The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 50

459. _With Horace_ (IV. _Od._ ix. 29):--

Paulum 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 t.i.tle, "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 prost.i.tute to all:_

And we then have the transposed pa.s.sage:--

Nor so immured 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 l.u.s.t must scale Thy fortress and _must_ needs prevail _'Gainst thee and_ force a pa.s.sage 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 _Hertforts.h.i.+re_. (_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 pa.s.sing accounts, and in the latter year was "Receiver-General at Westminster".

_Towers reared high_, etc. Cp. Horace, _Od._ II. x. 9-12.

Saepius ventis agitatur ingens Pinus, et celsae graviore casu Decidunt turres, feriuntque summos Fulgura montes.

486. _He's lord of thy life_, etc. Seneca, _Epist. Mor._ iv.: Quisquis vitam suam contempsit tuae dominus est. Quoted by Montaigne, I. xxiii.

488. _Shame is a bad attendant to a state._ From Seneca, _Hippol._ 431: Malus est minister regii imperii pudor.

_He rents his crown that fears the people's hate._ Also from Seneca, _Oedipus_, 701: Odia qui nimium timet regnare nescit.

496. _To his honoured kinsman, Sir Richard Stone_, son of John Stone, sergeant-at-law, the brother of Julian Stone, Herrick's mother. He died in 1660.

_To this white temple of my heroes._ Ben Jonson's admirers were proud to call themselves "sealed of the tribe of Ben," and Herrick, a devout Jonsonite, seems to have imitated the idea so far as to plan sometimes, as here, a Temple, sometimes a Book (see _infra_, 510), sometimes a City (365), a Plantation (392), a Calendar (545), a College (983), of his own favourite friends, to whom his poetry was to give immortality. The earliest direct reference to this plan is in his address to John Selden, the antiquary (365), in which he writes:--

"A city here of heroes I have made Upon the rock whose firm foundation laid Shall never shrink; where, making thine abode, Live thou a Selden, that's a demi-G.o.d".

It is noteworthy that the poems which contain the clearest reference to this Temple (or its variants) are mostly addressed to kinsfolk, _e.g._, this to Sir Richard Stone, to Mrs. Penelope Wheeler, to Mr. Stephen Soame, and to Susanna and Thomas Herrick. Other recipients of the honour are Sir Edward Fish and Dr. Alabaster, Jack Crofts, Master J. Jincks, etc.

497. _All flowers sent_, etc. See Virgil's--or the Virgilian--_Culex_, ll. 397-410.

_Martial's bee._ See _Epig._ IV. x.x.xii.

De ape electro inclusa.

Et latet et lucet Phaethontide condita gutta, Ut videatur apis nectare clausa suo.

Dignum tantorum pretium tulit illa laborum.

Credibile est ipsam sic voluisse mori.

500. _To Mistress Dorothy Parsons._ This "saint" from Herrick's Temple may certainly be identified with the second of the three children (William, Dorothy, and Thomasine) of Mr. John Parsons, organist and master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey, where he was buried in 1623. Herrick addresses another poem to her sister Thomasine:--

"Grow up in beauty, as thou dost begin, And be of all admired, Thomasine".

502. _'Tis sin to throttle wine._ Martial, I. xix. 5: Scelus est jugulare Falernum.

506. _Edward, Earl of Dorset_, Knight of the Garter, grandson of Thomas Sackville, author of _Gorboduc_. He succeeded his brother, Richard Sackville, the third earl, in 1624, and died in 1652. Clarendon describes a duel which he fought with Lord Bruce in Flanders.

_Of your own self a public theatre._ Cp. Burton (Democ. to Reader) "Ipse mihi theatrum".

510. _To his Kinswoman, Mrs. Penelope Wheeler._ See Note on 130.

511. _A mighty strife 'twixt form and chast.i.ty._ Lis est c.u.m forma magna pudicitiae. Quoted from Ovid by Burton, who translates: "Beauty and honesty have ever been at odds".

514. _To the Lady Crew, upon the death of her child._ This must be the child buried in Westminster Abbey, according to the entry in the register "1637/8, Feb. 6. Sir Clipsy Crewe's daughter, in the North aisle of the monuments." Colonel Chester annotates: "She was a younger daughter, and was born at Crewe, 27th July, 1631. She died on the 4th of February, and must have been an independent heiress, as her father administered to her estate on the 24th May following."

515. _Here needs no Court for our Request._ An allusion to the Court of Requests, established in the time of Richard II. as a lesser Court of Equity for the hearing of "all poor men's suits". It was abolished in 1641, at the same time as the Star Chamber.

517. _The new successor drives away old love._ From Ovid, _Rem. Am._ 462: Successore novo vincitur omnis amor.

519. _Born I was to meet with age._ Cp. 540. From Anacreon, 38 [24]:--

?pe?d? ??t?? ?t?????, ???t?? t???? ?de?e??, ?????? ????? ?? pa??????, ?? d' ??? d?ae?? ??? ??da?

???et? e, f?????de??

??d?? ?? ?a? ??? ?st?.

???? ?? f??s? t? t??a, ?a???, ?e??s?, ???e?s?, ?et? t?? ?a??? ??a???.

520. _Fortune did never favour one._ From Dionys. Halicarn. as quoted by Burton, II. iii. 1, -- 1.

521. _To Phillis to love and live with him._ A variant on Marlowe's theme: "Come live with me and be my love". Donne's _The Bait_ (printed in Grosart's edition, vol. ii. p. 206) is another.

522. _To his Kinswoman, Mistress Susanna Herrick_, wife of his elder brother Nicholas.

523. _Susanna Southwell._ Probably a daughter of Sir Thomas Southwell, for whom Herrick wrote the Epithalamium (No. 149).

525. _Her pretty feet_, etc. Cp. Suckling's "Ballad upon a Wedding":--