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To The Patron Of Poets, M. End. Porter.
By Robert Herrick
Let there be patrons, patrons like to thee,
Brave Porter! poets ne'er will wanting be:
Fabius and Cotta, Lentulus, all live
In thee, thou man of men! who here do'st give
Not only subject-matter for our wit,
But likewise oil of maintenance to it:
For which, before thy threshold, we'll lay down
Our thyrse for sceptre, and our bays for crown.
For, to say truth, all garlands are thy due:
The laurel, myrtle, oak, and ivy too.
Extra Info:
To the Patron of Poets, M. End. Porter. Five of Herrick's poems are addressed to Endymion Porter, who seems to have been looked to as a patron by all the singers of his day. According to the inscription on a medal of him executed by Varin in 1635, he was then forty-eight, so that he was born in 1587, coming into the world at Aston-under-Hill in Gloucestershire. He went with Charles on his trip to Spain, and after his accession became groom of his bedchamber, was active in the king's service during the Civil War, and died in 1649. He was a collector of works of art both for himself and for the king, and encouraged Rob. Dover's Cotswold games by presenting him with a suit of the king's clothes. Ą Wood tells us this, and mentions also that he was a friend of Donne, that Gervase Warmsely dedicated his Virescit Vulnere Virtus to him in 1628, and that in conjunction with the Earl of St. Alban's he also received the dedication of Davenant's Madagascar.
Let there be patrons, etc. Burton, I. ii. 3, § 15. 'Tis an old saying: "Sint Męcenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones" (Mart. VIII. lvi. 5).
Fabius, Cotta, and Lentulus are examples of Roman patrons of poetry, themselves distinguished. Cp. Juvenal, vii. 94.
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