No More Learning

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. Quoted by Montaigne, III. xiii.

1056. _To his peculiar friend, M. Jo. Wicks. _ See 336 and Note. Written
after Herrick's ejection. We know that the poet's uncle, Sir William
Herrick, suffered greatly in estate during the Civil War, and it may
have been the same with other friends and relatives. But there can be
little doubt that the poet found abundant hospitality on his return to
London.

1059. _A good Death. _ August. _de Disciplin. Christ. _ 13: Non potest
malè mori, qui benè vixerit.

1061. _On Fortune. _ Seneca, _Medea_, 176: Fortuna opes auferre non
animum potest.

1062. _To Sir George Parry, Doctor of the Civil Law. _ According to Dr.
Grosart, Parry "was admitted to the College of Advocates, London, 3rd
Nov. , 1628; but almost nothing has been transmitted concerning him save
that he married the daughter and heir of Sir Giles Sweet, Dean of
Arches". I can hardly doubt that he must be identified with the Dr.
George Parry, Chancellor to the Bishop of Exeter, who in 1630 was
accused of excommunicating persons for the sake of fees, but was highly
praised in 1635 and soon after appointed a Judge Marshal. If so, his
wife was a widow when she came to him, as she is spoken of in 1638 as
"Lady Dorothy Smith, wife of Sir Nicholas Smith, deceased". She brought
him a rich dower, and her death greatly confused his affairs.

1067. _Gentleness. _ Seneca, _Phoen. _ 659: Qui vult amari, languidâ
regnet manu. And Ben Jonson, _Panegyre_ (1603): "He knew that those who
would with love command, Must with a tender yet a steadfast hand,
Sustain the reins".

1068. _Mrs. Eliza Wheeler. _ See 130 and Note.

1071. _To the Honoured Master Endymion Porter. _ For Porter's patronage
of poetry see 117 and Note.

1080. _The Mistress of all singular Manners, Mistress Portman. _ 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 Λαμπαδηφορία which Plato
(_Legg. _ 776B) uses to illustrate the succession of generations. So
Lucretius (ii. 77): Et quasi cursores vitaï 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 tantùm
honestè 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 carinæ:
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_, τὸ ὑπερόντως ὄν, Plotinus.

7. _His wrath is free from perturbation. _ August. _de Civ. Dei_, ix. 5:
Ipse Deus secundum Scripturas irascitur, nec tamen ullâ 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 Scæva caught 120 darts on his shield;
Horatius Cocles is the hero of the bridge (see Macaulay's _Lays_); C.
Mucius Scævola 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. _Æn. _ 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 quàm 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 pœnitentiae tempus
esse dicunt.

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

167. _A dereliction.