Grosart in his collation. Of the seven stanzas subsequently omitted
several are of great beauty. There are few happier images in Herrick
than that of _Time throned in a saffron evening_ in stanza 11. It is
only when the earlier version is read as a whole that Herrick's taste
in omitting is vindicated. Each stanza is good in itself, but in the
MSS. the poem drags from excessive length, and the reduction of its
twenty-three stanzas to sixteen greatly improves it.

286. _Ever full of pensive fear._ Ovid, _Heroid._ i. 12: Res est
solliciti plena timoris amor.

287. _Reverence to riches._ Perhaps from Tacit. _Ann._ ii. 33: Neque in
familia et argento quaeque ad usum parantur nimium aliquid aut modicum,
nisi ex fortuna possidentis.

288. _Who forms a godhead._ From Martial, VIII. xxiv. 5:--

Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus
Non facit ille deos: qui rogat, ille facit.

290. _The eyes be first that conquered are._ From Tacitus, _Germ._ 43:
Primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur.

293. _Oberon's Feast._ For a note on Herrick's Fairy Poems and on the
_Description of the King and Queene of the Fayries_ (1635), in which
part of this poem was first printed, see Appendix. Add. MS. 22, 603, at
the British Museum, and Ashmole MS. 38, at the Bodleian, contain early
versions of the poem substantially agreeing. I transcribe the Museum
copy:--

"A little mushroom table spread
After _the dance_, they set on bread,
A _yellow corn of hecky_ wheat
With some small _sandy_ grit to eat
His choice bits; with _which_ in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all _the_ while his eye _was_ served
We _dare_ not think his ear was sterved:
But that there was in place to stir
His _fire_ the _pittering_ Grasshopper;
The merry Cricket, puling Fly,
The piping Gnat for minstralcy.
_The Humming Dor, the dying Swan,
And each a choice Musician._
And now we must imagine first,
The Elves present to quench his thirst
A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,
Brought and _beswetted_ in a blue
And pregnant violet; which done,
His kitling eyes begin to run
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of papery Butterflies:
Of which he eats, _but with_ a little
_Neat cool allay_ of Cuckoo's spittle;
A little Fuz-ball pudding stands
By, yet not blessed by his hands--
That was too coarse, but _he not spares
To