as lyrical poet strictly, offers us by far the most homogeneous,
attractive, and varied treasury. No one else among lyrists
within the period defined, has such unfailing freshness: so much
variety within the sphere prescribed to himself: such closeness
to nature, whether in description or in feeling: such easy
fitness in language: melody so unforced and delightful. His
dull pages are much less frequent: he has more lines, in his own
phrase, 'born of the royal blood': the

Inflata rore non Achaico verba

are rarer with him: although superficially mannered, nature is
so much nearer to him, that far fewer of his pieces have lost
vitality and interest through adherence to forms of feeling or
fashions of thought now obsolete. A Roman contemporary is
described by the younger Pliny in words very appropriate to
Herrick: who, in fact, if Greek in respect of his method and
style, in the contents of his poetry displays the 'frankness of
nature and vivid sense of life' which criticism assigns as marks
of the great Roman poets. FACIT VERSUS, QUALES CATULLUS AUT
CALVUS. QUANTUM ILLIS LEPORIS, DULCEDINIS, AMARITUDINIS AMORIS!
INSERIT SANE, SED DATA OPERA, MOLLIBUS LENIBUSQUE DURIUSCULOS
QUOSDAM; ET HOC, QUASI CATULLUS AUT CALVUS. Many pieces have
been, here refused admittance, whether from coarseness of phrase
or inferior value: yet these are rarely defective in the lyrical
art, which, throughout the writer's work, is so simple and easy
as almost to escape notice through its very excellence. In one
word, Herrick, in a rare and special sense, is unique.

To these qualities we may, perhaps, ascribe the singular neglect