"He was a very studious
nobleman and very learned, particularly in law and physics.
nobleman and very learned, particularly in law and physics.
Robert Herrick - Hesperide and Noble Numbers
Ovid, _Phaedra to Hipp.
_ 10:
Dicere quae puduit scribere jussit amor.
849. _'Tis sweet to think_, etc. Seneca, _Herc. Fur. _ 657-58: Quae fuit
durum pati Meminisse dulce est.
851. _To Mr. Henry Lawes, the excellent composer of his lyrics. _ Henry
Lawes (1595-1662), the friend of Milton, admitted a Gentleman of the
Chapel Royal, 1625. In the _Noble Numbers_ he is mentioned as the
composer of Herrick's _Christmas Carol_ and the first of his two
_New-Year's Gifts_. Lawes also set to music Herrick's _Not to Love_, _To
Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler_ (Among the Myrtles as I walked), _The Kiss_, _The
Primrose_, _To a Gentlewoman objecting to him his Grey Hairs_, and
doubtless others.
852. _Maidens tell me I am old. _ From Anacreon:
Λέγουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες
Ἀνακρέων γέρων εἶ κ. τ. λ.
With a significant variation--"Ill it fits"--for μᾶλλον πρέπει.
859. _Master J. Jincks. _ Not identified.
861. _Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their own. _ Aristot.
_Politics_, iii. 7: καλεῖν εἰώθαμεν τῶν μὲν μοναρχιῶν τὴν πρὸς τὸ κοινὸν
ἀποβλέπουσαν συμφέρον βασιλείαν . . . ἡ τυραννίς ἐστι μοναρχία πρὸς τὸ
συμφέρον τὸ τοῦ μοναρχοῦντος.
869. _Sir Thomas Heale. _ Probably a son of the Sir Thomas Hele, of
Fleet, Co. Devon, who died in 1624. This Sir Thomas was created a
baronet in 1627, and according to Dr. Grosart was one of the Royalist
commanders at the siege of Plymouth. He died 1670.
872. _Love is a kind of war. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ II. 233, 34:--
Militiae species amor est: discedite segnes!
Non sunt haec timidis signa tuenda viris.
873. _A spark neglected_, etc. Ovid, _Rem. Am. _ 732-34:--
E minimo maximus ignis erit.
Sic nisi vitaris quicquid renovabit amorem,
Flamma redardescet quae modo nulla fuit.
874. _An Hymn to Cupid. _ From Anacreon:--
Ὠναξ, ᾧ δαμάλης Ἔρως
καὶ Νύμφαι κυανώπιδες
πορφυρέη τ' Ἀφροδίτη
συμπαίζουσιν . . . γουνοῦμαί σε, κ. τ. λ.
885. _Naught are all women. _ Burton, III. ii. 5. § 5.
907. _Upon Mr. William Lawes, the rare musician. _ Elder brother of the
more famous Henry Lawes; appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal,
1602, and also one of Charles I. 's musicians-in-ordinary. When the Civil
War broke out he joined the king's army and was killed by a stray shot
during the siege of Chester, 1645. He set Herrick's _Gather ye rosebuds_
to music.
914. _Numbers ne'er tickle_, etc. Martial, I. xxxvi. :--
Lex haec carminibus data est jocosis,
Ne possint, nisi pruriant, juvare.
918. _M. Kellam. _ As yet unidentified. Dr. Grosart suggests that he may
have been one of Herrick's parishioners, and the name sounds as of the
west country.
920. _Cunctation in correction. _ Is Herrick translating? According to a
relief at Rome the lictors' rods were bound together not only by a red
thong twisted from top to bottom, but by six straps as well.
922. _Continual reaping makes a land wax old. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ iii. 82:
Continua messe senescit ager.
923. _Revenge. _ Tacitus, _Hist. _ iv. 3: Tanto proclivius est injuriae
quàm beneficio vicem exsolvere; quia gratia oneri, ultio in quaestu
habetur.
927. _Praise they that will times past. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ iii. 121:--
Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum
Gratulor; haec aetas moribus apta meis.
928. _Clothes are conspirators. _ I can suggest no better explanation of
this oracular epigram than that the tailor's bill is an enemy of a
slender purse.
