f the town, and with no other solace than his
Muse, for there it was he wrote the greater number of the poems which
were to make his fame. It is to this accidental banishment to Devon that
we owe the cluster of exquisite pieces descriptive of obsolete rural
manners and customs--the Christmas masks, the Twelfth-night mummeries,
the morris-dances, and the May-day festivals.

The November following Herrick's appointment to the benefice was marked
by the death of his mother, who left him no heavier legacy than "a ringe
of twenty shillings." Perhaps this was an understood arrangement between
them; but it is to be observed that, though Herrick was a spendthrift in
epitaphs, he wasted no funeral lines on Julian Herrick. In the matter of
verse he dealt generously with his family down to the latest nephew.
One of his most charming and touching poems is entitled To His Dying
Brother, Master William Herrick, a posthumous son. There appear to
have been two brothers named William. The younger, who died early, is
supposed to be referred to here.

The story of Herrick's existence at Dean Prior is as vague and bare of
detail as the rest of the narrative. His parochial duties must have
been irksome to him, and it is to be imagined that he wore his cassock
lightly. As a preparation for ecclesiastical life he forswore sack and
poetry; but presently he was with the Muse again, and his farewell to
sack was in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Herrick had probably accepted
the vicarship as he would have accepted a lieutenancy in a troop of
horse--with an eye to present emolument and future promotion. The
promotion never came, and the emolument was nearly as scant as that
of Goldsmith's parson, who considered himself "passing rich with forty
pounds a year"--a height of optimism beyond the reach of Herrick, with
his expensive town wants and habits. But fifty pounds--the salary of
his benefice--and possible perquisites in the way of marriage and burial
fees would enable him to live for the time being. It was better than a
possible nothing a year in London.

Herrick's religious convictions were assuredly not deeper than those of
the average layman. Various writers have taken a different view of the
subject; but it is inconceivable that a clergyman with a fitting sense
of his function could have written certain of the poems which Herrick
afterward gave to the world--those astonishing epigrams upon his rustic
enemies, and those habitual bridal compl