[809]. Who after his transgression doth repent. Seneca, Agam. 243: Quem poenitet peccasse paene est innocens.
[810]. Grief, if't be great 'tis short. Seneca, quoted by Burton (II. iii. 1, § 1): "Si longa est, levis est; si gravis est, brevis est. If it be long, 'tis light; if grievous, it cannot last."
[817]. The Amber Bead. Cp. Martial's epigram quoted in [Note] to [497]. The comparison to Cleopatra is from Mart. IV. xxxii.
[818]. To my dearest sister, M. Mercy Herrick. Not quite five years his senior. She married John Wingfield, of Brantham, Suffolk, to whom also Herrick addresses a poem.
[820]. Suffer that thou canst not shift. From Seneca; the title from Ep. cvii.: Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis, the epigram from De Provid. 4, as translated by Thomas Lodge, 1614, "Vertuous instructions are never delicate. Doth fortune beat and rend us? Let us suffer it"—whence Herrick reproduces the printer's error, Vertuous for Vertues (Virtue's).
[821]. For a stone has Heaven his tomb. Cp. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. § 40: "Nor doe I altogether follow that rodomontado of Lucan (Phars. vii. 819): Coelo tegitur qui non habet urnam,
He that unburied lies wants not his hearse,
For unto him a tomb's the universe".
[823]. To the King upon his taking of Leicester. May 31, 1645, a brief success before Naseby.
[825]. 'Twas Cæsar's saying. Tiberius ap. Tacit. Ann. ii. 26: Se novies a divo Augusto in Germaniam missum plura consilio quam vi perfecisse.
[830]. His Loss. A reference to his ejection from Dean Prior.