No More Learning

Just such a bare outline
of his life has come down to us as is sufficient to explain the
allusions in his poems, and, on the other hand, there is no temptation
to substitute chatter about his relations with Julia and Dianeme for
enjoyment of his delightful verse. The recital of the bare outline need
detain us but a few minutes: only the least imaginative of readers will
have any difficulty in filling it in from the poems themselves.

From early in the fourteenth century onwards we hear of the family of
Eyrick or Herrick at Stretton, in Leicestershire. At the beginning of
the sixteenth century we find a branch of it settled in Leicester
itself, where John Eyrick, the poet's grandfather, was admitted a
freeman in 1535, and afterwards acted as Mayor. This John's second son,
Nicholas, migrated to London, became a goldsmith in Wood Street,
Cheapside, and, according to a licence issued by the Bishop of London,
December 8, 1582, married Julian, daughter of William Stone, sister of
Anne, wife of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. The
marriage was not unfruitful. A William[A] Herrick was baptized at St.
Vedast's, Foster Lane, November 24, 1585; Martha, January 22, 1586;
Mercy, December 22, 1586; Thomas, May 7, 1588; Nicholas, April 22, 1589;
Anne, July 26, 1590; and Robert himself, August 24, 1591.

[A] A second William is said to have been born, posthumously, in "Harry
Campion's house at Hampton," in 1593.

Fifteen months after the poet's birth, on November 7, 1592, Nicholas
Herrick made his will, estimating his property as worth ? 3000, and
devising it, as to one-third to his wife, and as to the other two-thirds
to his children in equal shares. In the will he described himself as "of
perfect memorye in sowle, but sicke in bodye". Two days after its
execution he was buried, having died, not from disease, but from a fall
from an upper window. His death had so much the appearance of
self-destruction that ? 220 had to be paid to the High Almoner, Dr.
Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, in satisfaction of his official claim to
the goods and chattels of suicides. Herrick's biographers have not
failed to vituperate the Bishop for his avarice, but dues allowed by law
are hardly to be abandoned because a baby of fifteen months is destined
to become a brilliant poet, and no other exceptional circumstances are
alleged. The estate of Nicholas Herrick could the better afford the fine
inasmuch as it realized ? 2000 more than was expected.

By the will Robert and William Herrick were appointed "overseers," or
trustees for the children. The former was the poet's godfather, and in
his will of 1617 left him ? 5. To William Herrick, then recently knighted
for his services as goldsmith, jeweller, and moneylender to James I. ,
the young Robert was apprenticed for ten years, September 25, 1607. An
allusion to "beloved Westminster," in his _Tears to Thamesis_, has been
taken to refer to Westminster school, and alleged as proof that he was
educated there. Dr. Grosart even presses the mention of Richmond,
Kingston, and Hampton Court to support a conjecture that Herrick may
have travelled up and down to school from Hampton. If so, one wonders
what his headmaster had to say to the "soft-smooth virgins, for our
chaste disport" by whom he was accompanied. But the references in the
poem are surely to his courtier-life in London, and after his father's
death the apprenticeship to his uncle in 1607 is the first fact in his
life of which we can be sure.

In 1607, Herrick was fifteen, and, even if we conjecture that he may
have been allowed to remain at school some little time after his
apprenticeship nominally began, he must have served his uncle for five
or six years. Sir William had himself been bound apprentice in a similar
way to the poet's father, and we have no evidence that he exacted any
premium.