Page:Hesperides Vol 1.djvu/32

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
xxiv
HESPERIDES.

legacy of 100, with ten" pounds apiece to his two children, and a ring of twenty shillings to his wife. Nicholas and Robert were only left twenty-shilling rings, and the administration of the will was entrusted to William Herrick and the Wingfields. The will may have been the result of a family arrangement, and we have no reason to believe that the unequal division gave rise to any ill-feeling. Herrick's address to " his dying brother, Master William Herrick" (186), shows abundant affection, and there is every reason to believe that it was addressed to the William who administered to Mrs. Her rick's will.

While little nephews and nieces were spring ing up around him, Herrick remained unmarried, and frequently congratulates himself on his freedom from the yoke matrimonial. He ima gined how he would bid farewell to his wife, if he had one (465), and wrote magnificent epithalamia for his friends, but lived and died a bachelor. When first civil troubles and then civil war cast a shadow over the land, it is not very easy to say how he viewed the contending parties. He was devoted to Charles and Hen rietta Maria and the young Prince of Wales, and rejoiced at every Royalist success. Many also of his poems breathe the spirit of un questioning loyalty, but in others he is less