To form the paper jacket or
_tunica_ which wrapt the mackerel in Roman cookery seems to have been
the ultimate employment of many poems.
_tunica_ which wrapt the mackerel in Roman cookery seems to have been
the ultimate employment of many poems.
Robert Herrick - Hesperide and Noble Numbers
Ward), we have a contemporary account of the Club known as
the Tityre Tues, which took its name from the first words of Virgil's
first _Eclogue_. "The beginning of December, 1623, there was a great
number in London, haunting taverns and other debauched places, who swore
themselves in a brotherhood and named themselves _Tityre Tues_. The oath
they gave in this manner: he that was to be sworn did put his dagger
into a pottle of wine, and held his hand upon the pommel thereof, and
then was to make oath that he would aid and assist all other of his
fellowship and not disclose their council. There were divers knights,
some young noblemen and gentlemen of this brotherhood, and they were to
know one the other by a black bugle which they wore, and their followers
to be known by a blue ribbond. There are discovered of them about 80 or
100 persons, and have been examined by the Privy Council, but nothing
discovered of any intent they had. It is said that the king hath given
commandment that they shall be re-examined. " In Mennis's _Musarum
Deliciæ_ the brotherhood is celebrated in a poem headed "The Tytre Tues;
or, a Mocke Song. To the tune of Chive Chase. By Mr. George Chambers. "
The second verse runs:--
"They call themselves the Tytere-tues,
And wore a blue rib-bin;
And when a-drie would not refuse
To drink. O fearful sin!
"The council, which is thought most wise,
Did sit so long upon it,
That they grew weary and did rise,
And could make nothing on it. "
According to a letter of Chamberlain to Carleton, indexed among the
_State Papers_, the Tityres were a secret society first formed in Lord
Vaux's regiment in the Low Countries, and their "prince" was called
Ottoman. Another entry shows that the "Bugle" mentioned by Yonge was the
badge of a society originally distinct from the Tityres, which
afterwards joined with it. The date of Herrick's poem is thus fixed as
December, 1623/4, and this is confirmed by another sentence in the same
passage in _Yonge's Diary_, in which he says: "The Jesuits and Papists
do wonderfully swarm in the city, and rumours lately have been given out
for firing the Navy and House of Munition, on which are set a double
guard". The Parliament to which Herrick alludes was actually summoned in
January, 1624, to meet on February 12. Sir Simeon Steward, to whom the
poem is addressed, was of the family of the Stewards of Stantney, in the
Isle of Ely. He was knighted with his father, Mark Steward, in 1603, and
afterwards became a fellow-commoner of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was
at different times Sheriff and Deputy-Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire, and
while serving in the latter capacity got into some trouble for unlawful
exactions. In 1627 he wrote a poem on the _King of the Fairies Clothes_
in the same vein as Herrick's fairy pieces.
321. _Then is the work half done. _ As Dr. Grosart suggests, Herrick may
have had in mind the "Dimidium facti qui cœpit habet" of Horace, I.
_Epist. _ ii. 40. But here the emphasis is on beginning _well_, there on
_beginning_.
_Begin with Jove_ is doubtless from the "Ab Jove principium, Musæ," of
Virg. _Ecl. _ iii. 60.
323. _Fears not the fierce sedition of the seas. _ A reminiscence of
Horace, III. _Od. _ i. 25-32.
328. _Gold before goodness. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as _A
Foolish Querie_. The sentiment is from Seneca, _Ep. _ cxv. : An dives,
omnes quærimus; nemo, an bonus. Cp. Juvenal, III. 140 sqq. ; Plaut.
_Menæchm. _ IV. ii. 6.
331. _To his honoured kinsman, Sir William Soame. _ The second son of Sir
Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. Herrick's father and Sir
Stephen married sisters.
_As benjamin and storax when they meet. _ Instances of the use of
"Benjamin" for gum benzoin will be found in the Dictionaries. Dr.
Grosart's gloss, "_Benjamin_, the favourite youngest son of the
Patriarch," is unfortunate.
336. _His Age: dedicated to . . . M. John Wickes under the name of
Posthumus. _ There is an important version of this poem in Egerton MS. ,
2725, where it is entitled _Mr. Herrick's Old Age to Mr. Weekes_. I do
not think it has been collated before. Stanzas i. -vi. contain few
variants; ii. 6 reads: "Dislikes to care for what's behind"; iii. 6:
"Like a lost maidenhead," for "Like to a lily lost"; v. 8: "With the
best and whitest stone"; vi. 1: "We'll not be poor". After this we have
two stanzas omitted in 1648:--
"We have no vineyards which do bear
Their lustful clusters all the year,
Nor odoriferous
Orchards, like to Alcinous;
Nor gall the seas
Our witty appetites to please
With mullet, turbot, gilt-head bought
At a high rate and further brought.
"Nor can we glory of a great
And stuffed magazine of wheat;
We have no bath
Of oil, but only rich in faith
O'er which the hand
Of fortune can have no command,
But what she gives not, she not takes,
But of her own a spoil she makes. "
Stanza vii. , l. 2, has "close" for "both"; l. 3 "see" for "have"; l. 6,
"open" for "that cheap"; l. 7, "full" for "same". Stanzas x. -xvii. have
so many variants that I am obliged to transcribe them in full, though
they show Herrick not at his best, and the poem is not one to linger
over:--
10.
"Live in thy peace; as for myself,
When I am bruisèd on the shelf
Of Time, and _read
Eternal daylight o'er my head:_
When with the rheum,
_With_ cough _and_ ptisick, I consume
_Into an heap of cinders:_ then
The Ages fled I'll call again,
11.
"And with a tear compare these last
_And cold times unto_ those are past,
While Baucis by
_With her lean lips_ shall kiss _them dry
Then will we_ sit
By the fire, foretelling snow and sleet
And weather by our aches, grown
†Old enough to be our own
12.
