Alfred Pollard

“ Of the lives of many poets we know too much; of some few too little. Lovers of Herrick are almost ideally fortunate. 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. ”

“ Massam, a merchant, but as early as 1610 had retired to live a country life in Leicestershire (see 106) . He appears to have married a wife named Elizabeth, whose loss Herrick laments (see 72) . Nicholas, the next brother was more adventurous. He had become a merchant trading to the Levant, and in this capacity had visited the Holy Land (see noo) . To his wife Susanna, daughter of William Salter, Herrick addresses two poems (522 and 977) . ”