IHERRICK

Herrick was a gross and good-natured clergyman who had a double chin. He kept a pet pig, which drank beer out of a tankard, and he and the pig had probably a good many of the same characteristics. It would be a libel on him to say that he was a pig, but it would not be a libel to say that he was a pet pig.

His life, like the pet pig’s, was not real, and it certainly was not earnest. He spent the best part of his youth mourning over the brevity of life, and he lived till he was comfortably over eighty. He was an Epicurean, indeed, in the vulgar sense of the word, whose dominant theme was the mortality of pretty things. For Herrick gives us the feeling that for him the world was a world of pretty things rather than of beautiful things. He was the son of a goldsmith in Cheapside, and himself served an apprenticeship to the trade. The effect of this may, I think, be seen in his verse. His spiritual home always remainedin Cheapside rather than in the Church which he afterwards entered. He enjoyed the world as though it were a street of shops. To read him is to call at the florist’s and the perfumer’s and the milliner’s and the jeweller’s and the confectioner’s and the vintner’s and the fruiterer’s and the toy-seller’s. If he writes, as he proclaims, of bridegrooms and brides, he does not forget the bride’s dress or the bride’s cake. His very vision of Nature belittles it to the measure of “golden Cheapside.” He beginsFair Dayswith the lines:

Fair was the dawn; and but e’en now the skiesShow’d like rich cream, enspir’d with strawberries.

Fair was the dawn; and but e’en now the skies

Show’d like rich cream, enspir’d with strawberries.

If he invites Phyllis to love him and live with him in the country, he reduces the hills for her to the size of bric-à-brac:

Thy feasting-tables shall be hillsWith daisies spread, and daffodils.

Thy feasting-tables shall be hills

With daisies spread, and daffodils.

He was one of those happily constituted men who can get pleasure from most things, and it is obvious that he got a great deal of pleasure from his life in Devonshire, where he was Vicar of Dean Prior, till he was ejected after the triumph of Cromwell in the Civil War. But his heart was never in Devonshire. There is no mirrorof Devonshire in his verse. He was a censorious exile amid beauty of that sort, and could have had all the flowers and country scenes he cared for within an hour’s walk of the shop in Cheapside. He speaks in one of his poems of “this loathed country-life,” and in the verses calledDean-bourn, a rude River in Devon, by which he sometimes dwelt, he bids the river farewell, and expresses the hope that he will never set eyes on its “warty incivility” again:

To my content, I never should behold,Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.Rocky thou art, and rocky we discoverThy men, and rocky are thy ways all over.O men, O manners, now and ever knownTo be a rocky generation!A people currish, churlish as the seas,And rude almost as rudest savages.

To my content, I never should behold,

Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.

Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover

Thy men, and rocky are thy ways all over.

O men, O manners, now and ever known

To be a rocky generation!

A people currish, churlish as the seas,

And rude almost as rudest savages.

There is no missing the sincere unappreciativeness of these lines. The best that he can say of Devon is not that it is beautiful but that he wrote some good verses in it:

More discontents I never hadSince I was born than here,Where I have been and still am sad,In this dull Devonshire.Yet justly too I must confess;I ne’er invented suchEnnobled numbers for the PressThan where I loathed so much.

More discontents I never had

Since I was born than here,

Where I have been and still am sad,

In this dull Devonshire.

Yet justly too I must confess;

I ne’er invented such

Ennobled numbers for the Press

Than where I loathed so much.

It has been remarked that, even when he writes of fairies, he has in mind, not the fairies of the West Country, but the fairies he brought with him from Ben Jonson’s London. He is rich in the fancies of the town-poet. For him Oberon walks through a grove “tinselled with twilight,” and is led by the shine of snails. As for the cave in which the Fairy King seeks Queen Mab:

To paveThe excellency of this cave,Squirrels’ and children’s teeth late shedAre neatly here enchequered.

To pave

The excellency of this cave,

Squirrels’ and children’s teeth late shed

Are neatly here enchequered.

Oberon’s Feastagain is a revel of fantastical dishes not from nature, but from that part of the imagination that is a toy-shop:

A little mothLate fattened in a piece of cloth:With withered cherries; mandrake’s ears;Moles’ eyes; to these, the slain stag’s tears;The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;The broke heart of a nightingaleO’ercome in music.

A little moth

Late fattened in a piece of cloth:

With withered cherries; mandrake’s ears;

Moles’ eyes; to these, the slain stag’s tears;

The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;

The broke heart of a nightingale

O’ercome in music.

The very titles of many of his poems seem to have come straight from the toy-shop. How charming some of them are:

A ternary of Littles upon a pipkin of Jelly sent to a lady;Upon a Cherrystone sent to the tip of the Lady Jemonia Walgrave’s ear;Upon a black Twist, rounding the Arm of the Countess of Carlisle;Upon Julia’s Hair, bundled up in a golden net;To the Fever, not to trouble Julia;Upon Lucia, dabbled in the Dew;The Funeral Rites of the Rose!

A ternary of Littles upon a pipkin of Jelly sent to a lady;

Upon a Cherrystone sent to the tip of the Lady Jemonia Walgrave’s ear;

Upon a black Twist, rounding the Arm of the Countess of Carlisle;

Upon Julia’s Hair, bundled up in a golden net;

To the Fever, not to trouble Julia;

Upon Lucia, dabbled in the Dew;

The Funeral Rites of the Rose!

