biographically, except the names of a few friends,--that his
general sympathies were with the Royal cause,--and that he
wearied in Devonshire for London. So far as is known, he
published but this one volume, and that, when not far from his
sixtieth year. Some pieces may be traced in earlier collections;
some few carry ascertainable dates; the rest lie over a period of
near forty years, during a great portion of which we have no
distinct account where Herrick lived, or what were his
employments. We know that he shone with Ben Jonson and the wits
at the nights and suppers of those gods of our glorious early
literature: we may fancy him at Beaumanor, or Houghton, with his
uncle and cousins, keeping a Leicestershire Christmas in the
Manor-house: or, again, in some sweet southern county with Julia
and Anthea, Corinna and Dianeme by his side (familiar then by
other names now never to be remembered), sitting merry, but with
just the sadness of one who hears sweet music, in some meadow
among his favourite flowers of spring-time;--there, or 'where the
rose lingers latest.' .... But 'the dream, the fancy,' is all
that Time has spared us. And if it be curious that his
contemporaries should have left so little record of this
delightful poet and (as we should infer from the book) genial-
hearted man, it is not less so that the single first edition
should have satisfied the seventeenth century, and that, before
the present, notices of Herrick should be of the rarest
occurrence.

The artist's 'claim to exist' is, however, always far less to be
looked for in his life, than in his art, upon the secret of which
the fullest biography can tell us little--as little, perhaps, as
criticism can analyse its charm. But there are few of our poets