No More Learning

_ Dr.
Grosart notes that a Mrs. Mary Portman was buried at Putney Parish
Church, June 27, 1671, and this was perhaps Herrick's schoolmistress,
the "pearl of Putney".

1087. _Where pleasures rule a kingdom. _ Cicero, _De Senect. _ xii. 41:
Neque omnino in voluptatis regno virtutem posse consistere. _He lives
who lives to virtue. _ Comp. Sallust, _Catil. _ 2, s. fin.

1088. _Twice five-and-twenty (bate me but one year). _ As Herrick was
born in 1591, this poem must have been written in 1640.

1089. _To M. Laurence Swetnaham. _ Unless the various entries in the
parish registers of St. Margaret's, Westminster, refer to different men,
this Lawrence Swetnaham was the third son of Thomas Swettenham of
Swettenham in Cheshire, married in 1602 to Mary Birtles. Lawrence
himself had children as early as 1629, and ten years later was
church-warden. He was buried in the Abbey, 1673.

1091. _My lamp to you I give. _ Allusion to the ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? which Plato
(_Legg. _ 776B) uses to illustrate the succession of generations. So
Lucretius (ii. 77): Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.

1092. _Michael Oulsworth. _ Michael Oulsworth, Oldsworth or Oldisworth,
graduated M. A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1614. According to
Wood, "he was afterwards Fellow of his College, Secretary to Earl of
Pembroke, elected a burgess to serve in several Parliaments for Sarum
and Old Sarum, and though in the Grand Rebellion he was no Colonel, yet
he was Governor of Old Pembroke, and Montgomery led him by the nose as
he pleased, to serve both their turns". The partnership, however, was
not eternal, for between 1648 and 1650 Oldisworth published at least
eight virulent satires against his former master.

1094. _Truth--her own simplicity. _ Seneca, _Ep. _ 49: (Ut ille tragicus),
Veritatis simplex oratio est.

1097. _Kings must be dauntless. _ Seneca, _Thyest. _ 388: Rex est qui
metuit nihil.

1100. _To his brother, Nicholas Herrick. _ Baptized April 22, 1589; a
merchant trading to the Levant. He married Susanna Salter, to whom
Herrick addresses two poems (522, 977).

1103. _A King and no King. _ Seneca, _Thyest. _ 214: Ubicunque tantum
honeste dominanti licet, Precario regnatur.

1118. _Necessity makes dastards valiant men. _ Sallust, _Catil. _ 58:
Necessitudo . . . timidos fortes facit.

1119. _Sauce for Sorrows. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650. _An
equal mind. _ Plautus, _Rudens_, II. iii. 71: Animus aequus optimum est
aerumnae condimentum.

1126. _The End of his Work. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under
the title: _Of this Book. _ From Ovid, _Ars Am. _ i. 773, 774:--

Pars superest caepti, pars est exhausta laboris:
Hic teneat nostras anchora jacta rates.

1127. _My wearied bark_, etc. Ovid, _Rem. Am. _ 811, 812:--

fessae date serta carinae:
Contigimus portum, quo mihi cursus erat.

1128. _The work is done. _ Ovid, _Ars Am. _ ii. 733, 734:--

Finis adest operi: palmam date, grata juventus,
Sertaque odoratae myrtea ferte comae.

1130. _His Muse. _ Cp. Note on 624.




NOBLE NUMBERS.


3. _Weigh me the Fire. _ _2 Esdras_, iv. 5, 7; v. 9, 36: "Weigh me . . .
the fire, or measure me . . . the wind," etc.

4. _God . . . is the best known, not. . . . _ _August. de Ord. _ ii. 16: [Deus]
scitur melius nesciendo.

5. _Supraentity_, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , Plotinus.

7. _His wrath is free from perturbation. _ August. _de Civ. Dei_, ix. 5:
Ipse Deus secundum Scripturas irascitur, nec tamen ulla passione
turbatur. _Enchir. ad Laurent. _ 33: Cum irasci dicitur Deus, non
significatur perturbatio, qualis est in animo irascentis hominis.