Most beautiful of all, perhaps, is the title of his most famous poem, “Gather ye rosebuds,” which runs,To the Virgins, to make much of time. Herrick’s small and delightful genius is as manifest in the titles of his poems as in the poems themselves. All the perfume of his verse is in such titles asTo live merrily, and to trust to Good Verses;To Mistress Katherine Bradshaw the lovely, that crowned him with Laurel;To the most virtuous Mistress Pot, who many times entertained him; and, especially,To Daisies, not to shut so soon.

Herrick appears in his poetry, if we leave out of consideration the inferior religious verse inNoble Numbers, mainly in three characters. He is the cheerful countryman, the praiser of his mistresses, and the philosopher of the mortality ofpretty things. As for the first, he was too good a disciple of Horace not to be able to play the part cheerfully and to smile among his animals and his beans:

A henI keep, which, creaking day by day,Tells whenShe goes her long white egg to lay.A lambI keep (tame) with my morsels fed,Whose damAn orphan left him (lately dead) ...A catI keep, that plays about my house,Grown fatWith eating many a miching mouse.

A hen

I keep, which, creaking day by day,

Tells when

She goes her long white egg to lay.

A lamb

I keep (tame) with my morsels fed,

Whose dam

An orphan left him (lately dead) ...

A cat

I keep, that plays about my house,

Grown fat

With eating many a miching mouse.

As he writes down the list, he himself realises to what an extent his life in the country is a life of make-believe among toys:

Which areBut toys to give my heart some ease:Where careNe’er is, slight things do lightly please.

Which are

But toys to give my heart some ease:

Where care

Ne’er is, slight things do lightly please.

His mistresses are, however, a thing apart from this happy farmyard. When he goes to the farmyard for a simile in praise of Julia, the effect is amusing, but it is a little lower than love-poetry:

Fain would I kiss my Julia’s dainty leg,Which is as white and hairless as an egg.

Fain would I kiss my Julia’s dainty leg,

Which is as white and hairless as an egg.

Some critics have doubted whether Herrick ever was actually in love. They regard his Julias and Antheas and Lucias as but an array of Delf shepherdesses that every poet of the day was expected to keep on his table. This may be true of most of the ladies, but Julia seems real enough. Herrick was obviously incapable of the passion of Keats or Shelley or Browning, but we may take it that he had been enchained and enchanted by the lady with the black eyes and the replica of his own double chin:

Black and rolling is her eye,Double-chinn’d, and forehead high;Lips she has, all ruby red,Cheeks like cream enclareted;And a nose that is the graceAnd proscenium of her face.

Black and rolling is her eye,

Double-chinn’d, and forehead high;

Lips she has, all ruby red,

Cheeks like cream enclareted;

And a nose that is the grace

And proscenium of her face.

It is not a very attractive picture, and it is characteristic of Herrick that he can paint Julia’s clothes better than he can paint her face. It was an enchained and enchanted man who wrote those lines that are far too well known to quote and far too charming to refrain from quoting:

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flowsThe liquefaction of her clothes.Next, when I cast mine eyes and seeThat brave vibration each way free,O how that glittering taketh me.

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows

The liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see

That brave vibration each way free,

O how that glittering taketh me.

This is no figmentary picture. The songs to Julia—most of all, the gloriousNight Piece—are songs of experience. Herrick may not have loved Julia well enough to marry her, even if she had been willing, but he loved her well enough to write good verses. He could probably have said farewell to any woman as philosophically as he said farewell to sack. He was a cautious man, and a predestined bachelor. He was, indeed, a man of no very profound feeling. There is no deep tide of emotion making his verse musical. He knew love and he knew regret, but not tragically. If he wept to see the daffodils haste away so soon, we may be sure that he brushed away his tears at the sound of the dinner-bell and forgot the premature death of the flowers in cheerful conversation with his housekeeper, Prue. This does not mean that his mood was insincere; it does not mean that inTo Daffodilshe did not give immortal and touching expression to one of the universal sorrows of men. He comes nearer the grave musicof poetry here than in any of his other poems. But theMemento morithat runs through his verses is theMemento moriof a banqueter, not of a sufferer. It is the mournfulness of a heart that has no intention of breaking.

Herrick proved a true prophet in regard to the immortality of his verse, thoughHesperidesmade no great stir when it was published in 1648 and seems to have made no friends among critics till the end of the eighteenth century. But he never gave a wiser estimate of the quality of his work than those lines, inWhen he would have his verses read, where he bids us:

In sober mornings do not thou rehearseThe holy incantation of a verse;But when that men have both well drank and fed,Let my enchantments then be sung or read....When the rose reigns, and locks with ointment shine,Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.

In sober mornings do not thou rehearse

The holy incantation of a verse;

But when that men have both well drank and fed,

Let my enchantments then be sung or read....

When the rose reigns, and locks with ointment shine,

Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.

This is the muse at play. It is absurd to speak of Herrick as though he were a great lyric poet. He is not with Shakespeare. He is not with Campion. But he is a master of light poetry—of poetry under the rose.

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