The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 108

_Politics_, iii. 7: ?a?e?? e???ae? t?? ?? ??a????? t?? p??? t? ??????

?p???p??sa? s?f???? as??e?a? ... ? t??a???? ?st? ??a???a p??? t?

s?f???? t? t?? ??a?????t??.

869. _Sir Thomas Heale._ Probably a son of the Sir Thomas Hele, of Fleet, Co. Devon, who died in 1624. This Sir Thomas was created a baronet in 1627, and according to Dr. Grosart was one of the Royalist commanders at the siege of Plymouth. He died 1670.

872. _Love is a kind of war._ Ovid, _Ars Am._ II. 233, 34:--

Militiae species amor est: discedite segnes!

Non sunt haec timidis signa tuenda viris.

873. _A spark neglected_, etc. Ovid, _Rem. Am._ 732-34:--

E minimo maximus ignis erit.

Sic nisi vitaris quicquid renovabit amorem, Flamma redardescet quae modo nulla fuit.

874. _An Hymn to Cupid._ From Anacreon:--

??a?, ? da???? ????

?a? ??fa? ??a??p?de?

p??f???? t' ?f??d?t?

s?pa????s?? ... ??????a? se, ?.t.?.

885. _Naught are all women._ Burton, III. ii. 5. -- 5.

907. _Upon Mr. William Lawes, the rare musician._ Elder brother of the more famous Henry Lawes; appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, 1602, and also one of Charles I.'s musicians-in-ordinary. When the Civil War broke out he joined the king's army and was killed by a stray shot during the siege of Chester, 1645. He set Herrick's _Gather ye rosebuds_ to music.

914. _Numbers ne'er tickle_, etc. Martial, I. x.x.xvi.:--

Lex haec carminibus data est jocosis, Ne possint, nisi pruriant, juvare.

918. _M. Kellam._ As yet unidentified. Dr. Grosart suggests that he may have been one of Herrick's parishioners, and the name sounds as of the west country.

920. _Cunctation in correction._ Is Herrick translating? According to a relief at Rome the lictors' rods were bound together not only by a red thong twisted from top to bottom, but by six straps as well.

922. _Continual reaping makes a land wax old._ Ovid, _Ars Am._ iii. 82: Continua messe senescit ager.

923. _Revenge._ Tacitus, _Hist._ iv. 3: Tanto proclivius est injuriae quam beneficio vicem exsolvere; quia gratia oneri, ultio in quaestu habetur.

927. _Praise they that will times past._ Ovid, _Ars Am._ iii. 121:--

Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor; haec aetas moribus apta meis.

928. _Clothes are conspirators._ I can suggest no better explanation of this oracular epigram than that the tailor's bill is an enemy of a slender purse.

929. _Cruelty_. Seneca _de Clem._ i. 24: Ferina ista rabies est, sanguine gaudere et vulneribus; (i. 8), Quemadmodum praecisae arbores plurimis ramis repullulant [H. uses repullulate, -tion, 336, 794], et multa satorum genera, ut densiora surgant, reciduntur; ita regia crudelitas auget inimicorum numerum tollendo. Ben Jonson, _Discoveries_ (_Clementia_): "The lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out quicker; and the taking away of some kind of enemies increaseth the number".

931. _A fierce desire of hot and dry._ Cp. note on 683.

932. _To hear the worst_, etc. Antisthenes ap. _Diog. Laert._ VI. i. 4, -- 3: ????sa? p?t? ?t? ???t?? a?t?? ?a??? ???e? ?as?????? ?f? ?a???

p?????ta ?a??? ????e??, quoted by Burton, II. iii. 7.

934. _The Bondman._ Cp. Exodus xxi. 5, 6: "And if the servant shall plainly say: I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever".

936. _My kiss outwent the bonds of shamefastness._ Cp. Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_, sonnet 82. For _not Jove himself_, etc., cp. 10, and note.

938. _His wish._ From Martial, II. xc. 7-10:--

Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux: Sit nox c.u.m somno, sit sine lite dies, etc.

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

Primos pa.s.sa toros et adhuc placanda marito Merserat in nitidos se Cleopatra lacus, Dum fugit amplexus: sed prodidit unda latentem, Lucebat, totis c.u.m 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 a.s.sociate 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:--

???? ??? ??????? p??e? ??t???

pa?da? te????s?a?, ???? d' ??? e??a? ??????

???t?? ?? ??? ?? ??d?? ?????p??? ?a???.

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 pa.s.sing 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.

_For an ascendent_, etc.: This and the next seven lines are taken from phrases on pp. 29-33 of the _Notes and Observations on some pa.s.sages of Scripture_, by John Gregory (see note on N. N. 178). According to Gregory, "The Ascendent of a City is that sign which riseth in the Heavens at the laying of the first stone".

962. _Henry, Marquis of Dorchester._ Henry Pierrepoint, second Earl of Kingston, succeeded his father (Herrick's Newark) July 30, 1643, and was created Marquis of Dorchester, March, 1645. "He was a very studious n.o.bleman and very learned, particularly in law and physics." (See Burke's _Extinct Peerages_, iii. 435.)

_When Cato, the severe, entered the circ.u.ms.p.a.cious theatre._ The allusion is to the visit of Cato to the games of Flora, given by Messius. When his presence in the theatre was known, the dancing-women were not allowed to perform in their accustomed lack of costume, whereupon the moralist obligingly retired, amidst applause.

966. _M. Jo. Harmar, physician to the College of Westminster._ John Harmar, born at Churchdown, near Gloucester, about 1594, was educated at Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood characterises him as a b.u.t.t for the wits and a flatterer of great men, and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though he took no higher degree than M.A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the degree of M.B., and Dr. Grosart's note--"Herrick, no doubt, playfully trans.m.u.ted 'Doctor' into 'Physician'"--is misleading. He may have cared for the minds and bodies of the Westminster boys at one and the same time.

_The Roman language.... If Jove would speak_, etc. Cp. Ben Jonson's _Discoveries_: "that testimony given by L. Aelius Stilo upon Plautus who affirmed, "Musas si latine loqui voluissent Plautino sermone fuisse loquuturas". And Cicero [in Plutarch, -- 24] "said of the Dialogues of Plato, that Jupiter, if it were his nature to use language, would speak like him".

967. _Upon his spaniel, Tracy._ Cp. _supra_, 724.