929. _Cruelty_. Seneca _de Clem. _ i. 24: Ferina ista rabies est,
sanguine gaudere et vulneribus; (i. 8), Quemadmodum praecisae arbores
plurimis ramis repullulant [H. uses repullulate, -tion, 336, 794], et
multa satorum genera, ut densiora surgant, reciduntur; ita regia
crudelitas auget inimicorum numerum tollendo. Ben Jonson, _Discoveries_
(_Clementia_): "The lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out quicker;
and the taking away of some kind of enemies increaseth the number".
931. _A fierce desire of hot and dry. _ Cp. note on 683.
932. _To hear the worst_, etc. Antisthenes ap. _Diog. Laert. _ VI. i. 4,
§ 3: Ἀκούσας ποτὲ ὅτι Πλάτων αὐτὸν κακῶς λέγει Βασιλικὸν ἔφη καλῶς
ποιοῦντα κακῶς ἀκούειν, quoted by Burton, II. iii. 7.
934. _The Bondman. _ Cp. Exodus xxi. 5, 6: "And if the servant shall
plainly say: I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go
out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also
bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore
his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever".
936. _My kiss outwent the bonds of shamefastness. _ Cp. Sidney's
_Astrophel and Stella_, sonnet 82. For _not Jove himself_, etc. , cp. 10,
and note.
938. _His wish. _ From Martial, II. xc. 7-10:--
Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux:
Sit nox cum somno, sit sine lite dies, etc.
939. _Upon Julia washing herself in the river. _ Imitated from Martial,
IV. xxii. :--
Primos passa toros et adhuc placanda marito
Merserat in nitidos se Cleopatra lacus,
Dum fugit amplexus: sed prodidit unda latentem,
Lucebat, totis cum tegeretur aquis.
Condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro,
Sic prohibet tenuis gemma latere rosas,
Insilui mersusque vadis luctantia carpsi
Basia: perspicuae plus vetuistis aquae.
940. _Though frankincense_, etc. Ovid, _de Medic. Fac. _ 83, 84:--
Quamvis thura deos irataque numina placent,
Non tamen accensis omnia danda focis.
947. _To his honoured and most ingenious friend, Mr. Charles Cotton. _
Dr. Grosart annotates: "The translator of Montaigne, and associate of
Izaak Walton"; but as the younger Cotton was only eighteen when
_Hesperides_ was printed, it is perhaps more probable that the father is
meant, though we may note that Herrick and the younger Cotton were
joint-contributors in 1649 to the _Lacrymæ Musarum_, published in memory
of Lord Hastings. For a tribute to the brilliant abilities of the elder
Cotton, see Clarendon's _Life_ (i. 36; ed. 1827).
948. _Women Useless. _ A variation on a theme as old as Euripides. Cp.
_Medea_, 573-5:--
χρῆν γὰρ ἀλλοθέν ποθεν βροτοὺς
παῖδας τεκνοῦσθαι, θῆλυ δ' οὐκ εἶναι γένος·
χοὒτως ἂν οὐκ ἦν οὐδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν.
952. _Weep for the dead, for they have lost the light_, cp. Ecclus.
xxii. 11.
955. _To M. Leonard Willan, his peculiar friend. _ A wretched poet;
author of "The Phrygian Fabulist; or the Fables of Æsop" (1650),
"Astraea; or True Love's Mirror" (1651), etc.
956. _Mr. John Hall, Student of Gray's Inn. _ Hall remained at Cambridge
till 1647, and this poem, which addresses him as a "Student of Gray's
Inn," must therefore have been written almost while _Hesperides_ was
passing through the press. Hall's _Horæ Vacivæ, or Essays_, published in
1646, had at once given him high rank among the wits.
958. _To the most comely and proper M. Elizabeth Finch. _ No certain
identification has been proposed.
961. _To the King, upon his welcome to Hampton Court, set and sung. _ The
allusion can only be to the king's stay at Hampton Court in 1647. Good
hope was then entertained of a peaceful settlement, and Herrick's ode,
enthusiastic as it is, expresses little more than this.
_For an ascendent_, etc. : This and the next seven lines are taken from
phrases on pp. 29-33 of the _Notes and Observations on some passages of
Scripture_, by John Gregory (see note on N. N. 178). According to
Gregory, "The Ascendent of a City is that sign which riseth in the
Heavens at the laying of the first stone".
962. _Henry, Marquis of Dorchester. _ Henry Pierrepoint, second Earl of
Kingston, succeeded his father (Herrick's Newark) July 30, 1643, and was
created Marquis of Dorchester, March, 1645.
"He was a very studious
nobleman and very learned, particularly in law and physics. " (See
Burke's _Extinct Peerages_, iii. 435. )
_When Cato, the severe, entered the circumspacious theatre. _ The
allusion is to the visit of Cato to the games of Flora, given by
Messius. When his presence in the theatre was known, the dancing-women
were not allowed to perform in their accustomed lack of costume,
whereupon the moralist obligingly retired, amidst applause.
966. _M. Jo. Harmar, physician to the College of Westminster. _ John
Harmar, born at Churchdown, near Gloucester, about 1594, was educated at
Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen
School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor
of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood
characterises him as a butt for the wits and a flatterer of great men,
and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though
he took no higher degree than M. A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the
degree of M. B. , and Dr. Grosart's note--"Herrick, no doubt, playfully
transmuted 'Doctor' into 'Physician'"--is misleading. He may have cared
for the minds and bodies of the Westminster boys at one and the same
time.
_The Roman language. . . . If Jove would speak_, etc. Cp. Ben Jonson's
_Discoveries_: "that testimony given by L. Aelius Stilo upon Plautus who
affirmed, "Musas si latine loqui voluissent Plautino sermone fuisse
loquuturas". And Cicero [in Plutarch, § 24] "said of the Dialogues of
Plato, that Jupiter, if it were his nature to use language, would speak
like him".
967. _Upon his spaniel, Tracy. _ Cp. _supra_, 724.
971. _Strength_, etc. Tacitus, _Ann. _ xiii. 19: Nihil rerum mortalium
tam instabile ac fluxum est, quàm fama potentiae, non suâ vi nixa.
975. _Case is a lawyer_, etc. Martial, I. xcviii. Ad Naevolum
Causidicum. Cùm clamant omnes, loqueris tu, Naevole, tantùm. . . . Ecce,
tacent omnes; Naevole, dic aliquid.
977. _To his sister-in-law, M. Susanna Herrick. _ Cp. _supra_, 522. The
subject is again the making up of the book of the poet's elect.
978. _Upon the Lady Crew. _ Cp. Herrick's Epithalamium for her marriage
with Sir Clipsby Crew, 283. She died 1639, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey.
979. _On Tomasin Parsons. _ Daughter of the organist of Westminster
Abbey: cp. 500 and Note.
983. _To his kinsman, M. Thomas Herrick, who desired to be in his book. _
Cp. 106 and Note.
989. _Care keeps the conquest. _ Perhaps jotted down with reference to
the Governorship of Exeter by Sir John Berkeley: see Note to 745.
992. _To the handsome Mistress Grace Potter. _ Probably sister to the
Mistress Amy Potter celebrated in 837, where see Note.
995. _We've more to bear our charge than way to go. _ Seneca, Ep. 77:
quantulumcunque haberem, tamen plus superesset viatici quam viae, quoted
by Montaigne, II. xxviii.
1000. _The Gods, pillars, and men. _ Horace's Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae (_Ars Poet. _ 373). Latin
poets hung up their epigrams in public places.
1002. _To the Lord Hopton on his fight in Cornwall. _ Sir Ralph Hopton
won two brilliant victories for the Royalists, at Bradock Down and
Stratton, January and May, 1643, and was created Baron Hopton in the
following September. Originally a Parliamentarian, he was one of the
king's ablest and most loyal servants.
1008. _Nothing's so hard but search will find it out. _ Terence, _Haut. _
IV. ii. 8: Nihil tam difficile est quin quaerendo investigari posset.
1009. _Labour is held up by the hope of rest. _ Ps. Sallust, _Epist. ad
C. Caes. _: Sapientes laborem spe otii sustentant.
1022. _Posting to Printing. _ Mart. V. x. 11, 12:--
Vos, tamen, o nostri, ne festinate, libelli:
Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.