9. _Those Spotless two Lambs. _ "This is the offering made by fire which
ye shall offer unto the Lord: two lambs of the first year without spot,
day by day, for a continual burnt-offering. " (Numb. xxviii. 3. )

17. _An Anthem sung in the Chapel of Whitehall. _ This may be added to
Nos. 96-98, and 102, the poems on which Mr. Hazlitt bases his conjecture
that Herrick may have held some subordinate post in the Chapel Royal.

37. _When once the sin has fully acted been. _ Tacitus, _Ann. _ xiv. 10:
Perfecto demum scelere, magnitudo ejus intellecta est.

38. _Upon Time. _ Were this poem anonymous it would probably be
attributed rather to George Herbert than to Herrick.

41. _His Litany to the Holy Spirit. _ We may quote again from Barron
Field's account in the _Quarterly Review_ (1810) of his
cross-examination of the Dean Prior villagers for Reminiscences of
Herrick: "The person, however, who knows more of Herrick than all the
rest of the neighbourhood we found to be a poor woman in the 99th year
of her age, named Dorothy King. She repeated to us, with great
exactness, five of his _Noble Numbers_, among which was his beautiful
'Litany'. These she had learnt from her mother, who was apprenticed to
Herrick's successor at the vicarage. She called them her prayers, which
she said she was in the habit of putting up in bed, whenever she could
not sleep; and she therefore began the 'Litany' at the second stanza:--

'When I lie within my bed,' etc. "

Another of her midnight orisons was the poem beginning:--

"Every night Thou dost me fright,
And keep mine eyes from sleeping," etc.

The last couplet, it should be noted, is misquoted from No. 56.

54. _Spew out all neutralities. _ From the message to the Church of the
Laodiceans, Rev. iii. 16.

59. _A Present by a Child. _ Cp. "A pastoral upon the Birth of Prince
Charles" (_Hesperides_ 213), and Note.

63. _God's mirth: man's mourning. _ Perhaps founded on Prov. i. 26: "I
also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh".

65. _My Alma. _ The name is probably suggested by its meaning "soul". Cp.
Prior's _Alma_.

72. _I'll cast a mist and cloud. _ Cp. Hor. I. _Ep. _ xvi.
62: Noctem
peccatis et fraudibus objice nubem.

75. _That house is bare. _ Horace, _Ep. _ I. vi. 45: Exilis domus est, ubi
non et multa supersunt.

77. _Lighten my candle_, etc. The phraseology of the next five lines is
almost entirely from the Psalms and the Song of Solomon.

86. _Sin leads the way. _ Hor. _Odes_, III. ii. 32: Raro antecedentem
scelestum Deseruit pede Poena claudo.

88. _By Faith we . . . walk . . . , not by the Spirit. _ 2 Cor. v. 7: "We walk
by faith, not by sight". 'By the Spirit' perhaps means, 'in spiritual
bodies'.

96. _Sung to the King. _ See Note on 17.

_Composed by M. Henry Lawes. _ See _Hesperides_ 851, and Note.

102. _The Star-Song. _ This may have been composed partly with reference
to the noonday star during the Thanksgiving for Charles II. 's birth. See
_Hesperides_ 213, and Note.

_We'll choose him King. _ A reference to the Twelfth Night games. See
_Hesperides_ 1035, and Note.

108. _Good men afflicted most. _ Taken almost entirely from Seneca, _de
Provid. _ 3, 4: Ignem experitur [Fortuna] in Mucio, paupertatem in
Fabricio, . . . tormenta in Regulo, venenum in Socrate, mortem in Catone.
The allusions may be briefly explained for the unclassical. At the siege
of Dyrrachium, Marcus Cassius Scaeva caught 120 darts on his shield;
Horatius Cocles is the hero of the bridge (see Macaulay's _Lays_); C.
Mucius Scaevola held his hand in the fire to illustrate to Porsenna Roman
fearlessness; Cato is Cato Uticensis, the philosophic suicide; "high
Atilius" will be more easily recognised as the M. Atilius Regulus who
defied the Carthaginians; Fabricius Luscinus refused not only the
presents of Pyrrhus, but all reward of the State, and lived in poverty
on his own farm.

109. _A wood of darts. _ Cp. Virg. _AEn. _ x. 886: Ter secum Troius heros
Immanem aerato circumfert tegmine silvam.

112. _The Recompense. _ Herrick is said to have assumed the lay habit on
his return to London after his ejection, perhaps as a protection against
further persecution. This quatrain may be taken as evidence that he did
not throw off his religion with his cassock. Compare also 124.

