That
the poet him-self had nothing to do with the arrangement or
disarrangement lies on the surface." This is an amiable
supposition, but merely a supposition.
Relative to the inclusion of unworthy pieces, Herrick personally placed
the "copy" in the hands of John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, and
if he were over-persuaded to allow them to print unfit verses, and to
observe no method whatever in the contents of the book, the discredit is
none the less his. It is charitable to believe that Herrick's coarseness
was not the coarseness of the man, but of the time, and that he followed
the fashion _malgre lui_. With regard to the fairy poems, they certainly
should have been given in sequence; but if there are careless printers,
there are also authors who are careless in the arrangement of their
manuscript, a kind of task, moreover, in which Herrick was wholly
unpractised, and might easily have made mistakes. The "Hesperides" was
his sole publication.
Herrick was now thirty-eight years of age.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145