1023. _No kingdoms got by rapine long endure. _ Seneca, _Troad. _ 264:
Violenta nemo imperia continuit dies.
1026. _Saint Distaff's Day. _ "Saint Distaff is perhaps only a coinage of
our poet's to designate the day when, the Christmas vacation being over,
good housewives, with others, resumed their usual employment. " (Nott. )
The phrase is explained in dictionaries and handbooks, but no other use
of it is quoted than this. Herrick's poem was pilfered by Henry Bold (a
notorious plagiarist) in _Wit a-sporting in a pleasant Grove of New
Fancies_, 1657.
1028. _My beloved Westminster. _ As mentioned in the brief "Life" of
Herrick prefixed to vol. i. , all the references in this poem seem to
refer to Herrick's courtier-days, between leaving Cambridge and going to
Devonshire. He then, doubtless, resided in Westminster for the sake of
proximity to Whitehall. It has been suggested, however, that the
reference is to Westminster School, but we have no evidence that Herrick
was educated there.
_Golden Cheapside. _ My friend, Mr. Herbert Horne, in his
admirably-chosen selection from the _Hesperides_, suggests that the
allusion here is to the great gilt cross at the end of Wood Street. The
suggestion is ingenious; but as Cheapside was the goldsmiths' quarter
this would amply justify the epithet, which may indeed only refer to
Cheapside as a money-winning street, as we might say Golden Lombard
Street.
1032. _Things are uncertain. _ Tiberius, in Tacitus, _Annal. _ i. 72:
Cuncta mortalium incerta; quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis
in lubrico.
1034. _Good wits get more fame by their punishment. _ Cp. Tacit. _Ann. _
iv. 35, sub fin. : Punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, etc. , quoted by
Bacon and Milton.
1035. _Twelfth Night: or King and Queen. _ Herrick alludes to these
"Twelfth-Tide Kings and Queens" in writing to Endymion Porter (662), and
earlier still, in the "New-Year's Gift to Sir Simeon Steward" (319) he
speaks--
"Of Twelfth-Tide cakes, of Peas and Beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
Whenas ye choose your King and Queen".
Brand (i. 27) illustrates well from "Speeches to the Queen at Sudley" in
Nichols' _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_.
"_Melibœus. _ Cut the cake: who hath the bean shall be king, and where
the pea is, she shall be queen.
_Nisa. _ I have the pea and must be queen.
_Mel. _ I the bean, and king. I must command. "
1045. _Comfort in Calamity. _ An allusion to the ejection from their
benefices which befel most of the loyal clergy at the same time as
Herrick. It is perhaps worth noting that in the second volume of this
edition, and in the last hundred poems printed in the first, wherever a
date can be fixed it is always in the forties. Equally late poems occur,
though much less frequently, among the first five hundred, but there the
dated poems belong, for the most part, to the years 1623-1640. Now, in
April 29, 1640, as stated in the brief "Life" prefixed to vol. i. , there
was entered at Stationers' Hall, "The severall poems written by Master
Robert Herrick," a book which, as far as is known, never saw the light.
It was probably, however, to this book that Herrick addressed the poem
(405) beginning:--
"Have I not blest thee? Then go forth, nor fear
Or spice, or fish, or fire, or close-stools here";
and we may fairly regard the first five hundred poems of _Hesperides_
as representing the intended collection of 1640, with a few additions,
and the last six hundred as for the most part later, and I must add,
inferior work. This is borne out by the absence of any manuscript
versions of poems in the second half of the book. Herrick's verses would
only be passed from hand to hand when he was living among the wits in
London.
1046. _Twilight. _ Ovid, _Amores_, I. v. 5, 6: Crepuscula . . . ubi nox
abiit, nec tamen orta dies.
1048. _Consent makes the cure. _ Seneca, _Hippol. _ 250: Pars sanitatis
velle sanari fuit.
1050. _Causeless whipping. _ Ovid, _Heroid. _ v. 7, 8: Leniter ex merito
quicquid patiare, ferendum est; Quae venit indignae poena, dolenda
venit. Quoted by Montaigne, III. xiii.
1052. _His comfort. _ Terence, _Adelph. _ I. i. 18: Ego . . . quod
fortunatum isti putant, Uxorem nunquam habui.
1053. _Sincerity. _ From Hor. _Ep. _ I. ii. 54: Sincerum est nisi vas,
quodcunque infundis acescit.
Dicere quae puduit scribere jussit amor.
849. _'Tis sweet to think_, etc. Seneca, _Herc. Fur. _ 657-58: Quae fuit
durum pati Meminisse dulce est.
851. _To Mr. Henry Lawes, the excellent composer of his lyrics. _ Henry
Lawes (1595-1662), the friend of Milton, admitted a Gentleman of the
Chapel Royal, 1625. In the _Noble Numbers_ he is mentioned as the
composer of Herrick's _Christmas Carol_ and the first of his two
_New-Year's Gifts_. Lawes also set to music Herrick's _Not to Love_, _To
Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler_ (Among the Myrtles as I walked), _The Kiss_, _The
Primrose_, _To a Gentlewoman objecting to him his Grey Hairs_, and
doubtless others.
852. _Maidens tell me I am old. _ From Anacreon:
Λέγουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες
Ἀνακρέων γέρων εἶ κ. τ. λ.
With a significant variation--"Ill it fits"--for μᾶλλον πρέπει.
859. _Master J. Jincks. _ Not identified.
861. _Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their own. _ Aristot.
_Politics_, iii. 7: καλεῖν εἰώθαμεν τῶν μὲν μοναρχιῶν τὴν πρὸς τὸ κοινὸν
ἀποβλέπουσαν συμφέρον βασιλείαν . . . ἡ τυραννίς ἐστι μοναρχία πρὸς τὸ
συμφέρον τὸ τοῦ μοναρχοῦντος.
869. _Sir Thomas Heale. _ Probably a son of the Sir Thomas Hele, of
Fleet, Co. Devon, who died in 1624. This Sir Thomas was created a
baronet in 1627, and according to Dr. Grosart was one of the Royalist
commanders at the siege of Plymouth. He died 1670.
872. _Love is a kind of war. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ II. 233, 34:--
Militiae species amor est: discedite segnes!
Non sunt haec timidis signa tuenda viris.
873. _A spark neglected_, etc. Ovid, _Rem. Am. _ 732-34:--
E minimo maximus ignis erit.
Sic nisi vitaris quicquid renovabit amorem,
Flamma redardescet quae modo nulla fuit.
874. _An Hymn to Cupid. _ From Anacreon:--
Ὠναξ, ᾧ δαμάλης Ἔρως
καὶ Νύμφαι κυανώπιδες
πορφυρέη τ' Ἀφροδίτη
συμπαίζουσιν . . . γουνοῦμαί σε, κ. τ. λ.
885. _Naught are all women. _ Burton, III. ii. 5. § 5.
907. _Upon Mr. William Lawes, the rare musician. _ Elder brother of the
more famous Henry Lawes; appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal,
1602, and also one of Charles I. 's musicians-in-ordinary. When the Civil
War broke out he joined the king's army and was killed by a stray shot
during the siege of Chester, 1645. He set Herrick's _Gather ye rosebuds_
to music.
914. _Numbers ne'er tickle_, etc. Martial, I. xxxvi. :--
Lex haec carminibus data est jocosis,
Ne possint, nisi pruriant, juvare.
918. _M. Kellam. _ As yet unidentified. Dr. Grosart suggests that he may
have been one of Herrick's parishioners, and the name sounds as of the
west country.
920. _Cunctation in correction. _ Is Herrick translating? According to a
relief at Rome the lictors' rods were bound together not only by a red
thong twisted from top to bottom, but by six straps as well.
922. _Continual reaping makes a land wax old. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ iii. 82:
Continua messe senescit ager.
923. _Revenge. _ Tacitus, _Hist. _ iv. 3: Tanto proclivius est injuriae
quàm beneficio vicem exsolvere; quia gratia oneri, ultio in quaestu
habetur.
927. _Praise they that will times past. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ iii. 121:--
Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum
Gratulor; haec aetas moribus apta meis.
928. _Clothes are conspirators. _ I can suggest no better explanation of
this oracular epigram than that the tailor's bill is an enemy of a
slender purse.
