ADVERTISEMENT. Ir is a matter of much surprise, and more regret, that the poets of the sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries should remain so long overlooked. A very few have been republished, but the generality have for years lain mouldering on the shelf. Of the many that were cotemporary, or nearly so, with the author I would now again introduce to public notice, Suckling, Carew, and Marvell are the principal who have hitherto been fortunate enough to claim a rescue from oblivion by republication; their poems entire having been reprinted by the late ingenious Thomas Davies, bookseller; the first in 1770, and the two last in 1772: indeed Marvell's works, since that period, have been very splendidly edited, by captain Edward Thompson, in three volumes 4to. 1776. But many other poets of distinguished merit, and of eminence flourished about their day, who are now little known, except by name; I will instance Shirley, Habington, Cokayn, Cartwright, Beedome, Lovelace, Stanley, Heath, and Hall (John). A long list of other deserving votaries of the muse might be adduced. Had our late learned poetick biographer but preserved and illustrated the writings of those earlier bards, who, on examination, prove to be the sources from whence many of our first English poets of the last century drew some of their most delicious stores, how would he have served the cause of truth, and literature. Praiseworthy indeed had been his pen, if, instead of recording the names of Sprat, Blackmore, Duke, Yalden, Watts, with similar others, whose rays of genius so dimly shine, it had given further publicity to such as those of Surrey, Wyat, Raleigh, Marlow, Wither, Carew, 'and Herrick. This is a subject that has been touched upon before by Mr. Headley, in the Introduction to his Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry. t It was in the year 1648, and rather in latter life, at the very period too, we may well presume, when he was ejected from his vicarage, as he signs himself Esq. that Robert Herrick published his Hesperides, or Works both Human and Divine; no portion of which till now, great as is their merit, have ever undergone a reprint; I say portion, for to republish all were unnecessary; many are better withdrawn from the publick eye. Like Catullus, this bard has indiscriminately blended pieces of the most beautiful, and delicate kind, with others of a far different description. Golden fruit, and delicious, can the Hesperides of Herrick afford the tasteful reader; though some of it may suffer a little from the blight of indelicacy. When I first had in idea the republication of these poems, it was my design to preface them with a short sketch of the author's history; and I had long since collected my scanty materials for the purpose from every known source: but, just as I was about to mould them into the form of a life, the last edition of Dr. Nathaniel Drake's ingenious and amusing work, Literary Hours, fell into my hands, in which I found that he had anticipated me: every circumstance I had obtained this gentleman was already in possession of; and he had so elegantly inwove them with those three numbers* of his book, which he allots to Herrick, that for me to embody them again, thus recently, in a biographical shape, must have been considered as nothing short of plagiarism. Most of the few anecdotes, however, handed down to us, respecting the life of 'this poet, will be found interspersed throughout the remarks I shall have occasion to make on some of his pieces. See By the way, it is but justice to observe, in this place, that Dr. Drake is principally indebted for his information to Mr. John Nichols' laborious work of Leicestershire, in folio. vol. 2, part 2, page 613. His observations also on the writings, and genius of Herrick are so judicious, sufficient, and satisfactory, that they leave nothing further for criticism to undertake. I may perhaps differ in opinion from him, when *Nos. 42, 43, and 44. he asserts, that out of the fourteen hundred poems, or better, of which Herrick's works consist, one hundred only could be selected by the hand of taste. In selecting with such limitation, too many beauties, I am persuaded, would be left behind: I have presented the public with nearly three times that number, and I trust the offering will not be thought intrusive; yet I will not say, but that I may have been too profuse in my display of these choice flowers, and have woven too luxuriant a wreath, incited by my partiality for their original cultivator. TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS, AND MOST HOPEFUL PRINCE, CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES*. WELL may my book come forth like public day, When such a light as you are leads the way; Who are my work's creator, and alone The flame of it, and the expansion. And look how all those heav'nly lamps acquire *Afterwards King Charles the Second. |