ABSTRACT
The term first comes into critical importance applied to literature in the seventeenth century, though it was used in the previous century in a general way to denote liveliness and brilliance of conversation. 'Witty Jack Donne' is an Elizabethan man-about-town, but when he turns up in Carew's 'Elegie upon the Death of the Deane of Pauls' (1623) as
