Or had I not, I'd stop the spreading itch
Of craving more: so in conceit be rich;
But 'tis the God of nature who intends
And shapes my function for more glorious ends."
Perhaps it was at this time too that Herrick wrote his Farewell to Sack, and although he returned both to sack and to poetry we should be wrong in imagining him as a "blind mouth," using his office merely as a means of gain. He celebrated the births of Charles II and his brother in verse, perhaps with an eye to future royal favours, but no more than Chaucer's good parson does he seem to have " run to London unto Seynte Poules " in search of the seventeenth century equivalent for a chauntry, and many of his poems show him living the life of a con tented country clergyman, sharing the contents of bin and cruse with his poor parishioners, and jotting down sermon-notes in verse.
The great majority of Herrick's poems cannot be dated, and it is idle to enquire which were written before his ordination and which after wards. His conception of religion was medieval in its sensuousness, and he probably repeated the stages of sin, repentance and renewed assur ance with some facility. He lived with an old servant, Prudence Baldwin, the " Prew " of many of his poems; kept a spaniel named Tracy, and, so says tradition, a tame pig.