"True Calendar [ ]
_Is for to know_ what change is near,
Then to assuage
The gripings _in_ the chine by age,
I'll call my young
Iülus to sing such a song
I made upon my _mistress'_ breast;
_Or such a_ blush at such a feast.
13.
"Then shall he read _my Lily fine
Entomb'd_ within a crystal shrine:
_My_ Primrose next:
A piece then of a higher text;
For to beget
In me a more transcendent heat
Than that insinuating fire
Which crept into each _reverend_ Sire,
14.
"When the _high_ Helen _her fair cheeks
Showed to the army of the Greeks;_
At which I'll _rise_
(_Blind though as midnight in my eyes_),
And hearing it,
Flutter and crow, _and_, in a fit
Of _young_ concupiscence, and _feel
New flames within the aged steal_.
15.
"Thus frantic, crazy man (God wot),
I'll call to mind _the times_ forgot
And oft between
_Sigh out_ the Times that _we_ have seen!
_And shed a tear_,
And twisting my Iülus _hair_,
Doting, I'll weep and say (in truth)
Baucis, these were _the_ sins of youth.
16.
"Then _will I_ cause my hopeful Lad
(If a wild Apple can be had)
To crown the Hearth
(Lar thus conspiring with our mirth);
_Next_ to infuse
Our _better beer_ into the cruse:
Which, neatly spiced, we'll first carouse
Unto the _Vesta_ of the house.
17.
"Then the next health to friends of mine
_In oysters, and_ Burgundian wine,
_Hind, Goderiske, Smith,
And Nansagge_, sons of _clune[M] and_ pith,
Such _who know_ well
_To board_ the magic _bowl_, and _spill
All mighty blood, and can do more
Than Jove and Chaos them before_. "
[M] Clune = "clunis," a haunch.
This John Wickes or Weekes is spoken of by Anthony à Wood as a "jocular
person" and a popular preacher. He enters Wood's _Fasti_ by right of his
co-optation as a D. D. in 1643, while the court was at Oxford; his
education had been at Cambridge. He was a prebendary of Bristol and Dean
of St. Burian in Cornwall, and suffered some persecution as a royalist.
Herrick later on, when himself shedless and cottageless, addresses
another poem to him as his "peculiar friend,"
To whose glad threshold and free door
I may, a poet, come, though poor.
A friend suggests that Hind may have been John Hind, an Anacreontic poet
and friend of Greene, and has found references to a Thomas Goodricke of
St. John's Coll. , Camb. , author of two poems on the accession of James
I. , and a Martin Nansogge, B. A. of Trinity Hall, 1614, afterwards vicar
of Cornwood, Devon. Smith is certainly James Smith, who, with Sir John
Mennis, edited the _Musarum Deliciæ_, in which the first poem is
addressed "to Parson Weekes: an invitation to London," and contains a
reference to--
"That old sack
Young Herrick took to entertain
The Muses in a sprightly vein".
The early part of this poem contains, along with the name Posthumus,
many Horatian reminiscences: cp. especially II. _Od. _ xiv. 1-8, and IV.
_Od. _ vii. 14. It may be noted that in the imitation of the latter
passage in stanza iv. the MS. copy at the Museum corrects the
misplacement of the epithet, reading:--
"But we must on and thither tend
Where Tullus and rich Ancus blend," etc. ,
for "Where Ancus and rich Tullus".
Again the variant, "_Open_ candle baudery," in verse 7, is an additional
argument against Dr. Grosart's explanation: "Obscene words and figures
made with candle-smoke," the allusion being merely to the blackened
ceilings produced by cheap candles without a shade.
337. _A Short Hymn to Venus. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as
_A vow to Cupid_, with variants: l. 1, _Cupid_ for _Goddess_; l. 2,
_like_ for _with_; l. 3, _that I may_ for _I may but_; l. 5, _do_ for
_will_.
340. _Upon a delaying lady. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as _A
Check to her delay_.
341. _The Lady Mary Villars_, niece of the first Duke of Buckingham,
married successively Charles, son of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, Esme
Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, and Thomas Howard. Died 1685.
355. _Hath filed upon my silver hairs. _ Cp. Ben Jonson, _The King's
Entertainment_:--
"What all the minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years
That hang in file upon these silver hairs
Could not produce," etc.
359. _Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. _ Philip Herbert (born
1584, died 1650), despite his foul mouth, ill temper, and devotion to
sport ("He would make an excellent chancellor to the mews were Oxford
turned into a kennel of hounds," wrote the author of _Mercurius
Menippeus_ when Pembroke succeeded Laud as chancellor), was also a
patron of literature. He was one of the "incomparable pair of brethren"
to whom the Shakespeare folio of 1623 was dedicated, and he was a good
friend to Massinger. His fondness for scribbling in the margins of books
may, or may not, be considered as further evidence of a respect for
literature.
366. _Thou shall not all die. _ Horace's "non omnis moriar".
367. _Upon Wrinkles. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the
title _To a Stale Lady_. The first line there reads:--
"Thy wrinkles are no more nor less".
375. _Anne Soame, now Lady Abdie_, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Soame,
and second wife of Sir Thomas Abdy, Bart. , of Felix Hall, Essex.
Herrick's poem is modelled on Mart. III. lxv.
376. _Upon his Kinswoman, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, daughter of the
poet's brother Nicholas.
377. _A Panegyric to Sir Lewis Pemberton_ of Rushden, in
Northamptonshire, sheriff of the county in 1622; married Alice, daughter
of Tho. Bowles. Died 1641. With this poem cp. Ben Jonson's _Epig. _ ci.
_But great and large she spreads by dust and sweat. _ Dr. Grosart very
appositely quotes Montaigne: "For it seemeth that the verie name of
vertue presupposeth difficultie and inferreth resistance, and cannot
well exercise it selfe without an enemie" (Florio's tr. , p. 233). But I
think the two passages have a common origin in some version of Hesiod's
τῆς ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν, which is twice quoted by Plato.
