ABSTRACT
Satire of lawyers who disgraced their profession was popular among Elizabethan students and laymen too, e.g., the libel against some Grayes Inn gentlemen & Revellers associated with the 15945 Gesta Grayorum. More serious than the first two satires, this seems likely to be written when, in Walton's words, John Donne began seriously to survey and consider the body of divinity as it was then controverted betwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church. The sub-title Poema Satyricon signals that John Donne is offering a poem also analogous to Petronius prose Satyricon: by the Greek word Petronius indicates that his models are the comically lecherous satyr plays. Acting for the Queen and Council, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London had banned all satire in 1599. Performing animals were a popular sight in London, most famously Bankss horse, Morocco, which from 1588 for about twenty years performed.
