Great oaks, says the age-old and timeworn proverb in effect, are the result of little acorns, and it might be added, acorns nurtured under suitable conditions. Just so in literature great movements spring from relatively small beginnings aided by favorable outward circumstances, and while I hesitate to call the efforts of the writers of early seventeen hundreds small, yet they were but as the bird compared to the burst of bloom which appeared toward the middle of the century.

Yet since to know the whole oak one must be acquainted with the acorn, so, to understand the later literary works of the eighteenth century one must have at least an outlook over the earlier movements. Professor Howard in his course German 6, is going to speak on these earlier literary movements of the eighteenth century this morning at 11 o'clock, and any who desire may at that hour see one in the guise of a vagabond on his way to the Germanic Museum.

John Donne, the poet-preacher and devoted spokesman of "conceits" has been called with a certain cynical truth "the founder of a school of bad taste," "Donne" say Dryden, "affects the metaphysics not only in his Satires, but in his common verses where Nature only should reign, and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice specializations of philosophy when he should engage their hearts and entertain them with the softnesses of love."

For all that, he is an interesting character and shall go to hear Professor Murdock lecture on him in English 50a at Sever 11, though the hour is 2 o'clock.