_All I have lost that could be rapt from me. _ From Ovid, III. _Trist. _
vii. 414: Raptaque sint adimi quae potuere mihi.

123. _Thy light that ne'er went out. _ Prov. xxxi. 18 (of 'the Excellent
Woman'): "Her candle goeth not out by night". _All set about with
lilies. _ Cp. _Cant. Canticorum_, vii. 2: Venter tuus sicut acervus
tritici, vallatus liliis.

_Will show these garments. _ So Acts ix. 39.

134. _God had but one son free from sin. _ Augustin. _Confess. _ vi. :
Deus unicum habet filium sine peccato, nullum sine flagello, quoted in
Burton, II. iii. 1.

136. _Science in God. _ Bp. Davenant, _on Colossians_, 166, _ed. _ 1639;
speaking of Omniscience: Proprietates Divinitatis non sunt accidentia,
sed ipsa Dei essentia.

145. _Tears. _ Augustin. _Enarr. Ps. _ cxxvii. : Dulciores sunt lacrymae
orantium quam gaudia theatorum.

146. _Manna. _ Wisdom xvi. 20, 21: "Angels' food . . . agreeing to every
taste".

147. _As Cassiodore doth prove. _ Reverentia est enim Domini timor cum
amore permixtus. Cassiodor. _Expos. in Psalt. _ xxxiv. 30; quoted by Dr.
Grosart. My clerical predecessor has also hunted down with much industry
the possible sources of most of the other patristic references in _Noble
Numbers_, though I have been able to add a few. We may note that Herrick
quotes Cassiodorus (twice), John of Damascus, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas,
St. Bernard, St. Augustine (thrice), St. Basil, and St. Ambrose--a
goodly list of Fathers, if we had any reason to suppose that the
quotations were made at first hand.

148. _Mercy . . . a Deity. _ Pausanias, _Attic. _ I. xvii. 1.

153. _Mora Sponsi, the stay of the bridegroom. _ Maldonatus, _Comm. in
Matth. _ xxv. : Hieronymus et Hilarius moram sponsi poenitentiae tempus
esse dicunt.

157. _Montes Scripturarum. _ See August. _Enarr. in Ps. _ xxxix. , and
passim.

167. _A dereliction. _ The word is from Ps. xxii. 1: Quare me
dereliquisti? "Why hast Thou forsaken me? " Herrick took it from
Gregory's _Notes and Observations_ (see infra), p. 5: 'Our Saviour . . .
in that great case of dereliction'.

174. _Martha, Martha. _ See Luke x. 41, and August. _Serm. _ cii. 3:
Repetitio nominis indicium est dilectionis.

177. _Paradise. _ Gregory, p. 75, on "the reverend Say of Zoroaster, Seek
Paradise," quotes from the Scholiast Psellus: "The Chaldaean Paradise
(saith he) is a Quire of divine powers incircling the Father".

178. _The Jews when they built houses. _ Herrick's rabbinical lore (cp.
180, 181, 193, 207, 224), like his patristic, was probably derived at
second hand through some biblical commentary. Much of it certainly comes
from the _Notes and Observations upon some Passages of Scripture_
(Oxford, 1646) of John Gregory, chaplain of Christ Church, a prodigy of
oriental learning, who died in his 39th year, March 13, 1646. Thus in
his Address to the Reader (3rd page from end) Gregory remarks: "The
Jews, when they build a house, are bound to leave some part of it
unfinished in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem," giving a
reference to Leo of Modena, _Degli Riti Hebraici_, Part I.

180. _Observation. The Virgin Mother_, etc. Gregory, pp. 24-27, shows
that Sitting, the usual posture of mourners, was forbidden by both Roman
and Jewish Law "in capital causes". "This was the reason why . . . she
stood up still in a resolute and almost impossible compliance with the
Law. . . . They sat . . . after leave obtained . . . to bury the body. "

181. _Tapers. _ Cp. Gregory's _Notes_, p. 111: "The funeral tapers
(however thought of by some) are of the same harmless import. Their
meaning is to show that the departed souls are not quite put out, but
having walked here as the children of the Light are now gone to walk
before God in the light of the living. "

185.