NOBLE NUMBERS.

He that unburied lies wants not his hearse,For unto him a tomb's the universe".

823.To the King upon his taking of Leicester.May 31, 1645, a brief success before Naseby.

825.'Twas Cæsar's saying.Tiberius ap. Tacit.Ann.ii. 26: Se novies a divo Augusto in Germaniam missum plura consilio quam vi perfecisse.

830.His Loss.A reference to his ejection from Dean Prior.

837.Mistress Amy Potter.Daughter of BarnabasPotter, Bishop of Carlisle, Herrick's predecessor at Dean Prior.

839.Love is a circle ... from good to good.So Burton, III. i. 1, § 2: Circulus a bono in bonum.

844.to his book.Make haste away.Martial, III. ii. Ad Librum suum—Festina tibi vindicem parare, Ne nigram cito raptus in culinam Cordyllas madidâ tegas papyro, Vel thuris piperisque sis cucullus.To make loose gowns for mackerel.From Catullus, xcv. 1:—

At Volusi annales Paduam morientur ad ipsam,Et laxas scombris saepe dabunt tunicas.

846.And what we blush to speak, etc. Ovid,Phaedra to Hipp.10: Dicere quae puduit scribere jussit amor.

849.'Tis sweet to think, etc. Seneca,Herc. Fur.657-58: Quae fuit durum pati Meminisse dulce est.

851.To Mr. Henry Lawes, the excellent composer of his lyrics.Henry Lawes (1595-1662), the friend of Milton, admitted a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, 1625. In theNoble Numbershe is mentioned as the composer of Herrick'sChristmas Caroland the first of his twoNew-Year's Gifts. Lawes also set to music Herrick'sNot to Love,To Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler(Among the Myrtles as I walked),The Kiss,The Primrose,To a Gentlewoman objecting to him his Grey Hairs, and doubtless others.

852.Maidens tell me I am old.From Anacreon:

Λέγουσιν αἱ γυναῖκεςἈνακρέων γέρων εἶ κ.τ.λ.

With a significant variation—"Ill it fits"—forμᾶλλον πρέπει.

859.Master J. Jincks.Not identified.

861.Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their own.Aristot.Politics, iii. 7:καλεῖν εἰώθαμεν τῶν μὲν μοναρχιῶν τὴν πρὸς τὸ κοινὸν ἀποβλέπουσαν συμφέρον βασιλείαν ... ἡ τυραννίς ἐστι μοναρχία πρὸς τὸ συμφέρον τὸ τοῦ μοναρχοῦντος.

869.Sir Thomas Heale.Probably a son of the Sir Thomas Hele, of Fleet, Co. Devon, who died in 1624. This Sir Thomas was created a baronet in 1627, and according to Dr. Grosart was one of the Royalist commanders at the siege of Plymouth. He died 1670.

872.Love is a kind of war.Ovid,Ars Am.II. 233, 34:—

Militiae species amor est: discedite segnes!Non sunt haec timidis signa tuenda viris.

873.A spark neglected, etc. Ovid,Rem. Am.732-34:—

E minimo maximus ignis erit.Sic nisi vitaris quicquid renovabit amorem,Flamma redardescet quae modo nulla fuit.

874.An Hymn to Cupid.From Anacreon:—

Ὠναξ, ᾧ δαμάλης Ἔρωςκαὶ Νύμφαι κυανώπιδεςπορφυρέη τ' Ἀφροδίτησυμπαίζουσιν ... γουνοῦμαί σε, κ.τ.λ.

885.Naught are all women.Burton, III. ii. 5. § 5.

907.Upon Mr. William Lawes, the rare musician.Elder brother of the more famous Henry Lawes; appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, 1602, and also one of Charles I.'s musicians-in-ordinary. When the Civil War broke out he joined the king's army and was killed by a stray shot during the siege of Chester, 1645. He set Herrick'sGather ye rosebudsto music.

914.Numbers ne'er tickle, etc. Martial, I. xxxvi.:—

Lex haec carminibus data est jocosis,Ne possint, nisi pruriant, juvare.

918.M. Kellam.As yet unidentified. Dr. Grosart suggests that he may have been one of Herrick's parishioners, and the name sounds as of the west country.

920.Cunctation in correction.Is Herrick translating? According to a relief at Rome the lictors' rods were bound together not only by a red thong twisted from top to bottom, but by six straps as well.

922.Continual reaping makes a land wax old.Ovid,Ars Am.iii. 82: Continua messe senescit ager.

