From the preface: Herrick was a prolific poet, and a remarkably consistent one. Hesperides encompasses a lifelong collection of poems on themes as diverse as serious reflections on life's brevity and the playful examination of the minutely imagined world of the fairies, yet his vision of life remains coherent. My purpose in this study is to try to see ·Herrick's secular work in its unity and as a whole, without claiming to consider every aspect of his secular poetry. (I have not attempted, for example, to consider his classical sources.) As my interest lies mainly in his values and vision, my emphasis is on theme and tone, and the way they indicate his conception of life. For this reason, I only occasionally consider Herrick's poetic techniques, such as his versification and language, and there are no detailed analyses of individual poems which examine them from every angle. In addition, I am almost entirely concerned here with Hesperides , the secular poetry, and not with Herrick's religious verse, which is collected under the title of His Noble Numbers. (Although Herrick calls his book Hesperides: or The Works both Humane and Divine, the arrangement within is clearly a division into Hesperides, the secular poetry, and His Noble Numbers, the religious verse.)