T PREFACE HE charm of Herrick's personality, quite apart from his high standing as a lyric poet, calls for a biography. Thirty-four years have passed since there appeared, almost simultaneously, Mr Edmund Gosse's brilliant essay on the poet in the Cornhill Magazine, and Dr Grosart's edition of the Hesperides, with its scholarly MemorialIntroduction. The many editions of Herrick's poems which have since been published furnish abundant evidence of the fact that the poet's faith in the immortality of his verses was no idle dream. Some of his editors in particular, Mr W. C. Hazlitt and Mr A. W. Pollard-have thrown fresh light upon his career and his scholarship, and I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of acknowledging the help which I have received from their labours. An examination of State Papers in the Record Office, and of the letters and account-books of the poet's uncle, Sir William Herrick, at Beaumanor, has not been altogether fruitless, but the story which is told in the following pages owes most of all to the record-often, it is true, tangled and inconclusive -which is set forth by Herrick himself in his verses. He is the most ingenuous and selfrevealing of poets; and though the order in which the poems are placed in the first edition of Hesperides is anything but chronological, it is not difficult to trace him in his progress through life, and to see the working of his mind. I have followed Dr Grosart in detaching the story of the poet's life from the criticism of his verses. The place which the Hesperides poems occupy in the history of the English lyric is a peculiarly interesting one, and this must be my excuse for the length of the first chapter in Part II., in which I have attempted to review briefly the development of the lyric of the English Renaissance down to the time of Herrick. In conclusion, I desire to offer sincere thanks to all who have helped me in my work. Among these I may mention, in particular, Mrs Perry Herrick, who kindly allowed me to examine the Herrick papers at Beaumanor, the Rev. C. J. Perry-Keene, vicar of Dean Prior, and Sir Walter S. Prideaux, the clerk of the Goldsmiths' Company, who generously undertook to examine, on my behalf, some of the company's records at Goldsmiths' Hall, and who has allowed me to reproduce, from his "Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company," the engraving of Goldsmiths' Row, Cheapside. My thanks are also due to the Rev. Canon Egerton Leigh, who allowed me to copy a hitherto unpublished letter of the poet which is in his possession. Finally, I acknowledge with special gratitude my debt to Mr A. H. Bullen, and to my friend and colleague, Professor Charles Vaughan, both of whom rendered me conspicuous service by reading the following pages in manuscript: the book has gained much by their searching criticism and wise suggestions. |