[1088]. Twice five-and-twenty (bate me but one year). As Herrick was born in 1591, this poem must have been written in 1640.
[1089]. To M. Laurence Swetnaham. Unless the various entries in the parish registers of St. Margaret's, Westminster, refer to different men, this Lawrence Swetnaham was the third son of Thomas Swettenham of Swettenham in Cheshire, married in 1602 to Mary Birtles. Lawrence himself had children as early as 1629, and ten years later was church-warden. He was buried in the Abbey, 1673.
[1091]. My lamp to you I give. Allusion to the Λαμπαδηφορία which Plato (Legg. 776B) uses to illustrate the succession of generations. So Lucretius (ii. 77): Et quasi cursores vitaï lampada tradunt.
[1092]. Michael Oulsworth. Michael Oulsworth, Oldsworth or Oldisworth, graduated M.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1614. According to Wood, "he was afterwards Fellow of his College, Secretary to Earl of Pembroke, elected a burgess to serve in several Parliaments for Sarum and Old Sarum, and though in the Grand Rebellion he was no Colonel, yet he was Governor of Old Pembroke, and Montgomery led him by the nose as he pleased, to serve both their turns". The partnership, however, was not eternal, for between 1648 and 1650 Oldisworth published at least eight virulent satires against his former master.
[1094]. Truth—her own simplicity. Seneca, Ep. 49: (Ut ille tragicus), Veritatis simplex oratio est.
[1097]. Kings must be dauntless. Seneca, Thyest. 388: Rex est qui metuit nihil.
[1100]. To his brother, Nicholas Herrick. Baptized April 22, 1589; a merchant trading to the Levant. He married Susanna Salter, to whom Herrick addresses two poems ([522], [977]).
[1103]. A King and no King. Seneca, Thyest. 214: Ubicunque tantùm honestè dominanti licet, Precario regnatur.
[1118]. Necessity makes dastards valiant men. Sallust, Catil. 58: Necessitudo ... timidos fortes facit.
[1119]. Sauce for Sorrows. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650. An equal mind. Plautus, Rudens, II. iii. 71: Animus aequus optimum est aerumnae condimentum.