NOTES. PREFACE P. xii: Mr Grosart's edition of Herrick, with full biographical details, notes illustrative and exegetical, and indices (1869; three volumes, octavo), forms part of the series of Early English Poems, published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. PAGE NO. I I 2 3 2 L. 3, hock-carts: last in from the harvest-field; -wassails: merry meetings. L. 5, have access: opportunity. L. 9, times transhifting: may allude to the political poems, or to those on the course of life. L. 9, Eclogues: select poems. Bucolics (1. 10): pastorals; mainly brought together here under the name Idyllica. L. 13, neat: cattle. 3 L. 7, Thyrse: a javelin twined with ivy; -orgies (1. 8): songs to Bacchus (Herrick): A round: a dance. L. 10, Cato: any severe and ungenial critic. 6 10 11 8 10 11 L. 4, the fantastic pannicles: cells of the brain in which Fancy is bred. L.. 3, old religion: Jonson was a Roman Catholic. Allusive, apparently, to the alleged wish of Virgil when dying, in 14 Absyrtus in the Hellenic story was torn to pieces by Medea when L. 11, Round: dance. L. 13, quintels: a game in which a post bably a road or run for woodcocks. 17 L. 19, carcanet: necklace. L. 22, brave: handsome. 12 13 14 18 15 16 L. 15, simpering: sm.ling. L. 4, manchet: fine bread. L. 20, stocks = stooks, or shocks of согн. L. 21, your: Grosart here reads our. L. 3, near: probably for close in its sense of narrow. (1. 7) with damp. L. 12, Lares: gods of the house. Ween Candlemas Eve: February 1; eve of the Purification of the 20 Virgin. FAGE NO. 17 21 22 13 2) 2.3 L. 5, bents: moor-grass; probably here sweet-gale. 23 L. 3, palms: willows;-gems: buds. L. 5, Daulian minstre!: 25 A lyric more faultless and sweet than this cannot be found in any L. 4, fresh-quilted: so Milton, 'tissued clouds.' L. 25, 27 L. 14, incurious: unfastidious. 28 L.. 9, maukin: cloth. L. 14, hock-cart: see p. 1. L. 21, fill horse in the shafts. L. 15, fanes: probably winnowing-fans. 31 L. 1, scare-fires: alarms by fire. 24 25 26 27 33 23 L. 6, creeking: word imitative of the hen's noise when she has laid her egg. L. 20, miching: slyly thieving. L. 22, Trasy : 'His spaniel' (Herrick). 32 Genius: guardian spirit. This truly original little poem has the classical character in its best sense. L. 4, benizon: blessing. Like the preceding, might have been willingly recognised by any of the Roman Idyllists. 2) 30 31 32 33 34 36 37 34 Charles II, born 1630. L. 17, A very rare instance of metrical failure in Herrick. He clearly desired that the line should read as octosyllabic. 35 L. 7, maund: a large basket. 36 L. 3, neat-herdess: cattle-keeper. 37 L. 3, Fail 'agrees with nearest noun [shepherds] as in Shake speare' (Grosart). L. 4, quintel: see p. 11. L. 22, Voice's Daughter: Echo. 3) L. 7, enchaced: apparently for enchased. L. 22, canker worm. L. 10, 14: These names are ingeniously contrived to recall names of ancient Saints. Tit and Nit, however, occur as simple Fairy designations in Drayton's Nymphidia. 38 39 L. 7, bone: huckle-bone. L. 8, bruckel'd: wet and dirty. 40 41 42 43 nuts. L. 13, 14: Mysteries, into which it may be discreet not to pry. L. 15, chives: here the yellow stigma. L. 19, shed: cocoon. 40 L. 1: Herrick addresses a short encomium elsewhere 'to his peculiar friend Master Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer.' L. 11, sterved: here the old pronunciation of er as ar has now found its way into our spelling. Kitling eyes (l. 21): green. Sagge (1. 30): heavy. L. 31 refers to the po.ien-laden thighs of the bee. 41 1. 7, drink of souce: pickle in which pork was iaid. L. 3, huckson: hip-bone. Chit (l. 5) shoot. L. 11, orts: scraps. PAGE NO. 46 44 L. 8, starvéd: the spelling indicates Herrick's pronunciation of 54 L 7, pap: sap. L. 10, Arabian dew: spikenard:-Retorted swervéd. 