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Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick
Biography
Early life
Born in Cheapside,
London, he was the
seventh child and
fourth son of Nicholas
Herrick, a prosperous
goldsmith, who fell out
of a window when
Robert was a year old Robert Herrick, illustration based on Hesperides impression.
(whether this was Born
baptised 24 August 1591
suicide remains Cheapside, London, England
unclear). The tradition buried 15 October 1674 (aged 83)
Died
that Herrick received Dean Prior, Devon, England
his education at Occupatio
Poet and clergyman
Westminster is n
groundless. It is more likely that (like his uncle's children) he
attended The Merchant Taylors' School. In 1607 he became
apprenticed to his uncle, Sir William Herrick, who was a goldsmith
and jeweller to the king. The apprenticeship ended after only six
years when Herrick, at age twenty-two, matriculated at St John's
College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1617. Robert Herrick became a
member of the Sons of Ben, a group centered upon an admiration
for the works of Ben Jonson. Herrick took holy orders in 1623, and
became vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire, but lost his position
because of his Royalist bent.
The opening stanza in one of his more famous poems, "To the
Virgins, to Make Much of Time", is as follows: