PREFACE. THE text of the "Hesperides" has been in this edition very carefully collated with the original; that of the poems in the Appendix is in the main Dr. Grosart's. To the edition of that scholar, as well as to the earlier one of Mr. Hazlitt, and the later of Mr. Pollard, I desire to make all due acknowledgment for the assistance received from them in preparing this issue. The earlier editions other than the original, and since the re-discovery of Herrick some century ago, require less recognition. The first of them was that (a selection only) of Dr. Nott (Bristol, 1810), some twelve or fifteen years after Nichols and Drake had drawn critical attention to the poet. There have been about a dozen, partial and complete, since. In settling the text itself I have adopted a course midway between complete modernization and exact reproduction, but nearer to the latter. I am inclined to think that modernization is the more excellent way in most cases. But there is an oddity about Herrick's spelling which, taken with his rather unusual attention to errata, makes me think that he designed his own orthography or heterography with some care. It certainly at times sets off the quaintness of his phrasing in a remarkable way, and thus joins itself to his other noticeable tricks and mannerisms of diminutives and the like. Such a spelling, for instance, as "baptime" for "baptism" cannot be dropped silently without loss while a whole army of rather disgusting notes would be needed, either to call attention to the alteration in each case or to supply the original reading. For a second instance, it would be a very bad compliment to the reader to warn him that "president" in 353 is either a mere misprint, or an intentional play on words for "precedent." I have, therefore, in the main followed the original, with certain additions and alterations (such as the regular instead of merely occasional insertion of the apostrophe for the genitive, and a few others of the same kind), where it seemed to me that such addition or alteration would facilitate the reading without diminishing the effect. But it has not seemed necessary to alter things like "then for "than," which are constant, which can give modern readers no trouble, and which indicate a distinct habit of the time. As to the annotation here, it has been designedly kept down to its lowest terms. There is, I believe, an idea prevalent, rather with a certain class of critics than with the public, that an elaborate commentary, stuffed with parallel passages and other ostentations of erudition, is a guarantee of scholarship on the part of the editor. From some experience I am inclined to feel considerable doubts on this point, but even if I felt none I should not be disposed to emulate the athletes of copious annotation. For I desire in all things to treat others as I would be treated myself, and nothing is to me such an intolerable nuisance as an edition of a classic where the eye and the mind are constantly called off the text in order to do reason to the comment. |