929. _Cruelty_. Seneca _de Clem. _ i. 24: Ferina ista rabies est,
sanguine gaudere et vulneribus; (i. 8), Quemadmodum praecisae arbores
plurimis ramis repullulant [H. uses repullulate, -tion, 336, 794], et
multa satorum genera, ut densiora surgant, reciduntur; ita regia
crudelitas auget inimicorum numerum tollendo. Ben Jonson, _Discoveries_
(_Clementia_): "The lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out quicker;
and the taking away of some kind of enemies increaseth the number".
931. _A fierce desire of hot and dry. _ Cp. note on 683.
932. _To hear the worst_, etc. Antisthenes ap. _Diog. Laert. _ VI. i. 4,
§ 3: Ἀκούσας ποτὲ ὅτι Πλάτων αὐτὸν κακῶς λέγει Βασιλικὸν ἔφη καλῶς
ποιοῦντα κακῶς ἀκούειν, quoted by Burton, II. iii. 7.
934. _The Bondman. _ Cp. Exodus xxi. 5, 6: "And if the servant shall
plainly say: I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go
out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also
bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore
his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever".
936. _My kiss outwent the bonds of shamefastness. _ Cp. Sidney's
_Astrophel and Stella_, sonnet 82. For _not Jove himself_, etc. , cp. 10,
and note.
938. _His wish. _ From Martial, II. xc. 7-10:--
Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux:
Sit nox cum somno, sit sine lite dies, etc.
939. _Upon Julia washing herself in the river. _ Imitated from Martial,
IV. xxii. :--
Primos passa toros et adhuc placanda marito
Merserat in nitidos se Cleopatra lacus,
Dum fugit amplexus: sed prodidit unda latentem,
Lucebat, totis cum tegeretur aquis.
Condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro,
Sic prohibet tenuis gemma latere rosas,
Insilui mersusque vadis luctantia carpsi
Basia: perspicuae plus vetuistis aquae.
940. _Though frankincense_, etc. Ovid, _de Medic. Fac. _ 83, 84:--
Quamvis thura deos irataque numina placent,
Non tamen accensis omnia danda focis.
947. _To his honoured and most ingenious friend, Mr. Charles Cotton. _
Dr. Grosart annotates: "The translator of Montaigne, and associate of
Izaak Walton"; but as the younger Cotton was only eighteen when
_Hesperides_ was printed, it is perhaps more probable that the father is
meant, though we may note that Herrick and the younger Cotton were
joint-contributors in 1649 to the _Lacrymæ Musarum_, published in memory
of Lord Hastings. For a tribute to the brilliant abilities of the elder
Cotton, see Clarendon's _Life_ (i. 36; ed. 1827).
948. _Women Useless. _ A variation on a theme as old as Euripides. Cp.
_Medea_, 573-5:--
χρῆν γὰρ ἀλλοθέν ποθεν βροτοὺς
παῖδας τεκνοῦσθαι, θῆλυ δ' οὐκ εἶναι γένος·
χοὒτως ἂν οὐκ ἦν οὐδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν.
952. _Weep for the dead, for they have lost the light_, cp. Ecclus.
xxii. 11.
955. _To M. Leonard Willan, his peculiar friend. _ A wretched poet;
author of "The Phrygian Fabulist; or the Fables of Æsop" (1650),
"Astraea; or True Love's Mirror" (1651), etc.
956. _Mr. John Hall, Student of Gray's Inn. _ Hall remained at Cambridge
till 1647, and this poem, which addresses him as a "Student of Gray's
Inn," must therefore have been written almost while _Hesperides_ was
passing through the press. Hall's _Horæ Vacivæ, or Essays_, published in
1646, had at once given him high rank among the wits.
958. _To the most comely and proper M. Elizabeth Finch. _ No certain
identification has been proposed.
961. _To the King, upon his welcome to Hampton Court, set and sung. _ The
allusion can only be to the king's stay at Hampton Court in 1647. Good
hope was then entertained of a peaceful settlement, and Herrick's ode,
enthusiastic as it is, expresses little more than this.
_For an ascendent_, etc. : This and the next seven lines are taken from
phrases on pp. 29-33 of the _Notes and Observations on some passages of
Scripture_, by John Gregory (see note on N. N. 178). According to
Gregory, "The Ascendent of a City is that sign which riseth in the
Heavens at the laying of the first stone".