382. _After the rare arch-poet, Jonson, died. _ Perhaps suggested by the
Epitaph of Plautus on himself, _ap. _ Gell. i. 24:--
Postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, comoedia luget;
Scena deserta, dein risus, ludu' jocusque,
Et numeri innumeri simul omnes collacrumarunt.
384. _To his nephew, to be prosperous in painting. _ This artistic nephew
may have been a Wingfield, son of Mercy Herrick, who married John
Wingfield, of Brantham, Suffolk; or one of three sons of Nicholas
Herrick and Susanna Salter, or Thomas, or some unknown son of Thomas
Herrick. There is no record of any painter Herrick's achievements.
392. _Sir Edward Fish, Knight Baronet_, of Chertsey, in Surrey. Died
1658.
405. _Nor fear or spice or fish. _ Herrick is remembering Persius, i. 43:
Nec scombros metuentia carmina, nec thus.
To form the paper jacket or
_tunica_ which wrapt the mackerel in Roman cookery seems to have been
the ultimate employment of many poems. Cp. Mart. III. l. 9; IV. lxxxvii.
8; and Catullus, XCV. 8.
_The farting Tanner and familiar King. _ The ballad here alluded to is
that of _King Edward IV. and the tanner of Tamworth_, printed in Prof.
Child's collection. "The dancing friar tattered in the bush" of the next
line is one of the heroes of the old ballad of _The Fryar and the Boye_,
printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and included in the Appendix to Furnivall
and Hales' edition of the Percy folio. The boy was the possessor of a
"magic flute," and, having got the friar into a bush, made him dance
there.
"Jack, as he piped, laughed among,
The Friar with briars was vilely stung,
He hopped wondrous high.
At last the Friar held up his hand
And said: I can no longer stand,
Oh! I shall dancing die. "
"Those monstrous lies of little Robin Rush" is explained by Dr. Grosart
as an allusion to "The Historie of Friar Rush, how he came to a House of
Religion to seek a Service, and being entertained by the Prior was made
First Cook, being full of pleasant Mirth and Delight for young people".
Of "Tom Chipperfield and pretty lisping Ned" I can find nothing. "The
flying Pilchard and the frisking Dace" probably belong to the fish
monsters alluded to in the _Tempest_. In "Tim Trundell" Herrick seems
for the sake of alliteration to have taken a liberty with the Christian
name of a well-known ballad publisher.
_He's greedy of his life. _ From Seneca, _Thyestes_, 884-85:--
Vitæ est avidus quisquis non vult
Mundo secum pereunte mori.
407. _Upon Himself. _ 408. _Another. _ Both printed in _Witts
Recreations_, 1650, the second under the title of _Love and Liberty_.
This last is taken from Corn. Gall. _Eleg. _ i. 6, quoted by Montaigne,
iii. 5:--
Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo.
412. _The Mad Maid's Song. _ A manuscript version of this song is
contained in Harleian MS. 6917, fol. 48, ver. 80. The chief variants
are: st. i. l. 2, _morrow_ for _morning_; l. 4, _all dabbled_ for
_bedabbled_; st. ii. l. 1, _cowslip_ for _primrose_; l. 3, _tears_ for
_flowers_; l. 4, _was_ for _is_; st. v. l. 1, _hope_ for _know_; st.
vii. l. 2, _balsam_ for _cowslips_.
415. _Whither dost thou whorry me. _ Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui Plenum?
Hor. III. _Od. _ xxv. 1.
430. _As Sallust saith_, _i. e. _, the pseudo-Sallust in the _Epist. ad
Cai. Cæs. de Repub. Ordinanda_.
431. _Every time seems short. _ Epigr. in Farnabii, _Florileg. _ [a.
1629]:--
Τοῖσι μὲν εὖ πράττουσιν ἅπας ὁ βίος βραχύς ἐστιν·
Τοῖς δὲ κακῶς, μία νὺξ ἄπλετός ἐστι χρόνος.
443. _Oberon's Palace. --After the feast (my Shapcott) see. _ See 223,
293, from which it is a pity that this poem should have been divorced.
Of the _Palace_ there are as many as three MS. versions, viz. , Add. 22,
603 (p. 59), and Add. 25, 303 (p. 157), at the British Museum, both of
which I have collated, and Ashmole MS. 38, which I only know through my
predecessors. The three MSS. appear to agree very harmoniously, and they
unite in increasing our knowledge of Herrick by a passage of
twenty-seven lines, following on the words "And here and there and
farther off," and in lieu of the next four and a half lines in
_Hesperides_. They read as follows:--
"Some sort of pear,
Apple or plum, is neatly laid
(As if it was a tribute paid)
By the round urchin; some mixt wheat
The which the ant did taste, not eat;
Deaf nuts, soft Jews'-ears, and some thin
Chippings, the mice filched from the bin
Of the gray farmer, and to these
The scraps of lentils, chitted peas,
Dried honeycombs, brown acorn cups,
Out of the which he sometimes sups
His herby broth, and there close by
Are pucker'd bullace, cankers (? ), dry
Kernels, and withered haws; the rest
Are trinkets fal'n from the kite's nest,
As butter'd bread, the which the wild
Bird snatched away from the crying child,
Blue pins, tags, fesenes, beads and things
Of higher price, as half-jet rings,
Ribbons and then some silken shreaks
The virgins lost at barley-breaks.
Many a purse-string, many a thread
Of gold and silver therein spread,
_Many a counter, many a die,
Half rotten and without an eye,
Lies here about_, and, as we guess,
Some bits of thimbles seem to dress
The brave cheap work; _and for to pave
The excellency of this cave,
Squirrels and children's teeth late shed_,
Serve here, both which _enchequered_
With castors' doucets, which poor they
Bite off themselves to 'scape away:
Brown _toadstones_, ferrets' eyes, _the gum
That shines_," etc.
