or Mr Dryden, whom it was most proper to have followed, have ever stoop'd to anything of this sort," and that the success of Spenser, Sidney, and Milton as sonneteers is a thing which "cannot much be boasted of" (!); but he has followed the old manner because his genius has prompted him to do so.1 The quality of this derelict collection of Petrarchan love-lyrics is, as may be supposed, not high.

With the decline of the sonnet-sequences proceeded, though in a less marked degree, that of the miscellanies. This, however, furnishes us with no evidence whatever of the decadence of this kind of lyric poetry. The poets of the seventeenth century were less willing to cast their verses to the winds than those of the preceding generation; they preferred to keep them by them until the harvest was large enough to induce them to court publicity through the ordinary channels. And at the same time it is a mistake to suppose that the production of anthologies of lyrics by various poets ceased with the appearance of Davison's Poetical Rhapsody in 1602. Collections of lyrics and epigrams, hailing from various sources, appeared from time to time throughout the seventeenth century; and among the most important of these were Wit's Recreations (1640) and Musarum Delicia (1655), which contained some of Herrick's jewelled lines, and 1 Saintsbury, Caroline Poets, vol. ii., p. 269.

the editing of which was in the hands of such distinguished persons as Sir John Mennes, the Commander of the King's Navy, and Dr James Smith, the divine.

What conclusion, then, can be arrived at as to the relation of the seventeenth century lyric to that of the Elizabethan age, and what reply can be made to those who bring against the later lyric the charge of decadence? It is true that we have yet to consider the work of the greatest and most versatile of Caroline lyrics, but we are, nevertheless, in a position to state that the lyric of the first half of the seventeenth century is not inferior to that of the second half of the sixteenth, but different from it. It is true that the later period has nothing to show like the great Elizabethan sonnet-sequences, and it is also true that, when we pass from Marlowe, Shakespeare, Breton, and Campion to the next generation of lyrists, we find an undoubted falling off in spontaneity and pure songfulness. But in the seventeenth century we have, instead of the sonnet, the great outburst of religious lyric poetry associated with the names of Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan, and Traherne, and in no way inferior to the sonnet in soaring exaltation or mystic rapture, though the love which inspires these lyrics is directed towards Heaven and not towards woman. And if in the secular song

there is a loss of spontaneity, tunefulness, and at times of idyllic beauty, there is an immense gain in all that pertains to art. A sense of form and of structure manifests itself; and the lyric, sacrificing romantic charm, wins instead a certain classic grace.) Lastly, the seventeenth century brought to lyric poetry the sense of individuality, the personal note, the lyrical cry of a human soul amid its pleasures and its pains, its hopes and its fears. This was a new thing in our poetry, and it gives to the work of these Caroline lyrists a touch of modernity, a kinship with ourselves, which the Elizabethan lyric rarely possesses.

CHAPTER II

THE LYRICAL POEMS OF THE HESPERIDES

T

HE preceding chapter has been concerned with the main line of development taken by the secular lyric in England during the period of the Renaissance; and before coming to a study of Herrick's individual poems, it is necessary to determine the general relationship which the poet bears to the tendencies of his age. We have to ask ourselves, What was his attitude towards the popular song, and towards the various forms of art-lyric which flourished under Elizabeth? To what extent did he feel the spell exercised by the masterful genius of Donne, and how far did he conform to the classical traditions revived by Ben Jonson? Sealed as he was of the "tribe of Ben," we may well expect to find in his verses some trace of that reform of lyric art begun by Jonson, and continued by other members of the "tribe." Nor are our expectations disappointed; of all Jonson's disciples none accepted the lessons which he taught so completely as Herrick. The classicism of Jonson, consisting as it does in the