it non doctissima conjux:
Sit nox cum somno, sit sine lite dies, etc.

939. _Upon Julia washing herself in the river._ Imitated from Martial,
IV. xxii.:--

Primos passa toros et adhuc placanda marito
Merserat in nitidos se Cleopatra lacus,
Dum fugit amplexus: sed prodidit unda latentem,
Lucebat, totis cum tegeretur aquis.
Condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro,
Sic prohibet tenuis gemma latere rosas,
Insilui mersusque vadis luctantia carpsi
Basia: perspicuae plus vetuistis aquae.

940. _Though frankincense_, etc. Ovid, _de Medic. Fac._ 83, 84:--

Quamvis thura deos irataque numina placent,
Non tamen accensis omnia danda focis.

947. _To his honoured and most ingenious friend, Mr. Charles Cotton._
Dr. Grosart annotates: "The translator of Montaigne, and associate of
Izaak Walton"; but as the younger Cotton was only eighteen when
_Hesperides_ was printed, it is perhaps more probable that the father is
meant, though we may note that Herrick and the younger Cotton were
joint-contributors in 1649 to the _Lacrymae Musarum_, published in memory
of Lord Hastings. For a tribute to the brilliant abilities of the elder
Cotton, see Clarendon's _Life_ (i. 36; ed. 1827).

948. _Women Useless._ A variation on a theme as old as Euripides. Cp.
_Medea_, 573-5:--

{chren gar allothen pothen brotous
paidas teknousthai, thely d' ouk einai genos;
choutos an ouk en ouden anthropois kakon.}

952. _Weep for the dead, for they have lost the light_, cp. Ecclus.
xxii. 11.

955. _To M. Leonard Willan, his peculiar friend._ A wretched poet;
author of "The Phrygian Fabulist; or the Fables of AEsop" (1650),
"Astraea; or True Love's Mirror" (1651), etc.

956. _Mr. John Hall, Student of Gray's Inn._ Hall remained at Cambridge
till 1647, and this poem, which addresses him as a "Student of Gray's
Inn," must therefore have been written almost while _Hesperides_ was
passing through the press. Hall's _Horae Vacivae, or Essays_, published in
1646, had at once given him high rank among the wits.

958. _To the most comely and proper M. Elizabeth Finch._ No certain
identification has been proposed.

961. _To the King, upon his welcome to Hampton Court, set and sung._ The
allusion can only be to the king's stay at Hampton Court in 1647. Good
hope was then entertained of a peaceful settlement, and Herrick's ode,
enthusiastic as it is, expresses little more than this.

_F