ten, limned, and garnished by Edward Norgate, Clerk of the Signet
in reversion". Six years later this order was renewed, the "Kings of
Bantam, Macassar, Barbary, Siam, Achine, Fez, and Sus" being added to
the previous list, and Norgate being now designated as a Clerk of the
Signet Extraordinary. In the same year, having previously been
Bluemantle Pursuivant, he was promoted to be Windsor Herald, in which
capacity he received numerous fees during the next few years, and was
excused ship money. He still, however, retained his clerkship, for he
writes in 1639: "The poor Office of Arms is fain to blazon the Council
books and Signet". The phrase occurs in a series of nineteen letters of
extraordinary interest, which Norgate wrote from the North, chiefly to
his friend, Robert Reade, secretary to Windebank, on the course of
affairs. In Sept., 1641, "Ned Norgate" was ordered personally to attend
the king. "It is his Majesty's pleasure that the master should wait and
not the men, and _that_ they shall find." Henceforth I find no certain
reference to him; according to Fuller he died at the Herald's Office in
1649. It would be interesting if we could be sure that this Edward
Norgate is the same as the one who in 1611 was appointed Tuner of his
Majesty's "virginals, organs, and other instruments," and in 1637
received a grant of L140 for the repair of the organ at Hampton Court.
Herrick's love of music makes us expect to find a similar trait in his
friends.
313. _The Entertainment, or Porch Verse._ The words _Ye wrong the
threshold-god_ and the allusion to the porch in the Clipsby Crew
Epithalamium (stanza 4) show that there is no reference here (as Brand
thinks, ii. 135) to the old custom of reading part of the marriage
service at the church door or porch (cp. Chaucer: "Husbands at churche
door she had had five"). The porch of the house is meant, and the
allusions are to the ceremonies at the threshold (cp. the Southwell
Epithalamium). Dr. Grosart quotes from the Dean Prior register the entry
of the marriage of Henry Northleigh, gentleman, and Mistress Lettice
Yard on September 5, 1639, by licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
319. _No noise of late-spawned Tittyries._ In the Camden Society's
edition of the _Diary of Walter Yonge_, p. 70 (kindly shown me by the
Rev. J. H. Ward), we have a contemporary account of the Club known as
the Tityre Tues, which took its name from the first words of Virgil's
first _Eclogue_. "The be
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