r est.

_Nature with little is content._ Seneca, _Ep._ xvi.: Exiguum Natura
desiderat. _Ep._ lx.: parvo Natura dimittitur.

106. _A Country Life: To his brother, M. Tho. Herrick._ "Thomas,
baptized May 12, 1588, was placed by his uncle and guardian, Sir William
Heyrick, with Mr. Massam, a merchant in London; but in 1610 he appears
to have returned into the country and to have settled in a small farm.
It is supposed that this Thomas was the father of Thomas Heyrick, who in
1668 resided at Market Harborough and issued a trader's token there, and
grandfather to the Thomas who was curate of Harborough and published
some sermons and poems." Hill's _Market Harborough_, p. 122.

A MS. version of this poem is contained in Ashmole 38, from which Dr.
Grosart gives a full collation on pp. cli.-cliii. of his Memorial
Introduction. The MS. appears to follow an unrevised version of the
poem, and contains a few couplets which Herrick afterwards thought fit
to omit. The most important passage comes after line 92: "Virtue had,
and mov'd her sphere".

"Nor know thy happy and unenvied state
Owes more to virtue than to fate,
Or fortune too; for what the first secures,
That as herself, or heaven, endures.
The two last fail, and by experience make
Known, not they give again, they take."

_Thrice and above blest._ Felices ter et amplius, Hor. I. _Od._ xiii. 7.

_My soul's half:_ Animae dimidium meae, Hor. I. _Od._ iii. 8. The poem is
full of such reminiscences: "With holy meal and spirting (MS. crackling)
salt" is the "Farre pio et saliente mica" of III. _Od._ xxiii. 20;
"Untaught to suffer poverty" the "Indocilis pauperiem pati" of I. _Od._
i. 18; "A heart thrice wall'd" comes from I. _Od._ iii. 9: Illi robur et
aes triplex, etc. Similar instances might be multiplied. Note, too, the
use of "Lar" and "Genius".

_Jove for our labour all things sells us._ Epicharm. apud Xenoph.
_Memor._ II. i. 20, {ton ponon Polousin hemin panta tagath' hoi theoi}.
Quoted by Montaigne, II. xx.

_Wisely true to thine own self._ Possibly a Shakespearian reminiscence
of the "to thine own self be true" in the speech of Polonius to Laertes,
Hamlet, I. iii. 78.

_A wise man every way lies square._ Cp. Arist. _Eth._ I. x. 11, {hos
alethos agathos kai tetragonos aneu psogou}.

_For seldom use commends the pleasure._ Voluptates commendat rarior
usus. Juvenal, _Sat._ xi. ad fin.

_Nor fear or wish your dying day._ Summum nec metuas