hardly have yielded a yearly income of 40, he was allowed to draw on his capital for this sum, but that his uncle and Lady Herrick occasionally made him small presents, which may account for his tone of dependence.
The quarterly stipend was paid through vari ous booksellers, but irregularly, so that the poor poet was frequently reduced to great straits, though 40 a-year (200 of our money) was no bad allowance. After two years he migrated from St. John's to Trinity Hall, to study law and curtail his expenses. He took his Bachelor's degree from there in January, 1617, and his Master's in 1620. The fourteen letters show that he had prepared himself for University life by cultivating a very florid prose style which frequently runs into decasyllabics, perhaps a result of a study of the dramatists. Sir William Herrick is sometimes addressed in them as his most " careful " uncle, but at the time of his migration the poet speaks of his "ebbing estate," and as late as 1629 he was still 10 16s. gd. in debt to the College Steward. We can thus hardly imagine that he was possessed of any considerable private income when he returned to London, to live practically on his wits, and a study of his poems suggests that, the influence of the careful uncle removed, whatever capital he possessed was soon likely
