Chapter Henty to Herrick of H by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Works with Life by Izaak Walton, edited by Coleridge, 1846, etc.

Herbert, Sir Thomas (1606-1682).—Traveller and historian, belonged to an old Yorkshire family, studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and went in connection with an embassy to Persia, of which, and of other Oriental countries, he published a description. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was a Parliamentarian, but was afterwards taken into the household of the King, to whom he became much attached, was latterly his only attendant, and was with him on the scaffold. At the Restoration he was made a Baronet, and in 1678 published Threnodia Carolina, an account of the last two years of the King’s life.

Herd, David (1732-1810).—Scottish anthologist, son of a farmer in Kincardineshire, was clerk to an accountant in Edinburgh, and devoted his leisure to collecting old Scottish poems and songs, which he first published in 1769 as Ancient Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. Other and enlarged edition appeared in 1776 and 1791. Sir W. Scott made use of his MS. collections in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

Herrick, Robert (1591-1674).—Poet, born in London, was apprenticed as a goldsmith to his uncle, Sir William Herrick, with whom. he remained for 10 years. Thereafter he went to Cambridge, took orders, and was in 1629 presented by Charles I. to the living of Dean Prior, a remote parish in Devonshire, from which he was ejected in 1647, returning in 1662. In the interval he appears to have lived in Westminster, probably supported, more or less, by the gifts of wealthy Royalists. His Noble Numbers or Pious Pieces was published in 1647, his Hesperides or Works both Human and Divine in 1648, and the two together in one vol. in the latter year. Over 60, however, of the lighter poems included in Hesperides had previously appeared anonymously in a collection entitled Wit’s Recreations. Herrick’s early life in London had been a free one, and his secular poems, in which he appears much more at ease than in his sacred, show him to have been a thorough Epicurean, though he claims that his life was not to be judged by his muse. As a lyric poet H.stands in the front rank for sweetness, grace, and true poetic fire, and some of his love songs, e.g. Anthea, and Gather Ye Rose-buds, are unsurpassed in their kind; while in such exquisite little poems as Blossoms, Daffodils, and others he finds a classic expression for his love of nature and country life. In his epigrams, however, he falls much below himself. He has been described as “the most frankly pagan of English poets.”

Poems edited by Nutt (1810), Grosart (1876), Pollard (preface by Swinburne, 1891).