The italicised words in the last few lines appear in _Hesperides_; all
the rest are new. Other variants are: "The grass of Lemster ore soberly
sparkling" for "the finest Lemster ore mildly disparkling"; "girdle" for
"ceston"; "The eyes of all doth strait bewitch" for "All with temptation
doth bewitch"; "choicely hung" for "neatly hung"; "silver roach" for
"silvery fish"; "cave" for "room"; "get reflection" for "make
reflected"; "Candlemas" for "taper-light"; "moon-tane" for
"moon-tanned," etc. , etc.
_Kings though they're hated. _ The "Oderint dum metuant" of the _Atreus_
of Accius, quoted by Cicero and Seneca.
446. _To Oenone. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the
title: "The Farewell to Love and to his Mistress," and with the unlucky
misprint "court" for "covet" (also "for" for "but") in the stanza iii.
l. i.
447. _Grief breaks the stoutest heart. _ Frangit fortia corda dolor.
Tibull. III. ii. 6.
451. _To the right gracious Prince, Lodowick, Duke of Richmond and
Lennox. _ There appears to me to be a blunder here which Dr. Grosart and
Mr. Hazlitt do not elucidate, by recording the birth of Lodowick, first
Duke of Richmond, in 1574, his succession to the Lennox title in 1583,
creation as Duke of Richmond in May, 1623, and death in the following
February. For this first duke was no "stem" left "of all those three
brave brothers fallen in the war," and the allusion here is undoubtedly
to his nephews--George, Lord d'Aubigny, who fell at Edgehill; Lord John
Stewart, who fell at Alresford; and Lord Bernard Stewart (Earl of
Lichfield), who fell at Rowton Heath. In elucidation of Herrick's Dirge
(219) over the last of these three brothers, I have already quoted
Clarendon's remark, that he was "the third brother of that illustrious
family that sacrificed his life in this quarrel," and it cannot be
doubted that Herrick is here alluding to the same fact. The poem must
therefore have been written after 1645, _i. e. _, more than twenty years
after the death of Duke Lodowick. But the duke then living was James,
who succeeded his father Esme in 1624, was recreated Duke of Richmond in
1641, and did not die till 1655. It is true that there was a brother
named Lodovic, but he was an abbot in France and never succeeded to the
title. Herrick, therefore, seems to have blundered in the Christian
name.
453. _Let's live in haste. _ From Martial, VII. xlvii. 11, 12:--
Vive velut rapto: fugitivaque gaudia carpe:
Perdiderit nullum vita reversa diem.
457. _While Fates permit. _ From Seneca, _Herc. Fur. _ 177:--
Dum Fata sinunt,
Vivite laeti: properat cursu
Vita citato, volucrique die
Rota praecipitis vertitur anni.
459. _With Horace_ (IV. _Od. _ ix. 29):--
Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae
Celata virtus.
465. _The parting Verse or charge to his Supposed Wife when he
travelled. _ MS. variants of this poem are found at the British Museum in
Add. 22, 603, and in Ashmole MS. 38. Their title, "Mr. Herrick's charge
to his wife," led Mr. Payne Collier to rashly identify with the poet a
certain Robert Herrick married at St. Clement Danes, 1632, to a Jane
Gibbons. The variants are numerous, but not very important. In l. 4 we
have "draw wooers" for "draw thousands"; ll. 11-16 are transposed to
after l. 28; and "Are the expressions of that itch" is written "As
emblems will express that itch"; ll. 27, 28 appear as:--
"For that once lost thou _needst must fall
To one, then prostitute to all:_
And we then have the transposed passage:--
Nor so immurèd would I have
Thee live, as dead, _or_ in thy grave;
But walk abroad, yet wisely well
_Keep 'gainst_ my coming sentinel.
And think _each man thou seest doth doom
Thy thoughts to say, I back am come. _
Farther on we have the rather pretty variant:--
"Let them _call thee wondrous fair,
Crown of women_, yet despair".
Eight lines lower "virtuous" is read for "gentle," and the omission of
some small words throws some light on a change in Herrick's metrical
views as he grew older. The words omitted are bracketed:--
"[And] Let thy dreams be only fed
With this, that I am in thy bed.
And [thou] then turning in that sphere,
Waking findst [shall find] me sleeping there.
But [yet] if boundless lust must scale
Thy fortress and _must_ needs prevail
_'Gainst thee and_ force a passage in," etc.
Other variants are: "Creates the action" for "That makes the action";
"Glory" for "Triumph"; "my last signet" for "this compression"; "turn
again in my full triumph" for "come again, As one triumphant," and "the
height of womankind" for "all faith of womankind".
_The body sins not, 'tis the will_, etc. A maxim of law Latin: Actus non
facit reum nisi mens sit rea.
466. _To his Kinsman, Sir Thos. Soame_, son of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord
Mayor of London, 1589, and of Anne Stone, Herrick's aunt. Sir Thomas
was Sheriff of London, 1635, M. P. for the City, 1640, and died Jan. ,
1670. See Cussan's _Hertfortshire_. (_Hundred of Edwinstree_, p. 100. )
470. _Few Fortunate. _ A variant on the text (Matt. xx. 16): "Many be
called but few chosen".
479. _To Rosemary and Bays. _ The use of rosemary and bays at weddings
forms a section in Brand's chapter on marriage customs (ii. 119). For
the gilding he quotes from a wedding sermon preached in 1607 by Roger
Hacket: "Smell sweet, O ye flowers, in your native sweetness: be not
gilded with the idle art of man". The use of gloves at weddings forms
the subject of another section in Brand (ii. 125). He quotes Ben
Jonson's _Silent Woman_; "We see no ensigns of a wedding here, no
character of a bridal; where be our scarves and our gloves? "
483. _To his worthy friend, M. Thomas Falconbrige. _ As Herrick hints at
his friend's destiny for a public career, it seemed worth while to hunt
through the Calendar of State Papers for a chance reference to this
Falconbridge, who so far has evaded editors. He is apparently the Mr.