962. _Henry, Marquis of Dorchester. _ Henry Pierrepoint, second Earl of
Kingston, succeeded his father (Herrick's Newark) July 30, 1643, and was
created Marquis of Dorchester, March, 1645.
"He was a very studious
nobleman and very learned, particularly in law and physics. " (See
Burke's _Extinct Peerages_, iii. 435. )
_When Cato, the severe, entered the circumspacious theatre. _ The
allusion is to the visit of Cato to the games of Flora, given by
Messius. When his presence in the theatre was known, the dancing-women
were not allowed to perform in their accustomed lack of costume,
whereupon the moralist obligingly retired, amidst applause.
966. _M. Jo. Harmar, physician to the College of Westminster. _ John
Harmar, born at Churchdown, near Gloucester, about 1594, was educated at
Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen
School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor
of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood
characterises him as a butt for the wits and a flatterer of great men,
and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though
he took no higher degree than M. A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the
degree of M. B. , and Dr. Grosart's note--"Herrick, no doubt, playfully
transmuted 'Doctor' into 'Physician'"--is misleading. He may have cared
for the minds and bodies of the Westminster boys at one and the same
time.
_The Roman language. . . . If Jove would speak_, etc. Cp. Ben Jonson's
_Discoveries_: "that testimony given by L. Aelius Stilo upon Plautus who
affirmed, "Musas si latine loqui voluissent Plautino sermone fuisse
loquuturas". And Cicero [in Plutarch, § 24] "said of the Dialogues of
Plato, that Jupiter, if it were his nature to use language, would speak
like him".
967. _Upon his spaniel, Tracy. _ Cp. _supra_, 724.
971. _Strength_, etc. Tacitus, _Ann. _ xiii. 19: Nihil rerum mortalium
tam instabile ac fluxum est, quàm fama potentiae, non suâ vi nixa.
975. _Case is a lawyer_, etc. Martial, I. xcviii. Ad Naevolum
Causidicum. Cùm clamant omnes, loqueris tu, Naevole, tantùm. . . . Ecce,
tacent omnes; Naevole, dic aliquid.
977. _To his sister-in-law, M. Susanna Herrick. _ Cp. _supra_, 522. The
subject is again the making up of the book of the poet's elect.
978. _Upon the Lady Crew. _ Cp. Herrick's Epithalamium for her marriage
with Sir Clipsby Crew, 283. She died 1639, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey.
979. _On Tomasin Parsons. _ Daughter of the organist of Westminster
Abbey: cp. 500 and Note.
983. _To his kinsman, M. Thomas Herrick, who desired to be in his book. _
Cp. 106 and Note.
989. _Care keeps the conquest. _ Perhaps jotted down with reference to
the Governorship of Exeter by Sir John Berkeley: see Note to 745.
992. _To the handsome Mistress Grace Potter. _ Probably sister to the
Mistress Amy Potter celebrated in 837, where see Note.
995. _We've more to bear our charge than way to go. _ Seneca, Ep. 77:
quantulumcunque haberem, tamen plus superesset viatici quam viae, quoted
by Montaigne, II. xxviii.
1000. _The Gods, pillars, and men. _ Horace's Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae (_Ars Poet. _ 373). Latin
poets hung up their epigrams in public places.
1002. _To the Lord Hopton on his fight in Cornwall. _ Sir Ralph Hopton
won two brilliant victories for the Royalists, at Bradock Down and
Stratton, January and May, 1643, and was created Baron Hopton in the
following September. Originally a Parliamentarian, he was one of the
king's ablest and most loyal servants.
1008. _Nothing's so hard but search will find it out. _ Terence, _Haut. _
IV. ii. 8: Nihil tam difficile est quin quaerendo investigari posset.
1009. _Labour is held up by the hope of rest. _ Ps. Sallust, _Epist. ad
C. Caes. _: Sapientes laborem spe otii sustentant.
1022. _Posting to Printing. _ Mart. V. x. 11, 12:--
Vos, tamen, o nostri, ne festinate, libelli:
Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.
1023. _No kingdoms got by rapine long endure. _ Seneca, _Troad. _ 264:
Violenta nemo imperia continuit dies.