923.Revenge.Tacitus,Hist.iv. 3: Tanto proclivius est injuriae quàm beneficio vicem exsolvere; quia gratia oneri, ultio in quaestu habetur.

927.Praise they that will times past.Ovid,Ars Am.iii. 121:—

Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natumGratulor; haec aetas moribus apta meis.

928.Clothes are conspirators.I can suggest no better explanation of this oracular epigram than that the tailor's bill is an enemy of a slender purse.

929.Cruelty. Senecade Clem.i. 24: Ferina ista rabies est, sanguine gaudere et vulneribus; (i. 8), Quemadmodum praecisae arbores plurimis ramis repullulant [H. uses repullulate, -tion,336,794], et multa satorum genera, ut densiora surgant, reciduntur; ita regia crudelitas auget inimicorum numerum tollendo. Ben Jonson,Discoveries(Clementia): "The lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out quicker; and the taking away of some kind of enemies increaseth the number".

931.A fierce desire of hot and dry.Cp.noteon683.

932.To hear the worst, etc. Antisthenes ap.Diog. Laert.VI. i. 4, § 3:Ἀκούσας ποτὲ ὅτι Πλάτων αὐτὸν κακῶς λέγει Βασιλικὸν ἔφη καλῶς ποιοῦντα κακῶς ἀκούειν, quoted by Burton, II. iii. 7.

934.The Bondman.Cp. Exodus xxi. 5, 6: "And if the servant shall plainly say: I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever".

936.My kiss outwent the bonds of shamefastness.Cp. Sidney'sAstrophel and Stella, sonnet 82. Fornot Jove himself, etc., cp.10, andnote.

938.His wish.From Martial, II. xc. 7-10:—

Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux:Sit nox cum somno, sit sine lite dies, etc.

939.Upon Julia washing herself in the river.Imitated from Martial, IV. xxii.:—

Primos passa toros et adhuc placanda maritoMerserat in nitidos se Cleopatra lacus,Dum fugit amplexus: sed prodidit unda latentem,Lucebat, totis cum tegeretur aquis.Condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro,Sic prohibet tenuis gemma latere rosas,Insilui mersusque vadis luctantia carpsiBasia: perspicuae plus vetuistis aquae.

940.Though frankincense, etc. Ovid,de Medic. Fac.83, 84:—

Quamvis thura deos irataque numina placent,Non tamen accensis omnia danda focis.

947.To his honoured and most ingenious friend, Mr. Charles Cotton.Dr. Grosart annotates: "The translator of Montaigne, and associate of Izaak Walton"; but as the younger Cotton was only eighteen whenHesperideswas printed, it is perhaps more probable that the father is meant, though we may note that Herrick and the younger Cotton were joint-contributors in 1649 to theLacrymæ Musarum, published in memory of Lord Hastings. For a tribute to the brilliant abilities of the elder Cotton, see Clarendon'sLife(i. 36; ed. 1827).

948.Women Useless.A variation on a theme as old as Euripides. Cp.Medea, 573-5:—

χρῆν γὰρ ἀλλοθέν ποθεν βροτοὺςπαῖδας τεκνοῦσθαι, θῆλυ δ' οὐκ εἶναι γένος·χοὒτως ἂν οὐκ ἦν οὐδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν.

952.Weep for the dead, for they have lost the light, cp. Ecclus. xxii. 11.

955.To M. Leonard Willan, his peculiar friend.A wretched poet; author of "The Phrygian Fabulist; or the Fables of Æsop" (1650), "Astraea; or True Love's Mirror" (1651), etc.

956.Mr. John Hall, Student of Gray's Inn.Hall remained at Cambridge till 1647, and this poem, which addresses him as a "Student of Gray's Inn," must therefore have been written almost whileHesperideswas passing through the press. Hall'sHoræ Vacivæ, or Essays, published in 1646, had at once given him high rank among the wits.

958.To the most comely and proper M. Elizabeth Finch.No certain identification has been proposed.

961.To the King, upon his welcome to Hampton Court, set and sung.The allusion can only be to the king's stay at Hampton Court in 1647. Good hope was then entertained of a peaceful settlement, and Herrick's ode, enthusiastic as it is, expresses little more than this.

For an ascendent, etc.: This and the next seven lines are taken from phrases on pp. 29-33 of theNotes and Observations on some passages of Scripture, by John Gregory (see note on N. N.178). According to Gregory, "The Ascendent of a City is that sign which riseth in the Heavens at the laying of the first stone".