Thomas Falconbridge who appears in various papers between 1640 and 1644,
as passing accounts, and in the latter year was "Receiver-General at
Westminster".
_Towers reared high_, etc. Cp. Horace, _Od. _ II. x.
the Tityre Tues, which took its name from the first words of Virgil's
first _Eclogue_. "The beginning of December, 1623, there was a great
number in London, haunting taverns and other debauched places, who swore
themselves in a brotherhood and named themselves _Tityre Tues_. The oath
they gave in this manner: he that was to be sworn did put his dagger
into a pottle of wine, and held his hand upon the pommel thereof, and
then was to make oath that he would aid and assist all other of his
fellowship and not disclose their council. There were divers knights,
some young noblemen and gentlemen of this brotherhood, and they were to
know one the other by a black bugle which they wore, and their followers
to be known by a blue ribbond. There are discovered of them about 80 or
100 persons, and have been examined by the Privy Council, but nothing
discovered of any intent they had. It is said that the king hath given
commandment that they shall be re-examined. " In Mennis's _Musarum
Deliciæ_ the brotherhood is celebrated in a poem headed "The Tytre Tues;
or, a Mocke Song. To the tune of Chive Chase. By Mr. George Chambers. "
The second verse runs:--
"They call themselves the Tytere-tues,
And wore a blue rib-bin;
And when a-drie would not refuse
To drink. O fearful sin!
"The council, which is thought most wise,
Did sit so long upon it,
That they grew weary and did rise,
And could make nothing on it. "
According to a letter of Chamberlain to Carleton, indexed among the
_State Papers_, the Tityres were a secret society first formed in Lord
Vaux's regiment in the Low Countries, and their "prince" was called
Ottoman. Another entry shows that the "Bugle" mentioned by Yonge was the
badge of a society originally distinct from the Tityres, which
afterwards joined with it. The date of Herrick's poem is thus fixed as
December, 1623/4, and this is confirmed by another sentence in the same
passage in _Yonge's Diary_, in which he says: "The Jesuits and Papists
do wonderfully swarm in the city, and rumours lately have been given out
for firing the Navy and House of Munition, on which are set a double
guard". The Parliament to which Herrick alludes was actually summoned in
January, 1624, to meet on February 12. Sir Simeon Steward, to whom the
poem is addressed, was of the family of the Stewards of Stantney, in the
Isle of Ely. He was knighted with his father, Mark Steward, in 1603, and
afterwards became a fellow-commoner of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was
at different times Sheriff and Deputy-Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire, and
while serving in the latter capacity got into some trouble for unlawful
exactions. In 1627 he wrote a poem on the _King of the Fairies Clothes_
in the same vein as Herrick's fairy pieces.
321. _Then is the work half done. _ As Dr. Grosart suggests, Herrick may
have had in mind the "Dimidium facti qui cœpit habet" of Horace, I.
_Epist. _ ii. 40. But here the emphasis is on beginning _well_, there on
_beginning_.
_Begin with Jove_ is doubtless from the "Ab Jove principium, Musæ," of
Virg. _Ecl. _ iii. 60.
323. _Fears not the fierce sedition of the seas. _ A reminiscence of
Horace, III. _Od. _ i. 25-32.
328. _Gold before goodness. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as _A
Foolish Querie_. The sentiment is from Seneca, _Ep. _ cxv. : An dives,
omnes quærimus; nemo, an bonus. Cp. Juvenal, III. 140 sqq. ; Plaut.
_Menæchm. _ IV. ii. 6.
331. _To his honoured kinsman, Sir William Soame. _ The second son of Sir
Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. Herrick's father and Sir
Stephen married sisters.
_As benjamin and storax when they meet. _ Instances of the use of
"Benjamin" for gum benzoin will be found in the Dictionaries. Dr.
Grosart's gloss, "_Benjamin_, the favourite youngest son of the
Patriarch," is unfortunate.
336. _His Age: dedicated to . . . M. John Wickes under the name of
Posthumus. _ There is an important version of this poem in Egerton MS. ,
2725, where it is entitled _Mr. Herrick's Old Age to Mr. Weekes_. I do
not think it has been collated before. Stanzas i. -vi. contain few
variants; ii. 6 reads: "Dislikes to care for what's behind"; iii. 6:
"Like a lost maidenhead," for "Like to a lily lost"; v. 8: "With the
best and whitest stone"; vi. 1: "We'll not be poor". After this we have
two stanzas omitted in 1648:--
"We have no vineyards which do bear
Their lustful clusters all the year,
Nor odoriferous
Orchards, like to Alcinous;
Nor gall the seas
Our witty appetites to please
With mullet, turbot, gilt-head bought
At a high rate and further brought.
"Nor can we glory of a great
And stuffed magazine of wheat;
We have no bath
Of oil, but only rich in faith
O'er which the hand
Of fortune can have no command,
But what she gives not, she not takes,
But of her own a spoil she makes. "
Stanza vii. , l. 2, has "close" for "both"; l. 3 "see" for "have"; l. 6,
"open" for "that cheap"; l. 7, "full" for "same". Stanzas x. -xvii. have
so many variants that I am obliged to transcribe them in full, though
they show Herrick not at his best, and the poem is not one to linger
over:--
10.
"Live in thy peace; as for myself,
When I am bruisèd on the shelf
Of Time, and _read
Eternal daylight o'er my head:_
When with the rheum,
_With_ cough _and_ ptisick, I consume
_Into an heap of cinders:_ then
The Ages fled I'll call again,
11.
"And with a tear compare these last
_And cold times unto_ those are past,
While Baucis by
_With her lean lips_ shall kiss _them dry
Then will we_ sit
By the fire, foretelling snow and sleet
And weather by our aches, grown
†Old enough to be our own
12.
"True Calendar [ ]
_Is for to know_ what change is near,
Then to assuage
The gripings _in_ the chine by age,
I'll call my young
Iülus to sing such a song
I made upon my _mistress'_ breast;
_Or such a_ blush at such a feast.
