Herrick's second sojourn in London covered the period between 1648
and 1662, curing which interim he fades from sight, excepting for
the instant when he is publishing his book. If he engaged in further
literary work there are no evidences of it beyond one contribution to
the "Lacrymae Musarum" in 1649.
He seems to have had lodgings, for a while at least, in St. Anne's,
Westminster. With the court in exile and the grim Roundheads seated in
the seats of the mighty, it was no longer the merry London of his early
manhood. Time and war had thinned the ranks of friends; in the old
haunts the old familiar faces were wanting. Ben Jonson was dead, Waller
banished, and many another comrade "in disgrace with fortune and men's
eyes." As Herrick walked through crowded Cheapside or along the dingy
river-bank in those years, his thought must have turned more than once
to the little vicarage in Devonshire, and lingered tenderly.
On the accession of Charles II. a favorable change of wind wafted
Herrick back to his former moorings at Dean Prior, the obnoxious
Syms having been turned adrift.
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