51 52 L. 6, Cittern: instrument of the guitar kind. 53 L. 7, clusters: grapes, put for wine. 52 (1. 12) tossed wildly back. 53 L. 12, A play on the name Ovidius Naso. 55 56 55 L. 4, purfling the margents: trimming the margins. L. 9, learned round: elaborate dance. L. 30, comply: caress. L. 2, Persius: printed Perseus, which to Herrick's lax scholarship may have suggested the epithet 'snaky' as suitable to the satirist. L. 3, For for Grosart reads from; but the phrase remains somewhat obscure. L. 8: The omission of Shakespeare is strange, unless Herrick here commemorates only personal friends. L. 23, determines: ends. 56 56 L. 3, lautitious: dainty. 57 L. 4, bastard Phoenix: probably a fanciful invention of Herrick's. L. 7, larded jet: blackened with fat smoke. Lar (1. 8) hearth-fire. 58 58 L. 17, stint: measure. 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 59 6 L. 6, tersely: strictly. L. 6, Compare Macbeth, act iv, sc. 1: 'By the pricking of my L. 17, private Lar: in privacy. L. 28, size: assize (Grosart). L. 5, leaven: sour. Paraenetical should be the spelling to give the sense of 'advisive. Herrick's scholarship lies in his fine feelings, his delicate use of ancient analogies (as in 1. 7 here, where he puts oil for farınproduce),-not in philology. L. 9, strut: buttress by filling. 62 L. 2, tittyries: Mr Grosart conjectures titularies, for titles conferred lavishly by James I and Charles I. Had the 'new year' been named, the political allusions of this brilliant poem might have been clearer. L. 7, That tost up: perhaps should be That's;-Fox: sec p. 11. Many similar allusions occur in the unfinished 'Country Life, p. 9. L. 33, instant: just coming in. L. 2, Liber Pater: Father Bacchus; good revelry. 63 L. 6, rage: poetical inspiration. L. 9, Thyrse: see p. 3. This fine piece has much resemblance to some of the 'persor.al' poems by A. Tennyson. 68 64 L. 4, As to thy house and home. 63 70 72 74 L. 6, Vigil: guard. Buttoned (1. 7) with a knob of office. L. 1, redeem: restore. L. 9, waste: feed. Trencher-creature L. 11, stud: upright piece in a lath-and-plaster wall;-true to the time, like every touch in this vigorous piece: which, however, from the forcible repetition of ideas and the curious broken rhymes, may be ascribed to a comparatively early date in Herrick's career. Pemberton died about 1641. 67 A fine companion to No. 64. The first part skilfully reproduces PAGE NO. 75 76 77 78 79 82 86 Horatian phrases; the latter is an interesting exhibition of Herrick's judgment on his own poetry, and a proof how completely, though modestly, conscious he was of his qualities as an artist. 67 L. 7, repullulate: flourish again. L. 27, Baine: the favourite Roman watering-place for the wealthy. The rext 'ines allude to forms of Roman luxury. L. 8, Vulgar scrawls in candle-smoke. L. 22, circular: alludes to Horace's 'teres atque rotundus,' but must here imply less perfectly fitting to, or concentric with, each other. L. 23, may be taken as proof that Herrick was aware what a refined piece of colour he has given in No. 201. L. 27, pith: vigour. L. 8, pricket: buck in second year. L. 18, Mr Grosart joins night and bewearied. 70 L. 8, Platonic year: the period in which, according to Plato. the eight stellar circles complete their rotation round the axis of the Kosmos, and return to the same position. 78 L. 15, 16, These Saints must be taken as representatives of maid. 1t 90 85 L. 8, Dardanium: 'a bracelet, from Dardanus so called (Herrick). 91 86 L. 4, civility: decorum, good manners. 