13.
"Then shall he read _my Lily fine
Entomb'd_ within a crystal shrine:
_My_ Primrose next:
A piece then of a higher text;
For to beget
In me a more transcendent heat
Than that insinuating fire
Which crept into each _reverend_ Sire,
14.
"When the _high_ Helen _her fair cheeks
Showed to the army of the Greeks;_
At which I'll _rise_
(_Blind though as midnight in my eyes_),
And hearing it,
Flutter and crow, _and_, in a fit
Of _young_ concupiscence, and _feel
New flames within the aged steal_.
15.
"Thus frantic, crazy man (God wot),
I'll call to mind _the times_ forgot
And oft between
_Sigh out_ the Times that _we_ have seen!
_And shed a tear_,
And twisting my Iülus _hair_,
Doting, I'll weep and say (in truth)
Baucis, these were _the_ sins of youth.
16.
"Then _will I_ cause my hopeful Lad
(If a wild Apple can be had)
To crown the Hearth
(Lar thus conspiring with our mirth);
_Next_ to infuse
Our _better beer_ into the cruse:
Which, neatly spiced, we'll first carouse
Unto the _Vesta_ of the house.
17.
"Then the next health to friends of mine
_In oysters, and_ Burgundian wine,
_Hind, Goderiske, Smith,
And Nansagge_, sons of _clune[M] and_ pith,
Such _who know_ well
_To board_ the magic _bowl_, and _spill
All mighty blood, and can do more
Than Jove and Chaos them before_. "
[M] Clune = "clunis," a haunch.
This John Wickes or Weekes is spoken of by Anthony à Wood as a "jocular
person" and a popular preacher. He enters Wood's _Fasti_ by right of his
co-optation as a D. D. in 1643, while the court was at Oxford; his
education had been at Cambridge. He was a prebendary of Bristol and Dean
of St. Burian in Cornwall, and suffered some persecution as a royalist.
Herrick later on, when himself shedless and cottageless, addresses
another poem to him as his "peculiar friend,"
To whose glad threshold and free door
I may, a poet, come, though poor.
A friend suggests that Hind may have been John Hind, an Anacreontic poet
and friend of Greene, and has found references to a Thomas Goodricke of
St. John's Coll. , Camb. , author of two poems on the accession of James
I. , and a Martin Nansogge, B. A. of Trinity Hall, 1614, afterwards vicar
of Cornwood, Devon. Smith is certainly James Smith, who, with Sir John
Mennis, edited the _Musarum Deliciæ_, in which the first poem is
addressed "to Parson Weekes: an invitation to London," and contains a
reference to--
"That old sack
Young Herrick took to entertain
The Muses in a sprightly vein".
The early part of this poem contains, along with the name Posthumus,
many Horatian reminiscences: cp. especially II. _Od. _ xiv. 1-8, and IV.
_Od. _ vii. 14. It may be noted that in the imitation of the latter
passage in stanza iv. the MS. copy at the Museum corrects the
misplacement of the epithet, reading:--
"But we must on and thither tend
Where Tullus and rich Ancus blend," etc. ,
for "Where Ancus and rich Tullus".
Again the variant, "_Open_ candle baudery," in verse 7, is an additional
argument against Dr. Grosart's explanation: "Obscene words and figures
made with candle-smoke," the allusion being merely to the blackened
ceilings produced by cheap candles without a shade.
337. _A Short Hymn to Venus. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as
_A vow to Cupid_, with variants: l. 1, _Cupid_ for _Goddess_; l. 2,
_like_ for _with_; l. 3, _that I may_ for _I may but_; l. 5, _do_ for
_will_.
340. _Upon a delaying lady. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as _A
Check to her delay_.
341. _The Lady Mary Villars_, niece of the first Duke of Buckingham,
married successively Charles, son of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, Esme
Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, and Thomas Howard. Died 1685.
355. _Hath filed upon my silver hairs. _ Cp. Ben Jonson, _The King's
Entertainment_:--
"What all the minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years
That hang in file upon these silver hairs
Could not produce," etc.
359. _Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. _ Philip Herbert (born
1584, died 1650), despite his foul mouth, ill temper, and devotion to
sport ("He would make an excellent chancellor to the mews were Oxford
turned into a kennel of hounds," wrote the author of _Mercurius
Menippeus_ when Pembroke succeeded Laud as chancellor), was also a
patron of literature. He was one of the "incomparable pair of brethren"
to whom the Shakespeare folio of 1623 was dedicated, and he was a good
friend to Massinger. His fondness for scribbling in the margins of books
may, or may not, be considered as further evidence of a respect for
literature.
366. _Thou shall not all die. _ Horace's "non omnis moriar".
367. _Upon Wrinkles. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the
title _To a Stale Lady_. The first line there reads:--
"Thy wrinkles are no more nor less".
375. _Anne Soame, now Lady Abdie_, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Soame,
and second wife of Sir Thomas Abdy, Bart. , of Felix Hall, Essex.
Herrick's poem is modelled on Mart. III. lxv.
376. _Upon his Kinswoman, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, daughter of the
poet's brother Nicholas.
377. _A Panegyric to Sir Lewis Pemberton_ of Rushden, in
Northamptonshire, sheriff of the county in 1622; married Alice, daughter
of Tho. Bowles. Died 1641. With this poem cp. Ben Jonson's _Epig. _ ci.
_But great and large she spreads by dust and sweat. _ Dr. Grosart very
appositely quotes Montaigne: "For it seemeth that the verie name of
vertue presupposeth difficultie and inferreth resistance, and cannot
well exercise it selfe without an enemie" (Florio's tr. , p. 233). But I
think the two passages have a common origin in some version of Hesiod's
τῆς ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν, which is twice quoted by Plato.
382. _After the rare arch-poet, Jonson, died. _ Perhaps suggested by the
Epitaph of Plautus on himself, _ap. _ Gell. i. 24:--
Postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, comoedia luget;
Scena deserta, dein risus, ludu' jocusque,
Et numeri innumeri simul omnes collacrumarunt.