962.Henry, Marquis of Dorchester.Henry Pierrepoint, second Earl of Kingston, succeeded his father (Herrick's Newark) July 30, 1643, and was created Marquis of Dorchester, March, 1645. "He was a very studious nobleman and very learned,particularly in law and physics." (See Burke'sExtinct Peerages, iii. 435.)

When Cato, the severe, entered the circumspacious theatre.The allusion is to the visit of Cato to the games of Flora, given by Messius. When his presence in the theatre was known, the dancing-women were not allowed to perform in their accustomed lack of costume, whereupon the moralist obligingly retired, amidst applause.

966.M. Jo. Harmar, physician to the College of Westminster.John Harmar, born at Churchdown, near Gloucester, about 1594, was educated at Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood characterises him as a butt for the wits and a flatterer of great men, and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though he took no higher degree than M.A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the degree of M.B., and Dr. Grosart's note—"Herrick, no doubt, playfully transmuted 'Doctor' into 'Physician'"—is misleading. He may have cared for the minds and bodies of the Westminster boys at one and the same time.

The Roman language.... If Jove would speak, etc. Cp. Ben Jonson'sDiscoveries: "that testimony given by L. Aelius Stilo upon Plautus who affirmed, "Musas si latine loqui voluissent Plautino sermone fuisse loquuturas". And Cicero [in Plutarch, § 24] "said of the Dialogues of Plato, that Jupiter, if it were his nature to use language, would speak like him".

967.Upon his spaniel, Tracy.Cp.supra,724.

971.Strength, etc. Tacitus,Ann.xiii. 19: Nihil rerum mortalium tam instabile ac fluxum est, quàm fama potentiae, non suâ vi nixa.

975.Case is a lawyer, etc. Martial, I. xcviii. Ad Naevolum Causidicum. Cùm clamant omnes, loqueris tu, Naevole, tantùm.... Ecce, tacent omnes; Naevole, dic aliquid.

977.To his sister-in-law, M. Susanna Herrick.Cp.supra,522. The subject is again the making up of the book of the poet's elect.

978.Upon the Lady Crew.Cp. Herrick's Epithalamium for her marriage with Sir Clipsby Crew,283. She died 1639, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

979.On Tomasin Parsons.Daughter of the organist of Westminster Abbey: cp.500andNote.

983.To his kinsman, M. Thomas Herrick, who desired to be in his book.Cp.106andNote.

989.Care keeps the conquest.Perhaps jotted down with reference to the Governorship of Exeter by Sir John Berkeley: seeNoteto745.

992.To the handsome Mistress Grace Potter.Probably sister to the Mistress Amy Potter celebrated in837, where seeNote.

995.We've more to bear our charge than way to go.Seneca, Ep. 77: quantulumcunque haberem, tamen plus superesset viatici quam viae, quoted by Montaigne, II. xxviii.

1000.The Gods, pillars, and men.Horace's Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di,non concessere columnae (Ars Poet.373). Latin poets hung up their epigrams in public places.

1002.To the Lord Hopton on his fight in Cornwall.Sir Ralph Hopton won two brilliant victories for the Royalists, at Bradock Down and Stratton, January and May, 1643, and was created Baron Hopton in the following September. Originally a Parliamentarian, he was one of the king's ablest and most loyal servants.

1008.Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.Terence,Haut.IV. ii. 8: Nihil tam difficile est quin quaerendo investigari posset.

1009.Labour is held up by the hope of rest.Ps. Sallust,Epist. ad C. Caes.: Sapientes laborem spe otii sustentant.

1022.Posting to Printing.Mart. V. x. 11, 12:—

Vos, tamen, o nostri, ne festinate, libelli:Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.

1023.No kingdoms got by rapine long endure.Seneca,Troad.264: Violenta nemo imperia continuit dies.

1026.Saint Distaff's Day."Saint Distaff is perhaps only a coinage of our poet's to designate the day when, the Christmas vacation being over, good housewives, with others, resumed their usual employment." (Nott.) The phrase is explained in dictionaries and handbooks, but no other use of it is quoted than this. Herrick's poem was pilfered by Henry Bold (a notorious plagiarist) inWit a-sporting in a pleasant Grove of New Fancies, 1657.

1028.My beloved Westminster.As mentioned inthe brief "Life" of Herrick prefixed to vol. i., all the references in this poem seem to refer to Herrick's courtier-days, between leaving Cambridge and going to Devonshire. He then, doubtless, resided in Westminster for the sake of proximity to Whitehall. It has been suggested, however, that the reference is to Westminster School, but we have no evidence that Herrick was educated there.

