[443]. Oberon's Palace.—After the feast (my Shapcott) see. See [223], [293], from which it is a pity that this poem should have been divorced. Of the Palace there are as many as three MS. versions, viz., Add. 22, 603 (p. 59), and Add. 25, 303 (p. 157), at the British Museum, both of which I have collated, and Ashmole MS. 38, which I only know through my predecessors. The three MSS. appear to agree very harmoniously, and they unite in increasing our knowledge of Herrick by a passage of twenty-seven lines, following on the words "And here and there and farther off," and in lieu of the next four and a half lines in Hesperides. They read as follows:—
"Some sort of pear,
Apple or plum, is neatly laid
(As if it was a tribute paid)
By the round urchin; some mixt wheat
The which the ant did taste, not eat;
Deaf nuts, soft Jews'-ears, and some thin
Chippings, the mice filched from the bin
Of the gray farmer, and to these
The scraps of lentils, chitted peas,
Dried honeycombs, brown acorn cups,
Out of the which he sometimes sups
His herby broth, and there close by
Are pucker'd bullace, cankers (?), dry
Kernels, and withered haws; the rest
Are trinkets fal'n from the kite's nest,
As butter'd bread, the which the wild
Bird snatched away from the crying child,
Blue pins, tags, fesenes, beads and things
Of higher price, as half-jet rings,
Ribbons and then some silken shreaks
The virgins lost at barley-breaks.
Many a purse-string, many a thread
Of gold and silver therein spread,
Many a counter, many a die,
Half rotten and without an eye,
Lies here about, and, as we guess,
Some bits of thimbles seem to dress
The brave cheap work; and for to pave
The excellency of this cave,
Squirrels and children's teeth late shed,
Serve here, both which enchequered
With castors' doucets, which poor they
Bite off themselves to 'scape away:
Brown toadstones, ferrets' eyes, the gum
That shines," etc.
The italicised words in the last few lines appear in Hesperides; all the rest are new. Other variants are: "The grass of Lemster ore soberly sparkling" for "the finest Lemster ore mildly disparkling"; "girdle" for "ceston"; "The eyes of all doth strait bewitch" for "All with temptation doth bewitch"; "choicely hung" for "neatly hung"; "silver roach" for "silvery fish"; "cave" for "room"; "get reflection" for "make reflected"; "Candlemas" for "taper-light"; "moon-tane" for "moon-tanned," etc., etc.
Kings though they're hated. The "Oderint dum metuant" of the Atreus of Accius, quoted by Cicero and Seneca.
[446]. To Oenone. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650, under the title: "The Farewell to Love and to his Mistress," and with the unlucky misprint "court" for "covet" (also "for" for "but") in the stanza iii. l. i.
[447]. Grief breaks the stoutest heart. Frangit fortia corda dolor. Tibull. III. ii. 6.
[451]. To the right gracious Prince, Lodowick, Duke of Richmond and Lennox. There appears to me to be a blunder here which Dr. Grosart and Mr. Hazlitt do not elucidate, by recording the birth of Lodowick, first Duke of Richmond, in 1574, his succession to the Lennox title in 1583, creation as Duke of Richmond in May, 1623, and death in the following February. For this first duke was no "stem" left "of all those three brave brothers fallen in the war," and the allusion here is undoubtedly to his nephews—George, Lord d'Aubigny, who fell at Edgehill; Lord John Stewart, who fell at Alresford; and Lord Bernard Stewart (Earl of Lichfield), who fell at Rowton Heath. In elucidation of Herrick's Dirge ([219]) over the last of these three brothers, I have already quoted Clarendon's remark, that he was "the third brother of that illustrious family that sacrificed his life in this quarrel," and it cannot be doubted that Herrick is here alluding to the same fact. The poem must therefore have been written after 1645, i.e., more than twenty years after the death of Duke Lodowick. But the duke then living was James, who succeeded his father Esme in 1624, was recreated Duke of Richmond in 1641, and did not die till 1655. It is true that there was a brother named Lodovic, but he was an abbot in France and never succeeded to the title. Herrick, therefore, seems to have blundered in the Christian name.
[453]. Let's live in haste. From Martial, VII. xlvii. 11, 12:—
Vive velut rapto: fugitivaque gaudia carpe:
Perdiderit nullum vita reversa diem.
[457]. While Fates permit. From Seneca, Herc. Fur. 177:—