The Project Gutenberg eBook of Robert Herrick, The Hesperides And Noble Numbers: Edited By Alfred Pollard

The variants in this version are not very important; one of the most noteworthy, round for ground, in stanza 5 [4], was overlooked by Dr. Grosart in his collation. Of the seven stanzas subsequently omitted several are of great beauty. There are few happier images in Herrick than that of Time throned in a saffron evening in stanza 11. It is only when the earlier version is read as a whole that Herrick's taste in omitting is vindicated. Each stanza is good in itself, but in the MSS. the poem drags from excessive length, and the reduction of its twenty-three stanzas to sixteen greatly improves it.

286. Ever full of pensive fear. Ovid, Heroid. i. 12: Res est solliciti plena timoris amor.

287. Reverence to riches. Perhaps from Tacit. Ann. ii. 33: Neque in familia et argento quæque ad usum parantur nimium aliquid aut modicum, nisi ex fortuna possidentis.

Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus
Non facit ille deos: qui rogat, ille facit.

290. The eyes be first that conquered are. From Tacitus, Germ. 43: Primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur.

293. Oberon's Feast. For a note on Herrick's Fairy Poems and on the Description of the King and Queene of the Fayries (1635), in which part of this poem was first printed, see Appendix. Add. MS. 22, 603, at the British Museum, and Ashmole MS. 38, at the Bodleian, contain early versions of the poem substantially agreeing. I transcribe the Museum copy:—

"A little mushroom table spread
After the dance, they set on bread,
A yellow corn of hecky wheat
With some small sandy grit to eat
His choice bits; with which in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all the while his eye was served
We dare not think his ear was sterved:
But that there was in place to stir
His fire the pittering Grasshopper;
The merry Cricket, puling Fly,
The piping Gnat for minstralcy.
The Humming Dor, the dying Swan,
And each a choice Musician.
And now we must imagine first,
The Elves present to quench his thirst
A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,
Brought and beswetted in a blue
And pregnant violet; which done,
His kitling eyes begin to run
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of papery Butterflies:
Of which he eats, but with a little
Neat cool allay of Cuckoo's spittle;
A little Fuz-ball pudding stands
By, yet not blessed by his hands—
That was too coarse, but he not spares
To feed upon the candid hairs
Of a dried canker, with a sagg
And well bestuffed Bee's sweet bag:
Stroking his pallet with some store
Of Emmet eggs. What would he more,
But Beards of Mice, an Ewt's stew'd thigh,
A pickled maggot and a dry
Hipp, with a Red cap worm, that's shut
Within the concave of a Nut
Brown as his tooth, and with the fat
And well-boiled inchpin of a Bat.
A bloated Earwig with the Pith
Of sugared rush aglads him with;
But most of all the Glow-worm's fire.
As most betickling his desire
To know his Queen, mixt with the far-
Fetcht binding-jelly of a star.
The silk-worm's seed, a little moth
Lately fattened in a piece of cloth;
Withered cherries; Mandrake's ears;
Mole's eyes; to these the slain stag's tears;
The unctuous dewlaps of a Snail;
The broke heart of a Nightingale
O'er-come in music; with a wine
Ne'er ravished from the flattering Vine,
But gently pressed from the soft side
Of the most sweet and dainty Bride,
Brought in a daisy chalice, which
He fully quaffs off to bewitch
His blood too high. This done, commended
Grace by his Priest, the feast is ended."

The Shapcott to whom this Oberon's Feast and Oberon's Palace are dedicated is Herrick's "peculiar friend, Master Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer," of a later poem. Dr. Grosart again suggests that it may have been a character-name, but, as in the case of John Merrifield, the owner was a West country-man and a member of the Inner Temple, where he was admitted in 1632 as the "son and heir of Thomas Shapcott," of Exeter.

Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus: hoc est
Vivere bis vita posse priore frui.

Son to Robert Norgate, D.D., Master of Bene't College, Cambridge. He was employed by the Earl of Arundel to purchase pictures, and on one occasion found himself at Marseilles without remittances, and had to tramp through France on foot. According to the Calendars of State Papers in 1625, it was ordered that, "forasmuch as his Majesty's letters to the Grand Signior, the King of Persia, the Emperor of Russia, the Great Mogul, and other remote Princes, had been written, limned, and garnished with gold and colours by scriveners abroad, thenceforth they should be so written, limned, and garnished by Edward Norgate, Clerk of the Signet in reversion". Six years later this order was renewed, the "Kings of Bantam, Macassar, Barbary, Siam, Achine, Fez, and Sus" being added to the previous list, and Norgate being now designated as a Clerk of the Signet Extraordinary. In the same year, having previously been Bluemantle Pursuivant, he was promoted to be Windsor Herald, in which capacity he received numerous fees during the next few years, and was excused ship money. He still, however, retained his clerkship, for he writes in 1639: "The poor Office of Arms is fain to blazon the Council books and Signet". The phrase occurs in a series of nineteen letters of extraordinary interest, which Norgate wrote from the North, chiefly to his friend, Robert Reade, secretary to Windebank, on the course of affairs. In Sept., 1641, "Ned Norgate" was ordered personally to attend the king. "It is his Majesty's pleasure that the master should wait and not the men, and that they shall find." Henceforth I find no certain reference to him; according to Fuller he died at the Herald's Office in 1649. It would be interesting if we could be sure that this Edward Norgate is the same as the one who in 1611 was appointed Tuner of his Majesty's "virginals, organs, and other instruments," and in 1637 received a grant of £140 for the repair of the organ at Hampton Court. Herrick's love of music makes us expect to find a similar trait in his friends.

313. The Entertainment, or Porch Verse. The words Ye wrong the threshold-god and the allusion to the porch in the Clipsby Crew Epithalamium (stanza 4) show that there is no reference here (as Brand thinks, ii. 135) to the old custom of reading part of the marriage service at the church door or porch (cp. Chaucer: "Husbands at churchë door she had had five"). The porch of the house is meant, and the allusions are to the ceremonies at the threshold (cp. the Southwell Epithalamium). Dr. Grosart quotes from the Dean Prior register the entry of the marriage of Henry Northleigh, gentleman, and Mistress Lettice Yard on September 5, 1639, by licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

319. No noise of late-spawned Tittyries. In the Camden Society's edition of the Diary of Walter Yonge, p. 70 (kindly shown me by the Rev. J. H. 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, 162¾, 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."

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.,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.