Robert Herrick

Biography of Robert Herrick

Early life
In 1556 Nicholas Herrick, son of an ironmonger in Leicester, went to London. After 10 years as a goldsmith’s apprentice, he set up a prosperous business there.In 1582 he married Julian Stone, daughter of a prominent London mercer.
Their fifth son, Robert, was born in their Cheapside mansion. On Aug. 24, 1591 he was baptized. His eldest brother died when he was 14 months old, and a few days later his father fell from the fourth floor of their home to his death in November 1592 (whether this was suicide remains unclear).
In 1607 he became apprenticed to his uncle, Sir William Herrick, who was a goldsmith and jeweler to the king. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge in 1613. He graduated a Bachelor of Arts in 1617, Master of Arts in 1620, and in 1623 he was ordained priest.
By 1925 he was well known as a poet.
In 1629 he was presented by Charles I to the living of Dean Prior, a remote parish of Devonshire. The best of his work was written in the peace and seduction of country life.

Clerical Career
In that time Herrick may have tried to practice law. Perhaps he studied divinity. At any rate, on April 24, 1623, he and his friend Weekes were ordained deacons and, on the next day, priests in the Church of England. This uncanonical haste suggests that he became some nobleman's chaplain. So does his presence as a chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham in 1627, when that royal favorite led a naval attack against the French at the I ˆle de Ré. Two-thirds of the English forces were killed, but Herrick survived to be rewarded by Charles I with the vicarage of Dean Prior in Devonshire.
While waiting for this benefice, Herrick wrote songs and carols which were set to music by the leading court musicians.
In September 1630 Herrick began his clerical duties at Dean Prior. For 17 years he conducted services, baptisms, marriages, and funerals; interested himself in local folklore; flattered female parishioners in verse; exposed the vices of men named Scobble and Mudge, Groynes and Huncks, in biting epigrams; and "became much beloved by the gentry."
The peace of Devonshire was blasted by the civil war which broke out in 1642. The fact that the conquering Puritans were slow to oust Herrick from his vicarage suggests that he was popular with his parishioners and faithful in his duties.

Civil War
In the wake of the English Civil War, his position was revoked on account of his refusal to make pledge to the Solemn League and Covenant. He then returned to London. During this time, he lived in Westminster, in London, depending on the charity of his friends and family. He spent some time preparing his lyric poems for publication, and had them printed in 1648 under the title Hesperides; or the Works both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, with a dedication to the Prince of Wales.

Restoration and later life
When King Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, Herrick petitioned for his own restoration to his living. Herrick became the vicar of Dean Prior again in the summer of 1662 and lived there until his death in October 1674, at the ripe age of 83. His date of death is not known, but he was buried on 15 October. Herrick was a bachelor all his life, and many of the women he names in his poems are thought to be fictional.

Poetic style and stature
Herrick never married, and none of his love-poems seem to connect directly with any one beloved woman. He loved the richness of sensuality and the variety of life, and this is shown vividly in such poems as Cherry-ripe, Delight in Disorder and Upon Julia’s Clothes.
The over-riding message of Herrick’s work is that life is short, the world is beautiful, love is splendid, and we must use the short time we have to make the most of it.
The opening stanza in one of his more famous poems, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", is as follows:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

This poem is an example of the carpe diem genre; the popularity of Herrick's poems of this kind helped revive the genre.
His poems were not widely popular at the time they were published. His works were rediscovered in the early nineteenth century, and have been regularly printed ever since.
He was contemporary with the metaphysical poets John Donne and George Herbert and is classified with the neoclassic or Cavalier poets Edmund Waller, Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace.