![]() The quarterly stipend was paid through vari ous booksellers, but irregularly, so that the poor poet was frequently reduced to great straits, though 40 a-year (200 of our money) was no bad allowance. It seems a fair inference from this variety of requests that, since Herrick's share of his father's property could hardly have yielded a yearly income of 40, he was allowed to draw on his capital for this sum, but that his uncle and Lady Herrick occasionally made him small presents, which may account for his tone of dependence. His uncle plainly still managed his affairs, for an amusing series of fourteen letters has been preserved at Beaumanor, until lately the seat of Sir William's descendants, in which the poet asks sometimes for payment of a quarterly stipend of 10, sometimes for a formal loan, sometimes for the help of his avuncular Maecenas. At any rate, when in 1614, his nephew, then of age, desired to leave ^the business and go to Cambridge, the ten years' apprenticeship did not stand in his way, and he entered as a Fellow Commoner at St. ![]() Sir William had himself been bound apprentice in a similar way to the poet's father, and we have no evidence that he exacted any premium. In 1607, Herrick was fifteen, and, even if we conjecture that he may have been allowed to remain at school some little time after his apprenticeship nominally began, he must have served his uncle for five or six years. But the refer ences in the poem are surely to his courtierlife in London, and after his father's death the apprenticeship to his uncle in 1607 is the first fact in his life of which we can be sure. If so, one wonders what his headmaster had to say to the "soft-smooth virgins, for our chaste disport" by whom he was accompanied. Grosart even presses the mention of Richmond, King ston, and Hampton Court to support a con jecture that Herrick may have travelled up and down to school from Hampton. An allusion to " beloved Westminster," in his Tears to Thamesis, has been taken to refer to Westminster school, and alleged as proof that he was educated there. To William Herrick, then recently knighted for his services as goldsmith, jeweller, and moneylender to James I., the young Robert was apprenticed for ten years, September 25, 1607. The former was the poet's god father, and in his will of 1617 left him 5. The estate of Nicholas Herrick could the better afford the fine inasmuch as it realized 2000 more than was expected.īy the will Robert and William Herrick were appointed " overseers," or trustees foi the children. Herrick's biographers have not failed to vituperate the Bishop for his avarice, but dues allowed by law are hardly to be abandoned because a baby of fifteen months is destined to become a brilliant poet, and no other exceptional circumstances are alleged. Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, in satisfaction of his official claim to the goods and chattels of suicides. His death had so much the appear ance of self-destruction that 220 had to be paid to the High Almoner, Dr. Two days after its execution he was buried, having died, not from disease, but from a fall from an upper window. In the will he de scribed himself as "of perfect memorye in sowle, but sicke in bodye ". Vedast's, Foster Lane, NovemMartha, JanuMercy, DecemThomas, Nicholas, ApAnne, Jand Robert himself, August 24, 1591.įifteen months after the poet's birth, on November 7, 1592, Nicholas Herrick made his will, estimating his property as worth 3000, and devising it, as to one-third to his wife, and as to the other two-thirds to his chil dren in equal shares. This John's second son, Nicholas, migrated to London, became a goldsmith in Wood Street, Cheapside, and, according to a licence issued by the Bishop of London, December 8, 1582, married Julian, daughter of William Stone, sister of Anne, wife of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. At the beginning of the sixteenth century we find a branch of it settled in Leicester itself, where John Eyrick, the poet's grandfather, was admitted a freeman in 1535, and afterwards acted as Mayor. The recital of the bare outline need detain us but a few minutes: only the least imaginative of readers will have any difficulty in filling it in from the poems themselves.įrom early in the fourteenth century onwards we hear of the family of Eyrick or Herrick at Stretton, in Leicestershire. Just such a bare outline of his life has come down to us as is sufficient to explain the allusions in his poems, and, on the other hand, there is no temptation to substitute chatter about his relations with Julia and Dianeme for enjoyment of his delightful verse. Lovers of Herrick are almost ideally fortunate. Of the lives of many poets we know too much of some few too little.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |