s the common misfortune of the poet's biographers, though it was
the poet's own great good fortune, that the personal interviewer was an
unknown quantity at the period when Herrick played his part on the stage
of life. Of that performance, in its intimate aspects, we have only the
slightest record.

Robert Herrick was born in Wood street, Cheapside, London, in 1591, and
baptized at St. Vedast's, Foster Lane, on August 24 of that year. He had
several brothers and sisters, with whom we shall not concern ourselves.
It would be idle to add the little we know about these persons to the
little we know about Herrick himself. He is a sufficient problem without
dragging in the rest of the family.

When the future lyrist was fifteen months old his father, Nicholas
Herrick, made his will, and immediately fell out of an upper window.
Whether or not this fall was an intended sequence to the will, the high
almoner, Dr. Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, promptly put in his claim to
the estate, "all goods and chattels of suicides" becoming his by law.
The circumstances were suspicious, though not conclusive, and the
good bishop, after long litigation, consented to refer the case to
arbitrators, who awarded him two hundred and twenty pounds, thus leaving
the question at issue--whether or not Herrick's death had been his own
premeditated act--still wrapped in its original mystery. This singular
law, which had the possible effect of inducing high almoners to
encourage suicide among well-to-do persons of the lower and middle
classes, was afterward rescinded.

Nicholas Herrick did not leave his household destitute, for his estate
amounted to five thousand pounds, that is to say, twenty-five thousand
pounds in to-day's money; but there were many mouths to feed. The poet's
two uncles, Robert Herrick and William Herrick of Beaumanor, the
latter subsequently knighted (1) for his usefulness as jeweller and
money-lender to James I., were appointed guardians to the children.

(1) Dr. Grosart, in his interesting and valuable Memorial
Introduction to Herrick's poems, quotes this curious item
from Win-wood's _Manorials of Affairs of State_: "On Easter
Tuesday [1605], one Mr. William Herrick, a goldsmith in
Cheapside, was Knighted for making a Hole in the great
Diamond the King cloth wear. The party little expected the
honour, but he did his work so well as won the King to an
extraordinary liking of it."

Youn