All this was a promise
of success, but not success itself. It has been thought probable that
Herrick may have secured some minor office in the chapel at Whitehall.
That would accord with his subsequent appointment (September, 1627,) as
chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham's unfortunate expedition of the Isle
of Rhe.
Precisely when Herrick was invested with holy orders is not
ascertainable. If one may draw an inference from his poems, the life he
led meanwhile was not such as his "most careful uncle" would have warmly
approved. The literary clubs and coffee-houses of the day were open to a
free-lance like young Herrick, some of whose blithe measures, passing
in manuscript from hand to hand, had brought him faintly to light as
a poet. The Dog and the Triple Tun were not places devoted to worship,
unless it were to the worship of "rare Ben Jonson," at whose feet
Herrick now sat, with the other blossoming young poets of the season. He
was a faithful disciple to the end, and addressed many loving lyrics to
the master, of which not the least graceful is His Prayer to Ben Jonson:
When I a verse shall make,
Know I have praid thee
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben, to aide me.
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