Of April, May and June, and July flowers,
there is, so far as I can see, little or no trace of Devonshire.
The great poets—whom Herrick looked on as his masters—Catullus and Horace, understood the magic of a name, and were fond of grouping their best thoughts round the names of the particular spots which they knew. Anyone who reads Catullus’s lines on Sirmio, or Horace’s on Tivoli, anyone, we may add, who knows Burns, or Wordsworth, or Scott, will feel the significance of the fact that Herrick only once mentions by name any place in Devonshire. It is not that he dislikes localising, for he lingers affectionately enough over the names of
Richmond, Kingston, and of Hampton Court.
And on the one occasion, when a Devonshire scene is described by name, it is in the following lines on “Dean, a rude river in Devon, by which he sometimes dwelt”:—
Dean Bourn, farewell! I never look to see
Dean, or thy watry incivility.
The reader of Herrick will remember that he goes on to say that the “currish, churlish” people of Dean are as rocky as their river. Herrick could hardly be expected to admire Dartmoor itself. The love of moor and mountain hardly existed in his time; but the glen of Dean Bourne is a different thing, and surely nothing but invincible prejudice can have made Herrick describe it in such “currish and churlish” terms.
Herrick is par excellence the poet of flowers and fruits. Cherries, cowslips, daffodils, and primroses are inseparably connected with his verse. That the rich luxuriance of Dean Prior must have been a source of continual pleasure to him we cannot doubt. Yet even in this department of nature one misses local touches. Where are the high hedgerows, the ferns, and the fox-gloves? and where are the apple orchards of Devon?
Herrick was very fond of observing village festivities and studying folk-lore, and it is generally assumed that the poems which deal with these subjects were written in Devonshire and based on Devonshire observations. This may be so, though I do not know of any evidence in favour of it. On the other hand there is one small circumstance which seems to me significant. In Herrick’s descriptions of barley-breaks, harvest homes, and Christmas festivities, there is much mention of beer but none of cider. Cider making had its poetry for Keats:—