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To The Most Accomplished Gentleman, Master Edward Norgate, Clerk Of The Signet To His Majesty. Epig.
By Robert Herrick
For one so rarely tun'd to fit all parts,
For one to whom espous'd are all the arts,
Long have I sought for, but could never see
Them all concentr'd in one man, but thee.
Thus, thou that man art whom the fates conspir'd
To make but one, and that's thyself, admir'd.
Extra Info:
Master Edward Norgate, Clerk of the Signet of his Majesty:--
Son to Robert Norgate, D.D., Master of Bene't College, Cambridge. He was employed by the Earl of Arundel to purchase pictures, and on one occasion found himself at Marseilles without remittances, and had to tramp through France on foot. According to the Calendars of State Papers in 1625, it was ordered that, "forasmuch as his Majesty's letters to the Grand Signior, the King of Persia, the Emperor of Russia, the Great Mogul, and other remote Princes, had been written, limned, and garnished with gold and colours by scriveners abroad, thenceforth they should be so written, limned, and garnished by Edward Norgate, Clerk of the Signet in reversion". Six years later this order was renewed, the "Kings of Bantam, Macassar, Barbary, Siam, Achine, Fez, and Sus" being added to the previous list, and Norgate being now designated as a Clerk of the Signet Extraordinary. In the same year, having previously been Bluemantle Pursuivant, he was promoted to be Windsor Herald, in which capacity he received numerous fees during the next few years, and was excused ship money. He still, however, retained his clerkship, for he writes in 1639: "The poor Office of Arms is fain to blazon the Council books and Signet". The phrase occurs in a series of nineteen letters of extraordinary interest, which Norgate wrote from the North, chiefly to his friend, Robert Reade, secretary to Windebank, on the course of affairs. In Sept., 1641, "Ned Norgate" was ordered personally to attend the king. "It is his Majesty's pleasure that the master should wait and not the men, and that they shall find." Henceforth I find no certain reference to him; according to Fuller he died at the Herald's Office in 1649. It would be interesting if we could be sure that this Edward Norgate is the same as the one who in 1611 was appointed Tuner of his Majesty's "virginals, organs, and other instruments," and in 1637 received a grant of £140 for the repair of the organ at Hampton Court. Herrick's love of music makes us expect to find a similar trait in his friends.
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