sses as his patron saint in song, and ranks
on the highest list of his friends, his obligations are much more
perceptible. In fact, Jonson's non-dramatic poetry,--the EPIGRAMS and
FOREST of 1616, the UNDERWOODS of 1641, (he died in 1637),--supply
models, generally admirable in point of art, though of very unequal
merit in their execution and contents, of the principal forms under
which we may range Herrick's HESPERIDES. The graceful love-song, the
celebration of feasts and wit, the encomia of friends, the epigram
as then understood, are all here represented: even Herrick's vein in
natural description is prefigured in the odes to Penshurst and Sir
Robert Wroth, of 1616. And it is in the religious pieces of the NOBLE
NUMBERS, for which Jonson afforded the least copious precedents, that,
as a rule, Herrick is least successful.

Even if we had not the verses on his own book, (the most noteworthy
of which are here printed as PREFATORY,) in proof that Herrick was no
careless singer, but a true artist, working with conscious knowledge of
his art, we might have inferred the fact from the choice of Jonson as
his model. That great poet, as Clarendon justly remarked, had 'judgment
to order and govern fancy, rather than excess of fancy: his productions
being slow and upon deliberation.' No writer could be better fitted for
the guidance of one so fancy-free as Herrick; to whom the curb, in the
old phrase, was more needful than the spur, and whose invention, more
fertile and varied than Jonson's, was ready at once to fill up
the moulds of form provided. He does this with a lively facility,
contrasting much with the evidence of labour in his master's work.
Slowness and deliberation are the last qualities suggested by Herrick.
Yet it may be doubted whether the volatile ease, the effortless grace,
the wild bird-like fluency with which he

Scatters his loose notes in the waste of air

are not, in truth, the results of exquisite art working in cooperation
with the gifts of nature. The various readings which our few remaining
manuscripts or printed versions have supplied to Mr Grosart's
'Introduction,' attest the minute and curious care with which Herrick
polished and strengthened his own work: his airy facility, his seemingly
spontaneous melodies, as with Shelley--his counterpart in pure lyrical
art within this century--were earned by conscious labour; perfect
freedom was begotten of perfect art;--nor, indeed, have excellence and
per