Chapter LVI HERRICK AND MARVELL—­OF BLOSSOMS AND BOWERS

ANOTHER poet of this age, Robert Herrick, in himself joined the two styles of poetry of which we have been speaking, for he was both a love poet and a religious poet.

He was born in 1591 and was the son of an old, well-to-do family, his father being a London goldsmith.  But, like Herbert, he lost his father when he was but a tiny child.  Like Herbert again he went to Westminster School and later Cambridge.  But before he went to Cambridge he was apprenticed to his uncle, who was a goldsmith, as his brother, Herrick’s father, had been.  Robert, however, never finished his apprenticeship.  He found out, we may suppose, that he had no liking for the jeweler’s craft, that his hand was meant to create jewels of another kind.  So he left his uncle’s workshop and went to Cambridge, although he was already much beyond the usual age at which boys then went to college.  Like Herbert he went to college meaning to study for the Church.  But according to our present-day ideas he seems little fitted to have been a priest.  For although we know little more than a few bare facts about Herrick’s life, when we have read his poems and looked at his portrait we can draw for ourselves a clear picture of the man, and the picture will not fit in with our ideas of priesthood.

In some ways therefore, as we have seen, though there was an outward likeness between the lives of Herbert and of Herrick, it was only an outwards likeness.  Herbert was tender and kindly, the very model of a Christian gentleman.  Herrick was a jolly old Pagan, full of a rollicking joy in life.  Even in appearance these two poets were different.  Herbert was tall and thin with a quiet face and eyes which were truly “homes of silent prayer.”  In Herrick’s face is something gross, his great Roman nose and thick curly hair seem to suit his pleasure-loving nature.  There is nothing spiritual about him.

After Herrick left college we know little of his life for eight or nine years.  He lived in London, met Ben Jonson and all the other poets and writers who flocked about great Ben.  He went to court no doubt, and all the time he wrote poems.  It was a gay and cheerful life which, when at length he was given the living of Dean Prior in Devonshire, he found it hard to leave.

It was then that he wrote his farewell to poetry.  He says:—­

    “I, my desires screw from thee, and direct
    Them and my thought to that sublim’d respect
    And conscience unto priesthood.”

It was hard to go.  But yet he pretends at least to be resigned, and he ends by saying:—­

    “The crown of duty is our duty:  Well—­
    Doing’s the fruit of doing well.  Farewell.”