1026. _Saint Distaff's Day. _ "Saint Distaff is perhaps only a coinage of
our poet's to designate the day when, the Christmas vacation being over,
good housewives, with others, resumed their usual employment. " (Nott. )
The phrase is explained in dictionaries and handbooks, but no other use
of it is quoted than this. Herrick's poem was pilfered by Henry Bold (a
notorious plagiarist) in _Wit a-sporting in a pleasant Grove of New
Fancies_, 1657.
1028. _My beloved Westminster. _ As mentioned in the brief "Life" of
Herrick prefixed to vol. i. , all the references in this poem seem to
refer to Herrick's courtier-days, between leaving Cambridge and going to
Devonshire. He then, doubtless, resided in Westminster for the sake of
proximity to Whitehall. It has been suggested, however, that the
reference is to Westminster School, but we have no evidence that Herrick
was educated there.
_Golden Cheapside. _ My friend, Mr. Herbert Horne, in his
admirably-chosen selection from the _Hesperides_, suggests that the
allusion here is to the great gilt cross at the end of Wood Street. The
suggestion is ingenious; but as Cheapside was the goldsmiths' quarter
this would amply justify the epithet, which may indeed only refer to
Cheapside as a money-winning street, as we might say Golden Lombard
Street.
1032. _Things are uncertain. _ Tiberius, in Tacitus, _Annal. _ i. 72:
Cuncta mortalium incerta; quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis
in lubrico.
1034. _Good wits get more fame by their punishment. _ Cp. Tacit. _Ann. _
iv. 35, sub fin. : Punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, etc. , quoted by
Bacon and Milton.
1035. _Twelfth Night: or King and Queen. _ Herrick alludes to these
"Twelfth-Tide Kings and Queens" in writing to Endymion Porter (662), and
earlier still, in the "New-Year's Gift to Sir Simeon Steward" (319) he
speaks--
"Of Twelfth-Tide cakes, of Peas and Beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
Whenas ye choose your King and Queen".
Brand (i. 27) illustrates well from "Speeches to the Queen at Sudley" in
Nichols' _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_.
"_Melibœus. _ Cut the cake: who hath the bean shall be king, and where
the pea is, she shall be queen.
_Nisa. _ I have the pea and must be queen.
_Mel. _ I the bean, and king. I must command. "
1045. _Comfort in Calamity. _ An allusion to the ejection from their
benefices which befel most of the loyal clergy at the same time as
Herrick. It is perhaps worth noting that in the second volume of this
edition, and in the last hundred poems printed in the first, wherever a
date can be fixed it is always in the forties. Equally late poems occur,
though much less frequently, among the first five hundred, but there the
dated poems belong, for the most part, to the years 1623-1640. Now, in
April 29, 1640, as stated in the brief "Life" prefixed to vol. i. , there
was entered at Stationers' Hall, "The severall poems written by Master
Robert Herrick," a book which, as far as is known, never saw the light.
It was probably, however, to this book that Herrick addressed the poem
(405) beginning:--
"Have I not blest thee? Then go forth, nor fear
Or spice, or fish, or fire, or close-stools here";
and we may fairly regard the first five hundred poems of _Hesperides_
as representing the intended collection of 1640, with a few additions,
and the last six hundred as for the most part later, and I must add,
inferior work. This is borne out by the absence of any manuscript
versions of poems in the second half of the book. Herrick's verses would
only be passed from hand to hand when he was living among the wits in
London.
1046. _Twilight. _ Ovid, _Amores_, I. v. 5, 6: Crepuscula . . . ubi nox
abiit, nec tamen orta dies.
1048. _Consent makes the cure. _ Seneca, _Hippol. _ 250: Pars sanitatis
velle sanari fuit.
1050. _Causeless whipping. _ Ovid, _Heroid. _ v. 7, 8: Leniter ex merito
quicquid patiare, ferendum est; Quae venit indignae poena, dolenda
venit. Quoted by Montaigne, III. xiii.
1052. _His comfort. _ Terence, _Adelph. _ I. i. 18: Ego . . . quod
fortunatum isti putant, Uxorem nunquam habui.
1053. _Sincerity. _ From Hor. _Ep. _ I. ii. 54: Sincerum est nisi vas,
quodcunque infundis acescit.
