which, so far as we may infer, he met with in his own age, and
certainly in the century following. For the men of the
Restoration period he was too natural, too purely poetical: he
had not the learned polish, the political allusion, the tone of
the city, the didactic turn, which were then and onwards demanded
from poetry. In the next age, no tradition consecrated his name;
whilst writers of a hundred years before were then too remote for
familiarity, and not remote enough for reverence. Moving on to
our own time, when some justice has at length been conceded to
him, Herrick has to meet the great rivalry of the poets who, from
Burns and Cowper to Tennyson, have widened and deepened the
lyrical sphere, making it at once on the one hand more intensely
personal, on the other, more free and picturesque in the range of
problems dealt with: whilst at the same time new and richer
lyrical forms, harmonies more intricate and seven-fold, have been
created by them, as in Hellas during her golden age of song, to
embody ideas and emotions unknown or unexpressed under Tudors and
Stuarts. To this latter superiority Herrick would, doubtless,
have bowed, as he bowed before Ben Jonson's genius. 'Rural
ditties,' and 'oaten flute' cannot bear the competition of the
full modern orchestra. Yet this author need not fear! That
exquisite: and lofty pleasure which it is the first and the last
aim of all true art to give, must, by its own nature, be lasting
also. As the eyesight fluctuates, and gives the advantage to
different colours in turn, so to the varying moods of the mind
the same beauty does not always seem equally beautiful. Thus
from the 'purple light' of our later poetry there are hours in
which we may look to the daffodil and rose-tints of Herrick's old
Arcadia, for refreshment and delight. And the pleasure which he
gives is as eminently wholesome as pleasurable. Like the holy