of Council were by authority of the Lord Keeper Egerton restrained.' Spedding, _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, ii. 56. In the note Spedding refers to a MS. at Bridgewater House containing 'The humble petition of the Clerk of the Council concerning his fees restrained by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Keeper'. Bacon held the reversion to this Clerkship and in a long letter to Egerton he discusses in detail the nature of the 'claim'd fees'. The question was not settled till 1605. It will be noticed that in several editions and MSS. the reading is 'claim'd fees'.