ed poets generally, and which has led to an unjustly strong censure
being laid on them by critics, so different from each other as Dr. Johnson
and Mr. Matthew Arnold. As the alleged Paganism of some of Herrick's sacred
poems exists only in the imagination of readers, so the alleged insincerity
is equally hypothetical, and can only be supported by the argument
(notoriously false to history and to human nature) that a man who could
write the looser _Hesperides_ could not sincerely write the _Noble
Numbers_. Every student of the lives of other men--every student of his own
heart--knows, or should know, that this is an utter mistake.

Undoubtedly, however, Herrick's most beautiful work is to be found in the
profane division, despite the admixture of the above-mentioned epigrams,
the dull foulness of which soils the most delightful pages to such an
extent that, if it were ever allowable to take liberties with an author's
disposition of his own work, it would be allowable and desirable to pick
these ugly weeds out of the garden and stow them away in a rubbish heap of
appendix all to themselves. Some of the best pieces of the _Hesperides_ are
even better known than the two well-known _Noble Numbers_ above quoted. The
"Night Piece to Julia," the "Daffodils," the splendid "To Anthea," ("Bid me
to live"), "The Mad Maid's Song" (worthy of the greatest of the generation
before Herrick), the verses to Ben Jonson, those to Electra ("I dare not
ask a kiss"), the wonderful "Burial Piece to Perilla," the "Grace for a
Child," the "Corinna Maying" (the chief of a large division of Herrick's
poems which celebrate rustic festivals, superstitions, and folklore
generally), the epitaph on Prudence Baldwin, and many others, are justly
included in nearly all selections of English poetry, and many of them are
known by heart to every one who knows any poetry at all. One or two of the
least well known of them may perhaps be welcome again:--

"Good morrow to the day so fair,
Good morning, sir, to you;
Good morrow to mine own torn hair
Bedabbled with the dew.

"Good morning to this primrose too,
Good morrow to each maid;
That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
Wherein my love is laid.

"Ah, woe is me, woe, woe is me,
Alack and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee
That bore my love away.

"I'll seek him in your bonnet brave,
I'll seek him in your eyes;
Nay, now