384. _To his nephew, to be prosperous in painting. _ This artistic nephew
may have been a Wingfield, son of Mercy Herrick, who married John
Wingfield, of Brantham, Suffolk; or one of three sons of Nicholas
Herrick and Susanna Salter, or Thomas, or some unknown son of Thomas
Herrick. There is no record of any painter Herrick's achievements.
392. _Sir Edward Fish, Knight Baronet_, of Chertsey, in Surrey. Died
1658.
405. _Nor fear or spice or fish. _ Herrick is remembering Persius, i. 43:
Nec scombros metuentia carmina, nec thus.
To form the paper jacket or
_tunica_ which wrapt the mackerel in Roman cookery seems to have been
the ultimate employment of many poems. Cp. Mart. III. l. 9; IV. lxxxvii.
8; and Catullus, XCV. 8.
_The farting Tanner and familiar King. _ The ballad here alluded to is
that of _King Edward IV. and the tanner of Tamworth_, printed in Prof.
Child's collection. "The dancing friar tattered in the bush" of the next
line is one of the heroes of the old ballad of _The Fryar and the Boye_,
printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and included in the Appendix to Furnivall
and Hales' edition of the Percy folio. The boy was the possessor of a
"magic flute," and, having got the friar into a bush, made him dance
there.
"Jack, as he piped, laughed among,
The Friar with briars was vilely stung,
He hopped wondrous high.
At last the Friar held up his hand
And said: I can no longer stand,
Oh! I shall dancing die. "
"Those monstrous lies of little Robin Rush" is explained by Dr. Grosart
as an allusion to "The Historie of Friar Rush, how he came to a House of
Religion to seek a Service, and being entertained by the Prior was made
First Cook, being full of pleasant Mirth and Delight for young people".
Of "Tom Chipperfield and pretty lisping Ned" I can find nothing. "The
flying Pilchard and the frisking Dace" probably belong to the fish
monsters alluded to in the _Tempest_. In "Tim Trundell" Herrick seems
for the sake of alliteration to have taken a liberty with the Christian
name of a well-known ballad publisher.
_He's greedy of his life. _ From Seneca, _Thyestes_, 884-85:--
Vitæ est avidus quisquis non vult
Mundo secum pereunte mori.
407. _Upon Himself. _ 408. _Another. _ Both printed in _Witts
Recreations_, 1650, the second under the title of _Love and Liberty_.
This last is taken from Corn. Gall. _Eleg. _ i. 6, quoted by Montaigne,
iii. 5:--
Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo.
412. _The Mad Maid's Song. _ A manuscript version of this song is
contained in Harleian MS. 6917, fol. 48, ver. 80. The chief variants
are: st. i. l. 2, _morrow_ for _morning_; l. 4, _all dabbled_ for
_bedabbled_; st. ii. l. 1, _cowslip_ for _primrose_; l. 3, _tears_ for
_flowers_; l. 4, _was_ for _is_; st. v. l. 1, _hope_ for _know_; st.
vii. l. 2, _balsam_ for _cowslips_.
415. _Whither dost thou whorry me. _ Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui Plenum?
Hor. III. _Od. _ xxv. 1.
430. _As Sallust saith_, _i. e. _, the pseudo-Sallust in the _Epist. ad
Cai. Cæs. de Repub. Ordinanda_.
431. _Every time seems short. _ Epigr. in Farnabii, _Florileg. _ [a.
1629]:--
Τοῖσι μὲν εὖ πράττουσιν ἅπας ὁ βίος βραχύς ἐστιν·
Τοῖς δὲ κακῶς, μία νὺξ ἄπλετός ἐστι χρόνος.
443. _Oberon's Palace. --After the feast (my Shapcott) see. _ See 223,
293, from which it is a pity that this poem should have been divorced.
Of the _Palace_ there are as many as three MS. versions, viz. , Add. 22,
603 (p. 59), and Add. 25, 303 (p. 157), at the British Museum, both of
which I have collated, and Ashmole MS. 38, which I only know through my
predecessors. The three MSS. appear to agree very harmoniously, and they
unite in increasing our knowledge of Herrick by a passage of
twenty-seven lines, following on the words "And here and there and
farther off," and in lieu of the next four and a half lines in
_Hesperides_. They read as follows:--
"Some sort of pear,
Apple or plum, is neatly laid
(As if it was a tribute paid)
By the round urchin; some mixt wheat
The which the ant did taste, not eat;
Deaf nuts, soft Jews'-ears, and some thin
Chippings, the mice filched from the bin
Of the gray farmer, and to these
The scraps of lentils, chitted peas,
Dried honeycombs, brown acorn cups,
Out of the which he sometimes sups
His herby broth, and there close by
Are pucker'd bullace, cankers (? ), dry
Kernels, and withered haws; the rest
Are trinkets fal'n from the kite's nest,
As butter'd bread, the which the wild
Bird snatched away from the crying child,
Blue pins, tags, fesenes, beads and things
Of higher price, as half-jet rings,
Ribbons and then some silken shreaks
The virgins lost at barley-breaks.
Many a purse-string, many a thread
Of gold and silver therein spread,
_Many a counter, many a die,
Half rotten and without an eye,
Lies here about_, and, as we guess,
Some bits of thimbles seem to dress
The brave cheap work; _and for to pave
The excellency of this cave,
Squirrels and children's teeth late shed_,
Serve here, both which _enchequered_
With castors' doucets, which poor they
Bite off themselves to 'scape away:
Brown _toadstones_, ferrets' eyes, _the gum
That shines_," etc.
The italicised words in the last few lines appear in _Hesperides_; all
the rest are new. Other variants are: "The grass of Lemster ore soberly
sparkling" for "the finest Lemster ore mildly disparkling"; "girdle" for
"ceston"; "The eyes of all doth strait bewitch" for "All with temptation
doth bewitch"; "choicely hung" for "neatly hung"; "silver roach" for
"silvery fish"; "cave" for "room"; "get reflection" for "make
reflected"; "Candlemas" for "taper-light"; "moon-tane" for
"moon-tanned," etc. , etc.
_Kings though they're hated. _ The "Oderint dum metuant" of the _Atreus_
of Accius, quoted by Cicero and Seneca.
446. _To Oenone. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the
title: "The Farewell to Love and to his Mistress," and with the unlucky
misprint "court" for "covet" (also "for" for "but") in the stanza iii.
l. i.
447. _Grief breaks the stoutest heart. _ Frangit fortia corda dolor.
Tibull. III. ii. 6.
451. _To the right gracious Prince, Lodowick, Duke of Richmond and
Lennox. _ There appears to me to be a blunder here which Dr. Grosart and
Mr. Hazlitt do not elucidate, by recording the birth of Lodowick, first
Duke of Richmond, in 1574, his succession to the Lennox title in 1583,
creation as Duke of Richmond in May, 1623, and death in the following
February. For this first duke was no "stem" left "of all those three
brave brothers fallen in the war," and the allusion here is undoubtedly
to his nephews--George, Lord d'Aubigny, who fell at Edgehill; Lord John
Stewart, who fell at Alresford; and Lord Bernard Stewart (Earl of
Lichfield), who fell at Rowton Heath. In elucidation of Herrick's Dirge
(219) over the last of these three brothers, I have already quoted
Clarendon's remark, that he was "the third brother of that illustrious
family that sacrificed his life in this quarrel," and it cannot be
doubted that Herrick is here alluding to the same fact. The poem must
therefore have been written after 1645, _i. e. _, more than twenty years
after the death of Duke Lodowick. But the duke then living was James,
who succeeded his father Esme in 1624, was recreated Duke of Richmond in
1641, and did not die till 1655. It is true that there was a brother
named Lodovic, but he was an abbot in France and never succeeded to the
title. Herrick, therefore, seems to have blundered in the Christian
name.
453. _Let's live in haste. _ From Martial, VII. xlvii. 11, 12:--
Vive velut rapto: fugitivaque gaudia carpe:
Perdiderit nullum vita reversa diem.
457. _While Fates permit. _ From Seneca, _Herc. Fur. _ 177:--
Dum Fata sinunt,
Vivite laeti: properat cursu
Vita citato, volucrique die
Rota praecipitis vertitur anni.
459. _With Horace_ (IV. _Od. _ ix. 29):--
Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae
Celata virtus.
465. _The parting Verse or charge to his Supposed Wife when he
travelled. _ MS. variants of this poem are found at the British Museum in
Add. 22, 603, and in Ashmole MS. 38. Their title, "Mr. Herrick's charge
to his wife," led Mr. Payne Collier to rashly identify with the poet a
certain Robert Herrick married at St. Clement Danes, 1632, to a Jane
Gibbons. The variants are numerous, but not very important. In l. 4 we
have "draw wooers" for "draw thousands"; ll. 11-16 are transposed to
after l. 28; and "Are the expressions of that itch" is written "As
emblems will express that itch"; ll. 27, 28 appear as:--
"For that once lost thou _needst must fall
To one, then prostitute to all:_
And we then have the transposed passage:--
Nor so immurèd would I have
Thee live, as dead, _or_ in thy grave;
But walk abroad, yet wisely well
_Keep 'gainst_ my coming sentinel.
And think _each man thou seest doth doom
Thy thoughts to say, I back am come. _
Farther on we have the rather pretty variant:--
"Let them _call thee wondrous fair,
Crown of women_, yet despair".
Eight lines lower "virtuous" is read for "gentle," and the omission of
some small words throws some light on a change in Herrick's metrical
views as he grew older. The words omitted are bracketed:--
"[And] Let thy dreams be only fed
With this, that I am in thy bed.
And [thou] then turning in that sphere,
Waking findst [shall find] me sleeping there.
But [yet] if boundless lust must scale
Thy fortress and _must_ needs prevail
_'Gainst thee and_ force a passage in," etc.
Other variants are: "Creates the action" for "That makes the action";
"Glory" for "Triumph"; "my last signet" for "this compression"; "turn
again in my full triumph" for "come again, As one triumphant," and "the
height of womankind" for "all faith of womankind".
_The body sins not, 'tis the will_, etc. A maxim of law Latin: Actus non
facit reum nisi mens sit rea.
466. _To his Kinsman, Sir Thos. Soame_, son of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord
Mayor of London, 1589, and of Anne Stone, Herrick's aunt. Sir Thomas
was Sheriff of London, 1635, M. P. for the City, 1640, and died Jan. ,
1670. See Cussan's _Hertfortshire_. (_Hundred of Edwinstree_, p. 100. )
470. _Few Fortunate. _ A variant on the text (Matt. xx. 16): "Many be
called but few chosen".
479. _To Rosemary and Bays. _ The use of rosemary and bays at weddings
forms a section in Brand's chapter on marriage customs (ii. 119). For
the gilding he quotes from a wedding sermon preached in 1607 by Roger
Hacket: "Smell sweet, O ye flowers, in your native sweetness: be not
gilded with the idle art of man". The use of gloves at weddings forms
the subject of another section in Brand (ii. 125). He quotes Ben
Jonson's _Silent Woman_; "We see no ensigns of a wedding here, no
character of a bridal; where be our scarves and our gloves? "
483. _To his worthy friend, M. Thomas Falconbrige. _ As Herrick hints at
his friend's destiny for a public career, it seemed worth while to hunt
through the Calendar of State Papers for a chance reference to this
Falconbridge, who so far has evaded editors. He is apparently the Mr.
Thomas Falconbridge who appears in various papers between 1640 and 1644,
as passing accounts, and in the latter year was "Receiver-General at
Westminster".
_Towers reared high_, etc. Cp. Horace, _Od. _ II. x.
