Part 110 (1/2)

1094. _Truth--her own simplicity._ Seneca, _Ep._ 49: (Ut ille tragicus), Veritatis simplex oratio est.

1097. _Kings must be dauntless._ Seneca, _Thyest._ 388: Rex est qui metuit nihil.

1100. _To his brother, Nicholas Herrick._ Baptized April 22, 1589; a merchant trading to the Levant. He married Susanna Salter, to whom Herrick addresses two poems (522, 977).

1103. _A King and no King._ Seneca, _Thyest._ 214: Ubicunque tantum honeste dominanti licet, Precario regnatur.

1118. _Necessity makes dastards valiant men._ Sall.u.s.t, _Catil._ 58: Necessitudo ... timidos fortes facit.

1119. _Sauce for Sorrows._ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650. _An equal mind._ Plautus, _Rudens_, II. iii. 71: Animus aequus optimum est aerumnae condimentum.

1126. _The End of his Work._ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, under the t.i.tle: _Of this Book._ From Ovid, _Ars Am._ i. 773, 774:--

Pars superest caepti, pars est exhausta laboris: Hic teneat nostras anchora jacta rates.

1127. _My wearied bark_, etc. Ovid, _Rem. Am._ 811, 812:--

fessae date serta carinae: Contigimus portum, quo mihi cursus erat.

1128. _The work is done._ Ovid, _Ars Am._ ii. 733, 734:--

Finis adest operi: palmam date, grata juventus, Sertaque odoratae myrtea ferte comae.

1130. _His Muse._ Cp. Note on 624.

n.o.bLE NUMBERS.

3. _Weigh me the Fire._ _2 Esdras_, iv. 5, 7; v. 9, 36: ”Weigh me ...

the fire, or measure me ... the wind,” etc.

4. _G.o.d ... is the best known, not...._ _August. de Ord._ ii. 16: [Deus]

scitur melius nesciendo.

5. _Supraent.i.ty_, t? ?pe???t?? ??, Plotinus.

7. _His wrath is free from perturbation._ August. _de Civ. Dei_, ix. 5: Ipse Deus secundum Scripturas irascitur, nec tamen ulla pa.s.sione turbatur. _Enchir. ad Laurent._ 33: c.u.m irasci dicitur Deus, non significatur perturbatio, qualis est in animo irascentis hominis.

9. _Those Spotless two Lambs._ ”This is the offering made by fire which ye shall offer unto the Lord: two lambs of the first year without spot, day by day, for a continual burnt-offering.” (Numb. xxviii. 3.)

17. _An Anthem sung in the Chapel of Whitehall._ This may be added to Nos. 96-98, and 102, the poems on which Mr. Hazlitt bases his conjecture that Herrick may have held some subordinate post in the Chapel Royal.

37. _When once the sin has fully acted been._ Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 10: Perfecto demum scelere, magnitudo ejus intellecta est.

38. _Upon Time._ Were this poem anonymous it would probably be attributed rather to George Herbert than to Herrick.

41. _His Litany to the Holy Spirit._ We may quote again from Barron Field's account in the _Quarterly Review_ (1810) of his cross-examination of the Dean Prior villagers for Reminiscences of Herrick: ”The person, however, who knows more of Herrick than all the rest of the neighbourhood we found to be a poor woman in the 99th year of her age, named Dorothy King. She repeated to us, with great exactness, five of his _n.o.ble Numbers_, among which was his beautiful 'Litany'. These she had learnt from her mother, who was apprenticed to Herrick's successor at the vicarage. She called them her prayers, which she said she was in the habit of putting up in bed, whenever she could not sleep; and she therefore began the 'Litany' at the second stanza:--

'When I lie within my bed,' etc.”