The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 49

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 _G.o.ddess_; 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 Ma.s.singer. 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 t.i.tle _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, Ess.e.x.

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 Northamptons.h.i.+re, 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 pa.s.sages have a common origin in some version of Hesiod's t?? ??et?? ?d??ta ?e?? p??p?????e? ????a?, 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 s...o...b..os 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. lx.x.xvii.

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:--

Vitae est avidus quisquis non vult Mundo sec.u.m pereunte mori.

407. _Upon Himself._ 408. _Another._ Both printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, the second under the t.i.tle 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 ma.n.u.script 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 Sall.u.s.t saith_, _i.e._, the pseudo-Sall.u.s.t in the _Epist. ad Cai. Caes. de Repub. Ordinanda_.

431. _Every time seems short._ Epigr. in Farnabii, _Florileg._ [a.

1629]:--

???s? ?? e? p??tt??s?? ?pa? ? ??? ?a??? ?st???

???? d? ?a???, ?a ??? ?p?et?? ?st? ??????.

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 pa.s.sage 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 b.u.t.ter'd bread, the which the wild Bird s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 s.h.i.+nes_," etc.

The italicised words in the last few lines appear in _Hesperides_; all the rest are new. Other variants are: "The gra.s.s 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 t.i.tle: "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 t.i.tle 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 t.i.tle. 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 vert.i.tur anni.