Golden Cheapside.My friend, Mr. Herbert Horne, in his admirably-chosen selection from theHesperides, suggests that the allusion here is to the great gilt cross at the end of Wood Street. The suggestion is ingenious; but as Cheapside was the goldsmiths' quarter this would amply justify the epithet, which may indeed only refer to Cheapside as a money-winning street, as we might say Golden Lombard Street.

1032.Things are uncertain.Tiberius, in Tacitus,Annal.i. 72: Cuncta mortalium incerta; quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis in lubrico.

1034.Good wits get more fame by their punishment.Cp. Tacit.Ann.iv. 35, sub fin.: Punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, etc., quoted by Bacon and Milton.

1035.Twelfth Night: or King and Queen.Herrick alludes to these "Twelfth-Tide Kings and Queens" in writing to Endymion Porter (662), and earlier still, in the "New-Year's Gift to Sir Simeon Steward" (319) he speaks—

"Of Twelfth-Tide cakes, of Peas and Beans,Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,Whenas ye choose your King and Queen".

Brand (i. 27) illustrates well from "Speeches to the Queen at Sudley" in Nichols'Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.

"Melibœus.Cut the cake: who hath the bean shall be king, and where the pea is, she shall be queen.

Nisa.I have the pea and must be queen.

Mel.I the bean, and king. I must command."

1045.Comfort in Calamity.An allusion to the ejection from their benefices which befel most of the loyal clergy at the same time as Herrick. It is perhaps worth noting that in the second volume of this edition, and in the last hundred poems printed in the first, wherever a date can be fixed it is always in the forties. Equally late poems occur, though much less frequently, among the first five hundred, but there the dated poems belong, for the most part, to the years 1623-1640. Now, in April 29, 1640, as stated in the brief "Life" prefixed to vol. i., there was entered at Stationers' Hall, "The severall poems written by Master Robert Herrick," a book which, as far as is known, never saw the light. It was probably, however, to this book that Herrick addressed the poem (405) beginning:—

"Have I not blest thee? Then go forth, nor fearOr spice, or fish, or fire, or close-stools here";

and we may fairly regard the first five hundred poems ofHesperidesas representing the intended collection of 1640, with a few additions, and the last six hundred as for the most part later, and I must add, inferior work. This is borne out by the absence of any manuscript versions of poems in thesecond half of the book. Herrick's verses would only be passed from hand to hand when he was living among the wits in London.

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.See336andNote. 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 transmittedconcerning 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.See130andNote.

1071.To the Honoured Master Endymion Porter.For Porter's patronage of poetry see117andNote.

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 theΛαμπαδηφορίαwhich 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 inWitts Recreations, 1650.An equal mind.Plautus,Rudens, II. iii. 71: Animus aequus optimum est aerumnae condimentum.

1126.The End of his Work.Printed inWitts 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.Noteon624.

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, and102, 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 theQuarterly 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 hisNoble 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" (Hesperides213), andNote.

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'sAlma.

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 on17.

Composed by M. Henry Lawes.SeeHesperides851, andNote.

102.The Star-Song.This may have been composed partly with reference to the noonday star during the Thanksgiving for Charles II.'s birth. SeeHesperides213, andNote.

We'll choose him King.A reference to the Twelfth Night games. SeeHesperides1035, andNote.

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 inSocrate, 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'sLays); 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 also124.

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 inNoble 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.The word is from Ps. xxii. 1: Quare me dereliquisti? "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Herrick took it from Gregory'sNotes and Observations(see infra), p. 5: 'Our Saviour ... in that great case of dereliction'.

174.Martha, Martha.See Luke x. 41, and August.Serm.cii. 3: Repetitio nominis indicium est dilectionis.

177.Paradise.Gregory, p. 75, on "the reverend Say of Zoroaster, Seek Paradise," quotes from the Scholiast Psellus: "The Chaldæan Paradise (saith he) is a Quire of divine powers incircling the Father".

178.The Jews when they built houses.Herrick's rabbinical lore (cp.180,181,193,207,224), like his patristic, was probably derived at second hand through some biblical commentary. Much of it certainly comes from theNotes and Observations upon some Passages of Scripture(Oxford, 1646) of John Gregory, chaplain of Christ Church, a prodigy of oriental learning, who died in his 39th year, March 13, 1646. Thus in his Address to the Reader (3rd page from end) Gregory remarks: "The Jews, when they build a house, are bound to leave some part of it unfinished in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem," giving a reference to Leo of Modena,Degli Riti Hebraici, Part I.

