No More Learning

1022. _Posting to Printing. _ Mart. V. x. 11, 12:--

Vos, tamen, o nostri, ne festinate, libelli:
Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.

1023. _No kingdoms got by rapine long endure. _ Seneca, _Troad. _ 264:
Violenta nemo imperia continuit dies.

1026. _Saint Distaff's Day. _ "Saint Distaff is perhaps only a coinage of
our poet's to designate the day when, the Christmas vacation being over,
good housewives, with others, resumed their usual employment. " (Nott. )
The phrase is explained in dictionaries and handbooks, but no other use
of it is quoted than this.
Herrick's poem was pilfered by Henry Bold (a
notorious plagiarist) in _Wit a-sporting in a pleasant Grove of New
Fancies_, 1657.

1028. _My beloved Westminster. _ As mentioned in the brief "Life" of
Herrick prefixed to vol. i. , all the references in this poem seem to
refer to Herrick's courtier-days, between leaving Cambridge and going to
Devonshire. He then, doubtless, resided in Westminster for the sake of
proximity to Whitehall. It has been suggested, however, that the
reference is to Westminster School, but we have no evidence that Herrick
was educated there.

_Golden Cheapside. _ My friend, Mr. Herbert Horne, in his
admirably-chosen selection from the _Hesperides_, suggests that the
allusion here is to the great gilt cross at the end of Wood Street. The
suggestion is ingenious; but as Cheapside was the goldsmiths' quarter
this would amply justify the epithet, which may indeed only refer to
Cheapside as a money-winning street, as we might say Golden Lombard
Street.

1032. _Things are uncertain. _ Tiberius, in Tacitus, _Annal. _ i.