98 99 L. 4, Remora: fish anciently supposed to cling to a ship's hull and stop her. 99 101 L. 8, thronelet: little throne. Herrick is fond of such pretty 'diminutives': -et hoc, quasi Catullus. ΙΟΙ 105 L. 2, indecency: inelegance or irregularity. 103 108 L. 2, Protestant: used apparently here as confessor or twit nesser for. 105 113 L. 4, baby: the image in the pupil of the eye; compared here to a Spirit ruling a heavenly sphere. III 122 Barley-break: a game of catching, played by six. The catchers stood in the middle, on a ground called Hell. 125 L. 1: Gossamers. L. 3, tinctures: colours in the sky. L. 11, aspects: positions of the stars in astrology. 133 The great beauty of this poem (reprinted from a MS. in the British Museum), which has a more earnest tone of passion than is common with Herrick, entitles it to a place in this collection, although he did not include it in his own volume. 134 LL. 12, termly fires: as if living in some college or collegiate retreat. 119 136 L. 4, gospel tree: at which it was read when they beat parish boundaries. The effortless perfection of this little poem puts it on a level with the best elegies of the Anthology. 122 140 With this popular lyric compare one of the many lovely songs of modern Greece, the Smyrniote 'Garden,' as translated in Mi H. F. Tozer's interesting 'Highlands of Turkey' (1869). The lover hears a bird singing: PAGE NO. For ever, while it warbled, Full soon your joys are o'er ! And will return no more.' -But it is difficult here not to suspect that the accomplished translator was conscious of Herrick. 127 161 Imitates Martial, I. 16. 132 180 Translated from a 'Scolion' attributed to Simonides. 137 189 L. 10, trental: set of thirty masses for the dead. 140 195 L. 5, teemed: poured freely. 143 200 L. 3, lawny continent: apron of lawn. 144 201 L. 3, compare L'Aliegro: Zephyr, with Aurora playing,' &c. This poem, which was justly a favourite with Herrick (see p. 77, 1. 23), shows his fine feeling for gradation and the effect of contrast in colour; and at the same time is a singularly skilful piece of writing: -altogether, a work worthy of Turner or Paul Veronese. 145 L. 2, strokes: caresses. L. 23, scene: veil. 146 L. 9, pride: beauty. 154 215 L. I: One version of the Gyges story assigns to him a magical ring, by which he made himself invisible during his amour with the wife of King Candaules. 155 L. 3, pression: impression. 157 219 L. 8, carriages: turns. 163 230 L. 22, unflead: probably good, undamaged by mould (Grosart). Is it not unchipped, or unpared; flea standing for flay? L. 3, worts: cabbage: purslain: salad. L. 15, givest: understand, Thou. 164 166 233 L. 4, mell: presumably, honey. L. 5, of amber: goldencoloured. 168 236 L. 6, axle-tree: probably, funeral car. L. 7, state: magnificence; perhaps with allusion to canopies of worked Persian stuff. 237 L. 3, counter-changed tabbies: variously coloured clouds; tabby was a wavy-figured silk. 172 244 L. 19, cauls: head-dresses. 173 L. 22, male-incense: some powerfully odorous species? 174 245 L. 24, deal: as in cards. 175 176 L. 3, maundy: gifts like those made on 'Maundy Thursday.' L. 7, for and: obsolete for also. L. 15, reaming: ready to overflow. L. 10, jet it: strut about (Grosart). Nothing in this collection is more characteristic of Herrick and of his period than the Dirge of Dorcas. Its quaint grace and picturesque geniality are perfect in their way: a way very difficult, if not very elevated. 179 252 L. 2, protonotary: chief recording clerk. L. 10, wind: turn round, or wind into? This poem and the next are, each in its way, singularly characteristic of Herrick. Confessions so truthful and natural have been rarely made. 0 |