Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/261

 rary Hours;’ and in 1810 Dr. Nott published ‘Select Poems from the “Hesperides,”’ which was reviewed by Barron Field in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ Aug. 1810. In 1823 a complete edition, 2 vols., worthily edited by Thomas Maitland, lord Dundrennan, was published at Edinburgh, the ‘remainder’ copies being issued (with a fresh title-page) by William Pickering in 1825. Pickering's edition of 1846 contains a memoir by S. W. Singer; later editions are by Edward Walford, 1859; by William Carew Hazlitt, 1869, 2 vols., with additional information of interest; by Dr. Grosart, 3 vols., 1876; by A. W. Pollard, with introduction by A. C. Swinburne (in ‘Muses' Library’), 1891, 2 vols. Selections from Herrick (‘Chrysomela’) were edited by Francis Turner Palgrave in 1877.

Herrick reminds us at one time of the Greek epigrammatists; at another of Catullus, or Horace, or Martial; now of Ronsard, and then of Ben Jonson. But he is always original. He polished his verses carefully, but they never smell of the lamp. A consummate artist, he successfully attempted a variety of metrical experiments. But apart from its formal excellence his poetry has a fresh natural charm that the simplest may appreciate. Some of his poems (particularly his ‘Litany’) were handed down orally at Dean Prior when he had been forgotten by the critics. Though he professed a distaste for his Devonshire vicarage, no poet has described with equal gusto the delights of old English country-life—the wakes and wassails, the Christmas and Twelfth-tide sports, the May-day games and harvest-homes. In his ‘Hesperides’ he is the most frankly pagan of English poets, but his ‘Noble Numbers’ testify to the sincerity of his Christian piety. 

HERRIES,. [See .] HERBIES, Sm CHARLES JOHN

HERRIES, CHARLES JOHN (1815–1883), financier, eldest son of J. C. Herries [q. v.], born in 1815, studied at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1837, M.A. 1840. In 1842 Sir Robert Peel made him a commissioner of excise. In 1856 he was chosen by Sir George Cornewall Lewis to occupy the deputy chair of the board of inland revenue, and in 1877 Lord Beaconsfield raised him to the chairmanship. In 1871 he was made C.B., and in 1880 (on Mr. Gladstone's recommendation) K.C.B. He left the public service in November 1881, ‘and his eminent financial and administrative abilities were acknowledged in a treasury minute, 2 Dec. 1881, and subsequently presented to parliament.’ He died unmarried 14 March 1883, at his country house, St. Julian's, Sevenoaks. Herries wrote an introduction to the ‘Memoir of the Right Hon. J. C. Herries, by Edward Herries, C.B.’ 2 vols. 1880). 

HERRIES, JOHN CHARLES (1778–1855), statesman, eldest son of Charles Herries, a London merchant, and colonel of the light horse volunteers, by his wife Mary Ann Johnson, was born (probably in the month of November) in 1778. He was educated at Cheam and Leipzig University, and on 5 July 1798 was appointed a junior clerk in the treasury. He was shortly afterwards promoted to a post in the revenue department, where he showed such capacity that in 1800 he was employed to draw up for Pitt his counter-resolutions against Tierney's financial proposals (Parl. Hist. xxxv. 486–91). Upon the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801 Herries became private secretary to Vansittart, the secretary to the treasury, and in 1802 his translation from Gentz's treatise, ‘On the State of Europe before and after the French Revolution, being an Answer to L'Etat de la France à la fin de l'An VIII’ (London, 8vo), appeared; the sixth edition of which was published in 1804 (London, 8vo). In June 1803, in answer to the attacks of Cobbett and Lord Grenville upon the government, he published a pamphlet entitled ‘A Reply to some Financial Mistatements in and out of Parliament,’ for which he received the thanks of the prime minister. Perceval, on becoming chancellor of the exchequer in the Portland administration, appointed Herries his private secretary. In January 1809 he received the appointment of secretary and registrar to the order of the Bath, and in October of the same year was entrusted with the negotiations (which, however, proved unsuccessful) with Vansittart for his junction with Perceval's government (, Diary, 1861, ii. 219). In 1811 he went over to Ireland to assist Wellesley-Pole (afterwards the third earl of Mornington), who had been appointed chancellor of the Irish exchequer. While in Ireland Herries was nominated comptroller of the army accounts, but he never actually took his seat on the board, as on 1 Oct. 1811 he was appointed commissary-in-chief. The duties of the office were extremely onerous. The barefaced