The Hesperides Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 | Page 5

value of the living was only £50 (£250
present value), no great prize, but the poem entitled _Mr. Robert
Hericke: his farwell unto Poetrie_ (not printed in _Hesperides_, but
extant in more than one manuscript version) shows that the poet was
not unaware of the responsibilities of his profession. "But unto me," he
says to his Muse:
"But unto me be only hoarse, since now
(Heaven and my soul bear
record of my vow)
I my desires screw from thee and direct
Them
and my thoughts to that sublime respect
And conscience unto
priesthood. 'Tis not need
(The scarecrow unto mankind) that doth
breed
Wiser conclusions in me, since I know
I've more to bear my
charge than way to go;
Or had I not, I'd stop the spreading itch
Of
craving more: so in conceit be rich;
But 'tis the God of nature who
intends
And shapes my function for more glorious ends."
Perhaps it was at this time too that Herrick wrote his _Farewell to

Sack_, and although he returned both to sack and to poetry we should
be wrong in imagining him as a "blind mouth," using his office merely
as a means of gain. He celebrated the births of Charles II and his
brother in verse, perhaps with an eye to future royal favours, but no
more than Chaucer's good parson does he seem to have "run to London
unto Seynte Poules" in search of the seventeenth century equivalent for
a chauntry, and many of his poems show him living the life of a
contented country clergyman, sharing the contents of bin and cruse
with his poor parishioners, and jotting down sermon-notes in verse.
The great majority of Herrick's poems cannot be dated, and it is idle to
enquire which were written before his ordination and which afterwards.
His conception of religion was medieval in its sensuousness, and he
probably repeated the stages of sin, repentance and renewed assurance
with some facility. He lived with an old servant, Prudence Baldwin, the
"Prew" of many of his poems; kept a spaniel named Tracy, and, so says
tradition, a tame pig. When his parishioners annoyed him he seems to
have comforted himself with epigrams on them; when they slumbered
during one of his sermons the manuscript was suddenly hurled at them
with a curse for their inattention.
In the same year that Herrick was appointed to his country vicarage his
mother died while living with her daughter, Mercy, the poet's dearest
sister (see 818), then for some time married to John Wingfield of
Brantham in Suffolk (see 590), by whom she had three sons and a
daughter, also called Mercy. His eldest brother, Thomas, had been
placed with a Mr. Massam, a merchant, but as early as 1610 had retired
to live a country life in Leicestershire (see 106). He appears to have
married a wife named Elizabeth, whose loss Herrick laments (see 72).
Nicholas, the next brother was more adventurous. He had become a
merchant trading to the Levant, and in this capacity had visited the
Holy Land (see 1100). To his wife Susanna, daughter of William Salter,
Herrick addresses two poems (522 and 977). There were three sons and
four daughters in this family, and Herrick wrote a poem to one of the
daughters, Bridget (562), and an elegy on another, Elizabeth (376).
When Mrs. Herrick died the bulk of her property was left to the
Wingfields, but William Herrick received a legacy of £100, with ten

pounds apiece to his two children, and a ring of twenty shillings to his
wife. Nicholas and Robert were only left twenty-shilling rings, and the
administration of the will was entrusted to William Herrick and the
Wingfields. The will may have been the result of a family arrangement,
and we have no reason to believe that the unequal division gave rise to
any ill-feeling. Herrick's address to "his dying brother, Master William
Herrick" (186), shows abundant affection, and there is every reason to
believe that it was addressed to the William who administered to Mrs.
Herrick's will.
While little nephews and nieces were springing up around him, Herrick
remained unmarried, and frequently congratulates himself on his
freedom from the yoke matrimonial. He imagined how he would bid
farewell to his wife, if he had one (465), and wrote magnificent
epithalamia for his friends, but lived and died a bachelor. When first
civil troubles and then civil war cast a shadow over the land, it is not
very easy to say how he viewed the contending parties. He was devoted
to Charles and Henrietta Maria and the young Prince of Wales, and
rejoiced at every Royalist success. Many also of his poems breathe the
spirit of unquestioning loyalty, but in others he is less certain of kingly
wisdom. Something, however, must be allowed for his evident habit of
versifying any phrase or epigram