Wotton, the country, and the country swayne, How can they yeeld a Poet any sense? How can they stirre him up or heat his vaine? How can they feed him with intelligence? You have that fire which can a witt enflame In happy London Englands fayrest eye: Well may you Poets have of worthy name Which have the foode and life of Poetry. And yet the Country or the towne may swaye Or beare a part, as clownes do in a play. Donne was one of those to whom Wotton showed Bacon's poem, and the result was the present letter which occasionally echoes Bacon's words. Wotton replied to it in some characteristic verses preserved in _B_ (Lord Ellesmere's MS.) and _P_ (belonging to Captain Harris). I print it from the former: _To J: D: from M^r H: W:_ Worthie Sir: Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheards life, Tis not in feilds or woods remote to live, That adds or takes from one that peace or strife, Which to our dayes such good or ill doth give: It is the mind that make the mans estate 5 For ever happy or unfortunate. Then first the mind of passions must be free Of him that would to happiness aspire; Whether in Princes Pallaces he bee, Or whether to his cottage he retire; 10 For our desires that on extreames are bent Are frends to care and traitors to content. Nor should wee blame our frends though false they bee Since there are thousands false, for one that's true, But our own blindness, that we cannot see 15 To chuse the best, although they bee but few: For he that every fained frend will trust, Proves true to frend, but to himself unjust. The faults wee have are they that make our woe, Our virtues are the motives of our joye, 20 Then is it vayne, if wee to desarts goe To seek our bliss, or shroud us from annoy: Our place need not be changed, but our Will, For every where wee may do good or ill. But this I doe not dedicate to thee, 25 As one that holds himself fitt to advise, Or that my lines to him should precepts be That is less ill then I, and much more wise: Yet 'tis no harme mortality to preach, For men doe often learne when they do teach. The date of the _débat_ is before April 1598, when Bastard's _Chrestoleros_ was entered on the Stationers' Register, probably 1597-8, the interval between the return of the Islands Expedition and Donne's entry into the household of Sir Thomas Egerton. Mr. Chambers has shown that during this interval Donne was occasionally employed by Cecil to carry letters to and from the Commanders of the English forces still in France. But it was not till about April 1598 that he found permanent employment.