180.Observation. The Virgin Mother, etc. Gregory, pp. 24-27, shows that Sitting, the usual posture of mourners, was forbidden by both Roman and Jewish Law "in capital causes". "This was the reason why ... she stood up still in a resolute and almost impossible compliance with the Law....They sat ... after leave obtained ... to bury the body."

181.Tapers.Cp. Gregory'sNotes, p. 111: "The funeral tapers (however thought of by some) are of the same harmless import. Their meaning is to show that the departed souls are not quite put out, but having walked here as the children of the Light are now gone to walk before God in the light of the living."

185.God in the holy tongue.J. G., p. 135: "God is called in the Holy Tongue ... the Place; or that Fulness which filleth All in All".

186,187,188,189,197.God's Presence, Dwelling, etc. J. G., pp. 135-9: "Shecinah, or God's Dwelling Presence". "God is said to be nearer to this man than to that, more in one place than in another. Thus he is said to depart from some and come to others, to leave this place and to abide in that, not by essential application of Himself, much less by local motion, but by impression of effect." "With just men (saith St. Bernard) God is present,in veritate, in deed, but with the wicked, dissemblingly." "He is called in the Holy Tongue, Jehovah, He that is, or Essence." "He is said to dwell there (saith Maimon) where He putteth the marks ... of His Majesty; and He doth this by His Grace and Holy Spirit."

190.The Virgin Mary.J. G., p. 86: "St. Ephrem upon those words of Jacob, This is the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven. This saying (saith he) is to be meant of the Virgin Mary ... truly to be called the House of God, aswherein the Son of God ... inhabited, and as truly the Gate of Heaven, for the Lord of heaven and earth entered thereat; and it shall not be set open the second time, according to that of Ezekiel (xliv. 2): I saw (saith he) a gate in the East; the glorious Lord entered thereat; thenceforth that gate was shut, and is not any more to be opened (Catena Arab.c. 58)."

192.Upon Woman and Mary.The reference is to Christ's appearance to St. Mary Magdalene in the Garden after the Resurrection, John xx. 15, 16.

193.North and South.Comp.Hesper.429.Observation. J. G., pp. 92, 93: "Whosoever (say the Doctors in Berachoth) shall set his bed N. and S., shall beget male children. Therefore the Jews hold this rite of collocation ... to this day.... They are bound to place their ... house of office in the very same situation ... that the uncomely necessities ... might not fall into the Walk and Ways of God, whose Shecinah or dwelling presence lieth W. and E."

195.Noah the first was, etc. Cp. Gregory,Notes, p. 28.

201.Temporal goods.August., quoted by Burton, II. iii. 3: Dantur quidem bonis, saith Austin, ne quis mala aestimet, malis autem ne quis nimis bona.

203.Speak, did the blood of Abel cry, etc. Cp. Gregory'sNotes, pp. 118: "But did the blood of Abel speak? saith Theophylact. Yes, it cried unto God for vengeance, as that of sprinkling for propitiation and mercy."

204.A thing of such a reverend reckoning.Cp.Gregory, 118-9: "The blood of Abel was so holy and reverend a thing, in the sense and reputation of the old world, that the men of that time used to swear by it".

205.A Position in the Hebrew Divinity.From Gregory'sNotes, pp. 134, 5: "That old position in the Hebrew Divinity ... that a repenting man is of more esteem in the sight of God than one that never fell away".

206.The Doctors in the Talmud.From Gregory'sNotes,l.c.: "The Doctors in the Talmud say, that one day spent here in true Repentance is more worth than eternity itself, or all the days of heaven in the other world".

207.God's Presence.Again from Gregory's Notes, pp. 136 sq.

208.The Resurrection.Gregory'sNotes, pp. 128-29, translating from a Greek MS. of Mathæus Blastares in the Bodleian: "The wonder of this is far above that of the resurrection of our bodies; for then the earth giveth up her dead but one for one, but in the case of the corn she giveth up many living ones for one dead one".

243.Confession twofold is.August, in Ps. xxix.Enarr.ii. 19: Confessio gemina est, aut peccati, aut laudis.

254.Gold and frankincense.St. Matt. ii. 11. St. Ambrose. Aurum Regi, thus Deo.

256.The Chewing the Cud.Cp. Lev. xi. 6.

258.As my little pot doth boil, etc. This far-fetched little poem is an instance of Herrick's habit of jotting down his thoughts in verse. In cookingsome food for a charitable purpose he seems to have noticed that the boiling pot tossed the meat to and fro, or "waved" it (the priest's work), and that he himself was giving away the meat he lifted off the fire, the "heave-offering," which was the priest's perquisite. This is the confusion or "level-coil" to which he alludes.

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