The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 110

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 tantum honeste dominanti licet, Precario regnatur.

1118. _Necessity makes dastards valiant men._ Sall.u.s.t, _Catil._ 58: Necessitudo ... timidos fortes facit.

1119. _Sauce for Sorrows._ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650. _An equal mind._ Plautus, _Rudens_, II. iii. 71: Animus aequus optimum est aerumnae condimentum.

1126. _The End of his Work._ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the t.i.tle: _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 carinae: 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. Note on 624.

n.o.bLE NUMBERS.

3. _Weigh me the Fire._ _2 Esdras_, iv. 5, 7; v. 9, 36: "Weigh me ...

the fire, or measure me ... the wind," etc.

4. _G.o.d ... is the best known, not...._ _August. de Ord._ ii. 16: [Deus]

scitur melius nesciendo.

5. _Supraent.i.ty_, t? ?pe???t?? ??, Plotinus.

7. _His wrath is free from perturbation._ August. _de Civ. Dei_, ix. 5: Ipse Deus secundum Scripturas irascitur, nec tamen ulla pa.s.sione turbatur. _Enchir. ad Laurent._ 33: c.u.m 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, and 102, 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 the _Quarterly 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 his _n.o.ble 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" (_Hesperides_ 213), and Note.

63. _G.o.d'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's _Alma_.

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 on 17.

_Composed by M. Henry Lawes._ See _Hesperides_ 851, and Note.

102. _The Star-Song._ This may have been composed partly with reference to the noonday star during the Thanksgiving for Charles II.'s birth. See _Hesperides_ 213, and Note.

_We'll choose him King._ A reference to the Twelfth Night games. See _Hesperides_ 1035, and Note.

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 in Socrate, mortem in Catone.

The allusions may be briefly explained for the uncla.s.sical. At the siege of Dyrrachium, Marcus Ca.s.sius Scaeva caught 120 darts on his s.h.i.+eld; Horatius Cocles is the hero of the bridge (see Macaulay's _Lays_); C.

Mucius Scaevola held his hand in the fire to ill.u.s.trate 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. _aen._ x. 886: Ter sec.u.m Troius heros Immanem aerato circ.u.mfert tegmine silvam.

112. _The Recompense._ Herrick is said to have a.s.sumed 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 ca.s.sock. Compare also 124.

_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. x.x.xi. 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.