_And all most sweet, yet all less sweet than he._ It is
characteristic of Herrick that in his _Noble Numbers_ ("The New-Year's
Gift") he repeats this line, applying it to Christ.

_The swiftest grace is best._ {Okeiai charites glykeroterai.} Anth. Pal.
x. 30.

214. _Know thy when._ So in _The Star-song_ Herrick sings: "Thou canst
clear All doubts and manifest the where".

219. _Lord Bernard Stewart_, fourth son of Esme, third Duke of Lennox,
and himself created Earl of Lichfield by Charles I. He commanded the
king's troop of guards, and was killed at the battle of Rowton Heath,
outside Chester, Sept. 24, 1645.

Clarendon (_History of the Rebellion_, ix. 19) thus records his death
and character: "Here fell many gentlemen and officers of name, with the
brave Earl of Litchfield, who was the third brother of that illustrious
family that sacrificed his life in this quarrel. He was a very faultless
young man, of a most gentle, courteous, and affable nature, and of a
spirit and courage invincible; whose loss all men lamented, and the king
bore it with extraordinary grief."

_Trentall._ Properly a set of thirty masses for the repose of a dead
man's soul. Here and elsewhere Herrick uses the word as an equivalent
for dirge, but Sidney distinguished them: "Let dirige be sung and
trentalls rightly read. For love is dead," etc. "Hence, hence profane,"
is the Latin, _procul o procul este profani_ of Virg. _AEn._ vi. 258,
where "profane" is only equivalent to uninitiated.

223. _The Fairy Temple._ For a brief note on Herrick's fairy poems, see
Appendix. On the dedication to Mr. John Merrifield, Counsellor-at-Law,
Dr. Grosart remarks: "Nothing seems to be now known of Merrifield. It is
just possible that--as throughout the poem--the name was an invented
one, 'Merry Field'." But the records of the Inner Temple show that the
Merrifields were a legal family from Woolmiston, near Crewkerne,
Somersetshire. John (son of Richard) Merrifield, the father, was
admitted to the Inner Temple in 1581, and John, the son, in 1611. This
latter must be Herrick's Counsellor. He rose to be a Master of the Bench
in 1638 and Sergeant-at-Law in 1660. He died October, 1666, aged 75, at
Crewkerne. On the other hand, it can hardly be doubted that Dr. Grosart
is right in regarding the names of the fairy saints as quite imaginary.
He nevertheless suggests SS. Titus, Neot, Idus, Ida, Fridian or
Fridolin, Trypho, Felan and Felix as the possible prototypes of