321. _Then is the work half done._ As Dr. Grosart suggests, Herrick may have had in mind the "Dimidium facti qui cœpit habet" of Horace, I. _Epist._ ii. 40. But here the emphasis is on beginning _well_, there on _beginning_. _Begin with Jove_ is doubtless from the "Ab Jove principium, Musæ," of Virg. _Ecl._ iii. 60. 323. _Fears not the fierce sedition of the seas._ A reminiscence of Horace, III. _Od._ i. 25-32. 328. _Gold before goodness._ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1650, as _A Foolish Querie_. The sentiment is from Seneca, _Ep._ cxv.: An dives, omnes quærimus; nemo, an bonus. Cp. Juvenal, III. 140 sqq.; Plaut. _Menæchm._ IV. ii. 6. 331. _To his honoured kinsman, Sir William Soame._ The second son of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. Herrick's father and Sir Stephen married sisters. _As benjamin and storax when they meet._ Instances of the use of "Benjamin" for gum benzoin will be found in the Dictionaries. Dr. Grosart's gloss, "_Benjamin_, the favourite youngest son of the Patriarch," is unfortunate. 336. _His Age: dedicated to ... M. John Wickes under the name of Posthumus._ There is an important version of this poem in Egerton MS., 2725, where it is entitled _Mr. Herrick's Old Age to Mr. Weekes_. I do not think it has been collated before. Stanzas i.-vi. contain few variants; ii. 6 reads: "Dislikes to care for what's behind"; iii. 6: "Like a lost maidenhead," for "Like to a lily lost"; v. 8: "With the best and whitest stone"; vi. 1: "We'll not be poor". After this we have two stanzas omitted in 1648:-- "We have no vineyards which do bear Their lustful clusters all the year, Nor odoriferous Orchards, like to Alcinous; Nor gall the seas Our witty appetites to please With mullet, turbot, gilt-head bought At a high rate and further brought. "Nor can we glory of a great And stuffed magazine of wheat; We have no bath Of oil, but only rich in faith O'er which the hand Of fortune can have no command, But what she gives not, she not takes, But of her own a spoil she makes." Stanza vii., l. 2, has "close" for "both"; l. 3 "see" for "have"; l. 6, "open" for "that cheap"; l. 7, "full" for "same". Stanzas x.-xvii. have so many variants that I am obliged to transcribe them in full, though they show Herrick not at his best, and the poem is not one to linger over:-- 10. "Live in thy peace; as for myself, When I am bruisèd on the shelf Of Time, and _read Eternal daylight o'er my head:_ When with the rheum, _With_ cough _and_ ptisick, I consume _Into an heap of cinders:_ then The Ages fled I'll call again, 11. "And with a tear compare these last _And cold times unto_ those are past, While Baucis by _With her lean lips_ shall kiss _them dry Then will we_ sit By the fire, foretelling snow and sleet And weather by our aches, grown †Old enough to be our own