reated Duke of Richmond in
1641, and did not die till 1655. It is true that there was a brother
named Lodovic, but he was an abbot in France and never succeeded to the
title. Herrick, therefore, seems to have blundered in the Christian
name.
453. _Let's live in haste._ From Martial, VII. xlvii. 11, 12:--
Vive velut rapto: fugitivaque gaudia carpe:
Perdiderit nullum vita reversa diem.
457. _While Fates permit._ From Seneca, _Herc. Fur._ 177:--
Dum Fata sinunt,
Vivite laeti: properat cursu
Vita citato, volucrique die
Rota praecipitis vertitur anni.
459. _With Horace_ (IV. _Od._ ix. 29):--
Paulum sepultae distat inertiae
Celata virtus.
465. _The parting Verse or charge to his Supposed Wife when he
travelled._ MS. variants of this poem are found at the British Museum in
Add. 22, 603, and in Ashmole MS. 38. Their title, "Mr. Herrick's charge
to his wife," led Mr. Payne Collier to rashly identify with the poet a
certain Robert Herrick married at St. Clement Danes, 1632, to a Jane
Gibbons. The variants are numerous, but not very important. In l. 4 we
have "draw wooers" for "draw thousands"; ll. 11-16 are transposed to
after l. 28; and "Are the expressions of that itch" is written "As
emblems will express that itch"; ll. 27, 28 appear as:--
"For that once lost thou _needst must fall
To one, then prostitute to all:_
And we then have the transposed passage:--
Nor so immured would I have
Thee live, as dead, _or_ in thy grave;
But walk abroad, yet wisely well
_Keep 'gainst_ my coming sentinel.
And think _each man thou seest doth doom
Thy thoughts to say, I back am come._
Farther on we have the rather pretty variant:--
"Let them _call thee wondrous fair,
Crown of women_, yet despair".
Eight lines lower "virtuous" is read for "gentle," and the omission of
some small words throws some light on a change in Herrick's metrical
views as he grew older. The words omitted are bracketed:--
"[And] Let thy dreams be only fed
With this, that I am in thy bed.
And [thou] then turning in that sphere,
Waking findst [shall find] me sleeping there.
But [yet] if boundless lust must scale
Thy fortress and _must_ needs prevail
_'Gainst thee and_ force a passage in," etc.
Other variants are: "Creates the action" for "That makes the action";
"Glory" for "Triumph"; "my last signet" for "this compression"; "
|