The swiftest grace is best. Ὠκεῖαι χάριτες γλυκερώτεραι. Anth. Pal. x. 30.
[214]. Know thy when. So in The Star-song Herrick sings: "Thou canst clear All doubts and manifest the where".
[219]. Lord Bernard Stewart, fourth son of Esme, third Duke of Lennox, and himself created Earl of Lichfield by Charles I. He commanded the king's troop of guards, and was killed at the battle of Rowton Heath, outside Chester, Sept. 24, 1645.
Clarendon (History of the Rebellion, ix. 19) thus records his death and character: "Here fell many gentlemen and officers of name, with the brave Earl of Litchfield, who was the third brother of that illustrious family that sacrificed his life in this quarrel. He was a very faultless young man, of a most gentle, courteous, and affable nature, and of a spirit and courage invincible; whose loss all men lamented, and the king bore it with extraordinary grief."
Trentall. Properly a set of thirty masses for the repose of a dead man's soul. Here and elsewhere Herrick uses the word as an equivalent for dirge, but Sidney distinguished them: "Let dirige be sung and trentalls rightly read. For love is dead," etc. "Hence, hence profane," is the Latin, procul o procul este profani of Virg. Æn. vi. 258, where "profane" is only equivalent to uninitiated.
[223]. The Fairy Temple. For a brief note on Herrick's fairy poems, see Appendix. On the dedication to Mr. John Merrifield, Counsellor-at-Law, Dr. Grosart remarks: "Nothing seems to be now known of Merrifield. It is just possible that—as throughout the poem—the name was an invented one, 'Merry Field'." But the records of the Inner Temple show that the Merrifields were a legal family from Woolmiston, near Crewkerne, Somersetshire. John (son of Richard) Merrifield, the father, was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1581, and John, the son, in 1611. This latter must be Herrick's Counsellor. He rose to be a Master of the Bench in 1638 and Sergeant-at-Law in 1660. He died October, 1666, aged 75, at Crewkerne. On the other hand, it can hardly be doubted that Dr. Grosart is right in regarding the names of the fairy saints as quite imaginary. He nevertheless suggests SS. Titus, Neot, Idus, Ida, Fridian or Fridolin, Trypho, Felan and Felix as the possible prototypes of "Saint Tit, Saint Nit, Saint Is," etc. It should be noted that "Tit and Nit" occur with "Wap and Win" and other obviously made-up names, in Drayton's Nymphidia.
[229]. Upon Cupid. Taken from Anacreon, 5 [59].
Στέφος πλέκων ποθ' εὗρον
ἐν τοῖς ῥόδοις Ἔρωτα·
καὶ τῶν πτερῶν κατασχών
ἐβάπτισ' εἰς τὸν οἶνον·
λαβὼν δ' ἔπινον αὐτόν,
καὶ νῦν ἔσω μελῶν μου
πτεροῖσι γαργαλίζει.
[234]. Care will make a face. Ovid, Ar. Am. iii. 105: Cura dabit faciem, facies neglecta peribit.
[235]. Upon Himself. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1654, under the title: On an old Batchelor, and with the variants, married for wedded, l. 3, one for a in l. 4, and Rather than mend me, blind me quite in l. 6.